Greetings, Dash28 Readers! As you can imagine, it takes a lot of coordination here at Dash28 to keep the site running and put out the quality content that you’ve come to expect. Our writers are a varied and interesting bunch, with different perspectives on the game and hobby in general. One of the main tools we use to brainstorm ideas and generate discussion is our Dash28 Writers Chat. Lots of messages are sent back and forth during downtime at work or between chores debating the hobby news of the day. Most of these are left on the cutting room floor, but every once in a while, a topic comes up that we’d like to bring to our readers.
Today we have a discussion between Alex Chaves and Mike Rossi about the current meta in relation to the recent Samurai Showdown event.
Mike: Alex, thanks for joining me today.
Alex: It’s a pleasure as always; let’s chat.
Mike: So, the Samurai Showdown recently wrapped up in Texas, and the results were… remarkable.
I think the comment one of us made was “Ogres might be too good.” It sounds like the 9×9 or similar builds were out in force. And Brad’s Undead list was six Wight Hordes with zombies and characters backing them up. I find this concerning for a bunch of reasons, not least of which is that I don’t play these factions 😊. While we were talking about game balance and speculating on the next Clash of Kings you made a comment that’s important to this conversation. If I can quote, you said “It’s a bit of a hot take but the meta is ‘balanced’ around multiple top builds right now.” Can you expand on that thought?
Alex: Absolutely. First I want to clarify the concept of a “top build.” What I mean is an army that is showing consistent results with top scores at a tournament. Of course, on any given Sunday any army can end up on top; it’s important to separate those from the ones that continue to perform well at the top. Right now I see four variations of top builds. One of the many variations of Elf shooting, Ogres, Nightstalkers, and the typically Air Elemental heavy Force of Nature armies. While many of us have grievances with certain units in those armies, we have to stop for a second to realize that between all the different Elf and Nature factions, we have at least six to eight competitive armies. This might seem like a really bad thing, but there is quite a bit of choice there.
Mike: I see what you’re driving at here; essentially, the concept of a “Top Army” needs to be separated from the idea of a “Top Faction,” in that you can take a bunch of inefficient army builds within a given faction. That being said, what if I don’t play one of those factions? We highlight how balanced Kings of War is, but in the end if the top builds are all from 4 of the 28 armies, is that really true?
Alex: That’s a great question and I answer it with a question I ask everyone who shows me an army list they are taking to the next tournament: what armies are you expecting to run into? If you can expect certain top builds, you can play around it by building a “meta buster” list to counter those at the top. In the example results you listed above, the Undead army was built with a heavy lean on Wights, effectively able to out-speed and out-punch ogres, beating them at their own game. This ties into the very core of an army builder’s dream — find those underutilized choices that shine in the right matchup. In every competitive game you are going to see certain builds dominate; having four different ones to me is a sign of a relatively healthy scene. I know we have all seen plenty of games that are dominated by just one or two builds that are too effective and too dominant at the top.
Mike: That’s fair enough. I know my dwarf list evolved over the course of last year to face Elf shooting and Nightstalkers. So in that instance, your argument is that I can take the top lists into account and plan accordingly with my faction’s list design. To follow up on that, if there are three or four factions at the top after every Clash of Kings, I have a few options. I can either adjust my personal faction by building a few units to counter, or I can “chase the meta” and paint up the new hotness every year. Now I’m a notoriously slow painter, so I’ve opted to keep painting one or two units a year on my dwarf army, which makes me semi-competitive year in and year out, but never the top of the heap. What are your thoughts on the most efficient way to “chase the meta”?
Alex: I have always been a big proponent of playing “what you know.” To that, I think you are doing things right in that you are adapting the list you already know inside and out to have answers to the new hotness. I’d recommend looking in your army first to see what tools you might have previously overlooked. For Dwarfs it was probably things like Throwing Mastiffs that look amazing in a world of low-defense stealthy armies. For other armies it might be things like cheap Lightning Bolt, cheap chaff units, Phalanx to counter cavalry, Ensnare to counter elite armies, etc.
Mike: Adding a few units into an existing army framework is one thing, but the other end of the spectrum has a certain allure. It would seem that some people pick the most efficient units in a new faction and paint five or six of them. As you mentioned, it worked for Brad at the Samurai Showdown. What are your thoughts there? Is the ability to spam units a detriment to the game?
Alex: When it comes to spamming units, I think spamming efficient units can create a problem, but it’s the same problem to any skew list that is created from spam. The main difference I see is that it’s a lot more obvious to see the counter to a shooting spam or monster spam whereas for efficient units the counter might be harder to spot until you play against it multiple times. So while those lists give the appearance of a dominant army, they just have a more subtle weakness that needs to be coaxed out. Speaking of dominant armies, in a scenario where either a particular army or maybe a certain combination is too prevalent in a scene, what do you think is a Tournament Organizer’s responsibility to address balance? What sort of priorities should TOs have in mind when they design their rules pack?
Mike: Wow, that’s a tough one. I think when a new Clash of Kings comes out and changes to the meta are introduced, it’s easy for a TO to fall into the trap of restricting unit choices to curb some of the perceived abuses. But smart TOs wait a while to let the meta develop. Something that makes the Internet wring their hands may not be an issue in the local scene. And even when imbalances are revealed, TOs will find other ways to restrict their effectiveness. The Northeast US, for example, is well-known for having large pieces of terrain. This came about as a response to the heavy shooting armies that were making the rounds in the middle of second edition. Choosing scenarios that are more challenging for “netlists” is another alternative. But I would hate for TOs to have to go back to the GW days of comp packs and army restrictions. What do you think?
Alex: I do think that ultimately the TO has to make the tournament as fun as possible for its attendees. We are lucky in that the RC generally does a very good job balancing armies. I don’t foresee a situation where we ever need to use “comp” in the traditional sense, but I do think it’s ok for TOs to do list rejection if they feel that a list is abusive to the point where it creates that negative play experience, or if it doesn’t jive with the type of event they’re trying to put on. I’ve seen it used in some Mid-Atlantic events, specifically in the era just after third edition dropped where war machines became a little too effective and you saw armies taking six to eight of them. There are also armies I’ve seen that use the allies rule as a way to get around the “limit of three” rule by allying in a fourth option from a different list that is either exactly identical or close enough.
Mike: Yeah, to that point, it’s a testament to the RC that they tried some tweaks to those units to even things out but still make them worth taking. Those subtle changes over time keep the game interesting without having to introduce the new hotness.
Alex: We are on the verge of a new rulebook that will come with a bunch of new and improved tweaks that unlock new combinations and make some old combinations that might have been overlooked now top tier choices! It’s chaos and I love every bit of it, but how do you find the most effective way to address changes like this? Since you have stuck to a main army over the years, what sort of tweaks do you expect to make to your list? Do you wait to see what people play first or do you try in any way to stay ahead of what you expect? For example, if you expect to see more Forces of Nature armies heavy with Air Elementals, what would you do to your standard list?
Mike: That’s a great question. So, I have a few thoughts, but first I want to say that with the possible removal of allies in competitive play, the Greater Air Elemental abuse that we saw at Masters may be restricted to only a few armies instead of every army taking a few as allies. So in this case, I’d actually survey the scene and see what people are playing. How many people are playing Forces of Nature or Sylvan Kin? (Will some people who took Twilight Kin switch the army to Sylvan Kin for this season?) These may affect the list I take. As for my army in particular, my Dwarves evolved in response to Elf shooting to have lots of Defense 6 infantry blocks with Throwing Mastiffs, with some Sharpshooters to support. My two losses at Masters were to Air Elemental heavy armies. I had two major issues when facing those lists. First, I wasn’t putting enough wounds on the Air Elemental units to force a real nerve check, and the wounds that I did score were easily healed up. So should I skew to more shots? Maybe switch a few of my units over to handgunners? I’ve toyed with the idea, and I think there’s some promise there. The second issue was dealing with the inevitable flank or rear surge. I dealt with rear surges by deploying in depth and not allowing the Air Elementals to get behind my front lines, and restricting my opponent to flank charges. What I didn’t have was a way to countercharge effectively once the Air Elementals were committed. So the other option would be to substitute some Earth Elementals and a Stone Priest to allow me to countersurge and lock the Air Elementals down. So in this instance I would drop the Ironguard regiments and the King on Large Beast and take a horde of Ironclad, two regiments of handgunners, and two hordes of Earth Elementals with a Stone Priest. Same Unit Strength, but the list would play very differently in these matchups. I would get a few practice games in against that type of list before bringing it to an event, and get a feel for how effective it really is. What do you think?
Alex: While it’s not quite fighting fire with fire, fighting Surge with Surge is certainly effective and probably the best tool available to Dwarves besides just “more shootin’.” Earth elementals are especially smart as Pathfinder has all of a sudden become a premium rule again that every army won’t have access to. I’ll take a brief moment to give a shameless plug to fellow author Greg Person’s article on how to deal with Air Elementals:
Something I have always found effective against them is playing fast around their flank. I think at the end of the day, experience and practice are still the best tools available.
Mike: So you were piloting a strong Nightstalkers list at Masters this year. You’d been crowned The Master with Dwarves, and you messed around with a few other armies before landing on Nightstalkers as an effective and efficient choice. If you were going to give some advice to people starting a new army in response to a new Clash Pack, what would it be?
Alex: That’s a great question because there are so many facets to picking an army. When I pick a new army, I try to envision myself playing it for around six months. Because there is so much learning that goes into a new army, I think that you have to be able to commit that long if you want to learn the ins and outs. So with that in mind, I try to narrow in on the main goal of what the army is trying to accomplish. Is it an aggressive list (the case with Nightstalkers) or is it something of a counter punch (how I played Dwarfs)? Now, I try to pick a few core units that develop that strategy. Following through with my examples, Nightstalkers have units like Butchers and Soulflayers which can play aggressively while Dwarfs have units like Steel Behemoths and Earth Elementals that allow for efficient shooting and effective hammer-and-anvil tactics. Fill the rest of your army with units that align to that goal. Not everything has to be killer efficient, but if it’s fun and works toward what you are trying to accomplish, then I think it will be effective. At the end of the day I think armies should inspire you to want to play them.
Mike: And that’s the point, really. You can chase the meta as much as you want, but unless the army excites you, either from playstyle, lore, or modeling, it just won’t hold your interest over the course of a year. Alex, I want to thank you for chatting with me today. We’ve barely scratched the surface here but I think we brought up some good points to consider. And to everyone reading along at home, we’ll chat with you again soon.
A very informative and thoughtful article. Keep up the great work!