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Would choosing a different list because I know you are using a certain race consider list tailoring?
Assuming that you allow the opponent to do the same...

What else would be considered list tailoring?

deliberately making an army list that exploits your opponent's weakness in that you know what they will take/what they generally take.

There is a difference, however, between tailoring against your local meta, which is wise, and tailoring against a specific opponent. I.e. you normally take plasma melta, but because your opponent pulls out a foot ork army, you swap all of them out for flamers. That is list tailoring of the pathetic sort.

Quite Frankly i dont see anything wrong with list tailoring.If you challenge an opponent for a future game he has every opprotunity to do it to.

I asked a guy at my local GW store for a game and mentioned that I play Daemons. He said "sure I'll throw a list together". He did some list tailoring with his GK army, but having never played against Daemons before he did it wrong and included a bunch of anti-Psyker stuff. It was amusing.

I'm in the camp that you challenge someone for a later date battle, you know they are gonna play an army and you both have the option to list talor for that army. No harm. But the bungholes that last minute change stuff around once they see the exact units being used in said army are just annoying.

There was a post up last week over on http://www.imperiusdominatus.com/2012/08/discussion-list-tailoring-good-or-bad.html , some good conversation going on there, check it out!

Yeah, the post on imperius is sorta the thing I was looking for, I was really worried that if I bring more templates and blasts against horde armies there might be people that think I might be tailoring against them...

It goes for same that if I know that my opponent has no psychic defense then there's no point for me to bring psychic defense...

Don't know, I'd personally wouldn't really mind but don't know if everybody else agrees...

I have all my battle suits and tanks magnetized. with around 5-7 lists each in 1000, 1500 and 2000 points.

Makutsu wrote:Would choosing a different list because I know you are using a certain race consider list tailoring?
Assuming that you allow the opponent to do the same...

What else would be considered list tailoring?

Uh... yeah...

If you show up to play with a list at a certain points level and use it now matter what you play, that would not be list tailoring. If you wrote your list after seeing what someone else is playing, that would be tailoring.

How is this a difficult concept?

Makutsu wrote:I was really worried that if I bring more templates and blasts against horde armies there might be people that think I might be tailoring against them...

Tailoring against a specific army isn't really an issue unless your opponent really only has the models for one list. Those of us that have played a long time can easily have 5-6K points of a single army, for example. Tailor your list all you want, you still don't know precisely what's going to be on the other side of the table. It's when you tailor vs that one list you know is the only one he has that I'd start regarding it as unfair.

List tailoring is modifying your list in any way, including changing your codex, so that it give you an advantage against certain army/type of army/mission type over your previous list. In of itself, there is nothing wrong with list tailoring. Taking multiple squads of Fire Dragons because you expect 9 of the 10 armies being played at your local store to be filled with vehicles and other tough targets is list tailoring to respond to the meta, which is fine. Getting a Hammerhead with Railgun for you Tau army because your list auto-loses to anything that can put more than 30 wounds on the table is list tailoring. Switching to Deathwing Terminators from standard marines because of the improvements to 2+ saves is list tailoring. None of those 3 things are behaviours that should be considered undesirable, they are merely reacting to changes in the metagame, patching weaknesses in your army list, or reacting to changes in rules, or possibly just even because you were bored or got new toys you wanted to play with. Heck, even changing your list to beat "that one guy" who always beats you isn't problematic in of itself.

However, there are situations where list tailoring isn't necessarily a good thing. In smaller playgroups, a list tailored to address one or two armies can devastate the group balance, particularly if one or more of those armies is in a position where it can not adapt to counter any tailoring by changing it's playstyle. Similar problems arise when some players have less income to devote to the hobby than others. Kitting out against a guy who can't afford to adjust will be similar to doing so against an army with an extremely limited range of tactics. Note that for both of these in larger groups its fine, as some armies just perform better than others, but in smaller groups, or when everybody seems to be optimizing their list against 1 other list, it starts to cause problems.

Basically, changing your list to give yourself some advantage in any way is list tailoring, but list tailoring itself is actually healthy for the game. It only becomes problematic when it is done so in a dickish way that makes it so that it is reasonably difficult for one player to have fun. So in short, tailor your list all you like but try not to be a dick about it.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

Makutsu wrote:Would choosing a different list because I know you are using a certain race consider list tailoring?
Assuming that you allow the opponent to do the same...

What else would be considered list tailoring?

Uh... yeah...

If you show up to play with a list at a certain points level and use it now matter what you play, that would not be list tailoring. If you wrote your list after seeing what someone else is playing, that would be tailoring.

How is this a difficult concept?

The difference is that I know what race not what his list runs, like if I were to play against Dark Eldar why would I bring a list that blocks psychic powers?
If I know he is bringing a lot of tanks and I bring a lot of high S high AP weapons then yeah that would be tailoring, or even more so units specifically aimed to kill certain units...

If for instance you just know in advance your opponent is taking Orks, it is not bad list tailoring, if you do not take meltas but instead take Heavy Bolters and Flamers. From a fluff standpoint, presumably the marine commander would know what would work best against Orks and prepare accordingly.

However I know one guy that will want to know in advance specifically what you are taking in an army list so that he can build his list to counter those specific units. To me that is the wrong kind of list tailoring and you should not do it.

Agreement with Hialmar and a few other posts.

My group is made up of busy adults that have to plan their games 1-2 weeks in advance. Also, we play campaign games where you will be playing a particular codex for 3-6 months.

This means that each player knows they are facing Codex ___ in two weeks and plans accordingly. However, neither side knows what the other person is bringing. This is fair to both sides, IMHO.

If someone wants to see your LIST before he makes his own list, then he's list tailoring.

List tailoring, IMO, is letting your opponents' armies influence yours at all.
Whether it is fair or not is widely disputed.

Spetulhu wrote:

Makutsu wrote:I was really worried that if I bring more templates and blasts against horde armies there might be people that think I might be tailoring against them...

Tailoring against a specific army isn't really an issue unless your opponent really only has the models for one list. Those of us that have played a long time can easily have 5-6K points of a single army, for example. Tailor your list all you want, you still don't know precisely what's going to be on the other side of the table. It's when you tailor vs that one list you know is the only one he has that I'd start regarding it as unfair.

I like this answer a lot. Most of the people at my flgs have all played each other quite a bit. So to an extent everyone of us tailors to a general race/idea of what the other is gonna bring. However the other is also doing the same thing and neither person REALLY knows what the others list is gonna look like. So none of us consider it tailoring. No one ever asks to see a list and then writes their own. It's something you learn to deal with. And honestly if you have to tailor a list after seeing the other persons your not very good at list building. Everyone of my opponents I've played for the last 6 months writes somewhat of an all comers list. Personally mine doesn't change much so I get tailored against quite a bit. It however doesn't matter since everything in my list can deal with hordes, armor, and elite infantry to some degree or another.

Hialmar wrote:If for instance you just know in advance your opponent is taking Orks, it is not bad list tailoring, if you do not take meltas but instead take Heavy Bolters and Flamers. From a fluff standpoint, presumably the marine commander would know what would work best against Orks and prepare accordingly.

I think this is completely reasonable as long as both players have the knowledge of what army they are facing ahead of time.

Hialmar wrote:However I know one guy that will want to know in advance specifically what you are taking in an army list so that he can build his list to counter those specific units. To me that is the wrong kind of list tailoring and you should not do it.

I would not play such a person, if he does that before the game I can only imagine what he is like when he is actually playing a game, I doubt the game would be very fun with someone like that. Some of the fun in the game is seeing an opponents list(after already creating yours) and going well how the @!#%! am I going to stop that(like 2 land raiders you were not expecting)

Tailoring is changing your list based on your opponents army, models or playstyle.

If you can't build a list before you know who you're playing and/or what they are bringing, it can be tailoring.

I personally always have premade lists for various values, and simply say my list is ready until my opponents list is finished.

Any time you every let any piece of information about the real world affect your army list you are list tailoring.

Anything from blatant looking at your opponent's list and then making your own to counter it, to even just understanding what 40k meta is. It's all list tailoring.

As such, everybody list tailors. don't feel bad about it.

I guess it's more of asking how much tailoring should not be frowned down upon

Asking to see someone's list before making your own list should be frowned upon.

Looking at someone's army and then making "last minute adjustments" should be frowned upon.

Both players knowing what army the other player is bringing and making educated guesses and adjustments to their army lists before seeing the other player's list is fine.

As long as both players are prepared equally, I'd have no problem.

A mate of mine plays almost exclusively IG at high point games, and I play almost entirely Tau. I know his units and he knows mine - we recently decided to play a 1500 point, no holds barred, list optimised game. We haven't played it, but I've made my list with more anti-tank than usual, and fully expect him to hot-shot my crisis suits to death. Although, to be fair, I usually run hardly any anti-tank, so that was more a case of "competitive list" than "IG-beating list"

My point is, since we've both agreed to it, it's fair. It should be judged entirely on a case by case basis

When I first started playing, list tailoring really bugged me, and made me feel helpless. But then I became more familiar with my army, learned how things worked, and why things worked, and I stopped caring about list tailoring.

People who list tailor are almost universally worse players than people with tac lists that they are building for a tournament, and the lists specifically built to kill may elves and guard are almost universally less scary than purifier or longfang spam.

That said, when you are starting out list tailoring can have a huge effect, but it comes less of an issue as players learn their armies and lists better.

For instance somebody who swapped their melta for flamers vs orks is in for a rude awakening when he sees a battlewagon, or an eldar player may swap his scatterlasers for starcannons vs marines- before he realizes he wishes he had more shots for razorbacks.

We play blind lists and random opponents. Makes for some really good fights. I highly recommend it.

I'll define my answer by giving an example of how I tend to play.

>Show up to FLGS with one list at the desired points value I want to play / that is most commonly played (2k).

-If we play at 2k, that's the list I use regardless of my opponent or the enemy army. Hence I build for balance within my desired playstyle.

-If someone wants to play a different points value, I typically end up writing a new list, which may or may not look similar to the original.

-I do not tend to 'tailor' this new list even if I happen to know the army or playstyle of my opponent, because people at my store tend to be noncompetitive and in it for the fun. AKA you will not find me changing melta to plasma if I'm fighting a nidzilla list.

-I do however make judgment calls on what units to add / remove based on the army I face, and do so without remorse. If I've got 500 pts to spend and I'm fighting MEqs, you are damn right I'll look a bit longer at that Thousand Sons squad.

Take that for what you will. In my mind, unless you are playing a game that was planned in advance which is tacitly acknowledged as being meant to test your skills, be about bragging rights or measure the usefulness of your army / models, tailoring to a specific enemy is bad form.

Tailoring to a specific opponent (either knowing their list or what they can field if they have limited models) is bad list tailoring. In a campaign, tailoring to an army type makes logical sense, in that the forces would know what to expect (in general).

Once I had a decent amount of models, I liked to set up 6 variants per common point level and roll before setup to see which one I fielded. That was the most enjoyable method because I had to work with what I rolled, but I had set up the original list so it was cohesive even if it wasn't the most effective.

Goat wrote:I'm in the camp that you challenge someone for a later date battle, you know they are gonna play an army and you both have the option to list talor for that army. No harm. But the bungholes that last minute change stuff around once they see the exact units being used in said army are just annoying.

Pretty much this. In our group you have 4 days before the match and you go in knowing what the enemy race will be. Now it is up to the player to not be a total about knowing what the enemy owns versus what they could bring. However, our group is also very open to proxy so it is their choice if they want to field it as the model or a different unit (as long as it's fairly close in size). I would think "I'm fighting IG, I need to prepare anti-IG" is fine but "I'm fighting Bob and he only ever runs Foot-Lists, better bring the perfect storm against foot lists) might be a bit much. You drawing that line is based off your own sense/morale's.

I would say there is a difference between tailoring you list versus a Race, or against a army build.

Tailoring to counter a specific race's strengths is just 'smart gaming'. If I know I am playing my Eldar against Space Marines rather than Orks, I am obviously going to lean towards Starcannons and the like to combat power armor saves. It's something the Eldar would do in the first place and is frankly that those weapons are made for. In the same way that he can try to field high fire rate weapons after hearing I am running eldar, because I have less armor so he can afford the loss in AP of such weapons because my armor saves will be less.

But that's where I draw the line. I don't look at my friends list to see how many tanks he will be playing to see how many Brightlances I need to field. THAT'S list tailoring, and is underhanded, and is frankly cheating.

“Hey. What army are you playing?”
“Dark Eldar.”
“Oh, ok. I’ll be ready in a sec. Just got to change a few things in my list.”

That. Just that.