Warhammer Community released a metawatch article which have been nice to see inner glimpses of what GW’s plans are for the state of the meta in Warhammer 40,000…however the latest article feels more jarring than informative.
If I’m being brutally honest, this article feels like a PR move to reinforce that their latest dataslate was a good move, and I think that’s what the majority of the vocal community is clamoring about. We did an article about the the little dataslate that couldn’t, that you can read here. Long story short, nerf to Tyranids and Harlequins while giving Space Marines an easier way to score Shock Tactics. There were plenty of things that the dataslate didn’t address or answer which has become increasingly more concerning when you take into consideration that the next Field Manual (adjustment of points) won’t be coming until next year.
So until then, this is all we’ve got going into 2023.
Today, I want to give some constructive criticism on how this article reads and why it’s so frustratingly inaccurate while being slightly deceiving to spin GW’s agenda.
“The changes in the latest dataslate were deliberately light touches, but we expect they’ll have an impact. This approach of making small adjustments helps us to determine how effective each of those changes have been – and what to do in response if they’re not having the desired effect. If we introduced three powerful new special rules for an underperforming army which then started consistently overperforming, it could be tricky to work out which of those additions to reverse. The same is true for applying multiple penalties or restrictions to powerful factions.”
Warhammer 40,000 Metawatch – Evolution Not Revolution
I straight up call bullshit on this. The article states that they don’t want to make large strides with their nerfs and buffs because it would be hard to dial in balance, however we’ve seen time and time again this isn’t true at all. Let me please introduce you to the Ork buggy nerfs, ADEPTUS CUSTODES ADEPTUS CUSTODES ADEPTUS CUSTODES, Armor of Contempt was a PRETTY BIG buff don’t you think?, Harlequins getting nerfed so much and so hard and so frequently there’s literally no diversity in the army which was already small to begin with, didn’t they just nerf League of Votann by removing a large rule of the army before they were even released?. Sure we can just say, “hey they learned from their mistakes and are trying to be better at it…” well then why not just say that?
I’d rather have a company talk about how their previous patch was off the mark and so they’re re-adjusting their thought process than to be left in the dark and being forced to think, they’ve been like this the whole time! It just feels so disingenuous.
Alright the meat of the potatoes, the faction winrates of what I believe to be the winrates from the last metawatch article until now. I don’t really know because it doesn’t specify in the article, but I’m assuming that’s what it is as it’s what they’ve stated before in previous articles. Keep in mind, this information is only calculating the US Open events and not everything else that’s happening in the 40k scene. So things like tournaments that use Player Optimized Terrain are not included in here and if you’ve been to a US Open and a POT type of event, the lists you bring differ on the terrain layout for the event.
Let’s compare this list to the one over at Goonhammer from their 40kstats depot which tracks the information from the Tabletop Battles App. I used real win % (removed mirror matches) and highlighted the differences of stats: yellow being around a 3% difference and red being around a 5% difference.
The top placements are close to what 40kstats has but with slight differences. For example according to 40kstats, the top 5 armies are Harlequins, Tyranids, Necrons, Custodes and Daemons. Metawatch sees it as Tyranids, Harlequins, Ynnari, Sororitas and Necrons.
I find this interesting because at GW events Drukhari is considered to be a 51% winrate faction, however according to 40kstats out of 846 games Drukhari had a winrate of 43.40% which is SIGNFICANTLY different and paints a much different picture.
According to the Metawatch article, it claims that their aim was to bring every faction to have a 45-55% winrate which is what they consider to be “balanced,” and seemingly every army does that except for Adeptus Mechanicus and Space Marines. Over at 40kstats, it’s Asuryani, Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Astra Militarum, Dark Angels, Admech, Space Marines and Death Watch which is a faction we left out because it’s a faction that the article had also left out.
I’m not saying that GW is doing things wrong, they’re just painting with their own paints instead of what’s available to everyone in the market and now I feel like these stats aren’t showing me an actual tracking of the Meta but what the company wants to show us.
Last weekend, Zaak Kerstetter’s Blood Angels won the Kansas City Warhammer Open Grand Tournament, narrowly beating the Thousand Sons in the final game of the event – proving that in the hands of skilled players, even armies that are statistically in the middle of the pack are capable of beating anyone.
Warhammer 40,000 Metawatch – Evolution Not Revolution
First off, congratulations to Zaak for taking the win at the Kansas City Warhammer Open and taking one home for the Blood Angels!
However, the rest of this blurb strikes me as odd. It’s twisting the narrative to fit their agenda which is bound to rile up people’s jimmies including my own. Reading on…
No Harlequins or Necrons managed to reach the upper levels of the standings, which makes a change from the picture earlier in the year – and there was even an Adeptus Mechanicus army in the top 10, despite their shortcomings in the global meta. With the latest dataslate removing restrictions and returning the CORE keyword to their Ironstrider engines, we hope to see their results improving.
Warhammer 40,000 Metawatch – Evolution Not Revolution
Okay, first things first – when you look at the Thousand Sons army list and see that the player Mani Cheema, dropped in 15 CRACKED Tzeentch flamers into the Thousand Sons list which wasn’t mentioned at all is ridiculous (however they mention the soup of Astra Militarum and Grey Knights). This 3 block set of units is incredibly strong and can just about lift any list out there that can take them to the next podium.
A 5 man unit will always at MINIMUM (meaning they rolled all 1’s) get 20 flamer shots at S5 AP2 D1. Abilities to get extra strength and +1 to wound and having a demon save of a 3+ and moving 12″ and it’s an assault weapon so you can advance and it’s a 12″ gun and they’re infantry so they can breach through walls and they’re 3 wounds each and a 5 man unit only costs 125 POINTS.
Please excuse my utter shock when you look at the other 2 Daemon armies being represented in the top 10 had brought their own 3 blocks of units of either 6 or 5 mans. That would make up 3 armies pulling from the Chaos Daemons book in this top 10 list.
Does that mean it’s really a Thousand Sons list that’s a Middle of the Road faction statistically or is the trend of fitting one of the most cracked units of the game and shoving them into a list with a good pilot that understands how to play the deciding factor here.
Another piece of information to ponder is that the Adeptus Mechanicus list that they’re mentioning made it into the top 10 was also a list that contained no Ironstriders or any of the units that gained the CORE keyword back, and that changed dropped TWO dataslates ago not the latest one.
As I’ve stated before in past articles, I do enjoy the idea that GW has of updating and balancing the game more often, however I just wish there was some form of transparency here that helps us understand both the mistakes and how they’ll be fixed. I would sooner trust someone who’s made mistakes, apologized and made efforts to fix them than to trust someone who claims that do not make mistakes.
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