MID YEAR META CHECK

So it's been a couple months since the shake up that was brought to us by the BIG FAQ and I'm going to be looking at a couple of the biggest events that have happened since to see what the top lists look like and what kind of themes they have.  I'll be looking at events like the London GT, the BAO, and the ETC.  Now, I fully understand that some of the ETC lists will be a little skewed from a take all comers meta, but they will give us a more focused view of the theme their list is based on.

Now, there is a pretty clear turning point when looking at some of these lists, and that turning point is when Imperial Knights was released in June.  Since then, many of the top lists have at least one Knight in them and why not?  They are tough, put out some major damage, and are pretty quick for something so large.  It ticks off all the boxes a unit needs to be effective.  The Knight is not the only model that follows this trend, Mortarion and Magnus fit this bill, but so do a lot of Death Star style units like a big unit of Custodes Vertus Jetbikes.  There is a main theme behind these units which is durability.  This can be accomplished is many ways, and while a Knight is durable in the obvious way, 200+ models are durable in a different way.  To-hit modifiers, high toughness, good saves, multiple saves, all these things come into play when talking about durability, and every list has something extra to make it more durable.

Those Knights, as with many other armies, are very CP intensive, so many players are finding a way to increase the number of CPs they start with and some way to regain them as the game progresses.  The most popular method among the Imperium is the cheap Astra Militarrm CP battery.  This is a battalion detachment that consists of a Company Commander and 3 infantry squads with mortars.  The Commander is made the Warlord and given Kurov's Aquilla and the Grand Strategist warlord trait and the detachment only costs 200 points.  3 Blood Angel scouts squad are another battery, joining the Slam-Captains to make a battalion for 5 more CP.

Anvils and batteries are all fine and dandy, but sometimes you need a dagger.  A precision strike right to the heart of the enemy and there are few units that do it better than the Blood Angles Captain lovingly nicknamed SLAMguinius.  Armed with a jump pack, thunder hammer, and storm shield, this guy can drop in to a tiny opening in the midst of the enemy and employ a stratagem that grants him very favourable odds of a successful charge and once he makes that charge it's night night to what ever he touches.  He is easy to hide, quick and easy to manoeuvre with FLY, and because he is a character your opponent will have issues targeting him all of the time.  There are not too many other armies in the game that can employ something on a similar scale as SLAMguinius but a Dawn Eagle riding Shield Captain is close, and an Eversor Assassin can fit the bill in a pinch.  Even a Harlequin transport full of dudes with fusion pistols could fill that role due to the transports small size and being open topped.

This brings me to manoeuvrability, which is something that the Aeldari (Craftworld, Drukhari, and Harlequin) do so well it's the main reason why they are as good as they are.  This high mobility allows them to get LOS on targets that were previously hidden, get in close to pick off characters, avoid or engage in combat as they wish, and hide when they need to.  This theme is also probably the most difficult to master as timing, placement, and predicting your opponent's actions are paramount to being successful, usually due to the army not being durable.

So, being fast and durable and all that is nice, but you aren't going to win games if you can't kill your opponent.  Dealing damage is key in this game and the number of ways you can deal damage equals the ways you can be durable, and you will need to be able to accomplish all of them.  For big, tough things with lots of wounds (like Knights) you need weapons with high strength, AP, and damage, like lascannons, melta weapons, or thunder hammers.  Another great way at dealing damage to very tough units is mortal wounds.  Psychic powers are particularly effective as these completely ignore the models toughness factor.  They often don't require hit or wound rolls and ignore all saves except for the "Feel No Pain" type rolls.   For those armies with 200+ models you need QUANTITY shooting like hurricane bolters, auto bolt storm gauntlets, punisher cannons, or 200 of your own scrubs you can throw into the meat grinder.  There is another type of damage I'm not sure what to call, reliable perhaps?  It typically ignores one of the main rules for shooting such as mortars ignoring LOS and flamers automatically hitting.  There has also been a decrease in "throw away" units, and a focus on getting those units used for bubble wrap or speed bumps to actually be able to do something.  The AM infantry squads in the battalion battery detachment are given mortars so they can be hidden, hold objectives, and still participate in the offencive tactics of the overall army.  Cultists are being infiltrated and given the mark of Slaanesh so they can fire 160 shots per shooting phase, a weird kind of alpha bitch-slap.

As you look at the above themes then look over the lists that win tournaments, you will notice something, many of the units fit into multiple categories.  Take a look at the Custodes Shield Captain on a Dawn Eagle jet bike.  Being T6 with a 2+/4++ save and 7 wounds, 14"M, 5 attacks at S6 -3AP d3D hitting on 2+ and 12 bolter shots hitting on 2+ and re-rolling all 1's to hit.  He is Durable, mobile, deadly, and can be that dagger, which checks off 4 of the above 5 themes I have outlined.  Plague Burst Crawlers are T8 with a 3+/5++ save and a 5+ FNP.  They have 2 guns that auto hit and one that ignores LOS, plus they move 10", while they don't have FLY it can be pretty damn surprising when an artillery type tank comes charging at you with 2D6 auto hits at S7 AP-1.
Now, for every theme that a unit does not have, it is often that much better in one of the other themes.  For example, and lets stay with Custodes for ease of comparison, a unit of 3 Vertus Jetbikes loses out on being as nimble and durable as the Shield Captain due to their larger foot print and not being a character (even with their increased number of overall wounds).  However their damage output is more than double that of the Shield Captain for less than double the points.



"I see you have the machine that goes PING!"

Lets compare notes from my end of year review from December.  The summary of that post is Celestine, re-rolls, alpha strike, bubble wrap, and smite.  Compare those themes to the ones laid out here, durability, command points, assassin like characters, manoeuvrability and a focus on damage output.

Now, there are some big changes to the lists in general, but when you look at the themes, they are not that different.  Celestine has been replaced with multiple generic characters, typically the BA SLMAcaptain or Custodes Shield Captain on Dawneagle.  Re-rolls are not nearly as focused on as they were before, Guilliman didn't show up in any of the top lists I looked at, but the captains that replaced Celestine still hand out re-rolls.  Guide and Doom are pretty popular as are Nurgle Daemon Princes and plague weapons.  The lack of re-rolls has been replaced with simple quantity of shots, favouring more bullets over of re-rolls but both tie into damage output.  The alpha strike still exists, but players have begun to compensate for this as the durability of units has skyrocketed and because units can't deep strike turn 1 the style of alpha strike is firepower based opposed to assault based.  Bubble wrap still exsists, but with the loss of drop alpha strike allowing armies to move out   Finally smite, which used to be so prevalent, is now only a token ability that is gently sprinkled around, although it can still be used to great effect by certain armies.

If you are really going to boil it down to the bare bones, you want to kill your opponent, stay alive, get objectives.  Easy...

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.