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What is the difference between a spam list and a horde list? Isn't the idea of both to field lots of the same thing? Except that "Horde" has a positive connotation and "Spam" has a negative one. Discuss.

From what I've observed, Horde is in reference with large amounts of cheap infantry (see Orks, Nids, Guard), while Spam usually refers to non-infantry units.

Exampels:
3x3 vendettas = Spam
40x2 orc boyz = Horde

A spam list spam's one unit that is not a troops choice, that is especially good/overpowered/undercosted for it's cost.

A horde list is an army that naturally has low point's cost's, and as such it relies on using as many bodies as possible, rather than condensing all their points into small but powerful units.

A Spam list would be something like necron's using 6 nightsythes and minimal everything else.

A horde list would be an ork army that uses 6 30 man boy'z squad's, at the expence of having no heavy gun's, e.x

The spam list abuses one unit that is fantastic, the horde list tries to overwhelm the opponent in sheer numbers of units that could not be considered strong on their own, but get their strength through numbers

"horde" is just a synonym for "foot list". A horde ork player, for example, will have plenty of troops, but will also likely have elite choices like lootas, or a guard horde might have stormtroopers or ogryn. Really, the horde idea comes from the fact that you have 100+ models on the table, and your strategy involves sacrificing force concentration for better durability and field position.

"spam" merely refers to taking more than one (often many) of a single type of unit. Spamming things is good because it makes your army more streamlined, more simple (complexity is often a very bad thing), and comes with the benefit of redundancy.

As such, it is possible to spam things in a horde army (like mobs of boyz, for example), but spamming things does not make an army a horde army (for example, taking 5 leman russes in a single army list).

Soooooo...

Someone just said I was spamming Grey Hunters. Grey Hunters are troops. Infantry. Shouldn't that be hording grey hunters?

Horde = an army with a lot of infantry models (usually cheap light infantry like guardsmen/boyz/etc) that depends on quantity over quality to win the game. A horde army's goal is to bring hundreds of infantry models and overwhelm you with sheer numbers.

Spam = an army that brought more copies of a unit than your personal standard for what is "fair" or "fluffy".

Grugknuckle wrote:Grey Hunters are troops. Infantry. Shouldn't that be hording grey hunters?

Only if you were bringing 60 of them in a list that otherwise contained a bunch of infantry models.

Spamming is something you can do to a unit. Hoarding is a type of list with a certain strategy.

Spamming just means you have "a lot" of the same unit. The more attractive and less derogatory term is "redundancy". Either way you slice it, spamming is not an attempt to overwhelm the enemy with the number of MODELS, just to overwhelm them with a certain unit TYPE.

For example, "Heavy Bolter Spamming" was what Stelek says is the "only" way to win with Sisters of Battle, using their three units of Retributors and Rending Heavy Bolters. While its bollox, that's an example of spamming something.

I'm not even sure why people care to give it a name since, if you have a unit that's good enough to take three of, well... maybe you should? Who knows.

Hordes are an attempt to simply give the enemy too many things to kill, so that victory is assured through sheer tenacity and sticking power. This requires no duplication of most units to do, so its just usually the 120+ model type armies.

That's my take.

They're not even close.

"Horde" is an army made mostly of low value, usually inexpensive units. Ork Boyz, Guardsmen, Gaunts...

"Spamming" is fielding lots of a single powerful unit or weapon. Like, 5 Land Raiders or 6 Night Scythes.

While "horde" armies are designed to play that way, "spamming" is a deliberate tactic by the player.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, for the record, I don't think spamming is "unfluffy" (pretty much every army config I can think of is supported by the fluff in some way or another) or indicative of being WAAC or something.

Here is the easiest way to tell for me. When you look at an opponents army and say:

"Wow that's a lot of infantry units." (Probably a horde)

"Wow that's a lot of purifier's." (probably a spam list)

Wow, you want to bring the heat - Spam

Wow, you obviously want to lose - Horde

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
While "horde" armies are designed to play that way, "spamming" is a deliberate tactic by the player.

That's not really true. Orks can do green tide, but they can also do meganobz in battlewagons and other elite units. Playing them as a horde army is a deliberate tactic by the player, just like playing Necrons as flyerspam is a deliberate tactic.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
While "horde" armies are designed to play that way, "spamming" is a deliberate tactic by the player.

That's not really true. Orks can do green tide, but they can also do meganobz in battlewagons and other elite units. Playing them as a horde army is a deliberate tactic by the player, just like playing Necrons as flyerspam is a deliberate tactic.

Yes, perhaps I should have clarified that. After all, it's not that you can take just two squads of grots to fill in the mandatory FOC slots and call it a day, or that spamming Scythes or Razorbacks or whatever is against the rules.

I wanted to say that those two terms are community lingo that applies to different aspects of the game: By saying "IG is a horde army" you're saying that the Guard relies mostly on low-cost, low-value troop choices. On the contrary "IG Autocannon spam" alludes to a list that tries to max out on a single unit or weapon. One refers to the general design or "feel" of the faction, the other descends to tactics and listbuilding.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
By saying "IG is a horde army" you're saying that the Guard relies mostly on low-cost, low-value troop choices.

But that also isn't true. IG have a horde option, but IG can also play as an elite army with veterans in Chimeras/Vendettas and lots of tanks. You can only describe IG as a horde army when you're talking about a specific list-building choice, just like you talk about spam armies that are list-building choices.

Touchè

Still, I don't think the word "spam" as used by the community always bears a negative connotation. It is derisive in origin and frequently used to decry lists perceived as exploitative, but not necessarily so: Back in 5th ed you'll see players talking about their armies as "venom spam" or "trukk spam" when even under 5th such vehicles were hardly the best in the game - those players were simply pointing out that they try to max out on what they perceived was a relative advantage.

"Horde" is quite unambiguous: Lots of cheap, individually weak, expendable troop options - spamming low-value troops if you wish. As for "Spam", I'd say its meaning and intent largely depend on context.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
As for "Spam", I'd say its meaning and intent largely depend on context.

The 'context' of a spam list is the point at which your personal opinion of how many of a unit is too many is breached, which tends to vary from person to person.

Taking three 10 model Termagant squads, backed by three Tervigons, is generally considered hording, despite being three minimum sized squads backed by three powerful monstrous creatures, due to the perceived nature of how powerful they are. Taking four Rhino mounted Grey Hunter squads is considered spamming, due to the perceived nature of how powerful they are.

Even in the same army, the 'lots of cheap, individually weak models' clarification doesn't work. Four large squads of foot slogging Ork Boyz is considered hording. Those same Boyz in smaller squads in Trukks or Battlewagons would be considered spamming - there's still 40 Orks there, which is definitely a lot, but they're mounted, so are perceived to be better, thus get tagged as 'spammy'.

right, because it's the foot-based nature that makes a horde army a horde army.

That said, I've seen orks spam buggies+killa kanz+etc. to the point where you could almost say they brought a vehicle horde.

Grugknuckle wrote:Soooooo...

Someone just said I was spamming Grey Hunters. Grey Hunters are troops. Infantry. Shouldn't that be hording grey hunters?

I wouldn't call that spamming, it's almost necessary to take a lot of troops in 6th and you only have 2 to choose from, the fantastic Grey Hunters and mediocre Blood Claw.

Also I hate that spam has a negative connotation. Most efficient armies in the fluff will spam the same units, because it keeps logistics reasonable.

Yeah, I've never understood why some people think that "one of everything" armies are fluffy. Maybe it's just that I'm a guard player, but a fluffy army to me is one that's made up of more or less one unit, with perhaps a second from a different company/regiment in the same broader army "allied" in.

 Ailaros wrote:
right, because it's the foot-based nature that makes a horde army a horde army.

No, that makes it a footslogging army as opposed to a mechanised army.

People tend to interchange 'horde' and 'spam'. Horde is when there's lots of the same model but it's not at the tipping point where it annoys them, where their classification changes to being an annoying 'spam' army. A horde army just needs to have a lot of models, mounted or not, which tends to end up being the same units as well.

But there are non-horde footslogging armies. You can run a deathwing and call it a foot list, but you couldn't really call it a horde list.

 -Loki- wrote:
People tend to interchange 'horde' and 'spam'.

Not really. Spam always refers to taking many copies of a particular unit/type of unit, while horde always refers to playing an army with a very high model count (regardless of what units are used to create the horde). They are two completely different concepts, and putting them on some kind of scale makes about as much sense as saying there's some kind of tipping point between a mech army and a yellow army.

To me, spam armies come in two flavors:

- Taking 3+ of a given unit that the list is built to work around.
or
- Filling a list with as many of a given weapon/wargear/model as possible

I don't think spam lists by themselves are a bad thing, but they can be boring to play/play against sometimes. I think overall you should take at least doubles of a unit when you can.

Horde armies will generally have several infantry units of 15+ models each. These don't necessarily have to be the same type of unit.

You can have a mix of the two, such as the previously mentioned green tide list. 6x units of 30 boys is both spam and horde...and is a nightmare for my MSU crons

6 30 man squads backed with lots seems to be the only way in my meta to have a shot at wining though. Between all the thousand suns psykic powers and tau if I don't made out my boys I usually get shot off the board by turn 3.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
Oh, for the record, I don't think spamming is "unfluffy" (pretty much every army config I can think of is supported by the fluff in some way or another) or indicative of being WAAC or something.

Funny thing is the closest example I have of this is this.
I ran a MSU list of purifiers and the guy laughed and said. There are only like 20 purifiers at any given time and they all showed up to the same battle against the orks. I had a good El Oh El and commenced cleansing flaming him off the board.

Another warboss that happens to be the Changeling in disguise

When I think horde armies I think orcs, Nids with lots of gaunts, Necrons (now better horde capability with ghost arks supporting).

They just have that "horde" feel to them. You know?

It really is comparing apples to oranges.

Horde, is the opposite of elite, and is a measure of model count. How many troops you have on the table. Green tide 150+ boyz on the table, opposed to Draigowing with a dozen terminators.

Spam, is the opposite of diverse, and is a measure of how many different types of options from your codex you use. If I take 3xauto/las predators, I'm spamming them. If I take a pred, a vindi, and a dev squad, I have a deverse selection of HS picks. Spamming can also be done on the war gear/upgrade selection level. Spamming plasma, or missiles. Repetition is the key defining feature.

Spamming has a negative connotation. You pick the best thing you can and take it as often as you can. It can lead to some one dimensional lists that are less then fun to play against. But it is also the cornerstone of a lot of fluffy theme lists, so it not just the realm of the competitive player. It is a loaded word, so context means a lot.