Efficiency versus Redundancy, What's your preference and why?

The conversation near the end of the DE topic got me thinking about this.

What do you guys prefer, Redundancy or Efficiency? Let me elaborate quickly so we're all talking about the same thing.

To be efficient is to achieve the maximum output for the minimum of input. An efficient army list will spend just enough points on a given unit in order to accomplish its task, and no more, saving points for better use elsewhere.

A list favouring redundancy will spend extra points on units in order for them to be able to still accomplish their goal even after something has gone wrong. This is obviously done at the expense of those extra points that could have been used elsewhere.

Here's a concrete example.

Last night I played a 2012 point game in preparation for a 2012 point tournament (first tourney of 2012, hence the weird points-size). My army looked as follows:

Characters:
HoK, Firestorm Blade, AoK, BSB
HoS, General, Siren Song
HoT, Spell Breaker, MoS (Beasts)

Core:
39xBloodletters, Banner, endless war, muso.
39xdaemonettes, Banner, Siren Standard, muso

Special:
3xNurglings

Rare:
5xFlamers
5xFlamers
1xCrusher

The redundancy is evident in the daemonette and bloodletter unit sizes. an efficient version of the above list would drop both infantry units to 30, and take either a 20-strong horor unit for the Herald, or a 20-strong bloodletter or plaguebearer unit for more tactical flexibility. The downside is that after taking the inevitable artiller-pounding from the dwarfs, the big bloodletter unit would immediately be losing hitting power.

(Also, just for future reference, I'd drop the crusher for a unit of Furies. I tried it out this game after reading up on the notion, but I'd rather have Furies for that job...)

So which approach do people prefer, and why? I obviously favour redundancy myself, since I hate having a unit made useless by a rock / spell or two.

-und_ed

Usually a good list has both of these factors in balance. Not many lists will do great if player takes only one of these to in account. I will also view some units by raw killpower. Though killpower is usually related to efficiency, it sometimes varies with different units like monsters and monstrous cavalry for example and especially on some upgrade choices that themselves are not cost effective, but increases killcount and thus can also be seen as kind of a defense.

ah good topic! i play daemons and beastmen and the approach that i favor depends on which army i play.

my beastmen for example, i use huge units, multiple pieces of magic defense gear, 4+ wards on my most important characters, stubborn crown, standard of discipline plus a BSB, all redirector units are taken in multiples of 2-4, and several low level wizards for miasma spam. i favor the redundancy because the army is much more rugged and losing an element (my gor or bestigor herd for example) will be crippling to my battle plan. i need my heavy hitters to smash like a ton of bricks so lots of bodies (minimum of 40), i need to control what they get hit by and when, so lots of redirectors, expecting some to be shot/panicked/magicked away. the stubborn crown, standard of discpline, and bsb all combine for layers of redundant LD protection to ensure that once i get into combat, i stay there until the enemy is dead.

my latest daemon list is the exact opposite:

keeper w/ spirit swallower as general

HoT w/ fire and wings

HoS w/ siren song

HoS w/ etherblade

24 Daemonettes w/ ecstasy

20 Daemonettes w/ siren

5 hounds

6 seekers

6 fiends

2 solo crushers

as you can see, not one single function in the army is redundant (except for the 2 crushers, but that isn't really a redundancy since they fulfill the same role in theory but usually end up doing very different things). no bsb and no grindability means everything needs to work right the first time, but no element (except the keeper) is so essential to victory that i can't win without it.

you can see that each unit is specialized and really doesn't perform well outside of its intended purpose. the keeper is my heavy combat res generator and deals with redirectors by terror-panicking them out of the way of key units. she also handles all of the high T work. the larger daemonette unit usually gets the siren herald and is the anvil/battleline anchor (if i can be said to have a "battle line" at all). the other daemonette unit is too small and is useless in this role. the smaller unit gets the etherblade herald and is tasked with high AS foes like knights and mournfanges, a can opener essentially. the hounds are too expensive to redirect and are too small to be a heavy flanker so they usually hunt support units and act as a light peripheral flanker. the seekers get WM/chariot/ironblaster duty as well as anti-scout duty due to the vanguard. the fiends function as cannon screen and heavy hitter and the solo crushers act as redirectors and character assassins and are the closest thing to general purpose units in the army. HoT is the only source of flaming attacks and ranged damage so his role is obvious.

while this list is not optimized and has several glaring weaknesses, it is built around efficiency. for competitive play, it think the former is better, as it leaves less to chance. the latter puts much more emphasis on the skill of the player as everything has to work in concert to win but if it does, it is much more powerful than redundancy (imo of course!). i play this way for fun mostly, my old daemon lists consisted of multiple flamer units and huge blocks but i've become quite enamored with the "efficiency" approach as of late.

I like to be redundant, especially in my chaff. 2K tourney that I went to I had 5 Furies, 2x single Fiend, and a unit of 3 Nurglings. I could ahve gotten by with any 2 of these 4 choices, but I like spamming them to make sure I win that particular little war.

I feel redundancy and efficiency melds alot of times.

Like that unit of exactly 30 Bloodletter isn't "efficient" in my book, rather it's carrying a giant sign that says: "Aim Shooting Here - Make me completely ineffecient!"

When it comes to units (in 8th) they mostly need redundancy to have any hope of being efficient. With Bloodletters - and the game sizes I prefer - I tend to go with just over 50 bodies.

Efficiency, for me, comes into the picture with things that are forced by their very nature to be just that: efficient. Like Greater Daemons for example. You can't really spam them. Fine I can take two or three sometimes but that doesn't change the fact that they need to be used well in order to pay off.

The only instance where I go overboard with redundancy is usually Casters. I think this also has something to do with game size because you wouldn't have room to play like that in a more limited setting. Having one or two "extra" Tzeentch Heralds comes in handy by Turn 3-4 when you've lost a Caster or two to Miscasts or whatever.

Very interesting reports.

I seem to find myself in the same camp as Maynard - I like the reliability of the more redundant builds for tournaments, but when experimenting I have more fun with the more frail, more efficient builds.

I hear what you're saying about whether something truly is "efficient" or "redundant", DReign, and it could be a lengthy debate, but lets stick with my definitions from the first post for clarity's sake. (It's not about which definition is right, it's about communicating clearly which we can't do if the words have different meanings to each of us).

take your Bloodletter scenario for example - by the above definition, you choose to go with redundancy since they lose effectiveness after a turn or two. (Pretty much exactly my feelings on them).

-und_ed

I think this hits it right on the head. Take for example a couple of the most popular units: Flamers and Bloodletter hordes: people take them because they are efficient and will double up on them for redundancy's sake just in case the dice gods feel like making your skull their piss-pot.

I know I tend to use a mixture as much as possible as I never make tailored lists.

I have to say with Daemons I'm an efficiency sort of guy, it's one of the main draws for me with this army (not to mention their Daemons and Chaos is quite possibly the sweetest thing of all End Times!). It's like having a tool box filled with everything you could need to get the job done its just that ones tool belt is only so big!
We have a unit to counter pretty much anything on the field. Our core troops fill their specialized roles perfectly: 'letters blast holes, PB's are the anvil, nettes are great as flankers with their high movement, horrors are... Good in a mono-Tzeentch army? Seriously though, I feel too spoiled with choice to go about relying on redundancy.

Well redundancy can in itself can be efficient.... anyway I am sure my opponents find it redundant how many Flamers and Bloodletters I run but my Furies, Fiends and Daemonettes are in smaller efficient units. I run my other armies the same way, a combo of both.

I tend to mix them up a bit. I have a dwarf army that has an auto include unit of 40 Warriors with great weapons. Running them in a horde you get the most possible attacks out of such a big unit but also having 10 spare models in the back rank so as when they hit back (Always Strike Last) they're still getting all 31 attacks.