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Changed the title of the thread based on general saltiness.

Curious where the community breaks down in this regard.

*For instance, 3 or more units of Dark Reapers would qualify. But, running 2 units of Dark Reapers would not.

*If a unit can act on its own and is independent after deployment, such as Carnifex (any variant) or Leman Russ (any variant), count the number of models. For instance, 1 unit of 3x Carnifex would be considered spamming Carnifex regardless of whether or not they're kitted for melee, shooting, etc.

*Transports are not excluded from this. If you run 3+ razorbacks, or rhinos, that would be considered 3+

*Troops are not excluded because some troops are generally undercosted.

*Count all imperial knight variants as Imperial Knight, Baneblade variants as Baneblade, etc. So running 2x Knight Crusaders and 1x Knight Gallant would be considered 3+ because you've got 3 imperial knights.

*Units taken as upgrades - such as Drones - don't count.

Just casually defining spam in such broad terms that nearly every army does it, probably so you can claim a majority in some unrelated argument.

By your definition here, I cannot play my Harlequin army without being guilty of "Harlequin spamming" because I have no other troop choice. Love it.

the_scotsman wrote:
Just casually defining spam in such broad terms that nearly every army does it, probably so you can claim a majority in some unrelated argument.

By your definition here, I cannot play my Harlequin army without being guilty of "Harlequin spamming" because I have no other troop choice. Love it.

Yes, you're playing what is a very small faction as mono-faction, so naturally you have to repeat the same unit multiple times. Just because you need to, in order to stay mono-faction, doesn't change that you are indeed spamming a unit.

And you don't *have* to, you could easily bridge the gap into Eldar soup if you wanted to.

Note that I am not also attaching a value judgment to people in this thread. I am not saying "spam is bad," or "those who spam must die."

Renegade Guard in casual. IG in competitive formats.

Have to run spam. Just for efficiency. Brigades are so much easier to fill out spam wise. 3 sentinels? Ok. 3 Spawns? ok.

With the prices we pay, and especially with how bad R&H is, spam is the only way I can play. I'll take two units of renegade ogryn. Hopefully 1 will make it into combat! I'll take 3 HWS of 3 mortars. 72 points, somethings gonna hit on 5s.

I don't count guardsmen or orks or tac marines. Troops have a higher spam threshold. Spam is reserved for purposeful rules exploitation, chasing the meta, and so on. That said, I am a collector painter first off, and just am not interested in collecting and painting 9 units of X for the WAAC.

 jeff white wrote:
I don't count guardsmen or orks or tac marines. Troops have a higher spam threshold. Spam is reserved for purposeful rules exploitation, chasing the meta, and so on. That said, I am a collector painter first off, and just am not interested in collecting and painting 9 units of X for the WAAC.

No, running troops in repetition is still spamming. You could say they have a higher threshold but that doesn't change the fact that you're repeating a unit.

Again I am not attaching a value judgment to this, and I am not distinguishing between being "forced to spam," and "electing to spam." Just, if people spam, or not.

I do spam, and play casually.

I also question your definition of Spam, as the difference between a Baneblade and a Stormlord is wider than the difference between a Predator and a Whirlwind, yet for some reason bringing the two counts as spam.

 Marmatag wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Just casually defining spam in such broad terms that nearly every army does it, probably so you can claim a majority in some unrelated argument.

By your definition here, I cannot play my Harlequin army without being guilty of "Harlequin spamming" because I have no other troop choice. Love it.

Yes, you're playing what is a very small faction as mono-faction, so naturally you have to repeat the same unit multiple times. Just because you need to, in order to stay mono-faction, doesn't change that you are indeed spamming a unit.

And you don't *have* to, you could easily bridge the gap into Eldar soup if you wanted to.

Note that I am not also attaching a value judgment to people in this thread. I am not saying "spam is bad," or "those who spam must die."

No, it's pretty obvious that the motivation is "look, everyone is spamming" by the incredibly broad definition you've set up. 3 of any unit, including transports, does not constitute "a spam list" it constitutes probably the vast majority of lists in the game, especially non-allied lists.

If the subject of your poll is "How many people are sexist" and the poll question to determine sexism is "Have you ever disagreed with a woman" then it can be pretty easily construed that you're trying to create some kind of misleading majority.

That's fine.

There are differences between numerous super heavies. For example a Knight Crusader is very different from a Knight Gallant. But these are still two imperial knights despite having different datasheets.

And I am aware that if someone plays an Imperial Knight list at 2000 points, they *have* to spam. Again, this is not about value judgment. Nor is it saying spammers are bad. I don't see spam as bad for the game - i see undercosted units as bad for the game, which is an ENTIRELY different discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Just casually defining spam in such broad terms that nearly every army does it, probably so you can claim a majority in some unrelated argument.

By your definition here, I cannot play my Harlequin army without being guilty of "Harlequin spamming" because I have no other troop choice. Love it.

Yes, you're playing what is a very small faction as mono-faction, so naturally you have to repeat the same unit multiple times. Just because you need to, in order to stay mono-faction, doesn't change that you are indeed spamming a unit.

And you don't *have* to, you could easily bridge the gap into Eldar soup if you wanted to.

Note that I am not also attaching a value judgment to people in this thread. I am not saying "spam is bad," or "those who spam must die."

No, it's pretty obvious that the motivation is "look, everyone is spamming" by the incredibly broad definition you've set up. 3 of any unit, including transports, does not constitute "a spam list" it constitutes probably the vast majority of lists in the game, especially non-allied lists.

If the subject of your poll is "How many people are sexist" and the poll question to determine sexism is "Have you ever disagreed with a woman" then it can be pretty easily construed that you're trying to create some kind of misleading majority.

Except that is not what i'm doing here at all, you're attempting to attach a motive to the way i've framed this - which is ridiculous.

My motivation isn't "look everyone is spamming." I want to collect data and then discuss it.

You're pretty cynical.

And i find it hilarious that right now it's a 50/50 split in spam vs non-spam in both competitive and casual... so saying everyone spams is not actually true based on the data we're collecting lol.

Competitive Eldar and Chaos - I play a spam list by both accounts. My Eldar lists take 3 units of rangers and my Chaos list has a total of 5 units of cultists.

I never run more than two of any unit and that is just for troops.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Competitive Eldar and Chaos - I play a spam list by both accounts. My Eldar lists take 3 units of rangers and my Chaos list has a total of 5 units of cultists.

Interesting. I've run into competitive cultist spam lists and they're actually pretty difficult to handle. What's the quantity per unit?

Yes but why?

Why lump a Baneblade in with a Stormlord but not a Whirlwind in with a Predator? That seems awfully contrived for no reason, and is the type of thing that can kill the accuracy of a poll. It's like saying "what's your favorite politician, but all Senators are counted as Mike Pence for this poll."

 Marmatag wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Competitive Eldar and Chaos - I play a spam list by both accounts. My Eldar lists take 3 units of rangers and my Chaos list has a total of 5 units of cultists.

Interesting. I've run into competitive cultist spam lists and they're actually pretty difficult to handle. What's the quantity per unit?

One big bomb of 40 and the remainder are 10 mans there to fill out force orgs to generate the CP I need to make the various set-ups in the list work.

I dont think 3 razorbacks is spam. A battalion must have 3 troops. Space marine tac squads arent that great by themselves, they need a decent transport to be viable.

I dont think i would cry razorback spam unless someone ran 5 or more.

3-4 units of plague marines, or 3 units of Nurglings. Or 3 herolds of nurgle. Also 3 units of oblits once I've built them.

So yeah, by your definition I spam. I play casual.

I guess I spam under these guidelines even if it's only when I take 3 MSU Rubric squads.

So I spam because I regularly use 3-4 5-man tactical squads... and I tought I wasn't spamming!

But that's the interesting part.

If tactical squads were the best single unit in the game, would running 5 of them be considered spam?

Running 5 units of reapers is certainly spam.

Running 5 blobs of 30 Hormagants would be considered spam, right?

Using 3 dreads is spamming, just like 3x20 poxwalkers ? I dont think so.

Under your definition i am spamming in my all primarus army as i run a battalion.

woops.

I spam Tacticals and sometimes Devastators then, I guess? I Spam Drop Pods with 3?


I spam Tyranid Warriors with 7 squads of 9 for sure though.

 p5freak wrote:
Using 3 dreads is spamming, just like 3x20 poxwalkers ? I dont think so.

Why?

Is the argument then that repeating units is only spam if it's effective? I don't buy that, because then "spam" is totally subjective and you can't have a constructive conversation about it with anyone, because everyone has a different definition of what "good" is, based on their own personal experiences.

It's worth pointing out that even with this definition, more people don't spam than do. Not that people who spam are doing anything wrong necessarily, just that this definition wasn't nearly as restrictive as you might suggest.

IMHO what constitutes spam is 100% subjective. Some units are not spam even if you take 5 units, some are spam if you take 2+ units. It's not quantifiable in black and white.

I would agree that spam is, at best, a subjective claim, and at worse, an entirely fabricated boogeyman that doesn't have any real meaning, much like the terms WAAC and CAAC.

Not really sure if bringing multiple of the same Troop choices (and transports) constitutes as spam.

If so, I do spam. If not, I don't spamm.
At most I take two of the same (non-troop) units, regardless of army.

I think between 2 units and 5 units theres a middle ground like... 4 units? 4 units of something sounds like spam to me.

2 or even 3 is in no way spam, specially for things like troops.

 MinscS2 wrote:
Not really sure if bringing multiple of the same Troop choices (and transports) constitutes as spam.

If so, I do spam. If not, I don't spamm.
At most I take two of the same (non-troop) units, regardless of army.

So, if I were to bring 5 units of genestealers would that be spam?

You probably answered yes.

But what if they were minimum sized? I can accomplish that same thing with 2 units.

Or consider Farseer who brings a blob of 40 cultists, and then 4 small blobs of 10. he could accomplish this with 2 units. Is it spam based on model count?

If that's the case, bringing 3 storm ravens would never be considered spam, because it's only 3 models!

Spam is mostly subjective. It's like trying to differentiate between "art" and "porn." The purpose of this discussion is to simply set a control point, gather data, and then have a discussion in regards to spam, from there.

For those of you who find this too restrictive: Are you surprised that less than half - 40% (at the time of this posting) - qualify as spam for the purpose of this experiment?

Most of times I don't have much in form of spamming. Only times that fit definition would be the games I run 3x20 tactical marines.

I play both casual and competitive games, and sometimes I spam and some other times I'm not.

More than two of a specific unit is spam if the unit is not a troop. Many factions litterally have 1-3 troops and usually there's always at least one of those that is not viable even in casual metas.

Drukhari for example will likely have 3x5 kabalite warriors at least, is this considered spam?

Are 3 razorback an example of spam?

Sometimes even other different unit types than troops can be taken in multiple squads/number without considering that some sort of spam. 3 ravagers are not very different to a ravager, a jetfighter and a bomber so it shouldn't be considered spam. 3 min or mid sized squads of tankbustas have basically the same numbers of a single big unit, same for the artillery: 5 single mek gunz shouldn't be considered spam when you can have a single squad with the same number of elements.