Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Here's the thing about tournaments, I would be absolutely willing to bet that the next big tournament people will tech to deal with flyrant spam. Probably with some other kind of spam. And after that, people will spam a counter spam to that, then a counter to that and on and on it goes. Spamming units is always going to be an issue for some lists and not for others and tournaments will devolve into who got lucky by avoiding bad match ups for their particular brand of spam. The sad thing is I don't think the tournament community is grown up enough to ever stop chasing spam and take all-comers lists to avoid a spam-roulette situation from happening.

This doesn't tend to happen in 40k. Perhaps because the game evolves at a relatively quick pace (i.e. rules change every few months, new armies/units etc) but counter-listing is relatively rare.
What tends to happen is good units are distilled out and then spammed. Usually there are 5-6 units/combos which stand out.
And this happens until something better comes along.

Flyrants are tough, fast and do good damage. I struggle to see why you wouldn't want at least two in a Tyranid list - and generally if something is good on its own it only becomes better if you have more.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Except I'm not just "throwing them in my lists". My lists are very considered and varied. I've tried different tyrants in different lists with different strategies and if they weren't one of my favorite unit I'd probably ditch them because Broodlords always accomplish more in my experience.

Here's the thing about tournaments, I would be absolutely willing to bet that the next big tournament people will tech to deal with flyrant spam. Probably with some other kind of spam. And after that, people will spam a counter spam to that, then a counter to that and on and on it goes. Spamming units is always going to be an issue for some lists and not for others and tournaments will devolve into who got lucky by avoiding bad match ups for their particular brand of spam. The sad thing is I don't think the tournament community is grown up enough to ever stop chasing spam and take all-comers lists to avoid a spam-roulette situation from happening.

You're not understanding what I'm saying. You keep focusing on irrelevant details -- it doesn't matter if you're randomly generating lists that happen to include a Tyrant or if you're carefully building synergistic lists that make use of a Tyrant. I'm saying that your whole sense of what's "accomplishing more", that you get from playing with the unit, is very unreliable. This is just a bad way to come to conclusions about how good units are. Humans would be very bad at this even if there weren't an awful lot of luck involved. E.g., you were talking earlier about how Tyrants "die pretty easily" when this is just nonsense and actually they're competitive with the most durable monsters and vehicles out there -- there's basically no multi-wound model in the Tyranid codex that you'd prefer your opponent shoot lascannons or plasma at (the main exception is Rippers, and it's actually close). If you want to actually understand what a unit is doing for you you need to be doing some very careful analysis (and a lot of math) about how things were likely to go in your games and what those points could have otherwise accomplished.

I just tried to make an army of Farside's Eight and I can't do it in matched play anymore without making one of the commanders a regular Crisis Suit, and even then I have to take two aux detachments, unless we for some reason play 2500 points. I get it's not going to be a competitive list, but me and my buddies prefer the matched play rules to narrative. :(

Spamming of HQs rarely makes any "in-world" sense - how many Grand Masters of the Grey Knights are there? Because here's five of them, all in Nemesis Dreadknights. Yeah, I bet that happens all the time in the fluff.

A big part of the issue is the Supreme Command detachment. If GW would prefer that players didn't just spam their best HQ choices, maybe don't give them a detachment designed to do that exact thing? Just remove it from the game, add an optional Lord of War slot to the Battalion and Brigade detachments, and most of these problems just go away.

The other half of the equation is to stop making characters into superheroes. There's no good reason why a T'au Commander should have BS 2+ when regular Crisis Suits have 4+. Characters already get enough advantages just from being characters, they don't also need to have inflated statlines. Give them the same stats as a non-Character of their type, and enhance their support abilities instead.

 kadeton wrote:
The other half of the equation is to stop making characters into superheroes. There's no good reason why a T'au Commander should have BS 2+ when regular Crisis Suits have 4+. Characters already get enough advantages just from being characters, they don't also need to have inflated statlines. Give them the same stats as a non-Character of their type, and enhance their support abilities instead.

I don't understand this reasoning. My non-Character Wolf Guard have WS 3+, 1 wound and 2 attacks. My Wolf Lord has WS 2+, 5 wounds and 4 attacks. Is that a problem too?

 meleti wrote:
I don't understand this reasoning. My non-Character Wolf Guard have WS 3+, 1 wound and 2 attacks. My Wolf Lord has WS 2+, 5 wounds and 4 attacks. Is that a problem too?

In my opinion, yes.

They're both Space Marines, and have roughly the same physical capabilities. After centuries of training and combat experience, they should both be at their skill plateau (additional experience won't make much difference at that point). If anything, the Wolf Lord's combat skills should be a little more rusty, because he has to devote a larger portion of his time to strategy and logistics. So why do the Wolf Lord's attacks fail half as often, and why does he get twice as many? Why can he withstand five times as much physical punishment before becoming a casualty? That doesn't make any sense.

Why would it be a problem if your Wolf Lord had WS 3+, 1 wound and 2 attacks?

 Primark G wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
They shouldnt restrict any of them.

Look at the tables Adepticon was using. Flat, open playing fields with essentially no terrain.

All of that very easily set these Flyrant armies, which can just stay in reserves until it's their turn to go, drop down and tear anyone who isn't armed to the teeth with huge screens to shreds.

That’s why I don’t play there any more - just not worth it IMO.

I don't think I've ever played at a tournament that had reasonable amounts of terrain - LOS blocking or otherwise. It's always been something like one piece of terrain in each quarter and something insignificant in the middle, if you're lucky.

If they were all pointed correctly, there would be no issue.
Characters should be pointed so that they are only efficient when using thier aura. That way you wouldn't need to take more than one.

Remember the Maelific Lord. 150% point increase solved that problem.
Ofc that was overkill And now it's useless, but the point stands.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I just tried to make an army of Farside's Eight and I can't do it in matched play anymore without making one of the commanders a regular Crisis Suit, and even then I have to take two aux detachments, unless we for some reason play 2500 points. I get it's not going to be a competitive list, but me and my buddies prefer the matched play rules to narrative. :(

Play open. Take the matched play rules you like and ditch the ones you dont. Easy peasy.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
If they were all pointed correctly, there would be no issue.
Characters should be pointed so that they are only efficient when using thier aura. That way you wouldn't need to take more than one.

Remember the Maelific Lord. 150% point increase solved that problem.
Ofc that was overkill And now it's useless, but the point stands.

...You mean the once-per-game aura Commanders get? If you balanced Commanders around their buffing ability they'd be even cheaper!

 kadeton wrote:


Why would it be a problem if your Wolf Lord had WS 3+, 1 wound and 2 attacks?

Because this way you have to price him appropriately, which means roughly the cost of a regular elite dude. 20ish ppm or something similar, so you can spam loads of them. That would be a problem.

Multiwounds HQs may not be superheroes, the wolf lord certainly isn't.

 Blackie wrote:
Because this way you have to price him appropriately, which means roughly the cost of a regular elite dude. 20ish ppm or something similar, so you can spam loads of them. That would be a problem.

You can't spam loads of them if the Supreme Command detachment doesn't exist, which was the first point I raised. We shouldn't be bringing commanders who have nobody to command.

(Additionally, shouldn't a Wolf Lord be unique per army anyway? Why would there be more than one Wolf Lord present at the same little skirmish? Just make them 0-1, along with all the other General-level HQs.)

IDK if anyone said anything yet, but Shield Captain (especially on bikes) can be spammed.

I think there are two parts to the problem:

1. Some things are too good in general

2. Spamming stuff is far too easy

The first part just needs proper testing and costing. The second part is more of an issue.

IMO a huge part of the problem is the detachment system that essentially removes army building restrictions entirely. GW would be better served addressing that issue rather than trying to Band-Aid a fix on certain HQs. It's pretty clear at this point their playtesting doesn't include trying to really break the game, which is why they consistently miss the power of spammable units in general. This was sometimes a problem in older editions but at least most armies maxed out at spamming 3 of a given unit. Now it's however many you can fit in the points limit, minus a small amount for the necessary characters/units to enable the relevant detachments.

I think the way the current detachment system works it makes it far too easy to make anything legal basically.

I hope they make a anti spam rule in general for HQ, Elite, Fast, Flying, and Heavy.

For example; plaguburstCrawler spamlists may not be as competitive as flyrant, but it's just as boring to face off against.
The most common tournament (and casual play) houserule in fantasy was a restriction against multiple similar units from special, and rare units. And it worked!

How do you differentiate between spam and squew lists?
Genuine question

 Wibe wrote:
I hope they make a anti spam rule in general for HQ, Elite, Fast, Flying, and Heavy.

Highlander tournament rules.

The main problem is that it penalises the less supported books by forcing them into their poor units, whereas the better supported factions have a large pool of alternates.

Ice_can wrote:
How do you differentiate between spam and squew lists?
Genuine question

Both are a similar issue.
But at least if someone has 5-6 different monsters (for Tyranids there is a reasonable variety) that is different to taking 5 of the same unit.
So a tank-focused mechanised Guard list with Russ, Chimeras with infantry, Hellhounds etc would be different to... "here are my 15 Manticores (ignore whether that would be effective/work), better hope I don't get the first turn".

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
How do you differentiate between spam and squew lists?
Genuine question

Both are a similar issue.
But at least if someone has 5-6 different monsters (for Tyranids there is a reasonable variety) that is different to taking 5 of the same unit.
So a tank-focused mechanised Guard list with Russ, Chimeras with infantry, Hellhounds etc would be different to... "here are my 15 Manticores (ignore whether that would be effective/work), better hope I don't get the first turn".

Just to make sure I understand you correctly:

An army with one Shadowsword, one Stormlord, and one Baneblade is less spammy than an army with three Stormswords?

A.T. wrote:

 Wibe wrote:
I hope they make a anti spam rule in general for HQ, Elite, Fast, Flying, and Heavy.

Highlander tournament rules.

The main problem is that it penalises the less supported books by forcing them into their poor units, whereas the better supported factions have a large pool of alternates.

A maximum of, say 5-6 similar heavies won't hurt anyone that much. Unless you plan to spam out one type of heavyunit as your entire army. And those armies are boring to face off against, and some of them are just broken.

A.T. wrote:

 Wibe wrote:
I hope they make a anti spam rule in general for HQ, Elite, Fast, Flying, and Heavy.

Highlander tournament rules.

The main problem is that it penalises the less supported books by forcing them into their poor units, whereas the better supported factions have a large pool of alternates.

I can agree with this. Also, how would you address this? Some armies are better spamming troops (i.e. Orcs), while others are better spamming other units (i.e. PBC's).

Would you set a limit 0-1 per HQ choice per detachment? So you can take 3 Chaos Sorcerers if you have 3 detachements. Or 0-3 of a Heavy choice per detachment? This wouldn't address spam though, I can still take 9 PBC's split over 3 detachments.

I don't mind the Detachment system, I think its nice with how open it makes list building. But it is easy to exploit, and arbitrary bans on just certain units makes it kind of... well, unfair. I get Tau Commanders are great, but why limit them and not Chaos Lords or Sorcerers or Demon Princes?

Limitless choices mean limitless ways to exploit the game. There needs to be a cap somewhere to stop the spam.

Genuine question for those of you who are FOR the restriction, game wide, of HQ's, etc.

What do you expect armies like Custodes, for example, to do?

With only 3 (Same exact name and keywords, just with different armor on) HQs and one named HQ, if restricted in the same was as Tau where they could only take one <Commander> per detachment, they quite literally could only ever take one Captain and then their named HQ as an option.

My concern is with impacting elite armies who, by nature, have a very limited range of options. Tau were restricted, but their Coldstar Commander is bonkers strong and they have access to some very strong, very cheap HQ options in the form of Fireblades to offset this change.

(Edit: Just let it be known, something as simple as "You can only have 3 of each HQ Choices, army wide, in a battleforged list" would accomplish the same result as Tau did, but allow for actual elite armies to still be viable in their construction without shoe horning them into using functionally useless HQ slots.)

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Genuine question for those of you who are FOR the restriction, game wide, of HQ's, etc.

What do you expect armies like Custodes, for example, to do?

With only 3 (Same exact name and keywords, just with different armor on) HQs and one named HQ, if restricted in the same was as Tau where they could only take one <Commander> per detachment, they quite literally could only ever take one Captain and then their named HQ as an option.

My concern is with impacting elite armies who, by nature, have a very limited range of options. Tau were restricted, but their Coldstar Commander is bonkers strong and they have access to some very strong, very cheap HQ options in the form of Fireblades to offset this change.

(Edit: Just let it be known, something as simple as "You can only have 3 of each HQ Choices, army wide, in a battleforged list" would accomplish the same result as Tau did, but allow for actual elite armies to still be viable in their construction without shoe horning them into using functionally useless HQ slots.)

This is a tough thing to answer. Unless these armies are built specifically to be detachments, or they have less restrictive rulesets. As it is, however, Custodes is just as spammy as any of the rest; many AM players spam the biker-captains ad-nauseum because of how strong they are.

You could, as a result, restrict them and release more options to pad this difference; for example, release a few more HQ options via a FAQ.

People are adding Custodes captains, but I firmly believe that is a FOTM idea currently. Bike Captains are more resilient than they are Killy, and are not dominating the game similar to Tyrants.

My edit suggestion I believe would cause the same restriction across armies while still allowing Elite armies to exist.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People are adding Custodes captains, but I firmly believe that is a FOTM idea currently. Bike Captains are more resilient than they are Killy, and are not dominating the game similar to Tyrants.

My edit suggestion I believe would cause the same restriction across armies while still allowing Elite armies to exist.

Ah I see the edit. This could work, but that only addresses spam of a certain choice. I guess you could say "0-3 HQ, 0-6 troops, 0-5 Elite/FA/Heavy, 0-3 flyer, 0-1 LoW". Then allow certain armies to take multiple choices in one slot, akin to the new Titans for AM. This would limit spamming some options, but not gimp any particular army. It would also slow some of the MSU; you can only take up to 6 smaller units of guardsmen if you want to MSU, for example, and the have to take other troop choices.

Aren't you both suggesting the old 3E version of army building ( or a slight variation thereof)?

Why not just label each unit as 0- X per detachment or even just per army with a max of 3 of any of the really spammable HQs since you're still likely to see 3 of them anyway?

This would be optimal. Specific army/codex restrictions/exceptions. Fantasy had this to some degree in the codexes. For example only one unit of chaos knights could be chosen armywide, bolt throwers could be taken two for one special/rare choice. It prevented spam of the best units, but also allowed for some more of the "lesser" units.

Perhaps we could go back to the FOC and ditch the detachment system altogether?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Aren't you both suggesting the old 3E version of army building ( or a slight variation thereof)?

Why not just label each unit as 0- X per detachment or even just per army with a max of 3 of any of the really spammable HQs since you're still likely to see 3 of them anyway?

I've only played since 7th so that comparison is foreign to me, sorry. I'll take your word for it.

And yeah, exactly. If the restriction is one per detachment, but we're limited to 3 detachments typically anyway, it might as well just be 3 per army, and that works easier.