The Q3 dataslate has some massive changes for Chaos factions, and for many it’s good news. We’d already seen the point changes to Chaos Knights and Death Guard a few weeks ago, major point increases designed to reign those factions in. Which means that with this update we’re mostly looking at the rest of the bunch (though Chaos Knights did take an additional set of rules hits), and a number of those are buffs to units and detachments that could use an extra boost.

In this article we’re looking at what changed for the game’s Chaos factions, and how this affects your games.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules.

Chaos Daemons

Chaos Daemons have been in a decent place, with competitive builds available for four of the faction’s six detachments posting an event top 4 finish in the last month. The big outlier here was the Legion of Excess, which hasn’t seen much play or success since being nerfed hard earlier this year. These new changes are focused on that detachment and its units pretty much exclusively.

Points Changes

• Keepers Of Secrets -20
• Fiends of Slaanesh – 15/30

Rules Changes

• Legion of Excess detachment rule changed to give full Hit rerolls when you Gambit every time, instead of only while in Shadow Of Chaos

Impact

Slight Winner

Thoughts

Mike P: This update is small and mainly changes internal balance. It focuses on bringing up the power level of Slaanesh after their powerful (arguably way too powerful) nerfs to the Legion Of Excess and its main units. 

Keepers Of Secrets going down 20 points is nice for Slaanesh mains who want to run Keepers regardless of their viability, but it’s still not enough to make them a truly competitive choice. The only time you would consider a Keeper is if you’re building a very Slaanesh heavy list and really want the +1AP bonus. The Fiend change is the real benefit for both Slaanesh and Undivided players. Fiends at 95 are very real, and are back to being excellent both as early skirmish units and in large hammer bricks. 

The change to the Legion Of Excess detachment rule is minor. Getting Shadow Of Chaos up after your Movement Phase is pretty easy given that you could either just walk onto midfield objectives or be near Be’lakor/Keepers/Shalaxi. Slaanesh Daemons mainly struggle with Wound rolls, not Hit rolls. That being said, the buff is definitely appreciated, and it’s great to see attention being paid to internal balance. 

Chaos Knights

Chaos Knights saw the bulk of their changes a few weeks ago with the points updates, but there were some additional adjustments made in this Dataslate which further reduce their power level, in case you were worried that they’re still too good.

Points Changes

No points changes

Rules Changes

Chaos Knights get a triple set of nerfs. The Defensive buff in Infernal Lance now makes you choose between the 5+ Invuln and the 6+ FnP, Lords of Dread’s Claimed for the Dark Gods stratagem is now just in your command phase, and the Abominant’s mortal wound ability no longer can affect the same unit multiple times.

Impact

Big Loser

Thoughts

Norman: These feel a bit far when combined with the points changes we got a few weeks ago. The Infernal Lance nerf comes out of nowhere and does little to address what makes that detachment good while also further homogenizing builds into all shooting Despoiler all the time with the occasional Lancer or Atrapos. Lords of Dread is fully dead, effectively removing the detachment ability completely and with bigs at the cost they’re at now running 4 bigs is a tall order. The Abominant nerf is likely how it should have always worked if we’re being honest but the points for it should have simply gone up to be in parity with other Abhorrent frames.

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Space Marines have been seeing a bit of a comeback recently, with a mix of Pactbound Zealots and Renegade Raiders Lists posting solid results recently. These lists have continued to lean heavily on the Dark Commune and Accursed Cultists, and that’s exactly what got hit this time around, though there were some point drops and rules buffs which help the faction in other ways.

Points Changes

• Abaddon -10
• Land Raider -20
• Dark Commune +10
• Venomcrawler -10

Rules Changes

• Fabius Bile’s resurrection is now at the end of the phase
• Obliterators now have Indirect Fire once per battle regardless of making a Dark Pact

Impact

Slight Winner

Thoughts

Mike P: Chaos Space Marines get some small but appreciated changes. 

Abaddon and Venomcrawlers were already solid, so getting a small points change makes them easier to fit into lists. Land Raiders going down 20 makes them legitimately good as long as you’re playing on a board where you have enough space to move them. Dark Communes going up 10 is fair, as the classic Dark Commune and Accursed Cultist bricks remain an extremely strong unit. If you’re running the Dark Commune and Accursed Cultist heavy lists, you probably keep those units in your list and just make some slight changes to supporting units. 

The two rules changes are small but great quality of life changes. Fabius Bile resurrecting at the end of the phase instead of immediately means he is more likely to resurrect, as he doesn’t stand back up immediately anymore to take additional damage and die again. And most people didn’t realize this, but Obliterators technically had a rules issue where you couldn’t trigger their Indirect Fire rule without a visible target previously, which defeated the whole point of Indirect Fire. This Obliterator change so just give them Indirect Fire once-per-game cleans up that rule technicality, and makes sure they work correctly like most people thought they did. 

Death Guard

The Death Guard appear to have had their slate of nerfs completed with the points updates which dropped a few weeks ago, and while almost certainly still in the “keep an eye on” category of things, appear to be set for another cycle.

Points Changes

None

Rules Changes

None

Impact

Winner

Thoughts

Norman: Death Guard came away with a relatively light tap in the last update and seeing no rules changes this time around means they can continue their reign of terror. Some folks were clamoring for changes to Death Shroud and Bloat Drones, but it looks like they get away scott free.  

TheChirurgeon: Yeah the Death Guard will absolutely remain one of the game’s best factions after this update, and while they didn’t get away “scott free” like Norman says – their points still took a hit – any Death Guard player should be ecstatic about this round of updates.

Emperor’s Children

The Emperor’s Children have seen a series of small nerfs to the faction through points increases over the last six months, but things finally swing back a bit in the other direction for some of their units, as key point drops and datasheet changes move things a bit in their favor. 

Points Changes

• Chaos Land Raider -20
• Fulgrim -25
• Lord Kakophonist +10
• Keeper of Secrets -10
• Seekers -10/-20

Rules Changes

• Flawless Blades now have 4 attacks each in melee
• Fulgrim can move over terrain 4” or less in height.

Impact

Slight Winner

Thoughts

Rob: The Fulgrim change is pointless – events just do not have terrain that’s between 2” and 4” in height for models to walk over – but the Flawless Blades change is very spicy. I don’t know that a unit with 12 attacks is enough, either, but it at least makes them able to kill a Rhino reliably in a way that matters. The changes to the Keeper and Seekers here are also interesting – Carnival of Excess has seen some occasional competitive play and anything that gives it more options to help push it over the top is welcome. On the whole I think if you play Emperor’s Children these changes are pretty welcome, even if Land Raiders aren’t any more likely to make it into your lists than they were before.

Mike P: These changes definitely make Carnival of Excess more interesting as an alternative to Coterie. Fulgrim loves easy access to Sustained 5+ and Seekers are great early tempo pieces. I really like the Flawless Blade change. They are still a bit prone to whiffing into targets that you should expect them to kill, but a flat 33% damage buff without a points increase is a good thing. 

Even if Emperor’s Children lists ultimately don’t change much, I’m at least excited to try some different things, and that’s always a great feeling. 

Thousand Sons

The Thousand Sons were almost certainly one of the factions to watch coming into this update, with several pretty strong or borderline degenerate units and rules worth looking at. They’d mostly flown under the radar however, thanks to having a bad matchup into Death Guard Mortarion’s Hammer lists and because of just how good Knights were. The faction received a mix of buffs and nerfs this time around that mostly feel fair.

Points Changes

• Chaos Land Raider -20
• Infernal Master +10
• Magnus the Red +15
• Mutalith Vortex Beast +15
• Rubric Marines (5) +5
• Scarab Occult Terminators (10) -15
• Sekhetar Robots -10/-20
• Sorcerer +10
• Tzaangor Enlightened +5/+10
• Tzaangor Enlightened with Fatecaster Greatbows +10/+30
• Tzaangor Shaman +5
• Grand Coven: Eldritch Vortex of E’taph +10

Rules Changes

• Rituals can only be attempted once: You can only attempt to manifest each Ritual once in the Shooting phase. So now you’ll need to lean more on Channelling the Warp to push through effects and not just trying over and over until you get it right.

• Sorcerer in Terminator Armour: The Marked by Fate ability was changed – now you use it at the start of your Shooting phase to give his unit +1 to hit against the selected target, making him actually buff his own unit. This is on the whole worse in that it doesn’t buff your entire army, but better in that it makes him useful to his own unit. A net neutral if you’re taking big units of Scarab Occult Terminators with attached characters.

• Clarification: You don’t need to sequence all your rituals at the start of the Shooting phase. Not sure why people keep trying to force this, except to be jerks.

Impact

Loser

Thoughts

Rob: On the whole, this is bad for the Thousand Sons, who take a number of hits that will ultimately mean cutting 2-3 units from most lists. The big loss here is for Tzaangor Enlightened, which everyone always thought were too cheap and will now have more reasonable points values for their sizes. Mutaliths were also a mistake at 160, but even at 175 it’ll likely be a tax you pay to have their added buffs to Rituals. 

On the other hand if you, like me, are a sicko with 25+ Scarab Occult Terminators sitting around, this is great news. Terminator Sorcerers are actually valuable as leaders for units now, and not standalone units you drop in by themselves, and cheaper 10-man Terminator bricks are just what I want to see. So it’s not all bad, but if you’re playing Thousand Sons they’re going to feel quite a bit weaker than they were before. Sure, they’re fair changes, but who wants those when your faction was already getting bodied by Death Guard? The faction will likely still be OK after this, but builds are going to change quite a bit and likely in the direction of more Rubrics.

World Eaters

Points Changes

• Angron -25
• Chaos Land Raider -20
• Chaos Spawn +10
• Chaos Terminators -10/-20
• Eightbound -15/-30
• Exalted Eightbound -20/-40
• Forgefiend +20
• Kharn +15

Rules Changes

• Exalted Eightbound no longer force Desperate Escape tests on Vehicles and Monsters and instead get +1 damage when attacking into them. 
• The Slaughterbound is now Strength 10. 
• Helbrutes got confirmation that they can use their Frenzy ability to fight multiple times per phase. 

Impact

Slight Winner

Thoughts

Mike P: This is a great internal balance change for World Eaters. Their overall power level remains similar, but World Eaters players should feel great about this update. 

The biggest frustration for World Eaters players were that Exalted Eightbound fell off a cliff when the codex was released. That just changed. The combination of a solid points drop and +1 Damage vs Monsters/Vehicles means that Exalted Eightbound are back to being terrifying for your opponent’s toughest units. Normal Eightbound going down is also great given that they were already a solid unit. Angron going down 25 is great for World Eaters players that want to run their beautiful centerpiece model. 

Let’s talk about the big nerf: Forgefiends. Going up 20 is a real hit for people that were running 2 or 3. That being said, they were honestly too good, and are still a good unit at 170. Kharn going up is also a bit painful but fair. Spawn going up 10 makes Jakhals and Goremongers a bit more interesting for screening and early scoring purposes. 

The changes also help detachment internal balance because Angron and Exalted Eightbound are the two melee units which were least dependent on the Berzerker Warband’s +1 Attack/+2 Strength buff. Berzerker Warband is still the best, but I’ll give other detachments another look again too. 

Rob: World Eaters Land Raiders suddenly look very legit.

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