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Unless, of course, their anti-horde is their large blasts from their artillery/tanks.

Spam = redundancy.
Redundancy = efficient
efficient = good.

Melissia wrote:Unless, of course, their anti-horde is their large blasts from their artillery/tanks.

Ya, well, that's just another reason why I hate Guard with every fiber of my being.

kill dem stunties wrote:Spam = redundancy.
Redundancy = efficient
efficient = good.

That's an interesting conclusion. Tell me, how did you go from redundancy to efficiency?

I would argue the opposite. Redundancy is a failsafe. It does not automatically equal efficiency - in fact, often quite the opposite.

Redundancy sacrifices versatility. In certain situations, lack of versatility robs you of efficiency - you end up having to bash your way through the problem using your redundant forces.

See what I did there?

40k tabletop is a game of chance.

You cannot have true 100% efficiency.

Therefor, you maximize your efficiency by giving yourself more chances to succeed. One way to do this is by choosing the stronger, more powerful unit-- deathstar armies, herohammer armies (ugh), etc., which focus on a few hard-hitting units that always do a lot of damage. Another way to do this is by having a lot of cheaper unit-- redundancy, rolling a lot of dice and therefor tending towards an average that allows you to do damage.

Fail-safes are actually one of the most important parts of an efficient setup. If an attempt can fail, a failsafe reduces the harm the failure does. Because almost everything has a chance of failure for some reason or other, having no failsafe is inefficient.

But as has been said, should the redundancy you seek come in the form of multiple copy pasted units, such as 3x maxed out Las cannon Devastators, or one set of Devastators, a Predator and a Land Speeder?

Those both broadly fill the same roles in different ways, but one is more flexible overall, at least in my opinion.

A redundant or spammed list is easier to control and harder to counter as it is usually more uniform in composition and can provide a uniform level of threat. The former preventing your opponent from countering your positioning in a way that threatens you and the latter preventing your opponent from countering your positioning in a way that reduces your ability to kill them.

This is taken further in that having multiple units of certain types greatly helping your survivability.

A list that contains many different units can be effective and usually increases the odds of having a unit that is an effective counter to your opponents list. Unfortunately this also increases the chances of having an ineffective counter unit.

This could also be applied to spammed lists but generally the units chosen to be spammed (such as Vindicators) are effective against most of the major unit types (GEQ MEQ TEQ MC light/heavy tanks), other units (such as Melta Vets) are extremely effective at their role (especially roles such as anti tank that are so needed) and can be covered by other units that are very or extremely effective at the roles not covered by these units. (such as Guard artillery)

The non spammed lists can also suffer from the reverse of the advantages listed in the first paragraph, more difficult to control, easier to counter through positioning (offensively and defensively) and a lack of survivability in the units you need to counter your opponent.

This is not necessarily always true, non spammed lists can definitely be effective but in general it appears to me that a spammed list gains quite a few advantages.

Also just for future reference, how hard it was to make your list has little bearing in discussions about how good a list is, so the appearance of simply copy pasting doesn't mean much. What it does have bearing on is how much effort your opponent appeared to put into their list, but the reason we generally care about that is because we want to face an effective list/opponent, if the list is strong it doesn't matter if they copy pasted.

@GMR
Whenever these redundancy vs spam arguments pop up I usually see an argument very similar to the one you put up,

...should the redundancy you seek come in the form of multiple copy pasted units, such as 3x maxed out Las cannon Devastators, or one set of Devastators, a Predator and a Land Speeder?

As such I thought I would put up a more specific counter argument to it.

3x Las Cannon Devastators have less overall mobility and thus rely on fields of fire more than the alternative you posted but are much more survivable and provide a similar level of killing power. A major reason units are spammed is to overload an opponents ability to deal with what they need to eliminate. 3x Devastators means that the only effective fire at first is long range, anti MEQ fire that needs to get through ablative wounds before reducing firepower. With Devastators a Predator and a Land Speeder the above firepower has a target and the opponents anti light armor guns along with anti heavy armor guns get targets as well. The effects of having a few different types of guns are further addressed in paragraph 3. It is useful to have different guns but it is not always a positive.

If your doing it its redundancy.
If they're doing it it's spam

@H3ct0r

I do understand the ideas behind what everyone's calling 'spam', I know why it's done and I don't necessarily disagreee.

I suppose the question really is whether it's fun to fight this sort of thing, it tends to promote a sort of arms race of multi-unit one-upmanship, at least in my experience.

For instance I was playing against a list of Space Wolves with 3 long fang units, and on the first game my Tyranids got slaughtered by them, no real surprise though. I was fighting the same guy again and I took multible units of Ymgarl genestealers and beat him, next game he made a point of taking enough small groups to occupy all the buldings that the Ymgarls would be most dangerous from, he won that game, next time I took multiple drop podding termagants instead and won that, etc, etc.

I mean this isn't going to happen all the time, but its just an example where this kind of gameplay can take you.

Again I don't really know where I stand on this issue, like I said I understand it, it even makes sense from certain tactical perspectives, the real question is how much enjoyment will you and you're opponent get from it?

GMR wrote:But as has been said, should the redundancy you seek come in the form of multiple copy pasted units, such as 3x maxed out Las cannon Devastators, or one set of Devastators, a Predator and a Land Speeder?

Those both broadly fill the same roles in different ways, but one is more flexible overall, at least in my opinion.

That depends on the army, but overall I would say that quite frequently the copy-pasted units are better.

Consider, for example, a Sisters list: Your heavy support choices are Penitent Engines (expensive open topped 11/11/10 walkers with Rage), Retributors (expensive heavy weapons squad with HBs and/or MMs), or Exorcists (the single long-ranged anti-tank and best armor in the codex). The army does not need heavy bolters as much as it needs Exorcists. So most of the best lists take the full three. Even if you do not consider that they are often the primary targets of enemy anti-tank, Exorcists fire D6 shots, and therefor the more you have the more reliably you can deal damage. And there's not really any upgrades you can give them that benefit them.

Orks suffer from something similar. What if you want a footslogging Orks list? Well, that means you're more likely than not going for four to six identical squads as you have no options. Same with Tyranids. Even Marines, why would you risk only having two missile launchers and two meltaguns? There's only a 2/3rds chance of each one to hit, and then they have to penetrate and do damage afterwards.

There are a lot of valid opinions and interpretations and I would like to add something that people might be missing or confusing spam/redundancy with WAAC gamers and min maxers. A lot of people can safely say they've played less than enjoyable game against a WAAC player with a min maxed list such as hose guard or lash template spam (and before any *tactical genius* mentions the obvious, yes there is always a way to win against these lists)

I will also go through some definitions as I interpret things. Having Redundancy in a list is good merit as you want multiple units to fulfil a purpose in order to eliminate the scenario where a player’s sole anti tank unit is destroyed. Redundancy is often achieved via players equipping multiple units to achieve that role such as equipping all tac marines with a missile launcher and having dreds, preds, devastators etc so multiple units can fulfil an anti tank role

Spamming is another form of redundancy used, often seen in a green tide or tyranid swarm scenario. This often involves the use of multiple copies of the same unit in order to overpower or overwhelm the opponent. In this strategy, spamming a unit makes it harder for an opponent to eliminate a threat unit, allowing the player a greater chance of using on or more of using these units in their optimal role. In the case of orks and tyranids which are designed to play with a weight in numbers/bucket of dice strategy by GW, a player will generally try to have as many bodies in their armies due to their troops being fragile. This essentially gives an opponent too many units to deal with, allowing the ork/tyranid player to move them into CC and hopefully defeat the opponent. This is generally seen as a valid strategy by most players.

In some cases, spamming such as this can be seen as unimaginative, such as a Blood Angels player running an entire army of melta, fist jump pack troops. While running a BA army such as this is a valid strategy, along with its inherent strengths and weaknesses that may be apparent, it is viewed as being boring by some players.

Spamming can also be seen as being unsportsmanlike by some players when multiple copies of a powerful unit or combo are used. An example of this can be seen in a CSM army, where a player has 2 LOS HQs and as many heavy damage template units (such as Oblits, Defilers, Vindicators) that he can fit in. Often a spamming of this type can only be countered by either exploiting a key weakness (such as heavy psychic defence in the CSM example) or having a large amount of redundancy (such as having a large amount of anti tank capable units when facing mech spam guard). It can be noted that spamming key units can be seen as a valid strategy amongst some players and is possibly only an issue when a WAAC player is involved.

Anyway thanks for reading this wall of text. I would like to point out that these are just definitions and interpretations. Personally I have no problem with armies like green tide, tyranid swarm or jump pack spam BA. I however do think there is some merit to the spam argument when facing a WAAC player or a douche (but this is to be expected in a tournament scenario). I will also say that not every player that uses spam is a WAAC player or a douche. A WAAC player, TFG or a douche can only be classified through real life interactions with the player and not preliminary judgements on their 40k army list.

Just Dave wrote:I'd argue that Elitism is that, and the belief that you must be right and that those who oppose this belief are either ignorant and or/wrong or ("worth less than nothing")

To me, that is Elitism.

I never said anyone is worth less than nothing-- do not put words in my post that are not there. I have said that only about their opinions on that particular subject. Similar to if I said "your opinion that the sky is made of pancakes is without merit".

If you do not believe that opinions can be wrong, then I shall hold the opinion that the sky is made of pancakes. And I must be right, after all opinions cannot be wrong! Mmmm. Delicious, tasty pancakes. That is the real reason people want to fly. To visit the pancake farms. So let us go visit the great pancake in the sky. Or rather, the pancake we CALL the sky. Mmmmmmm, pancakes.

Yes.


edit: So, back on topic we go (for the second time?). When an Ork player uses six identical troops choices, people cry (in more ways than one) "spam" immediately. Even though this is actually quite fluffy and the intent of the codex even. If one is to define spam this way, then I would say there is nothing wrong with spam (though I disagree that it exists at all still).

Melissia has this one right I believe. So called "spam" can indeed be quite fluffy. Someone mentioned earlier that spam in an Eldar list would not be fluffy. Well a true fluffy Ulthwe force would be almost all guardians and a seer council with maybe a couple of supporting units. Spam? Fluff? Pancakes?

This topic was covered a while back in a thread started by Deadshane1. Hollisman Arbitorian and a few others make good headway into describing the difference between spamming and redundancy. It also does a good job of discussing why you usually look for redundancy but not spam in an all-comers list. This is because you are looking for a variety of tools to use against a variety of lists and taking more than what you need to get a particular job done means points wasted that could be used to make your list stronger in other areas.

Here is the thread:http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/253157.page


Hope this helps,

later

@Melissia

I have to concede that point, certain armies can't really be described as "spamming", since they only have a limited pool of viable units. Necrons for example, and as you say SoB.

And pancake sky? I wish you'd been in charge when the Earth was being built, we'd all be a lot happier. Or just fat.

Back on topic though, in older codices, certain choices were 0-1 selections, some still are, why would that have been done except to stop people using multiples of that type? Also, the whole force organisation chart is geared towards forcing you into taking a more varied list, since you can't just take whatever you like.

The best I can say on this argument is that it comes down to personal opinion and playstyle. I think more relaxed, casual gamers are going to define any repetition of units as spam, whereas for a more dedicated tournament player, no list can be inherently spammy because it has a better chance of winning and is therefore more logical.

Melissia wrote: do not put words in my post that are not there.

Once again, I'm smelling irony...

but yes, back on topic.


To me, there is a thin line between spam and redundancy and this thin line is - IMHO - contextual/subjective. To me it is how or why someone multiplies a unit that makes it spam or redundancy.
Eg. Multiplying for efficiency/fail safe. OR Multiplying because surely it's GR8888 and therefore should be taken loadsa times. I'm looking at you 30 TH/SS termies.

Whether he intended to or not, GMR just brought up an interesting point - force organization charts.

How can anyone say that spam is unfluffy when the force organization chart makes it so?

Is it unusual for a Space Marine strike force to have six squads of Tactical marines, two squads of Devastators, and two squads of Assault marines? Some people would say a force like that is spamming Tac marines... maybe even spamming Assault marines, but that part is debatable.

I say it's what an actual in-universe Space Marine strike force would look like. Sixty Tactical marines, ten Devastators, and twenty Assaults. Sounds fluffy to me.

I would rather face the most powerful list my opponent could field, just because someones list is hard doesn't make them TFG.

I don't like seeing weird lists when i play, then i have to rework mine, or play a different army so the game is fun. Not sayin the games arent fun, i just wanna play the best they have.

kill dem stunties wrote:I would rather face the most powerful list my opponent could field, just because someones list is hard doesn't make them TFG.

I don't like seeing weird lists when i play, then i have to rework mine, or play a different army so the game is fun. Not sayin the games arent fun, i just wanna play the best they have.

If playing a diverse or mixed army throws you off and forces you to rework your own army list in an attempt to counter mine, I'd say that's the very definition of playing the most powerful list I could field.

If playing a "spam" list is something you're used to me (the other player) doing and is something you're good at countering, then the spam list becomes the less powerful one.

SaintHazard wrote:I say it's what an actual in-universe Space Marine strike force would look like. Sixty Tactical marines, ten Devastators, and twenty Assaults. Sounds fluffy to me.

Make it twenty Devastators and I'd agree. That's pretty much the most fluffy Space Marine army you can have, straight out of the Codex Astartes.

Its not an attempt to counter yours, its an attempt to give you a sporting chance ... lol if you take horde orks you arent going to like facing my ig ... that kind of thing.

kill dem stunties wrote:Its not an attempt to counter yours, its an attempt to give you a sporting chance ... lol if you take horde orks you arent going to like facing my ig ... that kind of thing.

So... what you're saying is that no matter what the army list looks like, if it's not the most powerful, WAAC-driven army conceivable, you'll beat it easily?

Okay, we'll go with that then.

Whether you think spam is good, bad, or neutral, the term is applied to lists with copies of exactly or nearly identical units. Redundancy is more usually used as the term for having multiple ways to deal with threats. Thus, spamming is a form of redundancy.

Spamming is a pretty natural consequence of 5th edition. Before, armies generally min/maxed: taking the least amount of bad stuff (troops) and the most amount of good stuff (non-troops). 5th edition has opened that up in a lot of ways. Modern codexes have more and better troops choices, troops are a crucial part of scoring strategy, and most modern codexes have spread good units into more FOC slots, for things like Baals and Vendettas being Fast Attack, etc.

Couple those factors with the need in any non-xenos list for melta guns (as nearly the only top notch anti-tank), and spamming is a pretty inevitable result.

Not all great lists rely on spamming, if you look at the leaf blower list there isn't much repetition. There is a high amount of redundancy, however.

I take 2 manticores and a lrbt as heavys in most of my ig lists ...vendettas and mass chimera spam can handle everything that 2d3 str10 ap4 large blast cover ignoring shots a turn, alongside a str8 large blast cant .... you can take 180 boyz and theyll all be dead turn 2-3 depending on how the d3s go ... With emperors tarot from inq i have a better chance of going first than you, if you dont deploy you come in piecemeal from officer of the fleet, either way you die a messy crater filled death.

To avoid that ill run tyranids or something and not make a new list, but go and just pick a random one of the like 200 variations of tyranid lists i have saved on army builder rosters so we both have fun.... i dont list tailor, thats for lamers.

manticores don't ignore cover. In the IG book, only template (flamer) weapons, the eradictor, and the colossus ignore cover saves.

personally I think that unless a list is being played at a tournament, or in preparation for a tournament, that people should play w40k for what it is- a game.

not even drawing a line between redundancy and spam, if you take six minimum squads in razor backs because you love razor backs, the concept of razor backs, and everything about them, then thats fine and dandy.

If you take 6 min max razor back squads so you can beat peoples faces into the dirt and punish them for using a "fun list" which isn't geared for super competitive play... thats generally not being sporting.

not everybody is going to want to play in the shadow of a tournament all the time. Yes it is fun to send your best list against somebody elses and see what happens, but some times its fun to take the old swooping hawks out of the foam and let them fly around dropping grenade packs because its fun.

I think state of mind is important more than anything in these situations. Maybe you shouldn't take a top tier min maxed army to play against somebodies fluffy Iyanden wraithost, or somebody who has converted beautiful models that may not be ultra competitive but uses them because of the converting opportunity they posed.

On the flip side, I could see myself being irked if I built a fluffy or fun list based on models and sculpts I liked and I was staring down the barrel of a top tier min maxed redundant tournament army licking its teeth before it smugly tears me apart. I might slip up and do something silly like call it spam

While I agree with that, I'm not sure it's relevant. I think making the assertion "people should tailor list power to their situation" is roughly as bold a moral assertion as "apartheid was wrong."

On the other hand, tossing out words like "fluffy" and "fun" show that the theory has some missing peices. Is a green tide unfluffy or unfun? Fun for who? What fluff?

Iyanden Wraithhosts can and do win tournaments, see reecius's foot eldar list. It's definitely not weak, and I'm not sure it's amazingly fun to play against.

well. think about this.

squads in our wars have the same equipment, same training. the only thing that changes is their numbers and battalions.

what are you complaining about? theres nothing wrong with spam.

Polonius wrote:While I agree with that, I'm not sure it's relevant. I think making the assertion "people should tailor list power to their situation" is roughly as bold a moral assertion as "apartheid was wrong."

On the other hand, tossing out words like "fluffy" and "fun" show that the theory has some missing peices. Is a green tide unfluffy or unfun? Fun for who? What fluff?

Iyanden Wraithhosts can and do win tournaments, see reecius's foot eldar list. It's definitely not weak, and I'm not sure it's amazingly fun to play against.

You are correct in that. In my defense, I was making a broad assertion that generally something that is fluffy is not going to be super competitive, due to an added impulse to take certain units that may not be optimal. A gross overstatement to be sure.

I think however, that we can agree that even while there are thin lines in the examples that I provided- there are still competitive lists, and non competitive lists. Yes a non competitive list can win a tournament, especially local tournaments where a stellar player can do alot with a non optimal list (but he and his list likely won't win GT or something). Player ability is a big part of 40K, and nobody will ever deny that.

I merely assert that its not fair to place non competitive lists built for fun against competitive lists. Especially if the player with the competive player is fielding the list with the intention to see how quickly he can whipe the other players face across the floor. Yes it will be very vindicating if the under dog wins, but thats only because we like watching underdogs win, and doesn't change the sportsmanship of the match at all.

At the end of the day I think intentions are where the line should be drawn. If both players want to set thier finest efforts against eachother than WAAC is obviously the only way, and that will almost certainly mean unit redundancy (aka spam). once again though, its the intent of both players to play that. I really think this whole debate boils down to sportsmanship. I imagine that somebody claiming spam instead of redundancy is implying that thier opponent is not being sporting- yes they may often be mistaken, yes they may often be whining, but that doesn't mean they are always wrong. If the other party's intent is to punch a kick-around list in the nuts with a tournament class one... that is rather un sporting don't you think.

I agree on the competitive/non-competitive argument. What I find fault in is linking competitiveness in any way to fluff. Theme can sometimes be a stronger indicator of weakness, but even then we tend to only call weak lists with a strong theme "themed."

Don't be afraid of calling a beautifully painted, incredibly fluffy and well themed list very powerful. Look at horde orks!

Keep the concepts separate.