Hello everyone, Frankie here shedding some light on local metas.
I just moved down south to San Diego and played in my first tournament down here. Since it would be rude to beat everyone here before they realized they were playing the Greatest 40k Player in the world, I decided to miss first place by 3 points and not take my first gold down here. It was a great turn out with 22 players for a local RTT. The competition was great and I met a bunch of cool people. But all that aside I want to talk about Metas. I never really believed that local metas would be different until I saw the armies I did at the event.
First lets talk about the metas I am used to. In the bay I am used to playing a lot of nid armies which Dark Eldar usually do really well against. Necrons are all around in the bay as well which, unfortunately, Dark Eldar suck against. Also Centurion stars are all over the place as are Tau up north. There are also a ton of Chaos players in the bay. And, let’s not forget about the most popular army: Eldar! Lastly not a whole lot of flyers. That’s the world I come from.
So after playing in the Bay for about 8 years I figured that all the armies at other stores would be roughly the same. I was wrong! At the tournament I saw 4-5 Fire Raptors which I’ve only every played against once, before. They are super good and turns out that they can blow up Dark Eldar vehicles quite well. Some other units that made appearances that I rarely ever saw up North were Rapier Battery’s, Land Speeder Storms, and tons of Void Shields. As for the Armies themselves, I saw lots of imperial guard which is a rare army in my meta from up North. There was only one Tau player as well which is crazy to me. I also saw a Dark Eldar player that was using a lot of Grotesques, up in the Bay there aren’t very many Dark Eldar Players and for sure none that use Grotesques.
It’s really fun to play against armies that you are not used to. I was also happy to see that the Local metas are indeed different because it means that you will see more variety at large tournaments. The main point of this article is to make sure people know to build their lists to take on armies that they are not used to playing against…which can be a challenge to do! I know that it through me off when my first game was against a Fellblade protected by a void shield generator, haha. Gosh that tank is good and killed my vehicles real quick.
Anyways, I look forward to playing in more events down here and getting used to the local meta. I also realize I need to reevaluate my list so it can take on a wider variety of armies. Let me know what your all local metas looks like because I am interested in the variety around the country. This is my first experience playing in a new meta as I have always lived in the Bay so for me, this is a new experience. I have always heard about local metas but never had the chance to see how much difference there can be in play styles from place to place.
In before the Canadians make fun of the Washingtonians for making fun of the Oregonians for making fun of the Californians for calling the Bay area ‘up north’.
Canada’s not a real place. Stop making up countries to scare the little childrens.
Wow… American economy gets a wee bit of a boost and its trash Canada time. That’s rich 😛
Pfft. Here in Ameriland, it’s ALWAYS trash Canada time.
That’s ok. We trash the States too much up here. Probably all the lonely nights with frigid temperatures, bacon and beer.
Not true, Canada is most certainly real. But clearly they don’t play 40k. Moose don’t have the dexterity for that.
Too hard to prime models in our igloos.
Its north from San Diego haha.
My local meta is better than your local meta. <3
Well my Dad can beat up your Dad!
Nice article Frankie. Sounds like a pretty serious meta shift. Fire raptors must have been a nightmare. Keep us posted on how your list changes… can’t wait to see you rockin in some new bat-reps I want to see your army’s no paint job!
Yeah, we still haven’t taken any pictures of it yet, which is criminal, it is a beautiful army.
Haha yeah it was a tough meta shift. And yeah I need to get a video battle report done soon the army looks amazing.
From Vancouver BC Canada. And I can tell you that there are lots of tau and necrons up here. But my dark eldar prevail.
I love the Seattle area metta as it seems much more competitive. Which I really enjoy
Nice, Necrons and Tau are rough for my DE.
At the last big tournament i went to which was a team event 2/3 of the armies were Marines including a 5 flyer army. However my orks with the help of my partner playing undead eldar prevailed . It seems that a lot of people like the durability, utility, cost and flexibility of marines. Also I play with alot of grey beards who have had their armies for years and don’t adapt. They play the way they have always played.
I think you are playing the wrong kind of greybeard. I and a fellow greybeard in my local meta have surpassed 30 years of gaming (over 25 years in 40K) and we keep adding armies. I run Orks, Dark Angels, bugs, and have added AM this past year. He has added both Smurf and Squat Marine chapters to his Ork and Daemon armies this past year. It’s about keeping it fresh (and occasionally driving hyper-competitive opponents up the wall and across the ceiling). Do we always like the way new rules change the game? Not always. Do we whine about it? Briefly. Do we get off our butts and adapt? Always. We are in fact far more adaptable than many of our younger (and far whinier) competitors and seem to have a lot more fun with it too. Greybeards (can) Rock It!!
Haha im happy to hear that you guys are still trucking along and playing a bunch of different armies.
Frankie, perhaps you could comment on tournament missions and terrain? Those two elements seem like they reflect local metas as much as the armies/lists people bring.
This article was lacking. Very vague and not much detailed info.
It would have been nice to hear your list and how the games went, and against whom.
It just feels like this was written in 10 min.
Thank you for your input and I will get a tournament report out this week.
Michael, the point of his article was not to write a battle report, but to just highlight the difference in playstyles between 2 very different metas. Hence, the lack of details regarding the tournament itself.
But for your viewing pleasure, I’ve included some photos of Frankie’s army from our last tournament together:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/631018.page
Just click on the spoiler under Team Zero Comp on the very first post of my thread.
Well Frankie IS illiterate and he speaks into his computer so that it types what he is saying, which took him 10 minutes.
Frankie, let me dub thee….
The World’s Most Considerate 40K Player.
He was so considerate that at the last tournament, he decided to let a couple of scrubs (including me!) win against him so that we could feel good about the greatest accomplishment we have ever achieved in our measly 40K lives. Thank you, Frankie, from the bottom of our (my) hearts. 😉
But seriously, congrats. I hear that the San Diego folks are pretty decent when it comes to gaming. And who knows, maybe you can coax players like Dave Fay and Doug out of retirement.
Juglas Dohnson isn’t retired, he’s just lying in wait……
Then why is he ducking me?…. 😉
Lol. I’ll ask him
That’s really cool that you guys moved to San Diego! Since that’s considerably closer to Arizona I may have to make a trip out there to hang out with you guys.
Definitely!
Where in Arizona are you? I’m up in Prescott and am trying to build my first army up in time for scorched earth in Peoria.
I’m actually down in Tucson. I will be going to the Scorched Earth GT too.
Going to a new meta really opens your eyes as a gamer, I have found. I have played in quite a few different metas just in California as I have moved so many times and I can attest to the big changes in game play between groups. I also have found that that is what causes a lot of arguments online about what is “good” or “bad” in a book. In some places, a gamer’s personal experience shows them that unit X is good, where another gamer from a different meta sees them always fail and thinks they are bad. However, the difference is often not the unit itself but who is playing it, the missions, terrain, etc. As you go around playing in different metas, you really get a feel for how much things vary in power dependent upon the local environment.
SO true. When I first met TastyTaste and he asked me to start writing for BoK to defend Orks, I had no idea that some people thought they sucked. At that time (early 5th edition) I had stopped playing my Orks for fun because everyone was sick of getting curb-stomped.
Meta matters.
Our local meta is maximum cheese. SeerStars, Serpent Spam, AdLances, Daemon Factories. We play the top lists from tournaments to see how we do against them. So this has made it a bit awkward when we run into people outside of our group – they’re obviously having more fun than we are with their helbrutes and maulerfiends and *gasp* terminator assault squads. I’ve never had the chance to move and play in a whole new area, but when people move here, they go through a bit of a rude awakening.
We’re actually moving towards breaking down our meta after the LVO with the “season of the carnifex,” where each week one member gets to decree what the special rule for the week is. Named characters, highlander, no vehicles – we’ll have a new meta every session!
Sounds interesting. Where is your “meta” anyways, geographically speaking?
I’m assuming it’s not Canada, is it? 😉 Haha….I kid, of course. Is it?
>they’re obviously having more fun than we are with their helbrutes and maulerfiends
You probably shouldn’t play that way if you’re not having fun with it. Jus’ sayin’. There are lots of people who enjoy competitive 40K and if you’re not one of them that’s fine, but it seems silly to try and emulate a style of play you don’t like.
Canadia is in fact a place.
Oooh… SD! Home of the best golf weather year round.
Me and Noah are in Tucson
So, is there a Frontline Gaming down in San Diego now? ‘Cause that’s actually a feasible drive for me in LA county.
One of my friends has a huge collection, so he ran the most units he could get for 1850 (allies, formations, etc.) with the craziest special rules he could find at a local tournament.
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His opponents were all sweating not knowing what the heck his army could do.
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Usually meta is good against meta, but sometimes a wrench in the gears can change that…
In Miami there are one million tau players I think because anime is very popular. Also lots of green tides
If you are interested in apocalypse has over one hundred crisis suits and a legit Lego hammerhead
Being a native of San Diego may I be first to welcome you. I don’t know the tournament circuit but I do find differences in popularity of different games in different parts of the city, different stores, the same in different cities , different states, etc. I have games I would love to play that are popular else where that I can’t others to play here. As far as 40K I haven’t played since the early 90’s, some day I’ll finish my orks if only every for display.