Clubbas and Electric Choppas were drastically slowed, depriving the orks of viable powerweapons in a meta that enforces the sole use of them.

With the chain choppa, I need to land up to 2 heavy attacks and at least 1 light attack to kill a target, whereas a standard powersword usually just needs to land 2 to 3 light attacks to get the job done. You will note our consistently bad performance against Chaos on the World Map, which features an overwhelming amount of melee (if they aren't in the mood to spam plasma and abbaddon's for the match) during which Orks are simply at a disadvantage due to slower animations and inferior weapons.

The Electric Clubba and Choppa are still usable weapons, don't get me wrong, but the heavy attacks plainly can't be used in duels, especially not against Eldar who simply break the RPS-systems against those weapons due to their overwhelming speed.

Charts for teh chart goooooood!

And yeah, LSM seem to become more of an actual Loyal Space Marines instead of Lemming Sperm Marinate, that's a good thing.

Also, I think EC is perhaps the only game I can think of where a guild is a "bad" thing .

15 sm vs 8 csm
15 sm vs 5 eldar
15 sm vs 5 orks

who cares? Soon devs are going to have to implement civil war rules so sm can fight sm just to have something to do.

Saw a huge rise in Storm Bolters recently. Not really that much in CSM games, but a new meta is rising since it handles Eldar and Orks pretty well. Be prepared to face a lot if assaults and at lof Stormbolters not afraid to mow down their own troops.

Winds are a changin. It's a good thing.

Noticed it too. Last night stormbolter was overwhelmingly the weapon of choice. The only bolters I saw where on Apothecaries. 0 Plasma guns.

Vengeance Stormbolter. They get it from one of the higher tier boxes, 12k or 30k, has all the stats of a normal Stormbolter along with 110 penetration if I recall. Quite possibly the best short to mid range weapon in the game.

External factors then? Did another race start a big push around that time? Chaos or Eldar perhaps?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Im pretty sure there were back end changes at this time, they had announced that they had been done but not what or when. It sure seems like around that time my bullets started hitting more reliably on targets. There are still issues with people not taking hits but its MUCH better than it was months ago.

I believe they are as slow as other axes and mauls. Only reason Eldar are faster is because we use swords, like Space Marine Powerswords or your choppas.