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.

Anpu42 wrote:So is this Redundancy or SPAM?

Belail
Interrogator Chaplin [Teminator Armor/Combi-Plasma]

Elite
Deathwing Command upgrade [Assault Cannon] x1
Deathwing [Assault Cannon] x2

Troops
Deathwing [Thunder Hammer/Cyclone] x1
Deathwing [LC/Cyclone] x2
Deathwing [Heavy Flamer] x3

Why would that be spam if you're playing pure Deathwing where Terminators, Raiders, and Dreads are your only options? That would be like complaining about Necrons having one troop choice.

Elessar wrote:Also, there ARE only 2 ways to play Eldar.

I think you mean there are only 2 ways to WIN with eldar I'm sure there are plenty of ways to play with them

Touche.

Spam is for the weak of brain.

G

I think that spam may be forgiven if it clearly fits in with the fluff and theme, for example I am doing the Seattle Battle Bunker's IG regiment's 8th company, it happens to be the mech company, with 7 chimeras, 2 Russes and in apoc a stormlord (yay transport). That is fine, a DE raider raid is fine, wraith army is fine, deathwing is fine. You need a good excuse to explaine 'nidzilla, however.

The reason spam, or rather more accuratly target saturation works is what is called the Lanchester Square Law, which stated that that the forces' comparetive strength is not in numbers vs numbers or 1:2 but the square of the forces like 1:(2)4 or (2)4:(3)9 because not only do you have twice the firepower, but twice the survivability, meaning that if 1 leman russ is good, 2 is 4 TIMES(!) as good. Thus LR spam. Redundancy is a different animal, you just don't want to put all your AT eggs in one basket, a natural reaction, smart and perfectly fine at low levels.

Pretty much.

I never use spam.

G

On the other side of the pond the spam lists don't tend to do so well. Sure. you might find a few in the top 20, but by on large the most successful lists are much more personal with a few surprising units to specifically added to counter the local metagame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArbitorIan wrote:Spamming units is useful but unimaginative tactic. It doesn't make you a great general. What makes you a great general is playing with a non-competitive army and STILL winning.

What makes you a great general is playing against other top generals week in and week out. For a long time I was king of the hill locally, but I have improved my game immesurably by playing on the top tables at GT time. I'd go as far as to say that if you aren't playing against the big boys in the tournaments then you aren't a top player.

Oddjob is right, IMHO. The top lists in America don't spam the same unit over and over because someone might play a spam version of the counter. I also think that the 3 tiered objective scenario (which also has 3-4 bonus point mini-objectives) is beginning to spread out of Adepticon. These types of scenarios go well beyond the simple scenarios from the main rulebook and force army lists to become more versatile in order to accomplish the diverse objectives of each mission.

No longer can an army rely on victory points each game or claiming an objective to win each game. Tournament players never know what the scenario objectives will be and have to be prepared for a wide range of possibilities.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now if the scenario you play is line up and kill the enemy, then spam lists will have their place, but not in the mojority of todays major tournaments.

sniperjolly wrote:I think that spam may be forgiven if it clearly fits in with the fluff and theme, for example I am doing the Seattle Battle Bunker's IG regiment's 8th company, it happens to be the mech company, with 7 chimeras, 2 Russes and in apoc a stormlord (yay transport). That is fine, a DE raider raid is fine, wraith army is fine, deathwing is fine. You need a good excuse to explaine 'nidzilla, however.

The reason spam, or rather more accuratly target saturation works is what is called the Lanchester Square Law, which stated that that the forces' comparetive strength is not in numbers vs numbers or 1:2 but the square of the forces like 1:(2)4 or (2)4:(3)9 because not only do you have twice the firepower, but twice the survivability, meaning that if 1 leman russ is good, 2 is 4 TIMES(!) as good. Thus LR spam. Redundancy is a different animal, you just don't want to put all your AT eggs in one basket, a natural reaction, smart and perfectly fine at low levels.

This is pretty much what I am getting at; Redundancy and multiples whether you like to call it spam or not is a incredible force multipliar.

Spam is a way for average gamers to do better. The best lists are not easy to play.

G

what the hell does a balanced list mean anyway?

A list that has multiple different units with no cohesion?

That doesn't make any sense.

I've defined Spam and Redundant as well as redundant spam.

What is a "balanced list" definition?

Green Blow Fly wrote:I never use spam.

G

Lies.

Ive played against you and one of your spam lists.

Troop choices don't count towards the spammage.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Spam is a way for average gamers to do better. The best lists are not easy to play.

G

It's also a way for good gamers to do better. No list is easy to play when up against a good general.

I think the word redundant isnt being used quite correctly here. 'Redundant' carried connotations of being unnecessary and superfluous, which can only really be applied to spammed choices that can only perform in a single role. These choices also tend to be the ones that dont suit spamming well.

For example,

Taking three squads of devastators all with lascannon creates a lot of redundancies in your list because there is only so much anti-tank that you require. Once all the vehicles have been dealt with then those devastator squads become significantly less useful. As a result you dont see any top performing lists spamming lascannon devs.

Obliterators, Hammerheads or Fire-prisms, on the other hand, can deal effectively with multiple unit types. They dont create redundancies in your army list because they are so versatile. They will always be useful for something.

Redundancy will only arise if you focus too heavily on dealing with a single unit type, and dont take others into account.

As for spamming, the best units for spamming are those that are the most versitile, as i have suggested above. Ig mech-vets are a prime example. They combine excellent anti-MC and anti-tank ability (3 melta guns) with good anti-infantry ability (Chimeras with hull HF) and good durability (cheap AV12 transport). Lots of armies have trouble dealing with such a large number of vehicles that put out such a good amount of firepower.

Finally, being able to tell which units are superior to others and being able to write an army list to take advantage of that is a good quaility in of itself. Spamming effective units doesnt make you less of a player because you chose to take advantage of your armies strengths. To win a game you must bring both and effective list and play well with it. This isnt to say that spamming is essential. It isnt. But army building is a large part of 40k and you should expect people to try and create the best lists that they can, particularly in competitive situations.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I never use spam.

G

This make me chuckle

Yup. Redundancy is only one leg of a successful strategic tripod. You also need flexibility and synergy.

Nurglitch wrote:Yup. Redundancy is only one leg of a successful strategic tripod. You also need flexibility and synergy.

Where does player ability come in? Or luck? Or rules knowledge? Or concentration on the mission?

You can be the luckiest lucky lucker luckianium and rules knowledgable concentrationist skilled player in the world I give you 250 Grots and you will still lose.

Army Composition is 50 percent of winning the game.

one MC and one tank would walk up and be invincible, do the runtherds get PK's?

Hollismason wrote:You can be the luckiest lucky lucker luckianium and rules knowledgable concentrationist skilled player in the world I give you 250 Grots and you will still lose.

Army Composition is 50 percent of winning the game.

lols. I agree, although I could probably still beat a Battleforce army.

What I take away from this is that our ancestors had sex with monkeys.

hawkeye wrote:What I take away from this is that our ancestors had sex with monkeys.

AIDS

Okay I guess I have been knocked off the moral high ground.

* gets up and brushes off the dirt *

let's look at some winning armies at the national level:

lash spam -> 2x lash prince, 6-9 Oblits, lots of mechanized Plague Marines

mechdar -> lots of wave serpents, + prisms or falcons

these two armies don't have lots of c
viable choices for 5th edition so it's hard to knock these lists from the perspective of background, especially CSM seeing that cults took a big hit in trade for some very solid troop choices... Berzerkers and Noise Marines are also good in addition to Plague Marines

Vulkan Marines -> lots of thunder termies plus anything with melta weapons

Fateweaver Bloodcrusher spam -> not much needed to explain this one in any detail. The other two viable lists seem to be MC spam and mono Nurgle with Epidemius. I do think there are actually a lot of other great army lists that could be crafted from this codex but it's a lot easier to just stick with the big three. This codex does not seem to be very popular overall and I suppose that is mainly due to people feeling uncomfortable with an entire army that deep strikes.

There are some other spam lists but I don't think they are well proven in terms of success such as DE raider spam with tons of lance weapons.

Here are two of my best army lists:

:13th Company:
Wolf Lord on bike
Storm Claw bikers
Big squad of Wulfen + Wolf Priest
Long Fangs
2x Grey Slayers

:Blood Angels:
Sanguinary High Priest + Honorguard all with jump packs
Chaplain + DC all with jump packs
2x tactical squad in drop pods with power fist & meltagun
Venerable dreadnaught with MM & HF in drop pod
Furisio dreadnaught with meltagun & HF in drop pod
5x terminator with 2x assault cannon
5x scouts with bolters, sniper rifle, heavy bolter

:Space Marines:
2x Librarian (TDA) with terminator command squad 2x assault cannon
3x las/plas
5x Devs with 4x HB
5x Devs with 4x ML

I also had a hot EC list for CSM.

I am unsure what people are thinking I run/ran that is a spam list. My BA now don't have more than two of any particular unit and my mono Khorne daemon list has 2x Grinder and 3x Bloodletters... Honestly I don't personally consider either of these to be spam lists but maybe my definition of spam is different from the more popular mindset. Feel free to correct/enlighten me.

G

In all honesty, you play those in Tournaments?!?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Except 13th Co, obviously.

I forgot to mention IG mech vets. There was a lot of hoopla following the release of this new codex. It has won any big events but I think it's too early to throw in the towel yet.

G


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I won all three games with full massacres and full bonus points at the adepticon championship RTT two years ago with my 13th Company. Like I said the best lists are not easy to play.

The BA list I posted I lost less than five games out of well over 100 in tournaments. I never took them to a big event but I played them all over.

G

You also omitted AirCav.

In fairness, 2 years ago was 4th, so it doesn't count for anything now.

This is a whole different ballgame.

Frankly, I think the Marine list is trash, the BA is the better of the two legal ones. You EC list intrigues me, I wrote a couple a few months ago I'd really like to try out, I'd quite like to see yours.

AirCav seems like the best that IG has to offer lead by Straken... It's expensive though. All the lists I posted were legal at the time I played them.

G

what would this be called,

captain
cmd squad

inquisitor lord
mystic x2
servo skull x1
landraider

5 terminators
LRR
5 assault terminators
LRR
inquisitor
mystic x2
LR

10 man tac sqad
rhino
10 man tac sqad
rhino
10 man tac sqad
rhino

LR
LR
LR

this is my typical 2500 point list yes thats a total of 7 raiders and variants in a legal list

Yes, but all of your lists do have redundancies.

Meaning they have multiple ways to accomplish the same thing.

It's just good army building period.

Just because you say " these lists are balanced". doesn't mean it is just like if someone says " your list is spam" doesnt mean it is.


By my definition of Spam and Redundancy some lists do meet those criteria but others do not.