Warhammer 40K: Metawatch – In Defense Of Small Changes
Games Workshop defended their smaller changes in the Balance Dataslate in the latest Metawatch. Are they on to something?
Two weeks ago the latest 40k Balance Dataslate dropped. We shared some analysis on if the changes in the Balance Dataslate would be enough to actually make a difference or not. Right now, it’s still way too early to tell as there hasn’t been enough significant data collected to get a good gauge. At least that’s the position that Games Workshop is taking.
“It will take time for the impact of the latest changes to become clear in the worldwide metagame – and for more events to run where the effects of these amendments can be felt. It’s still too early for us to see any real impact from this dataslate – it was only released two weeks ago, on a Thursday, so no-one running or attending an event the following weekend had time to implement the changes. As such, we only have one week of meaningful results – but this will change in the weeks to come.”
And honestly, yeah, it IS too soon to tell with only a week of data collected. But that’s not what we’re here to discuss. We’re here to chat about why these smaller changes were a better option instead of big, drastic changes — according to Games Workshop at least. First up, look at the win rates posted from October 17th:
The major outliers were the Tyranids and Harlequins on the top while the low end had Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus. Based off the color coding you’d expect those at the top and bottom would need some big changes to get propped up. And there were some players out there that were really hoping for some of those big, sweeping changes to hit the armies at the top AND bottom. Instead, GW opted for a “light touch” with these changes. Here’s what they had to say:
Balance is a delicate thing and there’s a lot of moving parts for them to juggle here. There’s also one other factor that hasn’t really been taken into consideration either:
The Leagues of Votann are about to land on the scene. For an army that got a pretty major nerf before it even launched they are bound to make an impact on the overall Meta of 40k. There’s multiple things working in favor for this army shaking things up.
- It’s a brand new army — folks aren’t going to be 100% sure how to play against it initially and it will take time to adjust.
- It’s a brand new codex — do we even need to explain Power Creep and how that’s both a thing and sometimes not as bad as it appears at first (again, players need time to adjust).
- You probably won’t see this army really take off for a few months — Players still have to buy, build, and paint a 2000 point army for them AND show up with it to tournaments. That takes time.
There are more factors but we might not even see the true impacts of the Leagues of Votann for a few more months and then it might be time for a new Balance Dataslate.
So Small Changes Are…Good?
That’s the position that GW is taking regardless if you agree with them or not. They might not be as drastic as some of the player base might have wanted and I understand some of that frustration. At the same time there are so many variables out there if GW changed too many or made a bunch of really big changes it would be too hard to tell which changes actually made a difference. Too many stacking changes — positive or negative — would be a massive overcorrection. It’s the idea of going from “guardrail to guardrail” and that’s something you generally want to avoid.
While we still don’t have a ton of data we do at least have the top ten armies from the US Open 2022 in Kansas City. And hey, look at that — no Harlequins in the top 10 and we’ve even got an Adeptus Mechanicus player there, too. Tyranids took 2 of the top 10 spots and one of them was even Hive Fleet Kraken (and not Leviathan which was the previous boogeyman). This is a (relatively) small data set but maybe those small tweaks are making a difference. Time will tell!
Do you agree with the “make small changes” approach or would you prefer massive changes instead and just deal with the fallout with the next Balance Dataslate?
