Games Workshop to Balance “Space Marine Meta” in Competitive 40k by Releasing Sisters of Battle
NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND – In what many are calling a truly professional move for a gaming company, Games Workshop announced recently that their solution to the “Space Marine Meta” dominating Warhammer 40K Competitive, is to release Sisters of Battle. Jacob Havershim, a production manager for GW, sat down with BTE!’s own Alium Cepa, Editor Praetor, to discuss the developments further.
Alium Cepa (A.C.): Hey Jacob! Great to have you with us.
Jacob Havershim (J.H.): Great to speak with you as well! Why the teal helmet? It’s just a normal Skype inter-
A.C.: No need to worry about that! Having some work done around the house and the dust is an issue, hence the breathing helmet I have on. Also the vocal distortion you’re hearing is also because of the construction. So! Tell us about GW planned on solving the issue of the “Space Marine Meta”?
J.H.: Right, um ok. Um,so, while working with the 40K Rules team, we knew that Space Marines were going to seriously impact the competitive scene. We also anticipated that this would lead to a large upheaval too, with many players switching to marines, while many more still staying absolutely loyal to their chosen factions, be it Chaos or Xenos. So, planning ahead of our Space Marine release, we recognized the best way to balance marines in the competitive 40K meta was to release Sisters of Battle.
A.C.: Wow! Incredible forethought of your own releasing patterns. Now, does the new Sister’s army act as a counter balance? Do their rules allow for players to go toe-to-toe with Space Marines, or counter various builds they have?
J.H.: Um, surprisingly no, the rules are not actually the crux of how they act as a counterbalance. See, our vision was that, as the hype for Space Marines started to cool off, but the residual disagreement with their balance remained, we would release a very anticipated, extremely well designed army to not only distract players from these issues, but in fact lure players away from both camps. Specifically, the disgruntled Xenos and Chaos players, and the 30% of players who jumped onto the Chapter bandwagon, as it were.
A.C.: That’s a pretty clever solution! I mean, all of us here at BTE! are absolutely in love with the model sculpts, design aesthetic, and the Miracle Dice element. They truly do feel like a new-again army that can fit right in. Is there any sense of how many players will switch over to Sisters of Battle?
J.H: We anticipate a large number of sales, as hobbyists and painters are dying to get their hands on these models. That said, our current estimates show that approximately 35-40% of players currently playing Space Marines now (which is to say about 75% of players who switched to Marines in the first place when the codex was announced and previewed) will switch to Sisters. We also estimate about 25% of Xenos players and a surprising 15% of Chaos players will also switch to Sisters as well.
A.C.: Quite the estimate! So 25% of each Xenos faction or?…
J.H.: Actually yes, approximately 22-25% of each Xenos faction will switch to Sisters, with the exception of Aeldari players, whom we’ve found prefer to complain about other codexes, labeling their armies as victims, and pretend their dominance for 5 editions hasn’t occurred. Tyranid players we don’t expect as much of a shift either, as they take the whole ‘world eating swarm’ concept for their armies pretty seriously, and won’t stop collecting Tyranids. That’s why we keep producing “Start Collecting” boxes for that faction; they keep buying them! We’re honestly not sure if they understand the ‘Rule of Three’ either.”
A.C.: Great stuff! Well thanks for stopping by to talk with Jacob! We appreciate it and we’ll be seeing you again very soon.
J.H.: Of course! Happy to be here and, uh, you’ll be what now?
A.C.: Hmm?
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