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Meta Analysis: The 2023 LVO 40k Championship (aftermath)

By Jeremy "Curie" Atkinson

Welcome back Dear Reader from a very jet-lagged correspondent. Last week we took a look at the meta breakdown of LVO, now we’re back to talk about the results. A new champion has been crowned in Jack Harpster, and Blood Angels are apparently pretty good (again)!

If you missed any of Goonhammer’s LVO coverage, you can find it here:

What to Expect From This Article

In this article we’re going to focus on the meta as a whole, similar to the previous Meta Analysis article we published last week. We’ve collected the data and now we’re going to go over the following:

  • Win Rates for key armies, as compared to the Nephilim season
  • The best performing list for each of these key armies and what made it tick
  • How the breakdown of contender armies changed with each round

Win Rates

With over 2500 games played (by 960 players!) at the LVO (as many as some months this year!), there’s quite a bit of data to go through. We’re going to focus in on some of the factions we highlighted last week, and talk in detail about a few that surprised us or bucked the trend.

Space Marines

The largest contingent of players, Space Marines made up just under 15% of the lists at the LVO. They also had a small uptick in overall win rate at 44.6%, from 42.5% for the overall Nephilim meta. This uptick was largely driven by Blood Angels, who made up over 30% of Space Marine lists, taking the lead with an impressive 53.3% win rate. Blood Angels piloted by Art of War’s Jack Harpster would go on to win the event.

List Highlights - Jack Harpster - Blood Angels - 1st Place

  • 3 Infiltrator Squads, 15 Death Company, 21 goooooolden Sanguinary Guard make up the core of a list that plays the secondary game extremely well specifically Fury of the Lost (a secondary that no longer exists in Arks of Omen)
  • Characters form a solid core by providing buffs (Dante/Sanguinary Priest/Sanguinary Ancient) and also additional scoring methods for Fury of the Lost (Lemartes)
  • Specific tech in the list helps deal with mortal wounds and daemons that this list would have challenges handling by providing a Feel No Pain against mortals (Soulwarden) and against daemons you have 3 infiltrator squads who can disrupt their coming onto the field from reserves.

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Space Marines had an interesting weekend – coming out of Nephilim they were rocking a ‘perfectly balanced’ 50% win rate. They fell just short of this mark LVO weekend, with a 48.9% win rate. Still a very solid showing, and one of their members Jay Eggett made the top 8 after going through T’au Empire darling Nassim Fouchane in the shadow round.

List Highlights - Jay Eggett - Emperor's Children - 8th Place

  • Emperor’s Children gives unique options via stratagems such as Honour the Prince which gives manageable charges out of deep strike (6+d6” charge) or auto advancing 6”
  • Noise marines provide a fire base, cultists can screen or hold objectives, and chosen provide melee punch
  • Master of Possession provides key buffs such as a feel no pain, additional strength / toughness, and regenerating models
  • multiple ways to deliver units danger close (termite assault drill, dreadclaw drop pod), made reliable with the aforementioned Honour the Prince

Tyranids

Tyranids were one of the two boogeymen going into this event along with Chaos Soup. They had a 58.6% win rate through the Nephilim season, and came close to matching this with a 57.0% win rate at LVO. Tyranids were notably absent in the top 8 of the event, with the last contender being Art of War’s Alex Macdougall who lost in the shadow round to Evan Tomchin’s T’au.

List Highlights - Alex Macdougall - Kraken - 10th Place

  • Spore mines, they are good, well until Arks of Omen where they are quite bad because they cost reinforcement points (10 ppm). However, in this version using Nephilim rules you can make 3D3+6 spore mines a turn that can block movement, screen charges, and generally funnel opponents into inconvenient spaces.
  • 2 winged hive tyrants and 9 raveners mean this list can move quickly and deliver significant melee combat damage with units that can retreat back to safety (Winged Hive Tyrants back to Tyrant Guard) or deeper into opponents lines by using the Overrun stratagem
  • 2 units of zoanthropes provide psychic phase damage thanks to bonuses to cast smite (+1 per model) and smite output (also +1 mortal wound per model)

Chaos Soup

Chaos Soup came into this event on top and was many people’s favourite to win the event. They boasted a 56.4% win rate going into the event, and were able to beat it with a 57.8% win rate at the event. This, coupled with their representation nearly doubling (going from 3.9% to 6.7% of the meta) showcased just how powerful the daemon allies these lists used were. Chaos soup was also absent from the top 8, with their last holdout being TJ Lanigan who lost in the shadow round to the event champion Jack Harpster.

List Highlights - TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons + Tzeentch Daemons - 15th Place

  • Flamers are good before they receive changes in Arks (they probably are still good in Arks because hitting on 3’s might not be that big of a deal). In Nephilim the ability to project force with D6+3 auto-hitting S5 AP2 D1 shots per model at a threat range of 30 inches was very strong.
  • Duplicity lets you teleport your rubrics around the table (or your scarab occult terminators) and there’s a great deal of support for the mortal wound engine and terminators to be found in the selection of warlord traits and relics.
  • Infernal Gateway being able to be casted twice also lets you do massive spike damage if your opponent clusters too closely together (D3 mortal wounds to everything within 3” of the target unit, or flat 3 mortal wounds if you cast on a 12+).

T’au Empire

T’au Empire have been a force to be reckoned with throughout all of the Nephilim season, with a 52.1% win rate. LVO was no different, with them recording a 55.9% win rate and having 2 of the top 8 finishes in Evan Tomchin and Brad Chester. T’au also made up 4 of the 15 undefeated lists going into the shadow round, with Nassim Fouchane and Matt Estrada falling there.

List Highlights - Evan Tomchin - T'au Sept - 6th Place

  • Aun’Va provides some critical support without costing CP for the relic stave you’d normally equip an ethereal with and is quite a bit more durable thanks to a 5+ invulnerable save and -1 to wound.
  • Sun Sharks are fortunately (or unfortunately if you play T’au) likely going away thanks to changes in Arks, but for this event and Nephilim they allow you to project significant force across great distances thanks to bombs and carrying a dizzying array of firepower alongside the utility of providing markerlights.
  • Crisis suits delivering crippling firepower and then hide behind ruins using the Strike and Fade stratagem
  • Two potent commanders deliver a tremendous amount of firepower while being protected by Look Out Sir from return fire

Chaos Daemons

Chaos Daemons were a sleeper faction going into LVO – they had shown potential with a 54.8% win rate through the Nephilim season and had won quite a few events in the run up to the event. For LVO, they managed a 52.6% win rate, but more importantly made up 2 of the top 8, tying T’au Empire for representation. Art of War’s Matt Morosoli and Nick Nanavati finished 5th and 3rd respectively.

List Highlights - Matt Morosoli - Chaos Daemons - 3rd Place

  • I feel like i need to say a lot about flamers again, but instead will just remind you that they have tremendous output in nephilim and move onto more interesting things
  • The Bloodthirster is wound gated (8 per phase) and the King of Blades relic lets him ignore modifiers while increasing his output nicely.
  • Lord of Change who can negate one failed save per phase of your choice thanks to the Impossible Robe relic and the Master Mutator exalted trait bumps your psychic damage nicely (2+ cause an additional mortal wound to any unit that took a mortal wound as a result of a psychic phase from this warlord).
  • And then there’s Skarbrand who delivers the actual pain (especially to T’au) because units can no longer fall back once he gets within engagement range unless you pass a leadership test on a 3D6.

Leagues of Votann

Newcomers to the scene, but ancient in the lore, the Leagues of Votann burst onto the scene with a 53.7% win rate in the Nephilim season. This was after the initial codex received a rather substantial points and rules tweak prior to the full range release. At the LVO, the Leagues fell short, managing a 48.2% win rate at the event. No lists made it undefeated past the 4th round of play.

List Highlights - Ben Cromwell - Ymyr Conglomerate - 60th Place

  • Hekaton Land Fortresses are good, especially when you can give them +1 to hit, negate a failed save and repair 4 wounds taken (oh and they’re T8 have 2+ save, 4+ invulnerable save, armour of contempt, and you can’t re-roll wound rolls against them). The Forge-Master provides repairs, can negate a failed save and give +1 to hit thanks to his upgrade and warlord trait (Master Armourer). Oh, and they have tremendous output at range thanks to the Ymyr stratagem and the generic Core-buster stratagem.
  • Hearthguard are alright, I guess. Full-rerolls from the High Kahl lets them reliably put out mortal wounds in addition to their other ranged damage. Also, the Wârpestryk relic lets them teleport which lets you appear in inconvenient places for your opponent (or places perhaps they thought were safe?)
  • Zerks provide melee support, Hearthkyn provide valuable objective holding that can be quite tacky thanks to the medipack and void armor, and pioneers provide a nice fast toolkit and screening option for your army that puts out quite a bit of firepower at range.

Biggest Loser and Biggest Winner

Orks were the biggest winners of the event (as compared to the Nephilim season) – their win rate rose from 48.4% in Nephilim to 53.4% at LVO, an absolute increase of 5.0%. They also finished 2nd at the event, with Sean Nayden piloting his Goff Pressure build to an impressive 8-1 finish. Most impressive was his regular play – he finished the first six rounds of the event at 590 battle points, having dropped a mere 10 points across those six games.

Pure Thousand Sons (no allies) were the biggest losers of the event. They went from a 47.3% win rate in Nephilim to a concerning 35.4% win rate at the LVO, an absolute drop of 11.9%.

Undefeated Breakdown by Round

From last week’s article, this is how the overall meta looked at the start of the event.

Day 1

From here we can look at how this breakdown changed with each subsequent round through to the dreaded Shadow Round (the Shadow Round is played if there are more than 8 6-0 players at the end of the first 6 rounds of the event). Astra Militarum took the biggest hit in Round 1, losing 72% of their games, leaving only 7 undefeated after the first round. Orks and Chaos Soup were the most successful, losing only 35% and 37% of their first round games respectively. Orks were left with 24 undefeated players, while Chaos Soup had 41 undefeated players left.

Day 2

By the start of Day 2, we were down to 118 undefeated players and with the exception of Drukhari and (pure) Thousand Sons every army had at least 1 undefeated player left. Chaos soup and T’au Empire had taken the lead in contenders, with 14 and 12 undefeated left respectively.

Going into the shadow round at the end of Day 2, we were down to 15 undefeated players, consisting of:

  • 4 T’au Empire
  • 2 Chaos Daemons
  • 2 Harlequins
  • 2 Space Marines (both Blood Angels)
  • 1 Chaos Soup (Thousand Sons + Tzeentch Daemons)
  • 1 Tyranids
  • 1 Craftworlds
  • 1 Chaos Space Marines
  • 1 Orks

Here’s a breakdown of how the undefeated meta changed from the end of Round 1 through to the end of Round 6:

From here, go check out this week’s Competitive Innovations for the breakdown of how the event finished up and the finals showdown!

Wrap Up

That’s it for LVO coverage from this author – tune in next time for our first Arks of Omen meta review. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or shoot us an email at contact@goonhammer.com.

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