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Tailoring your list against the metagame is a great idea. That's why a lot of lists make sure to have a few different ways of taking out vehicles these days. That, though, is more about knowing the state of the game in your area, and less about knowing which opponent.

Fetterkey wrote:List tailoring, as long as both people know about it, is neither better nor worse than taking all-comers forces. It's just a different way to play.

This is great. If you agree with a friend to play a few games as a campaign with set races, you should both be trying to bash each other's brains out. It would definitely be a different experience. I might even suggest my brother-in-law and I start tailoring more against each other.

I actually think that playing an all-comers list (with your meta in mind) shows better decision making. If you tailor a list against "tyranid Bob", only to find out he just switched to Tau, you'll probably lend up in trouble. Similarly, what if you took a bunch of anti-mech for your local IG player you're playing in the league today, but he's switched to all infantry for this game. As people have said, it becomes rock-paper-scissors.

A general list with a couple minor tweaks might be in order, but if you have a list that can beat both swarming Nids and all-mech IG, then you've got superior list making skills.

The anti-orange-painted Tau list that the guy pulls out of his rolodex of lists isn't an example of where being prepared wins. It's an example of where having the money to buy all the models you want, as well as transport capacity wins. He can make a list with the oddest entries, and field whatever unit he wants. What guard player uses the LR Eradicator Nova Cannon, much less buys, models, and paints three? One who knows he won't ever face marines, or has too much time and money to waste on a model that wouldn't be used without being able to tailor a list.

OP:

To address your points:

1. List Building is a Skill: You're correct. It takes *more* skill to make a list capable of dealing with any potential opponent than it does for an opponent to show your their models, show you their list, and for you to design a list made to capitalize on whatever is required best to beat it.

2. More Variety: There is no more variety of units in custom list-building than in a standardized "Take all Comers" list. Flashgits are a bad unit. If you custom-build a list to take on a particular opponent....its *still* not going to include flash gits. There's no basis in fact for your conjecture here.

3. New Dimensions To the Game: You have this completely backwards. Trying to gain an advantage over an opponent by stacking your deck in your favor doesn't add a new dimension. On the flip side of the coin...trying to use the units you have AT YOUR DISPOSAL in a "take-all-comers" list *does* add a new dimension to the game - one of generalship and skill.


List-tailoring isn't considered cheating by anyone I've ever met. It can be considered poor sportsmanship that you're trying to gain an unfair advantage. Mostly, it is considered inept generalship. It means that you're not good enough to figure out how to approach a challenge. The basis for this is in the fact that on the field of battle, you have what you have. Commanders don't get to view an enemy disposition and tailor the countering forces to precisely match what is needed to overcome the enemy in front of them - rather, they make do with what they have.

I encourage weaker opponents to tailor their lists to mine, so that they have a better chance of presenting a challenge. If you and I were to play, I would also encourage you to custom-tailor your list against me....since you're not skilled enough to get by without it. It isn't an insult, its just a stage along your road of learning about 40k. There comes a day in every 40k player's career where they realize that they're good enough that they don't need to try creating an advantage over their opponent by customizing their army to defeat their opponent. When I first started 40k, I custom-tailored my lists. I expect everyone in the lower echelons of 40k tactics to do so. I don't fault them for it, I just try helping them learn how to be a better general.

I realize that this is coming off as high-handed, but you must understand that there are different skill levels in 40k - and that as you expand past the novice levels and into the ability to truly analyze the tactical capabilities of your army, the units in your codex, how they work together, and what you can do to bring together a coherent force capable of responding to multiple challenges, that the need to tailor a list to an opponent to stand a chance of winning goes away.

Like I said - list tailoring is fine - it just means that you're not good enough not to do it yet. No one starts as a tactical genius at 40k.

Dashofpepper wrote:No one starts as a tactical genius at 40k.

*Insert obligatory Cadian Lord Castellan meme joke here*

1: Tailored lists only apply to friendly games.
Bring one to a tournament and 80% of the other armies will take you apart.

2: For some armies against regulars its something that has to be done.
With the current power trend with new book, old armies are far too weak to really do anything spectacular.
Necrons against pups or vamps would be a good example.
Against guard would be an extreme example.

3: You said making an all commers list takes skill?
You mean reading through a forum or 2 and digging up a basic cookie cutter layout?
Takes more skill to run a tailored or themed army as you have to think ahead and keep on your toes, rather than buy from a list you read.

4: If you know the players in a tournament and decide to tailor towards beating them, fair enough.
Thats using your own initiative.
It is not cheating as you have called it.
If that was the case, every daemon player would be screaming cheater when facing a GK army.

5: As a bit from above here, but even GW tailors thier armies.
Daemons are made to be evil, GK are made to hunt them down.



So, thats my thoughts and opinions anyway.

Sun Tzu also said...and i'm paraphrasing as I don't have my copy of The Art of War...that the element of surprise is perhaps the most important and crucial thing to winning a battle. To strike in the most unexpected way and with such fervor and determination that your opponent cannot help but buckle. Now according to this, neither opponent should show their list to the other, as neither one of them would want to lose that crucial element before the battle has started.

Then again, you have to take Mr. Tzu with a grain of salt...it may be surprising to take an army where your elites slot is filled with flash gitz, but that doesn't mean that your standard all comers list won't trounce it.

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:3: You said making an all commers list takes skill?
You mean reading through a forum or 2 and digging up a basic cookie cutter layout?
Takes more skill to run a tailored or themed army as you have to think ahead and keep on your toes, rather than buy from a list you read.

Creating the al-comers list takes more skill, yes. Just because the skill was outsourced to the internets doesn't mean it took less skill to create, it just took less for that one particular person.

Also, it takes skill to adjust the net lists to your own metagame. Very rarely does the internet meta line up with the one in my game store.

So how does it take skill for YOU to build it?
It doesent.
Its a design that someone had posted and since then it has turned into a basic layout for what you need to use.

When i go to a tournament, whats the odds of seeing 10 or so guard players, with atleast 60% running leafblower lists?
They didnt think of the same list.
They simply sourced it.



If you need reference to cookie cutter lists cheezus, keep an eye on the US tournaments.
You will find it pretty amusing how many people run a list with 1 or 2 differences.

and im sure dash can back the last statement up being a regular

gpfunk wrote:Then again, you have to take Mr. Tzu with a grain of salt...

I think you mean "Mr. Sun." Chinese surnames work differently most times.


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۞ Jack ۞ wrote:So how does it take skill for YOU to build it?
It doesent.
Its a design that someone had posted and since then it has turned into a basic layout for what you need to use.

If someone posts a list of all possible army builds, does that mean nobody ever has skill at making a list anymore? Oh wait, recognizing a good list is important, too. If the president surrounds himself with intelligent advisors and listens to them, does that mean he hasn't done anything intelligent?

The fact that it took an internet worth of people to build and modify the list is testament to how much work it took.

If it only matters how much skill each person put into their list, then anyone on this forum will forever be a n00b compared to the guy in his basement with no internet.

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:
2: For some armies against regulars its something that has to be done.
With the current power trend with new book, old armies are far too weak to really do anything spectacular.
Necrons against pups or vamps would be a good example.
Against guard would be an extreme example.

Boiling your thoughts down to this basic principle.

There are different skill levels in 40k. You don't *have* to list-tailor, you're just not good enough *yet* to know how not to. Continue on your trek to learn tactics in 40k.

My Necrons by the way are undefeated. Even against Space Puppies, IG, and Space Wolves - my three most common opponents. The only person with a claim here is Mike Brandt, when I was first looking at Necrons and we proxied a game with them in his basement using whiskey bottles for monoliths.

Subliminally,I think a big reason that list tailoring is looked down is that it is inherently WAAC behavior. You may get your jollies by stacking a list to blow your buddies off the table by the end of Turn 3,but it isn't much fun for them.

Ethically,there's nothing wrong with list tailoring so long as both players have the equal opportunity to do so. The "Orange Tau" example should never happen,ever. In my 40k group,we all make out our lists without the other's knowledge,then let each other look at them before the game,but we aren't allowed to make changes afterwards. To look at somebody else's list,and then either build or pull out a pregenerated army list specifically designed to crush that list doesn't take a whole lot of skill.

List tailoring practices can be very detrimental to a group of 40k players in the long run. In order for any game to be fun,you have to at least feel like you have a chance to win. In a group of players that heavily list tailors,the player that has most amount of money to spend on models has a tremendous advantage,especially when you are predetermining the mission as the OP is doing. You can drop 10-man Tac Squads with Flamer/ML and 3 Whirlwinds against one buddy's Ork horde army in an Annhilation game,then turn around and run MSU's with melta in Razorbacks and 3 Lascannon Predators against another's Mech-dar list in a Capture & Control if you've got the $ to drop on the models. If your buddies don't have the cash to sufficiently list tailor to everybody else in the group,then they're at a distinct disadvantage to the people that do. One good thing about groups that primarily play TAC lists is that good list builders can identify which units will be generally good against most builds and buy those,building competitive armies for a cheaper cost. In a list tailoring group,it's one thing to realize that a unit of Pyrovores would be awesome against Jim's Ork horde army,but something altogether different to come up with $100 for a unit of 3 models that will probably only ever see the table against Jim's Ork horde army because you'll be dropping Hive Guard against everybody else. When players start to feel that they have no chance to win simply because they don't have the money to effectively list tailor against everybody else,then they are likely to lose interest in the game.

List building is an important skill in 40k,and list tailoring does give some experience to a player about learning how to deal with different types of units by using units in their codex. At the same time,it takes a lot more skill to create a list that can effectively deal with multiple armies than it does to create list that will obliterate 1-2 lists,but then get dominated by everything else. It's harder to create a list that can effectively deal with armor spam,infantry spam,and armies that rely primarily on shooting or close combat than it is to create a list that will effectively deal with infantry mobs that are good in close combat. It also takes more skill on the tabletop to win with TAC list than a tailored one.

I view list tailoring as a logical course of action if you are playing a one off game against a known enemy and you want to win. This being said, I don't play to win. I have found that with GW games playing to win leads to boring games, and a lack of variety of armies and of army composition. The silly new Grey Knight henchman builds are a perfect example of lack of variety in army composition. Entire races are excluded from competitive play. If you play for fun, you can also use all sorts of cool minis that are not competitive. This not only adds variety in models, but in game play as well. This is not to say that I do not like winning, or don't want to win. I just find that with GW games trying to win leads to a boring game.

Many of you may think, this guy must be nuts. He plays with all of this garbage and gets his face beaten in. This of course happens, but not all of the time, as that would be quite boring as well. I also encourage my opponents to play with junk as well. It really does make the game more fun.

I find that the games that are the most fun are the ones where are armies are best matched. If it takes list tailoring to achieve this, then tailor away.

One last note, nothing is quite as satisfying than writing your own list, putting in a good number of substandard units, and winning a game.

List tailoring is lame because it's easy to win if you tailor. So unless both guys tailor, which you would have to agree to ahead of time, then one guy has such a huge advantage it's not even a real game.

If you have a lot of MEQ in your area, and you want to run an anti MEQ army, that's fine. But don't switch all your plasma and melta to flamers when you play orks. It's just lame and teachs you nothing about how to really win.

I disagree, I disagree with your points, I find your arguments self defeating and silly... but it's a game, play it how you like, I build general lists because I feel it's more fun and I can learn more about over all tactics.

My biggest issues with tailoring is that some armies tailor better than others, the IG, nids and eldar can just customize better then most MEQ. If I play the guard as my blood angels going DoA I hit the field, he's strategically hidden his large blast markers so I can't take them out and on my turn I watch pretty much my entire force vaporize as I get hit with str 8 ap 3 and poison (2) ap3 and plasma vets that I cracked out of transports. he can get more tanks than I can squads if he knows what I'm fielding. How does that create a fun experience for the two of us and what did either of us learn aside from "let's not ever do that again."

Edit: this assumes both players know they're tailoring, If only one side is able to tailor, I agree, that person should be whipped and hung from the nearest set of rafters.

Not that I've tried it, but if you are running a list including 'scissors' (tanks, for instance), and your opponent is likely to add in a 'stone' (AT), just make sure they know you have 'paper' (ccw), and they'll limit the tailoring.

EDIT: Spelling, as usual.

I play guard and I have an all-comers style list but it leans towards taking out MEQ'S. I have plenty of pie plates and anti infantry guns to deal with most infantry hordes but without the foresight of adding in those plasma's and such I'll struggle agaisnt anything in power armor. Having said that, the units such as plasma vets in my mind have roles which can be used against any army. They're transport killers, take out marines and termies, good for those horde army MC'S and so on. I won't take any unit I feel could be at a loss in the rock/paper/sissor game when you draw what army you're playing against. One unit i'm very cautious to add into a list is my hellhound squadron. It'll make or break the game based on whether I fight a horde or MEQ. That to me doesn't scream 'good use of points'. When I do take them its to clear out specific areas of infantry such as objectives so that my own can move in. My plan won't revolve around the draw of armies but the tactics of my opponant when he see's I have three hellhounds.

For me an all-comers list is about looking at what your own army lacks and filling that role as opposed to considering what an opponent can throw at you. If i'm lacking heavy anti-tank guns i'll consider some lascannons, melta's or a manticore. What I won't do is add them because I think my opponent has a new Land Raider he wants to play with. Why? Because against regular opponents theres nothing to say that it won't be a bluff to force you to take more anti-tank guns when he's only going to use an infantry army.

On the other side of the coin where you don't know your opponent, you can't specialise anyway and you have no choice but to draw a list in the dark. So all you CAN do is cover your own weakness'.

I will be playing in a 'tournament' soon.
By 'tournament' i mean a series of games where points are scored, between a small group of friends, where the prize will be free drinks.

We all know what armies we will be facing. And their will be a dominant MEQ presence, which we will all accomadate when building our lists.
We will all tailor slightly towards each other, as we know what armies will be involved but not the precise make-up of those armies.

I see no problem with this as we are all going to do it and i see no reason why not to, i know others will.

What i do have a problem with is tailoring pre-game against unknown opponents.

We had this one guy who would bring about 3,000 points (normally we play 1,500) and would find an opponent, and wait until you start getting your models out before getting his own. Funnily enough his list ended up being written on the spot and strangly geared to fight against his opponent.

Well... once he challenged me that kinda stopped so much. He wanted to play 2K and knowing his little trick, i got some of my army out, then exclaimed that i didn't bring enough to make a legal 2K list, and that i could play if we used two force org charts instead of one. He agreed, and the rest is history. I don't care how much you tailor your list, giving an Eldar player 6 heavy support choices is not the greatest idea in the world. I think he learnt his lesson after we had a little chat afterwards.

With that said, It's not really a problem in my local area, apart from the odd scenario. And i'll say it again, if you know you will face a player, or players, then there is no harm in both of you tailoring before you see each others lists, but i have serious problems when only one person does so.

I do think there is a bit of kneejerk anti-tailoring antipathy here. That said, it's a natural product of our general focus on tournament play.

In friendly play with an opponent who has agreed to it, and does the same thing, tailoring can be okay and good fun. One of the earlier posters did mention the issue of going back and forth changing your lists, but simultaneously revealing your lists negates that issue. That being said, tailoring does bring in two other factors...

1. Some codices have more choices available to them than others. If I am playing SM, and my usual opponent has Necrons, it is not exactly fair for us to allow tailoring. I have a lot more options to do it with than he does.

2. Some players own a lot more models than others. If I have a 5000pt+ collection of SM, and my usual Eldar opponent only owns 2000pts of stuff, I have a big advantage in how much I can tailor, as opposed to him. Again, not exactly fair.

All that said, if you've taken 1 and 2 into account, and you're not prepping for tournament play, I can certainly see the potential fun of tailoring.

dayve110 wrote:

We had this one guy who would bring about 3,000 points (normally we play 1,500) and would find an opponent, and wait until you start getting your models out before getting his own. Funnily enough his list ended up being written on the spot and strangly geared to fight against his opponent.

Well... once he challenged me that kinda stopped so much. He wanted to play 2K and knowing his little trick, i got some of my army out, then exclaimed that i didn't bring enough to make a legal 2K list, and that i could play if we used two force org charts instead of one. He agreed, and the rest is history. I don't care how much you tailor your list, giving an Eldar player 6 heavy support choices is not the greatest idea in the world. I think he learnt his lesson after we had a little chat afterwards.

Aww....that was a disappointing ending. :(

I was hoping it was going to be like this:

.....knowing his little trick, I got some of my army out until he got his models out and made a list. Then I fussed with them and exclaimed that I was missing models and couldn't make a legal 2k list, so switched armies on the spot (from like Marines to Eldar or something) and beat the crap out of the list he tailor-made to beat my other army.

Actually only one time I ran into an opponent tailoring in a friendly game.

But he did it openly. Asked me what I have (Mono slaanesh Daemons ) and then adapted his weapons to it. He played the nasty Tau Battlesuit army and exchanged Krisis weaponry (and even asked me for advice)
The table was next to without terrain.

I took it with humour and spent the last 2 turns chasing a fleeing devilfish across the board after crushing the rest with horrible casualties on my side too.

And I held a draw against an Anti-IG Wolves Army.

Of course if opponents tailor against you, it will be a challenging game, but I would rather tailor my list to be worse against my opponent than tailor it to be better.
Its against my own subjective sense of honour.

Dashofpepper wrote:Aww....that was a disappointing ending. :(

If it helps, considering he took 20 terminators (you know of my fondness for AP=rubbish scatter lasers... ) I though it was quite fitting that he got the majority of those wiped out without striking back by 2 Wraithlords, an Avatar, Eldrad, Yriel and Seer council. After 2 doomed units, 4 flamers, 6 destructors, and one hell of charge later of course. And yes, that was alot of points and wouldn't work for me normally, but totally worth it to see the look on his face. (Oh, i took no pleasure in this beating, it was purely an educational game regarding proper list writing. )

-Nazdreg- wrote:

Of course if opponents tailor against you, it will be a challenging game, but I would rather tailor my list to be worse against my opponent than tailor it to be better.
Its against my own subjective sense of honour.

Now that....is not bad list tailoring.

I do a little of the same, although rather than switching up units (hard on Vassal since if you ask what army people are running, they presume you're going to tailor to it), I switch down codexes to something less competitive.

Tailoring isn't bad, IMHO, for campaigns, or events in which you play against the same opponent(s) over a long time period.

But Tailoring is, generally, a poor strategy. It's not a "morally" bad one, but if you brought anti-infantry to a tournament, sure, you'll beat that foot sloggin' list, but when the Mech hits the table, best of luck to ye.

However I don't see it as a better way to play, it's really basic. Oh, your opponent brought infantry? Sure, bring lots of flamers, not reprehensible, but honestly, I think if you find a list that hard-counters your list to the point where you're forced to tailor that says a lot more about the units/options you may have taken, or your general strategies, more than anything else.

So, I'm going to tentatively agree with the OP here.

What the OP is saying is that the strongest list will be the ones that beat your opponents, so the strongest lists will have your opponents in mind when you make them. Furthermore this kind of espionage and creating a list that EXACTLY beats what you're planning to come across actually does take a fair degree of skill.

Yes, it takes skill to make a list that covers all of your bases, but it also takes a lot of skill to find out what four player's lists are and build a list specifically designed to counter all four of them.

If you're competing, espionage and intelligence gathering, for the purpose of making decisions based on what you find, is a good skill to have, and isn't in any way immoral.

As El Cheezus notes...

ElCheezus wrote:Tailoring your list against the metagame is a great idea.

Because, really, if you're only ever taking the one list regardless of what your local meta is like, are you actually a more skilled person? I'd think it's the one who adapts to change and the specific circumstances they come across that is better in this regard.

That said, while I agree with the premise, there are a few problems in execution.

Relic_OMO wrote:But what's lame about this situation is not that he tailored a list ahead of time to beat you. It's that you didn't have a similar opportunity, not knowing his list in advance, and thus he has a pretty significant advantage, which is a bit unfair.

Witzkatz wrote:He sees my list and goes..."Well, you got a dreadnought there...I'll then take some MLs against that. And now I'll take this and this and that against this stuff...*mumble*"

And I thought, well, this seems unfair. He sees what I have and can react. So why shouldn't I do it myself?

"Ah well, you got so much AT there now, I'll remove my dreadnought and take more Marines instead."

Of course, he responded.

"What?! Allright, then I'll change those MLs back to heavy bolters..and this to that..."


See what's happening there? It goes on and on. You can't list tailor "fairly", because there's always a guy who can tailor LAST. If you allow the other guy to react, then he has the advantage. And again and again and again.

This is one of them. Only one person can apply their skill at list tailoring effectively. This is because the last person who applied their list tailoring skills likely utterly counteracted the penultimate list tailoring.

List tailoring isn't somehow immoral, but it is unfair. You can do list tailoring in certain ways fairly (like playing to the local meta in general), but doing list tailoring in other ways just gives you an unfair advantage.

In common parlance, this is called "cheating".

Relic_OMO wrote:More variety.

This is the other thing I'd take issue with. We have actually played a league or two at my FLGS, and I found the opposite to be true.

The reason why is because when people have 3 or 4 lists, and they pull out the one designed to beat your type of list before the game begins, this punishes you for having a type of list that can be tailored against.

The end result is players taking a more thorough blend of different units until they found the one list that was untailorable, and then played that one list over and over again.

The end result is that it actually reduced variety, and caused people of the same army to start fielding more and more similar lists.

My funniest list tailoring story is when I was playing my orks in 4ed. A guy I've never seen comes in, asks for a low point game, like 750. I tell him I'm playing orks (and I have no idea what he is playing) I take 5 minutes and cut out units out of my normal list, leaving me with something I thought was fun. He takes all the plasma and high strength weapons for high volume anti ork weapons. Only problem.... I brought a unit of scoring meganobs (in a truck), some warbikers, biker boss, and a unit of gretching. Proceed to stomp him taking almost no wounds. Tried to say I tailored against him, by not taking horde orks... While he took all the plasma and railguns out of his list, and I didn't even know he was playing tau.

I strongly dislike list tailoring.

I don't dislike it because there is a "dogma" against it on Dakka. Rather I dislike it because nearly everything that frustrated me when I started playing 40K was a direct result of list tailoring.

When you first start out, and come in to the store with your first 750 point list. You are fielding nearly 100% of your models.
You make an all comers list because you don't know what armies the local meta consists of, all you know is that you've just dropped ~200 dollars and you expect your all comers list to give you a good game, no matter who you play.
Then you walk into the store, and get ready to play a game. You ask for a small game because you don't have very many points.
They go, "Ok, I'll play a game with you, what army do you play?"
"Eldar"
*smiles sagely and proceeds to write a list specifically designed to crush elves in space*

At this point I stopped telling people what army I was running so it would be all comers v all comers.

its just stupid. Its not preparing, its basically saying screw you new guy I can do this and you don't have the models to do it back to me.

I've gotten better since then, but I still write all comers lists. I go to various different stores to play so there is no "local meta" for me. I've built my 2000 point list, with units I like, and I expect it to fare admirably no matter where I play it.

List tailoring is WAAC strategy that is incredibly unfair to new gamers.

Designing a personalized list of units you like that can still do well in a casual all comers environment is a testament to skill, list tailoring is not.

It depends entirely on the player. Theres some little brats where I play who will do that but most of the guys are pretty fair. You pick a list and then thats it. Touch move like in chess. One of the guys let one of the newer players choose which of his four lists to play against which I found quite odd but at the same time kind of nice.

Personally I have four lists, one infantry based, one mech/tank heavy based, and two all comers. I can only physically carry the infantry and the all comers models on me due to the carry case size. I pick what ever I feel like playing with as opposed to who i'm facing. The point is its a game. Your there to have fun. Besides, you learn more from defeat than victory. Theres plenty of oppertunity to be picky and canny in tournies.

The way I read the OP wasn't necessarily that everyone should bring boxes of models, and 'tailor', or pick in the minutes before the game, an army list specifically designed to counter the list their opponent has. I believe the point was more that there is a psychological aspect to the game, which includes knowing your opponent, knowing what they like to field, and understanding how they might react to a change in your list. It's not about single games, it's about a gaming career, about the months you play and build your army, watching others do the same and attempting to exploit the player's weaknesses, not the list's. More Rommel and Patton, and less spiteful arena handler deciding to loose the tigers instead of the other team of unarmoured surfs.

Ailaros wrote: Stuff...

Despite having addressed the points you're agreeing with very early in the discussion (like, which takes more skill - tailoring your list to your opponent, or taking a fixed set of models and tailoring their use to find a way to beat your opponent?) but then I saw that it was you who posted. I'll go ahead and save my breath and time.

However, if you would like a detailed explanation of why your agreement with the OP is based on faulty premises (of what skill is), skip back to the first page and look for my first post.


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Deceiver wrote: One of the guys let one of the newer players choose which of his four lists to play against which I found quite odd but at the same time kind of nice.

That's a respectable player! =D While I don't have multiple lists for the same armies (except for Necrons, where I have both a Wraith Wing and a Tomb Spyder wing), and I do have the models to change up in my other armies for any permutation I'd like...I typically offer my opponent the opportunity to play against multiple codexes. If you want to play my face-beating list, you get Dark Eldar. If you want to play a solidly competitive list, you get my Orks. If you're not a very competitive player, you get my Necrons.

Does your guy have wildly different army lists, or variations of the same theme for his four?

Dashofpepper wrote:If you want to play my face-beating list, you get Dark Eldar. If you want to play a solidly competitive list, you get my Orks. If you're not a very competitive player, you get my Necrons.

Then what does your Tau do?

striderx wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:If you want to play my face-beating list, you get Dark Eldar. If you want to play a solidly competitive list, you get my Orks. If you're not a very competitive player, you get my Necrons.

Then what does your Tau do?

I traded out my Tau for Necrons last year - I was having issues with people crying cheese over DE and Orks, so I got Necrons as my "I dare you to cry cheese" army. You only have to kill 24 models to phase me out. =D