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!
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.
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