Is it FAQ time again? Yep. Games Workshop dropped 3 surprise FAQs for the Core Rules, General’s Handbook 2021 and Battletome: Sylvaneth. What’s inside?

Core Rules

Ward Saves

Tidied up the wording to confirm that those abilities that RAW were not a ward save actually are, and thus the ward stacking meta’s reign of terror is over, a week after it began. The larger community as a whole seemed to oppose the ward stacking for the week that existed which was nice to see across the internet, with many events swiftly coming in to say it would not be allowed. Nice to have some quick action against it in general though. 

Bodyguards

If you have a unit that can take wounds for something else nearby, such as Fyreslayer Auric Hearthguard, then the unit that has the wounds moved across to them cannot make any save or ward rolls or otherwise be negated. 

Mount Traits

Can now be given to eligible non-hero units. This is huge for Beastclaw Raider players primarily, however without being able to double down on the same trait for most armies this will have very limited effective use. 

Piling In

If you have 2 or more units equidistant to your own when you go to pile in you can now just choose which of them you want to pile in towards so instead of having to sit still and not pile in at all, you can hit what you want. 

General’s Handbook 2021

Chronomantic Cogs

Changed from working on every wizard within 6” to just one wizard within 6” each turn. Tzeentch players let out nine tears, everyone else breathes a collective sigh of relief to the end of absolute magic dominance. 

Umbral Spellportal

Now tweaked wording so range is measured from *one* of the spellportals, mostly impacting AOE spells from the caster, a small change but nice to see. 

Battletome: Sylvaneth

The teleport has now been moved back to being a battle trait and unit warscroll ability, rather than a rule on the Wildwood warscroll itself. The reason behind the change never made much sense to begin with so good riddance.. Also means that Monstrous Rampages won’t be removing your teleporting even if they destroy your faction terrain. 

Conclusion

No shockers here. It doesn’t fix any of the big issues people were still having such as godhammer. This is basically a “hotfix” which repairs the huge mistakes and exploits left behind in the last patch which is about as much as can be expected. Fixing those problems leaves the game in a decent state, slightly better than it was pre-faq instead of “miserable and ruined” like the last faq did.