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First off, I personally believe that building list specifically to counter your opponents list just to win, is cheating. But on the other hand is building a list and taking into account the army you will be versing just as bad. I am a DA player and have tried to avoid being unfair to other players by not putting certain units and war gear. More specifically my brother is playing Tyranids and I think it would be unfair to use flamers and heavy flamers against him even though it is complete tactical sense to take flame weapons against Tyranids.

The same goes for the Banner Of Devistation I have thought of using it but because he plays Tyranids it would make the battle very difficult and not fun for him because it would tear through his infantry.

Is it wrong to army tailor and take war gear and unit that are very effective against that particular army you are versing ( for example Flame weapons and Banner Of Devistation against Tyranids ) or am I just been to nice of a bloke to my opponents?

IXLoiero95XI

Ok so no banner no flame and then id presume no LC or anything as it would be useful against nids.... ahhh sorry but i think army tailoring to a point is ok because if you get too drastic you will end up with no options left.... thats like playing against IG and bringing 0 anti tank....

Personally, I would say just burn the things. He'll eventually figure out how to counter your flame units (By bringing shooty stuff probably).

Eventually you'll both end up having to change your tactics and army lists to fight better, and gain more tactical experience.

IMO, people who say you shouldn't take your opponent's army into account when building a list are just scared of anyone getting an advantage in what is already an unbalanced game (As if it will solve the problem).

If you're making your list worse to everything except Tyranids, then I'd suggest avoiding it. However, flamers and the banner of devastation are useful against most armies. It's not unfair if the unit/weapon is all-around good.

Also, keep in mind that (with very few exceptions) no armies auto-lose to a specific unit or weapon. Lots of flamers may make it harder, but you're not giving him an impossible fight.

I see it thusly:
You can make your list with the type of enemy in mind (i.e. Flamers because you know you're fighting Tyranids). However; You can't ask if he will be taking a particular creature and then include something primed to take it out. Likewise, he shouldn't expect you to tell him what you're bringing and choose creatures that will be able to fight your choices easier.

We generally make a list for every game so when I verse my brothers I try to ovoid those to things.

Who is winning these games? i can understand going in softer if you ALWAYS win.
but still if you always win, maybe instead of gimping yourself massively teach him to improve make suggestions, point out your potental stratagies so he can work on counters.... then he learns to deal with the hard stuff instead of getting soft wins.

i play with my brother every so often and every game i bring a totally different list, its a good chance ill be up against Spacewolves though he has curveballed me and whipped out his orks... so i dont tailor at all but with constantly changing lists.... well iv never fielded the same army twice..

Taking the banner of Dev wouldn't be tailoring IMO, I see it come up so much anyway. Don't cripple yourself because you're worried you might win too easily. He might bring a Nidzilla list and mean all those flamers are rather useless.

However, I'm really not seeing a difference between tailoring war gear and tailoring unit choices. They generally achieve the same thing anyway.

I don't see the point. Would the US forces field an all submarine army for a desert war? Armies are chosen for the specific task at hand, and "tailoring" can also be part of a well chosen scenario. But in the end, if it is no fun to play against a specific opponent, don't.

This isn't real war though so your analogy is pointless. It's a friendly game between siblings.

Army tailoring is fine, list tailoring is bad. If i new i was playing against orks, i would bring blasts, thats fine because he could bring an all bike army. Against grey knights i might bring a little extra TEQ, then he might bring henchmen spam. Every army has different lists to be made, not all of them have the same weakness. So if you choose to assume what to bring based on him playing tyranids thats fine, because on day he might do a nidzilla army while your army is packed with boltguns and flamers...

Also, if he is younge then maybe he can't buy new units to adapt to you, well then he has to save up. Maybe swap armies with him for a game, see if you can win with his army, if you can't, he has to get a new tactic. If you can, he see's how you did it and can replicate it.

I am of the opinion that if you know what type of army you will be facing (I.e. the race) then you should tailor your list somewhat to counter tge common threats, i.e.a few more flamers against orks and nids, more ap2 and 3 against marines. That works fine for pick up games where you might know the race, but not the specific list contents. Against your brother, I guess you know exactly what will be in the list so tailoring to that level of detail is a bit off. If you regularly play just with your brother why not try for some more narrative games? Make uo some stories and go for a heroic last stand or a bit of a randomised campaign?

When i play a pick up game, or attend a tournament, i use a TAC list. it allows me to get into a game quickly with the minimum fuss, and my TAC lists are generally points efficient, and dead adequately with a variety of threats.

when i'm playing a scheduled game versus a specific army, yes, i will tailor my army versus that specific army. This is only really an issue if your opponent doesn't do the same. Tailoring only enters the 'questionable' category when you tailor specifically to beat an opponents 1500 (or whatever) force when thats all they have, since you are bringing an army specifically to beat theirs when they can't change anything. its also highly questionable when you've seen your opponents list before you write yours (this happens from time to time)

You also have to be aware that you might find your tailoring efforts made somewhat redundant, i mean, if you tailor versus a tyranid force, and bring lots of flamers to wipe out hordes of gribblies, you are disadvantaging yourself if he doesn't bring any and runs a wall of MC's instead.
Ultimately though, i think army tailoring is fun, it provides you with the opportunity to use troops and combos you don't usually use, try out new tactics. i think it adds a lot to the game, and while it may be frowned on by some people, i think you will struggle to find a batrep in white dwarf where both players aren't tailoring (leaving aside the fact that most batreps are obvious set ups).

^^ Well said

We are both adults so you guys know, it's not a older sibling trying to go easy on his 10 year old brother lol ( even though I am the youngest )

It is generally my brother and our friend who play together, rarely my mate from school with come and have ago but that is not often.

At the moment my brother is playing his Tyranids and my friend his Necrons. We haven't gone to any tournaments yet or our local GW or FLGS. So it just us. He doesn't have a huge Tyranids army so I know pretty much what he has to choose from plus he can proxy anything he likes basically. But when I build a list I don't think about his individual units as such I kind think to my self he is probably going to have majority non flying units, a few monstrous creatures and lots of small creatures. But I guess I am so mindful of being TFG I don't bring flamers ( not even one) and I think the banner will just shred his to much of his army resulting in an unfair game.

And against the necron player I have been also mindful of spamming terminators in case it looks like power gaming or WAAC type playing. But I yet to try the banner on the Necrons.

IXLoiero95XI


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I don't win every game nor do I lose every game my win loss rio it mediocre.

Sometimes I schedule games with someone and we let each other know what we are playing. We try our hardest to tailor a list to destroy that army and weigh and balance what could be fielded. It's just as enjoyable as a TAC list. So you can't say list tailoring is strictly cheating. You have to look outside the box. Of course tailoring unbeknownst to the opposition is lame, and is a complete hollow win. And embarssing if you lose.

Ok so your not always winning etc, and you happy for him to proxy whatever, then throw a gauntlet down.. tell him to proxy up an army to give you a floggin, and you make a list that based only on facing nids is there to kick his ass, and go from there if he cant proxy up a few suprises then well...

 Goat wrote:
Sometimes I schedule games with someone and we let each other know what we are playing. We try our hardest to tailor a list to destroy that army and weigh and balance what could be fielded. It's just as enjoyable as a TAC list. So you can't say list tailoring is strictly cheating. You have to look outside the box. Of course tailoring unbeknownst to the opposition is lame, and is a complete hollow win. And embarssing if you lose.

This!

Personally, I think that as long as both players are on the same page then anything goes.

My friends and I typically play TAC lists, but occasionally it's fun to build a tailored list, especially if one person in the group is doing particularly well against everyone else!

I support what has been said above. Tailoring you army to fight against certain armies you know you are facing is perfectly fine. If, for example, you are playing a race that does best with a small, elite force (Space Marines), and you know for sure you are facing an army that in 90% of games will be focusing on hordes (Orks, Imperial Guard, Tyranids), it's perfectly fine to try to cover your known weaknesses against such a threat. That's specifically why those armies can take such options. For example, flamers are specifically for when you need to kill lots of enemies at once. So that's what you should use the for!

Taking high-firepower weapons in my Deathwing army is a perfect example of Army-tailoring. I know for a fact I will have very few men when compared to any opponent, and as such I need to maximize their damage output to make up for the lack of numbers.

List Tailoring is when you know exactly what your opponent is going to win, and set out to build a list that explicitly is designed to exploit those weaknesses. It's not even cheating, when taken literally, just bad, bad form. Both players are there to have a fun game where each person has a chance of winning, not for one person to get sneaky and set out to trounce their opponent. The experience is as important as the win.

I solved this problem with my friends when we all decided to start 2 armies. Simply don't tell your friends and don't let them tell you what they're playing, and try out a few friendly games of 1k points.

This way, no matter what you bring to the table, you're going to enjoy simply playing, and if you win, well good on ya But the whole list tailoring thing is basically rendered moot because you cannot know what A) army they will bring B) cannot customize specifically to counter his army

The best you could do is take varied weaponry in hopes each squad can preform a certain role, but, that itself can be rather tedious XD

I tend to try to make an 'all comers' list. A list that uses my armies strengths and tries to be flexible for any situation. It's far more easy to tailor a list to counter a specific type of play. However, I'd rather have a list that forces me to make good choices against anyone I come up against than a list that will roflstomp some armies and be tabled by others just by virtue of what I brought to the table.

I think people are right with this whole "he needs to learn" thing.

Tyranid armies struggle against flamers. Fact. Whether the opponent put those flamers in because he knew he'd be against nids, or whether he just happened to have them in the list is completely irrelevant. If your brother, or any one else in the same situation, is going to get skilled with Tyranids, they are going to have to learn how to deal with flamers. For this reason, I think "Army Tailoring" is not even "not a bad thing", it's a good thing. If you can learn and become skilled enough to win even in a bad army matchup, then you are pretty much sorted against everything else, and the experience from these bad matchup battles will come in handy because, one day, your brother will turn up at a pick-up game and so happen to deploy opposite a flamer heavy army.

List tailoring is taking this a bit too far. Sitting down with your opponent's list and going "Right, he's taken X, so I'll take Y because that will take it out easily" and so on, is a bad thing, because that is lumping on the uphill battle thing a bit much. Army Tailoring is fine in this regard because you can sit down and think "Ok, so I'm facing Tyranids" but you can't then tailor your list to fight every single unit, or combination of units, that that army can bring. Like someone else said, you could forego lascannons and missile launchers for tons of flamers and destroy all his horde units, but then that Trygon and Flyrant are going to give you a hard time.

tl;dr Army Tailoring is more than ok, it can be beneficial.

I am sorry. You said "versing" in the second line of your post, so I couldn't finish it.

Changing your list to better counter your opponent is unfair and unsportsmanlike.

Whether you're changing the army you're using, or the things your army is using.

Tailoring is tailoring. And tailoring is bad.

-TheCaptain

I used to feel like the OP, until I read this: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=105158

The thing is, unless the Tyranids are getting the jump on your DA, they know what they're getting into, so they'd come prepared. I can hardly see a Company Master saying, "You know, it's just not fair that these flamers cut through 'nids like they're butter... let's just bring bolters."

So, my thoughts now are you should build your list for whatever army you know you're going to be facing -- assume whatever your opponent has told you BEFORE you build your list is your reconnaissance (it's his fault he didn't hide his army well enough from your scouts.. and if he changes it, then good on him for playing the bait and switch). If you change it AFTER seeing his list, that's cheating.

The thing about 40k, imo, is that it all comes down to randomness, and the best generals are playing the meta. If you're knowingly not using the best tool you have for the job, you're just hurting yourself.

That said, it's all a matter of the type of game you're playing. Do you want to improve your game to be competitive, or do you want to have a fun game where you can say, "You know what would be epic? If your Archon and my Carnifex duked it out at the top of this hill," and then have that happen. Then again, maybe that's playing the meta, as well -- you don't want to be the jerk that no one wants to play with.

If anyone attempts to claim my Sisters lists are tailor-made to fight Tyranids and therefor I need to re-write my list I am going to have fond daydreams of slitting their throats.

I don't like to play against people I know will tailor their army list to gain a big advantage. Sometimes I will bring two armies versus people i know will tailor their lists - that way they dont exactly what to expect.

I have seen some people ask their opponent prior to starting a game to see their list then they make one specifically designed to beat it. That's no fun at all and I avoid those kind of players.

Mostly I play pickup games with friends to work on improving my tournament army lists so we try to build TAC lists. What I've found is that typically people who often tailor their lists to win eventually have a hard time finding people to play.

Me and some of my gaming buddies often know ahead of time which armies we'll be facing, and make our lists accordingly. If I know I'm gonna be fighting marines, why wouldn't I take veterans of the long war on all my CSM? If I know I'm not facing them, why would I waste the points on it? If we both know what the other is playing, and we both have the opportunity to prepare, we're still going to be on more or less equal ground, so there shouldn't be a problem. Sometimes though, neither of us knows. I've made a list designed to fight my friends CSM, only for him to whip out his Tau, and he's made lists to counter my Eldar, only for me to use my Orks. That's just the risk you take.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I see it thusly:
You can make your list with the type of enemy in mind (i.e. Flamers because you know you're fighting Tyranids). However; You can't ask if he will be taking a particular creature and then include something primed to take it out. Likewise, he shouldn't expect you to tell him what you're bringing and choose creatures that will be able to fight your choices easier.

This x1000

I have seen some people ask their opponent prior to starting a game to see their list then they make one specifically designed to beat it. That's no fun at all and I avoid those kind of players.

The only time I consider this ok is when one player willingly volunteers the information to help say, even the scales against a much worse player.

In my mind, it's better to design an army that has some answer for anything it might meet, rather than an army specifically designed to take one one type of enemy.

Have a flamer or two, in case of hordes, a plasma or two, in case of termies, and a missile or two, in case of tanks.

Or, heck, just have missiles, as they work on all 3 fairly well.