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H.B.M.C. wrote:“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.

Exactly.

"So... am I going to have to deal with a lot of tanks?"

"Yes. Yes you will. Now go make a melta-heavy list you clever tactician, you."

Go 150 Guardsmen, go!

However, as others have mentioned, modifying your take-all-comers list to include a little extra oomph for those 473456 Necron and 2464563 Space Marine players at your FLGS is probably wise.

DoW

But that's the difference between "list tailoring" and "local meta".

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

This

My weekly gaming group of 4-8 people always randomize the matches. It forces you to write and play with balanced "TAC" lists. Ultimately everyone becomes a better player because each of us must apply a pre-determined list to an adverse (and rarely advantageous) situation.

It's the indian, not the arrow

First of all, there is nothing wrong with list tailoring. It is how we all play, and it's how the game is meant to be played. Even in White Dwarf battle reports, both participants know what codex their opponent will be using, and build their armies accordingly.

Even if you only loosely tailor to your local meta or anticipated range of opponents, you are still tailoring your list. However, IMO a key component is that both you and your opponent have the same opportunity to build your lists. If you wait to see his list before you build yours, that is unfair. He hasn't had the same opportunity.

Kaldor wrote:First of all, there is nothing wrong with list tailoring. It is how we all play, and it's how the game is meant to be played. Even in White Dwarf battle reports, both participants know what codex their opponent will be using, and build their armies accordingly.

Wow. Just wow.

Kaldor wrote:First of all, there is nothing wrong with list tailoring. It is how we all play, and it's how the game is meant to be played. Even in White Dwarf battle reports, both participants know what codex their opponent will be using, and build their armies accordingly.

Even if you only loosely tailor to your local meta or anticipated range of opponents, you are still tailoring your list. However, IMO a key component is that both you and your opponent have the same opportunity to build your lists. If you wait to see his list before you build yours, that is unfair. He hasn't had the same opportunity.

Back when I used to read White Dwarf, I found myself wondering why people would build the lists they did against certain armies. The badly built list would be chewed up, such as a Salamanders list featuring dreadnaughts and very few troops I saw in a long ago WhiteDwarf battle report against a Tau army in cover with a lot of strength 10 shots courtesy of hammerheads and broadsides.
The only Salamander to get into close combat was the captain who charged into a building alone against a mosh of Kroot. He lost.
I wondered why did the Salamander player build and run an army gauranteed to be slapped down like that, but then realized that it was the Tau debute and GW likes their new armies to win battle reports.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Kaldor wrote:First of all, there is nothing wrong with list tailoring. It is how we all play, and it's how the game is meant to be played. Even in White Dwarf battle reports, both participants know what codex their opponent will be using, and build their armies accordingly.

Wow. Just wow.

Insightful as always, good sir!

I like going into battles blind. Tailoring just ruins some armies, most of the non marine races in particular since there are way less variety in the xenos codexs. The worst scenario is when the guy proxies his permanently semi assembled unpainted army to be the perfect counter to your own completely painted force. If I’m been owned by a nicely painted yet effectively tailored list it seems to sweeten it a bit for me.
I can't pull out my Ork army in my gaming group anymore or I'm suddenly v'sing proxy mass purifiers/interceptors with multiple incinerators every time.

List tailoring is why I like playing blind. My friends and I will know what army the other is playing in advance, but lists are made before we get to the store, and we don't change lists once there. We just make a list, show up, and throw down.

While knowing the army opens list tailoring opportunities, it's unavoidable since we all basically play one army each, but we tend to run unconventional lists, so it's not as easy as looking up the net list counter.

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Reds8n

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Reds8n

I certainly hope people aren't insinuating that if 90% of the armies at my LGS are MEQ, if I tailor my army to better play against MEQ (with a heavy emphasis on what I think is fun to field with my army as well) I am somehow being a munchkin and should instead build a generalist army and simply put up with it.

Even in real life, armies don't fight blind. They know a general idea of how the force they will be facing will behave, and try to plan for it, within limits, obviously.

Like I said before, there's a large gap between Tailoring A: taking some good heavy weapons because you know the Imperial Guard army you're fighting tomorrow is likely to take a lot of tanks because that's just Imperial Guard tends to roll so you decide to gamble with the good odds, and Tailoring B: the nastiness of finding out the day of that instead they are fielding tons of infantry so you swap your army build around to include lots of troop-killers.

"A" is fine, "B" is completely not.

You should have two types of games. Complete blind. You don't know what your opponent is fielding until he is setting up models on the table. This is what tournaments run and is the most fair. As it requires you to create "all comers" lists. note I said fair. not fun.

The second type of game is you and your opponent both tell each other what armies you will be fielding before hand. This could be a week before hand but regardless of the time before the actual game the armies are revealed the LIST should be kept secret until the game itself.

now a lot of people prefer the second option because they don't like wasting points on say psychic defense when playing against an opponent who can't field psykers. (Maybe a poor example since with allies everyone can have psykers but you get the point) So you know you are fighting orks so you take more flamers. You still have no way of knowing that while he is fielding orks he is actually fielding a "deff wing" and your flamers really wont help.

Both games have their merits. I enjoy the first one and it is what my gaming group usually decide on. Or with pick up games you have an army and when you ask for a game you say "1500 points?" and both of you have lists made before you ever came into the shop.

But the second one does create an interesting element to the game. You both know the other guy is going to be tailoring his list to fight your army, so you "counter pick" units to counter the units he has that beat your own. I have had a game where I told someone i wanted to play nids, he knew nids meant hordes, but thought I wouldn't take hordes because he thought I would be expecting him to field anti horde. So instead he took a lot of high strength weapons to kill warriors and monstrous creatures. When I showed up with over 150 nid models the game was very interesting.

Of course there is a bit of "inbetween" ground with this when it comes to playing people you play a lot. Even without saying "I am playing such and such" you probably know the other person well enough to at least know what armies he owns. So if you are challenging a friend but dont know his list you at least know his possible lists and still will likely lean more toward the second option that the "truly balanced" first option that is only really possible in a full pick up game or tournament where you don't know who you will be playing or their army.

The reason I don't like your second type of game, is that it often comes down to money. If I own 10k points of marines and my opponent owns 3k Eldar, I should win every time. I can build almost any list I want, while even in a 1500 point match his options are limited. I would also be very aware of the few variations he could create, and come very ready for them, while he knows that I could run everything from dev razor spam to all bikes to 7 drop pods to Lysander wing +flying circus. It's just not fair, and as guy who by far owns the most stuff in our club, I've pushed for tourney style blind lists.