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For one reason or another, there are some people who use the same list repeatedly. Whether they don't have any other models, they are ultra competitive, or anything else; these people exist. I know there are one or two extremely vocal people in my older group that would hassle said people to the point it was almost harassment, several times being told to keep quiet.

I do not have a job and am in need of capitol. As such I am thinking about carving out a list to keep and sell everything else. I'm going to be in a new area and thus a new gaming community and wanted to get a feel for the standard opinion people hold on this. I love competing in tournaments so the list would be very competitive (I don't want to make what I believe to be a sub-optimal list, as the thing I love about tournaments is two people, respectfully, doing their best to win).

What are your opinions on those who use one list and never change it?

-Many thanks!

I bring a tournament Tyranid list to my FLGWS, and even then unoptimized lists roll over me.

Some people like to play something different every game.
That is fine.

Some people like to find the 'one' way of playing a particular army that they find the most fun and stick with that.
That is also fine.

Your best option would be to 'carve out' 3k worth of models.
Don't optimize the full 3k but perhaps just 2k of it. Fill the other 1k with fun stuff and less competitive options.
The difference between carrying/keeping/storing 3k over a single 1500pt list is pretty negligible really and you'll be able to play at whatever level you and your opponent fancy.
Also it's really going to depend on the local meta in this new area, I'd hold fire before getting rid of anything.
If the one guy you click with plays the same one army/list as you or the group love to play apocalypse or they're more casual, narrative driven players you could easily find that you don't have any opponents to play against with a single 1750pt optimized tournament army.

Play how you like but don't get mad if people stop playing against you. It's 2-3 hours out of their lives as well and what you enjoy they might find mindnumbing.

It depends on the reason they only play the one list. Like OP mentioned, some folks have a limited gaming budget and can't afford to add to/modify their list. No issues there. Some (no offense intended) don't have much creativity, so grab the list of the moment and run that. No issues there. Some are WAAC players and go for the uber-powerful list. Issues there, unless it's a tournament calibre player making sure their newest list has what it takes (but then those will usually tweak their list here and there while testing). In general, though, it's the person I play - their list just comes with them.

I find playing against the same army every time gets a bit boring, win or lose.

That said, looks like you're a Marine player from your poster progression. Marines are nice in that because the majority of their squads are made of the same base models, you can change up your army list relatively easily with a limited model pool.

If they're training for a tourney, it's something expected to happen (and I'd be most helpful to trim his list). But someone playing the same list everytime in friendly games... it gets repetitive.

Yeah, it's OK as at least you get to come back a few times with something different. Great if you are still coming to terms with a new codex, or opponent.

However, yeah can get stale once that has worn off.

Or if you are now humping the list every time.

My group took our Battle Brothers lists and went up against each other regularly for a few months before heading down. Was a great way of seeing who would do best and what could be improved upon.

If they use the same list over and over again, just tailor your list especially to beat them.

It depends on the list, honestly. A competitive Space Marine, Tyranid, or Guard list is much less irritating than Triptides or WS spam. It's the difference between "okay he's got two FMCS, artillery, an infantry blob supported by a walking MC I need to bring down, and some heavy hitters who are going to be advancing behind the blob while some fast troops are going to be running around seizing objectives" and "well I'm no expert, but I'm guessing those guys are going to stand there and shoot me every turn until either my army stops moving or theirs does. *sigh* I better try getting in their faces I guess."

I’d second the recommendation to trim down to a little more then you plan on playing, just to mix things up. I don’t mind playing against the same list. I mix my list up every time, so the game is always going to be different. But if you like playing competitively, you need some flex. Otherwise how to beat you is going to find it’s way onto people’s pre-game checklist. Or people might drift into “rocks” for your armies “scissors”

Or you might just get bored playing the same thing over and over...

It depends how competitive you're talking. The gaming group I have is pretty small and we're all students with part time jobs trying to pay rent aka a plethora of models to have different lists every week isn't really an option.

That being said, we're competitive within our group but not in a general meta sense. Everyone's trial and erroring units and tactics to build a list that's the best in our group. It's fun to play lists that I've seen slightly change over time but have remained more or less static with one or two units difference every 3 or 4 months.

However, if I started playing someone who already had a tournament optimized list week after week with no change I might get a little bored. Personally I'd take it as a challenge and try to out tactic them with the list I'm bringing but I don't know if everyone would be the same.

Some people can only afford one army, so I try to take that into account. Some people don't have time to paint what they have, which happens to be a hard requirement in the group I play with, so I try to takethat into account as well.

But it does get boring. I selected 'annoying', but I'd say its more boring than annoying.

If someone buys the bad models he wants to play against for me, I will gladly play a different list every time.

Have you contacted the local clubs/stores in the new area yet? It'd probably be a good idea just to see what the local scene is like, it could help your decision no end. Not sure quite how much stuff you're trimming down but if you've got a number of armies that need selling it'd be a good idea to keep one of the less popular ones in the local meta.

If money is the big issue here then by all means flog your stuff but remember that it generally tends to be more effort and money to replace models as they get more expensive every year and the pendulum will soon swing round again making optimal choices sub optimal and visa versa.

If I find myself playing the same guy with the same army, I make into a story, like a campaign. I make personal vendettas between characters, grudges between units, and play off of what happened during the last or previous battles.

 MWHistorian wrote:
If I find myself playing the same guy with the same army, I make into a story, like a campaign. I make personal vendettas between characters, grudges between units, and play off of what happened during the last or previous battles.

Campaigns are a great way to break the monotony of playing the same army. As is writing fluff for your characters but that's above and beyond for a lot of people.

 bubz wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If I find myself playing the same guy with the same army, I make into a story, like a campaign. I make personal vendettas between characters, grudges between units, and play off of what happened during the last or previous battles.

Campaigns are a great way to break the monotony of playing the same army. As is writing fluff for your characters but that's above and beyond for a lot of people.

I had a whole short story written out based on my battles with my SOB. (It's down there in the fluff section somewhere.)
I've written a short story for my Convergence army (Might post later.) and will start on one for my Infinity Nomads.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 bubz wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If I find myself playing the same guy with the same army, I make into a story, like a campaign. I make personal vendettas between characters, grudges between units, and play off of what happened during the last or previous battles.

Campaigns are a great way to break the monotony of playing the same army. As is writing fluff for your characters but that's above and beyond for a lot of people.

I had a whole short story written out based on my battles with my SOB. (It's down there in the fluff section somewhere.)
I've written a short story for my Convergence army (Might post later.) and will start on one for my Infinity Nomads.

Just started a new campaign in my gaming group that we've written fluff and modified rulesets for (bonuses and penalties from the events in some games carry over to the next game). We've been doing some bat reps of them and might post them eventually.

Really breaks the mold of playing armies that you're used to and some of the modded rules are starting to make their way into our normal games too.

Speaking of modded rules, has anyone played the BAO missions? Played one for the first time last night and it was great. One of the best 40k games I've had in a while.

If I were GW, I'd add in a whole lot more RPG elements into 40k. I'd add in narrative scenarios and campaigns, rules for leveling up, grudges, vendettas, specific missions for characters, etc.
Example: For Chaos, a sergeant has to shoot and kill his leader in the back in order to take his place as leader next game.

There's nothing strictly wrong with it, of course. People can field whatever they want. Personally, I'd find it boring to bring to the table the same list over and over and over again, so I wouldn't do it myself.

But if someone else did it, than what's the problem?

I mean if you're getting sick of him winning with a strong list, and you want to win, then winning here is easy - he keeps bringing the same list. Just make your list to beat his list, problem solved, and game won (likely).

If you're sick of it being the same list, then bring more different lists yourself, or play with different people.

Variety is the spice of life and I'll just leave it at that.

Surely it makes them incredibly easy to beat. You know EXACTLY what they are taking and thus can tailor to beat them every time. If them bringing the same list annoys you, just keep bringing a tailored list against them until they are forced to change, or go on a winless streak as long as the san marino football team.
If they get annoyed about you tailoring a list, just politely mention that they make it so easy for you to do so by bringing the same list, and if they want to make it difficult to tailor then they should add some variety, that's their problem, not yours.

I don't understand how any one could do this in a casual setting unless they are of that rare breed that creates a single list and then acquires the models for just that list.

Most people I know have bigger collections than that and rotate different units in and out of their lists. My lists changed every for every game (outside of a tournament). I was always trying something new, even if the list remained largely the same.

It's your army- you have to play it. Your opponents desires are irrelevant.

Anyone who complains about your list being repetitive should be told that you'll gladly mix it up once they fork over the money to buy you more models.

There's a lot of reasons why people only play one list. I often play the same list over and over just because I like where it's at and how it works (even if it's not the most competitive thing in the world) and I don't feel like writing up something new and have everything packed together, and it means I avoid any perception of list tailoring. A lot of armies are purpose built around a theme or concept.

It's one thing if it's a purpose bought cut/paste netlist, that gets old, but aside from that, running the same list over and over isn't anything bad.

bibotot wrote:
If they use the same list over and over again, just tailor your list especially to beat them.

Yeah, this

The more annoying player is the one with several ultra-optimized armies -- they show up at a gaming table and then pick one super annoying list.

But at the end of the day, you gotta figure out why you play, and who you play with. If you want to play theme armies and just have fun, find someone who is more a gaming buddy, and less the same ultracompetitive type who will spend $5,000 on MtG cards to increase their win ratio by a couple games a night.

You could also play scenarios/campaigns with predetermined lists.

I think it depends on the list.

Some lists are fine over and over, whilst others get really dull really quickly.

That too.

I could play against a green tide several weeks in a row and still be happy to play against it again.