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Spam armies look better than armies in which every unit is unique.

I think it boils down to several things:

-Armybuilding is primarily about minimizing costs for maximum damage and resilience. Support is about minimizing costs for maximal buff efficiency. Positional gaming is "ease of objectives" and "get more attack in range of less return attack." Flanking is relatively meaningless, cover is relatively meaningless, etc.
-The game is IgoUgo, aka "I prepare an alphastrike, you hide or suck it up." More the second, since smallers of supers = being more likely to go first, and vehicle degradation happens in a far less granular manner than removing individual small models. Don't forget that you can only enter Reserves if you explicitly have that rule.
-There is relatively little distinction between units. Tanks are just line infantry with more wounds. They do not get binary immunity to shots, or the ability to fire on the move without penalty (not that it matters unless you're Orks, because moving and firing heavy weapons is only a -1). Aircraft are just tanks/just big infantry that move in a square, at -1 to be hit (break out those Inferno Cannons), but with perfect 360* shooting.
-Inversely, there are way too many units that are stupidly overspecialized to the point that taking them to tailor against certain armies automatically gimps you against others. Facing Horrors and Smitespam? Sure, "take snipers" sounds like strategy (and not list tailoring), until you come across a Stormraven army. "Take mass Onagers" sounds good until you come across Horrors and Smitespam. Etc. The game has become far more "matchup" dependent.

Primaris Reivers are of the most notable examples of the flaws with 8e design. They're a shiny new kit, and truth be told I kind of find the "skull masks" and clean armor fun for conversion purposes. However, they're fluffed as an "elite disruption unit" that is excellent for ambushing a Tau Kau'yon. The only problems: They don't Infiltrate, their "disruption" (-1 to hit and shut down Overwatch...if you can get a grenade in range and hit) only works on Infantry (can't have cavalry or Hellions suffering from Shock Grenades, much less Tau Gun Drones), and their skull masks give...-1 Leadership, in a game where Battleshock is fairly meaningless. Such a rule is also useless against vehicles, monstrous creatures, Orks (Oh no, they're only Ld 29 instead of Ld 30), Guard (who only lose 1 model max from BS anyway), etc.

All in all, rather than being a unit that will "have a place in every Space Marine army", they're a unit without any real purpose whatsoever! If GW wanted to make Reivers usable/"interesting" without making them omgwtfbbqhax, a far more creative implementation would be:

* Skirmish Tactics: Reivers may withdraw at the end of any Fight Sub-Phase.

* Shock Grenades: Remove the "Infantry" keyword. Optionally add "cannot be used against Airborne targets".

* Remove Terror Tactics, rename Disruptors: Your opponent may not use CP to enact (non-offensive) stratagems on any units within 3" of one of your units of Reivers.

These would give several benefits to Reivers: They could be used for assassination duty (your opponent cannot spend CP to reroll saves), would be able to support the rest of your troops in an assault (cannot use counter-attack), and make their use as terrortroops potentially meaningful (your opponent couldn't spend CP to autopass Battleshock). It would also future-proof them to act as an "anti-stratagem" techpiece as codexes get rolled out.

I'm pretty sure we already covered why Highlander (and variants on Highlander) wouldn't work. Just think of the poor AdMech, with their tiny codex!

 ross-128 wrote:
I'm pretty sure we already covered why Highlander (and variants on Highlander) wouldn't work. Just think of the poor AdMech, with their tiny codex!

The punchline was that 7e competitive Admech for most intents and purposes might as well have been a Highlander army. Swap out one unit of Grav Destroyers for Torsion Breachers and bam.

 Blacksails wrote:
Spam is not imbalance. Imbalance is imbalance.

No one is asking for perfect balance either. Just better balance.

I'm defending spam because spam is a perfectly valid and fluffy way to build armies. As a Guard player, its pretty damn hard to avoid spam, if I run 4x infantry squads in Chimeras, supported by Russes and hellhounds. That list is pretty convincingly middle ground in power, but is the kind of list I enjoy running.

If your issue with spam is that you don't like the look of the army across from you, then fine, no one can convince you there. If its a balance issue, then simply fix the core issues of why the units are out of balance.

Simple stuff.

For what it's worth, My suggestion was to leave troops alone when it comes to limiting how many times a unit can appear in a given army. Same with dedicated transports, though I might move some current dedicated transports into other slots.

Back to the issue of spam, my issue with spam is that it's bad for the game, for all of the reason I mentioned but you didn't respond to. We've already discussed where fluffy armies belong, so that's not a defensible argument for matched play. Also your argument breaks down in that an individual unit might not be OP, but when they are spammed they become so. A single storm raven isn't OP, in fact you rarely see them outside of spam lists, but when you take six of them it's a problem.

Your solution would be to increase the cost of stormravens, taurox primes, suit commanders, and any other unit that ends up getting spammed to advantage. That might work but it punishes those units even when they are not spammed, and it requires constant vigilance and updates. My solution is to make it so you can't have more than three of the same unit in an army, excepting troops and dedicated transports. If that ends up not being enough, we can always adjust, for instance that might not be enough to stop flyer spam so I might add flyer wing to the list of banned items. In one easy to remember rules change the problem is addressed and there is almost no chance of scale based balance problems happening again.Then if we need to adjust individual units, we can do so, but the best rule I've had for troubleshooting is start with the most general and work your way to the specific.

 Grimgold wrote:
Back to the issue of spam, my issue with spam is that it's bad for the game

You keep saying this without providing any reasonable argument why it's bad for the game, especially not one you don't later contradict.

If it's bad for players to spam, there's no reason why it would be okay for troops to be an exception. Troops are just units like any other one in the codex, and spamming them suffers the same "downsides" you mentioned as spamming any other unit, so your argument contradicts itself.

So let's take unit A. Unit A is too good for its points. People spam said unit because its too good.

Your solution is to simply restrict that unit.

My solution is to fix said unit.

When that unit is fixed, people can spam if they like the model or how it plays, or they can take one. But the unit being fixed does not in any way shape or form punish people for only taking it once or twice. A balanced unit will continue to be balanced if there's 12 of them or 1 of them, that's the whole point of balance.

And the fluffy army argument is in fact quite defensible as its comically absurd to tell people who want to play matched play that their fluffy yet competitive armies are not welcome.

The solution is very simple. Fix the broken units. Then it won't matter what gets spammed or doesn't.

Wait why is spam bad for the game?

 Melissia wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Back to the issue of spam, my issue with spam is that it's bad for the game

You keep saying this without providing any reasonable argument why it's bad for the game, especially not one you don't later contradict.

If it's bad for players to spam, there's no reason why it would be okay for troops to be an exception. Troops are just units like any other one in the codex, and spamming them suffers the same "downsides" you mentioned as spamming any other unit, so your argument contradicts itself.

I've given you several reasonable points that you haven't bothered to respond to, please stop arguing in bad faith.

Well, let's look at the bright side at troops apparently getting a universal exception to anti-spam measures: conscripts are troops. :p

Theyre misguided points.

 Grimgold wrote:
I've given you several reasonable points

No, you haven't. You haven't actually responded to my points at all really, aside from making baseless assertions that you yourself haven't actually provided the reasoning for. And your points made in other posts in this thread contradict your own arguments.

For example: there's no real difference between overall "list diversity" with "spam" allowed, and "list diversity" with "spam" not allowed. You claim otherwise, yet you provide no evidence of this; it is simply another baseless assumption you've made. If you're worried about everyone using the same OP list, then removing "spam" won't fix the problem. It'll just change up which list is the chosen list for people who seek the most powerful list to play.

Your argument is inherently contradictory. Your own arguments reveal that you don't actually have a problem with "spam", as long as the "spam" is certain kinds of units that you like. It's utterly mind-boggling the way you're trying to claim I'm arguing in bad faith when you're not even able to provide a coherent, non-contradictory argument in the first place.

 Blacksails wrote:
So let's take unit A. Unit A is too good for its points. People spam said unit because its too good.

Your solution is to simply restrict that unit.

My solution is to fix said unit.

When that unit is fixed, people can spam if they like the model or how it plays, or they can take one. But the unit being fixed does not in any way shape or form punish people for only taking it once or twice. A balanced unit will continue to be balanced if there's 12 of them or 1 of them, that's the whole point of balance.

And the fluffy army argument is in fact quite defensible as its comically absurd to tell people who want to play matched play that their fluffy yet competitive armies are not welcome.

The solution is very simple. Fix the broken units. Then it won't matter what gets spammed or doesn't.

Thats a pretty clean breakdown there.

If spammed flyers is the issue, tweak the flyer to where its no longer viable if spammed in a competetive environment.

 Grimgold wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Back to the issue of spam, my issue with spam is that it's bad for the game

You keep saying this without providing any reasonable argument why it's bad for the game, especially not one you don't later contradict.

If it's bad for players to spam, there's no reason why it would be okay for troops to be an exception. Troops are just units like any other one in the codex, and spamming them suffers the same "downsides" you mentioned as spamming any other unit, so your argument contradicts itself.

I've given you several reasonable points that you haven't bothered to respond to...

Were they in a different thread?

 Blacksails wrote:
So let's take unit A. Unit A is too good for its points. People spam said unit because its too good.

Your solution is to simply restrict that unit.

My solution is to fix said unit.

When that unit is fixed, people can spam if they like the model or how it plays, or they can take one. But the unit being fixed does not in any way shape or form punish people for only taking it once or twice. A balanced unit will continue to be balanced if there's 12 of them or 1 of them, that's the whole point of balance.

And the fluffy army argument is in fact quite defensible as its comically absurd to tell people who want to play matched play that their fluffy yet competitive armies are not welcome.

The solution is very simple. Fix the broken units. Then it won't matter what gets spammed or doesn't.

Dodging my point from last time, Units A isn't bad as a single, unit A is OP in groups, what do you do? Also your solution isn't a single solution or simple, but instead hundreds of individual changes that may or may not be warranted at scales of one or two units. That's underpants gnomes levels of logic there. Also narrative and matched are different game types with different goals, why do have two different game types if you insist they be treated the same. I don't got into narrative play with a WAAC army lists, why would you go into matched play with an army whose primary goal is not to win. Also why don't you defend your point about the cosmic absurdity of playing the right kind of lists for the right kind of game mode?

Actually, if it's overpowered in groups it's usually overpowered as a single as well. It's just less noticeable. Fix the unit's balance, and the fix has a much bigger impact on "spam" lists using multiples of the unit than other lists using just one of it.

Spam is fine. Flyer spam list is not overpowered. They're winning, but not handily. I read the batreps of the guy who came in second, using Harlequins, to the flyer spam. He lost the game, but mainly because the last raven rolled 2 6's in melta-overwatch.

 Grimgold wrote:


Dodging my point from last time, Units A isn't bad as a single, unit A is OP in groups, what do you do? Also your solution isn't a single solution or simple, but instead hundreds of individual changes that may or may not be warranted at scales of one or two units. That's underpants gnomes levels of logic there. Also narrative and matched are different game types with different goals, why do have two different game types if you insist they be treated the same. I don't got into narrative play with a WAAC army lists, why would you go into matched play with an army whose primary goal is not to win. Also why don't you defend your point about the cosmic absurdity of playing the right kind of lists for the right kind of game mode?

Simce when is a points adjustment "hundreds of individual changes"?

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I think it boils down to several things:

-Armybuilding is primarily about minimizing costs for maximum damage and resilience. Support is about minimizing costs for maximal buff efficiency. Positional gaming is "ease of objectives" and "get more attack in range of less return attack." Flanking is relatively meaningless, cover is relatively meaningless, etc.
-The game is IgoUgo, aka "I prepare an alphastrike, you hide or suck it up." More the second, since smallers of supers = being more likely to go first, and vehicle degradation happens in a far less granular manner than removing individual small models. Don't forget that you can only enter Reserves if you explicitly have that rule.
-There is relatively little distinction between units. Tanks are just line infantry with more wounds. They do not get binary immunity to shots, or the ability to fire on the move without penalty (not that it matters unless you're Orks, because moving and firing heavy weapons is only a -1). Aircraft are just tanks/just big infantry that move in a square, at -1 to be hit (break out those Inferno Cannons), but with perfect 360* shooting.
-Inversely, there are way too many units that are stupidly overspecialized to the point that taking them to tailor against certain armies automatically gimps you against others. Facing Horrors and Smitespam? Sure, "take snipers" sounds like strategy (and not list tailoring), until you come across a Stormraven army. "Take mass Onagers" sounds good until you come across Horrors and Smitespam. Etc. The game has become far more "matchup" dependent.

Primaris Reivers

Army building is about getting as much bang for your buck while being able to complete the objectives you will be facing. Right now, spamming and sitting still are in high demand because progressive missions aren't the norm. When they become the norm for your, your area, and/or tournaments, you will see less sit and shoot armies because they will lose to armies that play the objectives. Flanking is meaningless against these kinds of armies and against flyer spam armies simply due to the missions. Once the missions are made more dynamic, again, this will fix the problem.

Not every army alpha strikes so I don't really get your point here. Is your local meta alpha strike heavy?

The lack of distinction comes from two origins: the need for everything to be viable in the initial creation of the 8th rules and the lack of special rules, relics, stratagems, and more that are packed into codex's. When codex's come, units will begin to act very differently between chapters / legions / dynasties / hive fleets and so on.

Again, I don't see your point here? Overspecialized units will not always see their full utilization against every army you will be facing. This is because every army and opponent is different. Even in tournaments you'll be facing a wide variety of foes and units. Top tables will be attempting to utilize whatever they can do get to the top, that is where spam lives at the moment. This is a problem that not only ITC is trying to fix but also GW will most likely address in codex's and FAQs. The point of 8th is to allow people to play what they want effectively but due to the nature of the game and number of possibilities of course this isn't always going to equal a fair matchup. Warhammer was ALWAYS matchup dependent, that is way TAC lists are the end goal of 8th's balance. It isn't there yet and honestly it may never get there or it may with the help of ITC restrictions, but a TAC list should always have a chance against other lists unless the other list is some super specialized list that the TAC isn't prepared to deal with in at least some form or another.

I believe it has been discussed to death that Reivers will be getting more complete rules in the codex / when they get a more complete kit. Implying they will stay as they are is disingenuous.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Back to the issue of spam, my issue with spam is that it's bad for the game

You keep saying this without providing any reasonable argument why it's bad for the game, especially not one you don't later contradict.

If it's bad for players to spam, there's no reason why it would be okay for troops to be an exception. Troops are just units like any other one in the codex, and spamming them suffers the same "downsides" you mentioned as spamming any other unit, so your argument contradicts itself.

I've given you several reasonable points that you haven't bothered to respond to...

Were they in a different thread?

I'm sorry your incapable of reading a thread here let me waste my time restating my points for someone who can't be bothered to actually look:

Spam is bad because it's boring, fighting 5 or 500 of the same unit makes for boring battles, since it's the same tactics over and over again.
Spam is bad because it's unbalanced, a minor imbalance can be magnified greatly by taking the imbalanced unit over and over again.
Spam hurts list diversity, having a wide range target profiles means there are several correct answers on how to do your composition, having one target profile running amok, means there will only be a few right answers in terms of comp. So spam begets spam.
Spam is ez mode, bringing a ton of the same unit reduces the complexity of running that army.

You could also save me some time by looking at my responses to black sails criticism of those points, but I suppose I can copy and past those as well.

Interesting question: is a single Warhound titan in a 1500 point game a spam list?

On the one hand, it doesn't have multiples of any unit. On the other hand, the list has no unit variety at all.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:


Dodging my point from last time, Units A isn't bad as a single, unit A is OP in groups, what do you do? Also your solution isn't a single solution or simple, but instead hundreds of individual changes that may or may not be warranted at scales of one or two units. That's underpants gnomes levels of logic there. Also narrative and matched are different game types with different goals, why do have two different game types if you insist they be treated the same. I don't got into narrative play with a WAAC army lists, why would you go into matched play with an army whose primary goal is not to win. Also why don't you defend your point about the cosmic absurdity of playing the right kind of lists for the right kind of game mode?

Simce when is a points adjustment "hundreds of individual changes"?

Every point change is an adjustment, and we are dealing with a unknown number of issues of scale. Each point change must be carefully considered as they can have big impacts for an entire army. So yes this could be hundreds of changes required to reach a level of balance that one simple change could make.

IMHO that level of extra effort is worth it if it preserves (or even improves) player choice.

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam is bad because it's boring

A subjective opinion. Congratulations you have an opinion. Welcome to the internet.

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam is bad because it's unbalanced, a minor imbalance can be magnified greatly by taking the imbalanced unit over and over again.

Spam isn't unbalanced. Units are unbalanced. If a unit is unbalanced, fix the unit.

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam hurts list diversity

No it does not. A lot of lists being similar has nothing to do with spam, in fact, many "spam" lists actually provide more diversity to the kinds of opponents you can fight, because they are bringing things beyond the ordinary.

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam is ez mode, bringing a ton of the same unit reduces the complexity of running that army.

Spam brings its own complexities, because you must understand all the nuances of that one unit's various capabilities and weaknesses. My proposed 1st and 10th list of five scout squads and five terminator squads isn't "EZ Mode" at all. If anything, a perfectly balanced army greatly reduces the complexity of running it, because you don't have to worry about weaknesses in your list-- you have a unit to cover the weakness.

 Grimgold wrote:
You could also save me some time by looking at my responses to black sails criticism of those points, but I suppose I can copy and past those as well.

Oh you mean where you did the argumentative equivalent of stuffing your fingers in your ears and shouted "NANANANANANA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" over and over again?

Your argument, as always, is weak, based on an unwillingness to look deeper in to the topic and consider views other than your own.

I agree with Melissa, #heartattack

But to the grander point, can we just let the meta settle a bit before we cry foul? The last tournament top-10 list i saw, had a wide variety of armies in there, including Orks at #2.

Maybe things aren't so bad?

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be salty about manticores.

Disclaimer 2: Forgeworld should be banned until it is playtested by the same teams.

 Marmatag wrote:
Spam is fine. Flyer spam list is not overpowered. They're winning, but not handily. I read the batreps of the guy who came in second, using Harlequins, to the flyer spam. He lost the game, but mainly because the last raven rolled 2 6's in melta-overwatch.

I have a feeling flyer spam is doing well because people are not used to it yet.

it may seem over powered because its doing well and everyone is running it after seeing it win rather than adjusting normal lists with more options to deal with the problem.

In fact, forcing everyone to take a diversity of units will wind up with armies looking alike as well, because players will naturally gravitate to units considered best, or combos seen as the most viable. And, tadaa! The range of percieved viable armies goes down, and armies look like each other again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimgold wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:


Dodging my point from last time, Units A isn't bad as a single, unit A is OP in groups, what do you do? Also your solution isn't a single solution or simple, but instead hundreds of individual changes that may or may not be warranted at scales of one or two units. That's underpants gnomes levels of logic there. Also narrative and matched are different game types with different goals, why do have two different game types if you insist they be treated the same. I don't got into narrative play with a WAAC army lists, why would you go into matched play with an army whose primary goal is not to win. Also why don't you defend your point about the cosmic absurdity of playing the right kind of lists for the right kind of game mode?

Simce when is a points adjustment "hundreds of individual changes"?

Every point change is an adjustment, and we are dealing with a unknown number of issues of scale. Each point change must be carefully considered as they can have big impacts for an entire army. So yes this could be hundreds of changes required to reach a level of balance that one simple change could make.

Seriously?

Not awarding any points for that line of reasoning. Points are by far the simplest tool in the toolbox for discouraging spam.

 Desubot wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Spam is fine. Flyer spam list is not overpowered. They're winning, but not handily. I read the batreps of the guy who came in second, using Harlequins, to the flyer spam. He lost the game, but mainly because the last raven rolled 2 6's in melta-overwatch.

I have a feeling flyer spam is doing well because people are not used to it yet.

it may seem over powered because its doing well and everyone is running it after seeing it win rather than adjusting normal lists with more options to deal with the problem.

Yes, this.

It's actually the smaller fliers that present the most problems. Interceptors are really, really good, for their points.

 Desubot wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Spam is fine. Flyer spam list is not overpowered. They're winning, but not handily. I read the batreps of the guy who came in second, using Harlequins, to the flyer spam. He lost the game, but mainly because the last raven rolled 2 6's in melta-overwatch.

I have a feeling flyer spam is doing well because people are not used to it yet.

it may seem over powered because its doing well and everyone is running it after seeing it win rather than adjusting normal lists with more options to deal with the problem.

Agreed. Im expecting it to go away on its own.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Spam is fine. Flyer spam list is not overpowered. They're winning, but not handily. I read the batreps of the guy who came in second, using Harlequins, to the flyer spam. He lost the game, but mainly because the last raven rolled 2 6's in melta-overwatch.

I have a feeling flyer spam is doing well because people are not used to it yet.

it may seem over powered because its doing well and everyone is running it after seeing it win rather than adjusting normal lists with more options to deal with the problem.

Yes, this.

It's actually the smaller fliers that present the most problems. Interceptors are really, really good, for their points.

Thankfully, interceptors do have penalties to hit ground targets with their best weapons, which IMO is how it probably should be for all fliers unless they're in hover mode (and thus not benefiting from -1 to hit).