So my last two posts have been about the overall meta at ETC2013, and today I want to take a quick look at the top 3 countries and how they compare to the overall meta.

As a quick refresher the top performing armies were:

1. Tau
2. Eldar
3. Necrons
4. Chaos Space Marines
5. Chaos Daemons
6. Tyranides
7. Space Marines
8. Dark Angels

Whereas the most popular armies were:

1. Necrons
2. Chaos Space Marines
3. Tau
4. Grey Knights
5. Imperial Guard
6. Tyranids
7. Chaos Daemons
8. Dark Angels

Germany got the top spot (familiar territory for these guys!).

They ran with:

• Tau
• Grey Knights
• Necrons
• Chaos Space Marines
• Chaos Daemons
• Tyranides
• Orks
• Dark Angels

So this includes 6 of the 8 top armies (they left out Eldar and Space Marines), and 7 of the 8 most popular armies (they avoided IG, which was the biggest underperformer of the popular armies).

Spain came in second,

and their team comprised:

• Tau
• Grey Knights
• Necrons
• Chaos Space Marines
• Chaos Daemons
• Eldar
• Imperial Guard
• Dark Angels

Again they had 6 of the top 8 armies, leaving out Tyranids and Space marines. They also brought 7 of the 8 most popular armies, just leaving out the Tyranids.

Poland were third

and they brought:

• Necrons
• Chaos Space Marines
• Tau
• Grey Knights
• Imperial Guard
• Tyranids
• Chaos Daemons
• Dark Angels

This also has 6 out of the 8 top armies (similarly to Germany they left out Eldar and Space Marines), and interestingly all of the most popular armies.

So the top three countries all brought 6 of the 8 top armies (though not the same ones) and all brought 7 or more of the 8 most popular armies.  There is a big overlap in that all three countries brought Chaos Marines, Dark Angels, Daemons, Grey Knights, Necrons, and Tau.

So, what does that mean for the army rankings I described previously? Well firstly it shows that picking the top 8 armies is not necessary to win, and places more weight on my caveat that just going on army rank is a simplification that needs to be tempered by the roles needed or the team – and the skillsets of your players!