[Lomendil]

First up, for the newbies: 'Tailoring' is a term for when a player designs an army to fight a specific kind of enemy, or even a specific enemy army configuration.


In 40k, it's my view that unrestricted tailoring is bad for game balance. Some armies are just much better than others - Chaos, Eldar and Space Marines in particular - which gives some armies a big advantage.

Many players use 'take on all comers' lists because of this (lists that are rounded enough to deal with all kinds of different armies). But one problem with 'take on all comers' armies is that there's a certain lack of variety. Some weapons and units are too specialized to use in these lists since they are only effective against certain types of enemy, so they don't get seen often. In fact, due to the prevalence of Space Marine armies, I've found that the majority of 'take on all comers' lists are really just anti 3+ save lists with a few multi-shot and blast weapons to make sure the player isn't completely screwed against horde armies.



So maybe a middle way would be for a gaming group to have an informal agreement, or house rule if you want it carved in stone, to allow a limited amount of tailoring. Players would bring a 'take-on-all-comers' list but would be permitted to change a few units or characters (anything up to 3 changes would be fair IMHO) once they know which race the opponent will be using. That would cut down the advantages of the races that are great at tailoring and still give scope for the less commonly used specialized stuff to make appearances.

[Hunter]

Hmm, allowed to change up to 1/3 of the points, but they have to use these point for the entire unit, not just paying for the different upgrades.

EG: Tactical squad, 10 man, with heavy bolter. Suddenly you're up against Marines, so you take a rocket launcher instead. The entire squad, with the old weapon, would count for the changing allocation. The cost to your flexiblity would be about 160 points rather than 5 or so (the difference between a missile launcher and a heavy bolter).

Hows that?

[korik1]

I knowhow bad tailoring can get. I have a friend who plays Necrons and everything he's bought in points and cash is tailored to do well against Tau. It's a real pain especially since I have an all-comers list and I refuse to tailor it.

[Gada Mazaha]

Tailoring can honestly be no fun, as I demonstrated the other night at my gaming club.

My friend(who's been playing Eldar for years and tailoring his list every time he plays me) has recently started Grey Knights, and he finally bought his much needed second squad of them, so he had a viable GK army. He wanted to play 500 points. What did I do? I took 6 Fire Warriors. and then 5 Crisis suits with Fusion/Plasma, and a Shas'O with Fusion/Plasma. There was one GK left on turn 3, and he somehow managed to assault me and then get beaten down in CC by a mass of battlesuits(Which was quite hilarious, tau winning CC).

He wasn't very happy, and it really didn't make for that much of a fun game(it was a loosely played game, lots of jokes and the like).

I see enough lists do fine without this proposed points of tailoring at tournaments. I don't think the system needs to be changed.

[OmikronAlpha]

I like the 1/3 changing idea. Similar to a 'Side Deck' in a card game. Seems like an excellent system for a tournament. Although, 1/3 may be too much.

[Bustafer Jones]

It could work exactly like a sideboard in a Magic tournament, where you have a 60 card deck, plus 15 extra cards that you swap out on a 1:1 basis between games, or it could wrok like you choose say 1000 point core army, and cane change the other 500 pts between opponents. I kind of like the idea. It's not cheap, but it keeps things lively. Good thought here.

[Hunter]

Magic? Boo! Hiss!

No games where you can't convert the pieces for me.

[Floobosaurus]

I like the idea of using a 'sideboard' of sorts for 40k, since it would put a set of limits on the degree to which a particular army can be modified. That being said, I don't really know if that would necessarily make the game more balanced, as I guess those said armies (Eldar, Chaos, SM) would probably have more points efficient unit counters to sideboard than other, 'weaker' armies.

However, on the flipside, I think one point of difference b/w magic and 40k is that in 40k, I think it's actually feasible to make a generally balanced take-all-comers list with any of the official codexes, whereas in magic it doesn't really work that way. In magic, it usually boils down to "which deck archetype is more effective in which environment" in tourney, and is pretty much a rock-paper-scissors game b/w different archetypes in the 'competitive'(ie: powergaming) casual environment.

Of course this is just my rough impression of things

[Hunter]

And you also can't really use 40K models to stop a table wobbling.

[arguleon-veq]

If you know the person your playing against is knowledgeable with all armies [a good friend that you've gamed with for years for example], you could just have a rule where you roll a dice at the beginning of the game and if you roll a 6 you swap armies.

It should stop anybody making a really geared/super powered list, and encourage them to take some fun/interesting units.

You obviously wouldn't want to do this with some random kid at a gaming store, but among friends I think it can cut out any propensity towards gearing.

Plus, with it only being done on a 6, your still most likely to be using your army but there is enough of a risk for your opponent to think ‘I’ll get battered and have a really boring game if I take this geared list and roll a 6’.