Age of Sigmar: Can We Talk About The Latest Metawatch?
Games Workshop released some data regarding the Meta of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and it’s got some surprising info.
Yesterday, GW posted a new Metawatch Article about the state of Age of Sigmar. There’s a lot of useful info in there. There was also a 16 minute video going over the Meta, how GW collects the data, and what they do with it. That’s something I hope we see more from in the future.
But what we’re all really curious about here at BoLS is the win rates of the armies:
We know from previous examples that GW is ideally looking for armies to fall in the 45-55% win rate area. That’s to account for a 5% margin of error result. So when an army is outside of that range it’s easy to spot those outliers. If you take a look at the chart above it’s clear there are a few of those outliers in the win rate department.
The Top End Win Rates
- Beast of Chaos – 63%
- Maggotkin of Nurgle – 58%
- Sons of Behemat – 57%
- Disciples of Tzeentch – 56%
- Bonesplitterz – 56%
The most shocking army on this list is the Beast of Chaos. They weren’t exactly tearing up the meta in previous check-ins. However, they got a HUGE boost thanks to a White Dwarf update. It’s the power of the Herdstone and some heavy-hitting warscroll updates that really propelled them to the top. Now if we could only get those changes in a new Battletome with a better look at the balance…
The other army two armies that are probably going to get a closer look are the Maggotkin and Sons of Behemat. Nurgle’s forces are being helped out quite a bit by Pusgoyle Blightlords and also a specific subfaction with the Drowned Men. They might be looking at a tweak in the future. For the Sons, they seem to be in a different bind. They aren’t winning overall events (getting a “podium” finish) but they are going to events and winning at least 2 games. Personally, I think this is a bit of a player skill-gap vs them. They might get “easy” wins but they can’t seem to crack the top 3 meaning they are getting shut out by players who might know how to handle them better at the top tables.
The Bottom End Win Rates
- Ossiarch Bonereapers – 43%
- Slaves To Darkness – 41%
- Gloomspite Gitz – 40%
- Kruleboyz – 38%
The Ossiarch Bonereapers are in a rough spot. The current season does not favor them thanks to Bounty Hunters and the loss of Hunter of the Heartlands. As a friend of mine put it:
“So basically either they get roared and can’t use shield wall or they get hit by bounty hunters doing double damage, or both.”
That’s kind of a huge problem for the OBR army as the Mortek Guard are kind of the go-to option for Battleline. If you don’t have a ton of Kavalos Deathriders around or a Krondspine, you’re in a tough spot. Personally, I’m still salty about the core changes that basically gave everyone OBR’s mechanics and didn’t give them anything to cope with the new edition. This book needs a redo. But speaking of redos…
Slaves to Darkness is also looking rough these days. On the plus side, they have a new book and army update coming soon. Hopefully that helps.
On the bottom rung we have the Gloomspite Gitz and the Kruleboyz. GW summed this one up pretty well:
“At the bottom end, Kruleboyz and Gloomspite Gitz both continue to struggle, and have suffered at the hands of Bounty Hunters. Both factions should expect significant boosts in the next Battlescroll.”
Yep. This season’s rules haven’t been kind to either army but it’s a real shame that Kruleboyz, one of the newest armies in the game, has been panned pretty hard. There are a few builds that can work but it’s an uphill fight most games. Good thing they weren’t too strong right out of the gate though, otherwise TOs would have just banned them until they got nerfed…right?!
In anycase, when GW drops the next balance update for AoS I’m hoping we see the top end and the bottom end get a good once-over. The closer they can get the two extremes to each other the better for the overall health of the game.
