‘Warhammer: The Old World’- A Comp and Meta Breakdown of Adepticon Championships
Take a look at the Warhammer: The Old World meta breakdown we saw at Adepticon 2026. There were some big surprises!
Last month saw the biggest Old World event in North American take place at Adepticon. The event was a ton of fun and over the long weekend more than 100 people played in various Old World events. While I got to play in the doubles, I also judged the other events. In particular the championship attracted a lot of great players with great lists. The event did have some mild comp (by today’s standards). So today I wanted to take a look at what the event tells us about the meta, by both looking at the comp and what was played there. So lets dig in.
The Adepticon 2026 Comp
The overall comp at Adepticon was meant to be fairly light. The base of it was built off of the matched play guide, in particular the Grand Melee and Combined Armies rules, which have become fairly standard. Of note however is that we did not actually use those rules. So while the comp mirrored the restrictions, having other restrictions did not get around these limits. On top of that there were caps on flying units/monsters and on Cathay lanterns.
There were also a few more targeted errata’s in the FAQ. While these did not limit what you could take, they change a couple of rules aimed at strong armies. These are more of balance changes than “comp” but tend to get all lumped in together.
Comp Goals and Results
Ultimately the goal of the comp we used to allow for a more fun environment. The goal was to give a better experience to the average player and guide the event towards a less super hard core feel. So these changes were mostly aimed at cutting down some of the top meta builds. Undead, both TK and VC where hit by changes to rising. Wild Herd, one of the other top armies, got a magic nerf. Fly changes were specifically directed at limiting Peg and Gyrocopter spam to more manageable builds. Flying monster limits were targeted towards Cathay and TK monster mash spam, as well as a few other less common lists. Generally the idea was not just to target some of the top armies, but also some of the lists that are much less fun to play agasint.
And I think overall the comp did work. The lists we saw were in general not as hard core as some events and a lot of the worse offenders didn’t have a big field day. We’ll take a look at the speard, but we had a good and varied turn out.
What Armies Showed Up
Adepticon had a pretty good spread of armies show up. By my count the following armies where played:
- Warriors Chaos -7
- Wolves of the Seas – 6
- Heralds of Darkness -1
- Beastmen -4
- Wild Herd -3
- Minotaur Breyherds -1
- O&G – 7
- Troll Horde – 2
- Nomadic Waaagh! – 1
- Bretonnia -2
- Exiles -2
- Errantry -4
- Cathay -2
- Jade Fleet – 1
- High Elves 4
- Tomb Kings – 2
- Royal Host -1
- Mort Cult -1
- Wood Elves -3
- Wild Hunt -2
- Host of Talsyn -1
- Renegade Crowns – 1
- Dwarves -2
- Royal Clan -2
- Expeditionary Force -1
- Empire -4
- Ogres-1
- VC -2
- Deamons of Chaos -1
With 14 total armies Warriors of Chaos was the biggest single faction to be played. However they were split pretty evenly between Grand Army and Wolves. Both WoC Grand Army and Orcs & Goblins Grand Army had 7 players bring them and tied for biggest sub-faction. All the core armies were represented, included Renegade Crowns. And a huge spread of Armies of Infamy showed up, including both Wood Elf AoIs. On the flip side Legacy armies saw very little play, despite some support for them. Overall I think this is a great spread, and while there are a couple of armies that were very popular these were not always the most powerful armies.
The Top Ten
Now it’s easy to look at the top ten results and say “oh the comp failed, Cathay and TK still took 1/2.” However I don’t think that’s very fair. The idea of the comp was to make those armies more fun to play vs, not make them bad armies, more over Andrea and Blue are a couple of the best players in North America, its not a shock they would do well. And looking at the top 10 you’ll noticed a pretty good spread. Beastmen, not Wild Herd either, are the only army to make the top 10 twice. Tomb Kings and Wood Elves as factions, did also nab two spots, but with different armies. Ultimately you have 7 factions represented in the two ten. Six of the ten core factions made it up there. The top 5 were all from different factions as well.
Again its clear that no one faction was dominating the event. Instead you are looking at a bunch of great players at the top tables in the end. We’ve seen some events with the top 3 all taken by the same faction and that didn’t happen. While there might not have been any huge shocking entries into the top ten, Wood Elves doing so well is the closest, I think this is the kind of spread you want to see and represents a pretty healthy field.
Some Other Fun Details
A few fun facts about lists that show the “flavor” of the event:
- In the 7 O&G lists there were a combined total of only 21 fanatics. 3 of the lists didn’t take any and two of them only took a single unit with them.
- By my count there were 23 Gigantic Spawn of Chaos, by far the most popular Rare Choice. This is likely a unit that needs fine tuning.
- Several Bret lists did not bring Peg Knights at all. We did see several units of Grail Knights and a number of units of Questing Knight, a very rare sight.
- The #4 List Tod Silber’s Wood Elves spent only 253 pts on characters, one of the lowest I’ve seen.
- Only 3 of the top 10 lists had a dragon. 5 of them had a flying ridden monster.
- Orcs & Goblins where the most popular list to not make the top 10. (Discuss the relation to the first point.)
- Poor Empire faired the worst of any army, winning only 2 games out of 4 players.
Final Takeaways
Overall as I’ve said, I think the comp at Adepticon worked. A lot of fun lists showed up and most of them were not crazy “sweaty” lists. I also think the people who showed up had a lot of fun, and less horrible feels bad moments. More than balance that was the goal. I think it shows that Dwarves and Empire may have gotten hit hard by some of the limitations, or need more of a buff. High Elves are also in a tricky spot. The comp did let us got a nice balanced spread of armies and armies in the top ten. I think in a lot of ways we saw player ability shine through a bit more than just bringing a hard list, but the lists that won were generally good lists.
As to what this says about the greater meta, it’s a bit hard to guess. (Chaos and O&G are as always really popular, I can say that). This was a different environment, as are almost all big events these days. For instance I wouldn’t say that Wild Herd is a mid tier army, event if they had a mid tier performance at Adepticon, we targeted them with comp after all. I do think it shows that players want a fun match and perception that they have a shot at winning. So my main take away is that even though its unfortunate that we need comp right now, it does work and can help craft the event you want.
Let us know what you think about Adepticon 2026 and it’s Old World meta.
