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So, I was thinking of building a Cult mechanicus army. Due to the local meta (as limited to me and two other guys) we have a house rule that unless otherwise stated we will stick to a single FOC list, no superheavies, no formations, no allies. Obviously this leaves me a little limited, even more so since I hate the look and playstyle of electropriests.

One of my friends rolls his eyes at lists that spam the same unit over and over. So, when he saw what I was planning he just HAD to give me his opinion.

My basic 2,000 point list was basically:

Tech Priest Dominus
3 Kataphron Destroyers with Heavy Grav Cannons
3 Kataphron Destroyers with Heavy Grav Cannons
3 Kataphron Destroyers with Heavy Grav Cannons
4 Kataphron Destroyers with Plasma Culvrens
4 Kataphron Destroyers with Heavy Grav Cannons
3 Kastelan Robots (carapace phosphor blasters) with 2 Datasmiths
3 Kastelan Robots (carapace phosphor blasters, one with twin linked phosphor blasters) with 2 Datasmiths


So, with that list in mind, does anyone see anything wrong with it? Is it Boring? If so, how could I spice it up? Or, if rumors are true and a new combined cult mechanicus book is on the way, should I just wait for a book with actual options?

Not really. If most of your army is from the troops section of the codex, that's a rarity these days. I think it looks like it could be a fun army to play, and you can add some priests later on to give an extra dimension to it.

Given that Ad mech has only what 6 units, two of which are garbage I wouldn't begrudge that list. Your basically using a book that is meant to be an ally force as a stand alone due to your group not allowing allies.

They wouldn't care if you were spamming scout squads.

Your friends are just upset by the amount of shooting your bringing to the table. Your self made restrictions / shackles are pretty much only there to make sure no one gets TOO powerful TOO quickly, but they look at the list you've provided and feel you've found away around the limitations (nevermind the fact you basically have a super elite fighting force with a whopping 28 models. If they go first and do decent early damage, your damage output suffers greatly).

My recommendation would be to get rid of the self imposed limitations and play the game GW wants you to play. Allies in themselves aren't broken. Multi-cad isn't broken. Some formations can make a feel-bad experience, but most are just fun ways to package and play your models. Superheavies...well...superheavies wouldn't be broken if they were priced appropriately (or evenly) but they're not, sooo...

Just play your friends, have fun, and don't worry about pre-balancing your armies. It'll become evident if someone is bringing too much cheese (comparetively) to the table, and since you're friends, you can easily feel out the best way to keep games fun between yourselves.

Too much thinking! More Hobbying!!

The problem is not the broad categories.

Most allies are fine, most formations are fine, and superheavies can be talked about.

It's a handful of the above that combined with a player who is focused on winning that problems show up.

Personally, I just like the idea of having a compact, elite force. One that is mobile and shooty. I thought this fit the bill nicely. I think that the reason my friend so despises this list is that he likes Centurions and Terminators in his lists. My list looks like it is almost custom built to remove him from the table.

Heck, if I managed to get the first turn, got all my units in range, and activated the right abilities, I could easily remove half his army before he got to do anything.

Why are multiple, repeat units looked down upon?

 cuda1179 wrote:

Heck, if I managed to get the first turn, got all my units in range, and activated the right abilities, I could easily remove half his army before he got to do anything.

You just answered your own question.

Replace your army with Eldar Bikes and you'll have a similar outcome, I bet.

I take it you haven't bought the models yet. If he looks down on this list you could also show him a list of what you'd like to field, with allies or whatever.

He may see that your proposed list that goes against your house rules is actually much more fun and fluffy. Maybe it's time for your meta to change a bit!

I personally like lists that are considered spammy as it makes them feel more uniformed and like a legion, very war like.

I think most people just assume a spammy list is cheesy but it's just as easy to build a list with a lot of variety that is just as cheesy. So for me it's just a matter of play what you like, not what others try to force you to play.

 kronk wrote:
Why are multiple, repeat units looked down upon?

 cuda1179 wrote:

Heck, if I managed to get the first turn, got all my units in range, and activated the right abilities, I could easily remove half his army before he got to do anything.

You just answered your own question.

Replace your army with Eldar Bikes and you'll have a similar outcome, I bet.

Yeah.. that sounds like an awful lot of fun. I imagine in that situation you'd get the first turn, decimate his force before he got to do anything, he'd concede and then he'd never play your AdMech (or perhaps you) again.

People look down on duplicate units because in 40k you're supposed to take a random selection of the worst things in your codex, and if you put any effort at all into identifying and picking the best options you're a TFG who doesn't understand how to have fun. Remember, suck at list building or be shunned from the community!

Because if you spamm the best unit in the game:
A) it is not funny
B) it is not even close to fluffy

C) nobody will frown upon you if it is to respect a theme (like multiple scouts squad, LSS, etc...Or Deathwing....)
D) YOU may be very annoyed by your army if you always play with the same things (for example, I use to play with a thunderfire cannon, but I won't play 3, I prefer to use my others Heavy Support slots on other things).

But as you play AdMech, you have very few units, so it isn't easy to not spam.

 godardc wrote:
B) it is not even close to fluffy

{citation needed}

Spam PA Marines, Guardians, Gaunts, Boyz, or Necron Warriors, and the list "feels" right. That's how those armies roll.

But aside from things like that, spamming makes the game less interesting. If my options are shoot unit type A or shoot unit type A, it feels really boring.

By mixing up the army more, even if you win by the same margin, your opponent gets more choices. And that typically leads to him enjoying the game more.

 Peregrine wrote:
People look down on duplicate units because in 40k you're supposed to take a random selection of the worst things in your codex, and if you put any effort at all into identifying and picking the best options you're a TFG who doesn't understand how to have fun. Remember, suck at list building or be shunned from the community!

Umm...do you need to talk about something?

The hate against spamming generally comes from the idea of players finding a unit in their codex that is simply too good for it's point cost and has minimal weaknesses and just taking as many of them as they can (Scatbikes, anything Wraith, Riptides, Grav Cents, etc.). It makes for a boring game for your opponent because they basically just end up fighting the same unit over and over and over. And most likely if it's being spammed, the unit is good enough that a TAC list or casual list can't really handle that many of it.

Now I've never really played against Ad Mech, but looking at your list one thing stands out to me. That is a lot of grav. A LOT of grav. More grav than any army with those restrictions can reasonably handle. Your friend is pissed that you are spamming one of the best weapons in the game when those weapons were designed with formations/allies/superheavies/what have you in mind. I would play against your list at least once, but that's probably it.

Your friend likely isn't pissed about you spamming Kataphron Destroyers, you play Ad Mech and have a very limited unit pool. He's most likely pissed (and rightly so imo) that you equipped almost your entire army against one of the most powerful non-D weapons in the whole game. Drop a lot of that grav, give them a bigger variety of weapons. 1 or 2 units with grav is fine in a normal game. Half your army having all grav (and the most powerful grav weapon at that), especially in a casual environment with those restrictions is no bueno.

 godardc wrote:
Because if you spamm the best unit in the game:
A) it is not funny

Is list building supposed to be funny at all times? Not sure how or why this is a relevant point.

B) it is not even close to fluffy

Erm...no. Playing Deathwing with literally nothing but Deathwing squads is incredibly fluffy. Playing Guard with nothing but platoons, or Russes, or Chimeras is also incredibly fluffy. Playing as any army and sticking to a theme by having multiples of a handful of units is not only supported by the fluff, but much more common in the fluff than a haphazard force of various units.

At the scale that 40k is played at, its quite logical the force on the table represents a small part of a much larger force, and therefore makes sense for it to be a concentration of a particular type of unit brought together for maximum effect.

It's because this game has no real-time component. In Starcraft, for example, if my opponent builds mono-void ray, I can counter by rushing him or going marine/medivac/thor/viking.

In this game, you can just plop your stuff out on a table and your opponent has no recourse and there is no real skill in spamming a unit that GW has inappropriately costed.

The difference I think is all the units you've listed arn't exactly super strong. I don't mind spam if it makes sense due to story. What bothers me a lot more is super friends list that are background abomination.

Looking at you wolf star or belakor and friends.

I addressed themed list, like deathwatch etc... with my C).
With B) I wanted to speak about "silly" spamm, not themed spamm.
If I play 6 tactical squad in a 1500 points in a Raven Guard army, I don't think it will be funny

If you play a Deathwatch army, ofc you play DW teams.

It is immediately better and funnier when your army tells a story.
You don't play chess, you play W40k, there is a huge background and your games are supposed to reflect this, at least a little.

And just looking at the "strategic" side, it is not entertainning either, like Bharrhing said.

 godardc wrote:
It is immediately better and funnier when your army tells a story.

I don't think you understand what "funny" means.

And the OP's army tells a fine story. It's the story of a grav destroyer force led by a techpriest, with some supporting elements attached. It even tells the story of the newly-assigned unit of destroyers that still has plasma guns mounted and has been rushed into battle before it could be refitted with grave cannons to match the rest of the force.

There are a lot of Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanics in 40k, which comes as no surprise to anyone. There's always something meant to kill something else. That is its purpose. In a TAC list, or something as close as you can get to TAC, you have things to deal with a majority of the threats in the game, which eats up points. Full of compromises and concessions to be able to handle whatever.

When you spam a thing, particularly a good thing, you nullify part of your opponent's army and overwhelm the section that can deal with what you brought. Spamming Flyrants, Riptides, Wraithknights, Jetbikes, Obj Sec MSU, Knights, Tanks, Wave Serpents, it's all focused on being too much for what your opponent brought.

The main thing is that Grav is a nasty gun against almost everything for way cheaper than it should be. On top of that everything grav is weak against, the units that carry grav have back up weapons to punk them.

In this case the destroyers also can take flamers which melt light infantry. The platform has little weakness.

People have a problem with spam because the system is flawed.
If there weren't units who excel at engaging the majority of unit types at a lower price point than their abilities should cost you wouldn't see them spammed.

Kind of a funny article here about having too much Grav in the list.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/01/28/dispatches-from-the-front-tshft-2016-or-grav-the-double-edged-sword/

It definitely fits in the rock-paper-scissors game mechanics that Shark called out.

To be fair that wasn't a great marine list. Way to much tied up in Hqs and no speeders for bolter scouts what?

Most things that are safe to grav arn't great at taking a bolt to the face. That helps to mitigate some of the weakness.

 godardc wrote:
I addressed themed list, like deathwatch etc... with my C).
With B) I wanted to speak about "silly" spamm, not themed spamm.
If I play 6 tactical squad in a 1500 points in a Raven Guard army, I don't think it will be funny

The point being questioned wasn't about whether or not spam lists are 'funny' but was about your claim that they are not fluffy.

There is nothing inherently un-fluffy about a Raven Guard army with 6 Tactical Squads... While their famous specialities may lie elsewhere, I'm quite sure there are at least 6 Tactical Squads in the Raven Guard Chapter, and any number of reasons that I could come up with off the top of my head for them to be all in the same corner of the battlefield at the same time.

Unit spam, unless the spammed unit is a bad one, is usually seen as a sign of min-maxing, which is generally a sign of power gaming. That doesn't necessarily mean you intentionally power game, but it does leave a bad taste in other people's mouths.

Now I know that it's the circumstances that caused it and not intentional on your part (after all they were the ones who insisted on the rules and were surprised this was all you can field?) but still I can see why they would be irked.

Human perception is a weird thing and rarely do we point the finger at ourselves. If I were you I'd *kindly* show him the book. Figuratively and literally.

 kronk wrote:
Why are multiple, repeat units looked down upon?

 cuda1179 wrote:

Heck, if I managed to get the first turn, got all my units in range, and activated the right abilities, I could easily remove half his army before he got to do anything.

You just answered your own question.

Replace your army with Eldar Bikes and you'll have a similar outcome, I bet.

and yet marines cant do the same thing with a troops choice

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Unit spam, unless the spammed unit is a bad one, is usually seen as a sign of min-maxing, which is generally a sign of power gaming. That doesn't necessarily mean you intentionally power game, but it does leave a bad taste in other people's mouths.

Only in 40k is "making good unit choices to execute a sensible strategy" labeled "power gaming" and shunned as inappropriate behavior.