Meta charts, vampire hype, and a 500-point Old World test
We had one of those very hobby evenings where everything mixed together nicely: competitive stats, list theory, a bit of healthy disbelief, and paint experiments on the side.
AoS meta talk: 1500 games and a surprisingly healthy picture
Michał dropped some very interesting tournament data: 1500 games from 24 countries, pulled from ranked Grand Tournaments played in June and July. And honestly, the first impression was simple: this looks really promising.
The big takeaway from the discussion was that the meta apparently hasn’t been this diverse in a long time. One of the stats mentioned was that if every army were represented equally, each would sit at around 4.2% of the field. Compared to previous season numbers — where Slaves to Darkness were close to 8% and Stormcast around 7.5% — the spread now seems much healthier.
That immediately got us interested, because a diverse field is just more fun. More armies on the table, more weird matchups, more room to experiment, and less of that feeling that everyone has solved the game already.
SBGL in second place?!
Stas summed up the mood best with a very direct reaction:
wow, SBGL second?!
And that kicked off the next part of the chat: Soulblight Gravelords apparently look like a genuinely great army right now — but in a very interesting way. Michał pointed out that what makes them stand out is not some single obvious “meta list” that everyone copies. Quite the opposite: the lists seem to vary a lot, and despite that, they still put up strong results.
That is the kind of success story we really like seeing. When an army performs well without being reduced to one solved build, it usually means both the internal balance and the broader game balance are in a pretty good place.
GHB 2025 might actually have landed well
From that perspective, the early feeling was pretty optimistic: the balance changes in GHB 2025 may have worked out really well.
Michał also shared win rate data, and the picture there looked noticeably different from what we were used to before.
No panic, no single obvious monster towering over everything else, and more signs that armies can compete in different ways. That is exactly the kind of environment that makes us want to play more games instead of just reading about them.
And yes — there was also a small but important note for the sky-ports:
KO not bad at all!
Which naturally led to one more chart.
“How likely you are to go to a 5-round event and win”
The follow-up graphic was one of those images that immediately makes everyone stop and stare for a second.
The reaction in chat was basically a collective:
WTF
And, of course, the immediate conclusion was equally sensible and unserious at the same time:
maybe melee KO really works
We are not saying the future belongs to charging dwarfs from flying boats… but we are also not not saying it.
Meanwhile on the painting desk: armor colour experiments
While the rest of us were looking at charts, Ender was doing the equally important work of trying to make paint behave.
The update from the painting desk was that the colour testing continues, but right now the armor still does not seem close to the original reference.
There was still a bit of hope left in the universal hobby emergency button:
maybe Nuln at the end will do some magic
And honestly, we have all been there. Sometimes the scheme looks wrong right until the wash goes on, and suddenly everything starts making sense.
Next up: 500 points of The Old World in the shop
To round off the evening, Stas announced that tomorrow at 11:45 he and Michał are going to test Warhammer: The Old World at 500 points in the shop.
That sounds like exactly the kind of game we enjoy: small, quick, practical, and perfect for checking how things actually feel on the table instead of just theorising in chat.
So this was a very good snapshot of the hobby in one evening:
- AoS stats that actually make us optimistic,
- vampires doing great without one obvious solved list,
- KO getting people to raise eyebrows,
- paint experiments still fighting back,
- and a small Old World test game lined up for the next day.
Pretty much the full Wiatry Magii package.