Mechular Proliferation

An Retrospective on How We Got to Be In This Place In 40k Gaming

Hello again readers today I'm going to take you on a journey through the gross gelatinous nimbus that is the 40k "meta." What is Metagaming? Well Wiki tells me that:

"Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself. In simple terms, it is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions." -Wikipedia

Thanks Wikipedia! So Metagaming, Meta or more specifically 40k Meta refers to the climate of the gaming troposphere in essence what the people playing the game are doing to effect the way the game is played. And in this day and age of Psyphilemen Dreads (I had this term and it's face) Razorback spammalam and every unit having meltaguns the "climate" of the 40k meta is Mech. If vehicles are good in this edition (they are) and you'd like your army to be good then you must include as many vehicles as possible. Which then logistically jumps to the second tactical army construction desicion you make: If vehicles are good, and everyone has as many as possible, then I should be equipped with as many things to destroy vehicles as possible. Simple unabridged logic. Created by our time playing after 5th edition arrived.

But let's go back in time to the end of 4th edition. Back in this age 40k was a lot different than it is now, 40k was mostly about rolling around on foot and not about mashing as many vehicles into your list as possible, since vehicles rules weren't as good then (lucky glancing anyone). The biggest things you had to worry about back then were giant super killy critters, Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants,

Chaos Demon Princes, and Wraithlords all were the enemies hardest hitters and biggest damage sponges and every list needed to include things to deal with one or more of these nasties. There were few if any vehicles and most of them were in order of large non-moving heavy frackers like Land Raiders or Leman Russes, but If you were keeping Lascannons around to frag Carnifexes then you could easily turn them against Raiders to pretty good effect. The biggest tournament lists were Space Marines, Chaos SM, Necrons and Tyranids. All of the later still being able to be classically cheesey with infiltrating marines, big piles of fexes and of course necrons and their unassailable pyramid that isn't important at all to thier game plan.

Then Chaos Space Marines got a new codex, there were many strange and new options offecred by the dark gods in this one, the most game changing over time would be 35pt rhinos. Yes every army had usually had the option of putting all their men in dedicated transports of somekind, but It was more of a "gimmic" in 3rd and 4th, a rhino was basically a $30 paperweight that showed off that you had the ballz to waste points and money to make your White Scars army cannon. That's another stange quirk of many army lists back in the old editions many were only played in the ways they were (mech, bikes, all trucks ect.) because they were fluffy. (Maybe in a future article we'll

discuss the proliferation of competitive lists too) Back to our point though, 35pt rhinos for CSM were very cheap and appealing, yet still having a ton of rhinos was reserved as the Coup De Maine of Sisters of Battle so it wasn't something that turned a lot of people on. Then, Orks got some love with their new codex, low and behold also Including the Trukk a much faster and more combustible version of the rhino for the same points. Then 5th edition hit the scene and everyone was like: "Omg Vehicles are really the beez neez!" and so all these cheap transports seemed ever the more popular. This trend of increased "Meching up" continued to a fevered pitch all the way through to just before now, let's say before the Grey Knights book came out. At this tender time all the little

mech boys and girls were having a wonderful time coinflipping to see who would their little mech wars, some people still took hybrid lists, but many of them include reliable Land Raiders or piles of infantry. I was playing an Ork Nob Battlewagon list that took many LGS tourneys in this age.

Then Christmas was cancled. And this is going to sound like a lot of complaining cause it kind of is a response to the anger that I have over Matt Wards stupidity and he's want to make things that he likes the biggest Mary Sues ever. First off let me say that a Mary Sue, is a character (most times in fan fiction) whom has no flaws, has the world in their hand, has all the sweetest abilities and is the best friend of every single other character in the show. It's annoying, it's bad writting and Matt Ward has given Warhammer a 2nd group of Mary Sues (After Ultramarines) the Grey Knights. True, Grey Knights had always been the Space Marines made of Space Marines in the 40k universe, but their old incarnations were basically limiting them to a few OVERCOSTED models that you are throwing into suicidal situations. And then the new Grey Knights book...Jeeze oh man did that change. Even after Space Wolves being better at everything for no reason than everyone else, this book makes Space Wolves look like Eldar and Grey Knights like double Space Wolves. It's one thing to have an army which has strengths based on it's unique qualities and equipment, Guard have lots of Guard and Tanks, Space Marine drop pods, Tau Rail Guns, Eldar Psykers, and many more things make each army powerful in a characterful way. It's cool. It's why I like to play 40k. Then Matt Ward wrote a book that not only elevated his favorite army above all other armys but he also wrote to directly to compete in the Meta of 40k today. There are no weaknesses like Woofboyz psuedo weaknesses, just a huge pile of better troops and better versions of rules from other books.

We've gotten a little off track here, but do I hate the Grey Knights book. But it was neccessary how it just dumped all over the established "balance" of the game. It's now we come around to our point again. The Codex was written it seems to not only compete with Mech spam, but be leagues better at it than anyone else...and then some. Even a meager compliment of Autocannon Equipped dreadnoughts and Razorbacks with heavy bolters all with Psyammo gives them both a ton of affordable anti-vehicle firepower, as well if that weren't enough they can also disembark to deliver huge amounts more firepower with their 6 shot Psycannons and storm bolters. So what's this going to come down to? Grey Knight Butthurt ranting? hmmm no I don't think so. There are still armies that could take on Grey Knights I think. One of my theories will follow. But for now, the Mech Meta has been thrown off balance, but not much is changed, you should still probably have 2 melta guns in all your squads to take down rhinos and such. But there is hope (Not only 6th edition hopefully being a different game) and when one can't find refuge in doing exactly what everyone else is doing you have to take it back to the other end of the spectrum. So for me that means, The Green Giant is coming back. It's not a fun list to play against. But I have a feeling if equipped and operated and supported correctly I don't think most people will be able to stop such a thing.