Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just had a look at the WHC article around army performance.

Tyranids seem to be leading the pack - bit surprised with that one.

Harlies a close second - no surprise there.

Boy oh boy though. Space Marines and Ad Mec are getting fairly badly curb stomped. Very surprised with Space Marines as they are the poster boy army.

The question being, is the data posted by WHC reflective of your own experiences?

Interested to know as someone who actively gave 9th a pass to see what 10th brings.

I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

I'm looking forwards to all the people telling us how GW can't balance a game and they're lying/data is incorrect etc when by all accounts it does look like they're doing a good job and Marines are in need of a shot in the arm, but that's not a shock.

 jaredb wrote:
I am not surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

Good point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm looking forwards to all the people telling us how GW can't balance a game and they're lying/data is incorrect etc when by all accounts it does look like they're doing a good job and Marines are in need of a shot in the arm, but that's not a shock.

Well that isn't the intention of the thread so they can take their vitriol elsewhere.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:


The question being, is the data posted by WHC reflective of your own experiences?

Yes.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

Necrons and SoB are being propped up by their secondaries(and are in 4 and 5th place in those metawatch standings so they are doing good). Tweak the secondaries and Necrons and Sisters will drop. They have also been sitting sweet under the 55% win rate so they are within the expected margins(45-55%), but should we watched as Stu Black talks about in the video.

I highly recommend looking at the Meta Monday posts on r/warhammercompetitive. You can see how many people are playing and overall weekend wins as well as season potential.

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

Only the data isn't from store noob events, but tournaments. The new marine players can't be the deciding factor in draging the factions down, because the same would be happning to other factions, and the win/lose curve would be more smooth. There would also be some genius marine players who would take IF or CF and win events with them somewhere. That does not happen. That has not happned through out the entire 9th ed.

Necrons and SoB are being propped up by their secondaries(and are in 4 and 5th place in those metawatch standings so they are doing good). Tweak the secondaries and Necrons and Sisters will drop. They have also been sitting sweet under the 55% win rate so they are within the expected margins(45-55%), but should we watched as Stu Black talks about in the video.

It is funny to me that the way GW writes about the 5% statistical error is if all it did was to go up for bad or weaker armies. As if an army which sits at 45% was actualy at 50%, so balanced. And and vice versa for the top armies the win % can only go down and never go up.

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

Shouldn't an abundance of a certain army be controlled for?
Or atleast info on that shown.

Karol wrote:
Only the data isn't from store noob events, but tournaments. The new marine players can't be the deciding factor in draging the factions down, because the same would be happning to other factions, and the win/lose curve would be more smooth. There would also be some genius marine players who would take IF or CF and win events with them somewhere. That does not happen. That has not happned through out the entire 9th ed.

It is explained why if you read the article.
Space Marines are by far the most common 40k army to play, especially by new people. So off the bat we already have Marines seeing a skew in both the number of players and the number of players with less game experience. When this comes to a tournament, people are more likely to play against a Space Marine opponent than any other army, which means they have a greater chance to learn how to counter the strategies, lists, and units used by Marine players. This isn't to say all Marine lists are the same, rather the similarities between them and the tactics used will often overlap which means the opponent won't be as likely to be caught off guard. When combined with the greater number of players who are less familiar with their army, you have the recipe for why the Marine win rate is the second bottom.

Also being the first Codex of an edition hasn't helped. Necrons have had how many buffs now just to keep them from being utterly awful?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

Reading a netlist or watching a tactic video doesn't mean you're going to get it though. I could watch a hundred videos on how to play Deathwatch competitively but without the actual experience, I'll not get any better.
The number of times in days gone by that a kid would rock up to game days at the local GW with a netlist and get stomped by someone with a good understanding of their army is too high for me to count. Every so often they'd win a game or two but theory is no substitute for knowledge.

Also, just so its perfectly clear, I ain't defending GWs data gathering or saying people who disagree are wrong, just offering some opinions.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

I think the answer is honestly both.

a lot of marine players show up to tournaments and will even have optimized netlists, but they will be absolute gak at playing the army. they won't use cover or try to get out of sight, don't understand secondary's and seem to play like its 5th edition or missions that score at the end of the game or like they are trying to just table the opponent. note this is not all marines players, nor a majority, but i would argue from what i have seen in the tournament scene its not an insignificant part either. Put another way there are just more low skill marine players in these tournaments, it doesn't help that the starter boxes are always including marines and learning the game takes time and effort a lot of people either do not have or will not put into it. If they were at ~42-43% but still taking wins in a few major sized tournaments or at least consistantly podium or top 8 appearances this would mean they are doing well (they aren't currently)

That said they do certainly need some help. Armor of contempt was a gak fix which didn't address most of their issues, and mostly hindered medium performing armies. were I to try and give them a blanket rule armor of contempt would have been thrown out in brainstorming and a few mini transhuman rule for all astartes tried out. somethign like a 1 or 2 to wound always fails, or a blanket -1 to the to wound roll but where 6s still always wound. Though honestly I think they could just be fixed with points adjustments ~10-15% across for most units.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

The internet won't teach you to be a good player. It can help, but it won't turn amatures into pros. See: the horde of netlisters who will still lose to competent players.

Having all the information in the world is great, but being able to properly contextualize that information and appropriately flex when those contexts change is another thing entirely.

 Insectum7 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

The internet won't teach you to be a good player. It can help, but it won't turn amatures into pros. See: the horde of netlisters who will still lose to competent players.

Having all the information in the world is great, but being able to properly contextualize that information and appropriately flex when those contexts change is another thing entirely.

40k isn't the most complex game, exactly. Your argument only works on a deeper game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:

Karol wrote:
Only the data isn't from store noob events, but tournaments. The new marine players can't be the deciding factor in draging the factions down, because the same would be happning to other factions, and the win/lose curve would be more smooth. There would also be some genius marine players who would take IF or CF and win events with them somewhere. That does not happen. That has not happned through out the entire 9th ed.

It is explained why if you read the article.
Space Marines are by far the most common 40k army to play, especially by new people. So off the bat we already have Marines seeing a skew in both the number of players and the number of players with less game experience. When this comes to a tournament, people are more likely to play against a Space Marine opponent than any other army, which means they have a greater chance to learn how to counter the strategies, lists, and units used by Marine players. This isn't to say all Marine lists are the same, rather the similarities between them and the tactics used will often overlap which means the opponent won't be as likely to be caught off guard. When combined with the greater number of players who are less familiar with their army, you have the recipe for why the Marine win rate is the second bottom.

Also being the first Codex of an edition hasn't helped. Necrons have had how many buffs now just to keep them from being utterly awful?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I don't buy it.

Remember how I keep saying we live in the age of information? Basically everyone has internet, which means quick research on bad units or playing missions isn't some chore. You'd have to believe even half of the losing Marine players don't have internet or won't do research. In the number that people take them, they should be topping more if the codex wasn't powercrept.

Reading a netlist or watching a tactic video doesn't mean you're going to get it though. I could watch a hundred videos on how to play Deathwatch competitively but without the actual experience, I'll not get any better.
The number of times in days gone by that a kid would rock up to game days at the local GW with a netlist and get stomped by someone with a good understanding of their army is too high for me to count. Every so often they'd win a game or two but theory is no substitute for knowledge.

Also, just so its perfectly clear, I ain't defending GWs data gathering or saying people who disagree are wrong, just offering some opinions.

As I said to Insectum, that only works as an argument if you're playing a deep game. People find the broken gak just from leaks that the "playtesters" somehow don't catch.

^People can find "broken gak", sure. But they can't win tournaments unless they're actually skilled. Very different things.

Win rates should not be the primary metric to consider. As GW admitted, win rates can easily be skewed for a myriad of reasons.

I believe it would be far better to establish a few core metrics that apply to individual units, such as lethality, survivability and mobility. Establish a required delta among these metrics; for example, if lethality increases then survivability and/or mobility must decrease. Then balance these metrics across the faction and then across all codices.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Changing secondary mission objectives to change win conditions to move the win percentage value does not create game balance. Outcome of games proves very little.

 oni wrote:
Win rates should not be the primary metric to consider. As GW admitted, win rates can easily be skewed for a myriad of reasons.

I believe it would be far better to establish a few core metrics that apply to individual units, such as lethality, survivability and mobility. Establish a required delta among these metrics; for example, if lethality increases then survivability and/or mobility must decrease. Then balance these metrics across the faction and then across all codices.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Changing secondary mission objectives to change win conditions to move the win percentage value does not create game balance. Outcome of games proves very little.

What do you define as balanced though? Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? If so then yes the win percentage is extremely relevant.

 Gert wrote:

Karol wrote:
Only the data isn't from store noob events, but tournaments. The new marine players can't be the deciding factor in draging the factions down, because the same would be happning to other factions, and the win/lose curve would be more smooth. There would also be some genius marine players who would take IF or CF and win events with them somewhere. That does not happen. That has not happned through out the entire 9th ed.

It is explained why if you read the article.
Space Marines are by far the most common 40k army to play, especially by new people. So off the bat we already have Marines seeing a skew in both the number of players and the number of players with less game experience. When this comes to a tournament, people are more likely to play against a Space Marine opponent than any other army, which means they have a greater chance to learn how to counter the strategies, lists, and units used by Marine players. This isn't to say all Marine lists are the same, rather the similarities between them and the tactics used will often overlap which means the opponent won't be as likely to be caught off guard. When combined with the greater number of players who are less familiar with their army, you have the recipe for why the Marine win rate is the second bottom.

Also being the first Codex of an edition hasn't helped. Necrons have had how many buffs now just to keep them from being utterly awful?

And I am saying that that is not how data from competition works. If you take any sport , lets say 5km run, it is not that ethiopians are few people who are ultra pro and running, as are kenyans and the rest of the world is 6 bilion people who are bad at running and that is why they can not win.

Marine win rates show many important things, for example stuff like how high is the chance of losing your first game if you play a specific faction. IF are the kings of that, they lose their first game in the first game they play of an event. Its is also not like space marines are super represented in tournaments, especialy those that don't happen to be in the middle win rate wise. BT, BA, GK yes you can find those and they are still not winning events. But something like IF or RG is not only not played by good players, they aren't played by anyone at all. Which by the way, at least in my opinion, kills the argument about how tournaments are full of casual people and a small group that plays the game "for real".

Necrons were only made strong by Nephilim, same as SoB , who were on their way down wards after the prior nerfs. If IF tomorrow got secondaries they can just do with no interaction from other players, and marines got buffs so they could max primaries over the course of the game. Then IF would be top of the top too. The problem is , if all factions got good secondaries then there is no doubt what armies would be at the top. Even on the GW list Tyranids are at the top, but if they or eldar got Necron or SoB style secondaries, then we would again have list with 70% win rates.


By the way I do not think the GW article is bad, or that the state of the meta is the worse it ever worse. I just don't like the corpo talk. The hey look if we drop the good armies by 5 and rise the not good by 5 everyone is almost at 50%. Which is not the case, in my opinion. It is even less when the good armies play vs the bad armies. A IF playing necron does not have a 33% chance to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface 807192 11439941 wrote:

What do you define as balanced though? Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? If so then yes the win percentage is extremely relevant.

yes. But the data has to be adjusted or more then one number has to be shown. What is the win % spread within factions for example? Maybe a faction is just really hard to play, like Ad Mecha. Maybe a faction is powerful/popular in a specific region. Lets say GK suddenly dominate the hell out of Australia.
What is the avarge turn an army loses it first game, that is IMO often even more important then over all win %. What is the relation between number of players playing a faction and its win rate, and where is the median of win rates for the group. You know the same stuff people do for sports.

Karol wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not too surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

They make they the point in the article about marines, that because Marines are so popular, and a lot of inexperienced players play them, all those poor shows from people who are less competitive brings down the score. I feel that Marines are dragged down a bit because of that, but are in a tough place regardless.

Only the data isn't from store noob events, but tournaments. The new marine players can't be the deciding factor in draging the factions down, because the same would be happning to other factions, and the win/lose curve would be more smooth. There would also be some genius marine players who would take IF or CF and win events with them somewhere. That does not happen. That has not happned through out the entire 9th ed.

Necrons and SoB are being propped up by their secondaries(and are in 4 and 5th place in those metawatch standings so they are doing good). Tweak the secondaries and Necrons and Sisters will drop. They have also been sitting sweet under the 55% win rate so they are within the expected margins(45-55%), but should we watched as Stu Black talks about in the video.

It is funny to me that the way GW writes about the 5% statistical error is if all it did was to go up for bad or weaker armies. As if an army which sits at 45% was actualy at 50%, so balanced. And and vice versa for the top armies the win % can only go down and never go up.

50% is the "ideal" value, but there are so many factors that actually achieving that is impossible. The 5% band to either side accounts for that variability. It has nothing to do with Tyranids being at 56% and having a 5% flex to either side.

Also, every 5 rounder I go to I meet someone who is new to the game. It takes dozens of games to become competent so it isn't like people who show up at tournaments are hardened pros.

I don't go to tournaments at all, but I have never heard or seen anyone who just bought a 2000pts army, much less random collection of models go and play in an event.

What I get from article is the feeling that GW is trying to say that the good factions aren't as good as they are , and that the bad factions aren't as bad as they are. Because there is a potantial 5% error in win rates.

I don't care if the win rates of an army is 49% or 51%.

What I do care about is armies being in theri 30% win rates for years now. Or armies being above 55%. I know that people are used to seeing armies and much higher win rates then that, but at the same time I don't think people know what 55% win rates for a faction in a game played by thousands of players means. In chess white are considered OP and they sure as hell don't have a 55% win rate. In sports if a group or player has a 30 something win rate and the other one is a 55%, then the chance of the first one winning is close to zero. And it doesn't mean if it is a team game or a single person event.

Dudeface wrote:

 oni wrote:
Win rates should not be the primary metric to consider. As GW admitted, win rates can easily be skewed for a myriad of reasons.

I believe it would be far better to establish a few core metrics that apply to individual units, such as lethality, survivability and mobility. Establish a required delta among these metrics; for example, if lethality increases then survivability and/or mobility must decrease. Then balance these metrics across the faction and then across all codices.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Changing secondary mission objectives to change win conditions to move the win percentage value does not create game balance. Outcome of games proves very little.

What do you define as balanced though? Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? If so then yes the win percentage is extremely relevant.

Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? Sure. This is a reasonable definition of balance. A reasonable chance of winning is not however mutually exclusive to game outcome. Game outcomes are based on a myriad of reasons and the metric can easily be skewed. While game outcomes are not entirely irrelevant, they prove very little. To elaborate on this, we would have to list out all those reasons the game outcome metric can so easily be skewed.

 oni wrote:
Win rates should not be the primary metric to consider. As GW admitted, win rates can easily be skewed for a myriad of reasons.

I believe it would be far better to establish a few core metrics that apply to individual units, such as lethality, survivability and mobility. Establish a required delta among these metrics; for example, if lethality increases then survivability and/or mobility must decrease. Then balance these metrics across the faction and then across all codices.

While preferable in theory, in practice we both know such analysis is beyond GW's.

 oni wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 oni wrote:
Win rates should not be the primary metric to consider. As GW admitted, win rates can easily be skewed for a myriad of reasons.

I believe it would be far better to establish a few core metrics that apply to individual units, such as lethality, survivability and mobility. Establish a required delta among these metrics; for example, if lethality increases then survivability and/or mobility must decrease. Then balance these metrics across the faction and then across all codices.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Changing secondary mission objectives to change win conditions to move the win percentage value does not create game balance. Outcome of games proves very little.

What do you define as balanced though? Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? If so then yes the win percentage is extremely relevant.

Is balanced that you have a reasonable chance of winning the game? Sure. This is a reasonable definition of balance. A reasonable chance of winning is not however mutually exclusive to game outcome. Game outcomes are based on a myriad of reasons and the metric can easily be skewed. While game outcomes are not entirely irrelevant, they prove very little. To elaborate on this, we would have to list out all those reasons the game outcome metric can so easily be skewed.

I'd need you to define game outcome, I take it you mean the spread of wins as in, Warminster who, how often and by how much. It could also be perceived as the human emotion and process behind the result being the outcome.

You are ultimately right but I feel its too monolithic for it to be done with any real semblance of efficiency, addressing overall win rates is a simpler and effective stick they can use. Once that gets stable and they get better at hitting it faster, the other data can begin to be diagnosed imo.

Dudeface wrote:
I'm looking forwards to all the people telling us how GW can't balance a game and they're lying/data is incorrect etc when by all accounts it does look like they're doing a good job and Marines are in need of a shot in the arm, but that's not a shock.

Votann.

Anecdotal, but even tournaments can be a little skewed. My experience aligns with Daedalus' comment.

I keenly remember a handful of years ago, early early 8e where most people still had Indexes only. I showed up to a tournament, and my first game was against a Grey Knights player who hadn't played since late 5th early 6th edition. He sure wasn't helping GK tourney results.

There's a non-insignificant crowd that goes to tournaments not for the competitive aspect, but to play a lot of games over a short period of time, and to play opponents outside of their meta. I only play foes from my town, but tournaments will draw players from the five other nearby towns.

The last aos tournament I went to in June/July, there was an IDK player who was playing his first ever game of AoS.

Perhaps a small piece of the puzzle as for Marines doing somewhat badly, is that a majority of players seem to, in part, tailor their armies to kill/beat Marines. Many discussions on here around lethality focus on how to kill Marines and how to combat AoC (and thus how to kill Marines). They are the most common faction, and I would imagine a common opponent, so tooling up to beat them specifically makes sense.

 Kcalehc wrote:
Perhaps a small piece of the puzzle as for Marines doing somewhat badly, is that a majority of players seem to, in part, tailor their armies to kill/beat Marines. Many discussions on here around lethality focus on how to kill Marines and how to combat AoC (and thus how to kill Marines). They are the most common faction, and I would imagine a common opponent, so tooling up to beat them specifically makes sense.

I think that's likely a good explanation, the issue is they don't deserve to be squashed down to sub-desired rates just because they're common.

Dudeface wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Perhaps a small piece of the puzzle as for Marines doing somewhat badly, is that a majority of players seem to, in part, tailor their armies to kill/beat Marines. Many discussions on here around lethality focus on how to kill Marines and how to combat AoC (and thus how to kill Marines). They are the most common faction, and I would imagine a common opponent, so tooling up to beat them specifically makes sense.

I think that's likely a good explanation, the issue is they don't deserve to be squashed down to sub-desired rates just because they're common.

no but it naturally will happen.

if i expect to face marines 2-3 times in a 5 round tournament, i'll bring some ways to deal with them.
It also helps that ways to deal with marines aren't bad against the rest of the meta.

Lets say in another universe marines were a horde army, i'd need to bring high rate of fire weapons to deal with them, but then i'd get fethed by other armies that use terminators for example. Damage 2 weapons arent wasted right now, even against non-marines

Dudeface wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Perhaps a small piece of the puzzle as for Marines doing somewhat badly, is that a majority of players seem to, in part, tailor their armies to kill/beat Marines. Many discussions on here around lethality focus on how to kill Marines and how to combat AoC (and thus how to kill Marines). They are the most common faction, and I would imagine a common opponent, so tooling up to beat them specifically makes sense.

I think that's likely a good explanation, the issue is they don't deserve to be squashed down to sub-desired rates just because they're common.

What's the alternative? Deliberately making them overpowered to offset the tournament meta only further reinforces list-tailoring to kill Marines.

The best thing GW can do is encourage non-MEQ armies so that the meta contains a more diverse range of defensive profiles, and to their credit they've been doing exactly that.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:


The question being, is the data posted by WHC reflective of your own experiences?

Yes.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jaredb wrote:
I am not surprised by the data. Surprised Sisters of battle and Necrons are not higher.

Necrons and SoB are being propped up by their secondaries(and are in 4 and 5th place in those metawatch standings so they are doing good). Tweak the secondaries and Necrons and Sisters will drop. They have also been sitting sweet under the 55% win rate so they are within the expected margins(45-55%), but should we watched as Stu Black talks about in the video.

I highly recommend looking at the Meta Monday posts on r/warhammercompetitive. You can see how many people are playing and overall weekend wins as well as season potential.

Sisters are also 'meta inflated'. CQC is extremely important in the modern game and no army plays as good into melee heavy strategies as Bloody Rose SoB does because all of our units are both ridiculous blenders AND completely throw away.

If we end up back in a 'hail of blades/infinite venom cannons' meta, the numbers will drop quite a lot.

 catbarf wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Perhaps a small piece of the puzzle as for Marines doing somewhat badly, is that a majority of players seem to, in part, tailor their armies to kill/beat Marines. Many discussions on here around lethality focus on how to kill Marines and how to combat AoC (and thus how to kill Marines). They are the most common faction, and I would imagine a common opponent, so tooling up to beat them specifically makes sense.

I think that's likely a good explanation, the issue is they don't deserve to be squashed down to sub-desired rates just because they're common.

What's the alternative? Deliberately making them overpowered to offset the tournament meta only further reinforces list-tailoring to kill Marines.

The best thing GW can do is encourage non-MEQ armies so that the meta contains a more diverse range of defensive profiles, and to their credit they've been doing exactly that.

By encouraging you mean codex creeping none marine armies? I don't know what the correct answer is, but I know it isn't to have a game where a new player is told "don't buy Marines if you want to get a fair game, they're meant to lose more".

 Insectum7 wrote:
^People can find "broken gak", sure. But they can't win tournaments unless they're actually skilled. Very different things.

Skill only comes to play in a deep game, otherwise we wouldn't have the constant tourney winners say some codices are just bad. Hell, one said not too long ago they wouldn't bother running AdMech.