😂 Nobody's talking about all these benefits brother, it always feels good to see an army just got sold by Meta chasers get back on top in a couple months too!
Love it when that happens. I got a friend into warhammer bec of death guard players who sold their collections when index death guard first came out. Managed to get TWO battleforces for a good price (the 2022 and 2021 one) and recently got another friend into warhammer with dark angels and people selling their space marines 😊
Yeah most of them are riddled with spillt glue, massive gaps between parts, mould lines and cast leftovers still on them while having paint brushed over them in containership thickness... i would rather spend more money buying a new one and doing it right than having to sleep knowing my models are like this.
Oof.. imagine being a meta chaser but also selling your armies. Putting all that time and effort into painting the models only to sell them so you can buy a paint a whole new army. (Which by the time you've gotten fully painted, a rules change has happened and your army is no longer meta). The best way to meta chase is to just build one army...keep it and then build another... Eventually you'll have EVERY unit. And then you don't have to worry about meta chasing anymore.
Felt this with DA. I was the only guy who liked DA at my store, then Lionel came out and his rules were good at first, along with Azrael. Bunch of people started running Space Marine lists with DA characters, not because they liked it, but because they could win with it. Lionel is now meh, and DA codex is meh, so they all fled, leaving me to be that one DA player again.
The way I understand it is not that they’re just meh now, but are unreasonably adjusted, nerfed and priced, discouraging people from using them. I’ve stopped buying 10th books altogether so I don’t know.
@@Smilomaniac true, but even so, the DA base rules for 10th were not the worst. I enjoyed the strategems and enhancements. However, people would run Ironstorm or Vanguard armies with Lionel or pther DA characters because it fit a better ‘Meta’, not a DA army or ruleset
Nobody likes girl meta since it's so luck based, as becoming sperm donor hinges on having sperm viable enough, and there's not much you can do about it.
I got into Necrons at the end of 9th edition. They were my first army back when I knew absolutely nothing about lore or gameplay. My buddies all played and they wanted me to get an army. The undead robots looked really cool and now whenever I say I play Necrons I get met with rolled eyes and groans :(
Same. I've been eyeing Warhammer 40K since I was a kid in the '90s looking at the Space Hulk box at a local hobby store when I got into painting miniatures for some of the DnD games I had. I saw the Necrons and thought they were really neat, especially the old wraiths.
One of my friends bought the Indomitus box in 9th and he sold me the Necron half. Last year we started going to a LGS that one of our other friends liked and we joined an escalation league. Now I'm less than $3k USD from having max sized squads of every Necrons unit and I just need to pick up some chaos demons for my chaos knights
@@wesleyhill91I started with some discount 9th edition command boxes when I started painting/collecting last year. I also joined an escalation leauge. Just now getting some tanky stuff like wraiths to hold objectives. My warriors blobs and immortals just got deleted by everything. My inexperience doesn't help, but it is hard to learn how to play properly If you play stuff that is suboptimal and just can't compete.
@@TheCrmerry Before you get into the game just let the other players know that you're inexperienced and are still learning the rules. A lot of the time someone will tone down their lists to not just annihilate you from the board on turn 2.
GW should stop focusing on "tournament play" and build rulesets where 75%+ of the units in the codex are viable choices instead of "I have to pick these 4 things" which results in a meta list.
Viability only matters if playing in a tournament. There will always be a most optimal choice. Most units are functional at worst. Only a select few are truely actively terrible.
Depends on how you play, but if you play competitively, then there are always best options, and 40k is not unique here, many game types often suffer from a "best" option. Tournaments can make a game fairer IF the people that run the game actively participate in ensuring that it happens, GW however aren't that great at balancing their game.
Just MOD it like it's a viedo game. I've been doing this since the 2nd Edition. They actually used to encourage being imaginative and tailoring the rules. I like to run narrative campaigns when I get the time and enough commited players.
2nd Edition Ork player, I've seen power come and go over the years... But never been a fan of meta chasers. Mainly because it felt when I first started 40K that your army choice was also a personal choice..? Something you're drawn to or love, or shows off your personality etc. Naive I know, but that's how I always felt. The high end meta chasers annoy me... But it's not like you can stop anyone... It just feels against the spirit of things personally.
It's not naive, it's cultured. I joined 40k around 9th edition, fell in love with DA and now that's what I collect, paint etc. Stillman was onto something
3E Ork player here: our faction has been the 'eh, we're here because we enjoy our crazy Ork boyz. We're just here to have fun.' Then 8th rolled around (Press P to piss on the grave of the damn Initiative rule) and Orks suddenly became a major threat... and we still were having fun. My genuine concern is how the 'Stompa Boyz force' is going to throw everything outta whack with every Ork player and their dog getting a Stompa to play around with. I've got Speed Freeks, Dread Mobz, and Green Tide, so I'm all good (yay being here for 20 years) but newer Ork players are going to be intimidated by the sheer size of the Stompa. Damn thing is _not easy to transport around._
Blood angels and orks since 2nd Ed. I don't care to much about meta chasers, but it rewards bad rules writing. It's then compounded by all the rules and points changes. I think I'll stick with heresy.
Good to see kindred spirits! I got started in 5e with Orks, but I stopped playing soon after a falling out with friends. Now a family member is dragging me back in, haha.
Honestly, if models weren't so heavily priced the whole "META" scene wouldn't be as bad. More people would be able to make armies that don't fit into the current season's powerhouse.
I unironically don't have a problem with my opponent being a meta chaser as long as they are enjoyable to fight against. But a lot of people that chase the meta are often not the greatest opponents akin to "That guy" (at least from my experience).
There is a guy i met playing 40k who had just gotten into the hobby at 8th edition. Was super excited about playing a Guilliman Ultramarine army and went on and on about how much he loved their lore. Then Space Marines 2.0 came out, ajd instantly his whole army changed to Iron Hands, and made up some super weird excuses about how his army theme was "G-man's best" and he could pull from any chapter out there but of course only played Iron Hands with 3 executioner repulsors and the Iron Father character. Went WAAC and never went back. Pushed lots of our friends group away and of course regularly hops armies to this day to play the strongest thing, but lies about "how cool they are". Currently switching to guard for how he loves the fluff but last edition told everyone how boring mortal humans are. This is an extreme of course, but one glaring personal experience that will always make me hate Meta Chasing.
Honestly the bad thing about this is not accepting what he was doing and the mental gymnastics to justify it. If you want to play with powerful lists there's nothing wrong with that, just be honest with yourself.
For me it's been a case of "Oh, hey, my [ARMY] no longer suck, I guess I can have fun playing them again." And then getting accused of meta chasing. Some people are just never happy unless you play the armies with the lowest win rates or you only take the worst performing units in your army. Seriously, I have played Eldar since 2003, but bringing them to the table once in a while apparently means I'm meta chasing.
See, that's why I play Thousand Sons and Custodes. Can't accuse me of metachasing when my two armies combined have a plastic model range that is struggling to hit 20 unique models for things that they aren't stealing from somewhere else. Magnus, Arhiman, Rubrics, Scarab Occults, Infernal Master, Exalted Sorcerer Custodes have 13 unique units, three of those are Sisters of Silence, and another three are named characters (Aleya, Trajann, Valerian) So we just hit 20 plastic kits with the new Custodes model if I did my math correctly. Both factions have more options technically, but Daemons and Allies of the Imperium and Knights shouldn't count because that's like saying the Genestealers have more options because they can steal from the Imperial Guard's codex. Yeah, you are right, you can. That doesn't make those units a member of that faction though, it makes them a generic unit that you got from a different codex.
Eldar deserving every criticism leveled at them for well over twenty years aside, every faction experiences this, you just shrug and say that you’ve owned them for years and are enjoying yourself :) i haven’t been able to start new factions without accusations from people who don’t know mr and it’ll always be like that.
Well if you run models you enjoy playing it's one thing. If you show up with the cookie cutter Aeldar list that's winning events you shouldn't be surprised to be accused as meta chasing. Not saying you do that.
@@dras-pv8qv Yeah, obviously. The problem is if you happen to like some of the models that are suddenly OP then what the hell dod you do? I like Fire Prisms, have two with the old metal guns, but if I bring even one someone ends up whining, even if the rest of my army is meh.
I tend to avoid the meta units. Something about them being necessary to win just rubs me the wrong way, so I deliberately avoid using them and play what I want. Yeah, this means I only lose, but I’m trying new things and I’m having fun doing it.
I used to be like that but eventually after the years I realized that sounds time the things you are drawn to are good and sometimes bad. It's good to if you can enjoy what you are drawn to when it is good and when it is bad.
My main 40K armies are Custodes and Knights. One of the primary reasons I chose them was because it was simply less models to try and keep up with from a rules standpoint. Plus I play my Custodes in Heresy as well. I don't think I have a ton of meta chasers in my local area, but I do have an overabundance of just really skilled players in here (myself NOT included).
People just enjoy 40K in different ways. I myself have absolutely no interest in building and painting models, I only do it so that I have completed models to play with. My interest is playing the game competitively. (Though I only use one army, whether they are good or bad)
As someone who just competed in my first doubles tournament, where for the most part we got games with likeminded folks just in it for some fun. We had one player who was clearly playing a Meta guard list and honestly it was so boring to fight, he sat at the back, hardly moved and bombed us. I wouldn’t have minded but he didn’t even look like he was having any fun either. I know it’s a tournament but surely we should enjoy what we do?
To be fair though, indirect fire is about the only way the guard can win at all. You can't expect them to win in melee, or is shooting except with tanks. If anything, the guard is a perfect example for the video topic. While guard are not "meta" in tenth, the faction has very few paths to victory. Gotta take Lord Horsey-Boy. Gotta take Ursula Creed. Blah blah blah. Tuned lists bore me.
@bopaintsminis Guard main, couldn't agree more. The sad thing is, there's other ways to win. Harder, sure, and you'll have to be more strategic, but it's like people would rather copy-paste the latest reddit list and just go full artillery instead of trying with anything else. Don't get me wrong, gunlines are cool, especially as an artilleryman IRL. But I'm playing to have fun, and getting slammed by indirect fire just isn't fun for anyone. In a tournament setting? I can see it, sure. It's cutthroat and competitive. But any other time I just kinda feel bad.
I play Orks and i always include some of the 'naffer' units (lootas, burnas etc.). Then, the satisfaction of when they actually kill something is so much more enjoyable. I don't like the way 40K is becoming a 'point and click' game; you build a unit to almost guarantee it will kill anything it targets = overpowered unit + buffing leader+buffing strategy = no fun. Nothing should really be auto include unless the rules state you HAVE to take it.
I'd only ever collect an army because i like the lore around them, and their aesthetics. I'd sooner have a fluffy army from a faction I'm invested in than a crunchy one that's riding high in the meta.
The fact that quidditch, the nonsensical Harry potter sport, exists in real life form with a tournament circuit, should tell you that some people just really want to win at whatever it is they're doing. Even in things that was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place.
I've started collecting salamanders and you'd best believe I'm taking every possible flamer and melta.i Don't care if the combi weapons are bad I'm taking them just so I can have combi flamers and combi meltas
For some armies, all you can do is "Meta Chase" just to even stand a chance. Some army rules are so unbalanced/ poorly written that it's limited the army to a particular play style/ list or they don't stand a chance. EG. The Daemon meta is Belakor and friends because if you take anything else, you will get tabled. Chaos Knights, again, it's wardogs or bust. CSM is basically Mark of Nurgle for the 1 strat and that's it.
This is a problem with Tournament play, casual amongst friends you can always try and balance points out to make units playable. The issue really is though that 40k is a highly complex and somewhat convoluted game with armies that all interact with the core rules in unexpected ways to either the detriment or unfair benefit to different armies. And after 10 Editions, it's still hopeless, luckily we all enjoy the game for some reason I suppose! 😅😅😅
@@ashleyharris4114 I mean I disagree with that take. My friends and I have never once played at a tournament but we regularly actually *try* to win in our casual games. Sure we aren't bringing the peak meta-builds but it's abundantly clear that some armies just don't have any effective variance in their builds. There is a difference between an army only having one Competitive list and an army having only one Effective list. And I know, I know. "Play what's fun to you". But most people want to do more then stare at their units getting wiped because they didn't bring the one model/unit that enables them to make it to turn three without effectively having already lost.
*Laughs in mono Tzeentch without Be'la'boring* uwu (Collected those since 5th ed fwiw, and before the units got buffed in that edition. Skill and knowledge trump meta)
Am I the only one who actively runs from the meta? My Necrons have been on the shelf for awhile now. Effortlessly crushing my friends isn’t fun. I like a challenge.
I agree. I play guard mostly and don't use a lot of Artillery. I have 1 basalisk I kitbashed and am happy with so I use it, but mostly lean into Tanks cause they are cool
The real 5head move is to start collecting an underpowered army knowing that there will be at least one or two balance passes before you have it assembled and painted so hopefully it will be buffed by then.
An experienced 40k player told me about how back in the day GW would put out surveys to the community to get their input on stuff. I sort of wish they'd do that again. It'd be cool to see data and how certain circles of 40k players vote on things. Like how the competitive scene may differ from the casual scene, the narrative scene, etc.
Back in the day was just a couple of years ago. Pre 7th edition, whatever was in your codex was IT, sometimes for several years. Eldar and orks went 10+ years with just one codex lol
@@warmasterjames797 As someone that had the 4th edition Ork Codex, and played both 5th and 6th edition, yeah it was brutal for some armies. I still remember when the Burning Chariot was useless when Chaos Daemons got a new codex and the new model was unplayable until 7th edition.
@@warmasterjames797 Chaos Marines getting the arguably *worst* codex of 4th edition in 2007 - Went through all of 5th edition being unplayably bad... like, "even if you take 2x Lash Princes + Nurgle biker spam, you're probably still going to lose" levels of raging dumpster fire! - First codex of 6th edition - Skipped over entirely in 7th edition. Finally got the Traitor Legions update in time for Xmas 2017, then 6 months later, 8th edition full reset and those rules were gone. - Again, one of the first 2 or 3 codices of 8th. Power crept out of the game within barely a couple months. (...Death Guard suffered even more, but at least they had the "new army" argument + so many gorgeous new model releases!) - Were the absolute dead last Marine army to get their 2W in 9th edition. Had a pretty decent run for about a year before 10th nuked everything again And well, we know how it's gone so far in 10th for everyone! The game is an absolute mess. 10th is the very first edition since I started in 3rd ed where I am not going to buying a single codex, not even for my own factions. They've sucked all the fun, charm & character out of the game simply to (fail again) to appease the loudest & most toxic minority of the community.
I think it all comes down to there being very little interactivity in the game. You shoot my squad, my squad rolls saves, we see how many die. The only decision there was you deciding who to shoot, and I did nothing at all. The only inputs into the outcome of that interaction is who you decided to shoot (which isn't even hard to decide because in many cases you can shoot halfway across the board or more), and what we decided to take in our army lists before the game even started. Warhammer is so easy to net-list because there's so little interaction in-game, so oftentimes your biggest decisions are simply the list itself. In Warhammer, there's no, "Oh that attack was really well played by you!" or, "You defended that objective really cleverly."
I just play what is fun 😊, I get my ass kicked but with each ass kicking I learn something new: 1. Try to focus on getting objectives instead of just trying to kill everything 2. Try to think about what you are trying to do instead of just doing something without thinking 3. Try to have units that fit every role 4. Try to use strategems more (or if need be) and 5. Just have fun 😊. Side note: I have 2 fire prisms and can't wait to try them out 😊
My friend gets annoyed when he puts down his Eldar and people say he is meta chasing, 2/3rds of his models are metal and sometimes older than his opponent.
The problem is people are misusing the term... I've been called "meta chasing" for experimenting with running a lot of *vehicles* in my SoB army in 10th edition... It has been my main army for years. Meta chasers CHANGE THEIR ARMIES.. not just tactics.
I'm running a bunch of vehicles in my SoB *to fill points* because I genuinely can't even make 2k without them. Now I see comp-bros on the internet crying that something similar to my (what I thought was just fairly okay, good if played well) list was "meta." Like oh hell, apparently I can't turn up with them without being side-eyed as "that girl." Come on... ;-;
I've been working my way up to 1k points of T'au (it's an uphill battle as the points keep dropping, started at ~1200 and now I'm at ~980, I gotta finish painting before it drops even further) and I think things like the Crisis Suits and the devilfish/hammerhead/skyray are good examples of how the game should work, buy one box, magnetize the options in it, and now you've got three options to switch between, in good times because of strategy, in bad times because only one of the datasheets is any good. Compared to something like Space Marines where every type of Marine comes in its own box with one gun option or character-heavy armies where every character does one thing only and can't easily proxy as another.
Honestly this issue would be fixed by balancing units in the codex to be equally competitive, so that the benefit of running the most optimal list of units is much less exaggerated. The other benefits of this would include stronger list variety, more flavourful lists, better model lifetime (as opposed to sitting on a shelf for the whole edition it is weak) and an overall easier entry to factions and the game overall. The obstacle to this internally however is that GW doesnt seem to assess specific unit viability outside of faction performance. Underplayed units probably arent getting a buff unless the whole faction gets a buff. This encourages running the "good" units in the dex. I also believe this is done by design as a marketing tool. By making different models "meta" each edition, players are heavily motivated to keep refreshing their model range to keep up with what is strong for their faction, driving more sales. As a GK player if I could just run paladins every single edition I would, and then I wouldn't need to buy new models.
Meta chasing wouldn’t be such a problem if all armies’ units were closer together in terms of balancing so people could run what they wanted rather than what was best. Compare the beastsnagga ork line to the ork buggies for instance. Top of the line must-takes vs dead-end trash that either underperforms or is just useless.
Easier said than done, making a game like 40k balanced is near impossible. There will always be something that is at least a bit stronger than the rest and meta chasers will use that because they want to win no matter what
@thebarbarianninja4152 I hate that argument. Things don't need to be "perfectly balanced". All people are asking for is for there to not be units that are so overpowered that you are handicapping yourself by not taking them and units that are so underpowered that you are handicapping yourself by taking them.
@@rakisuzuki-burke4148 And making that not happen is easier said than done. If the game was balanced by you or half the people that love to complain endlessly about GWs balancing the game would be a completely broken mess in terms of balancing because balancing a game is very hard, and considering we still have more codexes to come and factions will change it makes the balancing harder. And to add on top of that, you can make some non-optimal lists work well on casual environments (which is where most games are played). You dont have to run the best shit all the time.
I did my first RTT last sunday just bundled a list together yeah lost all 3 games but to be honest i loved and have now joined a comp group which plays on mondays
I started an Eldar army in 9th edition a bit before the codex release and went heavy on Howling Banshees for lore reasons (craftworld Iybraesil's symbol is the hand of Morai Heg after all), and when the codex came out they were absolute terrors. I got a Wraithknight for armies on parade, wraithguard and fire prisms because they were cool, three war walkers and I got some supprt weapons cheap. Then 10th comes around and my Wraith / D cannon is opressive and not fun to play. Meta has shifted and my Falcons, aspect warriors are back and my Corsairs are the new hotness. So you could chase the meta, or just wait for the meta to come to you and enjoy painting things you actualy like.
I do this minimally, people ran 3x6 of squighogs when they were 110 per 3, I raised my current squad of 3 to 6. picked up some more nobz for cheap which are just solid, replace my boyz generally, I have 20 and don't think I'll regret it. It's fine to dip into what's strong as long as you don't go too overboard, unless you like the models a lot.
Yeah generally I think people probably should know what’s strong and pick up A kit. But that’s it. A kit is not 12 kits. People leaning hard into units is not fun for me to play against given how I collect kits myself.
Orks, the reason that the rule of three had to be implemented! GW: "Nobody would own this many of one unit, that'd be insane!" Ork Players: "Youz see, and we tooks tat one personally"
@@reginlief1 Depends entirely on why they've collected those units honestly. I'm not going to knock an Iyandan player for having 50-70% of their army being Wraith units, even when those units are borderline OP/near auto-win. That's their army's well established lore. Now if they're being a complete toolbag about it & acting like an obnoxious little prat, then I'll probably throw some shade back at them for simply being a TFG. However, plenty of people will collect an army just on the theme & established lore alone, and often times that'll lead to spamming one or more thematic units. My Orks for example are Blood Axes. I won't play them with less than 2-3 units each of Kommandos + Tank Bustas, since those are the established lore-accurate iconic units that Blood Axes are (in)famous for.
my friends have a 18 kataphron breacher list and another has 18 thunderwolf calve+leaders for 24 wolves. it's annoying to play, unit diversity is more fun. but it is what is good atm so can't hate em@@reginlief1
There's only so much money I can devote to 40k, basically that means one army. Way back in 4th edition I decided to start a then Sisters of Battle army. This was due to the extremely binary nature of armor saves in that edition with AP meaning you either got your save or you didn't. Power armor was a major selling point, especially as most non-power armored armies had a 5+ save meaning they couldn't save against bolters. Sister's had just come out in the Witch Hunters codex along with some actual combat units they had been lacking previously (arco-flagellants/penitent engines, repentia) and the sisters also got bumped up to BS4 from 3. This meant Sisters were as good at shooting as marines were but were 5 points less per model because you weren't paying for the combat stats you weren't using and the addition of the crazed melee units made them much more interesting as a faction and not nearly so vulnerable to combat. Never looked back and I still have them today. I've added some models here and there as units like sacrasants were added to the game as well as things like the Triumph of St. Katherine and the fact that arco-flagellants were significantly reduced in both power and points cost (45 pts/model in their first iteration, also T5 and their flails allowed no saves) meant that I bought a lot more of them than I had before. Since then, whether they're good or bad, I play Sororitas, though at first it was power armor and their power at the time that brought me in part to them.
Apologies, long comment follows: I don't follow what people are doing in tourneys, but I've had frustrating experiences at tournaments, particularly in 9th. Turn up with a list, for armies I've collected for a few years- in particular Tyranids and Tzeentch Daemons, (I've been playing for 20 years, so I have multiple armies), and to keep hearing "oh that nid list is sooooo scummyyyyy, it has 6 zoanthropes booooooo..." Or "Oh that Tzeentch Daemon list is so meta chasy I dun wanna play against it cause 3+ savessss." (And let's just ignore the scumbaggery marine players were pulling with "I touch a wall, I get a "1+ armour save gahuha" crap). It honestly was a big thing that stopped me engaging with my local scene for a while, because it was just like "I don't even know what you presumptive and judgemental fricks think is "meta," I'm just trying to bring what I like- and what I can play well- to what I assumed was a competitive event." I even threw a game in one event against Dark Eldar- seen as weak at the time- to try and shut up at least some of the crap I was overhearing *every, single, round.* It's really not fun to be assumed to be "that girl," or "metachasing" when I don't even know or care what the bloody "meta" even is. And regardless of what it is, skill beats meta at the end of the day.
When my friend first took me into a warhammer shop(it was 9th edition) he showed me all of the rows of different factions and I immediately fell in love with chaos, I bought the start collecting box there and then and built it that aame night, i started looking at the death guard after and thought they were so cool and fun but I definitely didn't have the money to buy models for another army, bht then the death guard weren't doing so hot competitively an ebay listing with a full 2000pts so cheap comparatively I couldn't turn it down... however I would've payed to see the look on that players fave when armour of contempt made my sickly bois an unstoppable force of an immovable wall
I got to say as someone who started with a deathwatch army in the begin of tenth edition, you final made a video that didn't make me feel stupid for getting this army. I am and have had a lot of fun building and painting and learning about the lore. The lore being the reason why I decide to go with this army. I have gotten to play a couple of games with other people and by no means am I trying to be super competitive. But I play to have fun and this video final drove that point home for me from your channel. thank you.
Back in 8th there was a guy who bought an entire 2k worth of Iron Hands, paid another guy to paint them, all for a tourney that was coming up in a couple weeks. He won using that obscene broken strat that was nerfed and was incredibly open about paying an obscene amount of money to win the tournament. This was a small tournament and in a place with a "smaller" community.
heres a hot take: bring back oldhammer-style rules, i feel like part of what facilitates comp play is how simple the rules have become, and how much easier it is to determine whats best just based off numbers, by expanding the rules to something like old world it discourages comp because theres more to units than the numbers and harder to interpret rules i think are just more suited as they encourage house ruling and stuff, which is good for casual.
The issue is that the people who control the meta, sell the product. We've seen over the years, even as far back as the early 90s, that GW will change a rule or drop the points of something so significantly it puts it into a must use this unit and as many as possible situation. In combination with kits that sold like crap, so they could sell a ton of that unit. In fewer cases still, we've seen them then make those types of units horrible not too long after OR and even lesser than that still, snap them out of the official rules entirely. Now, all that being said, "breaking the meta" is actually quite easy and has seen top tier results, and not just in wargaming!!
Any game with a "competitive scene" will have meta chasers, net deckers, or whatever name you want to give it. These people only think about winning and only want winning. In mtg it was the main culprit on why EDH became so popular. Too many people with too much time and money would just play the best decks and crush FNM every week. It got old quick and the same thing happens in 40k. Small, local tournaments can be fun just go against different players, but kitchen table games are THE best way to play because you and your friends are playing for fun, not prizes. People meta chaser for the same reason they cheat and as far as I'm concerned people who do so are uncreative at best. Of course there are legit reasons to meta chaser as well, but the people who genuinely do that either do so sparingly or are searching for something specific in the list like weaknesses
100% agree, I would say also that communicating with potential opponents about what sort of game you want to have can do wonders, not enough people do this and it really shows in the comments
Yes in casual games absolutely! I was referencing tournament play specifically. I never had the issues in friendly games outside of a tournament setting
The contempt some casual only players have for competitive ones is downright disheartening Especially with how positive and welcome the competitive communities of both of these games are to newcomers Why not even acknowledge how fun competition is? Between the thrill of tense games and the hours spent trying to engineer a list and it's strategies, there are a lot of feelings to be felt that casual games just never give It's always about people thinking the others are just taking the best lists without doing a lot of work to tailor them out beforehand... Anyway, end of the rant, there's absolutely no superior way to play the game. Neither competitive nor casual. It's all about making it clear with your opponent what you're looking for during your games.
@@elpokitolama The contempt is justified, Warhammer was never meant to be a minmaxxed competitive game and it is telling how much worse the game has gotten since 8th ed when GW themselves started to pay attention to this plague creeping in and push it themselves, tying in with most big companies chasing the "e sports" trend thinking it will make money
In my opinion, the “competitive” players have killed 40K. They are the reason 10th is so samey and boring. You can’t have varied, wild or wacky rules because you (and GW) know people will just abuse those rules (or demolish you for daring to try and run a fun but slightly sub-optimal list).
This is why communication is key, talk to prospective opponents about what sort of game you want to have. It worked wonders for our group and now we have a good mix of casual/fluffy games and sweaty games and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves a hell of a lot more.
@@Goober2289 I agree for the most part 🤗 However, in my experience, some of those people don’t understand how to play casually. It only takes that one person to piss everyone off which starts an arms race of everyone in the group bringing more and more broken lists until you are back where you started.
@@Goober2289This has more or less been my 30k experience. People will often agree to limit things like dreadnoughts, or other very strong units. Frees up space for fluffy units that are just cool.
Detachment, and the destruction of subfactions, has been GW bending over to the metachaser like never before with 10th. They can FINALLY just have their army jump from most optimal list to most optimal list without having to deal with the obvious fact that they have an ultramarine army they are using with Salamander rules.
I think it'd mitigate the effect of meta-chasing a bit if the game gave people a really compelling reason to actually run Battleline infantry other than the somewhat nebulous benefit of their higher OC. Some armies do this quite well (Orks in particular, where the CP farm ability of Grots makes at least a couple of units very appealing) but for a lot of armies, especially those with a lot of Datasheets, battleline units are an endangered species. Personally, I still have a soft spot for the early Rogue Trader lists, where units had an individual quota like 0-2 or even 1-x, to reflect core units and specialised ones, but I appreciate how someone who's paid out for five C'tan or a wall of various Dreadnoughts might find that unduly restrictive these days.
I agree with you wholeheatedly, battleline should have something to make you want to play them. Also, gretchin aren't battleline now, from the looks of it sadly
One interesting little pitfall I've noticed in a couple of the meta-chasers I've played is that they can get so invested in certain units that losing said units can really throw them for a loop: Early in 10th, I was playing my fluffy (and, objectively, not very well built) list of Deathwatch against a fellow whose Codex Space Marine List was made up almost entirely of Gladiator Lancers and Inceptors. Turn One, my Lasfusil Eliminators pull off the luckiest shot they've ever made: two 6s to wound with Devastating, and two more 6s on the damage roll. Wiped one of this guy's Lancers off the map before it could even leave his deployment zone. A couple of lucky shots from my Ballistus Dreadnaught bracketed another, and that put my opponent into panic mode. He had at least two more hale and hearty Lancers (and a couple of other tanks, besides), but he was convinced that I now had him dead to rights. He didn't think his army could work unless he had all of his Lancers on hand. I took a moment to help him calm down, and we had a nice fun game after that. He rightfully tabled me by Turn 3, a gracious opponent all the while. It certainly isn't fun watching your heavy hitters bite the dust, but this is a wargame. Stuff's gonna blow up. If you're so meta-minded that the loss of even a single thing on your list feels like a defeat, you're on the fast track to an ulcer.
As a casual player I just want GW to fix Legends models, you sell the models still, but because of tournaments you lock away the rules on a PDF and not on the GW app. Why don't they add an option when building an army list you have to select between "tournament" or "casual". Can't see that harming the tournament scene as units that are "legends" aren't shown and Casual players get to use the stuff they have bought because it looks cool
I can't imagine people like that could actually enjoy the hobby very much. I get wanting to win, it's a wargame and you should want to win, but if the biggest factor in if you have fun is winning, then unless you are really good, you're not going to have too much fun, not to mention the monetary costs.
I don’t consider myself a meta chaser, and while in the armies I play in casual games I try to make them *good*, I only really go for “meta” picks when I both have them, and they are the only viable pick. But… That’s kinda the issue… Because basically every army I have currently only has a single viable pick. The one exception is my single smallest army, Custodes, and that’s just because I don’t have any other units. But with my main two, Tyranids & TSons… Most units aren’t all that good in ‘Nids, and TSons actively has so few options that having access to my entire index is, like, 5 viable units…
I absolutely was crushed by the bemoaning that happened when I brought my 9th edition Ulthwe army to play 10th. I ended up getting into space marines so that people would still play against me, and then non-divergent space marines have ended up one of the absolute worst factions. Pretty frustrating and made me start thinking of maybe getting into a different game, which I’m sure GW would consider suboptimal.
I did a accidental meta chase in December of 2022 just before Guard got their codex, I played a game with em on tabletop simulator to see if they are something I would enjoy... and I fell in love with the guard, soon after that a friend sold his guard army cuz they play to similar to the new love for him the Tyranids. Now I am close to 5k points in guard units. I was playing Grey Knights before but when I saw the rules for GK in 10th I shelved em but I kinda wanna have em out for a spin to see if I like the playstyle.
Would love to see a video about best armies to "punch up." Not really tailored to what lists beat the current meta choices, but more in general adaptable niche armies where, if played correctly with skill, can punch up against strong meta armies.
Even worse are those Meta Chasers who think its a good idea to boast about their superiority as they completly table a new/casual player with their list. Then saying things like: "You need to play more often to have a slight chance against me!" or "You need play at least *enter here tournament list* or XY Modells to win in any game. So encouraging players by telling their lists are trash or want them to meta chase themself is toxic as fuck.
Minimum amount of effort required. I've seen some of the pieces that come up for sale after a meta faction/build gets nerfed and they are slapped together and painted like garbage. My cats could have done a better job. Not all of them are crap quality I'm sure, but a fair share are.
@@TheAtomicSpoon I mean, the clearly "meta chaser grey legion" is still close to "pro-painted" compared to when GW stupidly ran the ultimate toxic events known as the 'Ard Boyz Tournament' 14-15 years ago... Now THAT was a true clusterfeth! ...also is the event that famously all but stopped GW from supporting the competitive scene with product after the whole '3000pts Gnoblar army' incident
Custodes brought me back to the table top. I get all Custodes boxes I can, within reason, and pick up the odd bit now and then. They make me happy. I did, however, also pick up the newest DA box set with all the termies. I know that army won't be great, a bunch of termies. But, once I get them all painted and in my case they will look great! So my entire tabletop collection is a ton of plastic Custodes, pretty much all of them, 5k points worth or so.... And some DA Termies because they just look cool.
I tend to aim for large armies which take a while to finish, as such I accept that I don't play much at all these days. I think my one issue is the kind of person I would meet very occasionally years ago who would take an ultra-meta list but barely if at all go to tournaments and instead play at the local gaming shop. Essentially you're going into environments where a large number of people won't be geared up for that level of army and planning to kerb-stomp people. But if competitive play matters to you chasing meta makes sense. And some people probably balance it against the lore by having a variety of armies and each new edition or rules update they see as an opportunity to use one of the armies they've not played in a while.
Im a space wolves player with a little over 5000 points. The reason i run them and haven't switched armys like a few of my friends do is because i like the lore and look of the models.
Funny thing I notice sometimes is when people ask for opinion about their list, and you can see it’s a combo or list we saw yesterday on an Auspex Tactics video. ”Cool idea” 🤭
I’ve never started an army because of their rules, but I have bought models for my Necrons that are currently good. I don’t like playing unpainted models though, so that slows me down in terms of how quickly I can react to the meta
Meta chasing is only possible in a system where there is a significant imbalance. No one is gonna drop a ton of money on a new army simply because it has a one in a hundred better chance of beating their current one. GW knows this, and thinks they can get a significant income from players who will drop money on a new army when said new flavour beats their old one 2 times out of 3. What they don't get is that said boosts in sales are potentially more than countered by overall sales losses from those of us who tire of constant boom and bust rules alterations, and find it makes us far less enthused by the game - and therefore likely to buy new models- as a result. But when was the last time GW canvassed their customer base regarding this? Their previous CEO (in)famously stated 'We don't canvass our customers for what they want to buy, we tell them what they will buy.', and I don't think the company ethos has changed on this point.
I started playing 40k with Necrons in 9th and was heavily influenced by what was in the Imperium Magazine, if I can get multiples of a unit (up to the max allowed) I would, and cheaply. So I decide I wanted to run a Canoptek Court for my crusade and use all the canoptek units I have. It just happens to have two units of wraiths with accompanying Technomancers. I build a 1k list that nobody likes to play against because they cant, or have difficulties removing the units. I didn't set out to be meta, I just wanted a fluffy Canoptek list, turns out it is very competitive.
Well, I simply own about 11 armies of 40k at over 2k points each :P My problem is I just can't stop myself buying stuff as soon as I see a model I think is beautiful and I have an Idea of how I want to paint it. And I'm a hoarder that hates to give stuff away afterwards xD
Back in 2015 i was quite ambitious and meta chasing. As a result i bought three bootleg riptides and a bunch of drones. I am not proud of myself but it was a great deal back then.
I had some neckbeard troglodite try and tell me that, "Meta chasing isn't a thing. As long as you play objective, any army can beat any army." He was playing an exact copy of the championship CSM army list...
I have always been a huge Aeldari player. All Aeldari and Drukhari. I've gotten a massive collection built on the back of meta chasers. I love my army, but avoided running my Craftworlders for the beginning of 10th to avoid being labeled a meta chaser.
There is a way to mitigate it. But also a way to make story line more fun with people who play. I use to play Legend of the Five Rings ccg. They had clans that you joined and received points for that clan when you won tournaments. Top rank person in each clan would get invite to special event and was considered the leader. Also, the winner of certain story arcs would determine the story arc winner. So, if you register as X race/ Chapter etc and get points based on winnings you can be listed as e.g. chapter master , captain etc. down to space marine. If you win a storyline event you’re race/chapter etc wins the story arc. This will give players exciting participation in driving story arcs and play who they want to play to get points to be the chapter master or Warboss of an army. This can reduce meta chasing but not end it. But more importantly make the players have more fun in playing and having a small part of driving the story.
I'm on CSM. Started the army in 9th when they were horrible. Missed out on the part of 10th where they were apparently OP, and am just now getting back to 40k. I'm basically picking out units I like for either their lore or models, and then do my best to make a serviceable list.
I started collecting Iron Hands because I love bionics and their whole self-destructive Thing, then got shit for picking a meta army. Now I get people telling me my army not having rules is fair because I only picked them to be strong.. yeah. It'd be great if GW could use their stacks of money to write good and balanced rules.
I think an important caveat is that not all people who change armies or units are meta chasing. It's one thing if you played, arbitrarily, Orks in 9e but swapped to Eldar in 10e after you saw their results. But it's another thing to have the army and style you liked, say Reanimating Silver-Tide Necrons, cut out from under you. Now you're left with the option of getting better units or purposefully hamstringing yourself. At the end of the day 40k is a competitive game where two (or more) player compete for a win. Some tables are much, much more casual then others but 9/10 times you're still playing to win with what you decided to bring. And people not wanting to loose over half their games or more because they brought absolute garbage to a game store with even moderately equipped players, it's no wonder they want to switch things up.
Necrons indomitus box was my start of the hobby, and I'll die on this hill of living metal 😀 everybody around is "oh what your next army will be?" "What about a second army?" But why? I have big enough pile of shame already.
You bought custodes to chase the meta. I bought custodes because they are a cheaper army (when taking into account the points cost), we are not the same.
@elpokitolama we wouldn't of minded. But they were one of those teams. Very smug, and very condescending to their opponents. Bad bad winners and poor sportsmen. Plus this was a local league. These guys were national players
I saw a LGS tournament where 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th all had the exact same army list! Not just the same army faction, same list. Reason was "Well the meta has been solved, this is the best end of" 🤦♂️
@@shadowslayer7892 There's a big difference between events like the LVO or Adepticon vs. some tiny local game store event of around 20 or so (if even that), locals who are more likely at best semi-competitive. Clubbing baby seals is a scumbag move.
I try to balance it a bit, I make lists with the intent for them to do well, but I also sometimes exclude units for flavor or taste reasons (IE, i just dont like using arcos and penitent engines for my sisters and i stead focus on the power armor units and their vehicles and such). Sometimes if a unit becomes much better it's more of an excuse to add it to my collection but even still I would only buy them if I actually want them in my collection and would enjoy having them apart from their gameplay.
I got the leviathan box half of the tyranids and built a vanguard army with the option to go into an unending swarm army as well with 80 termigants and some hormagants, and honestly I wasnt having any fun. Forget the meta chasing, I had at least one of each of the best models and I still felt like i couldnt do much. I also wanted to build votann, so I bought a patrol box and printed some proxies for hearthguard and thunderkyn and so far while putting them together I feel like im going to enjoy them way more. Plus magnetizing all their guns and stuff has been fun.
I still remember when 8th had the weird "earn CP by running more detachments", and in 7th I was running deathwing with guard support, and people always assumed I was just doing it for the CP and would be kind of bitter about it. The funny part is deathwing were pretty trash at the time.
I play chaos for many many years. I happen to have more death duard though bc I had the since they were just another mark of chaos. The key is really knowing how your faction plays..I have always had fun winning or losing but you have to play to your armies strengths. Use your abilities and synergize your units. Once you play the same army over several editions you'll figire out how to play that army well. Its the player, not the army that wins or loses.
I buy models based on: 1) Is there a good, cheap bundle? (Battleforce, Kill Team, Combat Patrol) 2) Am I interested in the faction? 3) Are the models cool? 4) Do I need these models in my army? Only #4 is remotely meta related. So for example, GW releases a new discount box, I'm interested. If I don't care about the faction, I'm not gonna buy it just because it's cheap. If I am interested in the faction, then we're talking, especially if the models look cool. So I started World Eaters mostly because Angron was cool, the battleforce looked like a good deal, and I didn't have any chaos armies (my wife has Tsons, so they were out). Now if I buy any more World Eaters aside from the Combat Patrol and Battleforce, only then does meta matter, and not in a sense that "this is the best unit right now, I need it", but "I don't have enough of [x] model in [y] role, so I'm going to get the coolest unit that fits that need". On the plus side, when people chase the meta and realize they don't like the models/army as much as they thought they would, I end up getting good deals on Ebay. Can't complain.
I’ll meta chase within my own faction (crons) but wouldn’t totally change armies for it. Eventually I’ll own all the units and can build the best list possible no matter the meta or build whatever casual list my friends and I want to play
I’ve got the other problem, I buy units I think are neat or cool looking and wind up with a barely functional army list and then have to kind of backpedal to get some of the more boring but necessary units to round things off.
