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List tailoring seems to be more accepted in the war machine community. For example i will be facing menoth i know he will use the choir.(i have not seen his list but from what i hear that the choir is a must have in a menoth list). Would it be acceptable to get rid of, a soulless escort, exchange the phoenix for a hydra,and get rid of a ghost sniper so i can fit in lady a and holt?.


because that way i can make more stuff magical and i know that menoth has stuff that is immune to fire so i dont want to use the phoenix. Also i wanna try out lady a and Holt.

Would this be terrible because it seems to me that people in war machine don't seem to care about list tailoring that much.

I'm still a relative newcomer to Warmachine having played only a handful of games at the 15-35 pts level, but I have several years of "competitive 40k experience" under my belt and I've been an avid wargamer for quite some time.

And I can safely say, list tailoring and competition is what warmachine is made for. One of the reasons that tailoring seems to be "okay" is that this game system is much more balanced and the rule set is much tighter, relative to GW 40k.

Now, with that said, at the low point levels 15-35 having very small lists *seems* to make the game sort of rock paper scissors. I still don't think it's as bad as 40k, but if his list has any focus (don't think including the choir is enough to call it 'focused') then you should be able to make up a hard counter with ease. If he's got a good list, he should still be able to win, but I think you'll have an advantage.

Anyways, that's my perception of it, as another beginner.

It's not really list tailoring. You're guessing that your opponent will have Choir. He may or he may not. If you want to dedicate a portion of your army to countering a unit that isn't guaranteed to be there, that's your prerogative.

if your facing menoth, its a fair bet that a choir will be in the list. if menoth is heavy in your meta, then dealing with them is a priority. as a khador player, i face alot of incopreal stuff in my meta, so aiyana and holt are a necessity in competative play.

There really isn't that much in Menoth that's immune to fire, so the Phoenix should still be useful. Also Lady A is useful against more than just safe passage, Wind Wall, Incorporeal etc. things you tend to see across multiple lists along with an ability to buff damage make her a solid investment regardless. If you're leaning largely on ranged attacks to do damage, you'll find her thoroughly useful.

I had a player at the FLGS call me out and challenged me to a game on our forums. He apparently spent the past week carefully crafting a list designed to counter and pick apart my usual unit heavy Lich Lord Asphyxious lists, and was quite surprised and disappointed when I set down a Jack heavy Goreshade the Bastard army instead.

In tournaments, you can take two lists and pick one before the game starts. So even at that level, there is some list tailoring. I'm fine with it. I find that balanced lists do a lot better in WM/H than in 40K because a lot of it comes more down to how you play and synergise on the table as opposed to at a list level. This is not universally true, of course, and there are spammy and extreme lists that can do very well against balanced lists. But they won't tend to do well over an entire tournament because the counters are more frequent and more effective.
I play trolls, and I don't use the Krielstone, and only recently started using Champions, for example. I was still able to win at least half of my games without using these units, which are generally thought of as "autoincludes" for trolls.

i agree with Da Boss, warmachine cares more about how you pilot your force. when i play competativly i usually bring a "meat and potatoes" list that i am very used to, and then i bring something totally different for my second list. the double list format is just another boon that seperates warmachine from other systems.

By list tailoring do you mean taking extra models and subbing them in and out between games (a la sideboarding in Magic)? I've not played tons but that was certainly done at my LGS but only in friendlies. But I doubt that's different to any other game, and I doubt that'd be acceptable in tournaments (though I've not played any of those).

It's always acceptable to tailor against Menoth.