Why Is List-Tailoring A Bad Thing?

[ElectricPaladin]

I'm putting this in the 40k general forum, but only because this forum gets the most attention. Really, this could go anywhere.

So, it seems to me that list tailoring is widely considered to be one of the worst things you can do, basically a kind of cheating. You should bring the list you bring - tailored to the local meta, but that's apparently ok - and take your wins and losses.

What galls me is that this is actually pretty unrealistic. No real-life military is made of "take-all-comers" lists. Militaries have specialists that are sent into various circumstances with the best equipment, the best intelligence, and the best troops for the job. I understand that the 41st Millenia is supposed to be such a hopelessly huge place that "take-all-comers" warbands do wander around, looking for trouble, but if you look at the 40k fiction there's still a fair amount of "list tailoring" going on. When Dante of the Blood Angels sends a Librarian and his entourage to attempt to blunt a tendril of the Hive Fleet, they bring along the best Marines for the job.

Are there any games out there that make gathering intelligence and building the best list you can "on the fly" part of play? Or are there any variants of 40k that allow for some degree of list tailoring to reflect this reality?

[wittdooley]

Are there any games out there that make gathering intelligence and building the best list you can "on the fly" part of play? Or are there any variants of 40k that allow for some degree of list tailoring to reflect this reality?

You sorta do this with Warmahordes Steamroller events. You bring two lists because, quite frankly, you could play a list that you simply can't beat with yours. I don't play enough to know how they determine how to set the lists so that the two players don't continually waffle back and forth.

I think the problem with doing something similiar in 40k would simply be the amount of models. It really isn't as condusive as a smaller skirmish game is.

With that being said, what if there were tournaments where you bring your normal army list and then are allowed a 200-300 point "specialist" slot, outside of the normal FOC, that allowed you to add that additional unit to cater to whatever you're playing against? It adds enough of a wrinkle that I think it could be sorta fun, but would seemingly eliminate the "waffle" effect in that your specialist unit wouldn't be there to counteract their specialist unit, but more their entire army.

Say I play a Parking Lot Guard opponent and I'm playing DoA Blood Angels with not a ton of melta. Well shoot, my specialists are a super melta squad to deal with the armour.

I dunno, just a thought.

[SotonShades]

It depends on what you define as list tailoring. At my gaming club, many of the guys use the same list week in, week out. others will bring agree which armies they are going to use the week before, and write their army list based on what they think the other guy might bring from the army they agreed on. Both approaches are fine, especially if both players have agreed to it before hand, and I think it's the kind of tailoring you are getting at in your post, ElectricPaladin.

There's the other kind though. Say you turn up to a GW store (or any FLGS for that matter) with your list because they are all the models you own (because you collected to a 1500 point list to not waste any money). You agree to a game with an opponant, start getting your models out and then he dissappears with a codex and paper in hand and brings back an army specifically designed to destroy the army you put out, nothing else. Hell, against most other lists it would crumble, but for some reason it is your force's achilles heal.

Personnally I'd feel I got a bum deal there.

A good example at my FLGS recently was this little obnoxious kid. Competant player, but a bit of a... well I fear to use the word in polite conversation so I shall say brat. He asked if he could come along to Vets Night, despite being only 14, and because he was quite compatent he was allowed. He got his *** handed to him a couple of times against guys with various flavours of SM, so tailored his list as anti-MEQ force and had been braggin about it as such for the week leading up to the next Vets night. Needless to say, no one turned up with a MEQ force and he lost. Ironically, if he'd kept his normal list, he would have probably done reasonably well against the ork horde he ended up facing.

[Ork E Nuff]

Yes, list tailoring is a bad thing. I spent years in the military, and although you've got military intelligence working for you, you are never quite sure of what your force is going to meet until you meet it. All training center OpFor units are developed to defeat you, period. Your job is to take the resources you have and use them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The same is true of 40k, or should be. You may have an idea of what you are up against, but it's impossible to plan for every scenario and come out on top. You can develop your lists to a generalized threat, i.e. dark eldar raiders, or necrons; but having said that, it's impossible to meet all the varieties of OpFor your opponent may have without tailoring your lists right before turn 1.

If you're not comfortable with your list's abilities to survive the initial contact with your opponent, then re-tool it and play something else. If you insist on list-tailoring, don't be surprised if your opponent decides to do the same and don't be shocked if you're beaten.

I'm not going to go as far to say that list-tailoring is cheating or beardy or chessy, I'll just say that in my opinion, it reflects poorly on the individual playing. The uber character/unit/force concept often found in my experiences with "list-tailoring" has really fallen to the wayside in favor of a more balanced approach to gaming. If you're playing to a mission specific objective, great; tailor away. But if you're just play a pick up game at the local shops, leave it at home.

[DarkLink]

Military comparisons are misleading here. This is a game, in which two players on roughly equal footing try and face each other. In war, the exact opposite is true. You have two foes doing everything in their power to undermine each other and squeeze out every unfair advantage and turn it into a victory.


Some armies can creates lists that are extremely difficult match-ups for other armies. If I got a glance at any DE list beforehand and got to tweak my list (I play Grey Knights), I would bet money on my victory. Even just taking balanced lists I already slaughter DE, if I were to tweak my list to, say, include more Psyrifle Dreads then it would be essentially an auto-win for me.

On the other hand, if I have little knowledge of my opponent beforehand I'm forced to take a more balanced list, which prevents some of those bad matchups.

[ElectricPaladin]

Ok, I'm increasingly convinced that any kind of list-tailoring in 40k as it exists is, in fact, bad and unfair. The three main points - that it would unfairly favor certain armies over other, that it would favor players with larger collections, and that it wouldn't make sense for you to be able to alter your list after seeing everything your opponent is bringing to the table - all make sense to me.

However, do you think there would be a way to write a scenario or a game-changing-supplement-thing (think Spearhead or Cities of Death) that would allow dynamic list-building? Maybe something where there's some kind of roll for "intelligence gathering" before the game starts? Or something like the "bidding for first turn" system we saw in the 6th Ed "leak" () that lets you give up certain advantages in return for information about your opponent's list and the privilege to alter your list in response.

Things like:
* For every unit I swap, you get to redeploy one unit before Turn 1.
* For every unit I swap, you get to move one piece of terrain before deployment, but after we have switched sides.
* For every unit I swap, you get to apply one new USR to one of your units.
* For every unit I swap, you get to use one Planestrike or Cities of Death strategem worth X points.

Or something.

[Thornblood]

This is one reason why, for competitive but friendly play amongst friends I flip between my marine and ork armies- so they have to prepare for both eventualities.

However, I tend to win with my marines and loose with my orks, so maybe that strategy dosn't work so well in practice.

[Harmonious Borealis]

Well, I think something like wittdooley said could be plausible in a game like 40k with such a huge model-load. Specialist slot, where it could either be filled in with one of a couple of options you bring just before the game starts, or perhaps a system similar to how the sideboard works in Magic: the Gathering. A certain amount of points extra is brought, part or all of which can be subbed in by taking something of roughly equal value out.

Might be worth playtesting a system, for those with the spare time. If something unofficial were to become popular enough, maybe it could eventually become officially supported.

[Sure]

Depends on the situation:
Like someone already stated, if you are going into a "casual" (non-competitive) game and you tailor your list to demolish someone else then you you better have a good reason (he's a jerk, he did just that to you the week before, he asked for it b/c he wants to see what he should do in the worst-case scenario, etc.). Without a good reason, you're a repository for used feminine hygiene product.

Do it for a tournament: Good Luck! Sure, if you come to beat lots of grey knight strike squads in razorbacks supported by Psyflemen Dreads (it really isn't a great list, but idiots can still do well with it because it's so simple and big-red button) you may have a good day. But what if you get an odd draw and never see that list on the other side of the table despite the fact that half the participating players are using that mold? You came to destroy 3 Psyfleman and a bunch of razorbacks each with 5 dudes in them but you wind up facing against an Orc Horde, Tyrannids and then the Tau Player (where you win, but he gets a new set of dice...a common prize for he who finishes last at the local FLGS).

List taioring in a friendly game usually isn't friendly, and in competitive situations it usually isn't very effective. Hence the general aversion to the practice.

as for the war analogy - this is a dice game, not an actual conflict. Grow up and be content to play with your toys without the machismo (I think that the earnestness of this last statement makes it humorous).

[ElectricPaladin]

as for the war analogy - this is a dice game, not an actual conflict. Grow up and be content to play with your toys without the machismo (I think that the earnestness of this last statement makes it humorous).

I'll take your word for it .

Anyways, I'm kind of interested in the idea of designing a system that would allow for some dynamism in list building. Has anyone else got any ideas about how to go about doing it? I definitely think that Keeping It Simple (Stupid) would be important. So, no swapping out wargear willy nilly. Something more compact, like a system where for a 1.5k game, you come to the table with a 1k base list and 1k in "specialist units" that cost between 100 and 500 points. Now, we need a system for deciding how and in what order you get to read the other guy's list and slot in those specialists...