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Hi folks

The gaming club is running a 40k campaign with parameters set to prevent spam occuring.

I sadly cant make part of the team but it made me think that some army lists (particularly IG) will resemble spam at some point.

I have

CCS, 2 x Plas guns + Centaur

DKOK engineers, Heavy flamer, plas gun + MB, Centaur x 4

DKOK grenadiers, 2 x MG, Centaur x 2

Thats 7 x centaurs with MSU's - is this spam? i gathered it wasa fluffy awesome looking list that is far from OP but nevertheless whats your thoughts?

There is no such thing as "too much spam". People just generalize "taking too many of an overpowered unit and making a list that is too good for the people you're playing with" into "taking lots of one thing regardless of how powerful it is", and that's a ridiculous position to hold. Spam only becomes a problem if the thing you're spamming is overpowered and having that many overpowered things in your list makes the game stop being fun for your opponents. If you're spamming something like small infantry squads in fragile transports then you have nothing to worry about. The only complaints you'll get are from the TFGs who whine and cry if you don't play exactly the list they want you to play, and those people aren't worth dealing with at all.

Of course I should also point out that your example list isn't very good. Centaurs are extremely fragile and 5-man infantry squads die almost as fast. You probably want to take some larger squads, or ally in some more durable troops (a codex blob squad isn't bad). And I'm assuming this is only part of your list and you have the artillery/tanks/whatever as well, but if not you're really not taking advantage of the things the DKoK list has to offer.

they are just a small portion of my DKOK but they do get used for 1k games for fun

i'm on the 5-10 year slow build apoc force build as a rapid insertion force with numerous death riders to punch out from my gunlines.

I will be spamming the artillery carriages but not for routine games - just the once a year event.

I think i've got about 2-2.5k of DKOK without super heavies so far.

 Peregrine wrote:
There is no such thing as "too much spam". People just generalize "taking too many of an overpowered unit and making a list that is too good for the people you're playing with" into "taking lots of one thing regardless of how powerful it is", and that's a ridiculous position to hold. Spam only becomes a problem if the thing you're spamming is overpowered and having that many overpowered things in your list makes the game stop being fun for your opponents. If you're spamming something like small infantry squads in fragile transports then you have nothing to worry about. The only complaints you'll get are from the TFGs who whine and cry if you don't play exactly the list they want you to play, and those people aren't worth dealing with at all.

Of course I should also point out that your example list isn't very good. Centaurs are extremely fragile and 5-man infantry squads die almost as fast. You probably want to take some larger squads, or ally in some more durable troops (a codex blob squad isn't bad). And I'm assuming this is only part of your list and you have the artillery/tanks/whatever as well, but if not you're really not taking advantage of the things the DKoK list has to offer.

6 Heldrakes is "Too much spam"

Not because they're overpowered, quite the opposite.

2-3 Heldrakes hurts your opponent, because they can take out key MEQ or worse targets; but 4-6 heldrakes is overkill. There are never going to be so many targets that are specifically good targets for the baleflamer that you'll need more than maybe two of them at most.

So yes, there are examples of too much spam.

On the other point, people who complain about your list:

The question to ask yourself is, IF I were setting up across this, would I feel defeated before I even began?
By that I don't mean defeated as in simply you're probably going to lose, like me against any decently ranked player who knows and betters all my tricks, I mean "I have no chance against this list; I simply can't put the wounds on/survive the game." I feel this way every time I go up against wave-serpent spam; I can't crack six wave serpents well enough to win the game.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
2-3 Heldrakes hurts your opponent, because they can take out key MEQ or worse targets; but 4-6 heldrakes is overkill. There are never going to be so many targets that are specifically good targets for the baleflamer that you'll need more than maybe two of them at most.

Well yeah, but we're talking about "too much spam" in the context of opponents refusing to play against a list, not in the context of making a bad list that would be improved if you took different units instead.

The question to ask yourself is, IF I were setting up across this, would I feel defeated before I even began?

Of course that's not a question that necessarily has to do with spam. Spam is just one way of creating a hopeless matchup, if the thing being spammed is overpowered enough.

Spam is when people loose, and then they need an excuse for loosing with plastic toy soldiers.

If you want to play 6 Hell Drakes, then go ahead. The rules allow you to do this. Anyone who says otherwise, is just going against the rules. What is next? A soccer or football team is suppose to kneel down so the opposing team/player can tackle the goalie or quarterback without any interference? Play by the rules. To say you can't spam, you just made a "house rule" because you are taking an option away that is allowed in the rules.

Now you are also saying, you have to play my way.

I can't believe a lot of us. Most if not all of us are Geeks and Nerds. Most of us can't play or do good in sports. So we have adapted to be good at playing on the table. So now we have to put restrictions on people how to play a game now. I would love to see us "interneters" go and play a game, and say "you are spamming, can't play this way" or "this team is overpowered, they need to be nerfed."

Why do I bring in sports? Because there is rules we have to abide by when we play other teams, be it contact or non contact sports. When teams play, be it profesional or amateur, or back yard, we don't cry and complain about rules and then say, we can't use this rule, or that rule. Yes they change rules from time to time, but then those rules have to be abided by, just like how we get rules edition and or codex changes. We should be abiding by those rules then.

Same should be for table top gaming. We just don't change the rules, because a person doesn't like it.

So suck it up, play by the rules.

Then again, it's all a moot point when playing with friends and you decide to "house rule" things, but playing strangers in pick up games, we shouldn't be "house ruling" things.

Play whatever you want.

Spam is just another poorly used word in this community.

Yea spam is just a stupid Internet word you probably wouldn't hear it gaming in GW ( unless some loser uses Internet speak in real life)

But spam I believe is just taking loads of something like
3 land raiders is LR spam
3 riptides is riptide spam
6 tactical squads is tactical spam etc etc

Usually when people whine about spam they are referring to Comp(?) which is used for competitive purposes to "rebalancing" the game. This is done by setting values on different units in order to remove the spam of "OP" units.
That is my take on the whole spam talk You may want to check out the lists for Comp values and re-adjust your armylists around them a bit to avoid the whine about spam (if you care).

was 40k better when unit restrictions existed? Was it balanced more in the pre flyer days?

i never played back then - i was a painter and buyer of shiney metal miniatures though

Spam doesn't necessarily mean the most OP unit, it can also be the most cost-effective unit for a slot copy-pasted as many times as you can. Like the BA Assault squad spam - minimum sqads that gave up jump packs, then took special weapons and the discount Razorback transports. Or GK spam with the same idea, where minimum squads took basic HB Razorbacks all with Psybolt ammo and the HS was all dreads with double TL Autocannons (psybolt ammo ofc).

Using a bunch of something that's good = Spam

Using a bunch of something that's mediocre or worse = Theme

Those that say spam is just a complaint word are just trolling. Spam is taking a game where there are plenty of options and refusing to play some just because they don't fit into an optimal build to decimate your opponent.

And if you do such a list by only having one unit to fill the whole range of slots available or as many as can fit for points...that is spam. It is unimaginative, shows lack of generalship skills and means the person looks at the game as a set of numbers to win instead of an immersive environment.

I want to run a 6 tactical Squad list some time to see how it goes.

I, too, can making sweeping assumptions and claims that have no basis in reality!

Seriously, spam is a poorly used word in 40k, akin to meta. What some people find 'spammy', I see 'thematic' or 'redundant'. An IG army of nothing but arty and platoons, or chimeras and leman russes is far more thematic, fluffy, imaginative, or whatever other word you want to use, than throwing a random selection of ogryns, rough riders, and storm troopers.

Lack of generalship, what does that even mean? Making good decisions before a game with list building is bad generalship? Quite the opposite.

But as Median Trace said; its only 'spam' when they're good units.

I thought spam was just used to describe multiples of one unit. I didn't realise it was considered a negative word lol

If GW didn't make undercosted units, they wouldn't get spammed.

MSRC27 wrote:
I thought spam was just used to describe multiples of one unit. I didn't realise it was considered a negative word lol

Spam is generally used as a pejorative.

spam is another term for "my army cannot deal with something, so it definetly cannot deal with multiples of something. rather then adjust my tactics, I will criticize your tactics as "cheating/inferior/spam/ect"

 Blacksails wrote:
I, too, can making sweeping assumptions and claims that have no basis in reality!

Seriously, spam is a poorly used word in 40k, akin to meta. What some people find 'spammy', I see 'thematic' or 'redundant'. An IG army of nothing but arty and platoons, or chimeras and leman russes is far more thematic, fluffy, imaginative, or whatever other word you want to use, than throwing a random selection of ogryns, rough riders, and storm troopers.

Lack of generalship, what does that even mean? Making good decisions before a game with list building is bad generalship? Quite the opposite.

But as Median Trace said; its only 'spam' when they're good units.

You could, but I wasn't making any sweeping assumptions except that those that feel ANY complaint about spam is simply somebody crying because they lose. Isn't that a sweeping generalization that I was narrowing down....and thereby cleaning up the discussion by identifying that as trolling...?

Meta and Spam are poorly used words. When you say poorly used...perhaps a bit more detail is required, I'm thinking that is the disconnect. I think the term meta and spam are used quite well in respect to the competitive side of 40k. I think some people assume it is more of a factor than it is, perhaps that is what you meant by poorly used?

I completely agree with your comment regarding the respective IG armies being thematic or not, where taking mutliples of the same unit make solid in-universe sense. I believe my post also supports this as these units wouldn't be taken solely for the purpose of curbstomping your opponent or invalidating as much of his list as possible.

If you read my post, I said maximizing the good units without a care for anything but the raw numbers of the game is spam...and is neither thematic or redundant. There is a different purpose behind the design of the list. And lack of generalship,, I could have explained more and didn't detail enough. My bad. I meant that those that design such spam-lists to invalidate their opponents army are removing the need for generalship during the battle for victory and thereby cheapening their own victory. If everybody was a 'good general' building a list, by your words, tournaments would involve 3 lists and only THEN would generalship matter. :-P

Keep it under 3 of anything, and it won't be considered spam.

I play DE.

When I had 2 Venoms and 4 Raiders, people said I was spamming Raiders.

When I had 4+ Venoms, and no Raiders, people said I was spamming Venoms.

When I had 3 Venoms and 3 Raiders, people said I was dumb for not having more Venoms. They were right.

Its never a good way to start a post by claiming people who do 'X' are trolling. But lets move on from that.

By poorly used I mean they're overused, diluted, and are thrown around for a variety of reasons that may or may not be an actual valid reason to use the word. Its also the way WAAC is used to describe competitive players, or how competitive is used to describe WAAC, so on and so forth. They're buzzwords people use because they're probably the simplest way to describe a loose concept. Either way, they're poorly used by many people. Spam is one because its generally used in a negative light, when I would rather see words like redundant.

Your point about my IG example is noted, but I feel like you're saying that its the intent that separates spam from theme. In 5th ed, IG parking lots of chimera vets and manticores were the order of the day. They were incredibly effective and also incredibly thematic. However, lists like this were very often critiqued as 'cheese spam' or similar. The same can be said of the Eldar Wave Serpents now. It makes perfect sense to field 3+ grav tanks. If I was an Eldar commander, I would absolutely concentrate my armoured forces together in certain areas. Fielding 5 Wave Serpents and 3 Fire Prisms is a perfectly fluffy and thematic list. Its also tough as nails and hits hard, curb stompingly hard.

Again, you seem to be claiming that its intent that defines spam, which seems like a weird line. What if my intent is both? Personally, I enjoy having relatively strong lists, but also ones that fit into a certain fluff idea I have. If I played Eldar, I would absolutely field several grav tanks. My intent would be two fold, and be both what you consider spam, but also what I consider thematic and fluffy. As for creative, I don't think a random slap dash of units is particularly creative or imaginative. Symmetry, redundancy, and optimization have their own certain creativity as well when list building.

As for your last point about generalship, this would be the case if your opponent also had a strong list, and well, if the game was more balanced, but that's a far greater problem not suited for this thread. If everyone was good at list building and 40k was a balanced game, there would as many different lists at a tournament as there would be players. Sadly, its the latter that's the problem, not the players.

Its very hard to describe spam really because where do you draw the line? Is spam actually a problem?

The guy who said something about intent has a good point. When you see someones army list you can just tell straight away their intent.

What I think of when spammy is mentioned is the lack of variation, not in a list but over many lists. My friend was trying to get me to go to a tournamnet (i have not and never will go to one) and when i looked at the submitted lists there was nothing exciting about it. I once saw 2 lizardmen lists that where exactly the same, point for point. The rest of the lists where very similar (by nation of course).

So the real problem of spam in my opinion is where you have armies where the only difference is the paint job. Boring as hell.

So when addressing the issue of spam try to convince people to go out of their "comfort zone" and try new non (sorry to use this word) "meta standard lists" and see how it goes.

Some lists can be thematic and "cheesy" but for the spirit of enjoyment its best to try limit the "cheese" as considered by most peoples standards.

The way list building is currently seems wasteful when there are so many GW and non GW models out there, unit entries and a ton of wargear. Spam is ok but there is that point where you have to try make the playing feild a bit even.

For a campaign, get everyone to name their units and record kills and losses etc and try get people to treat it like a roleplay. We do it (although with a set of rules covering the campaign) and have a lot of fun with it.

Over kill is only fun against AI after all... if that

Who cares if its spam? Spam is what people call your army after they lose to it. Or just as a general observation by those who could care less about it. Either way, not sure it even matters.

But let's assume you care. Spam usually refers to taking as many of one combination as the rules allow. So 3 of anything pretty much makes it "spammy" unless its troops in which case: 6.

Could also be taking as many, or close to it, as possible of a certain unit like Land Raiders. Relative to points if you're spending more than 1/3 your points on any one combo, it's probably spammy even though not from the same FOC necessarily.

That's how I see it. But I don't truly care. I'll beat whatever is in front of me. I dont see the point in whining too much about how many points are spent ON X.

Now... WHAT X IS might piss me off though. I really F'ing don't think of the Titans and crap like that as being appropriate for Tournaments. So if you bring that drek to the party, expect a tabling because I will not stop until every model you have is gone and I have sent your munchkin list packing. No conceding. We're going the distance. My apologies to those who like such things, but that's whats going to happen. I probably will like YOU just fine, but I fully intend to make a POINT about it before we're done. And if you succeed, bully for your list but it says nothing about your skill.

Stand for something or fall for anything as they say.

=)

Spam is in the eye of the beholder.
Is 5-6 drop pods spam? Is 5-6 Wave Serpents spam? What about Ghost Arks?
Things get a bit muddy when you're dealing with dedicated transports for your chosen army.

 Jancoran wrote:
No conceding. We're going the distance.

So what are you going to do when your opponent says "ok, you win" and packs up their models?

Davor wrote:

I can't believe a lot of us. Most if not all of us are Geeks and Nerds. Most of us can't play or do good in sports. So we have adapted to be good at playing on the table. So now we have to put restrictions on people how to play a game now. I would love to see us "interneters" go and play a game, and say "you are spamming, can't play this way" or "this team is overpowered, they need to be nerfed."

I take offense to the suggestion that just because we're nerds/geeks the majority of us suck at sports...
I was a high level competitive hockey player, (even received an invite to an open skate with the Brampton Thunder Women's Pro team), while a goodly number of those I've met & known across my years in the hobby include numerous active & former military members, former varsity athletes, active in martial arts, etc...

I wouldn't be surprised if it's more or less an even split between who's excelled at sports and those who simply never had the impulse to pick-up a sport for whatever reason.

Sorry for the off-topic, but my athletic pride is important to me!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
No conceding. We're going the distance.

So what are you going to do when your opponent says "ok, you win" and packs up their models?

Wonder why I tried to play with them in the first place.

exactly


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Davor wrote:

I can't believe a lot of us. Most if not all of us are Geeks and Nerds. Most of us can't play or do good in sports. So we have adapted to be good at playing on the table. So now we have to put restrictions on people how to play a game now. I would love to see us "interneters" go and play a game, and say "you are spamming, can't play this way" or "this team is overpowered, they need to be nerfed."

I take offense to the suggestion that just because we're nerds/geeks the majority of us suck at sports...
I was a high level competitive hockey player, (even received an invite to an open skate with the Brampton Thunder Women's Pro team), while a goodly number of those I've met & known across my years in the hobby include numerous active & former military members, former varsity athletes, active in martial arts, etc...

I wouldn't be surprised if it's more or less an even split between who's excelled at sports and those who simply never had the impulse to pick-up a sport for whatever reason.

Sorry for the off-topic, but my athletic pride is important to me!

I was a three sport athlete and offered a place on the Idaho Vandals Wrestling team. Also got a full ride academic scholarship (which I took instead). I own a business. I play kids games. I'd say the stereotypes are pretty much just that when it comes to gaming. Takes all kinds.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Wonder why I tried to play with them in the first place.

So you can't enjoy a game with someone if they'd rather just end the game when it becomes obvious who is going to win (for example, when you're down to a squad of basic guardsmen with half your opponent's army within charge distance next turn) and your goal (which you just openly admitted) is to table them and punish them for bringing a list that you didn't approve of?