Obviously for this to work, we need a baseline for comparisons. Any such insights will be hugely valuable as we start reviewing the first wave of 9th Edition releases – so let’s see what we can figure out. Quite apart from keeping you honest and letting the peanut gallery mock you for your foolishness (both very important) looking at what facets of the game played out differently than you predicted can help piece together larger truths about how the game works and what matters in the current environment. Revisiting your past predictions is great fun for a number of reasons. I’ve talked before about how some of my favourite gaming videos are the ones by Hearthstone streamer Trump where he looks back at his set reviews and analyses what he got right and wrong (the most recent example is here). So, the other reason I’m finally giving in and doing this is that unlike some of the points in 8th where the game was stable for a prolonged period, I actually have a baseline to compare to, which makes talking about how things have actually played out much more interesting. Time for the post I swore I’d never get sucked into making.
Time for the post that I somehow managed to go the whole of 8th Edition without making. All of that’s about to go to hell get shaken up by new Codex releases starting up again.Īs I pondered these truths, it became clear to me that it was time.The quantity of results we have to analyse is decent but not overwhelming.All factions have a “complete” ruleset.Competitive play has been proceeding without major changes for that whole period.We’ve had a complete balance reset a couple of months ago.In fact, the position we’re currently in is relatively unique, and something that rarely came up in 8th Edition. While we continue to see spicy new builds every week, two months is a pretty long time in Competitive 40K terms. It’s also a tremendously enjoyable time to be writing about the game, as people are experimenting with new builds weekly and old favourite units are emerging from whatever 8th Edition balance hell they’ve been languishing in to blink, wide eyed at the new dawn, then start brutally murdering whatever is near them. Not all factions, sadly (as we’ll get to, some are in a rough spot) but there’s enough diversity both of armies and units being used within them to make the game feel fresh and exciting.
Safecat haemonculus series#
I’ve been taking weekly looks at some of the best performing lists in my Competitive Innovations series (of which you can find this week’s here) and the good news is that on the top tables we’re seeing a decent variety of factions performing well. While COVID has forced the competitive scene to take things a bit slower than would otherwise have been the case, enough small to medium events have been firing around the world (especially in places less affected by the virus) for us to start getting a real picture of what does and doesn’t work in 9th Edition. Time is currently a flat circle with no meaning, but as measured by the mechanisms set down in the Before Time we’re nearly 2 months into 9th Edition.