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In my group we always tell each other which army will show up and accordingly we do some list tailoring. We also talk about specific things like how many riptides or if a decurion is coming, since you have to adapt to these things to make for a balanced game. Necrons and Space Wolves don't care for tailoring, they are strong enough. Tau are a problem since they can tailor pretty much their whole army to every specific opponent, which is harder when only 1 of 5 models has a special weapon.

The problem is you have this TAC list. And then you pull out the things you think are ineffective. Then you FILL those points with things that ARE effective.

Now your list tailoring.

If you have a good TAC list nothing in there should be entirely incapable of contributing. If Grav isn't the best against your bunches of Orks... good. They have other anti vehicle/MC weapon options that would have been better against everything more evenly. Make a TAC list with that instead.

people are living in fantasy lands who dont list tailor, and i dont just mean to make harder lists. At my club we always prearrange our games on our website, and our 25 man club or so is almost divided in half between hardcore and casual players. When im playing a more casual guy, i absolutely list tailor but by bringing a easier list than my standard eldar TAC list, which frankly when playing casual players often results in a massacre for me, and thats not fun for me or my opponent.

When im playing a more hardcore guy, say one of the many chaos demon or other flying monstrous creature psyker lists at my club , i again tailor because otherwise im the one who gets the floor wiped with him and whats the point in playing when you dont have any chance?(despite eldars strengths, there magic defence is garbage and they struggle vs FMC) Be it taking a crimson hunter formation instead of an aspect host, or an allied culuxis assassin, the end result is typically a funner game for both players.

The key is to not just try to win the game in the list phase at home, dont tailor to have an easy win.

I list tailor often actually, but never for advantage. And I never alter my list pregame, I just choose different already prepared lists according to an opponent. I only actively play 2-3 lists at a time, making changes only after playing several games with each list to better prepare for the next game.

99% of the time this is to drop the WK out of my list.
I love my WK, loved the model before the rules ever came out and love the rules even more. I own 3 (well only 1 actual WK, the other 2 are WraithLords on Vyper jetbikes because the conversion had to be done)
However, I know the stigma of taking a WK. So if I know an opponent is looking for a casual game, or taking an army that has issues taking one down, I'll swap for a non-WK list without my opponenet ever having to ask.



But iagainst Tau, Necrons, Gladius Marines or a Knight, I'm taking the WK.

Why a Knight? Eldar have a ton of ways to smoke a knight without the WK.

Tailoring is largely frowned upon in our Meta. But have some standards, that we wouldn't consider tailoring:

1.) We let each other know if Flyers are planned.
2.) We let each other know if SH's are coming.
3.) We typically declare Factions of the lists going to play.

That being said, we have some players that will slightly adapt lists to fit these things and some that play one list and one list only (Necron player, hah). The biggest gripe we have are when people completely change their lists at the table. Those people don't get invited back to play.

Martel732 wrote:
Why a Knight? Eldar have a ton of ways to smoke a knight without the WK.

I own 5 Fire Dragons, 2 Hornets and zero Wraithguard. It has less to do with what "Eldar" have to counter a Knight and everything to do with what "I" am willing to own that can smoke a Knight.
I only have units I like, and several of the "best" units, I don't like. Spiders, for example. Don't like the models, the rules are annoying, so I don't own any.
You see, GW played a terrible trick on me. They originally released WKs as Heavy support MCs with str10 guns. Meaning I could take 2 and maybe the Dragons in a Serpent for all my heavy tank-killing needs. Why would I own anything else for a TAC list?
Then GW made the WK into a GMC LoW with D guns. I still own 2 (well 3, see above) but now I can only field 1 or be TFG. Heck even 1 is being TFG according to some

I want to live in the days where TAC was a thing, but sadly it isn't. We now live in 40K: Rock, paper, sicssors edition.
The only way to take a TAC list is to take only 'efficient' choices. Of which the WK is most definitely one.
Thank goodness for the Inferno-Lance WK. It has replaced the Wraithcannon variant in every list I play.

 Elroniel wrote:
Tailoring is largely frowned upon in our Meta. But have some standards, that we wouldn't consider tailoring:

1.) We let each other know if Flyers are planned.
2.) We let each other know if SH's are coming.
3.) We typically declare Factions of the lists going to play.

That being said, we have some players that will slightly adapt lists to fit these things and some that play one list and one list only (Necron player, hah). The biggest gripe we have are when people completely change their lists at the table. Those people don't get invited back to play.

I like this attitude. Identify units that can be unfun to play against and discuss with your opponent if you want to allow them.

Personally, I always choose what army I am playing prior to going to the store. I own Daemons & Eldar (with DE & GK allies). So list tailoring is a bit hard when I only have 2-3 lists prepared.
My "list-tailoring" can basically be summed up as "Do I want to play my hard list, or my casual list?"

-

I can say that there's only one person in our Meta that really goes beyond any of our "Gentlemen's Rules" and he's always hard up for a game. Surprise, surprise, no one wants to play against the guy that never has a printed list and always seems to have the solution to every unit you brought ....

We also have a lot of "Challenge" games. We'll set up silly stipulations such as "You MUST bring 750pts+ in the air" or "Unbound vehicle only lists." Those have turned out to be some of the craziest, most fun games that we have.

Depends on the level. For example, I take 2 tactical squads and a dreadnought in drop pods in pretty much all my Dark Angel lists. If I know I'm fighting orks vs Grey Knights, I might switch their loadout around a littler bit. Maybe flamers for orks and plasma or grav for GK. Everyone in my club does that, too much tailoring makes you an donkey-cave though.

When 6th first came out, a Necron player knew he was fighting mech guard so he brought 3 Doom Scythes and 6 Night Scythes with guass immortals. Its was kinda funny though, the guard player got wind of it beforehand and so brought 3 full squadrons of Hydras (with donations from me and the other guard players) + 3 Vendettas. That kinda stuff doesn't happen often though.

Like chrispy said

List tailoring to Factions is ok, List tailoring to specific units or models in an opponant's army is not.

Martel732 wrote:

Ravingbantha wrote:
Every game I play (unless it's a fixed list league) I tailor the list to my opponent, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. But the fact is, every list is tailored in some way. Even if you play the same army over and over, you've still tailored that list for one reason or another. And if you can't handle playing against someone who list tailors, then you're going to have a hard time dealing with a lot of things life throws at you.

That's why I don't tell people my list before hand. In fact, if I had more than one faction, I wouldn't tell that them that, either.

How secret you get with your army is up to you, I don't see the need to be all super secretive when I play a friendly game, but if I know my opponent is playing marines I adjust what I field according;y. The more familiar I get with certain players, the more likely I am to figure out what they are going to field. List tailoring is simply another tool to be used when trying to fight your opponent, it's something military commanders have done for thousands of years so i don't see any reason not to.

The OP's question is like a logic puzzle.

You are playing "Casual" which is playing the game with different rules than what are written... to intentionally pick things in order... not... to... win... kinda.
So we need to pretend to "not care" but to "List Tailor" where your opponent repeatedly brings a predictable force to the table you ... pretend... not... to ... know... kinda.
So in order to be completely "fair" and be able to look at yourself in the mirror you will have to take a page from the game designers: roll dice.
Make a chart with elements of your force: some for "fun" (not worth their points but "shiny"), some "competitive" (otherwise known as "cave face" units).
Make sure they are similar in points and roll up your force before every game.
They will NEVER figure out why you select what you do and you can sleep soundly knowing you did not specifically pick that force.
If losing stings a bit, you can rightly think that if you chose what you really wanted, you would have wiped them out.
But in order to fit in with lose..er... um, "casual gamers" you have created this system so all could have fun.
Well done!

I'm in the list tailoring is acceptable camp. Between me and my main gaming buddy we have a lot of armies, and it's nice to be able to field them against each other without it being a total white wash. So our list tailoring tends to be downgrading the strength of our armies to make it a more even playing field. I think with the clear power imbalance between codexes currently, both players need to be willing to adjust their lists in the interest of having a fun game

I guess the question is "what is list tailoring"?

Now flamers vs grav is an obvious one. I guess I can see the complaint if a guy who uses grav every game suddenly has flamers because you play orks.

Beyond that though I am drawing a bit of a question mark. Unit quality in 40k is very tiered. I can't think of many options which are bad normally but suddenly become better than the alternative against a specific opponent.

 Lance845 wrote:
The problem is you have this TAC list. And then you pull out the things you think are ineffective. Then you FILL those points with things that ARE effective.

Now your list tailoring.

If you're talking about effective against the specific guy you're playing then yeah, it's tailoring, and kinda scummy. Otherwise it's not, it's just the process that every player goes through once they realize they've spent hundreds of dollars on crap units. We've all been there.

Personally, I never tailor for a specific opponent's list, but I frequently power up and down to accommodate newer players, or fluffy lists. No one wants to be that guy who busts out his WAAC Adepticon list every game night. We all know that guy, and he never gets good casual games. Plus he's usually a jerk, or socially awkward, or smells funny, or maybe all three. Anyway ... that guy.

Ravingbantha wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Ravingbantha wrote:
Every game I play (unless it's a fixed list league) I tailor the list to my opponent, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. But the fact is, every list is tailored in some way. Even if you play the same army over and over, you've still tailored that list for one reason or another. And if you can't handle playing against someone who list tailors, then you're going to have a hard time dealing with a lot of things life throws at you.

That's why I don't tell people my list before hand. In fact, if I had more than one faction, I wouldn't tell that them that, either.

How secret you get with your army is up to you, I don't see the need to be all super secretive when I play a friendly game, but if I know my opponent is playing marines I adjust what I field according;y. The more familiar I get with certain players, the more likely I am to figure out what they are going to field. List tailoring is simply another tool to be used when trying to fight your opponent, it's something military commanders have done for thousands of years so i don't see any reason not to.

For one thing it's a bad habit if you play a lot of fixed list tournaments. I just think fixed list is the best test of list building skills. We put lists in a box and draw blind. So that kinda kills tailoring.

To be honest i really don't want my opponent adjusting their list based on me being the blood angel guy.

The point is: do you want to win at every cost or do you want to have fun playing a 40k game?
Several players only field TAC lists because they're very competitive, if they table the opponent turn 3 they would be happy with that.
If I win the game turn 3 I'd be disappointed, there's no fun in a game that is completely unbalanced.
So in order to create a game that potentially can be open to every result till turn 5 we have to prearrange our lists before starting to play.
That means we know the faction before we actually meet but not the exact composition of the lists.
Once we actually know the lists we can make some changes in order to balance the game.
That's tailoring, but its purpose isn't to win the game but to play a balanced match.
Taking only TAC lists and tailoring can be bad at the same level if the purpose is only to win the game.

I believe more in 'meta tailoring'.

Lots of vehicles used in your meta? Lots of Power Klaws.
Horde armies? Kannons and Skorchas.
Competitive armies? Time to spam.

I've never list tailored against someone, my lists tend to be TAC, with a focus on what I expect to see frequently.

 Blackie wrote:
The point is: do you want to win at every cost or do you want to have fun playing a 40k game?
Several players only field TAC lists because they're very competitive, if they table the opponent turn 3 they would be happy with that.
If I win the game turn 3 I'd be disappointed, there's no fun in a game that is completely unbalanced.
So in order to create a game that potentially can be open to every result till turn 5 we have to prearrange our lists before starting to play.
That means we know the faction before we actually meet but not the exact composition of the lists.
Once we actually know the lists we can make some changes in order to balance the game.
That's tailoring, but its purpose isn't to win the game but to play a balanced match.
Taking only TAC lists and tailoring can be bad at the same level if the purpose is only to win the game.

This basically. List tailoring allows to create some balance and I'd even say 40K doesn't work without it - especially in casual format. Okay, in tournaments it seems everybody has the same boring net lists that are also kind of balanced to each other. But since point values alone aren't enough in 40K anymore due to imbalance and formations, I find it absolutely necessary to tailor lists a bit. In my group we also play scenarios rather often, it's of course clear that both players try to adapt to the scenario rules before.

I play Harlequins now, Im equally strong against everything :3 I just bring the same list unless someone wants a supper comp fight, then I bring Corsairs.

Harlequins have only 2-3 possible lists available, like any other army that is actually a sort of expansion set of a real army So it doesn't count in the TAC vs Tailoring contest.

 chrispy1991 wrote:
I believe in both players knowing the factions they're facing, but not any specifics of what's in the list. I play almost exclusively IG. That means that my opponent already knows what kind of units to expect, and if he plays more than one army, I don't. This right here is a disadvantage to me.

The other thing that comes into play.. is the different power level factions are at. If I know I'm going up against Tau, Eldar, or Crons, you can bet I'm going to put a slightly more competitive spin on my IG list or I'll just get stomped regardless if the other player plays a more fluffy army because the power levels are so far off.

I tell my opponants what faction I'm playing, but not what selections are in my list. I ask the same of them. This keeps things fairer as both players only know what faction they're up against. I don't ask an elder player whether he's using a wraithknight for instance. I just ask what faction he's playing.

Bottom line is, List tailoring to Factions is ok, List tailoring to specific units or models in an opponant's army is not.

This right here.

Knowing what faction you are facing in advance is logical, reasonable and helps create a better game (because things like fielding melta versus nids is as annoying as not fielding enough against knights)

If I know what faction I am facing, I have a general idea of what MIGHT I face, and plan accordingly. on the flipside, so does my opponent as he know what faciton I'm bringing, then we enter a slight cat-and-mouse pregame of both trying to figure out what is the other likely to field and counter accordingly, AND what he thinks we will field and try to do something different to catch him offguard.

After all, within a single faction there are many possible playstyles and you still need to prepare for all of them (or as many as you can, by how likely each is), but at the very least it allows you not to be outright wasteful on preparing for things there is absolutely no way will show up (any anti-horde is rather wasteful against GK for example, and every non-AT is wasted against IK)

Amusingly, I find that under the semi-tailoring that is knowing the faction, my games are far better for both sides, and "odd" units appear far more often. after all, many of the units that are not top-tier just suffer from being too specific to be affordable in a TAC, but once you know your opponent's faction, you can start thinking about them because their narrow band of usefulness might be aligned with what you expect to face.

For example, my Hammerheads. in a TAC list? can't bring myself to consdier them. no setup of them is useful against a random opponent. but once I KNOW the general direction of what I'm facing? I know what setup I can bring that will at least be moderately useful. and I'm often bringing a whole bunch of them (record so far is 4 for non-apoc game.) I could NEVER play an armor battalion as a TAC, only against opponents I got a general clue what they field.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Zero? We only use TAC lists. List tailoring is pretty well unacceptable in my groups.

Agreed, for casual games I take my "standard" list, and hope my opponent does the same!

Infinitely more than in Competitive.

I always prefer WISYWIG so I can't really tailor other than my magnetized Crisis Suits when I play Tau.

My regular marine opponent usually runs 2 squads of devs, each buffed by a Divination Libby from a conclave. One squad has 4 Heavy Bolters, one is 4 Lascannons.
When I play my Nids, the Lascannons are proxied as Heavy bolters(IF tactics). When I play my GK's, the H. Bolters are proxied as Plasma Cannons(IH tactics).

Can be a challenge, but it makes it that much more satisfying when I pull off a win. It makes target priority pretty straightforward though.

Yeah WYSIWYG is way more important to me than the TAC approach. I've magnetized everything I could, I used more than 300 magnets to avoid proxies

I'd say a little to make the game fun if your playing orks and you have grav maybe swap a couple of heavy boltors or flamers here and there but don't go crazy.

If your opponent is flying deamons maybe a flakk upgrade or two.

Me and my group tend to do no catering we seem to find it fun finding ways around the problem your always going to have something you struggle against probably unless your tau or eldar lol