Often the thread in GBS prompts people to say something along the lines of, “I really like the concept behind this army, but HOW DOES IT PLAY?” or the dreaded “Are they any GOOD?”  I see it in my local nerd store all the damn time; people bemoaning the cosmic injustice of their preferred army of plastic men being slightly less potent in a Sci-Fi war-game.  For the uninitiated or would-be hobbyist, these sort of arguments about balance and relative power are mystifying and frustrating.

You may find yourself in that limbo, trying to decide whether the army that tickles your creative fancy will give you a decent shot at ever actually winning a game.  You might have a dusty army of old models from a previous edition, collected during your wayward youth, and are considering playing with them now.  You might even be already mentally committed to our silly hobby, but want to minimize your financial outlay (fool me once, every single CCG ever).

Let’s set this one down easy right now.  Barring an extremely competitive local metagame, you can have fun and successfully win games of Warhammer 40k with any army. However, this doesn’t mean that they are equal!

You’ll find me using this big gay word METAGAME an awful lot.  What does it mean, you say to yourself, while stroking your neckbeard and letting your glassy doll-eyes stare unfocused at your collection of anime wallscrolls.  Fear not, gentle goon.

In this context, META usually means self-referential or self aware.  So when we ‘sperg out and act like mildly retarded children about our strong opinions on balance within a wargame, we’re being meta.  We’re referring to the game-within-a-game, the counters and the interplay between armies that all approach the same basic ruleset from different perspectives.

If your local nerd store is populated by ultra-competitive nerds, then it’s going to be tough going for armies that are currently disadvantaged by the changes in the rules.  If your bros and dudes are fans of narrative gameplay, fluff-based armies, or generally don’t like taking beardy lists then you can often find a lot of entertainment value in playing less potent armies.  For the casual player, your local metagame will have significant impact on how much fun you have when playing pick-up games of 40k. Use your flawless common-sense and unfailing social graces to investigate this before you start buying stuff, because this can save you a lot of grief.

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