Hello, fellow Warhammer 40k fans! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio, and one of the Las Vegas Open Head Judges, here to bring you a wrap up of this week in the ITC!
Not a whole lot has gone on in the past week in the ITC rankings however I do have a lot to post about in terms of the ITC when it comes to faction data etc. Paul McKelvey and his team at Best Coast Pairings are hard at work improving the app in several ways, including a few fixes that are being rolled out this weekend for NOVA! Thanks to them I have some interesting info I can share from the BCP app regarding factions and win ratios from the past month. Before I do that it’s looking like Orktober will bring us some really great models and a new codex dropping into the mix will certainly shake up the meta and the rankings heading into the final stretch of the season! Straight out of the NOVA GW seminar reveal we have the first look at a few new items coming for us in 40k. All of these have the potential of effecting rankings and performances of factions throughout the ITC meta before the end of the year.
Besides being gorgeous these Orks, and the rule, look like their the trumpeteers heralding the dawn of a new Ork heavy meta! It will be great to see Ork players coming back to the competitive scene in a big way, crushing skulls and running over their enemies at break neck speed. Please have a rule for running over enemy models! Also big news Adepta Sororitas really are going to come out it seems!
Those head sculpts look really cool. Even cooler is the idea that Chapter Approved this year will contain a Beta Codex in addition to the other changes it will undoubtedly have in store for us right before the Las Vegas Open and the end of this ITC season. If done right, and a beta codex is a sign it’s being done right, I can see the Adepta Sororitas really mixing up the meta with loads of melta and flamers and other new goodies themed to fit with their fluff. On top of all this there is news for Imperial Knight players too!
A new frame is going to be included in a box the same cost as the Gallant box allowing Imperial Knight players to get all theri codex options in plastic! Really cool development which will make it easier for Imperial Knight players to bring all their options to the competitive scene and shake up the meta further than they already have. On the topic of Knights and the meta let’s shift gears and talk about the data from the past month in the BCP app.
It is no surprise that Imperial Knights are a very popular faction. Given the high points cost it also isn’t surprising that they are heavily represented in the Primary Faction of players because it’s difficult to field a Super Heavy Detachment from that codex without it being your primary faction. Most interesting to me though is the power Ynnari continue to have a year into 8th edition. Their win ratio is exceptional! Dark Mechanicus and Eldar Corsairs are higher because of the very low number of players who’ve played the faction, and those players performing very well. Ynnari are well represented in the pack of armies played yet have a 70% win ratio. The proof is in the pudding when you look at the last chart, showing the percent played versus the weighted win ratio. Ynnari continue to perform extremely well. The most interesting point to me in the last chart is how Imperial Knights, though highly represented, do not have a positive representation to win ratio. In my opinion this clearly demonstrates a few points about Knights in the current competitive meta. The first is that Knights are being played a lot, but not necessarily by the best (most well performing) players. The second is that Knights are regaining their gate keeper army status from the editions of yore. While they may not be winning tons of events, they are still a well performing and prolific army that have to be prepared for. The third is they seem to perform best at smaller events where it is easier for the player to draw three favorable matchups and therefore avoid their paper to their rock. A fourth point points to Imperial Knights and Astra Militarum as being crutch lists, their high play rate but low performance in the last chart indicates to me that less skilled players may have winning records with these armies but they seldom appear to be winning out over all, or even at a rate that is more balanced to the number of players running them at events.
It’s thanks to the team at Best Coast Pairings that we have all this great data to look at for each month and the tracking of all our competitive events in general. Without their hard work these articles, this type of analysis, and the ITC in general wouldn’t be possible. Besides the reveals from GW discussed at the beginning of the article NOVA, the invitational especially, is going to be a great indicator for what the Meta is right now. Stay tuned Thursday through Sunday to the GW live stream and see Geoff, iNcontrol, Robinson and Frankie from Frontline Gaming cast the NOVA opens games and discuss the weekends. Let me know what you thought in the comments and let’s hear your NOVA predictions too! I think Carlos Kaiser wins it all.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Guys, you remember when the dakkaX3 stratagem came out and people called it the worst thing ever? I clearly remember the signals after that where Reece was praising the stratagem on stuff like lootas. So let’s list how wrong he was. It was so bad that for it to not suck:
1. It’s now free
2. It now affects ALL units not just 1 per phase (can’t repeat strats in the same phase)
3. It now also carries a bonus of always hitting on a 6
4. It now also affects overwatch (previously only useable in the shooting phase), again for every single unit
5. It’s not limited to just infantry and bikes
and the best of all… people are still saying it’s only “OK” to “pretty good” after all those changes. Reece should be fuming and cursing the day this came out because, in his eyes, this will dominate the competitive scene unless it is removed from the game.
Lol, oh rvd, haha. My guy! Always coming in hard wiv da troof! No exageration or hyperbole at all. Man, after that sick burn I may need to go to the emergency room =p
In this case, I do remember going back and forth about how bad it was. Because it was nearly as good to reroll a single failed wound than use the strat.
For me, I remember reece from a few years ago that I genuinely trusted to be more accurate. Who said “eldar are broken, scatt packs are ridiculous” like the day after codex release. Nerfed invisible and 2+ rerollable. You called stuff how it was then faqed it.
I’m glad you dont have to run a second ruleset to make the game playable anymore but I do miss the Reece that called out stuff. I know a lot of people do.
Maybe it’s better for business now to be perpetually positive or you’re just in a better place in your life and showing negativity isnt your thing.
That’s what goads people. They’re struggling to win games and being told everything is fine and play better. It’s incredibly frustrating.
I got yer salt right here. People just need to tune in 😉
I’m not salty, and I’m not going for insulting. I’m really just trying to convey how I feel and how I think a large part of the community feels. Reece has had to put up with us for a long time and that requires an incredibly thick skin but I hope it doesn’t mean that the comments that are trying to help are also ignored.
Well, there’s nothing in the game like that insanity we had in 7th any more to be fair, so there’s no need to call things out in that way.
I just choose to be more positive about things these days. People appreciate it, as a matter of fact a gentlemen just stopped me in the hall at NOVA to thank me for being a positive voice and said it was what kept him playing 40k. It goes both ways.
I do appreciate your candor, though.
So you’re saying that Ynnari shining spears moving 40”, shooting, charging, and soul bursting behind LoS and AM+IG getting more CP than they use is not insane? OK.
Not insane. Powerful? Absolutely. The things armies could do at the end of 7th were insane.
Yeah, it’s really good but it’s not anything compared to a deathstar from last edition, or a Knight on a flying terrain piece.
None of that is as bad as what some Armies were doing at the end of 7th, no.
I’ll echo the voices saying nothing is as insane as it was before. We had armies that disappeared from the game, literally could not win a game ever, going first, second, if they could choose dice results they would still lose. It’s not that bad.
However, there are lots of units IN codexes in 8th that are still that bad. Before it was like, there was so much wrong with the game it was hard to get a grip with it. Which is why they deleted everything. I think it’s much closer better now but it means that the bad things stand out more.
I’m possibly growing the conversation more than a forum permits but I think I find it frustrating that I’m not sure what the qualifications for “broken” are. Like, obvious guiliman and 5 storm ravens was broken, obviously brims were broken but what is the criteria game designers use.
Like it’s really frustrating that an index ork under kff is more resilient to bolter fire than a meganob much less AP1. It’s not broken in the same way that 2 point brimstones were but it does make it difficult to run meganobs.
At least for me, the griping has taken a different direction and I think most people have as well. “I like that I can play my codex, I’m so happy I don’t auto lose when I bring daemons but I want to play slaneesh, how can I do that?”
I think that’s a lot different than “NER INVIS BLUBLAGH BLAGH”. Personally, I would like the game to move more towards making bad units good than nerfing amazing things since the ceiling of amazing has been brought down so much since 7th.
Probably too much writing for this but I had fun writing it.
I understand what you’re saying but even when we do say things are a bit much (like the CP regeneration mechanics) I try not to use over the top language or go on and on about it as it’s unprofessional and people take what we say now as indicators of what may change in the game or as hints of what’s to come even if we don’t mean it that way. We just have to be more careful about what we say, now.
I agree that there are some things that lag behind, that’s pretty obvious, but as you noted, the disparity between good and bad is so much less than it was.
Also, frankie plays a Slaanesh list and whips people with it. It’s a cool army, I’ll see if I can get him to do a writeup about it.
“Insane” is all relative. 7th was armies doing BS and armies basically flipping the table as a psychic power. 8th was toned down a LOT. So now that everyone has to play by the rules, the things I’ve mentioned are “insane”, IMO. In the Best in Faction podcast they call the CP battery completelly stupid about 3 times per show (followed up with “but ofc I will use it because why wouldn’t you”).
Is NOVA only being streamed by GW or are there more than one stream like last year?
I heard a rumor it is being streamed by Beast Coast too. But I haven’t confirmed.
Not an Ork player, myself, but I always love seeing them on the table. The weirdest thing I’ve seen all day, though, is this: a thread on Facebook about the new version of Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Almost everyone in the thread was salty. They were saying it was “broken” or “too powerful.” First of all, I think it’s a good ability. It doesn’t seem overpowered or underpowered to me. Second, are we really going to complain about this one new Ork ability allegedly being “broken?” Seriously, have you seen the state they’ve been in for multiple editions now? They need to be better! Some people, I tell you! 😉
“What do you mean you people?” I get what you’re saying, let Orks have some good stuff too.
“What do YOU mean ‘what do you mean you people’?”
“What do YOU mean ‘What do YOU mean ‘what do you mean you people?”'”
…
I’ll see myself out now.
Reece can be more positive be ause the game is sooooo much better. I have played Orks since 1992 and am as excited for my codex now as I was back then when I ran, first day of gencon, through the crowd, to get it early.
I’ve been tracking the same data, but with a slightly different focus. Instead of tracking which factions have the best win/loss ratios, I’ve been tracking which units are most popular among top players. It helps me quantify which units are better than others when I’m list-building.
I keep meaning to make a website or youtube video to share it, but haven’t had a ton of free time. If you flg folks are interested, I can type up a summary with the graphs. Just let me know where to send it.