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What with everyone spamming like mad in the tournament scene it makes me think that this is having a negative effect on the gaming scene. This corrosponds with GW dropping the restrictions from various units in their dex. Like the 0-1 or the 0-2 restrictions. The old nids codex had lots of little restrictions that seemed to wrk fairly well. there was the 0-1 Lictor restriciton that allowed you to purchase up to three lictor and run them seperatly, but they counted as one unit. Would a similar unit structure work to help mitigate the spam lists that have become so prevalent. Like a 0-2 restiction on long fangs.
Thoughts.?

i must say i would prefer it if everything bar bog standard troops had a limit for example, you can take as many gaurdsmen as you like, but only 1 valk, you can take as many fire warriors, but only 2 units of broadsides etc etc

Hence the reason Fantasy tournaments incorporate a composition scoring category. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to build an uber-army full of spam, it's completely different to build an army not using the uber-units.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:Hence the reason Fantasy tournaments incorporate a composition scoring category.

So does 40k. It's called the Force Organization Chart. If it fits legally within that, it's a balanced army.

DarknessEternal wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:Hence the reason Fantasy tournaments incorporate a composition scoring category.

So does 40k. It's called the Force Organization Chart. If it fits legally within that, it's a balanced army.

So does Fantasy, there are restrictions as to how many Rare, Special, etc. units you may use. In grand tournaments, armies are scored on their use of certain units. If certain "over-powered" units are used, yo you lose points. When Blood Angels lists routinely are packed with Razorbacks because Stormravens are too easily shot down, that doesn't really fit their signature combat doctrine, but because it is available, people abuse it, it called spamming...

yeah, the FoC does this job perfectly.


Blame the spam on an edition that makes being in Vehicles have literally no drawbacks and codices having cheap DTs that can in many cases also have a powerful ranged attack.

No, I do not think that 'spamming' (I really hate that word) is having a deletorious effect on the gaming scene.

I hate seeing armies with so much redundancy that I'm just fighting the same squad six times, but imposing arbitrary limitations on lists is no good. We have the FOC and while it isn't perfect, it does its job.

when you think about it, a proper fighting force would have duplicates for the same reason we have them in our table top game. its so that if you lose one you still have another. it also makes individual squads less of a prime target, safety in numbers.

I don't mind the unit duplicates or triplicates. Then again, I also play spaceship and historical games, and bringing one of every type of unit available will only lead to ruin. Redundancy is useful.

Putting limits over and above the FOC would just be obnoxious.

Redundancy is boring but it makes effective lists. That's why every DE list ever is like;

Troops:
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise

Heavy Support:
Lance
Lancity Lancity Lance
Oh the hulancity

DarknessEternal wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:Hence the reason Fantasy tournaments incorporate a composition scoring category.

So does 40k. It's called the Force Organization Chart. If it fits legally within that, it's a balanced army.

This is not a valid argument, though it is one that i sometimes see here on dakka. Its just being dismissive of the question without addressing the possibility that I rasied earlier that perhaps GW could do something that would improve the game within each codex. The FOC is just a primative all under one umbrella kind of thing. each army has its own specific rules, special rules etc. Since each army plays so differently it seems like codex specific limitations make perfect sence. Some units are so good that everyone takes 3 or 6 or however many you can max out on. Like DE and Lance spam. All I am suggesting is the potential that the old system that GW seems to be doing away with, introduced more variety and could still be used to improve the game by decreasing the SPAM (there is said it). I know that combined arm forces are the ones that are the most interesting on the tabletop for me.

sennacherib wrote:What with everyone spamming like mad in the tournament scene it makes me think that this is having a negative effect on the gaming scene. This corrosponds with GW dropping the restrictions from various units in their dex. Like the 0-1 or the 0-2 restrictions. The old nids codex had lots of little restrictions that seemed to wrk fairly well. there was the 0-1 Lictor restriciton that allowed you to purchase up to three lictor and run them seperatly, but they counted as one unit. Would a similar unit structure work to help mitigate the spam lists that have become so prevalent. Like a 0-2 restiction on long fangs.
Thoughts.?

No, they got rid of it for reason, people will always spam whatever they can, and there's always a way such a system can be gamed and broken, you'll just end up with different broken stuff, and fewer kits being sold.

Fairfeldia wrote:i must say i would prefer it if everything bar bog standard troops had a limit for example, you can take as many gaurdsmen as you like, but only 1 valk, you can take as many fire warriors, but only 2 units of broadsides etc etc

That would make many units (like valks) rather pointless, especially when there are perfectly good examples of fluff armies that *would* field tons of them. It also doesn't help that some armies rely on spam for certain roles by design (Tau, Eldar and Tyranids crucially).

You'd also then routinely start seeing armies with 200 guardsmen and nothing else that take 4 hours to play through and make half the opponents army useless.

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, the FoC does this job perfectly.


Blame the spam on an edition that makes being in Vehicles have literally no drawbacks and codices having cheap DTs that can in many cases also have a powerful ranged attack.

Aside from the fact that guntanks end up as pillboxes more often than not, tanks are hit on rear armor in assaults, are easily silenced unless it's AV14. In many cases, an equivalent point infantry unit will still be harder to destroy with dedicated anti-infantry weapons than a tank will be with dedicated AT weapons. Crucially, vehicles also can't hold objectives. There are plenty of trade-offs for vehicles. Many of the most maligned units in the current metagame are not vehicles, most in fact I'd say are not vehicles.

Lets not forget that every other edition of this game has had spam just the same way we do now, we just have bigger armies and more points to play with so it's a little more apparent.

the problem with vehicles getting hit on rear armor is that it requires you to be assaulting it.

that means the transport has already done its job in that it has transported its troops to the fight.



actual tanks(shooting vehicles) won't be getting hit on rear armor untill at least turn 2(and most of the time it will be turn 3 at most) so thats a couple rounds of shooting they have before they can die.

Grey Templar wrote:the problem with vehicles getting hit on rear armor is that it requires you to be assaulting it.

that means the transport has already done its job in that it has transported its troops to the fight.

Not always, just as having Terminators in combat doesn't always mean they did their job of crushing something important. I've had more than my fair share of transports whacked before they really were in a good position.

actual tanks(shooting vehicles) won't be getting hit on rear armor untill at least turn 2(and most of the time it will be turn 3 at most) so thats a couple rounds of shooting they have before they can die.

Not really any different though than any other heavy shooting unit however such as Long Fangs, Broadsides, Obliterators, etc.

Additionally, turn 1 assaults are designed to be rare, assault in general are turn 2+ affairs, and have always been designed (for better or worse) around that.

Changing the tanks won't change the fact of spam, it'll just make it different spam.

Imagine how the Fantasy way of organizing things would affect 40k. Call HQ Lords and Heroes (required), Troops are Core, Fast Attack and Elite are Special, and Heavy support is rare.

Lords and Heroes can be < or = 25% of total points
Core can be > or = 25% of total points
Special can be between 0-50% of total points
Rare can be < or = 25% of total points

In other words, in a 1,500 point date...

Up to 375 can be HQ
Atleast 375 must be Troops
Fast Attack and Elite can be up to 750
Rare can be up to 375

Keep everything else the same. This would drastically changed the meta, that's for sure.

Justus wrote:Imagine how the Fantasy way of organizing things would affect 40k. Call HQ Lords and Heroes (required), Troops are Core, Fast Attack and Elite are Special, and Heavy support is rare.

Lords and Heroes can be < or = 25% of total points
Core can be > or = 25% of total points
Special can be between 0-50% of total points
Rare can be < or = 25% of total points

In other words, in a 1,500 point date...

Up to 375 can be HQ
Atleast 375 must be Troops
Fast Attack and Elite can be up to 750
Rare can be up to 375

Keep everything else the same. This would drastically changed the meta, that's for sure.

In some ways yes, in others no. Many mechanized IG armies wouldn't change one bit. If I'm fielding a 1750pt IG list I can still pack in my 6 meltemechvets plus a kitted CCS, three Vendettas, marbo and three hydras. Remember that spam needn't be expensive. Many much-maligned Space Wolves armies would only need to drop a couple Long Fangs to fit within those restrictions.

Justus wrote:Lords and Heroes can be < or = 25% of total points
Core can be > or = 25% of total points
Special can be between 0-50% of total points
Rare can be < or = 25% of total points

In other words, in a 1,500 point date...

Up to 375 can be HQ
Atleast 375 must be Troops
Fast Attack and Elite can be up to 750
Rare can be up to 375

Keep everything else the same. This would drastically changed the meta, that's for sure.

It would, but I don't think for the better. Even if the FOC system isn't perfect, fine tuning it is far better than throwing it out the window. This system is far more complicated. Unnecessarily so.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Redundancy is boring but it makes effective lists. That's why every DE list ever is like;

Troops:
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise

Heavy Support:
Lance
Lancity Lancity Lance
Oh the hulancity

This argument really bothers me. DE have access to 2 anti tank ranged weapons, one is a lance and the other one is a short ranged lance. If we had ranged anti-tank like meltas, lascannons, ass cannons, and so on, there would not be as much spam.

Also DE are an alpha strike army, and to be a successful alpha strike army you need to have a lot of ranged fire power, the codex is designed around spam, the good players just take advantage of that.

I like running 3 squads of 30 boys with big shootas and nob with power claw.

Does that really make me a spammer?

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Redundancy is boring but it makes effective lists. That's why every DE list ever is like;

Troops:
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise
Lance guise

Heavy Support:
Lance
Lancity Lancity Lance
Oh the hulancity

Yo dawg, I herd yo lik redundancy...