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I come from the 40K realm where lists are examined with scrutiny and everything on the model is WYSIWYG. Especially on the tourney side, everything is open knowledge and there are no “tricks” up anyone’s sleeve. Now friendly games have a lot more leeway of course, as far as WYSIWYG modeling is concerned, but my army list is there is always there for you to see, spelled out in black and white.

How does one go about it in the fantasy realm? Im sensing more of a “hide till you use it” attitude. Is this the way things generally work? For example, Magic weapons or armor are not mentioned until they get used. Things like … “ ahhh your sword of bloodshed is virtually useless against my bloodthirster in obsidian armor. “ you mention right after you accept his challenge.. Do the tounys work differently than general friendly play?

Your comments are appreciated.

There's a little part of the magic item section of the Fantasy BRB called 'what's in a name?', which talks about how you don't have to specifically represent the weapon to use it. Like, you might have an Ogre Blade, but the character is holding an axe, dagger, or no actual weapon at all. It just gets the benefits from it. Maybe it has an imaginary sword.

There's a lot of magic items in Fantasy. There's a lot of combinations you might change between games to experiment. Representing everything on models you might want to try is impossible. Basically, just make sure your opponent gets to see your list, and let them know what model represents each character is on the list.

It really depends on if you play open or closed list tournys. I play open list so I try to memorize every single decent magic item in the game so that when I see it in a list I do not have to ask what it does.

You do not have to tell your opponent what magic items are your army unless you have a magic item or spell that makes them tell you. Now in most tourney's you will provide an army list to your opponent and if they don't bother to check it out then it is their loss. As for WYSIWYG, fantasy is far less strict on that. I know in 40k I am always working to make sure my models are. That is another thing I like about fantasy vs 40k.