Actual Army Ranks based on Tourny Results

[Arguleon-veq]

I thought some of you may find this interesting. It is the the rankings of how each army performs in every tournament worldwide that is registered with Rankings HQ. The rank is based on the top 30 scores each army achieves within a 12 month period.

1. GK
2. Necrons
3. SW
4. Guard
5. BA
6. Orks
7. DE
8. Nids
9. SM
10. Eldar
11. DA
12. Daemons
13. Tau
14. CSM
15. Sisters

I think some of those results are still a bit of a hangover from last edition, such as daemons not having registered enough big wins with their new powerful 6th ed rules to move them up much yet. To be honest it all looks pretty much as I expected it to look really. Nids, Daemons and CSM should all go up in rank as this edition really settles down and I think Necrons will overtake GK.

[InsaneTD]

I'd like to know what percentage of plays actually play those races and average player score for each race.  I think Tau and Sisters wouldn't have many players where as Necrons and GKs being two of the newest would be over represented at the moment.

[Arguleon-veq]

It wouldnt make a difference how many people use each army though as it is their top 30 scores worldwide. You couldnt really get a right average score for each army either as each tournament is worth a different amount of points depending on how many people attended, if it contained any top 16 ranked players etc. There is a UK player who usually finishes very high with sisters.

It obviously makes a difference though in terms of you obviously have a lower pool of results to take from if its not a popular army.

As its power rankings though it makes sense as obviously top players wanting to win tournaments will take the most powerful armies and so they have a bigger pool of results and so usually a higher score.

There are still a lot of vanilla SM at tournaments though and they are ranked very low.

[crisis_vyper]

Not to mention that every tournament uses different set of rules. Some are done without the full use of 6th ed and/or put their own spin to it. Thus it is not reliable to judge a world ranking as it is not standardized.

[InsaneTD]

I know in Aus at least, every tournament is scored a different way too.

[loeldrad]

Yeah I'm surprised to see Daemons and CSM so low but you're probably right they will go up.

Tier Charts/Ranking Lists are never 100% agreed upon, are always changing and that also doesn't mean that lower armies can't do well. Even with that said though I still enjoy charts like this and they do reflect the general power level of armies pretty well. 

Also something that tends to mix players up with lists like this is your areas "meta" might not fit the general metagame of the competitive scene overall. Therefore your areas results would be different as other armies might excel in your meta or some of your best players may play lower armies.

Thanks for sharing Arg!

[Arguleon-veq]

Its the closest thing we will ever get to an official ranking though.

Plus it doesnt matter how each tournament is scored as that isnt taken into account. All that matters is your actual placing at the tournament, how many players attended, number of games and how many top players attended. Then you get a score based on those factors. If a tournament is a little too crazy in comp or rules it usually isnt ranked either.

Yeah these kind of lists are good for showing how good an army is on the whole which can throw people off because as you say local metagames can be very different because of best players at certain clubs using weaker armies.

[knightperson]

1. GK          5th
2. Necrons   5th/6th
3. SW          5th
4. Guard      early 5th
5. BA           5th
6. Orks        4th/5th
7. DE           5th
8. Nids         early 5th
9. SM           early 5th
10. Eldar      4th
11. DA         3rd?
12. Daemons  early 4th
13. Tau          early 4th
14. CSM         4th (stats are probably from previous codex, not the current one)
15. Sisters      WD

Edition rankings are done from memory, but I think the trend is clear.

Power creep much?

[BigToof]

It's actually telling that if you look at the data, the GK/Necron domination is more of mixing it with other builds.

GK/IG is pretty common, as is the unholy GK/Necron and Necron/IG mixes.

The fact is, that GK and Necron are the top dogs and mixing them with anything else, especially the still potent IG, gives you much more flexibility and power than you had with a single list.

I've rarely seen solo-IG now a days, but that might just be my local meta...

Also, as a side note, Sisters are strangely becoming more popular now, and Daemons are really dominating if they get certain match-ups.  But neither can match the sheer situational domination of GK and Necrons.

Yet.

Best,
-BT

[Arguleon-veq]

Im actually seeing a move away from allies. The last few big tournies have seen solo Necrons dominate. Solo Nids are doing great, solo Daemons did for a while before Necrons put them back on the shelf and solo CSM are making a show.

The only real ally combo that is keeping up with these solo armies are Wolves/Guard.

[Chicop76]

I thought some of you may find this interesting. It is the the rankings of how each army performs in every tournament worldwide that is registered with Rankings HQ. The rank is based on the top 30 scores each army achieves within a 12 month period.

1. GK
2. Necrons
3. SW
4. Guard
5. BA
6. Orks
7. DE
8. Nids
9. SM
10. Eldar
11. DA
12. Daemons
13. Tau
14. CSM
15. Sisters

I think some of those results are still a bit of a hangover from last edition, such as daemons not having registered enough big wins with their new powerful 6th ed rules to move them up much yet. To be honest it all looks pretty much as I expected it to look really. Nids, Daemons and CSM should all go up in rank as this edition really settles down and I think Necrons will overtake GK.

Daemons made it to Ard boy finals. They was good in 5th and even better in 6th. The only real differance is flamers got better and screamers took the letters place. Not to mention Fateweaver is almost unkillable now.

Daemons are always underestimated and rarely played. If they was played a lot more and Daemon players survive the learning curve and try all the models out you would see them rank much higher.

Sisters after the nerf is not surprising. They ranked low in the past however due to the same reason Daemons did. Once you discover the two cannoness tag team combo it was hard to lose gams with sisters with that combo. Throw in allies you had their long range covered. The older army was much stronger than what people gave it credit, while the new army is a gigantic nerf and what people who didn"t play them thought they played like.



The top 5 is not surprising, but I think some armies inbetween fall pray to how many people actually plays them. The averaging out part turns armies like Eldar worst than they really are. While in the same breath turn armies like Tau better than what they really are.

I think if you list each army and how they fare against the others it will give a better ideal on which ones in the middle and worst category are actually better or not.

A good example is if like for Daemons it is shown they dominate all but 3 armies it would than be seen they are much better than what that rankings is showing.

Another comment about Daemons is heavy Tzeentch with Khorne and or Slaneesh had did really well in 5th. The problem was a lot of Daemon armies went heavy Khorne and Nurgle wich attributed to Daemons not being as good as they really are. Big differance if the army wipes half your army off the board and you can not do anything about it vs half an army sitting there getting shot up and can do nothing about it doing the following turn.

With Daemon combat you have to think 2 turns to set up combat, while your shooting can occur in the turn you come in. Not saying the combat units suck. Just saying if they are mobile or set up as a counter charge unit they do well. If you rely on them to carry the day and they have no mobility your combat units will have a hard time getting into combat, although you do have some of the best combat units in the whole game.

[Arguleon-veq]

Daemons will be much, much higher in a few more months. That list is from the start of 6th so people hadnt got many tournaments in with the new Daemon rules. They are doing very well now and finishing all over the top tables at tournaments so their ranking will go up quite a lot.

[Irisado]

I don't think that this really tells us very much at all.  What's the sample size?  Are the gaming tables consistent in terms of the terrain percentage?  How many players of each army type are there?  How skilled are the players?  What sort of tournaments are, ridiculous ones with crazy points values which unbalance the game (such as 'Ard Boyz), or sensible tournaments where people are out to enjoy themselves, and not be unpleasant to each other?

There is far too much information which is unknown, and I strongly disagree with attempts by some tournament players to attempt to come up with universal rankings/performance for armies, because there is far too much variability locally for a lot of this to hold true.

[Arguleon-veq]

What it tells is how well each of these armies do in thousands of tournaments across the world. Which is obviously the closest thing we can get to seeing which are the most effective armies. No system is perfect but this is as close as we will get for a game like 40K.

With it being based on so many different tournaments it deals with things like some having silly rules or not the right amount of terrain.

People not taking certain armies also helps us to see which armies are the most powerful, at the end of the day if an army is terrible and has little to no chance of winning a tournament, competative players wont take them. If it was viable somebody would have come up with an effective build and it would be used.

Just looking at the list, any competative player can see that it goes pretty much as expected [obviously with changes to come due to 6th not having been out too long and Daemons getting a boost].

Some people, me included just like numbers/scores/ranks and this is the best we get with 40K.

[Chicop76]

I don't think that this really tells us very much at all.  What's the sample size?  Are the gaming tables consistent in terms of the terrain percentage?  How many players of each army type are there?  How skilled are the players?  What sort of tournaments are, ridiculous ones with crazy points values which unbalance the game (such as 'Ard Boyz), or sensible tournaments where people are out to enjoy themselves, and not be unpleasant to each other?

There is far too much information which is unknown, and I strongly disagree with attempts by some tournament players to attempt to come up with universal rankings/performance for armies, because there is far too much variability locally for a lot of this to hold true.

I agree with this view point. Thanks to my marketing class the data helps, but not really.

This list has a lot to do with how many people play certain armies and the evironment does help decide. If like say Grey Knights lose every game, but the army is well painted and the player hve high sportmanship scores he can still win the tournment. Hince why even bother playing.

If you take Tau for example and compare how they fare against other armies and do the same across the board you can get a good ideal which army is better or not.

Ok. Again to be more specific Tzeentch got a boost. If you play mono khorne they got a nerf. I play heavy Tzeentch which before 5th people stoped playing against me cause they couldn't deal with my army. Thanks to 6th it just made iteven harder to play people.

Overall the biggest change is the flying MC statis. Other than it plays somewhat what it did last edition. Some elements like screamers are much better, but khorne is worst now. 5th I played mixed and thanks to 6th I can play Mono Tzeentch which I was slowly turin my army into MonoTzeentch anyway.

With the Daemon players thanks to Daemons doing so well in Ard boys people started to pick them up. A year before 6th most Daemon players was going heavy Slaanesh or Tzeentch. Thanks to 6th and the update which happens to focus on those two elements just made them better.

Daemons do not rank high due to the volume of players rather than anything else. From playing at differant stores and my personal experance a heavy Tzeentch army in 5th walked over a lot of armies. Sadly Grey Knights in 6th are better against Daemons due to preffered enemy working on range attacks now.

The top 4 is not surprising, but if 60 people are playing Tau and 4 people play Grey Knights due to volume Tau will look like it is a better army than Grey Knights. Even if those 4 players win 4 differant tournament the 10 tau players who won due to the volume of Tau players out there would look like it is better even if Tau losses against Grey Knights every game.