Your local meta

Hello all,

I've always thought that one of the major considerations in army building extends beyond the codex and rulebook and that is specifically local meta. Meaning, the types of armies that you are most likely to face. I bring this up only because I played yesterday and wondered if my local meta varies much from the community.

Within my circle of friends that I would play regularly, I face:

- Chaos/IG or Chaos/Necron (with double Heldrake in both)
- Tyranids (Monsters = double winged hive tyrant, multiple tervigons)
- Chaos Daemons (Fateweaver)
- Grey Knights with Space Wolves
- Necron Flyerspam
- Ork Horde
- Tau deathstar (8 Broadsides)
- Guard parking lot

Adding my MSU Dark Eldar Venom spam list, I think my friends manage a pretty broad army types.
So in this environment is what I have to consider when I build my army, how does your local meta look like?

I tend to play with the same group of people 99% of the time, outside of very occasional trip to tournaments. They have:

Black Templars
Ultramarines
Grey Knights
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Daemons
Tyranids
Orks

I play Blood Angels as well as Dark Eldar, so that brings our total army count to 9 although I know one guy is slowly building a Necron Army and I'm adding in some Eldar and Space Wolf allies.

Does anyone else find it frustrating how much Space Marines are used?

I find it normal.

Consider what armies exist:

Vanilla Space Marines
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Black Templar
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Chaos Space Marines
Daemons
Imperial Guard
Witch Hunters
Orks
Necrons
Tyranids
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Tau

So, 16 codices.
6 (7 if you count Chaos) are MEQ.
Then, if you consider which books are really old and unpopular (like, say, Tau) or considered really unplayable (Witch Hunters and Nids) and toss in a couple of the other less commonly played armies due to them being seen as 'hard' (Eldar and Dark Eldar) and suddenly it's normal numbers as far as which armies you're most likely to see - and clearly those numbers favor the Marines.

I find it normal too. Less time to build and paint, very forgiving on the table, highly versatile & whatnot.

I was wondering if anyone finds it frustrating though? The 41st Millenium is huge, populated my a lot more than just super-men in big armour! I like to see lots of variety I guess, from a fluff & aesthetic point of view.

(2) Blood Angels
Chaos Daemons
(2) Chaos Space Marines
(3) Dark Eldar
Eldar
(3) Imperial Guard
Grey Knights
Necrons
(2) Space Wolves
(3) Tau
Tyranids
(3) Ultramarines

I have never seen the other Dark Eldar or Eldar armies played. Tau are often allied with Guard or Grey Knights. One of the Ultramarine guys is super classy and brings out his 10th Company (all scouts) for more fun games.

My friends and I play at my house, so we avoid the larger local meta (which is driven largely by the NOVA Open). Even then, however, we're still power armor heavy:

- Space Marines
- 2 Chaos SM
- Tau
- Tyranids
- Necrons

And lil' ol me. I've only added the Dark Eldar to the mix since the new year began, my other two armies being Tyranids and Orks. It still come out, however, that us non-marine players will be playing against Power Armor as often as not.

My meta consists of every book out there (yes... we even have 3 Sisters players!!!!) I will also say I am not the only DE player in my meta either, with 2 others playing the army as well. Infact the least codex played is probably black templars (2 players) and Eldar (2 players). So I play against pretty much everything...

And yes, this even translates to fantasy (except WE, which I am the only player... although another guy is about to get into the bottom of the barrel )

I had something similar to bookkeeper where it was just group of friends playing at my house.

-1 Grey Knights
-2 Imp Guard
-1 Chaos
-1 Nids
-1 White Scars SMurf variant

Though I just recently moved and have a GW store that I can actually participate in now but I haven't seen the entire meta of people here yet.

My meta consists of five other people, as I don't have a painted army and thus can't play in LGS. They have CSM, DA, Necrons, Orks and Eldar.

Vassal game, anyone?

My local meta has shrunk more and more during the years, but my online meta has grown insanely thanks to Vasall. When it comes to the local meta I can't say we were that many to start with but now days it's just me and my mate who meets up one, maybe two times a month for a beer and pretzels game =P
One of our common friend moved to the other side of the country and took his army with him. He has taken the plunge into the tournament world, so I can have my share of a more competitive version of 40k if we want to either when we meet or through Vasall. =)

Local meta:
-- Chaos Space marines in all flavors. But the flavor of the month is Death guard.
- Orks, blood axe.

Friendly meta:
-- Chaos daemons, Screamer/flamer/weaver.
- SoB.
- Space marines, All flavors but mostly Salamanders or Black templars.

-- = main army.
- = alt. army.

Well, most of my games I play is at a friends house. And there the armys that are played are:
- Tyranids (He have 6000pts, can play whatever)
- CSM (He have 10 000pts, can play whatever list)
- Demons (have about 4000pts, Screamers, flamers etc)
- Necrons (Not flayer spam)
- Eldar (have everything, dont know how many points but reckon 6-7000)
- Blood Angel (Can field every BA list there is, have about 10 000pts)
- GK (have about 2000pts, but its the ususal GK list)
- Imperial Guard (usual parkinglot)
- Orks (mostly foot, but slowly building his army)

And we have a Dark Angel "House army".

So I face most of the lists regularly. And no I have no problem playing MEQ teams, they are dominating the game.

But then we have the area around with the local gaming club, then we have all the lists you can think off.
So I have to have all commers list when building. Have to face every list, every army. And since I have won the last turnements around here they list tailor when they play me to try and beat me. Which is fine by me, just a challange

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t5290-the-gauntlet#58380

This is what my DE and other armies have to fight.

Among my friends I regularily face off with

Orks
IG
Necrons
Chaos
Tau
Dark Angels

I also have my Tyranid and a friend of mine is going to be getting into the SoB

None of us could field above 1300 points as of right now though and most of our games are around 500-600 points

I've also come across Blood Angels and Space Wolves on a regular basis