Goatboy here with whos leading 40Ks meta right now and why.
Its another Monday before the avalanche of Votann Grudges comes knocking on our door. Today we are going to talk a bit about the Meta and how its shaping up. Overall it isnt completely terrible beyond a few very boring armies that are a grind to play against. That is probably the most frustrating thing right now as a whole. Someone who is a good player could pick up and the army and cruise to a very boring victory.
The army I am talking about is the relentless Expansionist army that is currently maxing out round scores in some events. A buddy Jack Harpster from Art of War took one of these armies to the Nova and without really playing any test games (but getting attacked by them on stream games by Siegler) was only 10 points off from a perfect set of 9 games. That is pretty incredible and somewhat upsetting because it didnt seem like he was pushing it too hard. It also made for a very boring set of games just from the factor of move things up, run up your secondary score, and profit. It does help he is a good player and routinely plays some of the best 40k players in the US weekly.
But is it the best army? Um sorta. It doesnt do the game as well as others who just crush you with data slate abilities. The really best army currently is the Tyranid book with its juiced data sheets, powerful interactions, and somewhat weak secondaries. Its game is to come there, take your candy, and crush your poor little Marine spirits. If you look at the rankings a lot more Nids show up towards the top with the Leviathan builds being the best. Having army wide Transhuman, tons of damage potential, and probably the best troop in the game helps out a lot. This one feels like the army needs to get its points tweaked again bar full rewrite of datasheets which is most likely not happening. Warriors still feel too cheap or we need to really relook at Leviathans abilities as a whole just to keep things in line.
The next batch of books that seem to fit into this maybe too good range is the other best secondary army the Sisters of Battle. This is the army the people who kind of want to do everything can play. It assaults well, it shoots well, and it has the 2nd best secondary game out there. I think a lot of the reason you dont see it as much is it is expensive to gather all the pieces if you want and again falls into one build rules them all Bloody Rose. Still it feels like it is in an okay place army wise with just the Secondaries needing an actual update. Being able to hit max score by turn 2 on some of their options go against the feeling of what the secondaries are supposed to do.
In fact that is probably the biggest issue in a lot of these is that Secondaries dont feel the same. Some armies have ones that work in a way that breaks against all of the other armies options. I have talked about this but if a Shadow Operations secondary is not better than Banners then it shouldnt be printed. The same is for any secondary that allows an explosion of points in a turn where you hit 5+ points quickly. We all know how rough it was when Grey Knights would do an oops I got 6 points this turn I max out my secondary and no other army should do that as well. I would say any secondary should set some kind of Max per turn where an Action is involved. This way you can limit somethings and make sure peoples army options all work the same.
Hopping off that soap box will look at the next batch of armies that show up. Chaos Space Marines seem to be doing alright as their book is good just their secondaries have issues. Creations of Bile is leading the back due to having a sold secondary choice and a powerful set of abilities for what is really an Assault based army. It feels the best and easiest to play as you know you need to push forward, push people off of objectives, and can get into some issues because your fight on death lets you always work. I think if some of the other Legions had a more workable secondary they would show up beyond just Abaddon in all the CSM list. I do wonder if will see Abbie take a hit in an update at some point as of right now he is going to show up in a ton of Chaos Daemon options as well as Chaos Knights.
Still on the bad guy bandwagon Chaos Knights sit in an interesting place with Imperial Knights. Both armies play differently which is a good thing and both seem to have secondary play and options. Overall I think they are pretty good and help create a more unique battlefield as the Chaos Knights do have a nice play into Necrons especially if they go first. Imperial Knights look to be the more difficult of the big robot armies to play. They are really dependent on chained effects to help out all their pieces. I would like more action options for their Secondaries in both books. But until they allow Armigers to poop out a banner or two it can be a chore to find all your avenues to victory.
The pointy elf friends are always still there. While they have powerful data sheets they do suffer from just bad avenues to victory. The Aeldari just feel off on their secondary game which hurts them. The best out of the pointy ears is the Harlequins as their book is still cheap, has good secondaries, and powerful abilities. I again dont think will see as much as a lot of the better players move to either things they love (Chaos) or armies that are easier to grind out the victory due to not needing nearly as much dice luck (Necrons). Just glad we dont have to live thru a bunch of badly painted clown boats running the top tables.
Death Guard and Thousand sons both have places in the meta as they can still work. They are not nearly as shiny as the other ones but they still feel alright. I like how Death Guard feel more well rounded than Thousand Sons just due to the nature of Death Guard having a lot of unit options to play with. Thousand Sons feel like more of a chore to play with as you have a lot of interaction in all your parts, a ton of damned gold to a paint, and the army being dominated by two blocks of Terminators. Each one feels good which is a high five to GW for making the army work better. The only reason I dont play more Death Guard is I played them a ton in the beginning and really just need to get my Chaos Space Marine on.
The rest of the armies are in a weird place with either weak options (Space Marines and the like), or just a codex that is just very hard to play with (GSC). Weve got a few books coming and I have high hopes for the World Eaters. What do you think about the meta? Is it overall ok towards the middle with just a few bad eggs that make games not so exciting?
What do you think the tweaks will be when they come let alone when the new meta breakers hit the tabletop?
Subscribe to our newsletter!
Get Tabletop, RPG & Pop Culture news delivered directly to your inbox.
Thomas Reidy, aka Goatboy, the ever-evil member of BoLS. I do arts, play 40k, and even paint a lot of stuff. I have been playing Warhammer 40K since the 1990s, and have won multiple national events including Adepticon and GW GTs. I've been writing for BoLS for 15 years. Look at my Instagram to see what I am working on - or working on for someone. I am always doing something hobby related.
See more here:
Goatboy's Warhammer 40K: The Best of the Best Armies - BoLS
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
