Hi – what are people’s views on list tailoring? For example if I know I’m playing squats next week, is it ok to leave the hydras behind. If I’m playing knights is it ok to max out on shadowswords? At what point (if any) does it become rude?

Once I gained a rough familiarity with the rules and some games under my belt, tailoring my lists felt a bit dirty to me. If it's by mutual consent, I don't see a problem with it. Consistently picking on your opponents' lists weaknesses over the course of months and weeks might lose you some opponents though. My guiding principle in list construction (unless we're doing a friendly scenario) is its survivability in a tournament environment against hypothetical "all-comers". Not too weak, but not tailored to meet a specific opponent.

If, on the other hand, you keep getting pummeled by the same power-gamed list week after week, I'd say find the weakness of said list and exploit it next time around. Your opponent is likely to change and balance will be restored.

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yeah it's largely about you and the opponent having a fun game and setting the expectations. So for instance, you're testing an actual list it's very expected for tailoring to occur ("let's see about taking crazy airpower and knights against marines") due to the fact you're often trying to test a particular type of match up. OTOH if it's more of a beer and pretzels deal or a pickup game it's nicer to take an all comers list. If you're really worried about it it to have you and your opponent bring two lists and roll off the SR and the loser picks the list they want first. You're never prepared for every eventuality then.

In my old group we'd tell the faction but nothing more than that until it came for the battle as it felt reasonable to know that as say a Guard player, I'm facing Eldar. I'd not know however that they are bringing Exodites until we went to play. Likewise, they might know I was playing Marines but not that it was going to be say, Imperial Fists with lots and lots of disrupt weapons.

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If you made a list and wouldn't want to swap armies with your opponent I'd say it's probably too tailored.

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I'm not telling you what I'm bringing next time, ffoley. You will have to guess...

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As mentioned by others I think there are two good ways to play. Both playing an "all comers" list or both playing a semi-tailored list (knowing the opponents faction but not the unit choices). I have to say that I prefer the second of these two but thats coming from playing quite a bit of infinity where that makes for some very interesting games and makes the list creation really interesting.

Having said that the second option is normally only best if you are playing people that have quite a big selection of formations to choose from. Otherwise the person with the most "toys" gets an advantage and thats no fun.

In the long run do what works for you and your opponent. But I want to refer back to Dave's comment. Its a great rule to go by!

As long as you both know what you're getting into, list tailoring for a set-up game seems fine to me. It makes sense for a military force to focus on the tools they need for a specific battlefield situation, including their knowledge of the enemy's capabilities.

The problem is when one of the players can't tailor their list, whether it's because they don't know what the opponent is bringing in advance, they don't have the models available to allow for it, or they're not sufficiently experienced to tailor effectively. To avoid unfairness, there needs to be a discussion in those circumstances.

I think I proved my tailored list is no threat given the massive defeat I suffered. Maybe I will do better if you don't tell me.

You forgot the more common option in E:A which is when your list just doesn't have the options to do a plan B.
My opponent is bringing AMTL, I have lots of toys so I bring this:
SUPER-HEAVY TANK COMPANY [525]
3 Shadowsword, Sniper
SUPER-HEAVY TANK COMPANY [500]
3 Shadowsword
SUPER-HEAVY TANK COMPANY [500]
3 Shadowsword
DEATHSTRIKE MISSILE BATTERY [200]
2 Deathstrike Missile Launchers
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
SUPER-HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
WARHOUND TITAN [275]

What's so clever about this? I don't have to know my opponent's force composition to pick what I picked above. (Granted, adding some scout screens to that would make it even better)

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There are three broad options discussed above

• Both armies are declared beforehand, lists tailored to suit.
• Generic factions are known, or a campaign style game where the broad situation is known. Lists are partially tailored.
  (This also covers people testing lists where they are exploring some facet of the list.)
• Tournament game where the opponents are unknown and the lists are usually not tailored (though some may gamble depending on who is coming and their potential army choice)

Personally I don't have any preference, all are equally valid within their own context, though Dave makes a really good point about being prepared to play against your own army. Curiously few people take up my offer to use my dice - I cannot think why . . .

FWIW, when I play 'friendly' games with people, we quite often choose an army list at random from a sheaf of armies that were played in the past. The lack of models is not a real problem, missing items can be proxied though it is obviously ideal to keep that to a minimum. That said, proxying models is a vital way to work out which units and formations you really want to form the list you like - and a really good way into both collecting and modelling (if you have the desire and capabilities).

Another key question is how the battlefield is set up and defined (which is one of the reasons that the tournament-style game from the rules is so popular); the 5 minute warm-up is also key to the whole game.

However, as Jimmy says, in the end all of these are trumped by having fun - if the game is no longer 'fun' people will quickly get bored or dispirited.
So make sure that your opponent is laughing at least as much as you are, and DWWFY as L4 is always saying.

It depends on how good a friend you are playing against and for what reason you are playing the game.

What I mean is if you turn up with the perfect list to take down their force and they swear at you it is light hearted or more heartfelt? Do you still play the game - I have had situations (40k) where an opponent has just conceded without us setting up. On the other side I have turned up with a force that was totally slaughtered. I didn't swear but was not prepared for a tournament list with my friendly list.

Most of my games are blind so turning up with an unbalanced list is a risk but can make for a more challenging battle especially if your opponent has a different force to that which you were expecting.

If you are testing things, then yes go tooled out, but let you opponent know or they may ask you to try to go that way.

At the end of the day you can win once, but it might be your last game against that opponent.

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I'm not a huge fan of list tailoring. My thinking for this is that it doesn't make you a better player it just is about escalation. A sort of 'x beats y' so I'll take that. I don't mind if it's agreed in advance because there's some specific things folk want to try. The point about knowing what race but not what faction is a good one, only trouble is squats like necrons only have 1 faction.

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