Dr. Z’s 40k: Over/Under

Doctor Z here from Doctor Z’s Laboratory, This week I want to try something a little bit different, let’s play over/under with 40K’s hotbutton issues.

I’ve always loved guessing the over/under lines for teams win/lose records before the start of the NFL season. So I thought this year I’d apply it to 40k.  For those of you not familiar with the over/under concept it goes something like this. I’ll pose a question and give a number as a possible answer. Your job is to tell me if the correct number should be over or under the number I give you.

An age old debate in wargaming is list vs. player skill and with the gap in power level between casual and competitive list growing it’s never been more relevant.  What percentage of the wins for uber competitive army lists like Wave Serpent spam Adamantium Lance and Centurion Stars should be attributed to player skill as opposed to the list being so powerful?

We know for a fact that Games Workshop does playtest the rules for their army books, it just doesn’t always feel like it. How many games do you think they test before releasing each new army book/codex?

On Jan 1^st new Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree took over. Normally this is a big moment for a company and it’s not uncommon for such a change to be followed with sweeping changes especially for a company whose sales drop 8.2% in the previous fiscal year. What makes this situation different is the fact that Kevin Rountree has been with the company since 1998 and had been operating as COO. How many changes in the next year will Games Workshop make that we will be able to directly attribute to the new CEO.

According to torrentoffire.com the top 2 armies by winning percentage are Imperial Knights (64.29%), and Eldar (56.55%). With the incredibly fast pace with which the Meta is changing is it possible for these armies to maintain their position? By Jan 1^st next year what are the odds that at least one of these armies will still be in the top spot?

As I just mentioned Imperial Knights are the most winning army in the game and no one is questioning their effectiveness either individually or as part of a formation. With the Las Vegas Open coming up I expect to see this trend continue in their 40k championships. So the question is how many Imperial Knights models will be in the top 8 army list of that event  

At the rate codices have been coming out in the last 2 years in the next few months we should reach the point where every book is available in hard cover. So the question is once that happens will Games Workshop start releasing new supplements and campaign books or will they go back through and update the books released in 6^th edition?  This year how many full codex releases will there be?

The debate over comp or no comp in tournaments may have hit an all time high. Many events in Europe as well as the United States have issued what are essentially house rules for their events (see LVO and invisibility), while others have pushed hard to play as close to an unaltered game as possible(see Adepticon). At the same time alternate formats like Highlander have hit a huge rise in popularity. With that in mind what percentage of GTs in the coming year do you think will have significant Comp?