EDITORIAL: In Defense of Armylist Tailoring
Some people say tailoring your list towards a particular opponent is cheating. Nonsense!
It began with such a simple question:
“I was just wondering on what the community consensus was? Do you guys tend to go more towards tailoring to a particular opponent? Or do you come up with a more well rounded list and then change it when you think it needs changing or after its proven that it’s weaknesses need to be changed.”
an editorial by knas sir
To me, choosing your army is an intrinsic part of the game itself. The moment of the reveal when you both share army lists is one of the most fun moments when you see if your opponent has outsmarted you, or you they, or if there’s just some hilarious mismatch going on. To remove that entire strategic element from the game by just fielding generic lists against each other – where is the fun in that?
A common misconception is that list tailoring is about gaining some unfair advantage. It is not. It is a poker game where you and your opponent are evolving and trying out different strategies. I would be pretty bored facing opponents who fielded that same list against me time after time, the occasional minor variant. I want to have to adapt to surprises and try new things.
And when people have to field all-comers lists, variety goes down the toilet.
Like I say, there are misconceptions, usually because people don’t see the difference between list tailoring being part of the game and trying to gain an unfair advantage. For example, I love list tailoring and knowing the opponent’s list in advance would be cheating to me. And they me, of course. And naturally there are cases where it can become unfair. For example this is an expensive hobby and if someone was very constrained in what models they could use and another spent their way to success by buying things tailored which their opponent could not adapt to, that would be dishonourable.
But in the general case, it has always been part if the game to me. I am an old first edition player now returned and it was a great surprise to me to find some people now regard this as tantamount to cheating. Might as well play chess and always use the same dozen opening moves. There is no difference to me. Choosing a good army and second-guessing your opponent is a part of the game and lots of fun.
“…thought he would be playing against a horde Ork army so he had as many template and heavy bolter’s as he could get his hands on. Only to look across the table and see an army army of mega nobs… It was priceless to say the least. (this goes to you list tailorer’s when you have a list to beat a specific opponent that list suddenly does crap when faced with something unexpected.”
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I find that funny when it happens to me. You have to be pretty self-important not to be able to see the humour when you miscalculate a gamble like that. It’s happened to me and I’ve done it to others. It’s fun.
What is your take on list-tailoring and where do you draw the line between strategy and cheating?
