Hammer of Math: Grotmas Returns, Part 2

Welcome back to Hammer of Math, where we take a regular look at key statistical issues in Warhammer. Last time around we looked at the early impact of Grotmas detachments using data collected from the Tabletop Battles App. Since December 1st, we’ve seen 18,457 games recorded in the Tabletop Battles App, which is down a bit from what we were seeing in October and November but that’s to be expected with Christmas causing a large dip in events and games, generally.

Faction Popularity by Week

Tabletop Battles App, 9/1/2024 – 12/26/2024

In the last week we saw 522 additional games played, giving us a ton of new data to look at with the new Detachments. And again, while it’s still early days, it’s interesting to look at how these are shaking out as we track their progress. One of the things that makes this easier than you’d expect is the play bias – right now we’re seeing a skew in play toward the new Detachments as players test them out, giving us a large number of results to work with very quickly.

Generally speaking, while players played about 1200 fewer games in the past two weeks compared to the first two weeks of December, we saw very little change in actual faction play. The biggest observed changes had as much to do with the Dataslate as the Detachments. Specifically, Space Marines jumped from 6.7% to 8.7%, the largest single faction jump , while Dark Angels dropped by a full percentage point, likely the source of the loss. Custodes had the second biggest bump at +1.3 percentage points.  No faction dropped by more than 1 point, with the two factions dropping 1 point being Dark Angels and Death Guard. Space Marines regained their status as the most-played faction from Necrons despite Necrons going up a 0.7 percentage points in game share, from 6.8% to 7.5% (the second most popular faction).

Necrons as one of the game’s most popular factions followed closely by Tyranids (and with Death Guard not too far behind) is a fun reminder of the power of starter boxes – both of these factions featured in the edition boxed sets for 9th and 10th edition, respectively, and as such they tend to be more responsive to swings in faction strength. That is, when these factions are good, we’re more likely to see people jump to them because they’re more likely to own them, making a switch easier. Comparatively, T’au, Aeldari, Adeptus Mechanicus, Sororitas, and Drukhari haven’t been part of a starter box this century (and of them only Drukhari have ever featured).

Detachment Results

We’re now comfortably sitting on more than 30 games played for every Detachment save Space Wolves, which launched on Christmas Eve (and in addition to that has a core mechanic that players are likely to have difficulty evaluating). The standard caveats apply here again – we’re still looking at a lot of practice games and we haven’t seen nearly enough games yet for most of these to come to concrete conclusions, but we are definitely starting to see solid results which give us some good directional data. In the chart below we’ll be looking at both the Detachment Win rates, a comparison to the win rates for the same faction with every other detachment (or in the case of Daemons, just the Daemonic Incursion Detachment for all four monogod versions), and a look at how this year’s number compares to last week, where there’s enough data for a meaningful result.

The Solar Spearhead and the Shatterstar Arsenal have remained on top, and it’s pretty clear some people have having real fun smashing face with these powerful new Detachment options for their respective factions. The big surprises though are the Legion of Excess, which we thought was very good initially, and the Plague Legion, which we didn’t think too much of. While it’s worth noting that the sample size is still very small here – 57 games isn’t a lot – we have to admit that in our own testing games the Detachment has surprised us. Not so much with the Battle-shock ability – though we have seen that there can be enough tests forced to make it actually do work – but moreso with the Font of Spores Aura, which gives Nurgle Daemons within 6″ of its bearer +1 AP, and that includes ranged attacks. The net result is great for your Great Unclean Ones, Rotigus, and Soul Grinders, and really helps Plaguebearers turn into something useful, and you can further boost them with Stratagems. I’m not sure it’ll hold at 56% but it’s definitely got more juice than we thought it would.

Likewise, Vessels of Wrath is worth keeping an eye on as it’s currently outperforming the Berzerker Warband in early games, and the Taktikal Brigade saw some upward movement after last week. Meanwhile Creations of Bile and Warpbane Task Force continue to show themselves as real threats for their factions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there don’t appear to be many real stinkers in the mix yet but the early results for Questor Forgepact, Champions of Faith, and Warrior Bioform Onslaught aren’t particularly promising. That said, the former two in that mix may take more time to develop as players need more time to figure them out – results seem to have improved for the Iconoclast Fiefdom Detachment week over week, and at this point lots of movement is still very possible.

Event Results

Of course, some of these Detachments have already started posting results. We’ve seen exactly two pull top four results at GT-sized events so far, but we expect more to show up as we get back into the swing of events and past the cutoff dates. Right now the two top 4 finishers are both from the initial week of releases, and both won their events.

Anthony Vanella – Creations of Bile, 1st Place

Anthony’s list makes heavy use of Possessed, Chosen, and Brigands. It runs Bile as the Warlord and takes full advantage of that “roll 2, then re-roll one or both” option. The Nemesis Claw here are particularly interesting, as they can combo charge with other units in the Detachment to turn off defensive Stratagems and clear the way for the likes of Possessed and Chosen to do real damage.

Anthony's List - Click to Expand

Jacob Holmström – Warrior Bioform Onslaught, 1st Place

The other winner is a bit more surprising – Jacob’s Warrior Bioform Onslaught list runs surprisingly light on Warriors, with only two units running ranged weapons, though it makes good use of the Enhanced Neurotyrant to lead a unit for improved shooting output. Instead of Warriors, Jacob’s list runs heavy on big monsters, sporting triple Exocrines, Maleceptors, and Tyrannofexes.

Jacob's List - Click to Expand

Final Thoughts

It’s still early days for most of this and of course it’ll all see major mix-ups as we see new Codexes launch in the coming months but it’s interesting data to look at right now, particularly as we gear up to jump back into the cycle of competitive events. We’ll likely revisit this in another month or so, and in the meantime, expect us to look at some more statistics issues next week – there’s more than a few things to talk about in the new Detachments and we’ll likely hit several in the same article.

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