Best Armies at AdeptiCon Singles 2018

After a long and hard fought flurry of battles the AdeptiCon scores are out! This year’s Championship singles featured AdeptiCon’s custom missions that can be found here. There were 4 rounds of play for everyone and then 4 more rounds of single elimination for the top 16 players. Ultimately there was a Blood Angels victory with Tyranids claiming second and third place. You can find all the official AdeptiCon scores here on their website. You can also check out Dernicus’s After Action Report of his experience surviving Adepticon (and winning best battle points in the team competition). Now are you ready to see the best armies at AdeptiCon Singles 2018? Here we go:

It’s worth noting that while Ynnari on average scored the best there were no Ynnari players in the top 16 and only one Aeldari player made it in. However there were 5 Tyranid players in the top 16 and surprisingly 3 Dark Angel players as well.

Top Factions

I don’t think many people will be surprised to see Ynnari doing well on average. What is interesting though is that no Ynnari players made it into the top 16 making me think many of the best players were prepared to deal with them. I think the real lesson coming out of AdeptiCon though is that Tyranids are back! Their performance has been increasing steadily since their codex release and they claimed second and third place overall. It’s also worth noting they scored well even with 23 meaning they’re also pretty consistent. Imperial Knights and Sisters of Battle are something to watch even though they didn’t have too many players. The release of plastic sisters may change that and the release of a more fully fleshed out codex could do the same for Knights.

Middle Tier

Moving down from the top, we see a lot of Chaos players in the middle. There were a lot of different flavors of Chaos but all except the Death Guard scored above the tournament average. Only 4 different Chaos players were able to break into the top 16 though. We’ve seen the decline of the all Primarch meta and I think AdeptiCon shows that while all the servants of the dark gods are definitely a threat on the table top, they haven’t quite broken into the top tier of the meta. As the Imperium gets more toys though we’ll see if GW blesses Chaos with some similar goodies.

Another interesting point about the middle tier is the presence of Cult Mechanicus and the Dark Angels. Both armies had suffered when we did our analysis of LVO and prior to that at Warzone Atlanta. With the new release of more Knight models maybe the servants of the Machine God can give the biomorphs of the Hive Fleets a run for their money. The Dark Angels on the other hand look like they went back to their basics and were mostly composed of Ravenwing bikers. Stacked minuses to hit can be brutal when there is only one Aeldari army with Dark Reapers in the top 16.

To round out the middle it’s worth looking at the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Custodes. While the good old guard had been dominating the meta they’ve fallen quite a bit. As other armies gain access to stratagems and the other advantages codexes provide, mortar spams and tank lines just haven’t held up as well. Finally for this section I do want to point out that the Adeptus Custodes and Imperial soup armies fell below the overall average. I think there was a lot of hype about the Custodes Bikes and Shield Captains. Unfortunately it looks like that just hasn’t helped the Imperials all that much on the table top. We’ll see if new releases make them more viable but for now elite armies are still suffering.

Factions that Struggled

Basically, this is from the Tau on down. I think the Tau Empire is something to watch because with the codex release so close to AdeptiCon, [edit] Tau players still had to use their index rules. We’ll see how they do when they’re able to use all their codex has to offer. Another interesting point is that while all the other Chaos armies scored above the overall average, Death Guard did not. While one player in the top 16 was blessed by grandpappy Nurgle, on average they just didn’t perform as well as other heretics. Similar to Death Guard, we’ve seen over the last couple tournaments how Grey Knights and Space Wolves do compared to other marines. That may be changing though if those wolf howls in the rumor mill turn out to be Primarch. I am glad to see there were 12 Ork players though. This edition has not been kind to them but man do Ork players just keep coming and having the best time.

It’s also worth pointing out that Aeldari scored less than the tournament overall average. Dark Reapers and Shining Spears just didn’t carry the day in the singles this year. Do I feel the winds of change in the meta? To be fair, it’s worth noting the team tournament best battle points went to a Shining Spear spam. We’ll be covering that event more in detail in another article. For this event though I think a lot of people will take a little pleasure seeing the Eldar fall. Finally, at the bottom we have Dark Eldar and Necrons. Both desperately need a codex and look to be getting one soon so we’ll keep an eye on them. I love a good comeback story.

Final Thoughts

Tyranids are on the rise and Eldar may finally start seeing a decline. And that’s before the GW nerf bat falls that was held off until after AdeptiCon. Knowing there’s an FAQ to be released in the next few weeks makes it difficult to say anything with certainty but I think Tyranids may just be the new army to beat. The point efficiency on Hive Tyrants and their new ability to deep strike makes them deadly on the table top. Combined with the damage output of Hive Guard and Biovores Tyranids can hit very hard. It’s also worth noting they have a lot of flexibility with the ability to take effective hordes, tough monsters, deep strikers, and an ability to prevent alpha strike by dropping in spore mines. I’ve been disappointed at the lack of the Hive Mind on the table but I think I’m starting to regret that.

As more releases come out I think we’ll see a moderate level of power creep. Index armies are really struggling against factions with their own codex. That’s been an issue all edition but as more codexes come out their are left index armies left and they feel it all the more. Armies like Space Marines and Imperial Guard have really struggled to adapt to all the new capabilities of the heretic and xenos alike. I that might only get worse with the recent Tau release and new Necrons, Dark Eldar, and Harlequin codexes on the way. If you’re an Imperial player, you best pray to the God Emperor that these Imperial Knights add some much needed reinforcements. And if you’re Chaos, just hope you can steal those new toys or get more Primarchs as the new GW storyline progresses.

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