Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The first unit you buy costs Codex Price.

If you purchase a unit that is point for point, upgrade for upgrade the exact same as a unit you've already purchased once in your list, the item costs an additional 50 points.

SO: If you purchased one Dakka Pred (AC, 2HB) for 85 points, if you bought a second one, it would cost you 85 for the cost, and then +50 for a total of 135 for each additional predator.

This would prevent redundant spam lists and encourage players to develop a role for oft unused units.

So what spam army beat you lately?

None. I just don't like the idea.

Ok so since Necrons have basicly one unit in each slot they get hosed even more? Yeah that's fair.

What I'm learning here is that you guys are incapable of constructive criticism, which is fine.

Good point on the Necrons, hadn't thought of that.

You know this is a brilliant idea. I'm so sick of armies taking lots of units that are good and work well together. This rule would make things much more realistic where an army is fielded as a mish-mash of equipment, personel and training. For example you never see an armoured company with multiples of some sort of vehicle, or an aircraft carrier with lots of the same type of planes. Hell you even see entire armies where each soldier has completely different weapons from each other. It would be nice if that was reflected in 40k...

Ragnar4:

All you had to do was read a thread in this forum to find that out.

It also screws over Dark eldar who have about one choice worth wild per slot and can field a lot of them. It really doesnt make any sense that oh say nids take a bunch of gaunts that they somehow cost more and more per squad.

This also really favors those with multiple armaments and troop choices that can do the same thing yet I don't think that is everyones' codexs

I won't exactly be as colorfully sarcastic, but I don't see it as a great idea. If people want to field the exact same unit twice then what does it matter? What major issue does this cause with the game rules?

Also, as some mentioned it has flaws, Necrons for one have nearly no choice in the matter in almost every slot. Also, to avoid a 50 point premium it's rather easy to avoid and cheap for many armies. I play Blood Angels, I want two identical tanks, I give one a searchlight. I paid 1 extra point instead of 50 and circumvented your rule. Same thing with my assault squads, this sergeant has 5 point melta bombs. Sure you're still nickel and diming me but it's far less than 50 points and the other guy is forced to do the same thing.

In the end I guess all I'm saying is I don't see the major gameplay issue it's designed to fix, and the 50 point premium is easily avoidable.

I think that if it wasn't for Troops then it would be fine.

And if instead of +50 as a flat rate, the unit would cost x1.5, rounding to the nearest whole number. So if I took a Dakka Pred that is 85 points, and then another one, it would be 127 points for each additional Predator.

Just a thought.

This idea still isn't that great. If a unit can be "spammed" then Games Workshop should fix it.

If they refuse to fix it, which they always do, then hopefully your friends who play it with you (if you have any) won't be jerks and "spam" them. And you have to deal with the fact that some armies were built to be spammed in a certain way and you need to find out a way for your army to beat that certain kind of an army easily.

Vladsimpaler wrote:I think that if it wasn't for Troops then it would be fine.

And if instead of +50 as a flat rate, the unit would cost x1.5, rounding to the nearest whole number. So if I took a Dakka Pred that is 85 points, and then another one, it would be 127 points for each additional Predator.

Just a thought.

I like this idea. I will add further to this and say the redundancy rule should only apply to the HQ and elites slot.

candy.man wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:I think that if it wasn't for Troops then it would be fine.

And if instead of +50 as a flat rate, the unit would cost x1.5, rounding to the nearest whole number. So if I took a Dakka Pred that is 85 points, and then another one, it would be 127 points for each additional Predator.

Just a thought.

I like this idea. I will add further to this and say the redundancy rule should only apply to the HQ and elites slot.

Probably also for Fast Attack.

@Vladsimpaler
Probably. Might require some play testing to confirm that though.

candy.man wrote:@Vladsimpaler
Probably. Might require some play testing to confirm that though.

Oh definitely!

It is quite interesting however, and this is certainly a rule that I think would be cool if I didn't really agree with it when I first read it. I'm curious to see the OP's replies to the ideas that you and I have laid out as I think that they are pretty constructive and actually refine the idea quite a bit.

:edit: I found it hilarious that there was this: "R4's Redundancy Rule | You can never have too much dakka. " This was at the top of the page!

Leving out troop slots would leave out a major source of spam, rhino`s and chimeras. Furthermore spam is not something that needs to be fixed. Spam is a valid strategy that solves many problems for the Spammer. Redundancy and the ability to capitalize on situations being cheif among these.

If you find spam boring to play then suggest a more diverse list to your regular opponents. Keep in mind though that you may be asking them to gimp their army in some way. If you find spam unfluffy then I will just have to disagree with you.

I don`t think a universal anti-spam rule is very viable simply because some armies are more or less requred to spam in some slots and excluding them would leave open the spam of other armies unless you make army specific anti-spam rules. These would be very hard to balance though.

It would be a almost alright if it wasn't +50 points. I mean, 50 points is almost an entire Ork Warboss.

My thoughts on the Convo so far.

Yeah i was a little butthurt earlier after getting just a "no it sucks" And I understand that 50% of the side conversation was going to become: "Well, what do you think, is Spam a problem in 40k? Is it unfluffy? Unfair?" The argument is neither here nor there.

This is not because I believe that spam is unfluffy, or unfair. It's that I'm simply thinktanking away to add more diversity to an army that's boring. Ye Olde 3 dakka pred, 3 rifleman dread, 3 units of 2 landspeeder typhoons, and as many Razorbacks as you can shake a stick at with min 5 man troops is just not a forward thinking army. The only reason it exists is because Autocannons in their current form, for the price they are given are the most cost effective item on the battlefield. The rest of the army is shoring up the weakness of this firebase. /rant

As to the changes that were made. I do understand that perhaps some armies would really suffer from this. Like Necrons, Perhaps sparing them of this rule would actually increase their competitiveness.

I would think, though, that there are very few armies that would suffer from this if Elite, HQ, Heavy and Fast were all under this sort of scrutiny, and in some armies, troops also.

It's already been pointed out, that minor variations would cause players to get out of the problem caused by this rule, but these minor variations would add depth to the game, and to the story told. Not only that, but all this min-maxing going on in which one additional piece of war-gear being taken for each unit may cause the player min-maxing to not be able to afford a certain unit here or there, which would start to have a ripple effect on the army.

The reason it's so expensive is to simply detract from the choice. While it may not be too bad on a LR, it's murder on dakka preds. 50 just felt right as I was considering a rule. Although it would require much twiddling and tweaking of the rule and TESTING of the rule to determine if it's even viable.

No, I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible Idea. I know many people don't like spam lists but they are good. If one unit can handle multiple roles & you take multiples of them, then when one fails it is not fatal. This is not only good military strategy but good strategy for anything, if one part fails another will pick up & carry the load.

Also this would completely hose some armies where troops aren't that customizable (Necrons, Tau, Tyranid gaunts, Dark eldar) Some of the best lists I have ever seen are written by Stelek and make heavy use of redundancy, not because he's unoriginal, but because its effective. Like it or not people go to tournaments to win, why penalize them because they aren't building a list the way you want them to?

Ragnar4 wrote:What I'm learning here is that you guys are incapable of constructive criticism, which is fine.

Good point on the Necrons, hadn't thought of that.

I don't think it's a silly idea, but you have to understand not every book has the options that a Marine one does.

What do I do with my DE troops? Spend 100+ points for every Raider beyond the first?

The Necron player has to field 30 warriors and spend 5 million points for his already expensive troops?

There are better ways to discourage "spam" lists, if that's your intent.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:No, I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible Idea. I know many people don't like spam lists but they are good. If one unit can handle multiple roles & you take multiples of them, then when one fails it is not fatal. This is not only good military strategy but good strategy for anything, if one part fails another will pick up & carry the load.

Also this would completely hose some armies where troops aren't that customizable (Necrons, Tau, Tyranid gaunts, Dark eldar) Some of the best lists I have ever seen are written by Stelek and make heavy use of redundancy, not because he's unoriginal, but because its effective. Like it or not people go to tournaments to win, why penalize them because they aren't building a list the way you want them to?

Ok.

So now it is time to get into a side convo I think. Is what Stelek does, good or bad for the game?

His fantasy battles lists are crap because the game doesn't work the same way as 40k. But he simply has a much stronger grasp of 40k and from what I can see, can bang out some good yet boring lists. His argument is that if both players are bringing the best list possible, it will always come down to skill. His argument asserts that his lists are the best lists possible, without any sort of willingness to believe that he may be wrong... which is fine, I can't think of a better list in some instances, so perhaps his lists are the best.

In my opinion, he sets out to create a list that a slow can win with, and then has the audacity to tell you that if you can't win with the list, you're worse than a slow.

I wholeheartedly agree that redundancy is a manditory need in just about any list. BUT where that redundancy comes from.. that's another matter. You can have a las-cannon on a predator, on a dev squad and on a LR.

This rule sets out to try to encourage players to think of other ways to achieve the same goal. Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree by making an argument that Spam lists are harmful to the game. The question is: Last time you played against a spam list, did you enjoy it? Even if you won, was it a chore? LAst time you played as a spam list, did you enjoy it? Was sweeping your opponent off the field with it fun, or a chore? Was losing still something you enjoyed or was it a horrible 5 turns before the game finally ended?

So armies with only one troop unit get mega-screwed?
So armies with only one effective unit get mega-screwed?
So armies like Imperial Guard, Necrons, Space Marines, (imagine me listing every army) that follow organizational protocols that involve standardization get mega screwed?

So every army that doesn't totally break its fluff and act as if it was a tribe of orks or lost and the damned get mega screwed?

This is a terrible idea. It would never work well on a fluff or balance level, would be unfun for the game, discourage new players, and effect some armies vastly more than other creating great imbalances.

No. No. No.

Ragnar4 wrote: I wholeheartedly agree that redundancy is a manditory need in just about any list. BUT where that redundancy comes from.. that's another matter. You can have a las-cannon on a predator, on a dev squad and on a LR.

By that arguement when troops in Iraq right now call for an airstrike should they send a Cobra gunship, a decomissioned Huey, and a P-51?

I'm going to bring out bits and pieces of my rant about "fluff armies" on this one, even though the talk isn't about fluff but really does boil down to competition since redundancy (the term preferred over spam) is important to most competitive enviroments. I am in no way pointing fingers at anyone, the noun you is just easier to work with on it. Keep in mind its copy and pasted from a rant I did elsewhere.

I think the biggest problem for the fluff players is their point of view. If it's written and endorsed by the company then it has to be the right and only way to play it, right? Wrong. While there are times when the fluff is absolutely ridiculous, I do enjoy the overall fluff for the most part, but when it comes time for a tourney fluff takes on another meaning.

While people play the game for fun competitive events are not the time for that "fun fluffy" list, it's time for the "competitive fluff" list to come out. My thoughts are this, if it's in the codex, it's in the fluff. If it's in the fluff, well then holy crap it's fluffy.... Imagine that. Take playing any of the 'ard boyz lists that stelek posted for example; they're competitive fluff lists because you actually could see an army that consisted of those forces fighting together.

Bottom line is just because it doesn't fit a fluff bunny's idea of fluff, doesn't mean it's not fluffy. This is also the part that confuses the hell out of me.... why penalize what people can bring with comp? Look at it from a fluff perspective, you win a war by being the only one left alive at the end of it. Why the hell would you bring some panzy ass unit that couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper sack to a war with you? You wouldn't. You want something is able to watch your back, so to speak. So fluffwise, you bring something that strikes fear into your opponent not a piss poor army.

In light of my little rant, who brings a fluffier army to war; the guy that brings some half-assed one of everything list, or the person that brings a unified force that's made to kick someones ass? Dunno about all of you, but if I was going to war, I'd want my ass kickers with me. Competition truly is more fluffy than fluff is, in my opinion.

What you're worried about and trying to correct is min/maxing, Ragnar. The problem with creating arbitrary limitations is that it will only cause a different kind of extreme army. People who want to get the most out of their army, and don't care how they get it, will take the most cost effective unit for the task, and take the units that fill the task that they most expect to encounter. If you make battlewagons cost 50 more points if they are similarly equipped, you're essentially enforcing the same rules that the Space Wolves HQ work under. It doesn't prevent people from taking more Rune Priests- it just makes them take worthless upgrades or sub-optimal choices to differentiate them.

You're going to see Nob Biker style list if you do this. Every unit will be 'different' if by having a 5 point upgrade or one less squad member to be 'different'. Overall, the list will be less effective than its unfettered counterpart. The problem is that the lists that go up against the Uberspam Razorback lists will also be held to the same restrictions, and so will lose effectiveness. This might narrow the gap between a WAAC list and a fluff list, but it won't eliminate WAAC from the game.

Lawful evil players are just something you have to deal with. Whatever system they operate in, they will use it to the maximum extent that they can. They improve the game by showing us what is possible, and reminding most of us why we don't take our plastic army men too seriously or pay hundreds of dollars to compete for large prize pools. There will be hard counters to all of these list in time, and those who use them will have funded the new codex production and new model production.

Hi all.
How about using the sensible middle ground?
A flat cost that totaly ignores synergistic bonuses, is wrong.
A set method that applies a flat rate to multiple same selections units is wrong also.

Most games companies extensivley playtest to identify the synergistic bonuses , and prevent them.

EG if 1or 2 of unit X is ok, but 3 or more of unit X is overpowering , they make Unit X a 0-2 selection.

However, as GW dont want to limit minature sales, they stopped doing this.
Competative gamers simply find the most cost effetive unit synergy in a list, and optimise thier army compositiopn to take advatage of the flat cost.

Appplying a Multiple Selection Modifier that reflects ACTUAL in increase in efficiency of multiple units, is the sensible middle ground IMO.

Eg
1x Unit A =100pts.
2x Unit As are found to be 30% more efficient , therfore 2 unit A = 260pts.
3x unit As , are found to be 70% more efficient , therfore 3unit A= 510 pts.

As this would need extensive playtesting and PV allocated at the unit level, (where the interaction takes place,)I cant see GW taking it up.

TTFN
lanrak.

People are talking about spam lists as though they're about redundancy, they aren't about anything that interesting. You can build lists with redundancy by having seperate units with similar capabilities.

Spam is about minimising exposure to the enemy. Typically if an army contain a mix of infantry and light, medium and heavy armour then your opponent will fire his big AT guns at the heavy armour, his medium AT guns at the medium armour and so on. A spam list only takes one type of unit, so that all weapons that aren't suited to that target are useless or sub-optimal. For instance a battlewagon spam list is about making your list vulnerable to nothing but the enemy's biggest AT guns. A chimera spam list is about giving the enemy's big AT guns nothing better than AV12 to kill, while remaining immune to his small arms. A GEQ spam list is about giving the enemy's big and medium guns nothing better than grunts to shoot at.

I'm not sure a flat points hike on spam would be the best option to solve the issue, as the problem is more fundamental than that. Loopholes would be too simple and ultimately you can build non-spam lists that still manage to present only one medium armour or GEQ or whatever to the enemy. There are good reasons you don't see absolute uniformity on the real battlefield - because different units are used for very different purposes. Infantry are fundamentally different to armour, which is fundamentally different to air support. This is something 40K has tried to use in the latest edition with troops as the only units capable of taking objectives, but it doesn't seem to have gone far enough.

To prevent chimera spam, there needs to be things that heavy armour and infantry can do that a light chassis can not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Shas'O Dorian wrote:Also this would completely hose some armies where troops aren't that customizable (Necrons, Tau, Tyranid gaunts, Dark eldar) Some of the best lists I have ever seen are written by Stelek and make heavy use of redundancy, not because he's unoriginal, but because its effective. Like it or not people go to tournaments to win, why penalize them because they aren't building a list the way you want them to?

Obviously, in a tournament setting people should take whatever army gives them the best chance of winning. But what has that got to do with building rules that encourage competitive players towards more diverse lists?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lone Dragoon wrote:By that arguement when troops in Iraq right now call for an airstrike should they send a Cobra gunship, a decomissioned Huey, and a P-51?

No, because they're looking for the best way to win, and not looking to have fun at all. But as players, and even more so as hypothetical game designers, we're looking at creating a fun game.

I think the biggest problem for the fluff players is their point of view. If it's written and endorsed by the company then it has to be the right and only way to play it, right? Wrong. While there are times when the fluff is absolutely ridiculous, I do enjoy the overall fluff for the most part, but when it comes time for a tourney fluff takes on another meaning.

Sure, it'd be wrong for a guy to turn up to a tournament with a fluff list, get thrashed and then tell the tournament players they're doing it wrong. But no-one has suggested that's happened here. It would also be wrong for a power list player to turn up to a social group, thrash a guy's fluff list and then tell him he's playing wrong. It's all about fitting the expectation of the group.

But none of that has anything to do with what's being discussed in this thread. What's being discussed is a mechanical way to encourage more diverse lists. If such a system came into play power list players would still build the most powerful lists, they'd just be a little different. Whether or not those differences are a good thing would be the measure of the rule.

Bottom line is just because it doesn't fit a fluff bunny's idea of fluff, doesn't mean it's not fluffy. This is also the part that confuses the hell out of me.... why penalize what people can bring with comp? Look at it from a fluff perspective, you win a war by being the only one left alive at the end of it. Why the hell would you bring some panzy ass unit that couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper sack to a war with you? You wouldn't.

Umm, commanders don't pick their armies off of a points list. I'll have two abrams and the apache, how many points does that leave for marines?

Commanders take what is available and figure out how to make it work. Most of these forces are standardised, with support added as available depending on the mission.

Sebster wrote:No, because they're looking for the best way to win, and not looking to have fun at all. But as players, and even more so as hypothetical game designers, we're looking at creating a fun game.

The only problem with saying that, it takes almost a can't see the forest because of the trees approach. It is the game itself that should be the basis of being fun, and I enjoy playing 40k as much as the next guy. The problem is, I don't really care what I see on the field across from me, so long as its a legal army.

Saying that the armies you are seeing makes the game less fun is like saying, you want to drive like a NASCAR driver on the streets but the stop signs get in the way. If the armies on the table make it less fun, find another group to play with that's more in line with your thinking and philosophy. My advice to people that complain about those lists, you learn more from losing than you do from winning.

The other thing as I said; I just copy and pasted (and editted the strong language I used the first time )this from a rant I posted elsewhere. Only reason I left the first paragraph in there is I do enjoy the game from a fluff perspective, and I do not want people thinking I'm a frothing at the mouth never play a game except in a tournament scenario competitive player. In otherwords; it's to emphasize I do enjoy the game for its fun aspect, but then I go on to state my own views. Which I felt were at least semi-valid about the proposed rule for two reasons.

1) What Ragnar4 is talking about is trying to force a change to the fluff and building army side of things, something that isn't broken. I felt I was at least semi-justified in sharing my view of competitive armies vs. fluff armies because.... *gasp* wargames are based on wars. I play redundant (Or spam if you want) lists, and when a realistic army goes to war, there are multiple units set up the same way for a reason.... it works.

2) If I know one thing it's this; 40k is a WARgame, and how wars are fought will always evolve, but one thing never changes. When you play at something, whether it's a war or a game you always set out to win.

In my opinion it's all about bringing the most "realistic" army to the tabletop, because as I said, a wargame and a war are both alike in this aspect- I've never seen anyone say I'm setting out to lose a game/war. Have you?

Saying that the armies you are seeing makes the game less fun is like saying, you want to drive like a NASCAR driver on the streets but the stop signs get in the way. If the armies on the table make it less fun, find another group to play with that's more in line with your thinking and philosophy. My advice to people that complain about those lists, you learn more from losing than you do from winning.

Completely agree with you.

That's why I mostly avoid tournaments. I do have a tournament army, but me and my friends play with our fluff armies.

The way to prevent spam lists is to write codices that actively encourage the combined arms force. Ruling that there should be an arbitrary restriction on redundancy just because it's not fluffy or out of spirit or mean or whatever is silly. If spam armies didn't work so well, people wouldn't use them.

sebster wrote:
Spam is about minimising exposure to the enemy. Typically if an army contain a mix of infantry and light, medium and heavy armour then your opponent will fire his big AT guns at the heavy armour, his medium AT guns at the medium armour and so on. A spam list only takes one type of unit, so that all weapons that aren't suited to that target are useless or sub-optimal. For instance a battlewagon spam list is about making your list vulnerable to nothing but the enemy's biggest AT guns. A chimera spam list is about giving the enemy's big AT guns nothing better than AV12 to kill, while remaining immune to his small arms. A GEQ spam list is about giving the enemy's big and medium guns nothing better than grunts to shoot at.

This is exactly right. And, by the way, a group of uniformly equipped tanks or infantry squads wouldn't be at all out of the fluff in some armies. When you're setting out to accomplish a specific task, you select the troops best for that task. If you find one sort of troop is generally better at this sort of thing than another, then you're free to deploy them in force. There's nothing anti-fluff about trying to win.

Lone Dragoon wrote:
It is the game itself that should be the basis of being fun, and I enjoy playing 40k as much as the next guy. The problem is, I don't really care what I see on the field across from me, so long as its a legal army.

Personally, I agree completely. Have you ever played someone with pretty good tactics but a crappy list? I have, and when I do, I sort of feel cheated. There's no fun in winning if your opponent doesn't try. And frankly, there's no fun in losing when you don't try either.

Bottom line, I see no reason that the fact that spam armies are good is a justification to make them harder to field.

The only thing that a rule like this would accomplish is people taking identical units, except with sergeants that have 1 5 point piece of wargear different.

The only thing that would change would be units being less fluffy and make less sense than they do now. Instead of my carefully ordered clone guardsmen squads, they would have random bits tacked on for no good fluff reason just to make them not cost ridiculous amounts of points for no reason.


This idea is terrible and will never work.