Hello and welcome to Meta Monday, the first of maybe a series of articles who's focus is to bring your army building skills to the next level. The focus of this week will understanding what exactly meta is, how to design strong lists that make the most of a meta and how to figure out what the best units to take are. So without further ado, lets jump in!

META

People generally understand the idea of Meta these days with the prevalence of competitive gaming like e-sports entering mainstream culture. Meta is commonly understood as the best available strategy within a game system, with the best heroes, units, cards, or whatever the game uses, being "Meta". This is however only a partial answer to the definition of what a meta is. Meta refers to a self-analytic process where a player will map out all possible strategies for winning a game and understand which strategies will beat others. There is a very excellent article regarding meta in Magic the Gathering here which I will pull from heavily in its application to 40k. In this article it outlines the idea of a meta game clock, where certain strategies will beat others (Aggro beats Control, Control beats Combo, Combo beats Aggro) in a sort of rock paper sissors style game. This idea that certain strategies win and lose to others is critical.

So what are the pre-eminent strategies in 40k?

I would pose that they are:

• High Unit Efficiency- Unit damage output per cost

• Resiliency (Death Star) - Ability of a Unit to survive damage through various means

• Objective Control - Ability of a unit to control and score objectives with map control

Where the cycle of winning strategies goes HUE > OC > R > HUE as a high efficiency army will be able to eliminate most of an opposing player's army before they can respond, via alpha strike or just out grinding the opponent over the course of the game. Resilient armies will be able to counter the HUE army's method of dealing damage and turn the efficiency tables back in their favor, while an army that can out control objectives will make mockery of resilient armies who have often dumped a ton of points into to only a few units or models, sacrificing board presence and their map control abilities.

An army will often play a combination of all of these strategies together to a greater or lesser degree, with the best armies having the capacity to do them all. These armies will take units and combinations that allow the army to position themselves in various ways to be adaptable to the matchup. If an opposing army is playing a more resilient style list, the top lists will be able to out objective them. If they are playing against a high efficiency list they have tools that allow them to be resilient.

When 8th edition dropped, there was a massive nerf that was applied to high resilient units (death stars all but removed from the game). As a result, early index tournament results showed a swing towards alpha strike based lists, with the best lists being the most efficient at dealing damage in the early turns of the game. There was eventually a counter developed in the forms of spamming smite casting characters who were untargetable due to screens. This created a high resiliency style list that performed well in tournaments. Guard lists then found a home in the meta, with their ability to drop scions units to grab objectives, while mitigating the potential losses from high value smites with numbers, map control and efficiency. Since then we have seen some other lists perform extremely well, with recent LVO results highlighting ynarri-Craftworld eldar as a list that can play efficiently through soul burst actions, with high resiliency (army wide -1 to be hit) as well as strong board control options.

So, how do you design a list like this?

ARMY BUILDING

We know that we want to have an army that can play in various ways around the meta game clock, so why do some lists do this better than others? Do all factions have opportunities to play at all parts of the clock? The answer to the second question is actually yes, however it is definitely not equal.

The easiest part of designing a list is figuring out what your most efficient units are. Mathematically you want to find the most wounds you can put out per point cost vs various (or all) target units. You could build an excel table with every possible load out, cost of the unit/target, ranges and average damage output. It would be tedious process and so often people will use Guard equivalent, Marine Equivalent, Terminator equivalents, etc. profiles to get an estimate. In my opinion it leaves out an important element which is the point-trade-ratio between units which is:

PTR = [(Unit A Cost) / (Average Damage Output to Unit B)] / [(Unit B Cost)/(Average Damage Output to Unit A)]

Alternatively the Point-Return-Ratio where:

PRR = (Unit A Cost) / [(Average Damage Output to Unit B) x (Unit B Cost)]

These nifty equations models the rate at which two units will batter each other into the ground. They give quick comparisons by which you can find extremely efficient units. It can also help you find naturally resilient units for point costs. Note that you need to test this for various multipliers as well. If you have abilities like being able to shoot or fight twice, it will obviously greatly improve your ratios.

So, you have found the most efficient units and combinations in your army, now you need to figure out how how not to lose to other high efficiency units, or counters to your own high efficiency units. Screens and bubble wrap units are often cited by strategy guides as being useful, but it is important to understand what units should be screening and why.

A screen should be a unit that either:

A) has a more favorable PTR vs your opponents High Efficiency Units than Your opponent's HEUs vs your own HEUs (old brimstones, conscripts)

B) if they have abilities that allow them to project and take up space, thereby denying your opponent their ability to use their HEUs most effectively (scouts, sentinels)

C) they do both

Other units that increase an armies resiliency are those that have abilities that can shut down certain aspects of an opposing armies HEUs (Culexus, Venomthropes).

Units able to secure objective via deep strike, board presence or movement abilities should also be considered as a counter to people who invest too heavily on resiliency based units. Units that fly, can be held in reserve, teleported or have obsec can be extremely important should be the focus of this element.

Taking all of this into account, you can start to build a strategy for your list. Ask yourself questions like "How do I project onto an objective on turn 3?", "How do I survive an alpha strike?", "Is there a combination I am missing that would let me be more efficient?". Even break down tournament winning lists and look for all of these elements in them. Units will often fall into a number of different categories in terms of what they bring to a list and include those that align with your plan. Lists will very rarely be able to do everything, so knowing where you are weak can be powerful knowledge on how to mitigate an opponents strategy to exploit it.

Hopefully this has been insightful or helpful!