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Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.

Redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the case of a backup or fail-safe.



When designing an army, which playstyle do you lean to? Do you tend to spam units to insure that some of what you want to happen will inevitibly get through, or do you look for how two different units will work together to give a maximized result?

My Snergy is Redundant

There's not much synergy in 40k except for the new codexes. egg necrons with veil of darkness and the stormlord.

However such synergies aren't usually reliable so redundancy eg take 5 autocannons when you only need 4, is better as its more likey to give you the 'average' outcome.

Redundant synergy seems to work best.

Generally, synergy is what I lean to. I started Dark Eldar and Necrons recently because they play to this style.

Generally, synergy in 40K does not yield enough pay-off to make the risk of it being dismantled worthwhile over the alternative of redundancy.

Indeed, the few good examples of synergy creating more than the sum of its parts (e.g. Lash + Templates in Chaos 4.0) have been so maligned by the player-base, that I've come to believe the majority prefers redundancy over syngergy, simply because syngergy APPEARS to be unfair WHEN it works (and the cases it doesn't work are usually ignored) while redundancy gives you a fairly stable expection not only as player, but perhaps more importantly, as the one playing against it.

The result are the very spam-heavy/friendly books we have now, most notably Space Wolves (Long Fangs, Grey-Hunter Razors) and Dark Eldar (Ravager, Venom-MSU) which run almost entirely of target saturation to the point that any form of cross-unit thinking/brains/strategy outside the MSU isn't even required anymore.

My armies are incredibly redundant.

It depends on the army. Most xeno codex have specialised units (like lootas or fire dragons) and require several different kinds in order to cover all your bases amd other unit's weakness. Imperial armies allow you to fit out your squads with whatever, so it's more common to see the same stuff over an over (I shouldn't even have to mention melta spam...)

Luke_Prowler wrote:It depends on the army. Most xeno codex have specialised units (like lootas or fire dragons) and require several different kinds in order to cover all your bases amd other unit's weakness. Imperial armies allow you to fit out your squads with whatever, so it's more common to see the same stuff over an over (I shouldn't even have to mention melta spam...)

I agree. For example with DE it is all about redundancy. I am using 12 vehicles and every single one has more to take its role when (not if) it blows up. That is how it works when you are an evil elf in a paper airplane.

When I play Nids there is never more than two of a unit at 2K. I need all the abilities of the different models to make the army work. Because of their ability to by in synergy things are survivable and it doesn't matter that I only have one of things because I know they will last a few turns.