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 Wyldhunt wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Eh.
I've always found "oops, I spammed all one thing" 'theme' lists to be incredibly boring and reductive. Use a little imagination, or pay a small tax in points. If you like the theme that's probably not an issue.

YMMV regarding how much you value taking multiples of certain units as a way of conveying theme. Back in ye olden days, it was fairly common to see mechanics that allowed you to represent a faction's theme by making it easier to take more of certain units. So if you wanted to lean into your army being White Scars, for instance, you might take a captain on bike who would then turn bikers into troops, functionally allowing you to take up to 6 units of them instead of the usual 3.

Oh I remember
I did not enjoy "here's an entire army of Eldar bikes" or "here's an entire army of Leman Russ"

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Eh.
I've always found "oops, I spammed all one thing" 'theme' lists to be incredibly boring and reductive. Use a little imagination, or pay a small tax in points. If you like the theme that's probably not an issue.

YMMV regarding how much you value taking multiples of certain units as a way of conveying theme. Back in ye olden days, it was fairly common to see mechanics that allowed you to represent a faction's theme by making it easier to take more of certain units. So if you wanted to lean into your army being White Scars, for instance, you might take a captain on bike who would then turn bikers into troops, functionally allowing you to take up to 6 units of them instead of the usual 3.

Oh I remember
I did not enjoy "here's an entire army of Eldar bikes" or "here's an entire army of Leman Russ"

I loved facing Saim-Hann bike lists! They played very differently from most armies, looked great on the table, and gave the army a lot of personality! The only edition where I didn't care for it was 7th when scatter laser bikes were OP.

Leman Russ spam was more of a skew list issue than anything, and the spam tax doesn't seem like a particularly good way to address that issue. At least, not in the form they're using it here.

EDIT: Just noticed that drukhari reavers have a spam tax but ynnari reavers don't. I wonder if that's intentional, an oversight, or evidence that they just threw darts at the board to decide who would get a spam tax.

Indeed. There should be, at the very least, detachments that remove the multiples tax if taking multiples would align well with the army theme.

All in all, I feel like the new way they use detachments would have been a better way to tackle mulltiples

 Wyldhunt wrote:
like I said, 40% of the drukhari codex has a spam tax now

Hello, Drukhari player. You want to take three units of shardcarbine Scourges? That's fine, you'll just pay an extra tax for spamming one unit. What's that, Astra Militarum player? You want to take sixteen fething Leman Russes? Well you've got two each of eight different variants so that isn't spam at all!

I was pretty positive on the spam tax concept but I don't understand the implementation. Rather than limiting it to known problem units it seems to have been applied in a more scattershot manner, disproportionately hurting factions with fewer datasheets.

I'd really like to know what sort of heuristic they were operating on in making these decisions.

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
like I said, 40% of the drukhari codex has a spam tax now

Hello, Drukhari player. You want to take three units of shardcarbine Scourges? That's fine, you'll just pay an extra tax for spamming one unit. What's that, Astra Militarum player? You want to take sixteen fething Leman Russes? Well you've got two each of eight different variants so that isn't spam at all!

I was pretty positive on the spam tax concept but I don't understand the implementation. Rather than limiting it to known problem units it seems to have been applied in a more scattershot manner, disproportionately hurting factions with fewer datasheets.

I'd really like to know what sort of heuristic they were operating on in making these decisions.

This is exactly where I'm at. The concept is fine, but I'm confused and annoyed about certain units being slapped with it for no clear reason.

And yeah, it would maybe make more sense to do a tax for all Leman Russes beyond X regardless of variant, or all Vehicle units beyond X regardless of datasheet. If the goal was to address skew, that is.

EDIT: For further context, I count 5 Aeldari (read: asuryani/harlie/corsair/ynnari) units with a spam tax compared to drukharis' 8, and the Aeldari have way more datasheets in general.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
And yeah, it would maybe make more sense to do a tax for all Leman Russes beyond X regardless of variant, or all Vehicle units beyond X regardless of datasheet. If the goal was to address skew, that is.

Trying something like "ASTRA MILITARIUM LEMAN RUSS units 3rd+: +10pts 5th+: +20pts" at the end of the points section of the field manual. This would require them to make the LEMAN RUSS tag, but that should probably already exist.

EDIT: For further context, I count 5 Aeldari (read: asuryani/harlie/corsair/ynnari) units with a spam tax compared to drukharis' 8, and the Aeldari have way more datasheets in general.

Sister has 9, though one does not kick in until the 4th+ immolator at which point fair's fair. You are spamming those.

To be fair Aeldari seem to be in an absolutely horrific situation and unless they are crazy good at doing some non-engagement style missions they are going to get pounded. (GSC are presumably in the same boat.)

It was bad before 11th and they've made it worse. Although why Fire Prisms aren't a tax unit is beyond me.

GW has never been good at first-take balance and almost certainly never will be. We will see how they iterate on this.

For those people confused at how they balanced "spam" units here, remember that they with a perfectly straight face released index admech and index aeldari together and pretended that they had been playtested against each other.

The Leagues of Votann have 22 datasheets (including three named characters and two versions of Ironkin Steeljacks) of which 6 have the spam tax.

Taxed by 10 points at 3+ units: Brokhyr Thunderkyn, Einhyr Hearthguard, Hernkyn Pioneers, Ironkin Steeljacks with heavy volkanite disintegrators, Ironkin Steeljacks with melee weapons
Taxed by 15 points at 2+: Hekaton Land Fortress

It suggests to me that GW went through and applied the spam tax to everything that they saw in a particular tier rather than weight units individually. Our troops, their transports, and their supports did not get taxed (the outlier there is that Hernkyn Pioneers are taxed but Kapricus Defenders are not). Our elite infantry and heavy weapons specialists got taxed 10 points at 3+ units. Our big guy got taxed 15 points at 2+.

I suspect GW went through their database of commonly spammed units from tournament results and taxed those units along with some general rules (super-heavies get taxed after the 1st unit).

 alextroy wrote:
I suspect GW went through their database of commonly spammed units from tournament results and taxed those units along with some general rules (super-heavies get taxed after the 1st unit).

Not all of them. SMs can take multiple Thunderhawks at the base cost.

I'd understand if it was done by weight class - as bringing multiple heavy units (say 250~ points and up) starts to warp the character of your list. But it seems arbitrary to me. I missed the moment where say 3 units of Incubi or Mandrakes etc were some terror of the meta. Was anyone that bothered if someone had 3 units of Votann bikes?

I mean you can say paying 75/75/85 points is incidental. But arguably 10 points on a 75 point unit is a significant percentage increase compared to a unit that's say 180 going to 190. You can I guess argue it only matters in the round - i.e. its still just 10 lost points in your list as a whole - but still.

Its going to be interesting to see how GW's balancing copes with the dispositions. Not the first to say this - but its clear that this is going to have a significant impact on the tournament meta.

Lets say the tournament playerbase is heavily influenced by the professional scene (there is admittedly some, perhaps growing, disagreement) on "which disposition is the best". As a result you ended up with a split of 40% Purge, 30% Recon, 15% PA, 10% Take and Hold and 5% Disruption. At a 1 day 3 game event, without allowing for results, there is over a third chance you'd only play against Purge and Recon. There's an 85% chance you wouldn't play against Disruption at all. If players prepare their lists to the missions, this should mean people are very concerned about their matchup into Purge & Recon, and not overly bothered about the others.

This might mean that the less common dispositions do better, just because they can skew into stuff that's good versus Purge/Recon, while the Purge/Recon guys want to skew into their own Purge/Recon games.

This is arguably what a "meta" should be - rather than "is this the currently the most points efficient list? Okay the meta is warped entirely around that" which has usually defined 40k.

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
like I said, 40% of the drukhari codex has a spam tax now

Hello, Drukhari player. You want to take three units of shardcarbine Scourges? That's fine, you'll just pay an extra tax for spamming one unit. What's that, Astra Militarum player? You want to take sixteen fething Leman Russes? Well you've got two each of eight different variants so that isn't spam at all!

This difference is more a problem of the datasheet implementation than directly the 'spam tax'. Leman Russes are exactly what should be spam-taxed, but them having 8 separate datasheets makes them largely immune, and that's a problem.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
like I said, 40% of the drukhari codex has a spam tax now

Hello, Drukhari player. You want to take three units of shardcarbine Scourges? That's fine, you'll just pay an extra tax for spamming one unit. What's that, Astra Militarum player? You want to take sixteen fething Leman Russes? Well you've got two each of eight different variants so that isn't spam at all!

This difference is more a problem of the datasheet implementation than directly the 'spam tax'. Leman Russes are exactly what should be spam-taxed, but them having 8 separate datasheets makes them largely immune, and that's a problem.

Hopefully now that wargear can have points again we’ll see some datasheet consolidation. But that’s probably not going to happen until the 11th codex drops.

It certainly could happen. But another key reason is for separate special rules.

The design zeitgeist for 40k is now clearly that every unit needs a unique* special rule. [*probably not actually very unique].
And the kind of special rule that might be appropriate for a Leman Russ Vanquisher isn't going to be the same special rule as is appropriate for a Leman Russ Punisher. Unless you do something horribly generic that's probably not special or relevant to any of them. I think this is the main reason why Crisis Suits got broken out - they went from a generic and bad special rule to appropriate and flavourful special rules.

If GW wanted to consolidate datasheets they'd have to go back to wargear.
IE rather than having a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs tanks, and a separate datasheet with a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs infantry - they'd just have a single unit with "tank targeters" that can switch it for "infantry targeters" kinda deal.

It also doesn't make sense why they're keeping the data sheet splits like the battle suits or wraithknights when they have wargear again.

You don't need so many leman Russ data sheets to need a leman Russ key word when you can just put their gun in as wargear.

Eldar don't need to be able to take 6 wraithknights.

They should be collapsing all the artificial unit splits, it allows an unnecessary ability to spam units based solely on the decision to represent wargear as a data sheet rather than an upgrade.


While they're at it they should put a limit on how many captains marines can take, they can basically take more than a chapter has because of data sheet idiocy

You are all trying to fix a problem that only exists in theory.

The problem isn't someone spamming 16 leman russ for a "thematic" army. This is not causing actual problems anywhere.

It's someone spamming the one good option 3 times. This is happening all the time.

Half those variants aren't great anyways, so paying an extra 10 points per tank to bring 15x the best options is probably a vastly superior to bringing 16 tanks.

The Adeptus Custodes are about to be used like the Sith and follow Darth Bane's Rule of Two.

The price increases do make the army cheaper to own and easier to transport.

As someone that plays an all-tank AM list, it's at least lore appropriate to run a million Russes (not a defense of the points situation).

I personally would add a LEMAN RUSS tag to the chassis and add whatever arbitrary points value for 3+, then 5+, then 7+, etc.

Or: you make 3 distinct subclasses of Russ that can each be given certain turrets, and you point them all as per the chassis/turret combo. For example the "Heavy chassis" is 160 points, and the Demolisher cannon and associated rule is +30 points, and the Executioner cannon and rule is +15 points or whatever.

Probably easier to do it by keyword.

 Jidmah wrote:
The problem isn't someone spamming 16 leman russ for a "thematic" army. This is not causing actual problems anywhere.

I don't think taking three units of Scourges, Kasrkin, or Pyrovores was causing actual problems anywhere either, but here we are.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It certainly could happen. But another key reason is for separate special rules.

The design zeitgeist for 40k is now clearly that every unit needs a unique* special rule. [*probably not actually very unique].
And the kind of special rule that might be appropriate for a Leman Russ Vanquisher isn't going to be the same special rule as is appropriate for a Leman Russ Punisher. Unless you do something horribly generic that's probably not special or relevant to any of them. I think this is the main reason why Crisis Suits got broken out - they went from a generic and bad special rule to appropriate and flavourful special rules.

If GW wanted to consolidate datasheets they'd have to go back to wargear.
IE rather than having a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs tanks, and a separate datasheet with a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs infantry - they'd just have a single unit with "tank targeters" that can switch it for "infantry targeters" kinda deal.

You could just include a special rule swap with the weapon swap. Wouldn't be too hard to lay out.

You could, but the datasheet would be cluttered and therefore harder to use. Easier to have a different datasheet to keep it relatively clean.

If they really care about the multi-datasheet spam opportunity, they can address that in multiple other ways without cluttering the datasheet with rules you only get to use if you have 1 of X different pieces of wargear.

 Jidmah wrote:
You are all trying to fix a problem that only exists in theory.

The problem isn't someone spamming 16 leman russ for a "thematic" army. This is not causing actual problems anywhere.

It's someone spamming the one good option 3 times. This is happening all the time.

Half those variants aren't great anyways, so paying an extra 10 points per tank to bring 15x the best options is probably a vastly superior to bringing 16 tanks.

Part of my gripe is that the spam tax does seem to generally be about 10 extra points, and 10 points doesn't seem like it's likely to make or break the balance of a list. If someone is fielding 3 of the best russ variant and that's considered a problem, does slapping 10 extra points on the overall price really fix that problem? I guess it could add up if your entire list was 3 copies of unit A, 3 copies of unit B, etc. But I'm not sure how many lists are actually doing that.

Again, I doubt the tax is going to prevent me from fielding the units I want often enough to be a major problem, but it's going to be very irksome on the occassions that it does. And it would be nice to understand what their thinking was. What are they going for? Why spam tax this unit but not that unit? Etc.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It certainly could happen. But another key reason is for separate special rules.

The design zeitgeist for 40k is now clearly that every unit needs a unique* special rule. [*probably not actually very unique].
And the kind of special rule that might be appropriate for a Leman Russ Vanquisher isn't going to be the same special rule as is appropriate for a Leman Russ Punisher. Unless you do something horribly generic that's probably not special or relevant to any of them. I think this is the main reason why Crisis Suits got broken out - they went from a generic and bad special rule to appropriate and flavourful special rules.

If GW wanted to consolidate datasheets they'd have to go back to wargear.
IE rather than having a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs tanks, and a separate datasheet with a unique special rule to reroll 1s vs infantry - they'd just have a single unit with "tank targeters" that can switch it for "infantry targeters" kinda deal.

You could just include a special rule swap with the weapon swap. Wouldn't be too hard to lay out.

They do this with necron’s lokhust destroyers. They have 2 options, one single shot big AV, the other multishot infantry clearing. Both guns get RR 1s to wound, but only vs their preferred target. Obviously not as many options to deal with as a Russ, but it’s something that has been done.

In previous editions, I would have agreed. However, due to the nature of how you build lists in 10th (and probably 11th), those extra 10 points here and there usually ruin the equation that highly competitive armies are based off.

Since you can't just drop some random wargear, a list which used to spam 3 defilers now has to drop a whole unit and replace it with something completely different. This might drop your unit count below a critical level, making it harder to score, especially when spamming expensive units like a defiler. It might prevent you from bringing sufficient guns to counter the counter to your spammed unit or it might force you to drop a character/enhancement which was a serious force multiplier.
As a result, the overall efficiency of the list drops.

That said, the current points very much seem like a scattershot starting point roughly based on the rules they explained in their article. They are very aware that they aren't going to get it right in their first attempt. The three months of monthly balance updates can and should be treated as the 11th edition open beta.

I hope that in the long run, certain units will be taxed with more than 10 points when you spam them. They did a decent job with the tax/discounts on bigger units, so I'm confident that it will work out in the long run.

Or... GW could just up the cost of the first model in question and dispense with all this nonsense.

Games Workshop has a long history of creating a problem and instead of fixing or removing that problem, it bolts on another problem to address the problem it created. Rinse and repeat.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Why spam tax this unit but not that unit? Etc.

Judging from my two armies, it looks like they went through all recorded game data in 10th and hit everything which was spammed in top placing lists with 3+ tax unless it either is a back bones unit of the army. 2+ is only applied to particularly problematic units.

There is no other patter which I can identify which would not tax demon princes, but put 2+ on PBC and 3+ on HBL bloat drones.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Why spam tax this unit but not that unit? Etc.

Judging from my two armies, it looks like they went through all recorded game data in 10th and hit everything which was spammed in top placing lists with 3+ tax unless it either is a back bones unit of the army. 2+ is only applied to particularly problematic units.

There is no other patter which I can identify which would not tax demon princes, but put 2+ on PBC and 3+ on HBL bloat drones.

In what world is running 2+ GK Thunderhawks problematic? Let alone even a thing.

 amanita wrote:
Or... GW could just up the cost of the first model in question and dispense with all this nonsense.

Games Workshop has a long history of creating a problem and instead of fixing or removing that problem, it bolts on another problem to address the problem it created. Rinse and repeat.

I can imagine a spam tax helps with first-pass balancing.

Undercosting a unit adds up to quite a saving after it's bought three times. But when the spam tax comes in that isn't' so.
Then again, it also then makes overcosting *more* of a problem. But an overcosted unit is unlikely to be triple spammed anyway

As was brought up in the big debates about free wargear earlier, effectiveness isn't linear. Due to the context of the game, manoeuvring, force concentration and so on, a second gun is sometimes more or less than twice as potent overall as a single gun is.

You can't really properly account for this on the lowest level when things are very cheap, but I genuinely do think it makes some sense to at the least do it for 250+ point power bruisers whose influence has a drastic effect on game play.