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Hey guys.

Im a new player that has a maximum of around 1700ish points of Goff orks, so, since im the new guy that doesnt even have 2000 points, i always just play with my entire army. rarely is anything left behind.

But that also brings me to my question since i have no experience with it.

You decide on the game mode you wanna play. You decide on who has first round, and who picks what side to deploy on first. Then you start putting all, or one unit at a time on that battle map.

Before this happens, you tend to show your opponent what army you bring. However, since you often put one unit down and then its your opponents turn to put one unit down and rinse and repeat, are you allowed to put down what ever units you want as long as you stay within your 2000 points? Or is it a rule that you MUST show your opponent the army you wanna play with, all 2000 points, before deploying them?


How does it actually work?

I thought about it when making my Mek Gun with a smasha gun. I thought: hey, if my opponent deploys a flying unit, maybe i should deploy it as a traktor cannon instead since that would be beneficial against Vehicle/flyers (if i have the available points of course). But am i allowed to change my Smasha gun that I havent deployed yet, to a traktor kannon?

And is the whole showcase thing you see on battle reports on youtube: Look at my army that i intend to play with! before you actually play just for show, and not actually mandatory? Im really not sure how this works despite having played like 8 battles total.

Before you pick your mission and before you KNOW what your opponents list is, is when you should have your army locked in.

It's also considered good manners to bring a written, printed off, or on-your-mobile device army list to show your opponent, with all the points calculated. To prevent any unbecoming behavior and skullduggery with list tailoring.

The "Heres my army" Section that youtube battlereports do is just a pretty version of what you should do with your opponent, before rolling a mission. Show eachother your lists, explain what relics you have on a character, who your Warlord is, ect.

Edit: Some additional stuff. List tailoring, when you see the enemy's army and make changes to your own army just before the game, is often looked down upon. The deepest in to list tailoring that I will go, is when I'm making plans to game with someone, and we're talking about what sort of game we want to play. Competitive, casual, trying out something weird, ect ect. I won't bring my face-smashing armies against someone after just a bit of fun, or a new player. Or, if I know I'm playing against Space Marines, I'll have some units I know are effective against marines. But again, this is before I know specifically what's in their army.

If I'm playing at a local gaming club, I'll bring a few different lists, ready to use at common point values, and use that against whatever opponent I end up playing that day, no matter what their army is.

Åh thank you. I always have my armies on battlescribe.

Ive only ever had friendly matches so we kinda just took it one step at a time. Nice to know how it really works

First up its important to realise that playing a game with another person depends greatly on the situation. So in a sense there are no rules, the rules are what you and your opponent formally agree to. As a result there might be times that you never change anything

"Hey Bearded Dragon bring that list you used last week to our next game I want to try something new and see if I can beat it this week"

Or when your opponent might want you to throw your absolute best against their list

"Hey Bearded Dragon here's my list, work out the best you can to take it down, I want a challenge this week"









Otherwise for general "lets play a game on X date" situations Thadin has summed it up. You agree to have a game; you agree to any support rules etc... and then you write a list. You come to the game with a pre-written list formally laid out and you deploy that list. That might be a game you agree too a week ago or to a game you've agreed too 5 mins ago. Whatever it is you write your list in private and you deploy it.

If you don't have a game pre-arragned for the next meeting or you just turn up for a pick-up game at your group then you might have one list you take or you might have two or three lists etc... So you might use some variation based on what you have brought with you.


Also in the real world if you know Dave only ever brings 3 monoliths to the game you would likely build your list with that in anticipation. Of course Dave might then have one week where he doesn't bring that so you can still come unstuck.

Hi. ThIs is a difficult question to answer as it deals with the concept of the game itself.

While there are no rules governing when you should write your army list, it is considered very very bad form to change what you are using after you have seen what your opponent has and is in fact mostly viewed as outright cheating as it effectively goes against the point of having a written army list in the first place, in fact some things, like psychic powers and warlord traits (I think anyway, certainly in competitive play must be chosen when writing your list along with what units the list consists of). There are exceptions but these are very very few and far between (such as Imperial assassins having a stratagem that allows them to change what type of assassin you have in your army).

In your example above,this would almost certainly be called out as cheating by 99 % of players.

There are 2 mostly standard ways of playing.

! You write an army list to a certain points value, noting down all options and wargear along with whatever warlord traits and psychic powers you have chosen. You turn up somewhere with a copy of your list, find someone to play who also has a list, have a quick scan of each others list if you want and then play.

Alternatively, in more casual groups, you could turn up, find someone to play, tell each other what factions you intend playing and then both write lists at the same time, choosing traits etc together before starting to play.

You will find however that the first method is almost universally employed.

Note, the above applies to narrative or matched play, open play games can be a lot more free in that regard.

We write our lists. No list. No play.
Then we determine all the game details, set the terrain etc.
Sometimes that order is reversed.
Then we pull stuff out of the cases/deploy.
Then we run through the lists & make sure we know what's what, where, etc. Especially with people not in our circle/new.

Those who're caught deploying things different from their list?
The 1st few times, corrections are made prior to play starting. (As in deploy the units you listed)
Repeatedly doing this will result in those people not playing.

In short, list building ends before you pull the 1st model out of your case.

Something else worth adding, too. Not sure if you've made it as far as using things like Warlord Traits, Detachments, any Stratagems that take place "before the battle" - for example, using a strat that allows you to take a second Relic - all these things are noted in the rules as needing to be decided before the game. Again, the intent is to stop you taking advantage of knowing what your opponent has brought.

Hi. ThIs is a difficult question to answer as it deals with the concept of the game itself.

While there are no rules governing when you should write your army list,

No. This is a really simple question that the rules answer directly.

Open Play, p 272
Step 1: Muster Armies <---
Step 2: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

Matched Play, p 280
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <----
Step 3: Determine Mission
Step... (etc)

Narrative (Crusade) has a pile of rules for the order of battle (starting on p 306), but for a game, p 332
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <---
Step 3: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

You can always do Step 1/2 and even 3 (Or 2 for open) before you actually meet up, but the game is entirely clear on how it is supposed to work.
Obviously you can talk about it and determine a method that works better for you and your opponent, but there is zero mystery (or unexplained non-rules) here.

This is one of those things that isn't explicitly in the rules, and is kind of 'unspoken' so obviously two things will be true.

1) everyone will get VERY VERY VERY ANGRY ABOUT IT

2) that one guy? you know, that guy? he will break the ever loving hell out of it so bad you'll want to strangle him for it.

I would say the great majority of people will play the game in this way: agree to a game with someone, know...in some general terms, what that person's army or collection is or can do, but do their level best not to 100% tailor their army construction to fight that person.

Realistically.

The 'extreme purist' side of the coin, I would say, is to create the list you'll be using for your next game BEFORE getting your opponent lined up, and don't seek out your opponent yourself, let them come to you. That way, no bias on your part could even subconsciously enter in to the equation. This is how I generally approach the game from a more competitive standpoint.

Generally this does mean that I generally err on the side of powerful options and optimization for my lists. If someone decides to go against me that I know either has a super-casual collection, or is very new, generally I will strategically reduce the power of particular units if I have things I can swap in and out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

Hi. ThIs is a difficult question to answer as it deals with the concept of the game itself.

While there are no rules governing when you should write your army list,

No. This is a really simple question that the rules answer directly.

Open Play, p 272
Step 1: Muster Armies <---
Step 2: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

Matched Play, p 280
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <----
Step 3: Determine Mission
Step... (etc)

Narrative (Crusade) has a pile of rules for the order of battle (starting on p 306), but for a game, p 332
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <---
Step 3: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

You can always do Step 1/2 and even 3 (Or 2 for open) before you actually meet up, but the game is entirely clear on how it is supposed to work.
Obviously you can talk about it and determine a method that works better for you and your opponent, but there is zero mystery (or unexplained non-rules) here.

Where in the rules does it say i determine which person I'm going to be playing against?

If I know who I'm playing against, odds are good I know at least something about their collection.

Where in the rules does it say i determine which person I'm going to be playing against?

If you haven't agreed to be players, there isn't a game. There's no reason to take this kind of nitpicking seriously, or anything for someone to be confused by.

If I know who I'm playing against, odds are good I know at least something about their collection.

Oh, so you are players after all.

But so you know something about someone's collection. It doesn't change anything about when you make an army list: before the mission is determined.

Reminder, this was the question:

Before this happens, you tend to show your opponent what army you bring. However, since you often put one unit down and then its your opponents turn to put one unit down and rinse and repeat, are you allowed to put down what ever units you want as long as you stay within your 2000 points? Or is it a rule that you MUST show your opponent the army you wanna play with, all 2000 points, before deploying them?

Followed up by the idea that this was somehow 'difficult to determine,' and 'no rules governing when you should write your list.'

There are in fact rules for that, hence why I provided the page references to the steps.
Lists happen before mission, which is definitely before setup. And each opponent provides a copy of their list.

keep in mind that this is all general rules, your local play group may have it's own way of doing things so when in doubt, don't take our word as law. we can tell you "General ettiquite" not "location specific ettiquite"

You should try changing mid-game.

Nothing is more surprising to your opponent then swapping out your Marine army for a Tyranid army on turn 3. Throws 'em in a real loop.

Hey Beardedragon, just stick with the list you had prior to mission selection. If you havent made one and KNOW your opponent, well atleast try not to tailor according to his unit preferences too much. And he might also try and throw you off when making his list. Some people might even tell you straight up "hey i have a big ol' knight, just so you are warned, so bring anti tank/monster".


Where in Denmark do you play?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You should try changing mid-game.

Nothing is more surprising to your opponent then swapping out your Marine army for a Tyranid army on turn 3. Throws 'em in a real loop.

That made laugh harder than it should have

I can only imagine how you would deliver that. "Thought you were facing my UM on Macragge? Surprise! Oops, it's all Tyranids, Hive Fleet Behemoth just showed up.

Swap out Tyranids for Alpha Legion, and I'd allow it.

 Super Ready wrote:
Swap out Tyranids for Alpha Legion, and I'd allow it.

"You mean its always been Alpharius?"

...Always has been

*raises bolt pistol from behind*

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You should try changing mid-game.

Nothing is more surprising to your opponent then swapping out your Marine army for a Tyranid army on turn 3. Throws 'em in a real loop.

.. you owe me a new monitor! I spewed coke all over mine reading that LOL

 Brutallica wrote:
Hey Beardedragon, just stick with the list you had prior to mission selection. If you havent made one and KNOW your opponent, well atleast try not to tailor according to his unit preferences too much. And he might also try and throw you off when making his list. Some people might even tell you straight up "hey i have a big ol' knight, just so you are warned, so bring anti tank/monster".


Where in Denmark do you play?

I play on sjælland because i live there. I live in Tåstrup where there is a play store called ZZ games, but i also play in Køge.

But yea up to this point i do have a list of units i use (which is mainly my entire damn army) but I havent written down warlord traits and relics yet on my list so i usually just take that depending on what i feel like i wanna try as i deploy my units. Its not so much based on what my opponent picks, just what i feel like trying honestly so i dont think it matters.

We dont show up with a list and shows it to one another we just show our opponent in a youtube fashion style the army we brought. Its been pretty casual so its fine it seem.

Beardedragon wrote:

You decide on the game mode you wanna play. You decide on who has first round, and who picks what side to deploy on first. Then you start putting all, or one unit at a time on that battle map.

Before this happens, you tend to show your opponent what army you bring. However, since you often put one unit down and then its your opponents turn to put one unit down and rinse and repeat, are you allowed to put down what ever units you want as long as you stay within your 2000 points? Or is it a rule that you MUST show your opponent the army you wanna play with, all 2000 points, before deploying them?

Note in practicalities of coming up with list mid-deployment. All warlord traits and relics are determined before deployment even begins. Furthermore what units go to transports(and which) and what goes to reserve are decided BEFORE you start deploying.

Rulebook has the order set up pretty well. Check there for more detailed what happens in what stage.

Also, your friends can play you at 1500 points instead of playing you at a point disadvantage. Like, c'mon man. be fair to the new guy.

You make your list before you come to the store (or house) to play. Anything else is list tailoring and will get you a bad rep.

There are only two games I can think of, off the top of my head where you make the list after deciding the game- Malifaux (this may have changed, this was certainly the case in 2nd ed), as you are meant to roll the scenario, then build the appropriate crew around it. It doesn't always go like that in practical terms, but still...

The second in Warmachine/Hordes. Though, with the caveat the lists are already premade. In the Steamroller tournament pack you typically take two lists due to the inherent rock/paper/scissors nature of the game. If your caster comes up against a bad match up, you can switch out your list. But there is an art to it, as each caster had to be used at least once so there were some time where you could be list-locked.

40k has no such rules however, probably due to there being several "gentlemen's agreement" rules inherent within the game, that's just how GW is wired and nothing will change that. Nothing is more infuriating than encountering a list tailor (which, to be fair you can actually do in current 40k with things like summoned Daemons...), aside from the fact they are wasting time by writing a list there and then, you know you are in for a chore of game with "That guy".

We had one round our way once, now granted all of his lists were pre-written but it was annoying as hell to know he would list tailor after finding out what you were using. Friend of mine threw it back in his face once when he asked what he was facing "Imperial Guard" he said, neglecting to mention it was an Armoured Company.

 Grimtuff wrote:
You make your list before you come to the store (or house) to play. Anything else is list tailoring and will get you a bad rep.

There are only two games I can think of, off the top of my head where you make the list after deciding the game- Malifaux (this may have changed, this was certainly the case in 2nd ed), as you are meant to roll the scenario, then build the appropriate crew around it. It doesn't always go like that in practical terms, but still...

The second in Warmachine/Hordes. Though, with the caveat the lists are already premade. In the Steamroller tournament pack you typically take two lists due to the inherent rock/paper/scissors nature of the game. If your caster comes up against a bad match up, you can switch out your list. But there is an art to it, as each caster had to be used at least once so there were some time where you could be list-locked.

40k has no such rules however, probably due to there being several "gentlemen's agreement" rules inherent within the game, that's just how GW is wired and nothing will change that. Nothing is more infuriating than encountering a list tailor (which, to be fair you can actually do in current 40k with things like summoned Daemons...), aside from the fact they are wasting time by writing a list there and then, you know you are in for a chore of game with "That guy".

We had one round our way once, now granted all of his lists were pre-written but it was annoying as hell to know he would list tailor after finding out what you were using. Friend of mine threw it back in his face once when he asked what he was facing "Imperial Guard" he said, neglecting to mention it was an Armoured Company.

In Infinity you basically need to know the mission you're playing before you make lists, as well. Tournaments post what missions they'll be using ahead of time.

Voss wrote:
No. This is a really simple question that the rules answer directly.

Open Play, p 272
Step 1: Muster Armies <---
Step 2: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

Matched Play, p 280
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <----
Step 3: Determine Mission
Step... (etc)

Narrative (Crusade) has a pile of rules for the order of battle (starting on p 306), but for a game, p 332
Step 1: Select Battle Size
Step 2: Muster Armies <---
Step 3: Determine mission
Step... (etc)

For those of you using the mini-rulebook, the references are pages 84, 92 & 144, respectively.

 Grimskul wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You should try changing mid-game.

Nothing is more surprising to your opponent then swapping out your Marine army for a Tyranid army on turn 3. Throws 'em in a real loop.

That made laugh harder than it should have

I can only imagine how you would deliver that. "Thought you were facing my UM on Macragge? Surprise! Oops, it's all Tyranids, Hive Fleet Behemoth just showed up.

Jones? You OK Jones?

Well. ive never seen anyone really following the rules properly but i have also not played in any real tournements.

I just find a guy to play against, show up at my friendly gaming club, see his army and what he intends to play, he sees my army, we roll to determine the game mode, we set up the stage.

Find out who deploys first and who has first turn, and go.

 jeff white wrote:
Jones? You OK Jones?

"Hey, you guys? ...I think Jones is acting strangely."
"Well small wonder, genius. THEY'RE ALL AROUND US!!"

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You should try changing mid-game.

Nothing is more surprising to your opponent then swapping out your Marine army for a Tyranid army on turn 3. Throws 'em in a real loop.

.

No, that is silly.
Changing the game system mid game, that's what true pros do.
Warhammer 40k turns into Infinity on turn 3, turns into Risk on turn 5 and then into Necromunda on turn 6. Your opponent will never see it coming.

Get to the end of your first movement phase, call out "Checkmate!" and start packing up whilst looking all smug.

Completely confuses them.

I've always been fond of those games where you managed to get a Conscript into the enemy deployment zone, and can then promote it to being a Castellan...