After a hard fought weekend the scores from Warzone Atlanta are out! The tournament was 5 great rounds of custom missions that included opportunities for bounties and other awards. Previously we looked at what armies were being played but now we’re going to focus on the scores. There was ultimately an Imperial Guard victory with a little drama around what relics could go on which characters. Second place overall was taken by Orks and third overall went to the Blood Angles. You can see the official score sheet here. Now are you ready to see what the best armies at Warzone Atlanta were? Here you go:
Warzone Atlanta Scores:
Warzone Atlanta is a 5 game event with a possible 33 battle points per round making a perfect score a 165 battle points. The overall score factors in both painting and sportsmanship scores using a scoring system unique to the event.
| Factions | Battle Points | Overall | Player Count |
| Blood Angels | 128 | 80.6 | 1 |
| Ynnari | 110 | 65 | 2 |
| Chaos | 103.67 | 67.47 | 6 |
| CSM | 101.71 | 64.75 | 17 |
| Sisters of Battle | 101 | 60.2 | 3 |
| Demons | 100.45 | 66.55 | 11 |
| Imperial Guard | 97.38 | 64.6 | 8 |
| Space Marines | 94 | 63.43 | 8 |
| Eldar | 91.56 | 61.42 | 9 |
| Average Score | 90.17 | 63.2 | – |
| Ad Mech | 85.71 | 62.14 | 7 |
| Orks | 85.5 | 64.85 | 4 |
| Space Wolves | 84.33 | 66.2 | 6 |
| Adeptus Titanicus | 82 | 54.4 | 1 |
| Tau | 80.33 | 56.73 | 3 |
| Death Guard | 79.17 | 64 | 6 |
| Tyranids | 75.67 | 62.13 | 3 |
| Dark Angels | 75.6 | 58.72 | 5 |
| Harlequins | 66 | 63.7 | 2 |
| Custodes | 62.5 | 58.5 | 2 |
| Grey Knights | 61 | 50.2 | 1 |
| Necrons | 50 | 53 | 1 |
| Dark Eldar | 41.5 | 46.8 | 2 |
The top three overall players were using Imperial Guard, Orks, and then Blood Angels. The next 7 armies rounding out the top 10 were all Choas/CSM/Daemons armies. The top three players for Battle Points were using Imperial Guard, Daemons, and CSM with some Eldar and Ynnari players in the top 10.
Top Factions
Hey take a look at those Blood Angels! They don’t even have a codex and yet the lone Blood Angels player was able to make something work for them after they were second to last in the Nova Open scores. After that we get basically what most tournament players would expect, Ynnari with a ton of action economy followed by Chaos and Traitor Marines. Chaos Space Marines seem to be the real winners here as they had the most players that scored pretty consistently well. Sisters of Battle also performed well but had relatively few players. The final faction I’d consider in the top tier at this event were Daemons also performing consistently well with 11 players total. I think these results really show the dominance of Chaos’s Forgeworld support and ability to field Primarchs. The only other armies that are in the top tier are Ynnari and Sisters which both exploit the ability to act multiple times a turn in order to keep up with their opponents. The new Eldar FAQ may have seriously threatened the capability of Ynnari armies to stay relevant at highly competitive events.
Middle Tier
I won’t be able to go over every army that appears in the middle tier but I do want to point out a couple of factions. An Imperial Guard player won both “Best Overall” and “Most Battle Points”.Look at the average though, I’d say they are only the top of the middle tier because they didn’t score significantly more than the average score at this event. Given that the top player got 154 battle points that means the rest of the Guard probably did not perform as well as the rage on the internet may have made you expect. Nerfs to Commissars and Conscripts, or at at least the FAQ’s, seemed to have some effect. Space Marines and Eldar also occupy a similar place above the average score but not by much. They both performed consistently well but didn’t seem to be able to break into the top tier despite Eldar’s -1’s or more to hit and Space Marine’s ability to buff their units. Could this be the fall of the Guilliman gun line? Ad Mech, Orks, Space Wolves, and oh yes Adeptus Titanicus round out the middle group. I just love that someone took a bunch of Titans and did alright. Orks also did surprisingly well at this event which is nice to see as they definitely need some help this edition. We’ve known Ad Mech was middle of the road and a Space Wolves army won the best painted awards so at least they’re pretty!
Factions That Struggled
Basically, this is from the Tau down. You’ll notice that all of these armies had relatively few players and most of the factions don’t yet have their codexes. Without the use of strategems and “chapter tactics” abilities some armies just struggle. With all of the Chaos and Daemon meta I was surprised to see Grey Knights not doing a little better. I guess they have to break into the top tables before facing the things they are a hard counter for. I think Tyranids will start to be a bit more relevant now that they have access to all the goodies a codex provides. Death Guard didn’t perform well at this event or Nova which tells me that they aren’t as powerful on their own as they are complimenting other Chaos elements. Tau players just have to be disappointed this edition. It seems like they struggle with all the minuses to hit and just not having the same points to damage output they did last edition.
Final Thoughts
The meta has been changing pretty fast the last couple of months. Where once ATC was dominated by Stormraven spams we have now seen the rise of the Primarchs. There were 31 of them at Warzone. That’s almost a third of all players taking a Primarch! Remember, they’re only going to keep coming. Another change is that Genestealer Cults, which use to field genestealers in the literal hundreds, weren’t even represented at this event. We also didn’t see many Renegade or Imperial Knights stomping across the battlefield. Gone are the days of 5 knight lists.
One thing I think the results show is that internet trolls aren’t great at predicting results. There was a lot of rage about the Astra Militarum and the Eldar codexes when they came out. It’s worth noting though that they didn’t perform any better than the Chaos Space Marine codex which has been out for a while. That makes me wonder if there is a serious learning curve with all of the new options and abilities presented when a codex is released. It’s possible this edition could be defined by people actually learning to play their army well instead of jumping on whatever the new hotness is. Well, I mean until Chapter Approved gets dropped at the end of the year and the entire meta shifts again.
Currently though I think its clear that Forgeworld support is a huge advantage to armies like Chaos and Imperial Guard. Chaos’s ability to include characters and an overwhelming amount of Smite puts them solidly on top. It’s worth noting though that the top Guard player used quite a few Death Riders in his army to supplement his codex forces. Whether tournaments continue to allow unlimited Forgeworld or shift to a 0-1 or some other limitation will have a huge effect on the meta in my opinion. I really can’t really complain though as long as I get to finally use my Rough Riders in competitive play!
Warzone Atlanta said they kept track of which players went first. When that data is released we’ll be checking to see if this edition really does just come down to who wins that essential die roll for who goes first. Dernicus will be writing a recap of his experiences at Warzone next week and we’ll be posting all the awesome video and pictures he took on our Facebook page!
Did we completely miss something? Or, just maybe, did we get it right? Feel free to let us know by commenting below, on our Facebook page, or emailing us at [email protected]!