Heresy: Unit Redundancy?

[Brofist]

I have to say, the cold, resolute and logical explanation from Bulbafist of the Iron Warriors followed by the roary enthusiasm of harrypotter of the World Eaters made me chuckle. You guys picked your Legions well

Hahaha, I never thought of it that way. I guess I'm guilty as charged

@Bulbafist : Could you post me your lists to see how you approach diversity ? I understand the need to avoid strategic holes, but the idea was to plug them by making it hard for the opponent to use his own strengths.

For example, let's follow the spammy model with half the points invested in a single unit type and half the points invested in Troops (I felt that this was usually a pretty efficient points spread in 30k) and take that example about the 40 Tacticals in Rhinos and 6 Executionners. The biggest weakness of this list for example is that it absolutely sucks in melee. Knowing that, the idea is to keep the Tacticals in transports (to make it hard for the opponent to get to them), and to use the Tacticals as a security line to protect the Predators at all costs (because they carry the damage of list). Maybe we can vary the units rather than having 6 Predators, maybe a 3 and 3 split with Vindicators for example, but you get the idea I was thinking of. Having uniforms corps with 1 mechanized infantry corps and 1 armour corps and doing them effectively, rather than having a bit of each (like 2 Predators and 1 Terminator Squad), in order to increase the momentum of each corps.

For a melee example with the World Eaters for instance (to see how this applies to melee armies as well). Typically, you can throw 2 units of 5 Red Butchers in Land Raiders (or 1 giant unit of 10 in a Spartan) at 2000 points while still having quite a large amount of Troops, compared to having 1 smaller unit of Red Butchers and 2 Sicarans for instance.

I feel an important distinction is that units fulfilling duplicate roles are important to many army themes and strategies. For example, you want to play drop pod assault. You must take drop pods. What I've found myself doing is not taking a duplicate choice unless it's for a reason. Instead I've been splitting things up a lot lately. Here's a ~3000 point Iron Warriors list showing the point. Note that this using Tyrants in the Elites slot and that breachers and a phobos cost less in my league.

Iron Warriors, Iron Fire

~3000

[HQ]

-Golg

-Siege Breaker

-Praevian, x4 Vorax

[Troops]

x5 Terminators, Dreadclaw

x10 Breachers, Dreadclaw

x20 Tacticals, Extra CCW

[Elites]

x3 Rapiers, Phosphex, Shatter

x5 Tyrant Siege Terminators

x1 Apothecary, Aug Scanner

[Heavy]

x2 Medusa

x1 Scorpius

x1 Leviathan, Phosphex, Melta Lance, Pod

It's not perfect, but the point is that all the units have something they're doing that compliments the entire army. Another less points heavy example might be the new tank ROW at 2000 points:

Iron Hands, Armored Breakthrough

~2000

[HQ]

-Master of Armour, Sicaran Venator (tank commander)

-Orth, Sicaran Tank (from elites section)

[Troops]

x1 Predator, Las Sponsons

x1 Predator, Las Sponsons

x1 Predator, HCB

x1 Predator, Plasma Cannon, Las Sponsons

x7 Tactical Support Squad, Plasma, Proteus

[Elites]

x1 Sicaran Tank

[Heavy Support]

x2 Medusa

x2 Vindicators, Laser Destroyer, Machine Spirit

x1 Leviathan, Phosphex, Melta Lance, Pod

Lots of tanks, sure, but that's the army theme. Outside the two mandatory troops choices I'm taking a diverse selection of units that I hope will compliment each other. It's not a perfect list or anything (both lists would benefit a lot from a dodo or mortis dread imo), but I hope it demonstrates how I've been building lists lately.

[Slips]

Its Pod Spam but thats what any pod list suffers with.

 

Yours is a much clearer example of spam since you basically have:

• 6 Tac Squads
• 6 Rhinos
• 9 Predators (or 15 Rhino Chassis total)

Vs:

• 2 Vet Squads
• 2 Dreadclaws
• 4 Dreadpods
• 2 Contemptor-Cortus'
• 2 Leviathans (4 Walkers Total)

+++

 

The only potential scenario where I see your hypothetical list coming out on top is in Mealstrom Missions but even then thats no guarantee because while it does have Quantity, it doesnt have quality; Rhinos are easily killed, 10 man Tac Squads have no real staying power when something with killing power is brought to bear against them. You might have 6 Tac Squads but if 2-4 of them die a turn to a single dread each well, they aren't worth all that much in the long run and you'd have been better off with something that can kill said dread. Because at least then, in a KP Scenario you actually have a chance to come out on top.

 

You're also not doing yourself any favors by freely giving up the Slay the Warlord point by sacrificing your Forge Lord.

[Azkaellon3]

Your list might work but it is in no way strong, that's just a fact and I'm sorry if you can't see that.

But that's what we are there for, to help you make the most out of a list or an idea.

 

Am in work and didn't calculate points.

But how about this one:

 

Orth

80 points

 

Legion tactical squad

10 legionaries

Legion vexilla

Sergeant with artificer armour

Power axe

Melta bombs

185 points

 

Legion tactical squad

10 legionaries

Legion vexilla

Sergeant with artificer armour

Power axe

Melta bombs

185 points

 

Legion caestus assault ram

Frag assault launchers

Auxiliary drive

2 wing mounted missile launchers

335 points

 

Contemptor cortus

Two graviton guns

One chainfist

Blessed auto simulacra

Dreadnought drop pod

250 points

 

Legion caestus assault ram

Frag assault launchers

Auxiliary drive

2 wing mounted missile launchers

335 points

 

Deredeo pattern dreadnought

Aiolos missile launcher

220 points

 

Legion typhon heavy siege tank

Lascannon side sponsons

Armoured ceramite

410 points

 

 

In all honesty I can see no way your list will win.

I just ram you and shoot you to death and shout:

flesh is weak!

 

A generic one without a rite, legion or character:

 

Legion centurion

Legion champion consul

Cataphractii terminator armour

Power fist

125 points

 

Legion tactical squad

10 tactical marines

Legion vexilla

Nuncio vox

Power axe

Meltabombs

Artificer armour

Rhino

Dozerblade

Extra armour

Auxiliary drive

255 points

 

Legion tactical squad

10 tactical marines

Legion vexilla

Nuncio vox

Power axe

Meltabombs

Artificer armour

Rhino

Dozerblade

Extra armour

Auxiliary drive

255 points

 

Legion rapier weapon battery

2 rapier

2 quad moarters

120 points

 

Legion Terminator squad

6 man

2 chainfist

1 plasmablaster

Grenade harness

Legion Spartan assault tank

Auxiliary drive

Armoured ceramite

Flare shield

Dozer blade

Frag assault launchers

615 points

 

Xiphon pattern interceptor

Chaff launcher

Armoured cockpit

215 points

 

Sicarian venator tank destroyer

Dozer blade

Auxiliary drive

205 points

 

Sicarian venator tank destroyer

Dozer blade

Auxiliary drive

205 points

 

Your tanks will be a fine paste and you don't have anything to really deal with my Spartan or flyer. I reckon by turn 4 I will have won if the dice choose to not betray me and roll normal for once.

 

Just do yourself a favour and don't spam tacs. Preds are OK to a certain extend, as long as you don't sacrifice your ability to take on different kinds of threats.

But general consensus is versatility over spamming.

I hope you see the points hawk, slips and I try to make.

Of course you can have fun with your list and you are welcome to play whatever you want, but at the end of the day it just is not the best thing to do, nor is it very strong.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Not adressing anyone in particular, but ...

Might actually be worth to play some of those games instead of just throwing things out in the open air.

Yes, of course that list with 6 Tac Squads and 3 Preds isn't very effective, except for potential 40k Maelstrom games ... but why are we going down that route anyways. Perhaps we should focus on AoD missions.

ALL (yes, all) the lists presented herein that would 'turn yours into fine paste' or [insert ultimate I-will-destroy-you quote by Morbo here] contain certain elements that they 'spam'.

Be it Leviathans, Sicarans or Cortus or ... oh, wait, actually those are the very units EVERYONE includes (which in itself is a form of spamming as well ... I call it social lookalike netlist spamming).

Oh gosh, forgot about the Deredeo ...

This thread feels quite like 'my list roxxxors' threads over at /TG.

Yes, repeating the same tough units over and over is a tough nut to crack, but luckily battles are not fought on paper but on actual tables and there's other factors to figure in that just numbers on a sheet of paper (or screen).

I'm partially sorry for the early morning rant, but the evolution of this thread just made me loose my orally ingested coffee through the nose.

[Azkaellon3]

Of course the list contain spammed units.

 

That's what the thread is about and the answer was already given multiple times: you can spam units but not everyone.

 

The "my list is better than yours" comparison started with the bold statement that 40 tacs 6+ preds would be effective, so as responsible players we (maybe I became a little bit hotheaded) tried to show him the errors of his way.

 

Spamming units is fine and powerful if you spam the right units and tacs don't fit there in any way and preds only in certain list builds (ferrus manus- head of the gorgon for example).

[Volth]

I think the list was initially just meant to illustrate the topic. Of course it was doomed to backfire and end in list-building and running down of imaginary situations. Next stadium should be some more mathhammer leading to wishlisting, private talks, then damnatio memoriae.

 

OT Redundancy is key when I design a list. But usually it's not necessarily redundancy of units, but of roles. Like I usually have 1-3 units capable of carrying melta weapons. This is where I decide to spam or not to spam. Versatility creates more space to tactically use, while spamming is a great way to be resilient to attrition but makes your list more predictable and probably easy to exploit.

 

And actually I like the idea of 4 Tacs and 6 Preds. You play the objective game, blast infantry away, but have to avoid heavy tanks and fliers.. would love to see how it turns out in gaming.

[GreyCrow]

I think the list was initially just meant to illustrate the topic. Of course it was doomed to backfire and end in list-building and running down of imaginary situations. Next stadium should be some more mathhammer leading to wishlisting, private talks, then damnatio memoriae.

That was totally the point of this list indeed It does have certain weaknesses, most notably the fact that it can't deal with heavy tanks well and has no melee capabilities at all, but what it has is range and mobility above footslogging units like Dreadnoughts or assault units on foot.

I like your point about redundancy of roles though. Units that act cohesively but differently in a sense. Then, my point was about scaling them up, with one again, finding a formula that works.

If we're looking at it from a Line + Cavalry point of view, where the line is the Troops units, maybe we should also include a melee element somewhere in the list whether the line or the cavalry. What the lists presented here all had was one good strength in melee with the Dreadnoughts and Terminators.

So, in the 4 Tacs, 6 Predators example, what about throwing some Power Fists on the Tactical Sergeants ? Won't beat the nastier melee units out there, but it will certainly do a little more damage.

EDIT : Finally, to have a bit of tactical diversity but still enough volume to make a dent and keeping with the theme, what about replacing 3 Predators by 3 Vindicators with machine spirit ? Costing the same price and having another tactical tool while still being a spam of fast armour.

@Unknown Legionnaire : Good point about the AOD specific missions My group tends to play with the basic 40k missions whether EW or Maelstrom with 7th edition rules so I tend to get carried away in this mode of thought. I guess the AOD missions are worth looking at separately.

[Terminus]

I'm not sure if this is a 30k thing, but lately I've found myself preferring diverse choices rather than taking duplicates. The relatively good internal balance helps as there isn't a slam dunk unit in every single category. preference or if this is a trend.

True, there aren't obvious slam dunks except maybe for some of the special units, although there are a couple of bricks. :D

 

Anyway, I think what GreyCrow was saying is not the spamming of the same unit, but rather using units that work towards the same goal. So not taking just one close combat unit, but several that can support each other, while the ranged elements focus on killing transports. Or taking a Phosphex medusa AND phosphex rapiers and maybe a GravPhos Leviathan to create large swaths of dangerous terrain. Either of those builds would be more effective than a mix of both, where your assault element isn't as overwhelming and your firepower is mitigated by danger close.

[Brofist]

The thread kinda veered off track, but to summerize my thoughts- given the choice of taking 2 dodos or 2 mortis dreads, I find myself preferring to take 1 of each.

[GreyCrow]

I'm not sure if this is a 30k thing, but lately I've found myself preferring diverse choices rather than taking duplicates. The relatively good internal balance helps as there isn't a slam dunk unit in every single category. preference or if this is a trend.

True, there aren't obvious slam dunks except maybe for some of the special units, although there are a couple of bricks.

Anyway, I think what GreyCrow was saying is not the spamming of the same unit, but rather using units that work towards the same goal. So not taking just one close combat unit, but several that can support each other, while the ranged elements focus on killing transports. Or taking a Phosphex medusa AND phosphex rapiers and maybe a GravPhos Leviathan to create large swaths of dangerous terrain. Either of those builds would be more effective than a mix of both, where your assault element isn't as overwhelming and your firepower is mitigated by danger close.

Don't start again saying Lernaean Terminators are a waste of points ! (Private Joke :D )

That was my question, yes. Typically in my local meta in heresy, I tend to see lists with both elements, while 40k players at a competitive level in my meta tend to focus on one or two aspects of their Codex and build up on that. I was wondering whether the same approach in 30k could yield more competitive results than lists having some shooting, some form of melee and some form of sustain.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

 My group tends to play with the basic 40k missions whether EW or Maelstrom with 7th edition rules so I tend to get carried away in this mode of thought

 

Oh wow, this explains a lot, units get completely changed playing 7th ed scoring. I'm not even going to touch the fiesta that is Maelstrom 

[Terminus]

That meta is crazy! I'd just play the armoured spearhead and drown them in scoring predator and Sicaran hulls.

 

As for Lerneans, my opinion changed when I stopped giving them ranged weapon upgrades.