Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ive been trying out army's on vassal for awhile now and every game with my one friend is never any fun he tailors his list every match id hide it but my notepad he simply brings it up while he makes his list.

i confronted him about it and he said hes just playing to the army's strengths but i know this is bs i mean if he knows im playing an army is one thing but to counter my army on a unit by unit basis is absurd i dont know what to do anymore i really like the game but anytime i play its the same thing and if he gose frist he likes to just be like o wait i did my math wrong or forgot something long those lines and changes it....

he uses ig mainly or space wolfs if im playing orks

i usely have lost of tanks and go ork meca and i face losts of lasguns and meltas with 0 troop killers so i decided to give the good ol orky horde a try and i get tabled from a legion of tanks perfectly designed to take out my army with a smilar thing with tyrandis even tho i love them its a weak codex and if he hears that he pulls out some dark eldar and just shoots down my MCs ive played 10 or so game at least and i never got a tyrgon to survive past shooting i hide it when it ds and he moves to counter its just no fun anymore

ive played my fair share of games and have had fun losing and wining

orks necron tyrnids i like them all but id like to collect one that he cant just tailor real quick and stomp mabe one of them can change strategy more easly

any advice would greatly be appreciated

You can always stop playing against him. When he complains, say you don't have any fun when he tailors his list. Alternatively, tell him you're using one army, then pull out a different one when the game starts. Or don't allow him to edit his list once hes seen your list.

Also, grammar, for the love of the Emperor grammar!

I think all i got to do is make a stand and say no my friends that play to have all noticed it and have agreed we have more fun without him anyway

any ideas how to really turn the tables like if i show him a footslogging list and use a mecha might work


sry about the grammar never thought id use english lessons outside of school let alone forms.

Well, if you're wanting to get anywhere in life, or help on forums, grammar is kind of important. Heck, I live in Kentucky, and I'm still making the effort to try and type correctly.

Using correct grammar makes it easier for us to understand you, and therefore help you. I tried reading the first post, and it literally made my head hurt. I got something along the lines that the guy tweaks his list right before every match starts though, so I'll help as best I can.

Any way you can hide your list? I mean just flat out tell him, "until the game starts, I'm not showing the list", if he calls you out, tell him to show his first. That, or bring a "distraction" list. For example, make an ork green tide list, show it to him, then pull out a battlewagon bash list when the game starts. If he brought 6 punishers, 3 hellhounds, and tons of other anti infantry, you'll both prove he's tailoring (because no sane IG list brings that much anti infantry), and you'll be the one smacking him around for a change. If he can't handle not knowing your list before hand and whines (or more importantly, tries to change it) don't bother playing him anymore. Tell him that the way he plays is no fun for you, and until he learns to play more fairly and not tailor every list against you, you won't be playing together anymore. Should solve your problem.

Tell him to make his list first, as MrMoustaffa says. Then, list tailor him to see how he likes it.

Or, just don't play him. Play with like-minded people.

You sound like you want to avoid not playing with him anymore, but you may have to in the end it sounds like he is a WAAC player.
There are a few options you have to deal with him:
1) Tell him that what he is doing is frustrating and unfair, and threaten to not play him if he continues to do extreme list tailoring.
2) Don't play him.
3) Show him what it's like, after he re-tailors his list say you did your math wrong or loaded the wrong list and tailor your list to his.

Option 3 is probably the worst option and least mature. I would recommend starting on the first one and just say why you don't like him doing that.

Some list tailoring does happen, your friend seems to have over done his list tailoring though and changing his army after seeing yours should definitely not be allowed. Tell your friend to check his math before he sees your army and if he says everything is correct, then later changes his mind it's just to bad.

kronk wrote:Tell him to make his list first, as MrMoustaffa says. Then, list tailor him to see how he likes it.

Or, just don't play him. Play with like-minded people.

This.

The issue is that he is doing something you cannot. He's looking at your list, and then building an army to destroy it. He's not giving you an opportunity to respond to his list, thereby gaining an unfair advantage.

Just explain to him that it needs to be fair, and it can't be fair if he is tailoring to your list when you can't tailor to his.

If you are playing the game on Vassal you can always set your list as a delayed note, and not display it until he checks his math and is sure that he has the correct list loaded. You wont be able to load models on to your player tab or he will be able to see them.

If it is a delayed note he should not be able to see it until after you make it public.

Thank you very much, I'll will put forth more effort in my typing.

hes one of those people that if you prove him wrong he always has some excuse or come back.

I will post the results of our next match, might just make a bad ork list and then swap it for some grey knight psycannon love.

Firstly, stop whining about list tailoring.

Secondly, if you dont' want your opponent to be able to tailor his list against your weaknesses, then stop making lists that are full of weaknesses. List tailoring only works against people who write bad lists in the first place, and on vassal especially, there's little excuse for running crud.

I've had people attempt to list tailor against me and it's met with disaster for them. Don't forget player skill either...

Ailaros wrote:Firstly, stop whining about list tailoring.

Secondly, if you dont' want your opponent to be able to tailor his list against your weaknesses, then stop making lists that are full of weaknesses. List tailoring only works against people who write bad lists in the first place, and on vassal especially, there's little excuse for running crud.

I've had people attempt to list tailor against me and it's met with disaster for them. Don't forget player skill either...

this is exactly why i trying to get help on this im not some 100 year vet thats played from 1st edition and these no much you can do when they counter pick everything and play for what ever im doing .

what else should i do?A all commoners list? and how did you win vs a tailored list anyway was it really tailored or just someone takeing a few more ap 3 or better guns for marines.

As much as one can try to deny it, a good player doesn't need to tailor a list to beat someone. List tailoring is not a skill, it's a compensation for a lack thereof.

Doing so with such regularity is not a quality that I would tolerate in someone with whom I would play regularly.

Well it really does come down to what you consider tailoring, there are two types of it:
A) Small army changes to help take down difficult units
B) An army list that is built specifically to counter an army

One of my friends love fielding Khorne Berszerkers in land raiders as his troop choices. For allot of my lists I make sure there are a few things that can actually hurt a land raider(but with Gauss troop kill and vehicle kill is about the same thing), because after years of losing to him I learned that if I can't crack the land raider I will lose the game.

His list changes from game to game so I never know specifics of what he is fielding I just know there will probably be at least 1 land raider.

Ailaros, not everyone's as perfect as you, quit being so negative. ^^'

If your friend's being deliberately poor to you then call him on it. Its not fun to play against an army that's been made to delibaretely beat yours every time when your's is just a generic list. I have a player that does the same thing to me every time I play him, mostly due to him bringing along a few army's worth of models, him making lists up on the day, and me having a tell tail list building style. Quite a few of my opponents have a thing for following this setup, or just taking bent lists in general, whereas I'm into fluffy ones, so yeah, I can have a time of it at times. Get the guy to make a generic list, and hell play other people at your local store. Read up on some pointers articles (the ones on 1d4chan are my favorite ^^) and try and apply them. Build up your experience with the game until you feel as though you have a list that's capable of taking on your friend no matter what he takes (or at least think you have a chance).

Building things into your list to make it competitive within your local meta game is one thing, but when it gets shady is when you do it for someone's specific army after reading their roster.

When I go to my local GW to play I always bring the models and armies I want to use. I write the odd list at home and sometimes use them but almost always I make the list on the day. Nobody has argued with this despite me being a power gamer. I am very competitive and go to any and all tournaments. Maybe you should try this approach, make a list on the day - say you don't know what to use, tell him to set up whilst you think and pull out a random army. If he disagrees or gets jumpy it will be because he wants to tailor his, you can then get all your friends to back you up and accuse him of this. Say it plain, don't let him argue.

Its important you show him up and use your friends to back you up if they feel the same way.

I kinda do that. I know what the regulars usually bring and build to counteract that. Mainly because we plan out games ahead.

If he tailors, simply don't give him the ability to know your list before the game starts.

For the life of me I can not understand some people's hate for tailoring. If you know in advance what army you're going to be facing, how can you NOT adjust you list accordingly? Even more so if you know the exact list your opponent will be using. Do you really think your opponent will give you the same "courtesy?" Not tailoring doesn't make the game "fair" or "balanced", its makes the player stupid for not taking advantage. And no, this is not WAAC, this is simply doing the best you can with the opportunities given to you. This "no tailoring its for TFGs and WAAC jerks!" mentality is the reason GKs are seen as OP, because no one wants to tailor their lists to beat them, then bitch and moan when they get tabled.


So sorry for the rant but this whole no tailoring bs really consfuses me.

To pitch in here.
Way back in the day when I started. I played Nids, my older brother played Dark Angels.
When we would play together, he always brought so many tanks, I never won a game against him, not even close. (we all know nids have a hard time dealing with tanks, it was worse before)
But: when I watched my brother play against other people his army looked completely different. Less tanks, no whirlwind, . . . etc.
I didn't enjoy these games much. Playing a list designed to specifically to counter mine was like I was always fighting an uphill battle.

Nowadays, I go to a flgs every friday and play. there is an array of people with different armies to play there. I make a couple different lists at our common pts value. Then when I pick an opponent they write their list, then I randomly choose which prewritten list I use. This method ensures it is impossible to list tailor, I find that this is always a better game, and closer to tournament style, where your 1 list has to be able to take on any army.

Ailaros wrote:Firstly, stop whining about list tailoring.

Secondly, if you dont' want your opponent to be able to tailor his list against your weaknesses, then stop making lists that are full of weaknesses. List tailoring only works against people who write bad lists in the first place, and on vassal especially, there's little excuse for running crud.

I've had people attempt to list tailor against me and it's met with disaster for them. Don't forget player skill either...

Ailaros I don't think you get the context of this list tailoring. according to op, this would be like if I knew I was playing you, and I brought 6 hellhounds, 6 punishers, and no special weapons besides flamers and heavy flamers. May not be the most uber setup ever, but you get my point. This guy isnt just going "ok, my pal likes to bring infantry, maybe I should bring a few flamers." This is "let's see. Looks like my friend brought a green tide list today. Guess I need to spam anti infantry and I dont need to even worry about armor". The difference being the first instance is just preparing for your local meta, the second is just being a jerk. Granted, i'm just going by what the op told us, but thats how it comes across.

Monster Rain wrote:As much as one can try to deny it, a good player doesn't need to tailor a list to beat someone. List tailoring is not a skill, it's a compensation for a lack thereof.

That's absolute bollocks.

Doing so with such regularity is not a quality that I would tolerate in someone with whom I would play regularly.

Why not give it a try yourself? You'll find many of the units in your codex will get a new lease on life.

Although I agree the person should be taught a lesson somehow. Stooping down to his level and telling him to do exactly what he hates against him seems wrong.

MrMoustaffa wrote:Ailaros I don't think you get the context of this list tailoring. according to op, this would be like if I knew I was playing you, and I brought 6 hellhounds, 6 punishers, and no special weapons besides flamers and heavy flamers.

At my store, we don't have fixed lists. I've been tailored against all the time. If you want to see a battle with me vs. flamer spam, look here. I'd gladly play against a total list tailorer, as it would certainly be a challenge.

Of course, if I were really having problems beating a list tailorer, I'd just make a non-tailorable list.

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:For the life of me I can not understand some people's hate for tailoring. If you know in advance what army you're going to be facing, how can you NOT adjust you list accordingly? Even more so if you know the exact list your opponent will be using. Do you really think your opponent will give you the same "courtesy?" Not tailoring doesn't make the game "fair" or "balanced", its makes the player stupid for not taking advantage. And no, this is not WAAC, this is simply doing the best you can with the opportunities given to you. This "no tailoring its for TFGs and WAAC jerks!" mentality is the reason GKs are seen as OP, because no one wants to tailor their lists to beat them, then bitch and moan when they get tabled.


So sorry for the rant but this whole no tailoring bs really consfuses me.

Absolutely. To be clear, tailoring to beat someones list, after they've built it and brought it to the table is dirty. You're not giving them the same courtesy, and are gaining an unfair advantage. But if I agree to play my buddies Eldar with my Grey Knights, I expect both of us to come up with 'tailored' lists.

And that really IS one of the main reasons people piss and moan about Grey Knights. Because so many of their units are well rounded and powerful against a range of opponents, they can take a generic list. If you knew you were facing a GK list you'd take less deep-striking stuff to avoid the warp-quake effect, and you'd load up on plasma/melta and AP1, AP2 and AP3 weapons to eliminate those armour saves and FNP. You wouldn't bother with (much) close combat and you'd forget all about template weapons and high ROF, low damage heavy weapons like autocannons or heavy bolters.

The perceived disparity between GK and everyone else just shrunk significantly.

Kaldor wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:For the life of me I can not understand some people's hate for tailoring. If you know in advance what army you're going to be facing, how can you NOT adjust you list accordingly? Even more so if you know the exact list your opponent will be using. Do you really think your opponent will give you the same "courtesy?" Not tailoring doesn't make the game "fair" or "balanced", its makes the player stupid for not taking advantage. And no, this is not WAAC, this is simply doing the best you can with the opportunities given to you. This "no tailoring its for TFGs and WAAC jerks!" mentality is the reason GKs are seen as OP, because no one wants to tailor their lists to beat them, then bitch and moan when they get tabled.


So sorry for the rant but this whole no tailoring bs really consfuses me.

Absolutely. To be clear, tailoring to beat someones list, after they've built it and brought it to the table is dirty. You're not giving them the same courtesy, and are gaining an unfair advantage. But if I agree to play my buddies Eldar with my Grey Knights, I expect both of us to come up with 'tailored' lists.

And that really IS one of the main reasons people piss and moan about Grey Knights. Because so many of their units are well rounded and powerful against a range of opponents, they can take a generic list. If you knew you were facing a GK list you'd take less deep-striking stuff to avoid the warp-quake effect, and you'd load up on plasma/melta and AP1, AP2 and AP3 weapons to eliminate those armour saves and FNP. You wouldn't bother with (much) close combat and you'd forget all about template weapons and high ROF, low damage heavy weapons like autocannons or heavy bolters.

The perceived disparity between GK and everyone else just shrunk significantly.

The worst part of it is you don't even need to take less deep strike stuff because most GK players focus more on Terminators, Paladins, and Purifiers than the basic strike squad. Yes, warp quake is a powerful ability, but's its offset by the fact that compared to the other troop choices available, Strikes Squads are all but worthless, and are only taken if you to keep your troops cheap and spend your points on Dreadknights/Dreadnoughts/Storm Ravens...

Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:Ailaros I don't think you get the context of this list tailoring. according to op, this would be like if I knew I was playing you, and I brought 6 hellhounds, 6 punishers, and no special weapons besides flamers and heavy flamers.

At my store, we don't have fixed lists. I've been tailored against all the time. If you want to see a battle with me vs. flamer spam, look here. I'd gladly play against a total list tailorer, as it would certainly be a challenge.

Of course, if I were really having problems beating a list tailorer, I'd just make a non-tailorable list.

Seriously there no such thing as a non-tailorable list. is there such a thing really? Post a list I'm sure some pros can tailer the outta that list.
About your example not the greatest how you even expalin his mistakes from turn one....

if two people with same army same skill and ones tailoring for the other you would have to try and lose

and I'm not saying its tailoring if you know what race they are useing a guy i play with use's BA and i make sure i don't get screwed from raining space marines


MrMoustaffa you got it dead on.

Kaldor wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:For the life of me I can not understand some people's hate for tailoring. If you know in advance what army you're going to be facing, how can you NOT adjust you list accordingly? Even more so if you know the exact list your opponent will be using. Do you really think your opponent will give you the same "courtesy?" Not tailoring doesn't make the game "fair" or "balanced", its makes the player stupid for not taking advantage. And no, this is not WAAC, this is simply doing the best you can with the opportunities given to you. This "no tailoring its for TFGs and WAAC jerks!" mentality is the reason GKs are seen as OP, because no one wants to tailor their lists to beat them, then bitch and moan when they get tabled.


So sorry for the rant but this whole no tailoring bs really consfuses me.

Absolutely. To be clear, tailoring to beat someones list, after they've built it and brought it to the table is dirty. You're not giving them the same courtesy, and are gaining an unfair advantage. But if I agree to play my buddies Eldar with my Grey Knights, I expect both of us to come up with 'tailored' lists.

And that really IS one of the main reasons people piss and moan about Grey Knights. Because so many of their units are well rounded and powerful against a range of opponents, they can take a generic list. If you knew you were facing a GK list you'd take less deep-striking stuff to avoid the warp-quake effect, and you'd load up on plasma/melta and AP1, AP2 and AP3 weapons to eliminate those armour saves and FNP. You wouldn't bother with (much) close combat and you'd forget all about template weapons and high ROF, low damage heavy weapons like autocannons or heavy bolters.

The perceived disparity between GK and everyone else just shrunk significantly.

I never did understand all the "GK is OP!" crap. GKs aren't OP.

Kaldor wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:As much as one can try to deny it, a good player doesn't need to tailor a list to beat someone. List tailoring is not a skill, it's a compensation for a lack thereof.

That's absolute bollocks.

No it's not.

Kaldor wrote:

Doing so with such regularity is not a quality that I would tolerate in someone with whom I would play regularly.

Why not give it a try yourself? You'll find many of the units in your codex will get a new lease on life.

If there's a reason other than absolutely having to win "friendly" games, such as a campaign or something, I do. There's times where it's appropriate.

I hate it when people do this -.- it's even worse when you say "hmmm, I might bring marines or something" and then they get butt hurt and call you a cheater when you turn up with, say, a tau list and they bought an army to beat marines......really gets me mad >:3