Telling your opponent what army you will use?

[interrogator_chaplain]

As a courtesy, I would agree upon what's going to be used, Escalation, Stronghold, Forge World, etc. and then tell them that I'll be using Dark Angels with Knight allies and rules from Stronghold and after that let their imagination go wild. Am I playing Greenwing with a whole clump of Bastions and a Knight? Am I going 3 Nehpilim with a Landing Pad backed up with a Shadowsword? That's fine, when I know I might need to expect a Lord of War or a set of Stronghold emplacements, I've been given warning and if I fail to react to it, that's on me.
But going in cold is just disrespectful if your opponent drops in a horde army and you drop in a Stormlord backed up by Leman Russ Exterminators. You give your opponent the opportunity to defend him respectfully.

Anything may be fair in love and war, but this is still a game when it boils down to it.

[Captain Bubonicus]

^^^That's the spirit. We're just playing pew-pew-pew with little men, after all.

[m3g4tr0n]

I usually have two lists already lined up. Personally, I don't have an issue sharing my list. If someone wants to tailor their list to specifically beat mine, that's their loss. They aren't really learning to win on their own.

[olberon]

i always do that. but not always giving the correct info. Kina like dis information which rules, psykes the hell out of some opponents hahahah

[Jonthewarmaster]

It's kind of 50/50 for me. Some people I'll tell ahead of time with no problems; but recently there have been a few high school kids who've begun to show up and play. 2 of the new kids are okay, but one of them just constantly list tailors to whatever people play. It's gotten to the point I'll purposely tell him the completely wrong army I plan to bring just to get a semi-even game. It doesn't help things either, that he's been the only one who's bothered to challenge me to a game for the past few weeks either.

[Wildcard]

My group is kinda struggling with this question. Armies we have (IG&GK), BA, (CSM&Necron), Orks, Eldar. Bracketed armies are wielded by same person.. To mix the stuff up, we usually play 2vs2. We've talked a lot if we should just agree on point limits and books allowed and then roll for the teams. In our environment to tailor a list against some match ups is really brutal.

For example IG and Orks versus CSM and BA. With both power armored armies tailored to counter hordes.. Let me tell you torrent flamers and drop pods with full flamer load outs backed by whirlwinds (castellan incendiary missiles) and those Noise? Marines to ignore covers.. Oh and not to forget couple of multi-melta land speeders to f*ck up few tanks available is far from any way fun or even game..


Personally i would like best:
- Agree points
- Agree on 'expansions' (be those forge world in general, or escalation etc..)
- Agree on flyers (especially in newcomers games, those are truly the bane of gamers with less skill or bad army builds)
- Agree on armies when rolling for teams.

I might have forgotten something, but thats the general feeling of the hip

[Anggul]

I think it removes the point in having to think about your list. There are some choices that are obviously better against certain factions than others. Obviously there's room for difference within the book, but as a rule you can make some pretty clear divisions.

Much better when neither side knows what they're up against, it means you both have to try to build an army that can take on as large a variety as possible and still do well.

By all means agree on which expansions and such you're using, but there's no need to say which army you're using.

[John Bower]

The shop I play at have banned dual FoC and Escalation w/out prior consent. Pick up games are single FoC.

[Mr Mystery]

Depends on who your opponent is.

If you're headed down the local gaming venue, take a variety of lists. It's not just that some might say 'I don't fancy fighting your Knight detachment', but also they simply may not have enough models to match your chosen points value. Take a bunch of lists, and you can all meet somewhere near the middle, edging toward the lowest common denominator. That way, nobody gets left out.

If it's a regular opponent? Do I really need to detail the army I'm fielding? Most of them know what I have already!

But one thing I do draw the line at....no seeing my list prior to writing your own. That's not on, and is frankly cheating. Any goon can write a list to trump another. If you insist on seeing my list prior to the game beginning, you better have your's to hand as well for a swap over. And yes, I have encountered this before. Though I did utterly smash them all the same.