GW released a bombshell of new FAQs on friday, covering errata for the core book and lengthy FAQs for each faction. And as always, we’ve got you covered with the rundown of what’s changed and what it means for your games. In this series of Hot Take articles, we’ll be covering the changes and our initial reactions to them but for more detailed analysis, check back over the next two weeks as we dive deeper into how these changes affect the game and its factions.
As with all of the FAQs most of the big changes from the books were simply carried across from previous FAQs, and the rest is mostly just wording clarifications to make them work in 3rd edition.
The Good
- Foul Regenesis: With how some magic selection changed, I had some concerns about every wizard still knowing this spell as well as getting to pick 1 from their appropriate table.
- Plaguebearers: With the change to how you take larger units now via reinforcements, Plagueberers have changed so that they are -1 to be hit by both missile and melee weapons so long as there’s at least 10 models in the unit.
The Bad
- Feculent Gnarlmaw: As has happened to all faction terrain, this now goes down in your own territory only before anything else is set up. Other ones that are brought in during the game of course still work the same, but the original only being on your side of the table with some battleplans making your own territory relatively small, there will be less opportunity to get run and charge after turn 1 from your original plague tree.
The Ugly
- Coalition army: So this is just kinda weird. You can’t just take any Nurgle models any more in your army for a Maggotkin force, instead you can make your Maggotkin army a Coalition army by making 2 in 4 units Slaves to Darkness, 1 in 4 Clans Pesitlens, or 1 in 4 Beasts of Chaos (that are not already marked by another god in any instance). The models then gain the Nurgle keyword, though you can’t use it to get say Chaos Warrior battleline as in the General’s Handbook coalition units are not counted for battleline. Being able to take some Beasts with Nurgle keyword is pretty cool, allowing for some cheap Monsters in your army.
Overall Maggotkin are not hurt by the 3rd edition, and these changes don’t bring them down in any kind of way except for how the Gnarlmaw is placed. With summoning not being a huge part of Maggotkin armies really anyways I can see summoning in a second Gnarlmaw in a more opportune place to be the way to go. You might think that this would be a good time to start putting Horticulous Slimux in your lists, but he’s still a very expensive daemon hero to take.
