# Tailoring Army lists



## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Alrighty!

I was reading on the 40k forums where somebody said it was inpolite to tailor your army list if you know you are a facing a specific opponent. I have nearly always played the same army list against most of my opponents but that's because I'm a dwarf player, we really only have a couple of tactics. I have only now been playing for a year with a group of four mates where we meet every Wednesday and have a battle. My mates will always tailor their army list to match who they are facing and I would expect them to do no less, it seems silly not to.

Is it inpolite to tailor a list? I know in this particular situation it's between mates so a lot of things slide, but were I to play a one on one game in a store or somewhere more sociable is it against GW etiquette to do so?

Would appreciate your thoughts on this one, bear in mind I've never played a game at a store or tourney as I don't have a fully painted army and am a little bit scared by people that hang around in stores.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Its pretty much expected that if you know who your going up against you'll try and tailor your army to better stand a chance against them. In some cases, yes its impolite... Take the lores with Pit of Shades and Purple Sun in them against Ogre's for instance, as they're game killing spells... Or unit spamming against armies who'll have no chance of getting through those units.

Its only impolite if you purposely tailer your list to make it a complete walkover... otherwise, a said, its expected you'd tailer your list to make it a challenge.

Bad explaination yes... buts its not bad manners unless your doing it purely to give your opponant no chance at all.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Like GrizBe said it's impolite in certain cases. I play Bretonnians here and everyone knows that, the High Elf player chooses NOT to take the Lore of Metal just because he's playing me. That said we are currently playing a Border Princes campaign were we know who our opponents are and we tailor our lists against them because that is part of the game. Gives me a chance to use my Orcbane shield etc. 

I would say in friendly games tailoring is bad, in a campaign it's to be expected.


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## Raizer Sabre (Nov 8, 2010)

i believe its called "tactics" which is what war, and therefore wargaming is all about


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

It would be Strategy not Tactics if it was anything. But it's also grossly unfair if you do it as a manner of course. It means any army that cannot choose any Lore gets hamstrung, any army particularly effected by a Lore gets hammered. They made choosing a Lore part of List building for a reason and it was to avoid this.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

No, it's about fun. I tailor my army to be the best it can be in a tournament situation unless I've agreed a game.

Christ, there's one player I've met who trawls around forums finding strong army builds, and then tailors his armies to countering them. Who ever actually uses Lore of Fire unless they're building an army to take on Regen?

When I agreed to play my Warriors against him, the best Teclis was able to do was get an IF Hounds off against my Galrauch, who then proceeded to take wounds only, at which point he then nuked the PG unit, killing 25 in a single phase. In the next pick up and play game, he took actually opened a book with his collective lists that he's written, with a "what works best" list, which slapped my trolls all over with Fire Hoeth and Death Teclis


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Teclis can do that anyway because he chooses his Lore on the fly, but Teclis is a whole other problem.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

The problem I find with advising on tailoring is that it is a movable feast when it comes to regular opponents. For example, every game I have played against Vanir i have known I was facing Vampire Counts because that is all he has in sufficient numbers. I do not think anyone would call it wrong if I do not even consider missile defence, but what about making everything immune to Fear? what about building an army focused purely on killing the General?

The line I settled on for single repeat opponents is that it is acceptable to build a list based on all the defects that came up (on both sides) in the last group of games we played, but not to change the list between games played on the same day. In fluff terms this actually works a lot like two forces changing their strategy over the course of time as they are able to resupply properly and consider events properly.

I apply the same theory to days where I will face more than one opponent: take a list to deal with the issues raised in the last games against all of them and not change it between opponents.



Aramoro said:


> They made choosing a Lore part of List building for a reason and it was to avoid this.


A good point, which works very well in a moderated environment; sadly, you can still get around it by "forgetting" to build your list until just before the game.

However, it is an example of what I see as the greatest inequity when it comes to tailoring: choice. For example, if I have 20,000 points in a case and my opponent has 2,000 points and we agree to play a 1,500 point battle then I have much more ability to target my list than my opponent so advance knowledge of army composition is much more useful to me than him. I do not think there is any just way to totally remove inequality caused by one person having a greater choice than another, so my solution is to:
(i) maintain equality of information, e.g. if your opponent only has one army and you have three tell them which you are going to bring so that both of you know which army you are facing;
(ii) make all your decision as soon as you can, e.g. you can build you army as soon as you know you will be playing so - unless you lose/break/fail to build part of your army you should know what your army is before you get to the game.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

I think fun is the main part. My friend has a Chaos Terror list or I have my Slaanesh Psychology list. Seeing those and throwing down Vampire Counts just make a really boring game.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> Teclis can do that anyway because he chooses his Lore on the fly, but Teclis is a whole other problem.


He might as well be renamed 'Captain Cheat'. He's the most broken character in the game.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

GrizBe said:


> He might as well be renamed 'Captain Cheat'. He's the most broken character in the game.


Just Tailor your army by playing Beastmen and taking the 'Kill Teclis item' Job done.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

here's how i would judge it;
a) tailoring your list for an agreed upon match with a friend/s, or a campaign, or to play a 'historical' style game, and/or for a competitive (tournament) environment is what list building is all about!

b) tailoring your list/s to simply smash the other poor bastard's face in, in the most humiliating way possible is simply being a total douchebag!

basically it all comes down to respecting your opponent. it's fine to tailor a list when in a campaign for example, as you know who you're facing. not all tactics and/or units work all the time in this game! a unit that is strong against one type of army, is likely complete trash against a different army - so why the hell would not want to ensure you can build the most effective list for the given situation?!! to do less IMHO is disrespectful of your opponent since you're not offering a 'fair' game/challenge by bringing a sub-par (or overly abusive) force to the table...

but to simply show up for a local store's game night, ask your potential opponent/s what they play and then pull out a list that's designed to wipe them within a turn or two is cowardly at best! (though i prefer to call such people a pathetic, ruthless arse when they think gimmiky one-shot wins proves their obvious superiority above all other mere mortals!)

as mentioned, some spells and/or unit combos are just plain unfair against certain opponents;
- 1st turn power scrolling purple sun across an entire ogre/VC/tomb king/dwarf/lizardmen army is definately not proving anything to anyone. just that you can read the interwebs too.

- table edge gunlining with dwarves or empire or skaven against an army with natural low model count and/or an army with few real counters (ie: ogres/bretonnians/tomb kings/chaos warriors/lizardmen) is simply a dice rolling exercise...
those armies typically feature alot of slow-moving troops and/or have lots of expensive multi-wound or high armour save troops. a pure gunline will just sit back for 3 turns and blast away while the enemy has no real chance to get to grips in any meaningful numbers...

- bringing a unit of 30+ chosen of tzeentch w/favour of the gods & 2 warshrines to 'firendly' games.
the only obvious counters that can offer a serious threat to a hoard of 'mini heroes' with 3+/4++ saves are the spells final transmutation, infernal gateway & the 13th spell... almost everything else will just bounce off.

there's other things as well, but those are the big steriotypes to avoid. i think the best way to look at tailoring is to ask yourself, 'would i find this list fun to face?'
now that's not to say that you should never take lore of shadows or death against low initiative armies! just don't spam the obvious game-breaking spells!

cheers!


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## Champion Alaric (Feb 17, 2011)

Some people just don't like to lose. Its the same for any game so if they tailor to win every time..they won't have anyone left to play, happened to a 40k guy here in town..he virtually has to BEG to play a "fun" game..which due to his powergaming are never fun. At tourneys there is always a groan from his opponents lol


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

I don't tailor my list but thats purely because I cut out most of the redundancy out while building the initial list as I can't really afford to have loads of points just to slot in against different opponents (and because I'd never actually finish an army).

Choosing magic lores is fairly irrelevant for me as my Empire don't use magic, Chaos dwarves are based from either the Dwarf list or only have a choice of 2 lores and ogres are race specific.

The only real changes I make to my lists are with magic items but thats more for common sense why would I take a scroll against dwarfs.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Surely, even if you pick a killer list and then do the tactics there are still ways to combat it, surely?



experiment 626 said:


> - table edge gunlining with dwarves


True, I guess, but as a dwarf player I'm not exactly going to try for a flanking manoevre.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Gromrir Silverblade said:


> Surely, even if you pick a killer list and then do the tactics there are still ways to combat it, surely?
> 
> 
> 
> True, I guess, but as a dwarf player I'm not exactly going to try for a flanking manoevre.


fair enough, dwarves are never going to win speed races! but 8th ed has at least allowed dwarves to bring back alot of their trademark tactics such as warrior-based hoards slowly grinding forwards, or miners popping up behind shit, or *gasp* even getting to charge once in blue moon instead of never!

the only dwarf list i refuse to play against are ones with 6+ runed warmachines & as many xbows & handguns as can be taken all sitting on the very back table edge!
to me that kind of a list just smacks of lazyness. (my VC's at least have a very valid excuse for always taking a big unit of grave guard)


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

I'll usually make a list (sometimes several) to take on anyone. Any anti-magic points I spent are gonna be wasted against dwarves, but so what. If I have several lists (usually to test out several concepts) I'll place them face down on the table and let my opponent select one blindly. I really dislike it when someone asks what army I'm playing and THEN starts writing his list. I mean, how much of an advantage do you need? 

Or like right now I'm testing my Dark Elf Mongol Horde List (all cav plus a hydra). I'll take it up against anyone just to see if it can work.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

experiment 626 said:


> the only dwarf list i refuse to play against are ones with 6+ runed warmachines & as many xbows & handguns as can be taken all sitting on the very back table edge!
> to me that kind of a list just smacks of lazyness.


Since when does taking an effective list smacks of laziness? Dwarves are good at shooting- so why wouldn't you take a significant amount of ranged weaponry?

As for list tailoring- I never do it. I always bring the same list to the table (unless I've just bought some shiny new models recently). and if I do feel like changing it, I'll do it the night before, before I've even asked for a game. I personally take pride in being able to take a list which takes all comers. It really pisses me off when I rock up to a game, and then the guy keeps me waiting forever because he doesn't have a list. It just doesn't seem fair to tailor, seeing as how certain armies can do it more easily than others. Nor is it fair to be kept waiting after I've had the common decency to come prepared.

One time I was waiting so long for a guy to write his goddamn list, we had to rush the game because I was going to miss the last bus home. When he was writing the list he'd keep getting distracted by random conversations in the store, which only compounded the problem. Took him somewhere around half an hour to choose _one lord_. I know this isn't a problem with tailoring, but it is a problem that can be solved by having one universal list.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

coke123 said:


> Since when does taking an effective list smacks of laziness? Dwarves are good at shooting- so why wouldn't you take a significant amount of ranged weaponry?


i don't mind dwarves having a decent amount of shootiness.

i refuse to play when a dwarf army is nothing but guns!!! not even a single basic warrior in sight, just guns, guns, more guns, piles of war machines and even more guns...:shok:
my VC's don't stand a chance in hell against that as the first thing to get shot will be the grave guard!



coke123 said:


> As for list tailoring- I never do it. I always bring the same list to the table (unless I've just bought some shiny new models recently). and if I do feel like changing it, I'll do it the night before, before I've even asked for a game. I personally take pride in being able to take a list which takes all comers. It really pisses me off when I rock up to a game, and then the guy keeps me waiting forever because he doesn't have a list. It just doesn't seem fair to tailor, seeing as how certain armies can do it more easily than others. Nor is it fair to be kept waiting after I've had the common decency to come prepared.


to true... if i'm asking/being asked for a game and the other guy doesn't even have the decency to be prepared to get going, i'm likely to tell him that i've just found a better opponent!
waiting to ask your opponent what army they play and then tailoring a list to smash them silly, *while making them wait as you write up your damn list* is the hight of poor sportsmanship!

in our store's last fantasy campaign, most of us simply came prepared with half a dozen or so lists so that we could tailor to different opponents...
those few guys who would wait to write their lists untill they found who they were playing, for some odd reason didn't get in nearly as many games as those of us who always came prepared!

cheers!


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

In answer to your comment experiment 626, if I ever took that many guns to one game, I'd shoot myself, for one you're not guaranteed to win anyway because as soon as anyone makes it into CC you're boned. And two it would just be boring, Warhammer is a game of phases, Dwarfs already miss one out, why miss out another two?

We have a rule between mates that you have to have your list prepared and verified by one of the other guys not playing before the battle. So I can tailor my list to fight the army, but so can he. The way I see it is that if you both have the opportunity to build your list to match your opponent then where is the harm? Also if there is a specific way to tailor your army against an opponent, then I would imagine there is also a way to counter that. For example, one of my mates is a HE player and realised that he could spam me with uber spells. He kept doing this for a couple of matches so then I loaded up on anti magic and then he has wasted a lot of points for nothing.


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## LordWaffles (Jan 15, 2008)

I've found that list tailoring generally makes you a dick, and it also makes you bad at playing the game.

From the start of the campaign til the end, I've run nearly identical WoC lists against a variety of opponents. I've mixed up marginal units, but it was never just to intentionally wreck one person. Since in tournament play you do not have the luxury of knowing your opponents or their list, you're only really cheating yourself and the ideals of the game by tailoring your list.

In example, I randomly decided to try out lore of death, and just happened to play a dwarf. I used purple sun and the game went from a cheerful atmosphere to stone-faced glares. Only afterward did I really understand how incredibly unfair using that spell is against armies like that.

In 40k tailoring is generally what kills the fun in a store, because once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. And since you usually win via list tailoring, you don't have any challenge and you don't get any better.
In example I have a friend that runs IG. He's notorious for list tailoring. He's incapable of playing a game where he doesn't know what army you're playing and the majority of your list. He had grown so accustomed to tailoring his list that now the thought of not doing it prevents him from playing a game, if he's ever invited to play games.

Sure it's all in good fun and you want to bring your best to the table. But there's not a damn thing in the world a dark eldar skimmer list is going to do against a retro-actively planned anti-aircraft ig list with maximized tl s7 autocannons.

In short, if you do it at a tournament, then you've made a single list to beat another single list. And should only that list show up you're golden. For every other list you'll have to actually play the game.
And if you do it in fun games, expect not to have too many more games being offered.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I don't tailor my lists, but I might change them depending on who I'm playing... no that's not the same thing.

Tailoring is where you make your army as hard as it can be knowing either what army the enemy is taking or (if you are a real jackass) his exact list. Changing your army to include units you dont normally use because you know that the opponent isnt that good a player or that they're using an army where you can use a worse unit and it wont be totally awful just means you get a bit of variety in your games.

For example- yesterday I played a lizzy army at 1.5k that I knew was all skinks, stegs and slaan... I took the opportunity to use my dryads and spellwaver, dropping loads of shooting to do so. This sounds like a really stupid thing to do, and made the game much harder to win, but I enjoyed being forced to use greater tactics- having to lure out the skink stand and shoot reaction against dryads so my wardancers get a clear charge and having to screen and slow up the enemy stegs so that my magic and treeman could (eventually) bring them down.


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