Adepticon Championship: Dominated by Space Wolves and Guard?

So in case you guys didn't know I like looking at the results from big events and seeing how different codexes performed. Not sure why, the inner scientist in me perhaps.  Its seems like some folks feel that having IG and SW in the final at Adepticon just goes to show that they are the best Codexes. I'd like to see if the numbers bear that out -- or if 40k isn't just a tad more balanced then some think.

The analysis below is far from scientific. There's also 4 players that Adepticon still lists as 'undecided'. Been waiting for a promised update to the results but still nothing. I'll update this if we get that info but without it the percentages are obviously off on a couple of armies. Also of note -- the BoLS metagame analysis appears to be incorrect -- they have too many total armies listed (255 -- only 243 actual players showed up and one dropped mid way through).  But if the fact that there are numerous numbers being thrown about makes me wonder the validity of any analysis.  Lets trudge on though with what we've got and see if there's anything of interest.

First thing I'd like to present is a comparison of each armies % that went undefeated vs the % overall that went undefeated. In other words, if 5% of the all players went undefeated, then about 5% of the players of a particular army should also go undefeated -- assuming all variables are equal (e.g. codexes are equal, equal skill spread, no favoritism for an army from mission or terrain, etc).   I think this stat more accurately reflects how strong a showing a particular codex has, rather then just the raw numbers.

Thirteen players or 5.34% of the 243 attendees went undefeated (4-0).  Note that because some armies had less then 13 players using them (eg less the 5% of attendees actually played them), the likelihood that any of these would go undefeated is slim (assuming again equal variables). For the purpose of this analysis, I have removed any army that didn't have at least 6 players using them (eg at least 2.5% of attendees played the army).  That leaves out Black Templar, Dark Angels, Demonhunters and Witchunters.  Kinda arbitrary I guess, but just know that none of the armies I left out went undefeated.

Couple of things to consider:

• Although Space wolves had 3 undefeated players there were many of them to begin with.  If all things were equal we'd expect 2-3 SWs to go undefeated and that's exactly what happened.  Similar results for other armies, except...
• Orks have a pretty significant number here. 1-2 players going undefeated would be more expected then the 3 that did.  Wonder why?  I have ideas...
• There are a couple of armies that did not have undefeated players.  Of these:
• The 'elves' both had pretty small numbers of attendees, so honestly its not too surprising that neither army had an undefeated player.  Seeing this I was interested to see how many of the players were still in the hunt so to speak (eg 30 or better, or records of 3-1-0; 3-0-1 or 2-0-2).  I expect they do at least as well as the overall %, if not greater.
• CSM had more players and should have had at least 1 player go undefeated.  Like the elves I am interested to see how they stack up in the 30 or greater BP analysis below.

So the other analysis is a bit more broad.  It is comparing the % of all players that had 30 battle points or better with the % of players for each army that had 30 or more battle points.  Again we'd expect no difference between the two numbers if all things were equal.  Of the 243 attendees, 27.57% of the attendees had 30 BPs or more.  e.g. That is the % that went 4-0, 3-0-1. 3-1-0 or 2-0-2.

With these numbers I think we get a much more accurate picture of relative codex performance compared to just the undefeated.  We get more data points involved with a more broad sampling.  There's still not enough for any real statistical analysis (although I have not performed any fitness tests).

A number of things stand out:

• So here we see Orks and SWs are showing they did quite a bit better then most armies and the average.  Stronger numbers then I expected to be honest.  Orks specifically considering their codex is only strong in local events without Internet celebrities *snicker*
• DE jumped up quite high here.  Out of the 8 total DE players, 3 had 30 BP.  While there weren't a ton of DE players I think the few that showed up did pretty well.  Note also that 2 of the DE players are ETC alumni, and well known BoLS contributors (Darkwynn and the American team ETC captain Spacecurves).
• Tyranids had an incredibly poor showing here.  Although it was nice to see a Tyranid player make a go of it and end up in the semi-finals -- most Tyranid players had poor records and only 2 of the 13 had 30 or better.  Whether this is just an anomaly due to the sample size or a real show of their deficiencies is hard to say.
• IG are another army much like Tyranids that had an undefeated and yet didn't have many others do well.  Could be a lot of factors, like everyone gearing up to deal with them like most players for for Space Marines in general.  Could be the missions and/or tables as others are theorizing.

Well let me know your thoughts.  Thanks for reading!

--winterman