Warhammer 40K: GW’s Orlando Open Proves 8th Codexes Are In Serious Trouble
Take a look at the results from the Orlando Open, and the lessons it holds for 9th’s past and future.
A couple weeks ago the Orlando Open took place in, shocker, Orlando Fl. The Orlando open was not only one of the largest events of the past 2 years, but it is arguably the most important so far. As the first of GW’s North American circuit and their return to running major events outside of the UK, this was a major event. As a GW-run GT, we know that the event was run how GW wants it to be. That means as far as any one event (which is admittedly very limited) can show us the state of the meta, and in particular, the state of the meta when the game is played how GW wants it to be played, Orlando is that event. What it showed is that older books are in some serious trouble. Let’s take a look.
The Data
When talking about the results of the Orlando open GW put out a handy chart showing the win percentage of armies there. The chart is a little odd to me. While most armies are pretty straight forward there are a few that are a little harder to understand. Tzeentch and Slannesh for instance aren’t official armies at all. Were these soup armies just using models from the god? Was the Tzeentch list Chaos Daemons and Thousand Sons? Or just one of those? Likewise, I’m not a huge fan of Imperium and Aeldari tags, as they also hide combinations. A Drukhari/Ynnari list is far different from a Craftworld/Harlequin list. Lastly of course the list doesn’t take into account, though it notes, the number of armies played. Thus a couple of factions, Tzeentch and Forces of The Hive Mind, are placed very highly on the list. This is however, due to only a single player using each faction and doing fairly well for themselves. Overall however the data suggest that older armies suffer a lot.
The Top of The List Is Dominated By Newer Books
Drukhari, a newer 9th Edition book absolutely dominated the event with a 64% overall win rate. This is insane, but also par for the course for Dark Eldar in 9th, so much for nerfs. Nor was this a fluke, with 14 players fielding them they were the 3rd most played faction. Overall however the top part of the list, those with a better than 50% win rate, was dominated by newer books. Blood Angels, Admech, Sisters, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, and Drukahri, all newer books got in above the 50% win ratio. Some older books also made it in, Chaos Daemons, Imperial Knights, CSM, Tzeentch, Forces of The Hive Mind and Custodes all made it in also and are older 8th Ed books (I’m discounting the 3 Imperium players as its not clear what books they used). On the face of it, that seems impressive for the older books, however, most of those factions had a small representation.
If we look at the number of players in those factions combined we find 21 players in the 8th Ed books. In comparison 9th Ed books with a better than 50% win rate were run by a total 55 players. Overall its clear that 9th books are dominating at the top of the lists.
The Bottom is Run by 8th Ed Books
But what about the bottom lists? Well Nids, Carftworld, Harlequins, Chaos, Aldari, Renegade Knights, T’au Grey Knights, Orks, Astra Miliatrum, Thousand Sons, Slannesh and GSC (three of these armies have new books that were not legal in the event) are all 8th Ed armies that had less than a 50% win ratio. There were some 9th Ed armies down there also, Space Wolves, Necron and Death Guard all fell down. Space Marines are their own special case I’ll address in a bit. As we can see the majority of 8th ed armies ended up with a less than 50% win ratio. In terms of players 52 players were in those 8th Ed armies, while 38 players were in the 9th armies that had less than 50% win ratios. This is closer than in the top bracket, but has its own issue I’ll discuss in a moment.
The Space Marine Divide 
On this chart, we can see that Space Marines are broken down into a few subsections. Adeptus Astartes represents the six 8th ed Supplements combined into one category. Meanwhile, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Deathwatch (the 9th Ed supplements) all get their own category. Adeptus Astartes are by far the largest group on the list with 26 players, and they did horribly. Meanwhile, the 9th Edition supplements all did much better, with only Space Wolves not breaking the 50% win rate. Here is a really stark divide – the Marines with a 9th Ed Codex and Supplement far outperformed those with a mixed 9th Ed Codex and 8th Ed Supplement and it wasn’t even close.
The 9th Ed Power Creep
Not only can we see a power difference between 8th ed and 9th ed books, but also one within 9th Ed itself. The two most played factions at this event were Space Marines and Necrons. Both had pretty poor performances ended up under 50% win rate. While this might partly be due to the number of people playing them, it should also be noted that they are the oldest 9th ed armies. Indeed, discounting Marine supplements, we can see that overall the three most recent books, Admech, Sister and Drukhari out preformed the three older 9th books, and most of the Marine Suppliments as well. This shows a pretty clear power divide shaping up.
The Custodes Outlier 
So what about the Custodian Guard? If we discount factions with only 1 player, they had the 2nd highest win rate at the event, and with a respectable 10 players, about 1/20th of the total players. They are an 8th Ed book that did amazingly well, so what gives? Well, I think it likely has to do with Frogeworld. While the Custodian book is an aging 8th Ed Book, about half their units come from Forgeworld and they got a major makeover. Calling them a pure 8th Ed Book is thus a little misleading, as they get a lot out of updated 9th ed datasheets. I think even with them as a bit of an outlier, it is still clear that the newer books are seeing a real advantage.
Let Us Know What You Think This Means, Down In the Comments!
