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I appreciate we have very limited tourney results so far this year, but Following Flying Monkey and Iron Halo and a couple of UK tourneys, they're not only majority marines but also taking the top 4 spots and top 10 by storm.

This isn't something that seems to be repeated elsewhere in the world however and even some of the UK ones have greater variety.

40k stats has a breakdown of the tourneys so far:

https://www.40kstats.com/top-4s

Is it that Australian and European players just prefer to play what they love and therefore do well, is it that they care less about being hyper optimised, or is it that marines are more of a localised issue?

Dudeface wrote:
I appreciate we have very limited tourney results so far this year, but Following Flying Monkey and Iron Halo and a couple of UK tourneys, they're not only majority marines but also taking the top 4 spots and top 10 by storm.

This isn't something that seems to be repeated elsewhere in the world however and even some of the UK ones have greater variety.

40k stats has a breakdown of the tourneys so far:

https://www.40kstats.com/top-4s

Is it that Australian and European players just prefer to play what they love and therefore do well, is it that they care less about being hyper optimised, or is it that marines are more of a localised issue?

What about the ammount of collected data favouring UK /US?
they seem to make up certainly more then 50% alone.

A GT just finished in Sweden where the entire top 4 was Loyalist Marines.

Also a thing to keep in mind with the Aussie tournaments is that their access to models is far more restricted. I've had comp Aus players tell me that often the meta down there is not some weird bizarro land of odd list picks, but more down to people having to make do with what they have on hand.

looks bad...
Whole top 4 in one faction..

 Bosskelot wrote:
A GT just finished in Sweden where the entire top 4 was Loyalist Marines.

Also a thing to keep in mind with the Aussie tournaments is that their access to models is far more restricted. I've had comp Aus players tell me that often the meta down there is not some weird bizarro land of odd list picks, but more down to people having to make do with what they have on hand.

The Sweden tournament was a warmup for the world team championship was my understanding, so it might introduce a greater bias towards mimicking the US lists and style potentially.

With the aussie ones I'm, not sure I buy into that, it's not like marines are ever hard or expensive to find if they really wanted to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Interestingly they haven't got the iron halo stats on the main win/loss sheet from what I can tell but barring the single black templar list in top spot, Orks and Dark Eldar currently are the best performing factions overall at 64% & 61% followed by Salamanders with a slightly lower 61%.

Dudeface wrote:
With the aussie ones I'm, not sure I buy into that, it's not like marines are ever hard or expensive to find if they really wanted to.

You and I clearly haven't been reading the same Aussie posts. The ones I've seen consistently mention ridiculous mark-up prices - and trying to save on that by getting the models outside of Oz, only serves to lose you that saving in shipping costs anyway.
There's a disparity in that mark-up, though - which would explain some units being more popular simply because they're not SO blindingly expensive, just mildly expensive.

Let's say you're looking at Marines on a shelf. Good old Scouts are still £20 a box - but those shiny new Intercessors? £60 a box.
In that situation who in their right mind would blow all that cash on Intercessors for their core Troops choices?

Dudeface wrote:
I appreciate we have very limited tourney results so far this year, but Following Flying Monkey and Iron Halo and a couple of UK tourneys, they're not only majority marines but also taking the top 4 spots and top 10 by storm.

This isn't something that seems to be repeated elsewhere in the world however and even some of the UK ones have greater variety.

40k stats has a breakdown of the tourneys so far:

https://www.40kstats.com/top-4s

Is it that Australian and European players just prefer to play what they love and therefore do well, is it that they care less about being hyper optimised, or is it that marines are more of a localised issue?

Australian has often had its own version of the meta and in older editions was much more comped (don't know how it is now).
And does Europe even have tournaments going on? I would imagine Covid is making it rather difficult to hold decent sized events.

Not all countries have had it as bad as UK or america so for a while there's been tournaments. Albeit now with cases going up again I wouldn't be surprised to see more events closing.

And here it's pretty similar to elsewhere. Marines, harlequins, custodians, death guard.

Well back in the era of 3rd-5th i remember that there was a big difference in attitude towards the game with the US being more focused on larger games and WAAC players/power lists moving from 1,750 points then 1,850 and finally 2K where as the UK scene tended to be more lore/narrative based with its army lists and it hovered around 1,500 points for the longest time.

It became a bit of a joke how US players could break the game with army builds the design team never imagined nor intended.

But that was a long time ago, and attitudes appear to have changed.

Recent tournament here in Belgium had this as ranking as top 5:

1st: Custodes/Astra (Scions)
2nd: Harlequins
3rd: Harlequins
4th: Blood Angels
5th: Harlequins

From the opinion of the winner Harlequins are the top army for 9th so far.

 Aaranis wrote:
Recent tournament here in Belgium had this as ranking as top 5:

1st: Custodes/Astra (Scions)
2nd: Harlequins
3rd: Harlequins
4th: Blood Angels
5th: Harlequins

From the opinion of the winner Harlequins are the top army for 9th so far.

What was the marine participation levels like?

We all know Marine Codex 8.2 + Suppliments was overpowered, but the truth is in a couple of three weeks after Necron and Marine Codex 9.0 and the week-one FAQs drop all the tournament data goes out the window anyway.

If GW is consistent about anything besides bad proofreading it's inconsistent codex quality, and after the flood of angry correspondence since Marines 8.2 dropped it's a coin toss whether they'll oversteer in the other direction again or not. As a Marine player I actually kind of hope they do oversteer with the main book on strats, relics, psychic powers, and what-not because the Suppliments provide a floor for how badly a weak main codex could hurt Marines overall and that floor is in a decent spot.

Seeing there's been no real news of marine nerfs and indeed plenty of buffs while necron buffs havent' been on same level...yeah not expecting meta to go much different. Marines takes up leg up.

tneva82 wrote:
Seeing there's been no real news of marine nerfs and indeed plenty of buffs while necron buffs havent' been on same level...yeah not expecting meta to go much different. Marines takes up leg up.

That is objectively not true.

I'm too lazy to mention all little details that we already know like Salamanders losing their re-roll to hit part of the Chapter Tactics, but the sole introduction of the CORE keyword and the shown implications are already a nerf.

a_typical_hero wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Seeing there's been no real news of marine nerfs and indeed plenty of buffs while necron buffs havent' been on same level...yeah not expecting meta to go much different. Marines takes up leg up.

That is objectively not true.

I'm too lazy to mention all little details that we already know like Salamander losing their re-roll to hit part of the Chapter Tactics, but the sole introduction of the CORE keyword and the shown implications are already a nerf.

and the limit of 1 captain per detachment. AND chapter masters costing points.

No, marines (and MEQ, which i would include DG/Custode army setups in) are definitely the "meta army to beat" everywhere.

The thing that allows Harlequins, Daemons, Orks, Admech and Drukhari to be pulling these top 4 placings is because the field is basically 1/2 MEQ right now. When you can plan around the opposing force being

-Low T
-High Sv
-2W/3W

Then you can bring all your dudes with defensive profiles that don't care about the weapons people would bring to fight MEQ, and you can bring nothing but weapons to kill MEQ, and then all it takes to win a top 4 slot is to face MEQ meta lists in all your games.

This is exactly why you see things like very few people playing Daemons, but the players who do bring daemons seem to be smashing into top placings pretty consistently. Ditto for Harlequins. It's a pretty clear case of Thing B not being nearly as Thing A in a vacuum, but Thing B is a hard counter to Thing A so if the whole field is A instead of an even mix of A, B, C, D, you can bring B and win real hard.

the_scotsman wrote:
No, marines (and MEQ, which i would include DG/Custode army setups in) are definitely the "meta army to beat" everywhere.

The thing that allows Harlequins, Daemons, Orks, Admech and Drukhari to be pulling these top 4 placings is because the field is basically 1/2 MEQ right now. When you can plan around the opposing force being

-Low T
-High Sv
-2W/3W

Then you can bring all your dudes with defensive profiles that don't care about the weapons people would bring to fight MEQ, and you can bring nothing but weapons to kill MEQ, and then all it takes to win a top 4 slot is to face MEQ meta lists in all your games.

This is exactly why you see things like very few people playing Daemons, but the players who do bring daemons seem to be smashing into top placings pretty consistently. Ditto for Harlequins. It's a pretty clear case of Thing B not being nearly as Thing A in a vacuum, but Thing B is a hard counter to Thing A so if the whole field is A instead of an even mix of A, B, C, D, you can bring B and win real hard.

Lots of good valid points here, but why aren't the top end US players bringing lists that counter Thing A in that case? They're all still very much band wagoning marines, so is it that they're mentally behind the players who are working around marines, do they think it's easier to go with the masses or is it some other limitation?

Dudeface wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
No, marines (and MEQ, which i would include DG/Custode army setups in) are definitely the "meta army to beat" everywhere.

The thing that allows Harlequins, Daemons, Orks, Admech and Drukhari to be pulling these top 4 placings is because the field is basically 1/2 MEQ right now. When you can plan around the opposing force being

-Low T
-High Sv
-2W/3W

Then you can bring all your dudes with defensive profiles that don't care about the weapons people would bring to fight MEQ, and you can bring nothing but weapons to kill MEQ, and then all it takes to win a top 4 slot is to face MEQ meta lists in all your games.

This is exactly why you see things like very few people playing Daemons, but the players who do bring daemons seem to be smashing into top placings pretty consistently. Ditto for Harlequins. It's a pretty clear case of Thing B not being nearly as Thing A in a vacuum, but Thing B is a hard counter to Thing A so if the whole field is A instead of an even mix of A, B, C, D, you can bring B and win real hard.

Lots of good valid points here, but why aren't the top end US players bringing lists that counter Thing A in that case? They're all still very much band wagoning marines, so is it that they're mentally behind the players who are working around marines, do they think it's easier to go with the masses or is it some other limitation?

There's no reason you can't try to build your army around a meta list while also working from the framework of that meta list, especially in a codex as varied as marines. From the competitive players I've talked to in my area, most of the countermeta lists that have been turning up so far rely on running into marine list setups that don't include counters to those types of build, and the new Salamanders marine list frameworks respond EXTREMELY well to the kinds of countermeta stuff were bringing initially.

I would ask the simplest question of: How big of a pool of competitive players is there in areas outside the US/UK? Outside the US/UK are they onto some secret sauce, or are they just big fish in slightly smaller ponds with more casual players showing up to events?

the_scotsman wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
No, marines (and MEQ, which i would include DG/Custode army setups in) are definitely the "meta army to beat" everywhere.

The thing that allows Harlequins, Daemons, Orks, Admech and Drukhari to be pulling these top 4 placings is because the field is basically 1/2 MEQ right now. When you can plan around the opposing force being

-Low T
-High Sv
-2W/3W

Then you can bring all your dudes with defensive profiles that don't care about the weapons people would bring to fight MEQ, and you can bring nothing but weapons to kill MEQ, and then all it takes to win a top 4 slot is to face MEQ meta lists in all your games.

This is exactly why you see things like very few people playing Daemons, but the players who do bring daemons seem to be smashing into top placings pretty consistently. Ditto for Harlequins. It's a pretty clear case of Thing B not being nearly as Thing A in a vacuum, but Thing B is a hard counter to Thing A so if the whole field is A instead of an even mix of A, B, C, D, you can bring B and win real hard.

Lots of good valid points here, but why aren't the top end US players bringing lists that counter Thing A in that case? They're all still very much band wagoning marines, so is it that they're mentally behind the players who are working around marines, do they think it's easier to go with the masses or is it some other limitation?

There's no reason you can't try to build your army around a meta list while also working from the framework of that meta list, especially in a codex as varied as marines. From the competitive players I've talked to in my area, most of the countermeta lists that have been turning up so far rely on running into marine list setups that don't include counters to those types of build, and the new Salamanders marine list frameworks respond EXTREMELY well to the kinds of countermeta stuff were bringing initially.

I would ask the simplest question of: How big of a pool of competitive players is there in areas outside the US/UK? Outside the US/UK are they onto some secret sauce, or are they just big fish in slightly smaller ponds with more casual players showing up to events?

I don't have the answer sadly but that is the crux of what I was looking to find out, thank you for the input.

 aphyon wrote:
It became a bit of a joke how US players could break the game with army builds the design team never imagined nor intended.

But that was a long time ago, and attitudes appear to have changed.

I don't think we've seen any sign that the attitudes of US players have changed, have we?

 Dysartes wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
It became a bit of a joke how US players could break the game with army builds the design team never imagined nor intended.

But that was a long time ago, and attitudes appear to have changed.

I don't think we've seen any sign that the attitudes of US players have changed, have we?

To be honest when I first read that post the first thing that sprang to mind was the "lets play 2000+1 for more CP" thread that came up at the start of 9th which was a US suggestion I think?

This isn't to diminish the achievements of players in those other regions. Personally, I was super impressed by a recent Drukhari list that used the custom coven 'artists of flesh' that reduced all incoming damage to a unit by 1, and put that on all the transports he brought, effectively spamming raiders and venoms with serpent shields.

I am ABSOLUTELY stealing that setup for my drukhari collection, especially going into what will most likely be an even harder D2 meta when nearly every single unit in every marine codex becomes W2.

the_scotsman wrote:
No, marines (and MEQ, which i would include DG/Custode army setups in) are definitely the "meta army to beat" everywhere.

One of the main reason why lists labeled as "DG" are doing good are nurglings, which is neither a Death Guard unit nor MEQ.

In almost all results I could find DG aren't anywhere near the top, in some regions they are even a bottom tier faction.

"DG are great in 9th" appears to be nothing but an urban myth. The game is not kind to a slow army with little firepower.

The US has a more ruthless competitive outlook than other areas of the world, in the sense that in the US, the best players are much more likely to jump to the most currently powerful faction. There's also frankly just a lot more good players in the US than anywhere else because there are a lot more players period (not saying the average player is any better, I don't think they are), which puts further pressure on the top players to jump to the strongest faction if they want to podium, because you don't generally win majors in the US just by outplaying your opponents the way you still can in some other areas of the world. There's a reason that you don't see weird off-the-wall lists winning the big US tournaments, and it's not that US players just lack originality.

The Australian meta has always been weird because there are frankly so few players there, and the best ones are quirky players committed to factions that have never been major meta dominators. It's an extreme example of how there's a lot more chance of winning with odd lists when the total player base is smaller.

Dudeface wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Recent tournament here in Belgium had this as ranking as top 5:

1st: Custodes/Astra (Scions)
2nd: Harlequins
3rd: Harlequins
4th: Blood Angels
5th: Harlequins

From the opinion of the winner Harlequins are the top army for 9th so far.

What was the marine participation levels like?

So there was 24 players, and 7 were Marines of various flavours (one DW), 4 were Harlequins, 2 Sororitas, 2 Necrons, 2 Astra Militarum, 1 AdMech, 1 DG, 1 TS, 1 Tau, 1 CW Eldar and 1 Custodes + Astra (the winner).

That brings up something else, which is that you can't really compare tournament results from events that don't go 6 rounds with those that do. A bajillion different lists can win a 4 round 20-30 person tournament that can't win a 6 round major. Winning a 4 round tournament is more like going 4-2 at LVO, and you can do that with practically any list.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The US has a more ruthless competitive outlook than other areas of the world, in the sense that in the US, the best players are much more likely to jump to the most currently powerful faction. There's also frankly just a lot more good players in the US than anywhere else because there are a lot more players period (not saying the average player is any better, I don't think they are), which puts further pressure on the top players to jump to the strongest faction if they want to podium, because you don't generally win majors in the US just by outplaying your opponents the way you still can in some other areas of the world. There's a reason that you don't see weird off-the-wall lists winning the big US tournaments, and it's not that US players just lack originality.

The Australian meta has always been weird because there are frankly so few players there, and the best ones are quirky players committed to factions that have never been major meta dominators. It's an extreme example of how there's a lot more chance of winning with odd lists when the total player base is smaller.

Also differences of what a tournament entails. I'm going to continue to claim to anyone who cares that ITC was very precise - but to a large degree, every game played out the same. So you end up optimising down to a relatively small pool of lists that *work* - and the odds of not working are progressively ironed out.

Whereas ETC has far more luck elements, and the ability to respond is arguably more important, so you get a much more varied meta.

But really, you need to know the demographics of the tournament. Certainly early on when people were pushing "see, Marines not winning everything" - it was because there were say only 4-6 Marine players at a 30-40~ or so player tournament. So barring an extremely broken game, you wouldn't really expect Marines to dominate - and certainly not claim all top 4 spots etc.

By contrast didn't Marines represent a simply ludicrous number of the Iron Halo lists? Ive seen someone claim it was 51 out of 108 players were Marines of some description. So you shouldn't really be surprised Marines dominate - although the fact so many people want to run Marines may say something on its own about how the meta is perceived.

It's also worth noting that the US are much more consistent in collecting their data. It's pretty much impossible for me to find tournament results from Spain or France.

How come one of the puppets from Team America is posting in here, anyway?

tneva82 wrote:
Not all countries have had it as bad as UK or america so for a while there's been tournaments. Albeit now with cases going up again I wouldn't be surprised to see more events closing.

And here it's pretty similar to elsewhere. Marines, harlequins, custodians, death guard.

Yeah, for example we don't have as much problem with erdictors here. Because our stores didn't get 50 boxs of indomitus each. So we get to see some quirky units, I never see in western lists, like primaris dreadnoughts or terminators.