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It looks to me that there are two dominant concepts in army building that inform every list:

List Synergy and Best Option Spam - Interdependence vs. independence

The shadow of this debate looms pretty heavily over the newcrons, but I'm seeing it's reflection in every competitive list.

To define my terms; list synergy specifically refers to the construction of a list that considers an army as a whole on the battlefield; Tyranids tend to play this way; using different units for different battlefield roles that work together well. Best option spam can refer to a specific unit (grey hunters in rhinos, purifiers in psybacks, veterans in chimera) or a specific piece of wargear (lascannon spam, lance spam, Missilespam); the plan being to focus as many points as possible into single stratagem.

We know that spam lists are effective. And sometimes just running 6 of the same unit and a 'best of whats left' is all you need. I'd like to know how this decision making process varies between players and armies. How do you build your list? Is interdependence a consideration, or do you shoot for independence? Do you use a best of the book approach or a 'these three units together do this' approach?

I personally use a mix of both. My personal (and favourite) example is Scythes for the Newcrons. I spam the hell out of the Tesla Destructors for several reasons:

- It's cheap.
- It comes on a very mobile chassis.
- It comes on a reasonably resilient model.
- S7 is good at knocking out most infantry AND light vehicles. Having as much as possible just makes sense.

But once this is done I look at what synergizes with it to make up for the potential weaknesses. In this case:

- FnP on T4 is a pain as are 2+ saves and multiple wound models.
- It's not great at popping AV12 or higher. Really need something else to specialize in that area

So when looking for somethig that covers these weaknesses it seems the obvious choices are Overlords on CC Barges, Doom Scythes and Deathmarks with attached HoDespair teks w/ Veils. Better anti-high AV and some units that specialize in dealing with resilient infantry models...All the while retaining the mobility of the original list.

I say spam as much as reasonably possible, but be sure to cover all your bases.

I play for synergy to the max. I'm sure my lists wouldn't stand up in a tournament vs. high-skill opponents, but I prefer to have interlocking roles that require me to adapt my plan on the fly, rather than firing the same weapon profile from each of my units at whatever happens to be closest to that unit. I don't think I've yet fielded more than two identical units ever.

I look more for list synergy than spam. I'm sick of spam myself, and I hate facing it game-in game-out. It's mindnumbingly boring to play against, likely not that much fun to use, it's lazy and smacks of being unable to actually learn the game and the true capabilities of any given codex. (congrats, you rolled 20+ shots of S8/ap2, what an absolute genius your are to have thought of that! )

I like my armies to be unique and offer a challenge to myself and to my opponent! Most of all, I like my games to tell a gripping story as its played out - win or lose I like to see the drama unfold as the tidee of war flow back and forth and epic duels are fought out between our little plastic toy soldiers!
Spam to me simple reeks whole-heartily of just wanting to win as fast as possible, with as little effort as possible... (seriously, how hard is it to pick targets when you've got 28 krak missiles a turn that can target 8 different enemy units?! )

I find it's far more gratifying to win or even play a close game with a list that most people would write off as 'crap' or 'below optimal set-up = suck'. When I want to actually make someone cry, I go play hockey where the rules allow me to physically assault them!

I think it depends a lot on what type of person you are, what type of game you want to play, and who your min opponents are.

If you want to win at all costs and play very competitively, then i tend to see a lot of 'optimal list' builds on armies. This means spamming the best unit for its roll and point cost. Such as lots of long fangs etc (as an example). Now, if playing against an opponent who has another list such as this, I suppose that the competition could be fierce by seeing who can out-cheese and out abuse the game and rules to make his/her army the most effective.

I personally play a list that I thematically LIKE and want to play. Of course, we all want our armies to do well but sometimes the "bad" choices are some of our personal favorite or most successful models. As a Dark Angels player i realized that my beloved Deathwing Ravenwing combo were considered very underpowered/useless in competitive play, but a player who really likes his models can do very well with them. This also brings up the idea of opponents.

I play my two best friends almost exclusively. We all construct armies that suit our play styles and the "fluff" feel we like to get from our armies. They may not be the most well organized or pints efficient, but when you opponenets are going for style and personal preference over "the numbers say so" type lists, then the games can be just as good (if not better and more 'realistic' as to what the actual 40k army would be comprised of). I go for what I feel is the best choice for what I want to get out of my army. This usually means strong units that are fun to play but can still do well on the field. Rarely will i get rid of a unit I like to take a "better" unit that I find very boring to use.

-VardenV2

This why I use many different units out of my primary Codex (IG), I like being able to say: "Yep, I use the Punisher/Griffon/Valkyrie/Hellhound/Platoon infantry etc" I don't like "power gaming", I only do in order to even sniff winning at my FLGS. Too many cookie cutter Guard, Space Wolves/Blood Angels and Grey Knight lists to count. Sure they're competitive, but their formulaic and bland.

I think that the dichotomy of synergy versus spam ultimately pares down to a single concept:

Efficiency.

Simply put, a more efficient army list makes it easier to win. Luck aside, the player with the best combination of skill and list efficiency (the knowledge plus the tools to succeed, if you will) will win. I'm not sure if skill and list efficiency are equally matched in that equation, but it doesn't really matter here.

Spammable units have efficiency built-in. Whether it's points efficiency, role efficiency, or some other factor, spammable units are spammable because they have inherent value. Long Fangs are spammable because they concentrate a ton of killing power into a small price tag and small footprint on the table. Night Scythes are spammable because they're a points-efficient way to gain tesla destructors, not to mention their speed or other little perks. Ork Shoota Boyz are spammable because they provide target saturation, as well as both volume of shooting and CC punch (with PK nob). Most of the time, these units combine a high point efficiency with other advantages.

List synergy creates efficiency at a tactical level, because individual units can be combined for a greater effect on the battlefield. Rough Riders, a wholly mediocre unit, can really shine when used to countercharge in an IG list. Flash Gitz are certainly overcosted and generally regarded as inefficient, but an army list built around them can actually work. Psyflemen, beyond being an inherently spammable unit, are a "must-have" because they also fill a range deficiency in the GK army, covering a major weakness. I feel like true list synergy is difficult to find, because a lot of what seems like synergy (taking Manticores and Vendettas in a Meltavet list) just ends up being a more meta level spam (in this case, AV12 spam).

I, personally, prefer lists with synergy to lists with spam, but once you get to a certain level of competitive play, synergy won't go the distance against armies that maximize efficiency through both spam and synergy (Purifiers/Psyflemen springs to mind).

I run a blend of these. I dont think that any truly good 'spam' list is just built around spam. The units have to synergize together very well. Wolf guard are very good, so are grey hunters, but you wouldnt run an army made up of only those 2. You have to have a very good blend of redundancy and synergy in order to win. An army built on spam has a low top end, and can be easily exploited at higher levels of play. An army built purely on synergy can fall apart rather quickly by someone with a very good sense of target priority and threat awareness. Ultimately I think lists that lean too much one way or the other are "noobslayers". They rely on either dazzling their opponent with too many different units, or overloading them with the same thing to do well.

At a high level your list needs to have units that synergize very well, as well as lots of redundancy. Not necessarily spamming things, but having enough of what you need. Armies that combine these with a good general at the helm are very hard to stop, and can dominate either high synergy or spam out the ears lists.

Roboute up above me hits the nail on head pretty well

Wow, so far everybody has entirely missed the point of "spam" lists. If you think that because a list that has duplicates of something that it must be winning because it's just taking the best units in the codex and then taking them (thus the list being powerful), you're not understanding why those lists work well.

The best lists are lists that have both spam and synergy. Without synergy, it doesn't matter what units you bring, your list will always be awkward and have HUGE holes in it. I mean, slugga boyz are one of the ork's best units, but an army of nothing but slugga boyz with a mandatory HQ would be pretty easy to counter. Meanwhile, without spam, your list has no durability, and poor reliability of killing power, which means that your opponents can target a key unit and completely shut down your ability to do something (like counter his list).

The best lists are ones that cover all your bases (use synergy) with multiple copies of the fewest different types of units possible (spam), regardless of if the units they chose are the "best" in their codex or not.

Yep, Roboute described it nicely.

The big weakness of synergy is that a skilled opponent will find the weakest link in your combo and neutralize it to break your synergy. After that it is probably downhill.

Spam gets a lot of heat and can be boring to play against, but you see it because it works and is usually very point efficient. GK with Coteaz and 6 squads of minimum henchmen in Psy Heavy Bolter Razorbacks is very cheap for the firepower and the number of MSU's that you get.

Ailaros wrote:
The best lists are ones that cover all your bases (use synergy) with multiple copies of the fewest different types of units possible (spam), regardless of if the units they chose are the "best" in their codex or not.

Except it's possible to cover multiple areas without spaming. My blood angels will have 2 assault squads, 1 death company, and 1 sang guard to give me close combat ability. Tank hunting will come from the storm raven, land speeder (2x multimelta), predator, scout bikers, and two razorbacks. Two dreadnoughts fill the mix roll of being decent at both.
It's not the most effective, but I have redundancy.

-Matt

Right, spam and synergy are not mutually exclusive

Symmetry, though, doesn't mean spam, running valuable units in pairs for survivability and saturation is pretty standard practice. I'm sure that if GK players were allowed to field two vindicare assassins, they'd be everywhere; but it doesn't mean you'd need to play 3.

And speaking of GK: This thread is making me realize MSU Purifier lists are effective because GK spam is synergistic, the entire army stays within each other's effective 24" range, vehicles provide overlapping 36" kill zone, covered by the 48" range of psyflenoughts, and your shooting units are your assault units so there's no need for focused squads. Purifier spam doesn't have to be smart, it just has to be used competently; that's why they can get away with a throwaway HQ like Crowe.

Strangely, Ork spam lists can be very synergistic as well, an ork example that I thought was pretty cool was a trukk rush list that spammed deffkoptas. I don't remember the exact composition, but it was a nasty list that used the cost effective deffkoptas as an alpha strike to pave the way for the now un-assailable trukks full of small but beastly CC squads.

I tend to agree though with the sentiment everyone here seems to be expressing, that I have more respect for a well crafted, creative, and synergistic list that loses - than a tournament winning army of 30 identical models led by two identical HQs.

We've seen synergy lists be insanely effective competitively as well, such as the famous 'leaf blower' list, which used ranks of close, medium, and long range units, elements of alpha strike, and both fire screens and mobile scoring units. Though most IG lists that I see now are just spam lists.

Is this just a phase of 40k? Are more robust and diverse lists inherently less competitive because they aren't isolating the most cost effective units in the codex and ctrl-v?

I tend to hear more and more dialog in regards to the rock to scissors to paper concept. I think this is a direct result of spam. I know from utilizing and testing a few spam lists myself that when they find their golden match-up they shine, but hit that one army and you get crushed if the dice don't favor you or you devise some miracle. I decided to revisit my days of synergy which were ironically being groomed when I was an adolescent and could not afford many models. As a result I would ask for many diverse models to be wrapped under my Christmas tree when that time came once a year rather then waking up one X-mas morning and unwrapping three ....rhinos?....blah....
Now I find it much more entertaining and dare I say more effective fielding an eclectic yet effective body of units that I can change my plans with on a whim as opposed to having one plan only which is smashing scissors and hoping nobody drops a sheet of paper over my beloved rock

I also find my opponents less capable of predicting my moves in future turns. Spam lists are not multi-dimensional and therefore have a predictability that can be exploited.

Every list has its nemesis regardless of whether you spam or rely on symmetry. I play a BA lists with 2x Libbie, 2x Priest, 1x Termie, 3x ASM, 2x Bikes and 2x Devastators. So I have some redundancy, i have a lot of different units on the table - six - but I have spmmed melta to an extent - 11 sources in the list. There lies its inherent weakness. If I cannot safely get within 6" of my target I'm in trouble. Even the Libbies Blood Lance often only fires 7"-8". So I added devastators to compensate but at 2000 points eight missiles are not that scary.

Now a tweaked tournament list would presumably spam more ASM and use four squads of ASM to combat squad. It would take at least 12 MLs as well ( 3 squads of devs). It might drop the libbies to take an HQ that could let them include a Sang Guard unit in the troops. That would be spamming the theme of DoA with ML back up. Now you will have more MLs and as much melta if you want it spread more evenly across your list.

Yet, i rather like the way my list plays regardless. I think you need to spam certain weapons more than certain units - eg., melta. In the henchmen list that is really what you are doing. You are trying to maximize your firepower and you spam because it is the cheapest way to do this.

junk wrote:Right, spam and synergy are not mutually exclusive

Exactly. The best lists do utilize both spam and synergy.

Symmetry, though, doesn't mean spam, running valuable units in pairs for survivability and saturation is pretty standard practice. I'm sure that if GK players were allowed to field two vindicare assassins, they'd be everywhere; but it doesn't mean you'd need to play 3.

In a world where Elites, FA and HS are each 3 units max, where does redundancy end and spamming begin? Is 2 Vendettas symmetry and 3 spamming? GKs certainly benefit from having a couple psyflemen around, but what happens when they run 4 or 5?

I don't necessarily see spam as a bad thing, particularly if it's a general principle like "AV 12 target saturation" rather than "Vendettas and Manticores and Meltavets are super awesome, I'm going to take as many as I can." Perhaps symmetry is a better word for intelligent spam ... but then we're getting into too many "s" words. Symmetry, spam and synergy? The 3 S's of List Building?

We've seen synergy lists be insanely effective competitively as well, such as the famous 'leaf blower' list, which used ranks of close, medium, and long range units, elements of alpha strike, and both fire screens and mobile scoring units. Though most IG lists that I see now are just spam lists.

Is this just a phase of 40k? Are more robust and diverse lists inherently less competitive because they aren't isolating the most cost effective units in the codex and ctrl-v?

I think you're conflating two different concepts here. "Diverse lists" are not the same as lists with synergy, and as Wildstorm mentioned, these lists have weak links that can be exploited. Lists with synergy may have redundancy or even spam, and can be stronger than the sum of their parts. Whether you're spamming Vendettas or Hellhounds, Manticores or Basilisks, or an eclectic mix of all of the above, getting a ton of AV12 on the table is sure to tax your opponent's anti-tank.

Netlists are definitely more spam than synergy, these days, but I think that's more a function of the Internet and human nature than anything else. People want a way to win consistently without having to rely on canny tactics. Lists with enough redundancy and synergy aren't any worse off than spammy lists in the hands of the right player.

Roboute FTW.

I didn't mean to suggest that diversity alone is a requirement for synergy. What I mean is that I see synergy as a a requirement for interdependent lists using the variety of options in a codex to the best of their ability rather than spam, which simply uses the best units independently, consistently, redundantly, together but independent.

A friend of mine presented me with a SM list that featured something like 24 lascannons. I thought it was funny, but then I realized how difficult it would be to actually beat with my favorite armies, and all he did was cram as many of the strongest gun avaialble into his list as he could. I'd have to work harder with my list to beat him than he would need to in order to beat me.

In my opinion, spamming is nothing without synergy. The best lists IMO are the ones that always take into account army synergy and chemistry. Now these synergistic armies do not necessarily have to be spammed, but if you understand how each unit interacts with every other unit in the army, then it could make for some very competitive armies. Take as examples, Ben Mohlie's vanilla space marines, Janthkin's tyranids, Reecius' footdar, Dash's BW orks and Blackmoor's Draigowing. Though they do have some redundancy, none of these players really spam their units. Their units just work well together and those players really know how to use them to maximum efficiency.

And then there are the spammed armies that have a great amount of synergy. Take for example, my Purifier-Psyfleman grey knights, which consists of Crowe, 2 vendreads, 2 regular dreads, 5 purifier units and 1 strike squad. Psyflemans take down tanks and protect the purifiers against more deadly assault units as well as provide psychic defense. Purifiers take down both infantry and tanks and they even protect dreads against tarpit units. Crowe takes care of uber-units that will just kill the troops and can tarpit hordes that will overrun the purifiers (yes, even with cleansing flame). Strikers will hunker down on objective and can defend it against non-assault-specialist units. They then give their ride to Crowe. Purifiers work together to take down enemy units.

DE venom-spam is another synergistic spam army. Take for example, mercer's venom-spam. Trueborns and ravagers deal with tanks. Venoms torrent infantry (and MC's as well). Beastpacks gobble up both and gives the army some offense, soaks up firpower and also provides counter-assault.

There are many other great synergistic spam armies, including BA razor-AV13-spam and SW long-fang-razor-spam. They work because each and every unit, whether it is spammed or not, has a role and purpose. And each and every unit supports each other. That is army synergy.

Of course synergy is a requirement in any list that has the goal of putting up a decent chance at victory. I think the question is more a fundamental one that looks at what route people take to put together a cohesive list. Synergy is required to some degree as is spamming in regards to weapon types. I think on a more general and obvious scale is where the difference lies.

Now, I have a SW missile/razor spam list myself that is solid and TAC, and surely I could make the case that it has synergy in that all the units utilize mobility or 48" range to cripple the enemy army, but that is a rather obvious observation. Of course there is synergy in regards to the lists offensive capabilities and also its present that I have chosen to take multiple light vehicles and long range weapons. But I have achieved this by spamming a few units in the book over and over. The list is very effective but also rather uninteresting and the battles usually play out like predictable reruns of an old sitcom.

Now, the antithesis to this army for me would be my Chaos SM list which has no two similar units. Though a different book, I played the against the very same builds my wolves faced while play testing for a RTT and I had glowing success. I dare say almost an easier time then with my "net list" wolves against the same types of armies.

This baffled me. I knew that redundancy is built in to spam builds to combat bad dice. The problem here is that dice are fickle and when you form stratagem based on numbers it tells you how things "should" go and you plan according to that basis. Usually this works which is why it is so popular. When it fails though, your whole plan comes crashing down. In an asymmetrical list like my CSM I had to plan multiple contingencies in my head in case things went poorly, this is what sparks ingenuity. That need can force you to make plays you would have never considered. A lot of the time I ended up finding unique plays that I could not have stumbled upon using a simple spam list. Now I was writing new plays instead of reusing old plays.

I am not saying that this proves/disproves anything in regards to which produces better results but I find it more interesting now playing non-spammed lists because the games become more unique and less replicable and still just as winnable IMO.

I think spamming above a certain threshold certainly creates limitations. As a couple of examples take my initial Scythe spam list that I started with. 3 Doom Scythes, 5 Night Scythes, 2 Overlords on CC Barges and 25 Warriors. A strong list to be sure but then I theoryhammered it out with a friend and found that if he ran his BA list with lots of FnP on T4 3+ save models my Tesla Destructors don't really play a part and having so many points invested in them would make it a rough game. Hence it changed to include the Deathmarks and make the list a bit more TAC.

The same could be said for Purifiers backed up with Dreads. It is a great TAC list, but run up against multiple Landraiders or spammed AV13 and you will see them struggle. It's one of the reasons I never went full Purifiers with my GK's.

I guess the threshold varies upon lists, armies and points, but once you cross it you invariably end up forfeiting certain match-ups in favour of a better results in others.

I think that is what makes building a TAC list so interesting. You try to plan for every contingency and do your best to balance your own playstyle vs the local meta game vs having at least something that should fill a role or at least a tactic to minimize the effects of a bad matchup.

I've gone up against 3 LR builds before and really got canned with my purifiers due to some poor hammer rolls, lucky long range pens vs dreads, and dedicated cc units getting into my face without much else I can do to bring them low.

On the synergy side of things, I'm using a fatecrusher list now a days for fun and I quite enjoy the synergy but I definately feel the lack of spam in the list has alot of holes and while it is diverse cause I like certain models due to fluff reasons, it looses quite often and it does get somewhat disheartening after you go 1 - 5-1 and even had very good turns and not too many deep strike accidents. So while it's a definate change from my MSU purififers and IG gun lines, I'm struggling to find a way to make it consistently competitive but it could just be the codex itself.