40K: State of the Meta – Q2 2011
Wargamescon 2011 has come and gone, but it gave us a large amount of data on what the community is playing. Here’s what we are seeing right now.
First up, We had lots and lots of 40K players at WargamesCon, but we picked the large 2 day Warhammer 40000 tournament for our sample. It gave us a few things.
-Large player count (140)
-Highly competitive event
-First large scale event on the circuit post release of the Grey Knight codex.
Here is who showed up:
Some things to take a look at. First of all, Grey Knights has been out for merely 3 months, and seems to have been embraced by the competitive circuit. Take a look at what things looked like pre Grey Knights after Adepticon in March 2011 here.
In general, it looks like Grey Knights have arrived with a splash, mainly at the expense of the Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, and a general continuation of the downward trends of the older codices (especially Chaos Marines). Dark Eldar have established themselves as strong contentors, and in a continuation of what was seen in Chicago, Orks keep showing up in strong numbers and are routinely seen at the top tables – very impressive for such an older codex.
I personally think Grey Knights is an ideal new army from a commerical point of view – custom tailored for new players. It provides a powerful ruleset, is relatively easy to use (say compared to Dark Eldar), has a low model count, is easy to paint (like Necrons), and has the fluff and visual aesthetic of being the elite of the elite Space Marines. Well played Games Workshop, well played indeed…
Have at it folks.
