Greetings, Warlords!


I think the issue of customization is ripe for resolution. At the beginning of Epic40K, we did not know what we were doing very much anyway; later on, there was a period when Glenn left, Sean was busy, so Dan and I knew we were fighting each other and customization was more or less implicit. Now, however, the group is big, so customization has to be settled on.


In all the battles I have fought, I have not customized only twice - in my first game of Epic Space Marines against Sean, and in my first game in Epic40K against Glenn (for those interested, I lost both). 


In my opinion, Eldar did need and do need to customize, since they have comparatively expensive troops of high level of specialization. This means that an inappropriate, i.e. uncustomized, Eldar army suffered and suffers severely. An Eldar army built against Tyranids will be vaporized by Squats. An Eldar army against Squats will be ripped to pieces by Tyranids. An Eldar army against Chaos will have a pretty sad experience against Imperials and Chaos will have little difficulty stomping an anti-Imperial Eldar army.


I would say that the only way Eldar can build a non-customized army, which has a fair shot against any opponent, is by taking several staple unit types in large quantities and laboriously pray to Kaela Mensha Khane for luck ('The dice art with thee, young one, but thou art not a Phoenix Lord yet!'). That will quickly become boring and may be pretty painful for any non-Eldar. 


Such practice in my opinion will eliminate about 80% of the intellectual side of the game, since, I believe, most of it is in figuring out all units, both friendly and hostile, devising strategies for all, creating interesting armies, and battletesting them. That can never be achieved without customization. Oh, you devised this nifty army against Tyranids; tough luck, you are fighting Imperials. Try next week; perhaps if the Sun is in Saggitarius and it is new moon, the target army will coincide with the selected opponent.


Customization stimulates better understanding and knowledge of the opponent armies, as well as one's own. Customization allows taking many different types of units, especially among the non-fashionable end of the army lists. Customization allows strategic thought in addition to tactical one. Customization allows you to conduct experiments and take dicy detachments without being punished by annihilation every time.


A customized and an unbalanced army are not necessarily the same thing. You can make them the same by taking only the troop type that your opponent cannot deal with. On the other hand, if you devise a strategy against an opponent, and embody it in a number of unit types, while always clearly seeing at least one way the opponent can reasonably often defeat even this army, then I would not say this is an unbalanced customized army. 


We should be keenly aware that different armies have inherently different extent of specialization. Thus, in my opinion,  customization is the way highly specialized armies are supposed to fight. There are armies, like the marines, which pay for versatility. It may seem that that puts them at a disadvantage, if the opposing army customizes, since apparently they do not get to use an advantage they pay for. 


In my opinion, that is a pretty wrong way to look at it. The advantage which the marines pay for is that they are good at many things simultaneously, rather than nullification of strategic surprise. Regardless of what you do, the marines are still as tough as tanks, the same will still rapid-fire you, the same will still stomp any but your best in close combat. Such armies also get fat breaks others do not, e.g. landraiders and free drop pods, exactly due to versatility considerations. 


I think the above quite obviously refutes arguments, that if no one customizes, no one has advantage.


In my opinion, the way to go is to allow everyone to customize. The only problem I see is that people will either have to know whom they are going to fight or they should be ready with an army list for each possible opponent, the way I have been doing for some time now. The first thing can be achieved by better planning for the weekend; the second -- by having more troops ready. The latter can be a problem only for Sean, since Eldar, Chaos, and Eugene's Squats are in the library, Ward brings everything anyway, and Jon's entire Squats fits 20x20x20 cm bag. 


To recapitulate, I believe that some armies, most notably Eldar, need to customize. Barring cheese, non-customization for them means that instead of being ready for anyone, they will always be unready for everyone. Since we need one standard, may it be customization.


Eldar Farseer