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.

Slipspace wrote:

Your local meta and individual opponent might well result in differences. For example if you know your opponent is a beginner, or has a very limited pool of models you might well tailor your list far less or not at all.

That is like saying that if you find a large sum of money on the street, you may return in to the police station. Not saying it doesn't happen, when it does there is always TV showing it, and here people always deem the person stupid. Plus again it requires people to have a huge collection. If one person picked a good army and has a standar IG with castellan, and the other thought that primaris look cool, the IG player has no way to nerf his army to not walk over the primaris player. Unless he on purpose plays bad, but why play at all then, if people have to let you win. Just tell the primaris player he won, and play a real game vs someone with a real army.

This may have been mentioned before regarding your rather...unique...locale, but if this is the common attitude of people in your group it's an extremely toxic one and pretty much the definition of TFG behaviour. We're talking about a beginner here, not someone heavily invested in the game. If someone shows up with 1000 points of stuff from various starter sets the correct response isn't to refuse to play them until they man-up and build a proper-sized army and it isn't to take some hyper-competitive list to smash them in 20 minutes flat so you can get back to playing "real" 40k. The correct response is to try to build an army that will give them an interesting game in order to introduce them to the hobby and the game itself. Then, once they've figured out what all the numbers on those statlines actually mean, they might be in a position to figure out if they want to keep playing and may become a valued member of the local community.

One thing I think we can agree on is that Karols presentation of his local game club is of one of not just highly competitive but rather toxic players who are very cliquey.

 Overread wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Your local meta and individual opponent might well result in differences. For example if you know your opponent is a beginner, or has a very limited pool of models you might well tailor your list far less or not at all.

That is like saying that if you find a large sum of money on the street, you may return in to the police station. Not saying it doesn't happen, when it does there is always TV showing it, and here people always deem the person stupid. Plus again it requires people to have a huge collection. If one person picked a good army and has a standar IG with castellan, and the other thought that primaris look cool, the IG player has no way to nerf his army to not walk over the primaris player. Unless he on purpose plays bad, but why play at all then, if people have to let you win. Just tell the primaris player he won, and play a real game vs someone with a real army.

This may have been mentioned before regarding your rather...unique...locale, but if this is the common attitude of people in your group it's an extremely toxic one and pretty much the definition of TFG behaviour. We're talking about a beginner here, not someone heavily invested in the game. If someone shows up with 1000 points of stuff from various starter sets the correct response isn't to refuse to play them until they man-up and build a proper-sized army and it isn't to take some hyper-competitive list to smash them in 20 minutes flat so you can get back to playing "real" 40k. The correct response is to try to build an army that will give them an interesting game in order to introduce them to the hobby and the game itself. Then, once they've figured out what all the numbers on those statlines actually mean, they might be in a position to figure out if they want to keep playing and may become a valued member of the local community.

One thing I think we can agree on is that Karols presentation of his local game club is of one of not just highly competitive but rather toxic players who are very cliquey.

Dakka actually follows the universe rules of Cabin in the Woods. If any of the following roles are not fulfiled at any given time, the mods pump drugs through the keyboard of a randomly selected poster to alter their personality and make sure the role stays fulfilled:

1) The Positivity Policeman. He must attack any and all posts that strike any kind of critical tone.

2) The One-Army Warrior. All threads on the front page must be twisted into threads about The OAW's chosen faction.

3) The Low Effort Troll. Required to make 14 posts a day with less than 10 words in each. Each reply sustains his unsatiable hunger.

4) The Impossible Meta Victim. All posts must be filtered through the lens of his increasingly improbable-sounding local meta, where every list he faces is a tournament-topping meta netlist, and gangs of thugs beat him up every time he loses.

5) The Rules Complainer. Each and every detail of Games Workshop's rules writing arouses his impossible rage, and he must stalk the YMDC forum as a mighty jungle cat, his nostrils flared for the scent of fresh FAQs to complain about.

Don't be too harsh on poor Karol. He is new in his role as avatar of the impossible meta victim. Martel carried that mantle for so long his spirit grew weary and now he can scarcely stir from his slumber long enough to type a single sentence about how his all jump pack blood angel list got tabled during the deployment phase by his opponents' imperial ynnari soup combo list. Soon, he shall crumble to dust at his keyboard and the spirit of the IMV will be transferred fully to Karol's shoulders.

Even if people had no problem with you looking at their list then tailoring it specifically to win (i know I wouldn't be playing this person again)... I would suggests not doing this as its really going to hurt your skills as a player. It would be a rough day when you went from having a perfectly optimized list against each opponent to being in a fixed list tournament where you don't have 100% optimized tools to fight each opponent.

I consider myself pretty casual in my miniatures gaming. That said, when it comes to games requiring a good amount of models to be played like 40k (or platoon level or higher), I think the idea of my opponent asking what I am playing, or chances are sees my army already displayed, and then altering their load out because of it, that feels pretty scummy if they are doing it for an advantage. It might be a little hypocritical of me, but if they were doing it to help balance the two forces, I don't think that is nearly as much of an issue.

Chances are I won't know as I would imagine the kinda of player that would do such a thing isn't going to announce it to me. All I will see is them setting up.

In Kill Team sideboards are a thing. However, I still feel bad when I play an opponent who only has enough models for a 100 point team. So much so, that if I know that all my factions now have a standard 100 point TAC list written on their roster so I don't feel like I have an unfair advantage when it comes to list building.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

I kind of miss the days where I would spend a few days after a battle thinking about what my friend did and how I was going to break it, and what I was going to field that he wouldn't be able to answer, and then put it to the test. The best feeling was after I had lost a couple of games in a row to one of his set ups, then coming up with something that was abnormal and left him with a stupid look on his face like "why'd you do that? That's what I wanted to do? Oh. gak." That said, we don't play multiple times a week anymore [due to practicality], and we've both become more laid back and have much better lists than we had at the time, and fine tweaks are nearly as fun to envision as a whole quarter or more of the army changing.

This I exactly what I mean about list tailoring being unfair. It rewards the player who can go drop $50-100 on beating a specific list, and sucks to be you if you can't keep up with the arms race.

Well, I generally play mostly to prep and test tournament lists, since I find them to be a lot of fun.

I tell people what I'm bringing, and ask them to try to build a list specifically to kill it... because I want to try it out against "worst case" scenarios.

So I'm fine with you tailoring your list as hard as possible to kill me.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

I kind of miss the days where I would spend a few days after a battle thinking about what my friend did and how I was going to break it, and what I was going to field that he wouldn't be able to answer, and then put it to the test. The best feeling was after I had lost a couple of games in a row to one of his set ups, then coming up with something that was abnormal and left him with a stupid look on his face like "why'd you do that? That's what I wanted to do? Oh. gak." That said, we don't play multiple times a week anymore [due to practicality], and we've both become more laid back and have much better lists than we had at the time, and fine tweaks are nearly as fun to envision as a whole quarter or more of the army changing.

This I exactly what I mean about list tailoring being unfair. It rewards the player who can go drop $50-100 on beating a specific list, and sucks to be you if you can't keep up with the arms race.

The thing is it IS part of the Wargame world. It always has been, the only difference is there's more choice now on the table for many armies. The wargames where its less of an issue tend to be historical re-enactment ones where people are copying old real world armies rather than building their own from a points system.


It's the same in magic the gathering (though far more extreme I would say) or any competitive game where people can buy and upgrade parts of their army.

The thing is now we bring in context. If Peregrine can't afford new models very often if at all and has one single army then in the pregame you already know 100% What Pery is going to bring, so chances are the opponent can adapt. Instead of list tailouring for an easier victory they can do the opposite or just throw out a fun random list or even take less points or vary the game to a new design etc.. there are LOADS of ways to make it fair and fun for different people if the two people coming to play a game have very different approaches. A middle ground CAN be found.

It might not be found the first time nor the second time they play each other, but it can be done. However it hinges heavily on both communicating what they want from a game clearly to the other. If that pre-game communication fails to happen or fails to be effective then it can setup one or both for disappointment.

There's no shame in saying "hey Dave you keep beating me every week with your lists, how about we make it more a challenge since I can't afford anything but clanrats - how's about you take 75% of the points value instead of 100% for a challenge.". Or any one of a number of alternative options. Heck you can swap armies if you want and play your opponents force and them yours - maybe you find that the issue isn't the lists but the player skills; maybe you both learn something new from each other.



There are ways and means to deal with people from different backgrounds to play together, but only if they speak and communicate to each other what they want clearly.

 Overread wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

I kind of miss the days where I would spend a few days after a battle thinking about what my friend did and how I was going to break it, and what I was going to field that he wouldn't be able to answer, and then put it to the test. The best feeling was after I had lost a couple of games in a row to one of his set ups, then coming up with something that was abnormal and left him with a stupid look on his face like "why'd you do that? That's what I wanted to do? Oh. gak." That said, we don't play multiple times a week anymore [due to practicality], and we've both become more laid back and have much better lists than we had at the time, and fine tweaks are nearly as fun to envision as a whole quarter or more of the army changing.

This I exactly what I mean about list tailoring being unfair. It rewards the player who can go drop $50-100 on beating a specific list, and sucks to be you if you can't keep up with the arms race.

The thing is it IS part of the Wargame world. It always has been, the only difference is there's more choice now on the table for many armies. The wargames where its less of an issue tend to be historical re-enactment ones where people are copying old real world armies rather than building their own from a points system.


It's the same in magic the gathering (though far more extreme I would say) or any competitive game where people can buy and upgrade parts of their army.

The thing is now we bring in context. If Peregrine can't afford new models very often if at all and has one single army then in the pregame you already know 100% What Pery is going to bring, so chances are the opponent can adapt. Instead of list tailouring for an easier victory they can do the opposite or just throw out a fun random list or even take less points or vary the game to a new design etc.. there are LOADS of ways to make it fair and fun for different people if the two people coming to play a game have very different approaches. A middle ground CAN be found.

It might not be found the first time nor the second time they play each other, but it can be done. However it hinges heavily on both communicating what they want from a game clearly to the other. If that pre-game communication fails to happen or fails to be effective then it can setup one or both for disappointment.

There's no shame in saying "hey Dave you keep beating me every week with your lists, how about we make it more a challenge since I can't afford anything but clanrats - how's about you take 75% of the points value instead of 100% for a challenge.". Or any one of a number of alternative options. Heck you can swap armies if you want and play your opponents force and them yours - maybe you find that the issue isn't the lists but the player skills; maybe you both learn something new from each other.



There are ways and means to deal with people from different backgrounds to play together, but only if they speak and communicate to each other what they want clearly.

You know, it's weird, I thought I remembered something about the only intellectually honest way to play being to bring the list that's the best at winning the game as possible within the rules and anything that isn't strictly against those rules but follows a commonly held code of social construct is a CAAC restriction designed to make someone bad at winning win anyway?

Isn't a list tailored towards exactly what my opponent will be bringing a list that's better at winning than a list that isn't tailored? Also, isn't the expectation that players bring TAC lists to a game night a CAAC social construct designed to make people who are worse at winning have a better chance?

Sure, "bad at winning" in this context means "can't afford enough models to win" but theoretically speaking that applies in a competitive tournament that mandates TAC lists anyway. The only intellectually honest reason to bring a TAC list to a tournament is because the tournament requires it in their rules.

Therefore in a casual gaming group that does not have those rules strictly published wouldn't it be more in line with the Peregrine Code to tailor your list as much as your model collection allows?

That's a pretty blatant straw man that has nothing to do with my views about the game. And it's also wrong. Even if you assume a hardcore competitive environment list tailoring is bad because it is inherently an asymmetrical advantage. One player gets more than the other, and it depends purely on out of game factors like having more cash or being more willing to hold up the game while you make more last second changes. The honest and maximum competitiveness approach is TAC lists against unknown opponents.

 Peregrine wrote:
That's a pretty blatant straw man that has nothing to do with my views about the game. And it's also wrong. Even if you assume a hardcore competitive environment list tailoring is bad because it is inherently an asymmetrical advantage. One player gets more than the other, and it depends purely on out of game factors like having more cash or being more willing to hold up the game while you make more last second changes. The honest and maximum competitiveness approach is TAC lists against unknown opponents.

If you separate "being more willing to hold up the game for last second changes" isn't ANY list-based advantage inherently asymmetrical purely on out of game factors like having more cash or not owning a faction that happens to get good rules from Games Workshop (which is also another way to say "having more cash" but multiplied by being lucky)?

If you asked me to list all the players I know who are actually a part of the hardcore tournament competitive scene who don't regularly spend hundreds of dollars on new miniatures to keep their lists where they need to be to have a fighting chance at winning those tournaments, I'd have a list with exactly zero people on it. If you took the best competitive tournament player in 40k currently and told him the only thing he was allowed to buy from games workshop for the next year is books needed to allow him to continue to play, he would be winning absolutely zero tournaments in a year.

Doesn't matter if right at this moment he owns all the models required for all the competitive builds in the game. He'd no longer be a viable competitive 40k player in a year.

The fact that 40k is expensive does not excuse making it vastly more expensive for benefits that are questionable at best.

the_scotsman wrote:


You know, it's weird, I thought I remembered something about the only intellectually honest way to play being to bring the list that's the best at winning the game as possible within the rules and anything that isn't strictly against those rules but follows a commonly held code of social construct is a CAAC restriction designed to make someone bad at winning win anyway?

Not only is it the only intelectually honest way, but it simply does not happen any other way - every 40K player always bring high-end tournament list, any deviation from strict power play and mathhammering lists to squeeze every last drop of point of efficiency is a fairy tale from some obscure garagehammer CAAC legends.

As to OP question: in a small group it is near impossible to not tailor one way or another as people know eachother collections and preferences in playstyle pretty quickly, so to not tailor for advantage you very soon have to tailor for mutually engaging experience. Especially if prefered/owned factions do not support blind matchups very well. And except for those extreme cases of TFGs pictured earlier in the thread it is not something that should be frowned upon equally in any and all cases, as it is a very important factor in 40K replayability. The only dick move is to adjust your list specifically for one sided, easy win against a player who does not share your opinion on list flexibility. Communication and likemindedness is key here.

The other thing about magnetizing everything is that your collection becomes more versatile - I have three Falcon chassis which depending on my mood or narrative can play as three Warp Hunters or two Falcons and one Wave serpent, or Night Spinners, or Fire Prisms or any combination of those. I would have to own eight different models if those weren't magnetized to have the same spectrum of choices. And list tailoring for advantage has nothing to do with it. I rarely play a single list more than couple of times in a row simply because it bores me to do so. I don't have access to tons of new opponents nor do I need them to have endless variation in games and the very idea of owning a rigid 2000pts list I would have to play for weeks or months in a row to not upset FLGS clique give me shivers.

Magnets are also powerful for edition changes - Tyranids have had a lot of this where several of their units can take two or more weapons of different types and different codex have allowed different combinations; both on the model and within squads of models.

This isn't just efficient choices or power play, its legal/illegal weapon choices in the game. So you can very easily build some great models then BAM new codex makes you unable to play with them in games.

So magnets can both give you a lot more practical versatility with your army, but also give you a lot more long term security with your army. And honestly once you've got that in a core of your army sure many players will then go out and buy more models so that they can pose or paint them better. They've still got the jack-of-all-trades magnet models for swapping in when they need them or if an edition changes things; but they've also then got favourite choices that they use all the time in more epic poses or just painted up better.

I am willing to have a "play anyone" list and a "play a knight army" list. Dude I played apologized for playing knights before I created the second list and offered to let me change it. I didn't and did rather poorly.

If you see be bring my Blood Angels and suddenly need to swap in some plasma, because you know, BA's are totally OP(lol), then I don't really care.

Side note: I don't need anyone to apologize for playing your list. If it's legal enjoy your models.

 Peregrine wrote:
The fact that 40k is expensive does not excuse making it vastly more expensive for benefits that are questionable at best.

I can with almost 100% certainty tell you that it is way, WAY more expensive to keep yourself in a top tier tournament meta army list than it is to have a collection capable of tailoring against players in a casual meta, and the differential in your win percentage will be far higher with the tailoring.

here's an example from a friend of mine who is a high tier tournament player, he even limits himself to only chaos. Here's what he's had to buy in recent memory:

Start of 8th: had a competitive 2-primarch list with magnus, morty, daemon princes, brimstone horrors.

Codex DG: bought 9 PBCs, huge number of poxwalkers, scythe terminator guys.

rule of 3: ebayed 6 of the pbcs

codex thousand sons: Bought 12 enlightened, 30 tzaangors, ahriman

deep strike nerfs: ebayed the tzaangors, bought plaguebearers and gnarlmaws to make nurgle daemons his chaff.

Finally gave up on magnus, ebayed him, kept morty for sentimental purposes, bought three more daemon princes.

bought 2 quadlas contemptor dreads after CA2018

Compared to that, the extra effort of magnetizing a few heavy/special weapons guys is minuscule.

Come on. Admit that sometimes having a social code that is collectively honored by a gaming group outside of a tournament setting is a good thing. Live a little.

Tournament meta in a nutshell lol

Out of curiosity, does he win tournaments on a regular basis?

 Peregrine wrote:
List tailoring is pretty TFG behavior. It gives a huge advantage to the player with the most cash to spend on having all of the options it requires, a huge advantage to the player who gets to tailor second after seeing what everyone else has, and generally gives you cheap wins at the cost of making a fair and enjoyable game. Bring a TAC list and stick with it, use your magnets to give you options in building that list before you get to the store/club/whatever.

Agreed. Go into a store prepared by picking an army and have some lists ready at varying point levels (the most common are 1000, 1500, 1750, and 2000). Some stores even have unspoken rules about only playing certain point levels too.

If you weren't prepared, tough.

Alternatively, talk to your opponents, and organise your game beforehand. Sort out what kind of game you want, because without that, you can't guarentee any kind of balance. Agree on the game size, be that standard sizes or non-standard ones. Is there a narrative or theme you want?

Communication solves nearly all problems. Either you come to an agreement and play, or you disagree and know that the game will not be fun for you.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Your local meta and individual opponent might well result in differences. For example if you know your opponent is a beginner, or has a very limited pool of models you might well tailor your list far less or not at all.

That is like saying that if you find a large sum of money on the street, you may return in to the police station. Not saying it doesn't happen, when it does there is always TV showing it, and here people always deem the person stupid. Plus again it requires people to have a huge collection. If one person picked a good army and has a standar IG with castellan, and the other thought that primaris look cool, the IG player has no way to nerf his army to not walk over the primaris player. Unless he on purpose plays bad, but why play at all then, if people have to let you win. Just tell the primaris player he won, and play a real game vs someone with a real army.

This may have been mentioned before regarding your rather...unique...locale, but if this is the common attitude of people in your group it's an extremely toxic one and pretty much the definition of TFG behaviour. We're talking about a beginner here, not someone heavily invested in the game. If someone shows up with 1000 points of stuff from various starter sets the correct response isn't to refuse to play them until they man-up and build a proper-sized army and it isn't to take some hyper-competitive list to smash them in 20 minutes flat so you can get back to playing "real" 40k. The correct response is to try to build an army that will give them an interesting game in order to introduce them to the hobby and the game itself. Then, once they've figured out what all the numbers on those statlines actually mean, they might be in a position to figure out if they want to keep playing and may become a valued member of the local community.

One thing I think we can agree on is that Karols presentation of his local game club is of one of not just highly competitive but rather toxic players who are very cliquey.

Dakka actually follows the universe rules of Cabin in the Woods. If any of the following roles are not fulfiled at any given time, the mods pump drugs through the keyboard of a randomly selected poster to alter their personality and make sure the role stays fulfilled:

1) The Positivity Policeman. He must attack any and all posts that strike any kind of critical tone.

2) The One-Army Warrior. All threads on the front page must be twisted into threads about The OAW's chosen faction.

3) The Low Effort Troll. Required to make 14 posts a day with less than 10 words in each. Each reply sustains his unsatiable hunger.

4) The Impossible Meta Victim. All posts must be filtered through the lens of his increasingly improbable-sounding local meta, where every list he faces is a tournament-topping meta netlist, and gangs of thugs beat him up every time he loses.

5) The Rules Complainer. Each and every detail of Games Workshop's rules writing arouses his impossible rage, and he must stalk the YMDC forum as a mighty jungle cat, his nostrils flared for the scent of fresh FAQs to complain about.

Don't be too harsh on poor Karol. He is new in his role as avatar of the impossible meta victim. Martel carried that mantle for so long his spirit grew weary and now he can scarcely stir from his slumber long enough to type a single sentence about how his all jump pack blood angel list got tabled during the deployment phase by his opponents' imperial ynnari soup combo list. Soon, he shall crumble to dust at his keyboard and the spirit of the IMV will be transferred fully to Karol's shoulders.

LOL. Amazing post and I know it's humor, but why does it ring so suspiciously true? What's going on behind the scenes dakka?

 SHUPPET wrote:
5) The Rules Complainer. Each and every detail of Games Workshop's rules writing arouses his impossible rage, and he must stalk the YMDC forum as a mighty jungle cat, his nostrils flared for the scent of fresh FAQs to complain about.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.