After months of games and thousands of dice rolls, Season 1 of the Tabletop Republic Warhammer 40k league has finished.
This blog will run through all the results, secondaries and nerdy stats you could want!
THE LEAGUE
The Tabletop Republic 40k League Season 1 was the first of our new and improved leagues we ran in 2021 (and the first one in-store since 2019).
The rules were pretty simple - 1000pt armies, you must choose the same faction each game (but can change subfactions, lists, etc between games)
There were 22 signups to begin with, and only 2 mid-season dropouts with 1 replacement made, so we finished with 21 players.
THE TABLE
First and foremost, let's see the final table and find out the winners of the Season 1 League.
Here's a closer look at both sides (Pts total then Win/Loss pattern)
Congratulations to Thomas Robert's Death Guard for winning the league going undefeated over 6 games and scoring the best Points Difference along the way.
Stuart Harris's Custodes also finished undefeated in 2nd, and Scott Hensford's Chaos Space Marines only lost the last game to round out the Top 3.
Sam Smith's CSM was the best of the 4-win group after only losing to 2 of the top 3, followed closely by Phil Puttock's Thousand Sons, Sam Willis and Nick Hooper's Astra Militarum and James Innes's Marines.
THE MATCHES
Here I'll show what each round's mission was, the terrain layout, and the scores between each player. I won't share each game's secondaries as it'll take up so much of the blog space-wise, but further down I do have each player's secondaries
ROUND 1: RESUPPLY
ROUND 2: RISE OF THE MACHINE SPIRIT
ROUND 3: RAID
ROUND 4: ASCENSION
ROUND 5: CROSSFIRE
ROUND 6: SHOW OF FORCE
SECONDARIES
Here's where we do the in-depth analysis on each player's Secondary Objective choices and which ones are the most reliable.
Obviously, this isn't a fully comprehensive list of what secondaries are best, and you should take in the following before reading: these were 1000pt games, many of these players are beginners or newer to 40k, and some rules and points changed happened mid-season (most notably the Balance Dataslate)
PLAYERS
THE SECONDARIES
The Chapter Approved 2021 secondaries proved to be pretty consistent, with most getting around 7 points per game (pretty good in a 1000pt game).
Engage on All Fronts was the most popular secondary (as it usually is) due to its ease of scoring, but Stranglehold, the second most popular Battlefield Supremacy secondary, actually had a better average points score. Behind Enemy Lines also scored high, but that was likely due to it being chosen by armies who favour tactics involving entering the enemy's territory.
No Mercy, No Respite secondaries were a mixed bag. No Prisoners wasn't selected a lot due to the lack of models in a 1000pt game. Grind Them Down was chosen a fair amount, but scored poorly on average, again due to the lack of units in 1k! To The Last was the most selected from this category, and was the best average scorer from all secondaries (that were picked more than once!)
Shadow Operations was a popular category, mostly thanks to Retrieve Octarius Data (aka ROD) which pairs with Engage on All Fronts very well, so you often see them both being chosen together. Raise The Banner High saw quite a few uses too and scored very well, meaning it could get more popularity next season! Deploy Teleport Homers and Investigate Signal were only chosen a handful of times, and you can see why!
Purge the Enemy is a difficult category in 1000pts due to the lack of models. Assassination did will against armies with Character-based lists, but Bring It Down was only chosen once and Titan Hunter was useless due to the lack of Titans!
Warpcraft is the most specific secondary category due to all of the options being based around doing psychic actions or killing pskers. Abhor The Witch was only chosen vs Phil P's Thousand Sons army (the only psychic-based army this season). Warp Ritual was only chosen a handful of times, but scored quite well on average. Psychic Interrogation was chosen once and scored the best, but this was definitely an outlier!
With the army-specific secondaries, many of these were based around one player's points total as they may have been the only one with that army!
Space Marine's Oaths of Moment was the most popular and best-scoring secondary used by multiple players, while the other Marine secondaries were never chosen. Other standout secondaries include Dark Angels' Stubborn Defiance, Space Wolves' Heroic Challenge and Thousand Sons' Mutate Landscape. Orks, however, seemed to struggle with secondaries and had the worst average scoring secondaries
The mission secondaries varied massively on uptake, with Secure Landing Sites and Ascend being chosen by 80%+, both scoring over 9pts on average each.
AWARDS
Finally, here are the prizes and awards from this season. These first ones will be presented with a frame, trophy or other kind of award for their achievement (or lack of, sorry Adam!)
LEAGUE WINNER: Thomas Roberts (Death Guard)
LEAGUE RUNNER UP: Stuart Harris (Adeptus Custodes)
LEAGUE 3RD PLACE: Scott Hensford (Chaos Space Marines)
BEST PAINTED: Chris Blofield (Black Templars)
WOODEN SPOON AWARD: Adam Eveleigh (Ultramarines)
PLAYER'S PLAYER: Sam Willis (Astra Militarum)
MOST DESTRUCTIVE (outside top 3): James Innes (Dark Angels)
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Then here are a bunch of other awards especially for this blog!
MOST POINTS SCORED: Thomas Roberts (1st Place, Death Guard)
LEAST POINTS SCORED: Adam Eveleigh (21st Place, Ultramarines)
[excluding dropouts or added players]
LEAST POINTS CONCEDED: Thomas Roberts (1st Place, Death Guard)
[excluding dropouts or added players]
MOST POINTS CONCEDED: Adam Eveleigh (21st Place, Ultramarines)
[excluding dropouts or added players]
CLOSEST GAME: James P 73 - 73 Chris B (Round 4)
BIGGEST WIN: Tom M 100 - 15 Dan F (Round 4)
HIGHEST SCORING GAME: Angus W 84 - 83 Chris CJ (Round 3)
LOWEST SCORING GAME: Phil P 37 - 61 Nick H (Round 2)
The 'Bang Average' Award: Tom Kay's Orks (closest to equal win/loss and equal PD)
The 'Big Winner' Award: Lawrence Hide's Necrons (Positive PD with more losses than wins)
The 'Mulligan' Award: Sam Willis's Astra Militarum (Lost the first 2 games, won all others)
The 'Let Everyone Else Win' Award: Tom Mepham's Orks (I would have won the league if I really wanted to... I swear!
The 'Golden Jake' Award (Most Unique Army): Sam Willis's combat Catachan (Jake didn't take part this season so he still wins in spirit)
The 'Consistent' Award: Sam Wrightson (Least different secondaries chosen - 4)
The 'Experimental' Award: Leo Pesci (Most different secondaries chosen - 13)
The 'Future Star' Award: Gavin Blackshire (Expect to be most improved next year)
HIGHEST SCORING ROUND: Round 1 (1489 total pts)
TOTAL POINTS SCORED: 8160
BEST SECONDARY (Highest Average): Oaths of Moment
MOST CHOSEN SECONDARY (Total Picks): Engage on All Fronts BEST IMPERIUM PLAYER: Stuart Harris (Custodes, 2nd)
BEST CHAOS PLAYER: Thomas Roberts (Death Guard, 1st)
BEST XENOS PLAYER: Tom Kay (Orks, 11th)
IMPERIUM AVERAGE POSITION (Excluding dropouts): 11.2
CHAOS AVERAGE POSITION (Excluding dropouts): 5.6
XENOS AVERAGE POSITION (Excluding dropouts): 15.1
And that's it for the report for Season 1 of the league! Thanks to all 23 players for playing and for all the positive responses to the league in general!
Season 2 starts in a few days time, and you bet I'll be doing a report on that too!
- Tom M