‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Is The Age of Dragons Over?

Has the Warhammer: The Old World meta moved past Dragons being the scariest thing around?

Since the Old World came out nearly one year ago Dragons, ridden ones in particular, have been a dominating force in the game. These massive beasts have dominated the table top and a lot of the discourse. Almost impossible to kill and deadly as get all get out they have smashed armies and dreams. For a lot of people they are the big bad of the game and to win in the meta you have to have a plan to deal with them. But now based on the latest meta stats is seems like their day may have passed. Dragons might not be what we have to fear anymore, lets take a look.

Statistics! (Everyone loves them!)

The fine folks at Woehammer.com have been monitoring the meta of Old World since it came out. Thanks to their invaluable work we have decent look at win rates for the game, at least when it comes to events. They recently released the army win rates at 2000 pt events since the July FAQ, and they are a bit eye opening. Off the bat, Bretonnains are the best army in the game. In particular Bret Exiles are crushing it at the top 65% win rate (this was something I predicted long ago). But its not just Exiles, Grand Army Brets are also the 3rd most winning army. Chaos Dwarfs in a bit of a shocker come in 2nd place. Fairly unsurprisingly VC are 4th and Mortuary Cults are 5th. These make up not only the top five armies in win rate but the only five to have a win rate greater than 55%, being outside of the “balanced range”.

No (Or Few) Dragons

If we look at the these top five armies we will see something pretty interesting, they are armies that don’t tend to run or be dependent on dragons. Neither Brets nor Chaos Dwarfs can even take a Dragon, though they do get smaller monster. VC and TK DO get dragons, but the main builds for VC, scream lists, and Mort Cults don’t really run them a lot. These also have some of the weaker dragons. So while we can’t say that no dragons showed up in lists run by the top five armies, we can guess that there weren’t many. Smaller monsters might be a bit more common, but even those are not often the focus of the army. All five of these armies draw their strength from something else. They play in a different way.

So Are Dragons Totally Out of The Meta?

While they might not dominate the top lists, Dragons aren’t gone from the game by any means. High Elves, Grand Army TK and Warriors of Chaos take the next three spots, all with win rates over 50%. These are armies that tend to run dragons a lot and be built around them. If we remove the sort of double dip of Normal Brets and Exiles then the Dragon heavy High Elves are the 5th best army in the game right now. None of the dragon heavy armies fall below the 45% win rate into the broken in a bad way group. Most of them hover in the “balance zone” as solid list.

So What Are We Seeing Here?

What we are seeing is not that dragons are bad. It’s simply that they are not dominating the meta. They’ve slipped from all powerful to just really good. Because of this I would also guess that less players are using them and some of the top players may have moved to other armies. I think they still act as gatekeepers a lot. They may not be top tier, but you still have to be able to deal with them and have a decent chance of running into them. However the age when we all had to worry about them seems to be passing. They might in fact, be somewhat balanced and OK. At least in a meta sense vs top tier lists. There are still plenty of lists that just can’t deal with them.

So Why Are They Not As Good?

I think there are a couple things at play in the decline of dragons. The first is very hard to track and see, but could be a factor. That is comp. Many events have various comp (army composition) rules in place. A lot of these are specifically designed to tone down dragons and help out infantry. These restrictions may actually be having an effect. It can often be a subtle one. If a couple of the top players feel like an event isn’t worth running a dragon at they may change their armies. Since most players tend to play the same or similar armies for several events, this could mean that a handful of events have pushed players away from using dragons in a lot of events, even uncomped ones.

However I think the bigger factor is just that people have learned how to deal with dragons. I do not think this means that they are killing them. I would love to see some data, though its impossible to get at any scale, on the % of dragons that actually die at any event. It feels like it is pretty small, though some armies can pull it off. Instead I think instead players at just much better at avoiding them and mitigating the damage they can do. A 500+ pt dragon has to do a lot of damage to earn those points back (on the flip side it very hard to earn points off a dragon). The top player come with a plan for dealing with a dragon, and can pull it off. I think that’s also why the top lists tend to be ones that can negate dragons. Brets have the Falcon Horn which slows them. VC and TK have illusion to stop them from charging and undead are hard to score points off of.

The Future of Dragons

None of this should make you think that dragons are out of the game. Players have found ways to deal with them yes. However they are still some of the best and most important units out there. The need to mitigate them still means that a lot of games revolve around dragons. Moreover nothing has really been done to nerf them, if the armies that can deal with them well get a nerf, then dragons might soon be back on top. But I think they are likely to stay where they are, powerful, but not the best thing in the game. They are a huge problem if you don’t have a plan or a new player, but the best players can deal with them. They are a part of the meta but not defining it right now. I think we can say that, for now at least, the age that we all worried about dragons taking over the game is gone. We might just have to worry about other ridden monster combos!

Let us know what you think about dragons, down in the comments! 

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.

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