Reading a topic today over at 40K Forums about list tailoring got me thinking why don't more people do it? That probably sounds very odd to most of you but to me list tailoring makes far more sense both thematically and practically.
When our club first started we set list tailoring in motion accidentially. The first campaign I ran for them used the Mighty Empires tile set and a varient of those rules. Players knew what codex their opponents were using and to promote store sales and to prevent repetitve lists players could change their lists for each game. Thus knowing who you faced meant that better lists were drawn up, often with units or options that didn't normally see the light of day. Since they were built to defeat a specific codex we saw much more balanced and fun games being played.
When I see games where players turn up with no knowledge of who or what codex they will be playing against, it is usually the same old basic generic lists which are horribly mismatched for the game. I look at that and see it as much less fair than list tailoring.
The only time I see a problem with the list tailoring is where one player has much more of a collection to draw upon compared to another, but that hopefully helps Games Workshop / Independent Store generate sales and promotes players adding to their armies.
Thoughts?
yep, as my problem against joel, I had no idea he was taking nids, and so my list would of been different, and I lost, generally as long as both players know who they are up against both can tailor which can make a very interesting game, as both armies are lined up to counter each other (in theory)
ReplyDeleteExactly. It makes a huge difference and a far more enjoyable game.
DeleteI hate, it makes for extremely boring lists that just spam whatever works v army X and promotes cheese.
ReplyDeleteOnly possible redeeming feature is it lets you see those incredibly niche units that are pointless otherwise.
I disagree. It produces more balanced army lists because both sides take what they need to defeat and hold off the opponent. Turning up to play with a generic list means that you get the same old lists all the time, armies that don't handle certain random missions very well (look at the game Fish and Joel had a couple weeks ago) and it gets stale.
DeleteI think it depends a little bit on who is using it.
ReplyDeleteIf they stay fairly fluffy then it will make for a much more exciting and challenging game. If it's someone who will just spam the cheese units then it'll usually end in a massacre.
I am all for having variable lists for campaigns as fixed list tends to get boring quite quickly.
I've found that this topic is one of those things that for the most part the pro-list tailors and anti-list tailors aren't going to generally convince the other side of anything. I think there is a certain amount of list tailoring that is called "adjusting to the meta" which means if my opponent brings say flyers a lot I'm going to adjust my list to be able to deal with flyers. Then the flyer player changes up his list, and so on. I think that this sort of play is fun, though it does require that both players have the resources and desire to change their lists up.
ReplyDeleteNow someone who sees you pulling out nids so they tap a few keys on their I-pad and bring up a different list right there at the table and plays a hard counter so as to press the win button. That is list tailoring of the sort where I'd ask my opponent to stop doing that. If he did it for a second game I wouldn't play him a third.
It's a topic that's recently seen discussion on a popular rumour site I frequent, where the idea of 'sideboards' was suggested, basically where you begin with a core list that doesn't change, but then a proportion of the list is flexible to adapt to whatever you're facing specifically. I like this approach, puts me in mind of a space marine strikeforce deploying certain squads to a conflict and whilst the majority of their number is made up of tactical squads, they take weapons appropriate to the enemy and can leave some squads behind if they're less tactically appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't a bad idea to be honest. I wonder if it would actually work.
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