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.

I've been thinking about this recently, but have you or anyone you played against ever caused such a dramatic shift in the meta that units that was considered unviable in the past, suddenly became something to be feared?

I guess I'm just sick of seeing all the same net lists when I visit my local store. There are a few players who bring fluffy stuff, but many have the same cookie cutter builds that you find posted everywhere. It's just bland.

The way I wanted to shake things up was to ditch TWC from my Wolf list, grab some Wulfen and spam blood claws. No one rates blood claws but while I've not tried it, I'm excited to try something new, and just see if I can shake things up. Move away from the MSU lists everyone sees and suddenly make Blood Claws look like a scary option.
Sure it might fail, but trying these things out is interesting, at least more interesting than copy and pasting a list found on the internet.

So back to my initial question, has this sort of thing ever happened for or to you? Was it just a spur of the moment thing like I'm aiming for, or was it caused by a codex update?

I know when I went from having no fliers, to bringing 2 Vendettas to games, suddenly everyone made space for an aegis defence line in their lists.

IIRC The Lichtorshame list that one a major tourney a year or two ago was pretty un-meta, atleast at the time.

I personally am about to try something a little off with my Tau army, constructing a very mobile, almost no suit list that just flits around in close range but flitting away out of charge range.

I'm taking darkstrider for his -1 toughness and consolidation after overwatch, gonna throw him in a full breacher squad and they'll be my kill team. They get close, blow everything up, and get out when the opponent declares a charge.

I have a very large kroot squad to just camp on an objective and a vespid squad for the same.

Not sure what else I want to do yet but I'm building.

I always Like to push and break the meta of whatever I play, I find metas boring. I play a lot of mobas and always do things that "can't be done" but it usually works out. And I've even seen people copy some of my strategies and builds.

We have an Ork player who likes to run a maxed-out unit of Lootas. Our local SW/Tau player/cheesemonger (dude brings net lists to an otherwise extremely casual meta) can not figure out how to deal with them. It hilarious to watch him whine as that blob of sub-optimal, random units somehow survives volley after volley from his Riptide.

Iv certainly seen this is MTG but i dont think iv ever seen it in 40k

 Swampmist wrote:
IIRC The Lichtorshame list that one a major tourney a year or two ago was pretty un-meta, atleast at the time.

All the Lictors did was act as expensive homing beacons for the Mawlocs, which them and the Tyrants did all the heavy lifting for those games.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:
IIRC The Lichtorshame list that one a major tourney a year or two ago was pretty un-meta, atleast at the time.

All the Lictors did was act as expensive homing beacons for the Mawlocs, which them and the Tyrants did all the heavy lifting for those games.

They proved effective at finishing off vehicles and grabbing objectives though.

The Lictor list was a variant on a a relatively standard template nid list, with multiple Flyrants and W6 MC's providing the core of the army's functionality, and it worked for one event without apparent repeat success. The only notable thing really was havinf a mere *three* Flyrants instead of four or five in exchange for some teleport homer Lictors for the Mawlocs.

 Griddlelol wrote:
I've been thinking about this recently, but have you or anyone you played against ever caused such a dramatic shift in the meta that units that was considered unviable in the past, suddenly became something to be feared?

So back to my initial question, has this sort of thing ever happened for or to you? Was it just a spur of the moment thing like I'm aiming for, or was it caused by a codex update?

I know when I went from having no fliers, to bringing 2 Vendettas to games, suddenly everyone made space for an aegis defence line in their lists.

Well old example and caused by edition change but rhinos went from death trap in 2nd ed to winner in 3rd ed.

In 2nd edition you had to be nuts to try be inside rhino if there was any serious anti tank gun pointing at you. Hull had from front armour 20(lascannon was 3d6+9). If you get hit to hull(2/3 chance) and get damaged there's just 1/6 chance guys inside survive the death of rhino. 1/3 chance everybody inside die. Just like that. Die. Dead. Out of board. Doesn't matter were you lowly tactical marine or Abbadon. You were dead. No saves, no nothing. If you were lucky you got the 1/2 chance that every model to die on 4+ rather than automatically. Again nastiest character in the world with best protection dies just as likely as lowliest grot.

Who wants to risk that?

Land raider had bit better armours(22 in best location and less chance to hit the hull) but in damage table then 1/2 chance of everybody inside dying flat out with 33% chance of half dying(in average)...

Then in 3rd ed rhino rush became famous and you were silly to not have lots of units in rhinos assaulting(or equilavent. Certainly falcons loaded up with aspect warriors were also popular. Don't recall wave serpents? How they were).

I'd like to try Ogryns for non conventianal fun, but heck, at 40ppm, no way I'm giving it a shot.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Lictor list was a variant on a a relatively standard template nid list, with multiple Flyrants and W6 MC's providing the core of the army's functionality, and it worked for one event without apparent repeat success. The only notable thing really was havinf a mere *three* Flyrants instead of four or five in exchange for some teleport homer Lictors for the Mawlocs.

The same player actually won two major tournaments with it. 11th Company GT, and the LVO (there were variations between the lists used at each event, but both heavily featured lictors).
It was a MSU list at a time where no one had really tried that with tyranids. Spore mines held a comms relay, allowing fine control over when lictors/mawlocs/spore mines arrived. Lictors deepstrike without scatter, allowing them to appear and take an objective as the card is drawn. Or appear behind the wave serpents which were so ubiquitous back then.
The spore mines are used to block enemy movement, or absorb overwatch. It was a really clever list.

The meta has shifted since then however, and it no longer really works. Space marine gladius out-MSUs it, and 7th edition eldar/tau just kill it.

I brought the Crimson slaughter formation with the dark apostle and cultists that get back up.. (Forget the name and not at home) a bunch of twenty man cultist squads with MoK then a maxed out squad with autoguns.
Also brought a Crimson slaughter Cad w a sorcerer w/balestar for divination. Stuck the sorcerer in with the huge autoguns squad. Then had 3 Heldrake's. Plus Oblits in the back.

The autoguns squad was deadly! Ignoring cover and re-rolling to hit... MOK squads with rage were throwing out crzy attacks on charge..
I was rolling good on the rolls to get cultists back... There were TONS of cultists on the board. My opponents at the shop that night were laughing as I was setting up so many cultists.. They were NOT laughing as the cultists were slaughtering their armies.. 20 man MOK squads throw out 80 attacks on the charge and 60 when they get charged.

Granted I wasn't playing the most powerful builds out there but a lot of guys watching were simply amazed and every time I show up at that shop people are asking "oh no!, are we facing 100 cultists that won't die??"

Me and my brother have started a ork army focusing aost Ailey on objective secured boys that we want to bring to a local tournament coming up. It obviously won't win but I'm hoping it will surprise a few lists that are caught spamming grab or D weapons.

You can maybe shake up the meta with some fringe units and a bit of luck, but 40k's balance is so skewed at times that a lot of units are just better in every aspect (most notable being Scatbikes and Wraithknights, who can outperform any unit of a similar type while costing less, and because of their cost can actually do things they technically shouldn't be good at either).

GW is good in breaking the meta by releasing OP stuff every few years or just changing the rules : P

Mostly I find that a large portion of 40k players just aren't very good at meta gaming (identifying the meta and realizing what counters it) to begin with. There also isn't that large a sample size, with the largest tournament in the world only having 300ish people.

If 40k had magic the gathering's playerbase-size, (and assuming the same portion were skilled at meta gaming,) there would be plenty of lists that would be considered standard that people call "rogue" right now.

I was amazed at how long it took people to catch on in the 2015 ITC season that MSU was king. I snuck in a gt win, and a high placement at wgc thanks to that.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Mostly I find that a large portion of 40k players just aren't very good at meta gaming (identifying the meta and realizing what counters it) to begin with. There also isn't that large a sample size, with the largest tournament in the world only having 300ish people.If 40k had magic the gathering's playerbase-size, (and assuming the same portion were skilled at meta gaming,) there would be plenty of lists that would be considered standard that people call "rogue" right now.

You do realise what is the big difference between magic and 40k right.
A magic player that wants to switch to the new meta sells his old cards (or not) buys some new cards and is ready to play in the new "rogue" list the next week.
A 40k player just can't do that. Switching your entire army is not only unbelievable costly but also sets you back hundreds if not thousands of hobby hours back.

try to get your group to try this. 2 rules:
1. bring printed lists to your games
2. never bring the same list twice.

as people start to realize that this encourages a shift from netlisting, you may find more variety to your games.
keep in mind that this is a guy that brought knowledge pools to his last M:tG game. . .

 carldooley wrote:

never bring the same list twice.

The local store owners are going to love you


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Griddlelol wrote:

The way I wanted to shake things up was to ditch TWC from my Wolf list, grab some Wulfen...

How ehm.... original of you. I have never seen this "meta breaking" creativity before.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

never bring the same list twice.

The local store owners are going to love you

I have 5k points of tau. It's easy.

Is it really ? Just how many different lists can you bring that you enjoy playing with it. And I am not talking about switching a special weapon or adding and deleting 1 or 2 drones / fire warriors in a list with a riptidewing. No actual different lists that play differently.

While answering this try to imagine how many lists others could build who "only" owned 2500 or 3000 points.

they don't actually have to be radically different. Do you take a Culexus Assassin or Monat with the Talisman of Arthas Moloch? A breacher team or an Ionhead? Shadowsun with Kroot or a properly supported Riptide? I got the Renegade set ostensibly so that my normal opponents could use something to stand up to my Stormsurge. Do they take it, or not?

 oldzoggy wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Griddlelol wrote:

The way I wanted to shake things up was to ditch TWC from my Wolf list, grab some Wulfen...

How ehm.... original of you. I have never seen this "meta breaking" creativity before.

lol how convenient to quote someone out of context.

Well on my group we usually don't play overop lists... And I use a lot of different list. Most are useless on tournaments, but wonderful playing with friends xD

Man, because my lists now the necron player is a bit scared from units of Kans hahaha

 oldzoggy wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Mostly I find that a large portion of 40k players just aren't very good at meta gaming (identifying the meta and realizing what counters it) to begin with. There also isn't that large a sample size, with the largest tournament in the world only having 300ish people.If 40k had magic the gathering's playerbase-size, (and assuming the same portion were skilled at meta gaming,) there would be plenty of lists that would be considered standard that people call "rogue" right now.

You do realise what is the big difference between magic and 40k right.
A magic player that wants to switch to the new meta sells his old cards (or not) buys some new cards and is ready to play in the new "rogue" list the next week.
A 40k player just can't do that. Switching your entire army is not only unbelievable costly but also sets you back hundreds if not thousands of hobby hours back.

I am well aware that switching up lists is costly, time-consuming, and many times downright not feasible for us normal folk. (One of the main reasons I play marines in a custom color-scheme is due to the ability to call them "descendants of whoever" and effectively own several armies for the cost of one.)

I merely didn't type out this fact because I didn't feel the need to do a comprehensive report on the entire issue in a random dakka post. But yes, you are correct, that is a highly contributing factor to the slow meta in 40k.

What I was more referring to was that I often met players who not only didn't do any correct switching up for the meta, (which could be explained by the cost,) but didn't think of making a switch in the first place. Sometimes all that switch is is making a culexus ride an empty pod instead of going on foot, or swapping a WK's weapons, or getting all your old tactical marines out along with your old rhinos for a gladius. In several cases it was clear to me that the player had yet to realize that the better option existed at all.

I've tried a few times. Usually my attempts end in dismal, dismal failure.

The Freakshow was the first thing I started doing that was both somewhat original (at the time) and somewhat successful. I'm not going to claim I came up with it all on my own--I'm sure other people started using it all on their own! But I never heard about it from anyone, and when I posted threads about it during the planning stages, the forum communities I'm part of acted like I had grown a second head rather than presented a valid army list.

But changing the whole meta? I can't think of a tactic or list that's ever done that. All the meta shifts I can recall were the result of edition or codex changes. (Including supplemental releases.)

A good way to breka the meta is to try diffrent games, IE Zone mortalis, if you can find a copy and adapt it to 7th ed planet strike. One thing we did for the 100th store at my store, was he played a game using heroic space marine rules.

Its not the same as your standard warhammer 40k game, but just breaking for the standard game now and then really makes it better.

While I'm not playing 7th, I enjoy campaigns (with pre-laid out armies), random unit reinforcements, and playing missions which involve a lot more than killing the other guys.

Some games are unbalanced point-wise, but the aim is to not have balanced/equal forces scrapping for kills.

I did it with Whirlwinds. People very scared of the whirlwinds now.

I'm having an absolute blast with a bit of a semi-freakshow Harlequin based list. I always laugh when the inevitable "whats the worst army" threads come up and Harlequins are just casually tossed out there, because I remember how hard it was to deal with a wraithknight when I was playing actually underpowered armies vs how hard it was when I was playing my Harlequins.