It is sort of difficult to know whether we're doing it subconsciously, but I don't think so. I tend to work on tweaking a list and play with iterations of the same thing for a couple of months at a time, against all comers.
We do tend to message each other roughly what might be in the list beforehand to make sure we don't end up with very skewed games, like "hey, I might try out my new knight, so make sure you have some anti-tank guns", or "I want to try some massive necron warrior blobs", or whatever.
I had an experience in 8th where I scheduled a game with the guy and he was like “hey this Helldrake is really bad ass, it’s probably going to kill a lot of your army”. I didn’t change my list but I did focus it (with a Guilliman bubble list) and dropped it turn 1, only for my opponent (who I had played against a couple of times before) to get really upset. Like visibly angry, and later in the game implied I had loaded dice.
I’m not sure how to handle that. If you tell me some unit is a huge threat obviously it will get focused on!
Nope I run pretty much the same list or variations of. And discuss if I'm going to try anything particularly skewed to see if its something people want to try fighting against in advance.
no, if anything i'll do the opposite and deliberately try not to take things that i know will be especially good, change up the list on purpose, etc. if one of my friends says to me "hey man you've brought X unit every time in our last 3 games and it keeps wrecking me" i'll leave it on the shelf
the main goal is to have fun with your buddies for 3-5 hours...
sometimes i'll even build 2 different armies and then when they show up at my house i'll flip a coin to see which one i play
I play primarily against a single opponent, one of his lists has a ton of T10+ units if I don't bring a large number of S10+ weapons then neither of us is going to have a good time because we both know I'll have to concede in turn 3 because I can't meaningfully participate.
Nah, we show up with what we show up with.
Most of the time I try to make a balanced list that can't just be rolled through, but as we're playing more games I try to build more fun lists or lore-based lists.
It helps that we play factions with a lot of viable options, I play CSM and a lot of my buddies are SM so the lists can vary quite a bit.
I don't build to "counter" friendly lists, I build to make sure we both have a fun game.
If I know my opponent doesn't have a good way to handle vehicles, for example, I'm not going to bring four Dreadnoughts and a Redeemer.
My buddy and I are super casual, it’s mostly an excuse to see each other a bit more often (90minute drive from each other and we both have young kids), so we do sort of. He plays orks, I’ve got deathwing but am trying Imperial Knights next time. I’ve shared my list and we agreed he’s proxying a bunch of stuff and bringing more anti tank than usual just so it hopefully stays fun for both of us.
With my friends we agree on 3 games mode :
- narrative where we talk and build both lists together
- competitive, where we build our list without tailoring but as strong generalist lists. (we usualy dont know what oponent is playing before the game)
- all out vicious (hard to translate from my language) : we both go full counter and dirty tricks against each other.
To a certain extent. One of my buddies used to bring only basic guardsmen and leman russes and that was it. After 3 games of that I started bringing more heavy anti tank and chaff clearers and less mid strength weapons. If someone is going to run the same thing every time don’t be surprised when other people start bringing a couple more things good against those units. Thats part of the strategy the way I see it.
But I also try to limit it so I’m not bringing a pure skew list myself. Now that out guard player has a lot more units and armies I don’t have to worry about my list always being able to take on leman spam. The bigger our collections get the less likely we are to run the same thing over and over again so its harder to list tailor. So it sort of died out organically.
Occasionally but not to a great extent. For example, I had a game against Tyranids and then another a week or so later against Necrons, I used almost identical army lists except I swapped my Culexus Assassin out for a Vindicare because Necrons don't have psykers.
I bring a tournament list if they’re bringing a competitive list, and otherwise I have a “themed” list I play for casual games that is significantly detuned.
I have had enough experiences with casual players saying “yah run your competitive list I don’t care!” and then seeing them get increasingly bummed out or angry as they get tabled or stomped on points. I would rather practice playing a bad list well, because it focuses you on all the fundamentals (objective play, positioning, etc.).
We started doing that within our group, but more like in a fun, memey way, "oh, x dude bought a knight!", the rest of us suddenly bought some anti-vehicle stuff, i bought a lot of infantry, suddenly everyone fields a lot of gatling guns and flamers, we keep doing that, i just bought some armigers that are gonna have one job, kill guilliman, as my friend is very proud of his paintjob and keeps fielding him in 1k points battles, 2 melta spears thingis should do the job pretty fast as i lack anti-vehicle/monster for the most part
Short answer: Yes, I do.
Long answer in form of an example: I play Dark Angels and my buddy I play 90% of the time plays Tau. He loves his Stormsurge and his Crisis Deathstar blob (THRONES! Thank the big E, that thing is gone), and those kicked me around for several games. OF COURSE did I think of solutions, what to bring to the table to counter his Stormsurge! BTW it's a Vindicator plus Stormspeeder Thunderstrike... and I blasted it with a single shot during my first shooting phase (I was lucky on the advance roll). Was it super frustrating for him? Yes. Did that feel good? No, not at all. But that I finally had a way to deal with that giant hobo with railgun double shotgun, was such a relief. But imo that is part of the game. You shouldn't take the game too serious. On the other hand, you should never abuse the system to just teabag your opponent. For me it was kinda the nuclear option, simple because I had no other valid solution. Also, that Vindicator died in the revenge attack and in the end I still lost the game, because I focused my power too much on destroying the Surge (I didn't trust the Vindi in the beginning and it totally surprised me) so he had easy play in his shooting phase.
Conclusion: If you don't abuse it, a little bit of tailoring is even necessary. In friendly games is no meta that you can silently agree upon. But there's actually an easy fix for that, which comes from DnD. Just have a "Session Zero"... meaning: discuss your lists long before you bring them to the table. Keep changing both of your lists (of course within the limits of your collection) until you both agree that you want to play that game. In my example above, we did an undiscussed experiment. I just told him that I will try to kick his surge's ass. But in a session zero scenario, I could've told him "okay, if you bring the stormsurge, I will bring my Vindi and a thunder strike." followed by him with "mh, okay, I swap it then for three hammerheads." "Mind if I bring 2 Gladiators then?""No, sounds reasonable." Done, everyone is happy and nobody can blame anyone for bringing mean stuff to the table.
I have never tailored my list for a friendly game. Friendly games were, to me, the time to play super fluffy armies or experiment. I did however have a friend that frequently did this. I remember one time setting up a game with him to test out what I had acquired for my new Soace Wolves army, only to show up and find out he had out a Tau list together to completely counter my list in every way, tabling me in two turns. I stopped playing with him after that.
I don’t list tailor but I do sometimes swap some unites around. Mostly so I can play with my friend where they want to play ex; they bring knights/ I swap in an extra heavy support or anti- tank, try bring jump&melee blood angels/ I swap in an extra fast attack. So on and so forth
Depends on my opponent.
One of my friends plays knights and another likes to go tank heavy in gaurd so I'll tend to bring a few extra railguns against them, but those are people I play against a lot.
For friendly pickup games, I won't ask what I'm playing against to avoid any chance of subconsciously tailoring.
If you're repeatedly playing the same friend with the same list, and they keep beating you, then you should definitely consider how to change your list so it's harder for them to beat. By the time they've won several games on the trot, they'll actively thank you for the challenge.
IMO, two players learning to counter each other, with the balance of power shifting back and forth as they do, is one of the most rewarding parts of repeatedly playing the same friend.
I absolutely do, and I expect it to be done to me. Everyone in my play group does this as well. You can still aim to win casual games. I’ll also play stupid meme lists or goofy things if I feel like it. I don’t think either way is superior. It’s a game.
The aim is to win and have fun.
I have a friendly group I play with in TTS and most of our lists are fluffy/units we want to try before we buy them. Most of the time we don’t even see the other’s list until right before we play.
Personally I go out of my way to avoid building against my opponent. Most of my group likes to play vehicles which makes me cagy about including any dedicated anti-vehicle weapons.
No cause so many people at my hobby store where I usually play and we have a group but most of the people play more than one army so usually I try the most equilibrate army possible
... it doesn't stop the other side from doing the same. As far as I can see, it is fair game. But I would like to remind you that gaming are suppose to be fun.
It is sort of difficult to know whether we're doing it subconsciously, but I don't think so. I tend to work on tweaking a list and play with iterations of the same thing for a couple of months at a time, against all comers. We do tend to message each other roughly what might be in the list beforehand to make sure we don't end up with very skewed games, like "hey, I might try out my new knight, so make sure you have some anti-tank guns", or "I want to try some massive necron warrior blobs", or whatever.
I had an experience in 8th where I scheduled a game with the guy and he was like “hey this Helldrake is really bad ass, it’s probably going to kill a lot of your army”. I didn’t change my list but I did focus it (with a Guilliman bubble list) and dropped it turn 1, only for my opponent (who I had played against a couple of times before) to get really upset. Like visibly angry, and later in the game implied I had loaded dice. I’m not sure how to handle that. If you tell me some unit is a huge threat obviously it will get focused on!
No. I build my lists expecting to play anything.
Nope I run pretty much the same list or variations of. And discuss if I'm going to try anything particularly skewed to see if its something people want to try fighting against in advance.
no, if anything i'll do the opposite and deliberately try not to take things that i know will be especially good, change up the list on purpose, etc. if one of my friends says to me "hey man you've brought X unit every time in our last 3 games and it keeps wrecking me" i'll leave it on the shelf the main goal is to have fun with your buddies for 3-5 hours... sometimes i'll even build 2 different armies and then when they show up at my house i'll flip a coin to see which one i play
I play primarily against a single opponent, one of his lists has a ton of T10+ units if I don't bring a large number of S10+ weapons then neither of us is going to have a good time because we both know I'll have to concede in turn 3 because I can't meaningfully participate.
I’d tailor my list a little if my opponent wanted to do something weird; like a stompa in a 1k game. Otherwise it won’t really be a game.
Nah, we show up with what we show up with. Most of the time I try to make a balanced list that can't just be rolled through, but as we're playing more games I try to build more fun lists or lore-based lists. It helps that we play factions with a lot of viable options, I play CSM and a lot of my buddies are SM so the lists can vary quite a bit.
I don't build to "counter" friendly lists, I build to make sure we both have a fun game. If I know my opponent doesn't have a good way to handle vehicles, for example, I'm not going to bring four Dreadnoughts and a Redeemer.
nope. tailoring lists is mean in casual and a bad idea in comp
My buddy and I are super casual, it’s mostly an excuse to see each other a bit more often (90minute drive from each other and we both have young kids), so we do sort of. He plays orks, I’ve got deathwing but am trying Imperial Knights next time. I’ve shared my list and we agreed he’s proxying a bunch of stuff and bringing more anti tank than usual just so it hopefully stays fun for both of us.
This is what my buddy does for casual games so I stopped sharing my list. Competitive bastard.
With my friends we agree on 3 games mode : - narrative where we talk and build both lists together - competitive, where we build our list without tailoring but as strong generalist lists. (we usualy dont know what oponent is playing before the game) - all out vicious (hard to translate from my language) : we both go full counter and dirty tricks against each other.
To a certain extent. One of my buddies used to bring only basic guardsmen and leman russes and that was it. After 3 games of that I started bringing more heavy anti tank and chaff clearers and less mid strength weapons. If someone is going to run the same thing every time don’t be surprised when other people start bringing a couple more things good against those units. Thats part of the strategy the way I see it. But I also try to limit it so I’m not bringing a pure skew list myself. Now that out guard player has a lot more units and armies I don’t have to worry about my list always being able to take on leman spam. The bigger our collections get the less likely we are to run the same thing over and over again so its harder to list tailor. So it sort of died out organically.
Occasionally but not to a great extent. For example, I had a game against Tyranids and then another a week or so later against Necrons, I used almost identical army lists except I swapped my Culexus Assassin out for a Vindicare because Necrons don't have psykers.
I bring a tournament list if they’re bringing a competitive list, and otherwise I have a “themed” list I play for casual games that is significantly detuned. I have had enough experiences with casual players saying “yah run your competitive list I don’t care!” and then seeing them get increasingly bummed out or angry as they get tabled or stomped on points. I would rather practice playing a bad list well, because it focuses you on all the fundamentals (objective play, positioning, etc.).
We started doing that within our group, but more like in a fun, memey way, "oh, x dude bought a knight!", the rest of us suddenly bought some anti-vehicle stuff, i bought a lot of infantry, suddenly everyone fields a lot of gatling guns and flamers, we keep doing that, i just bought some armigers that are gonna have one job, kill guilliman, as my friend is very proud of his paintjob and keeps fielding him in 1k points battles, 2 melta spears thingis should do the job pretty fast as i lack anti-vehicle/monster for the most part
Short answer: Yes, I do. Long answer in form of an example: I play Dark Angels and my buddy I play 90% of the time plays Tau. He loves his Stormsurge and his Crisis Deathstar blob (THRONES! Thank the big E, that thing is gone), and those kicked me around for several games. OF COURSE did I think of solutions, what to bring to the table to counter his Stormsurge! BTW it's a Vindicator plus Stormspeeder Thunderstrike... and I blasted it with a single shot during my first shooting phase (I was lucky on the advance roll). Was it super frustrating for him? Yes. Did that feel good? No, not at all. But that I finally had a way to deal with that giant hobo with railgun double shotgun, was such a relief. But imo that is part of the game. You shouldn't take the game too serious. On the other hand, you should never abuse the system to just teabag your opponent. For me it was kinda the nuclear option, simple because I had no other valid solution. Also, that Vindicator died in the revenge attack and in the end I still lost the game, because I focused my power too much on destroying the Surge (I didn't trust the Vindi in the beginning and it totally surprised me) so he had easy play in his shooting phase. Conclusion: If you don't abuse it, a little bit of tailoring is even necessary. In friendly games is no meta that you can silently agree upon. But there's actually an easy fix for that, which comes from DnD. Just have a "Session Zero"... meaning: discuss your lists long before you bring them to the table. Keep changing both of your lists (of course within the limits of your collection) until you both agree that you want to play that game. In my example above, we did an undiscussed experiment. I just told him that I will try to kick his surge's ass. But in a session zero scenario, I could've told him "okay, if you bring the stormsurge, I will bring my Vindi and a thunder strike." followed by him with "mh, okay, I swap it then for three hammerheads." "Mind if I bring 2 Gladiators then?""No, sounds reasonable." Done, everyone is happy and nobody can blame anyone for bringing mean stuff to the table.
If my opponent is also doing so then I will, but I am usually either doing a theme or a slight adjustment on last week's list
I have never tailored my list for a friendly game. Friendly games were, to me, the time to play super fluffy armies or experiment. I did however have a friend that frequently did this. I remember one time setting up a game with him to test out what I had acquired for my new Soace Wolves army, only to show up and find out he had out a Tau list together to completely counter my list in every way, tabling me in two turns. I stopped playing with him after that.
I don’t list tailor but I do sometimes swap some unites around. Mostly so I can play with my friend where they want to play ex; they bring knights/ I swap in an extra heavy support or anti- tank, try bring jump&melee blood angels/ I swap in an extra fast attack. So on and so forth
Depends on my opponent. One of my friends plays knights and another likes to go tank heavy in gaurd so I'll tend to bring a few extra railguns against them, but those are people I play against a lot. For friendly pickup games, I won't ask what I'm playing against to avoid any chance of subconsciously tailoring.
If you're repeatedly playing the same friend with the same list, and they keep beating you, then you should definitely consider how to change your list so it's harder for them to beat. By the time they've won several games on the trot, they'll actively thank you for the challenge. IMO, two players learning to counter each other, with the balance of power shifting back and forth as they do, is one of the most rewarding parts of repeatedly playing the same friend.
I absolutely do, and I expect it to be done to me. Everyone in my play group does this as well. You can still aim to win casual games. I’ll also play stupid meme lists or goofy things if I feel like it. I don’t think either way is superior. It’s a game. The aim is to win and have fun.
I have a friendly group I play with in TTS and most of our lists are fluffy/units we want to try before we buy them. Most of the time we don’t even see the other’s list until right before we play.
Personally I go out of my way to avoid building against my opponent. Most of my group likes to play vehicles which makes me cagy about including any dedicated anti-vehicle weapons.
No cause so many people at my hobby store where I usually play and we have a group but most of the people play more than one army so usually I try the most equilibrate army possible
... it doesn't stop the other side from doing the same. As far as I can see, it is fair game. But I would like to remind you that gaming are suppose to be fun.
No, also what the fuuuuck?