Games Workshop believes in small changes when it comes to balance, and it has worked out fairly well for Warhammer 40k and AoS so far.
In a recent article, GW talks pretty extensively about why they don’t want to make drastic changes all at once when it comes to balance. It actually makes sense, as there are so many armies and variables, that even a small change can come out with big consequences when it comes to thousands of games.
Games Workshop Believes in Small Changes to Balance
Warhammer Community gave some great insight into their thoughts behind balancing the game as the edition goes on.
Statistics from GW, we’ll look at more later, but this is actually pretty good as not every army will always be at the top.
The latest Balance Dataslate has been in operation for two weeks now, and while it introduced a number of targeted tweaks, it’s fair to say that some don’t think we went far enough! In this article we’ll talk about why we prefer to avoid drastic changes when modifying rules, and how we expect the latest update to percolate into the competitive scene.
This seems like a good approach because people will always want stronger buffs and heavier nerfs, but that just creates a seesaw of balance. We’ve said it before, GW has actually done a decent job this edition with balance (well, minus a few snags, we’re looking at you, Votann).
If we introduced three powerful new special rules for an underperforming army which then started consistently overperforming, it could be tricky to work out which of those additions to reverse. The same is true for applying multiple penalties or restrictions to powerful factions.
Making smaller changes gives us more accurate data, and makes it simpler to account for other factors – such as new factions joining the game, and new tactics hitting the tournament scene. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to make additional tweaks in the future, incrementally moving factions towards the ideal win rate – between 45% and 55%.
As we said, there are a few armies lagging behind and a few armies out in front, but their idea has worked this edition. Hopefully, they start playtesting more upfront, so we don’t have to have as many rules, but hey, we’ll take what we can get.
Games Workshop & Warhammer 40k Balance Overall
The quarterly updates, FAQs, and Chapter Approved have actually kept the game in a decent place for the majority of 2022. Obviously, there are blips on the radar (we’re looking at you, Aeldari armies), but when you look at tournament results over the past year or so, in general, there have been a lot of armies doing well and even getting wins.
While getting hit with FAQs and such all the time can be a little annoying, it has been working. Plus, if GW actually got their act together on the app (which is something they have definitely bungled), these would all be super easy to find, as they could just keep the app updated with all the new changes.
We’re not counting on that, but if it did work, this would all be pretty easy to digest. Still, if you look at a lot of the last tournament reports, GW has done a good job, considering the top lists are almost always different armies (but we’ll also look at some statistics).
Leagues of Votann Was a Bad Precedent
They received a ton of flak and were actually banned from tournaments before ever being in one, so let’s hope GW does a little more playtesting next time. Still, though, there was no real data to go off, so there’s a chance they would have been fine, and people just overreacted.
That’s all we’ll say about that, as it seems all settled now.
Balance and Warhammer 40k
The statistics come from Reddit, and there are some interesting stats, but we also have to take some of them with a grain of salt due to the low sample size.
- We have 10 unique winning factions out of 11 events. That feels like a record for Meta Monday but I’m not sure. Only Craftworld won 2 events.
- In fact, 15 factions(Not separating out CSM or SM) have a 4-week win rate between 45% and 55% an awesome display of balance for 9th edition.
Those two facts show a serious change, but as we said, it is just from a single weekend. What do you think about the meta? It does seem to look like win rates by faction are closer than we’ve seen in a long time, not to mention that it feels like almost any faction can win a tournament.
Especially when you consider tournaments can be decided easily by a bad table with too much or insufficient terrain.
Now, let’s check out some win rates:
First up, these four armies had a decent amount of players, and while Craftworld came out much more on top, the other armies hovering right around 50% really isn’t that bad for each having over 15 people playing the armies and Death Guard all the way up at 30 players.
Then we get another chunk of pretty often-played armies. Orks sat pretty low in the win rate, but for having 43 players, Necrons are almost at a 50% win rate, which is probably near the truth of their power with that many players and games.
According to this, sisters actually had a great win rate at 54%. Nothing insane, but do show they are still strong. As we said, though, this is looking fairly balanced compared to some weeks.
Then you get to the Iron Hands, who did come with a 70% win rate, but only two people played them and obviously knew what they were doing. So with small sample sizes like this, you can’t look too much into the percentage.
As often happens, people who play the lesser-known factions are great at them, so this isn’t really showing anything other than two great Iron Hands players were out over the weekend.
Here is another great example of where a faction is actually at compared to 2 good players. The Nids are sitting pretty right now with 28 players and a 54% win rate. Ynnari, on the other hand, had two great players pilot them, so while winning 91% of the games looks insane, this isn’t enough data to go on…
These are honestly some of the most balanced Warhammer 40k stats we’ve seen in a while, so we’re all for it, Games Workshop!
What do you think about the balance Games Workshop has brought to Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
