The only thing Games Workshop hasn’t bungled over the last year is bringing balance to Warhammer 40k, and here’s why!
You may not agree, but to us, GW has actually done a good job in the past year of balancing Warhammer 40k. With all the updates, FAQs (yes, they can get annoying), and balance dataslates, the game has been running pretty well.
Games Workshop will always release new books with a little extra power when compared to other armies, but we can’t really expect them to change that.
But they have kept the power creep limited to short bursts, for the most part, instead of months of the same old stale meta…
Games Workshop & Warhammer 40k Balance
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 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?
Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group, or our new Discord server, and make sure you enter the latest monthly giveaway for FREE today!
Get ad-free access to our hobby videos, a monthly drop of miniatures, and support some of the best creators out there for as little as $6 a month on Patreon!
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!
