SBOT 2 Metagame Part 1 - Overview
SBOT 2 Metagame Part 1 - Overview
SBOT 2 Metagame Part 2 - Forces of Fantasy
SBOT 2 Metagame Part 3 - Ravaging Hordes
SBOT 2 Metagame Part 4 - Legacy Armies
I missed the first Square Based Online Tournament this summer and was really excited for the second. However it ended up happening when I’m going to be in Japan for 3 weeks so I couldn’t justify committing. But I am still very excited to see all the lists, the SBOT events are the largest Old World events and give a good check-in on the meta. As online events they do make some lists more appealing to play, and with recent talk of huge archer blocks I’m looking to see how many people take them in an event where you don’t need to paint 90 night goblins.
First off, I’ll link to Close Order’s video. This is a review of some of the lists Ed thinks are strong, and I agree they are good looking lists. I’m sure he’ll be posting a lot more content on the event.
The event is using a pod system so shows up as 8 separate brackets. Links to them below. Here is the event packet. And here are the lists in text form. If you want to browse them on New Recruit: North America East 1, North America East 2, North America East 3, North America West, Europe 1, Europe 2, Europe 3, Oceana.
On the subject of the packet and lists it’s pretty close to core rules, rule of 6/3 is the most notable thing. It does offer VP for monsters reduced to 25% and a kinda random Monster Slayer bonus that feels out of place with the rest of the very vanilla pack.
So we’ve got 130 lists and there are a few things I notice right off the bat. First is that Grand Army for TK and Brets are really falling out of favor with Cults and Exiles taking over as the “default” for those factions. I’m not surprised as both are extremely powerful regiments of renown but I’ll be interested to see if that trend sticks, grand army Tomb Kings certainly have some very powerful options that MC can’t take.
The next thing that surprises me is how low Warriors of Chaos are on the chart. Hot off an arcane journal we only see 8 players bringing them and only one Wolves of the Sea list. I’m surprised by this but a lot of people have physical Warriors armies so I wonder if some of this could be wanting to try something new. Rounding out the most popular factions we have Vampires, Orcs, and Wood Elves. The first isn’t surprising, the next two probably have their reasons. Orcs and Goblins is a very fun army, and I can see wanting to try it out in an event. I am surprised there are zero Nomadic Waaagh! lists as that seems like a fun army if nothing else. Additionally, there are a lot of night goblins, I suspect inspired by the winning 90 goblin list at a recent UK event. Wood Elves I suspect are influenced by the winner of the last SBOT, a Wood Elf list based around casting Pillar of Fire as much as possible.
On the end end of the chart I’m surprised we don’t see any daemons, they’re not the strongest army but have some good options. Likewise, High Elves are lower than I’d expect as an army with some very good dragons and uh, some other models too. Unfortunately Skaven, Lizardmen, and Ogres being near the bottom of the barrel isn’t surprising.
Key Units
I want to look at some models and units that can be somewhat meta defining, as well as some others that are new or interesting, to see what things look like for them.
Gigantic Spawn of Chaos - 19
Number: 19
Representation: 56% of the maximum were taken
Marks: 79% Nurgle, 21% Khorne
Without a doubt the biggest impact from the Warriors of Chaos Arcane Journal was the Gigantic Spawn. It was taken across 9 lists seeing lots of play in Beastmen and Warriors. Marks overwhelmingly favored Nurgle with only Khorne seeing any other use. As far as units that could fight for these slots there were 3 Dragon Ogre Shaggoths, and one Warpfire Dragon.
Gigantic Shooty Core Blocks - 10
GSCBs are the breakout star of SBOT2’s list building. Time will tell how they do in the event but there are a bunch of armies taking them. For more on why these units are good I’ll refer to this video again. I’ve decided to set the line at 60 models, and we’re only looking at the shooty ones, so you need bows. Looking through the lists we have:
1 block of Skeleton Archers
3 block of Royal Host Archers
4 blocks of Night Goblins
1 block of Ungors
1 block of Hobgoblin Cutthroats
So that is 8 lists that are relying on a core block of archers at 260-1000 points. Many of these have poison. And I’ll be really interested to see how they do, I think it’s really neat to see these pop out from Beastmen and Chaos Dwarves. It’s worth noting that the Ungors have been given poison however the Hobgoblins do not have it making me worry they won’t do much versus toughness 6 monsters. The most extreme version of this is the Royal Host list with 1000 points in their block of Royal Host cohort. I assume the person running the list has confirmed that this unit fits properly with the terrain maps being used as that would be my biggest concern.
Dragons and other Flying Mounts - 66
35 Dragons (one Warpfire), 18 Wyverns, 7 Tauruses/Lammasus, 6 Griffons
This is lower than I’d expect for dragons, across 130 lists only 35 are brought. It’s worth noting that 69 of those 130 lists can’t take any dragons, which makes this less surprising. And when you take into account some of the other flying mounts seeing play it starts to ramp up. Worth noting are the 18 wyverns across 18 lists that can take them, and only one list doubles up. That means that 17/18 Orc and Goblin and Chaos Dwarves took a Wyvern, and then the Dwarves fit in 7 other flying mounts.
Level 4 Wizards - 137, Spellcasters - 324
Across 130 players we have 137 level 4s, that’s more than one per player. And we have 21 lists that can’t take one. So that’s an average of 1.26 L4s in the lists that could take one. And then we have 15 level 3s (13 in Bretonnian Exiles lists) and 3 Anvils of Doom. And then we have 62 level 1/2 wizards, 53 Ruby Rings of Ruin, 25 units of Sisters of the Thorn, 17 Casket of Souls, and 12 other bound spell casters. All that is to say that magic is very, very popular. Your average game has about 5 spellcasters in it.
Magic Items
Let’s take a look at the most popular common magic items:
Lore Familiar: 67
Talisman of Protection: 65
Ruby Ring of Ruin: 53
Power Scroll: 33 (across 24 models)
War Banner: 32
Ogre Blade: 25
Armour of Meteoric Iron: 16
This is about to be expected, magic items in this edition are not exactly balanced in power level. The top three have a pretty healthy lead which makes sense, they can go in most lists and all do something quite valuable that has limited alternatives. Power Scroll popularity is something of a surprise and they seem very evenly spread across lores. War Banner is the one universal banner to see wide adoption, it’s cheap and effective. Ogre Blade stands out as the one good universal magic weapon so sees a fair bit of use despite the price. The Armour is pretty cheap and can offer a psuedo-ward save so it’s a common choice when looking to make a tanky character.
The items I’m surprised not to see more of are 4 Dispel Scrolls, I don’t love the item but with 33 Power Scrolls I’d expect to see more dispel ones as well. The other item is Paymaster’s Coin, it’s expensive but very strong on melee beat-sticks allowing you to redo a flubbed attack roll.
Wrap-Up
That’s it for this first segment on the meta, I’ll have parts 2-4 coming out covering each faction broken out into Forces of Fantasy, Ravening Hordes, and Legacy armies. I’ll add them here when they’re out. Please reach out with any questions or feedback, email is below or I’m tim p/glocks4interns on the Old World Discord servers.
