# Balanced VS Spam



## pathwinder14 (Dec 27, 2006)

With the new BA out I am seeing lots of Pred heavy lists. This got me to thinking. Why are so many people making Spam lists? 

Yes 3 Baal Preds and 3 Preds is nasty, but is has a fatal flaw. Namely, the rear. These lists work on the principle of advancing and shooting but fail to account for DS, Drop Pods, or better firepower (I'm looking at you IG Mech). 

These armies have no balance to their construction. An unbalanced force creates a weakness in favor of it's strength as I showed above. Why do people make these Spam lists? What is it that causes many of us to overload on one particular unit choice? If one is good and 2 is better, are 3 unstoppable? No.

Three of anything ( except troops) is a liability. It gives a good strength but is fails to make up for its inherent weakness. The trade off is not worth it. 

Weak players fall for Spam lists. Indeed I dare say that weak players make spam lists. This is not an insult. We're all weak at one time or another. We either just started and do not have any experience, or we get hung up on one strategy or idea (I'm guilty of this one), or we get used to being a large fish in a small pond, etc. The reasons are endless. The point is that spam lists are not competitive and only show one sided thinking. 

This is not to say that balanced lists are perfect. They are far from it. However the more balanced an army is, the better it's chances of winning. This is because it has tried to account for all in-game possibilities in either how it is constructed or how it is played.

Comments welcome.


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## Don_Keyballs (Jan 14, 2010)

Very good point... but I guess my counter argument is that sometimes said spam list can walk over a balanced list because the balance list isn't made to take out for example 6 preds. Then there is also the possibility of spam list vs spam list. Not all players are balanced and if you know the type of armies you would be going up against, sometimes a spam list is your best option.

I'm not well versed with BA or SW or IG for that matter. But to me, in a BA list, a LR would seem out of place points wise where a pred may be better. In a SW army, how hard is it to not have some form of DP spam and still be viable. With IG, Leman Russ', though with many varients are the best thing and sometimes overloading spam is the best way to take out balance.

Now some of my comments may make me sound like one of those newb players you talk about. But I guess what I'm trying to say that sometimes to take out spam... you need spam.

You are right though, 6 pred's would just get anniliated by an army that drops in behind or a flanking army.

Good Post


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

pathwinder14 said:


> Why do people make these Spam lists?


they require no thought to make whatsoever, and todays generation of 40k players love using as little of there mind as they can.

its also pressure from competitive players as well I think, there the number 1 culprits for spam army lists not beginners (heck competitive players are the ones who label every 9 out of 10 units as useless in any codex and shout at you to spam shit), when all the rumors started coming out for the BA dex I noticed more competitive players going on about spamming predators and dreadnoughts than beginners, and if a beginner asked if it was a good idea every competitive player would basically bully them to assure them it was the best idea ever and not doing these lists made you a moron.

but now that the codex is almost here competitive players and players with brains (separate species of player who already knew it was a bad list) are labeling the lists as useless and never to ever play with them (a long with 90% of any codex not just the BA ones), but beginner players still think it is competitive because they were told so and are now being told its useless.

of course anyone who has ever played armoured company knows spamming any armoured vehicle is a waste of time, no matter what it is, predator, leman russ, land raider, rhinos anything, so we already knew and just shook our heads, not raising our voices for the knowledge that they never listen.

I know one thing though, everyone who does spam predators and assault squads are gonna be handing victory after victory to even the most unskilled player and every competitive player will label the BA dex as a worthless pile of crap after not long and we can all get a good laugh.


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## PanzerPig (Apr 15, 2008)

I think the principle behind it lies in that in a balanced list you try to account for every possibility, or at least as many as possible. So you have say 2-3 units good at anti-tank and 2-3 for anti infantry. By spamming nearly full preds, half of your opponents army is worthless and you only have to kill half of your opponents units to essentially win. 

I don't like the idea myself, the most i spam is having two units of avengers (i do love those guys however), but I can see the merits of it, however as people have said before, if the opposition expects to see all tank then he/she will spam anti tank and it becomes a cycle, or a spam list gets unlucky and even a balanced list will have enough anti-tank to stop them in their tracks (literal kind). 

Either way, I find balanced lists more fun and when you play a balanced list vs a balanced list the best battles are right there as it often comes down to a single nail biting dice roll, well it often does to me......maybe i should change my tactics.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

On a related note how many similar section in a army have to be taken to qualify as spam. For instance I wouldn't consider a Chaos army that too almost exclusively melta guns on every squad possible spam, but for some reason I consider a all berserker army spam. Where is the numerical values for units and wargear selections where something encounters the tipping point into spam?

On a related note beside Lash can a two DP list be qualified as spam? After all spam is often described as any attempt to use so much of one type of unit that the enemy is not equipped to deal with them, and most armies have plenty of weapons that can kill DP reliably. 

As to balanced vs spam it all comes down to the nature of the game. After all there is no incentive in playing a competitive game (Tournament) with a balanced list if you know it won't stand a decent chance of winning. I'm surprised that GW hasn't set down more strict rules for tournament play that encourages balanced lists by using more meaningful incentives.


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## pathwinder14 (Dec 27, 2006)

Spam means taking an army that relies upon 3 of any Elite, Heavy Support, or Fast Attack unit. I.E. 3 Land Raiders, 3 units of Obliterators, 3 Vindicators, etc. Alternatively it could also mean taking 2 maxed out identical HQ squads. Two Eldar jetbike Seer Councils or 2 Ork Nob bike squads are good examples.


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## buckythefly (Mar 16, 2009)

I am totally in agreement with Stella, which doesn't happen that often but I'd like to add. 

Its kind of a destructive cycle, Competitive players egg on newbies, making more similar like minded players. I lay in wait for the day when everything is so optimized that when I play a list containing any ork unit people will have no idea how to handle the sheer lack of optimization.


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## Col. Schafer (Apr 15, 2008)

Its (to use a reference to D&D) the rouge vs bard situation. Bards can cast spells =D yaaay... /fail. Rouges are just better than bards because bards try to do everything and therefore are less than proficient at everything. Rouges on the otherhand are stealthy and will choke a bitch if they can get behind them. 

Of course, the diference between 40K and D&D is in D&D the rouge has the fighter to take the hits. The spam list doesnt have anyone holding the objectives while its heavy support kicks ass or destroying enemy AT while its ball preds chew up the enemies infantry. The spam list is unflexible and cant deal with some stuff efectively. While a spam list might have an edge against some oponents, a balenced list can exploit the weekness of any spam list it comes across. The reason people spam, is because when you envision your three BPs you arent envisioning them getting shreded by your enemies meltas, you picture them shreding infantry. Only once their on the board do they start to remember their own weekness. Hence, stellas post. 

And thats what you call polotics: saying three lines worth of information in two paragraphs. :grin:


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

Well, there's spam and then there's _spam_. Filling your FA with Baals or the like isn't really spam, per se. Sure, you can't field any MM speeders, but as long as the rest of your list functions in such a way as to make up for this you're fine. This is true for all new codexes (ie, you can give yourself the abilities multiple ways) and is required by many older codices.

I'll as an example: I have two armies I care about: Tau and Eldar.

Tau... have to do a certain amount of XV8 Spamage. The elites and HQ slots don't contain anything else of value, and the suits have a number of solid things they can do, particularly the fireknife (which can make up for a number of holes in a list). A mobile force also really needs 3 Railheads, along with some other antivehicle options.

Then there's the Eldar. You have some options at HS, but elites contain our only real access to melta weapons. As a result, taking 2, maaaaybe 3 fire dragons is common sense. A list that "spams" Falcons or Prisms along with Dragons is frequently quite balanced due to other things in the list.


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## Dawnstar (Jan 21, 2010)

Good point Cyklown :good:

Another example that springs to mind is Chaos. Chaos will often take several rhino's in a list (I take 4, and can fit a 5th) and 99% of the time will take AT LEAST one units of 2 obliterators. People who take obliterators take them because of how good of a unit they are, and how valuable they are during the game. They have access to 6 different weapons IIRC and can fire a different one each turn! So depending on how the game goes, you fire a different weapon. Now thats tactical flexibility :grin:


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## AAAAAAAAARRRGGHH (Apr 17, 2009)

Rantatron 3000 engaged.

Sure, but obliterator lists uses them in multiples (2x3, 3x2 or 3x3) and also dedicted their 2 HQ slots to make these guys even better. 5 slots, while not the same units, are still to make the most of 1 unit (wether you bring lash for blits or blits for lash is insignificant) and that is spam. And theres always the argument "it's just a good combination. They work together well. That's the point of the game, etc." Spam is spam. And 5th edition encourages spam, mech spam at least, which is, no matter how you look at it, spam. 4+ of something is in most peoples opinion spam. It's just that spamming some things is worse than others.

Hell, I don't mind mech lists. Because they are flexible. They have a lot of mobility and utility, which encourages a balanced list. Because those zerks aren't cool if they get shot to death. And those Veterans aren't cool when caught in H2H. So you can take alot of different things and they will do pretty well since they can get where u want them to be when they need to. But spam becomes degenerate when all things only do 1 thing. Mainly if it just kills everything in sight due to 1 real annoying unit (oblits, i'm looking at you) or just never fights. 

And more often than not, degenerate spam rolls over everything that isn't ready for it. Mostly because when your opponent relies on this 1 thing he will make it hard to counter. Which is the bad side of the mech medal. It makes many things possible. Thus you are mostly forced to spam shit yourself to give you enough answers to counter the spam. After all, spam is only done because it loads all of your army's strength into 1 (maybe 2) aspects of the game and the balanced lists can't deal with that. Well, unless you know what your doing. But we all know that it's easier to be lazy and just spam than it is to find the time learning to play properly and find the spam lists weaknesses.

Rantatron 3000 disengaged.


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