Stat Check Meta Report - August 2023
By Innes Wilson
August has been a month and a half, with over 40 tournaments, it’s one of the busiest we have on record, and the first signs of meta development slowing down have definitely showed up. Nobody can possibly be surprised at the coalescence of even more Eldar dominance, but the clear stratification of the rest of the meta into haves and have-nots is very interesting. Before we get into the data for this month, if you want clarification on what any of the stats referenced are, check out the Stat Check Meta Report Primer.
Anthony is taking a month off from doing the rankings due to "having nothing positive to say about the meta". When asked for comment, this writer received an extended voice audio of "neutral screaming" which is left to the reader to interpret as they please.
This is the last full scale meta report we have before moving into September’s balance dataslate. By next month’s article we will hopefully have a decent amount of data from the new state of play to compare back to this one where we’re hoping to see some fairly significant movement and closing of the gap between top and bottom.
Meta Breakdown:
1: Aeldari (No Change)
Win Rate - #1 (68.7%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #1 (3.03x)
Event Wins - #1 (22 Wins)
Contributor Voting - #1
What more can be said about Eldar that hasn’t already been said?
Eldar are historically broken. The Wraithknight is mathematically bullshit. They’ve won over 50% of the events this edition so far, and more than Eldar won in all of the time we tracked 9th edition. Throw a dart at the book and you have a viable list. This index needs fundamental rewrites to even begin to be in the same game as the rest of us. If I never have to see an event with 1-6 spots all being Eldar again it will be too soon. May the slate remove your kneecaps such that you stand at the same height as the tallest of the rest of us.
Key Units - Wraithknight, Wraithguard, Farseer, Warp Spiders, Shadow Specters, Nightspinner, Fire Prism, The Yncarne, Autarch Wayleaper.. (list cut short for sanity purposes)
2: Genestealer Cults (No Change)
Winrate - #2 (63.1%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #2 (1.97x)
Event Wins - #2 (7 Wins)
Contributor Voting - #2
Genestealer Cults have lost their first place in Overrep, but hold tight to second place. Proving to be the slightly more solveable of the two meta dominating factions, some lists have started to find a little bit of success here, while Genestealer Cults generally lack the ability to adapt their lists due to the low quantity of units available and the simple but effective way that Ascencion Day provides power to the faction. The nerfs that we saw last month have clearly not resulted in a huge drop off to the faction. Have a plan for Demolition Charges or lose to them is very much the play pattern.
Genestealer Cults remain the only faction with no sub 50% win rates, even holding a 60% win rate vs Eldar. The lack of event wins and win rate is partially due to the lower meta representation, but also that some lists just can deal with what Cults are doing enough to hold them out of the top spot.
Key Units - Acolytes with Demolition Charges, Neophytes, Primus, Nexos, Reductress Saboteur, Achilles Ridgerunner, Abberants
3: Thousand Sons (+2)
Win Rate - #3 (54.3%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #3 (1.38x)
Event Wins - #3 (3 Win)
Contributor Voting - #3
Thousand Sons have jumped up in the Rankings with a very solid overall performance. Lists that lean less on Scarab Occult Terminators have started popping up, going more into MSU Infernal Masters and Sorcerers on Disc to provide board control and damage output that removes a single central target for opponents to exploit. With 3 event wins and a solid 1.38x Overrepresentation in a meta that’s very hostile, Thousand Sons are showing that indirect damage and ignoring many of the damage gates in the game through mortal wound output is very powerful. Combine that with a glut of cabal points from the more rubric heavy builds, or a rock solid terminator foundation, all with access to extra movement through Temporal Surge and you have a recipe for a truly powerful army.
Key Units - Magnus the Red, Rubric Marines, Scarab Occult Terminators, Mutaltith Vortex Beast, Infernal Master, Sorcerer, Exalted Sorcerer, Rhino, Tzaangor Enlightened
4: Necrons (+1)
Win Rate - #5 (53.4%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #6 (0.91x)
Event Wins - #3 (3 Wins)
Contributor Voting - #5
Lychguard Bricks and Transcendent C’tan are some of the few units capable of surviving a turn in the open even against the highest damage output armies in the game, and thats sayign nothing of the ones below that without a hope in hell of taking them down. Necrons aren’t beating Custodes, Aeldari or Genestealer Cults with anthing more than a 45% rate, but they are taking it everything below those factions. If your list isnt’t planning for how to score around a Necron army, or isn’t a Necron army that can score passively while getting shot, you’re probably approaching this faction wrong or playing Eldar.
Key Units - Lychguard, Cryptothralls, Canoptek Reanimator, Overlord, Technomancer, Doomsday Ark, Lokhust Heavy Destroyer, Hexmark, Transcendent C’tan
=5: Imperial Knights (-2)
Win Rate - #6 (51.4%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #5 (0.92x)
Event Wins - #5 (2 Wins)
Contributor Voting - #7
One of the few factions to win multiple events this month, Towering.list continues to impress slightly above half the time. Both 3 Big 3 Small and scoring, as well as 2 Big 7 Small have shown up in decent quantities. Leaning in on the big knights is seeming to be a little more popular and powerful compared to things like 1 Big 10 Small. Bondsmans seem to be where a lot of the power of this faction is, and getting the most out of them is definitety the way to work (while limiting them is the way to go on beating them, as well as having enough shooting to down a big knight, or resilience to score through them shooting you)
Key Units - Crusader, Warden, Valiant, Canis Rex, Warglaive, Helverin, Castigator
=5: Adeptus Custodes (-1)
Win Rate - #4 (53.8%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #8 (0.87%)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #4
Unable to win an event this month, Custodes are starting to see their rates drop just a touch. Custodes are definitely one of the armies with the simplest game plans in the top set of factions and the easiest therefore to plan around. It feels like as the game has developed. more factions and players are finding their footing with playing around Custodian Guard blocks and Blade Champion advance and charges. Not enough to slow the faction down from winning games, but enough to keep them from those consistent top 4s and event wins of last month. Lists with Caladiuses seem to be on the way out for more focus on 3-4 brickier units to take full leverage of the Custodes stratagem suite.
Key Units - Allarus Terminators, Wardens, Custodian Guard, Blade Champion, Shield Captain, Caladius, Callidus Assassin, Exaction Squad
7: Chaos Space Marines (+3)
Win Rate - #9 (49.0%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #9 (0.80x)
Event Wins - #6 (1 Win)
Contributor Voting - #8
Not a whole lot has changed for Chaos Space Marines. Terminatorless builds are the new innovation on the scene that looks to things like Chosen in a nurgle marked rhino to add counter-punch and focussing on Abaddon as a support piece for shooting and a solo threat, though 5-10 Terminator lists remain just as popular. An army not to be trifled with with one of the most difficult playpatterns to deal with due to its use of Lone Operatives to draw in the opponent and then apply devastating counterpunch.
Chaos Space Marines have the damage to punch through almost any army, but struggle on the scoring front when unable to bring fixed secondaries due to almost wanting to take a passive gameplan that forces your opponent to make somehting happen.
Key Units - Abaddon, Chaos Terminators, Forgefiends, Obliterators, Cypher, Cultists, Raptors, Chosen
=8: Orks (+3)
Win Rate - #8 (44.9%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #7 (0.89x)
Event Wins - #6 (1 Win)
Contributor Voting - #10
Activation Locking: The Faction. Yes you might die, but if there’s 30 units on the board there’s only so many things your opponent can kill. We’re seeing Trukks and Big Trakks combined to give 9 hulls full of scoring units as a method to score primary, moving even further away from any plans like “killing things” outside of some small specific problem solvers. Converting an event win in this environment is very impressive and shows that there’s a lot of mileage in this style in a world where everyone is building to kill big units like Custodian Guard and Wraithknights.
Key Units - Flash Gitz, Trukk, Beast Snaggas, Mozrog, Zogrod, Squighog Boys, Big Trakk
=8: Tyranids (-1)
Win Rate - #10 (48.8%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #13 (0.55x)
Event Wins - #6 (1 Win)
Contributor Voting - #6
Tyranids excellent scoring opportunities and genuinely okay matchups with some newly found tech like Old One Eye and Carnifexen into Genestealer Cults has helped keep them out of the gutter. Biovores remain one of the best scoring units in the game. With an upcoming codex, Tyranids sitting around the middle of the pack will be a great indicator on how much the Balance Dataslate and a vast widening of options can impact a faction on the edge of viability at the top level.
Key Units - Exocrine, Maleceptor, Trygon, Zoanthropes, Biovores, Gargoyles, Termagants, Lictor, Hive Tyrant, Tyrannofex, Old One Eye
10: Chaos Daemons (-2)
Win Rate - #7 (50.4%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #8 (0.75x)
Event Wins - #6 (1 Win)
Contributor Voting - #8
Chaos Daemons are scraping into the 50% club on winrate which happens to be almost exactly the pass rate on their common invulnerable saves. Be’lakor remains a genuine lynchpin for the faction with an at or near 100% pick rate in performing lists, and the various grab bags of scoring and monsters that you can pair with that is just about enough to keep the faction’s head above water.
Key Units - Be’Lakor, Shalaxi, Lord of Change, Kairos Fateweaver, Nurglings, Flamers, The Changeling, Bloodthirster
11: Adeptus Astartes (-2)
Win Rate - #13 (42.9%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #12 (0.57x)
Event Wins - #6 (1 Win)
Contributor Voting - #7
Space Marines are somehow genuinely doing terribly despite having fairly reasonable stats across the board. Dark Angels and specifically Deathwing Knights have come out of the woodwork with strong performances at events like Warmaster, but Deathwatch have had a fairly strong month also with an independent 54% winrate putting them strongly above the rest of the marines faction. The general state of Marines as the (usually) most popular faction always has a diminishing effect on their performance. Keeping up a high Overrep while being the most represented faction is always a challenge as marines are very popular even while middling.
Key Units - Desolation Marines, Gladiator Lancer, Deathwatch Veterans, Proteus Kill Teams, Inceptors, Scout Snipers, Roboute Guilliman, Deathwing Knights
12: Adeptus Mechanicus
Win Rate - #12 (44.7%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #4 (0.96x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #18
Hey look, its the small sample size faction creeping up off the back of a low playrate and getting a couple of reasonable performances in.
With the bottom of the meta being so flat (so few factions are winning events, and all winrates after the top 7 being sub 50%), it’s easy for one or two strong outlier events to make a big shift for a faction with a low playrate here. We saw some good results out of 18 Breacher Admech, and Skorpius Disintegrators are showing that some indirect is always a little helpful. The Omni-Sterliser Tech Priest Manipulus is genuinely a menace also. With changes sure to be inbound for the faction, keep your eye on the things that were already doing at least okay in this environment for inspiration.
Key Units - Kataphron Breahchers, Skorpius Disintegrators, Tech-Priest Manipulus
13: Chaos Knights (-1)
Win Rate - #11 (45.2%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #17 (0.00x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #12
Big Boy Time is here to stay, getting almost into the top half on both Winrate and Contributor Voting, Chaos Knights are an army that has to be respected. The 28 Melta List pioneered by Arne Zerndt at Warmasters has been showing up a lot more frequently and doing fairly well. A less hostile post slate meta could see Chaos Knights ripping and tearing with their excellent Knights of Shade stratagem and insane Objective Control Stat
Key Units - War Dog Stalkers, Brigands, Karnivores, Huntsmen, Knight Desecrator
14: Astra Militarum (-1)
Win Rate - 15 (40.4%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #16 (0.29x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #13
While the volume of indirect that Guard can put out is extraordinary, it continues to not be enough to convert into any real event results. With only really sentinels, hellhounds and Gaunt’s Ghosts as aggressive piece, it can be difficult to push the momentum of a game and actually outscore even an opponent that’s taken crippling damage. It definitely can happen, and a 40.4% winrate indicates that, but the very low conversion rate to top results implies its difficulty. Lean into the pushing units if you’re looking to play guard going forward.
Key Units - Ursula Creed, Lord Solar Leontus, Earthshaker Carriage, Medusa, Manticore, Scout Sentinel, Gaunt’s Ghosts, Hellhounds
15: T’au Empire (-2)
Win Rate - 14 (40.6%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #13 (0.32x)
Event Wins - #7 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #13
Tau are plagued by all the same problems as last month. Giving up a heavy clutch of Bring it Down points in this environment is a huge liability with the ease of secondaries like Deploy Teleport Homers alongside it. Tau’s damage output, while extraordinary in a normal context feels almost mundane compared to what the top armies are putting out which further removes their niche and leaves them struggling at all levels of play.
Key Units - Crisis Suits, Broadsides, Tetras, Ghostkeel, Stealth Suits, Shadowsun
16: Adepta Sororitas (+1)
Win Rate - #16 (39.1%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #14 (0.48x)
Event Wins - #19 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #16
Having managed to scrape together some top 4 performances this month, Sisters have gone back to their roots of an MSU garbage faction that aims to use the few key damage pieces they have along with a horde of small units like Penitent Engines and Arco-Flagellants to provide a scoring backbone. Exorcist indirect is genuinely good, and Paragon Warsuits have enough rerolls to feel like a real damage unit. Keeping up in the current meta seems a bit beyond outside of some few brave players however.
Key Units - Paragon Warsuits, Morvenn Vahl, Exorcists, Penitent Engines, Arco-Flagellants, Seraphim
17: Drukhari (-1)
Win Rate - #18 (36.5%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #11 (0.74x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #17
Drukhari have started seeing a little bit of prescense in top 4s, with about 3/4 of the representation they should have based on their play rate, showing that in the right hands they can at least punch up a little better than their winrate shows. Ravagers and Scourges and the various other pain token enabled shooting are definitely carrying the faction a tad, while small missile CC units like Solitaires and Lelith Hesperax are about the best you’re seeing for combat. The Voidraven Bomber as an ingress threat is definitely one of the most interesting modern tools thats showing up in the best performing lists also, so be aware of that if the pairing happens for you.
Key Units - Ravagers, Scourges, Mandrakes, Lelith Hesperax, Cronos, Voidraven Bomber
18: Grey Knights (-3)
Win Rate - #19 (34.9%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #17 (0.00x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #14
Grey Knights make up for their terrible statistics with at least a small amount of hope from the contributor voting. We saw some lists have a small jump in popularity due to Jack Harpster’s WTC Grey Knight list, and that may be a direction that we see some movement in post changes.
Key Units: Brotherhood Terminators, Paladins
19: World Eaters (+1)
Win Rate - #17 (37.1%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #17 (0x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #18
World Eaters remain an army that’s terrifying in practice but just doesn’t have the units on the table to apply it in a useful way. Continuing their struggle to put any real statistics on the board, expect to see this army do surprisingly well if the dataslate is kind.
Key Units - Angron, Eightbound, Exalted Eightbound
20: Leagues of Votann (+1)
Win Rate - #20 (32.7%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #17 (0x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #20
Votann have still not been able to convert a top 4 in July or August and will need to be a big beneficiary of changes to get anywhere close to closing the winrate gap with even the middle of the pack factions
Key Units - Einhyr Hearthguard, Sagitaur, Brokhyr Thunderkin
21: Death Guard (-1)
Win Rate - #21 (32.2%)
Overrepresentation in top 4s - #17 (0.00x)
Event Wins - #10 (No Wins)
Contributor Voting - #20
Continuing to see no major event success and unable to put up a single top 4 this month, Death Guard remain at or near the bottom of the pile.
Key Units - Blightlord Terminators, Mortarion, Deathshroud Terminators, Plagueburst Crawler
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That’s it for this month, going forward we’re expecting to see a lot of changes, but the foundations for how all of these indexes play has been set. It remains to be seen how each one will adapt to the wider game changes and how the basis of lists we have here will impact that. It’s an interesting time to be a 40k player, and I hope that next month’s article can be vastly closer and more diverse.
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