The Manchester GT Winter: In Numbers

The Manchester GT: Winter was a fantastic event in the UKTC calendar. With a turnout for the books, as nearly 300 players battled it out over 7 rounds before crowning Innes Wilson as our champion, earning himself back-to-back UKTC trophies.

Ahead of the event, we broke down the meta in the field, and now it's time to see if the popular choices performed well or if there's more to a good run than just the strongest army?

Event at a glance

• Players: 296

• Factions represented: 28

• Format: 5-round Regular play. Followed by a 2-round Top cut.

• Games recorded: 710 (704 Swiss + 6 playoff)

• Undefeated after Swiss: 9 players finished 5-0

• Draws: 11 regular games ended tied

• Game results:

  • 80 games (11.4%) decided by ≤ 5 points

  • 166 games (23.6%) decided by ≤ 10 points

  • 294 games (41.8%) were 30+ point blowouts

• Perfect scores: 66 individual game scores hit 100.

Top 10

Placing	Name	Faction	record
1	Innes Wilson	Space Marines (Astartes)	7-0
2	David Gaylard	Space Marines (Astartes)	7-0
3	Chris Kinnair	Necrons	6-1
4	Matthew Langton	Tyranids	6-1
5	Greg Chamberlain	Leagues of Votann	5-1
6	Scott Morris	Aeldari	5-1
7	Ben Jones	Orks	5-1
8	Kevin Davies	Necrons	5-1
9	Taff Jones	Adeptus Custodes	5-0
10	George Leathley	Space Wolves	4-0-1

Our top cut was a very wide spread of factions, with the two most picked factions running deep and maintaining their representation in the top 10. Notably Deathguard had very strong performances throughout the weekend but fell at the final hurdle and didn't make the top cut.

Faction Winrates.

Lets take a look now at how the factions performed in the wider field, coming into this, Necrons were the ones to beat and faction specialists such as Deathwatch or Aeldari were tipped to have a strong weekend:

Faction	Games	W - L - Draw	Win Rate
Imperial Agents	5	3-2	60.00%
Necrons	124	73-49-2	59.70%
Space Wolves	38	21-16-1	56.60%
Death Guard	93	52-40-1	56.50%
Adeptus Custodes	85	45-36-4	55.30%
Tyranids	67	37-30-0	55.20%
Grey Knights	20	11-9-0	55.00%
Blood Angels	75	41-34-0	54.70%
Thousand Sons	23	12-10-1	54.30%
Genestealer Cult	13	7-6-0	53.80%
Space Marines (Astartes)	117	59-57-1	50.90%
Emperor's Children	35	17-17-1	50.00%
Orks	61	29-30-2	49.20%
Dark Angels	55	27-28-0	49.10%
Aeldari	44	21-22-1	48.90%
Chaos Daemons	70	33-35-2	48.60%
Astra Militarum	66	30-33-3	47.70%
Leagues of Votann	69	32-36-1	47.10%
Black Templars	30	14-16-0	46.70%
T'au Empire	67	31-36-0	46.30%
Drukhari	40	18-22-0	45.00%
Adepta Sororitas	30	13-17-0	43.30%
Chaos Space Marines	39	15-22-2	41.00%
Chaos Knights	48	18-30-0	37.50%
Imperial Knights	30	11-19-0	36.70%
World Eaters	36	13-23-0	36.10%
Adeptus Mechanicus	20	7-13-0	35.00%
Deathwatch	20	7-13-0	35.00%

With a slight exception to the solo Imperial agents for skewing the stats (Thanks, Jacob). We have some very interesting statistics and trends across the weekend. Necrons lead the charge with a near 60% winrate over the weekend placing them number 1 for most picked and win rate. A very strong army indeed to perform so well.

Custodes and Death Guard both performed very well, their durability and anti-elite playstyle sitting them well into the field and carrying the day.

An underwhelming weekend for the fringe picks as Deathwatch players (not called Innes) had the lowest win rate of the weekend, paired with AdMech and World Eaters. Quite the surprise as these factions used to be common problems in events.

Faction specialists continue to perform well with Greg Chamberlain, Matt Langton, and Scott Morris all making top cut on underrepresented and lower win rate factions.

Key points

As has been the developing trend in previous events, whilst simply taking what is popular, or strong, is a viable strategy to have a positive win rate over the event.

It is a combination of skill, fundamentals, and strong understanding of your faction that is the best chance to make a top cut or win the whole thing. Faction specialists

THE LGT 2026 Launches Friday

The biggest event of them all is nearly here. Tickets to the London Grand Tournament 2026 Launch this week.

And that means the biggest opportunity for for specialists to make their names, we would hate to see you miss out - make sure you sign up for restock notifications via email.

Tickets launch Friday 27th 2PM.

lgtpresents.co.uk for more information and to sign up for notification emails as soon as we restock.

Game Systems:

⚔️ Warhammer 40k​

🐴Age of Sigmar

🛡️ Horus Heresy

🎯 Kill Team

🏰The Old World 

🚀HALO: Flashpoint

⚜️Para Bellum - Conquest

📆 26th - 27th September 2026

📍The Lee Valley Athletics Center, 61 Meridian Way, London N9 0AR

Set your alarms, for Friday 27th @ 2PM for this massive ticket launch.