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.

thread title might be a tad wordy, but i feel it best describes the topic.

what im wondering is: how many players prefer to "spam" or load up on max or as close to max troop selections. personally, i prefer to do so, taking as many troops as possible and using other selections to "back up" or support these troops. examples are:
in my dark eldar list, i run at least 4 warrior /wych squads
in SM i bring close to 4-5 tac squads and a scout squad
orks are almost all boys, with only a few units of nobs in support.

the reasons i do this are many, but the primary points are:
- versatile untis can "do it all"
- fairly low cost means "spam" is more cost effective
- scoring units in objective games
- can be tailored to handle most threats
- lots more models then an MSEU army.

this might be just a result of my local meta, but im wondering how the rest of dakka feels about this, especially given the heavy mech theme most lists take.

apologies for spelling errors... posting from my phone and its a pain to catch missed errors. will edit from home comp when i get the chance.


Edit: arg, thought this was posted in tatics. thats where i intended.... silly phone. if im in wrong place, or this dosent suit army lists can ther mods please move to tatics? thanks.

i'm on board with your way of thinking and logic. there are a couple other reasons why i think MSU of troops are ever-so popular these days.

1) DT's got cheaper/more effective. not only do you get multiple scoring troops as you mentioned...but now, if you somehow managed to deliver your troops to their intended target unharmed, then you get a tank to contest/dakka up your opponent's stuff.

2) with 6 troop choices and 6 dedicated transports flying around, it only seems logical to fight fire with fire. i mean that in firepower and targeting mostly. MSUs can equip themselves in a way that they can do alittle anti-tank along with anti-troop. having options is what it's all about. currently i think only long fangs get the fortune of so much firepower and target selection within a unit.

3) checks and balances on CC. nothing is worse than getting a big unit of shooty goodness bogged down or even cut down in CC. MSUs give survivability to your army if you so wish to run a diversified army. my point is that under a shooty army build, i'd much rather get my venom curbstomped, then my 5 man unit of kalabites assaulted than losing a 20-man warrior blob.

4) it also goes w/out saying that 2/3 of the standare missions are objective based (troops oriented) missions.

At 1500 pts. w/ Tau I take 2x6 firewarriors and 1x15 kroot. The firewarriors are mounted, of course, and the kroot normally camp a back court objective. I figure if i can hold 2-3 objectives, I can contest at least 1-2. Then, in annihilation, I dont have a lot of points tied up in T3 models.

Having the ability to hold more than half of the objectives, while not investing alot in weaker firewarriors is my strategy.

I still follow the 1 troop for every 500 points rule. I play 3 maxxed troop choice at 1500 points with Eldar. Two 10 x DA squads and 1 10 x Storm Guardian Squad.

They are all mounted in wave serpents and in the last three games I played (2 necron and 1 black templar) the following of my troops were hurt:

Necron 1: 0 troops hurt, i was lucky though. I killed him third round with alot of shooting and he conceded.

Necron: 6 Models lost

Black Templars: 3 models lost

That's not a bad rerturn IMO.

It depends on your army. Crons won't be spamming Warriors in 5th ed till they get redone.

A lot of tournament armies take MSU troops just for scoring purposes and for their transport. For example, a 5 man grey hunter squad with a flamer in a razorback is cheap as chips, and a great scoring unit.

Some armies can max out on troops and make a great army. It just isn't the case with every book. Orks, Wolves, Chaos, BA,Sisters, etc. can spam troops. Marines sort of can, but to really stay competitive, they need to max out elites, fast and heavy which doesn't leave a lot of room. Crons sure don't want to as said. Bugs can, but probably not the best use of points. Eldar won't want to in most cases as their troops are subpar.

It depends on the army, as with most things in the game.

My main armies are tyrnaids and IG. I am always more than happy to load up on troop choices ...

I have 5 troops choices in my BA 1500pts. Its where all the good stuff lies!

Orks are da bes cuz, they fill their 6 troops most of the time!

The options are in tourneys are, "spam" weaker troops in hopes that 1-2 survive or spend those points on elite choices to take out your opponent's troop choices and win with your 2-3 troops.

Then there is CSM, whose troop choices look a lot like other people's elite choices..

It depends almost entirely on which army list you're playing. Marine lists rarely run with maxed out Tacticals or Scouts, even at 2500 points. The 'Tactical Marine' simply isn't enough of a workhorse to give up points to that could have been spent on the Elite/Heavy/Fast slots.

Chaos by contrast often take max or near max troops. Same with certain SW builds or Orks.

IG would probably take max troops but simply do not have to; a single platoon will give you half a dozen scoring units so even an IG list with only 2 troops choices is putting 5+ scoring units down.

And then there's the lists that max out on troops purely by coincidence that they want to max out on Dedicated Transports. Any Razorspam list is going to have at least 6 Troop selections.

I think this idea is great in theory, but it really depends on the army you are playing. There are times when just taking tons of troops is not a good idea. But again, this is so dependent on your amry and what your army's troops are capable of.

If we are talking a non-purpose built list and 1500 pts plus,
3 troops should be your minimum norm. You need to control objectives to win and you could be talking up to 5 objectives. With any armies troop choice able to get annihilated if an enemy wants to, don't make it easy on your opponent by only fielding 2.

A lot of good points made by others though, depending on the codex, some armies just can afford to be troop heavy where others are just too bland ( easy to counter) if you spam them. (6 fire warror squads anyone?)

The other side is making your army a KP magnet. Easy example here would be minimum Kalabite warriors with a Raider. 12 easy to obtain KPs could mean DE loss being almost guaranteed.

the above points are definitly valid, and i agree with most. i do however think that a good core of troops keyed to a certain aspect, (shooting or CC) and supported by a few key hev support or elites choices (who can either fill the opposite void, or augment the troop role) can make for a very tough army.

i think that troops are, aside from the obvious scoring unit fill a critical role, in being the core or main element in the army. ive played games with minimum troop selection and max elite/hev and found that an opposing troop heavy army has the abiity to outlast and outperform. in addition, loosing a 200 point troop selection is a lot less of an impact then loosing a 300pts+ elite choice

the question i think that matters is: how do ou use troops? do they lead the charge, or follow the heavy hitters? hang back and support with ranged fire or go out and capture enemy objectives? diffrent people play a diffrent style, and of course the local meta does factor in...

DAaddict wrote:If we are talking a non-purpose built list and 1500 pts plus,
3 troops should be your minimum norm. You need to control objectives to win and you could be talking up to 5 objectives. With any armies troop choice able to get annihilated if an enemy wants to, don't make it easy on your opponent by only fielding 2.

A lot of good points made by others though, depending on the codex, some armies just can afford to be troop heavy where others are just too bland ( easy to counter) if you spam them. (6 fire warror squads anyone?)

The other side is making your army a KP magnet. Easy example here would be minimum Kalabite warriors with a Raider. 12 easy to obtain KPs could mean DE loss being almost guaranteed.

You don't need 3 troops to win objective missions. All you need to do is control 1 more than your opponent.

A completely viable strategy is to:

Table your opponent.
Control one objective and contest the rest.

Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

imweasel wrote:You don't need 3 troops to win objective missions. All you need to do is control 1 more than your opponent.

A completely viable strategy is to:

Table your opponent.
Control one objective and contest the rest.

Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

I agree with this, for the most part.

Specifically:

You don't need 3 troops to win objective missions. All you need to do is control 1 more than your opponent.

However, the more scoring units you take, the easier this becomes. Often, it's a balancing act between fielding enough scoring units to have the flexibility required to actually control one objective, while still maintaining enough offensive power to table your opponent and/or contest all other objectives.

Armies with outstanding troops make this substantially easier, and are, generally, considered to be superior codi. (See SW, BA, IG, and, to a lesser extent, Orks).

Depend on which army you are playing really.

In my case, Space Wolves Grey Hunters I can never use enough. And if you field Logan Grimnar, Wolf Guard Terminators count as Troop choice too - which means my list is pretty much consisted of Troops.

imweasel wrote:
Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

No it might not, but as I think it has been noted here before, if your list is short of troops, they may become target priority for your enemy to eraditace, efficiently removing any chance of your victory (= his/her defeat), and also allowing some sort of "castling" around one single objective, ironically "claiming one more objective than you" (since your possible maximum fell to 0) and bitch-slapping you with your own tactic.

As has been noted several times, it depends on the army. Some armies have extremely flexible and/or points cost efficient troops in which case going troop heavy works well.

Other armies have unflexable and/or points inefficient troops (The examples that come to mind right away are Tau and Necrons) where troops are generally a weakness you try and cover with the rest of the army.

As most tournamets don't follow the standard mission selection or they have battle points added into them, you come accross more issues. Be it that just tablin your opponent is not always full points. And runing heavy troops and transports, most transports are fairly easily popped, so you are offering up 12 kp alone with just your troops. So there is so much to think about when building a competitive all comers army. Just make sure your units are versitile is your best bet, if you have 2 full units of Gretchen in your list just to hold an objective well then when you get to a kp mission that's lost points, in a tournament setting every unit has to be able to carry it's own weight.

imweasel wrote:

DAaddict wrote:If we are talking a non-purpose built list and 1500 pts plus,
3 troops should be your minimum norm. You need to control objectives to win and you could be talking up to 5 objectives. With any armies troop choice able to get annihilated if an enemy wants to, don't make it easy on your opponent by only fielding 2.

A lot of good points made by others though, depending on the codex, some armies just can afford to be troop heavy where others are just too bland ( easy to counter) if you spam them. (6 fire warror squads anyone?)

The other side is making your army a KP magnet. Easy example here would be minimum Kalabite warriors with a Raider. 12 easy to obtain KPs could mean DE loss being almost guaranteed.

You don't need 3 troops to win objective missions. All you need to do is control 1 more than your opponent.

A completely viable strategy is to:

Table your opponent.
Control one objective and contest the rest.

Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

Not saying it is not, my point is that killing troops - if focused on - is not too hard for any army. If you have only two troops I can kill one and reduce the game to frustrating your one remaining troop choice. As points level increases, the ability to ruin one troop choice's day is increased as usually those extra points go into the killy options each codex has.

ENKHANNA wrote:

imweasel wrote:
Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

No it might not, but as I think it has been noted here before, if your list is short of troops, they may become target priority for your enemy to eraditace, efficiently removing any chance of your victory (= his/her defeat), and also allowing some sort of "castling" around one single objective, ironically "claiming one more objective than you" (since your possible maximum fell to 0) and bitch-slapping you with your own tactic.

I agree with everyone that it depends on the army. However, my thinking is revolving around the '3 troop mandatory' group being 'nilla space marine players.

If you are playing a like minded opponent (heavy on troops/lack of killing) they are going to have a hard time to kill/dislodge your own troops.

To me, 40k started as a game of infantry tactics, and at its core, is still a game of infantry tactics. People who know how to move their troops choices, and know how to get the most out of their small arms and close combats are the people who have the best mastery over the game.

Anyone can figure out how to park a basilisk out of LOS and plink at stuff, or can figure out how to drop pod combi-melta sternguard and blow up tanks, or can figure out how to pop a lictor out of nowhere and eat something. Learning how to use your basic infantry is much harder, but is the sign of a master. Not only are they more likely to win games because they're experienced, and because they're not wasting the mandatory lots of points spent on troops, but it's especially true now in 5th ed where VP are out and KP and objectives are in.

CSM- Spam FNP troops and Terminators with Plasma Cannons.

That's my Codex. The only worthwhile thing to do is spam troops and heavy support options. Our elites section is highly spammy too, with most builds either using three of something (x3 Termicide units/ x3 Dreadnoughts. It's rare to see anything in between) or none at all. Redundancy is nice, but when that's all your codex lets you do, it gets to be annoying.

Anyway. I digress. I do see a lot of value in spamming troops though, like for tyranids and orks, and maybe DE (8 points for that? ). But for marines, it just gets stupid. A wall of 50 marines on the field is almost unstoppable, unless you use pie plates on them, and can definitely wreck an entire game. At that point, it stops being fun, I guess.

Samus_aran115 wrote:CSM- Spam FNP troops and Terminators with Plasma Cannons.

That's my Codex. The only worthwhile thing to do is spam troops and heavy support options. Our elites section is highly spammy too, with most builds either using three of something (x3 Termicide units/ x3 Dreadnoughts. It's rare to see anything in between) or none at all. Redundancy is nice, but when that's all your codex lets you do, it gets to be annoying.

Anyway. I digress. I do see a lot of value in spamming troops though, like for tyranids and orks, and maybe DE (8 points for that? ). But for marines, it just gets stupid. A wall of 50 marines on the field is almost unstoppable, unless you use pie plates on them, and can definitely wreck an entire game. At that point, it stops being fun, I guess.

Good points. Though you can spam some regular CSM troopers along with the plague guys. The problem about the 50 marines is killing them. The problem the 50 marines have is killing stuff. Usually.

What's fun is when you have armies that get Terminators/Sanguinary Guards/Whatever Elite Unit as troops. The result is that you no longer have to worry as much about scoring units, FOC, or having overcosted troop units giving easy KPs that exist only for the purpose of holding points (here's looking at you, Tau!)

Samus_aran115 wrote:CSM- Spam FNP troops and Terminators with Plasma Cannons.

You tell me where can I get CSM terminators armed with plasma cannons (not obliterators) and I'm the happiest man on Terra.
IIRC, chaos FNP troops cost 23 points/model, it looks not very easy to spam efficiently.

imweasel wrote:

DAaddict wrote:If we are talking a non-purpose built list and 1500 pts plus,
3 troops should be your minimum norm. You need to control objectives to win and you could be talking up to 5 objectives. With any armies troop choice able to get annihilated if an enemy wants to, don't make it easy on your opponent by only fielding 2.

A lot of good points made by others though, depending on the codex, some armies just can afford to be troop heavy where others are just too bland ( easy to counter) if you spam them. (6 fire warror squads anyone?)

The other side is making your army a KP magnet. Easy example here would be minimum Kalabite warriors with a Raider. 12 easy to obtain KPs could mean DE loss being almost guaranteed.

You don't need 3 troops to win objective missions. All you need to do is control 1 more than your opponent.

A completely viable strategy is to:

Table your opponent.
Control one objective and contest the rest.

Taking 3 troops is not mandatory at all at any point level.

Taking 3 troops is not manditory at any point level, and neither is taking any anti tank weapons. The only thing that is manditory is 2 troops and a hq, but building an army that doesn't have enough troops or anti taank weapons are equally insane if you expect to win against top tier opponents in a gt.

Falling back on the plan of tabeling an oppponent only works on vastly inferior opponents, or it relies on luck. Given equal luck you just can't count on tabeling a good opponent.

Also in a tournament setting winning by 1 objective gives squat for points, its almost as bad as a minor loss or tie.