It’s Dataslate time! After an appetiser a few weeks ago, the main course of rules and points changes arrive, bringing updates for almost every faction. As always, our expert team of 40K analysts have been through the changes so that we can give you the scoop on what they mean for your factions and the game as a whole.
This article is an overview, which covers core rules updates, a very important change to tournament play, and a summary of who we think the biggest winners and losers are. If you’re looking for faction-specific analysis, check out our dedicated articles below:
Core Rules
Rules Changes
There are two changes to the core rules. First, Dev Wounds now are applied in the order that the attacks happened, so you can’t game the system to be more beneficial to you. Second, they fixed the accidental change from last time that let you get into a measure-to-hull transport with just one model within 3” inches, rather than every model. I don’t know anyone who was playing it that way and if you were, shame on you.
Impact
This is mostly just rules tightening to close out some outstanding errors. There isn’t a ton of impact to speak of however since most people were playing this way anyway.
Tournament Companion
Rules Changes
Challenger Cards are gone!
Impact
Norman: Good riddance to a garbage mechanic that was never fun for everyone. While challenger cards aren’t the deciding factor in most games, it changed the way you approached scoring in a way that was both unintuitive and unfun and the game is better off for not having to care about them anymore.
Wings: In general, this also helps factions that score and pressure early, and hurts those that slow-rolled their scoring till the late game. It can also change the calculus around Fixed in some cases, there’s no longer as much of an advantage in taking Fixed kill-based Secondaries that you might not score early, but less of a downside in picking up an easy early max Assassinate against builds that give it up.
Overall Impact
There are lots of changes to factions in this slate, and we encourage you to take a look at your faction’s article to get the full scoop. Some factions like Genestealer Cults get a lot of changes without clearly netting out as either big winners or losers. However, for headline metagame impact, we’ve picked five winners and losers below.
Biggest Winners
- Orks: A healthy suite of buffs and point changes puts Orks in a fantastic position. In particular, Ghaz having far more applications is great news, and better access to Infiltrators between discounts on Snikrot and Kommando Combat Squads makes it easier for them to control the table early on. Finally, they’re big winners from Challenger Cards going away, as they tend to pressure Primary early on.
- Aeldari: They get the smallest hit of any faction that was previously in contention for the top spot. The brutal Swooping Hawk spam lists go up in price a little, but the main Phoenix Lord trio (Lhykhis, Jain Zar and Fuegan) and the other Aspect suites are untouched.
- Adeptus Mechanicus (we mean it this time): AdMech get their regularly scheduled diet of buffs in the Dataslate, and this time they might actually get there. Giving Cawl Oaths is a step change in flexibility beyond anything else that’s been added, and while it’s technically a sidegrade for some of the current castle builds, it massively opens up the roster (especially with some other buffs alongside it).
- Deathwatch: Nothing complex, just a bunch of point cuts they fully did not need.
- World Eaters: Internal rebalancing means World Eaters are back to being the melee powerhouse their fans know and love.
On top of that, three honourable mentions:
- Black Templars, who have come out of the gates pretty hot, but dodge changes that would probably keep them in line with others.
- Dark Angels: Another big buff to the Lion, and the Land Speeder Vengeance is finally (maybe?) a real unit again.
- T’au, who get better Riptides. Of course they do.
Biggest Losers
- Thousand Sons: A double tap of point changes and a significant nerf to their army rule weakens them considerably, though there are some small compensatory discounts on Terminators.
- Imperial Knights: A rare pre-release tweak to Valourstrike Lance should shut down some of the brutality that people have been concerned about.
- Chaos Knights: Nerfs to their best detachments that miss the real issue of the double gatling Despoiler warping their internal balance.
- Space Wolves: Their unique units catch some point increases that aren’t necessarily unjustified, but are odd in the context of other Marine flavours scooting past untouched.
- Imperial Agents: Still no love for a faction that seems to just be on hiatus at this point.
Wrap Up
…and that’s it for this Dataslate. RIP Challenger Cards, you won’t be missed. We’ll start seeing these updates propagate out into competitive play in the next few weeks, and they’ll all be live for the LGT at the end of the month, so we’ll soon have an idea how this is going to set the stage for the next few months of competitive play.
