Addressing Nerf Concerns

Taken from Stat-Check.com

 
Since Dark Angels started doing well in the Pariah Nexus meta, I've been seeing a lot of people opine that our army is going to get nerfed. The argument is that, essentially, if Dark Angels are winning games and placing well at tournaments, then a nerf must be incoming. 

Respectfully, I don't think the statistics bear that out. According to Meta Monday, the win rate for the Dark Angels Gladius in the Pariah Nexus meta stands at 52%. According to Stat-Check.com it's at a 54%, but they last updated on September 4, so they're missing a week of data. Neither of those figures are above Games Workshop's stated 45%-55% Goldilocks zone for army balance. Stat-Check has us at 5 event wins, which probably means we actually have 7 as it's not taking last weekend's wins into account. Not counting this weekend's results, Chaos Space Marines and Drukhari have 9 event wins, and Adeptus Sororitas have 15. 4-0 event start players using the DA Gladius are at 8%. Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Adeptus Sororitas, and Chaos Daemons all have higher scores than that, and both the SW Champions of Russ and the Blood Angels Gladius are significantly higher than that. The one stat where Dark Angels are significantly higher than average is in top 4 placing overrepresentation, but clicking around I found at least 4 other detachments that are significantly higher in that metric. As you can see from the graph above, there are 8 other detachments with a higher win percentage than the DA Gladius.

I suspect, as a community, we Dark Angels players tend to expect to be done wrong by Games Workshop, because there's some history to bear that out. Our 4th ed codex was widely regarded to be a nerf, and we never got a 5th ed codex, which meant that when Space Marines got their 5th ed codex we stuck with unit and wargear profiles that were objectively worse than those with the same names in Codex: Space Marines. Our 6th ed codex was pretty pants too, and more recently our 10th ed codex supplement landed with a thud because of how bad it was. I don't think I'm going out on a limb by stating it was one of the most poorly received books on release in all of 10th edition thus far.

It's not hard to understand the community's pessimism, but we have to remember that armies are supposed to be able to do well. They shouldn't dominate the meta the way Aeldari and Genestealer Cults did at the beginning of 10th, but every army should be able to place well and win events when played well. And, it shouldn't take the absolute top players in the game to make that happen. A good player should stand a reasonable chance of winning an event with whatever army they happen to choose. That's where Dark Angels are at the moment, and only with the Gladius. Take the Gladius out of the equation, and the Dark Angels win rate drops to 39%.

Taken from Stat-check.com

I'm just as prone DA player pessimism as the next guy, so I'm not going to be too surprised if on the next points pass some things go up in price. I'm expecting to have to drop a character or a squad of Scouts or jump Intercessors. That said, the takeaway Games Workshop should be getting from these figures is not that our Gladius lists need to be nerfed, but that our other detachments and units need to be buffed. The current meta list is a lot more Dark Angelsey than the Ironstorm lists we were seeing before Pariah Nexus, but it's resting on the strength of just three DA datasheets: Deathwing Knights, Inner Circle Companions, and Azrael, and the bespoke DA detachments are barely a blip in the competitive meta. Games Workshop should be buffing our other units and drastically overhauling our bespoke detachments, not nerfing the one thing we have that works competitively.

I could go on, but I think I'd be beating a dead horse. I'd appreciate it if you'd click on the Follow button over on the left, and our battle brothers Bailey and Heath would appreciate you following Dank List Wargaming over on YouTube. Supporting content produced by genuine enthusiasts like them makes it more likely we'll see more of it. Until then, play hard, win games, and have faith in The Lion!