Fluffy Armies at Tournaments? A Statistical Look into the Success of Narrative Armies at the LVO

Last weekend, like most of you not in Sin City, I was trying to find a way to convince my wife that we should take a trip to Vegas next year in early February. Rolling dice on the Strip and not losing money? Yes, please! The LVO is the hot ticket in 40k these days. So, let's say I do convince the boss and I get to go next year. What type of army should I bring? I doubt I'm a top 8 player, but somewhere in the top 100 would be nice. How many knights/flyrants/riptides/etc. do I need to buy and paint over the next twelve months? Do I need to bring these things to be competitive? Can a narrative player succeed at a competitive event?

I thought this was pretty interesting, so I decided crunch some numbers and see what they had to say. I reviewed the top 100 players with a focus on how these armies were constructed (You can see my research here). In my opinion, I think these results show that narratively themed forces are the norm, even in large competitive events. For example, check out the top 100 players:

The general perception of the competitive gaming community is that the allies matrix is abused to create "cheesy, power-gaming" lists. According to the above chart, it seems like most players are following the narrative and rule structure created by Games Workshop. Out of one hundred lists, only nine use Desperate Allies or Come the Apocalypse formations. That means that 91% of the top 100 used a "narrative" army (this includes single and double force org from the same source and Battle Brothers or Allies of Convenience allied forces). When you look at the average final position, we see that single force organization lists with no allies have the highest average finish (43rd). 

The outliers here are the nine Desperate Allies and Come the Apocalypse lists.With an average finish of 41st and 43rd, these formations do seem heads above the rest. So, in order to find out more about these numbers, I looked into the top 25 finishers. Here we need to remember the variable of player skill, as this includes the top 8 (arguably the best 40k players in the United States). Still, this data bodes well for the narrative. Nearly half of the Come the Apocalypse armies finished in the top 25. These top players, who one would assume could finish top 25 with any army, are skewing our numbers a bit. The remaining top players, an rather hefty 88%, use a narrative list as set out and decided on by Games Workshop.

So, according to this data, is it safe for narrative players to participate in large competitive events? Yes! Players will always bring competitive lists. This is a game, and everyone should be able to play the army that they want to play. Some of these players may not build an army that fully fits the background of their chosen race. That's ok! You can still forge a fluffy army and have a good chance at finishing in the top 50% of a large tournament.

The 2015 LVO shows how important the narrative is to modern 40k. These days, you can build any list, with any mix of units and models you want. But, players still desire to hobby (buy, paint, model, and game) within the stories and background of the Warhammer Universe. That's good! Hopefully I'll see some of you next year. For now, I need to get back to painting my Imperial Knight.

Until next time!