The Meta In Review: Codex Release to Start of 10.5

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Hello, battle brothers! As we begin a new chapter in the evolution of 40K, I'd like to take a moment to review of our statistics in the meta. This is to give us an idea of how we've fared since our supplement  released, what's worked for us, and what hasn't. My information sources are the Meta Dashboard at Stat-check.com, the Meta Monday Report for the last weekend before the Balance Dataslate and all its rules went live, and the Player Ranking Page at Best Coast Pairings. The Meta Dashboard and Meta Monday pages pool data from Grand Tournaments and larger events, while ITC Player Ranking also takes data from Rogue Trader Tournaments.

Since the release of our book, Dark Angels players have made up 3% of the player population and GTs and larger events, for a total of 233 players. We've had a 43% win rate, which is dismal, tied for the lowest in the game with generic Space Marines, Deathwatch, and Tyranids. Dark Angels players represent only about 2% of players who make it into the top 4 at events.

By far the most played detachment was the Ironstorm Spearhead at 34% of the player base, or 82 players. The Ironstorm had a 54% win rate and was the detachment players used to bring in all 5 of our event wins. The next most played detachment was the Gladius Task Force, 24% of the player base, 59 players in all, with a 40% win rate. Next most played was the Inner Circle Task Force, 19% of players, 47 players, 32% win rate. From there the numbers dropped sharply. Only 4% of players, about 40 each, played either the Company of Hunters or the Unforgiven Task force, with CoH players only getting a 39% win rate, and UTC players a dismal 21%. 

On Best Coast Pairings, there are 641 Dark Angels players in the rankings. The top ranked Dark Angels player is Kit Smith Hanna, which should come as no surprise to those who have been reading my blog.  In the overall 40K 10th ed rankings, he is 126th out of 15715 players. Liam Callebout (whose name has also come up in these articles) is the #2 Dark Angels player, and actually scores higher than Kit in the overall rankings, at 42nd, so he must not be playing Dark Angels for all his games. I certainly recognized a lot of names in the top 20 Dark Angels players, but not all of them rang a bell. I take some pride in being, as of this writing, in 40th place, though that's as much about persistence as performance. 

There is certainly room for improvement in our performance, and while we didn't get any points reductions as I'd hoped we'd get, overperforming armies did see points hikes, and we got some improvements to two of our detachments, to Deathwing Knights, Inner Circle Companions, and the Lion. I'm skeptical the Unforgiven Task Force is improved enough to matter, but the Inner Circle Task Force certainly got quite a buff, which combined with the improvements to DWKs and ICCs  make it seem likely that detachment's win rate should improve. My hope is there will be more variety in our high performing lists than the parade of Ironstorms we've seen in the past, and that more of our unique units will feature in those lists. My current list is a little more varied that it was, featuring Deathwing Knights, Ravenwing Knights, a Ravenwing Command Squad, and of course Azrael and a Darkshroud.  I'll let you know how it performs, and I hope to hear success stories from all of you!

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