Warhammer 40K: AdMech Are Taking Over The Meta With Their Codex Creep
Codex Creep is real and it’s taking over the meta. Let’s take a look at the AdMech.
Admech, the Adeptus Mechanicus are one of the newer 40K armies. While they’ve been in the lore pretty much forever, they’ve only been a stand alone army since 7th Edition. Starting with a relatively small line up they’ve expanded rapidly. Now with their new 9th Edition Codex they gotten some more units, on the back of a late 8th expansion, and jumped into the limelight as a meta dominating force. Let’s take a look.
Codex Creep
Codex Creep/Power Creep is broadly speaking the idea that newer rules/codices are better than older ones. There are a number of reasons for this kind of creep. Newer book have more to be worked on. They are better able to react to the current meta and trends. They come later on when the writers have a better feel for the rules/editions and have already tested out ideas in older books. And we can’t discount that people, both players, and companies want newer products to be good. That builds hype and sells models. It’s not exactly fun when a new book comes out and is instantly worse than what is already around (when was the last people were hyped for Tyranids?). This effect may be on purpose or on accident but it is pretty well known.
9th Creep
9th Edition started out kind of ok for creep. Space Marines, while powerful, were in many ways a bit toned down from the highest of 8th Edition. Necrons too were just kind of an OK army, and a host of Space Marine Supplements ended up being mostly lateral moves. Still, overall 9th Edition books are clearly better off overall than 8th ones are, as I’ve pointed out. Death Guard, while not super dominant, are one of the top meta lists with a 9th book. Then came Drukhari. If ever there was a case of Codex Creep they are it. This book hit the scene and instantly took over. It absolutely ruled the meta, not only winning tournaments but racking up a massively impressive win/loss ratio.
AdMech Arrives
Of course Drukhari couldn’t rule forever. However, it was not new tactics or army adjustments that would dethrone them. Instead, it was the release of another new book: AdMech. Since they’ve become tournament legal they’ve started a major take over, replacing Drukhari as the top dogs. Since June 26th Admech have won 13 of the 25 tournaments recorded on 40Kstats.com. Winning over 50% of events is pretty impressive and makes them by far the most dominant faction (even if they are a much less played faction). It’s even more impressive when you realize that the next most winning army won a mere 3 of those events. AdMech, thanks to just a ton of overlapping rules and crazy complex effects are a massively powerful army. Talking to people who have played them and faced them in events the new Codex seems to be a real issue.
About That Other Army
If you are curious about which army picked up 3 wins, including winning the Lone Star Open, the largest event during this period, it was the Adepta Sororitas. This book came out just after Admech, but the two were released at effectively the same time. This is another brand new book that is showing up as the 2nd dog in the meta (and not even all its new units are out, it could still get better). Indeed in those 25 events we looked at over the past month only a single one was won by an 8th Edition army, while 20 of them in total were won by the last 4 books to have been released. So Admech might be the top meta dogs right now, but if the current trend goes this is only going to last until another more powerful book comes out very soon.
Maybe just maybe Orks, Grey Knights, or Thousand Sons can get their moment in the sun!
Let us know what you think about Codex/Power Creep, down in the comments!
