After the disappointing points changes last update, I was really hoping Games Workshop would wow us with something exciting. Did they do it?

Hell yeah.

Unless you play Aeldari. We’ll talk about that later.

I don’t know how to approach this massive document, so I’m just going to just start typing and hope it goes well.

Core Rule Changes

First is the core rule stuff. For clarity, I feel like a prophet. I just recorded a podcast with Dan Wortel and we talked about our Dataslate predictions and I got this one correct. Hell yeah. The first major change is that battle tactics are no longer 0 CP with abilities which allow for free stratagems. Instead any stratagem is -1 CP. Hell yeah, Custodes are a real faction.

The more exciting change is that “Vect” effects, the ones that make a stratagem cost 1 more CP all game are now 12 inch auras that make all stratagems cost 1 more.

Vect is living up to his name because all 3 Archons in my list have this ability so that’s a lot of area where you’re not using a stratagem so cheaply. An aggressive turn 1 Drukhari might be incredible now with the ability to lock an opponent out of stratagem use. Very cool.

Another change was not being able to use a stratagem twice anymore unless called out specifically by an ability. Go away double armor of contempt.

Dark Obscuration effects (Can’t be shot outside of X) are all now 18 inches, and you can’t use a respawn stratagem more than once per game.

Not in the Dataslate but the core rules now, Dev Wounds are now treated as mortal wounds, but don’t spill over. This is healthy I think.

Everything in these paragraphs are incredible and super good for the game.

Onto the actual faction changes though:

Everything here is an A+ Change. This is going to be a trend. A lot of stuff here was very needed and very justified.

Adeptus Custodes

Custodies became a faction. Just from the core rule changes, but also now that Auric Champions gives the whole unit +1 to wound now instead of just the character (Who thought that was a good idea). This is, as the kids say, based.

Go play Custodes. Your army functions now.

A. I’m just glad I don’t have to hear Custodes players be upset anymore.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Okay.

Are you ready? Because I have to write about Admech for the next forty minutes. Which equates to a 5 minute read.

Man I need to get paid.

Admech got their army rule changed. No more Deployment Zone non-sense. The imperatives are way better.

Protector (The one you never used.) Keeps heavy, but also adds +1 to Ballistic Skill (LOL) and you have -1 to hit in melee if you’re batteline or within 6 of a batteline.

Yes if you stand still you hit on 2’s.

Yes Cawl is 150 points and lets you re-roll 1s.

Conqueror imperative however, the one you always used because Protector imperative was about as garbage as the Slaanesh rules for Sigmar, became even better.

You kept assault on all your guns (Hell yeah), you improve your WEAPON skill by 1, AND you get an extra AP if you’re battleline or within 6 of batteline.

GUYS MELEE IN ADMECH WORKS NOW. GUYS IT WORKS NOW. DID YOU SEE THAT? THEY MADE HALF THE ARMY FUNCTION. GUY. YOU DONT HAVE TO BE IN THE DEPLOYMENT ZONE ANYMORE. GUYS GUYS GUYS.

This is awesome, if you couldn’t tell.

Everything but Kastellan Robots got the army rule. Was it too hopeful to think that everything in the army would get the ARMY rule? Keep praying I guess.

There are so many weapon profile changes that I can’t keep up.

tl;dr: Lascannon Chickens are 2 shots now, not 1. Lost twin linked. Id rather two shots than 1. Thanks GW.

Rust stalkers also kind of slap now. But I don’t know if they’ll fine that much play.

Moving off that before it consumes me.

A+ Thank you GW. I don’t hate looking at my collection anymore.

Astra Militarum

I don’t know Guard that well, but they can order after coming out of a transport now. This is very good, probably.

I don’t know.

Guard players weird me out.

B? I guess?

Chaos Space Marines

Warp Talons got nerfed, now going into Strat Reserves after killing something. If you didn’t see something like this coming I don’t know what to tell you, skill issue. This was going to be oppressive.

A+

Chaos Daemons

Chaos Daemons greater daemons are now mini-shadows, for their God Specific keyword buddies. Bloodthirsters can make Bloodletters drop within 6 etc., etc. Prepare to see a lot more 6 inch Deep Strikes. This makes me happy for Daemon players. It’s cool and keeps Daemons around.

B, Daemons probably need more help. But it’s really cool to see these changes.

Dark Angels

I’m not going to pretend to understand the Dark Angel changes. I’ve met one DA player, and they played not those detachments. A brief scour on the internet tells me this is a good change though. Go Dark Angels I guess.

D for Dark Angels. I have no idea. Probably a B.

Necrons

Necrons can’t teleport 3″ C’tan anymore. Good, this was so massively unfun. Necron players are the only players who will complain about this being unjustified because their 5 C’tan list was sooooo fluffy.

A+++++++ HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

Orks

Greentide is no longer stupid: You lost the re-roll 1s to save. And only have a 6+ Invuln when you’re not a horde of 10 or more.

Meganobz are now a 5+ feel no pain. Wortel has convinced me that this unit was already kind of garbage without Ghaz, you’ll still probably take just 1 unit. Nobz4Lyfe.

A+

Space Marines

I’m going to level with you, Ironstorm got nerfed, I hardly understand what I’m reading, my eyes glaze over when I read anything Marine related, but I’ve been assured that it’s a real nerf.

It’s about time. Everything returns to Iron Hands, so before you cry, remember, 11th Edition we’ll begin the Iron Hands Cycle again.

Your Impulsors and Repulsors are real transports now, take your character, and transport your Bladeguard. Inner Circle Companions are now interesting. Kind of. I really hope so, those models are so sweet and deserve to be played.

B+ for letting Bladeguard be more playable.

Space Wolves

ARF ARF ARF ARF WOOF WOOF WOOF BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK

Thunderwolf got nerfed. L Space Wolves Players. L Wolf Jail. L No Friend Wolf Players. L + Ratio + no maidens. (Elden Rings DLC is out today. This is just me passing the time until its release)

That’s all I care to say on it. SW players don’t deserve happiness.

F- There was still buffs.

Thousand Sons

Twist of fate is no longer busted being AP2 instead of “You get no save LUL.”

Doombolt can’t one shot a lone op without being in range. Thanks GW.

A+++++++++++++

I’m biased however, so I reached out to Brendan, known Space Dust enthusiast for his thoughts:

Twist of fate is dead in the water. Now adds -2 AP to weapons for entire army against specific target, and ONLY effects shooting phase, which means no melee jank, and therefore also makes scarab occult even more useless. Kind of funny with flamers, but No cabal cost decrease, so this is situational as hell.

Healthy rules nerf changes on Doombolt and Temporal Surge. (doombolt doesn’t circumvent lone op, temporal surge cannot be selected on the same target multiple times to zoom a unit up the board)

Exalted Sorcerer on disc binding tendrils ability nerfed to -2 to move and charge instead of half move and charge. This explains the points decrease on the model, and I think will still be taken, but is a flat decrease on a rather toxic rules

Thousand sons were in a rather weird spot pre Dataslate where they were a fairly elite army for such weak bodies, but were able to drastically punch up due to key rules that allowed them to either out kill targets, or out maneuver enemies. With these changes, I think this is the straw that breaks the camels back, and foresee win-rates and play-rates to drop drastically for thousand sons, potentially until the codex arrives.

As a thousand sons enjoyer, it hurts to see, but for the health of the game I feel like this was fairly needed.

F if you play the army. B- for health of the game.

Tyranids

+1 Strength to melee while within Synapse range. This is going to be goofy. Very exciting.

Synapse makes you -1 to battleshock within 6 inches. This is super quality of life.

Crusher Stampede add +2 OC to their unit if they’re at starting strength. I can hear Logan screaming in excitement.

Other things I want to shout out is the Neurotyrant being able to join the little brain bugs. I have no idea why this wasn’t a thing for the entire first year of the game.

Rupture cannons are D6+6 damage instead of 2D6. I’m upset about this, but Nids players have suffered long enough. Enjoy it I guess.

A++

The section where I talk about points

There is very clearly, some person, some designer at Games Workshop, who sucks so bad at the game and cries every time his buddy with Aeldari beats him, that he spent years infiltrating the points team just to make sure the faction slowly became unplayable.

Warp Spiders going up? Sure. I understand that.

Swooping Hawks up 5? You know what, I get the thinking.

But why Fire Dragons?

I don’t understand. Just nerf the Falcons. Re-rolling 1’s to wound against monsters and vehicles with 5 melta shots, on a T3 body, is truly not a problem.

Maybe them being safe inside a Falcon, then getting full wound re-rolls, maybe that is an issue.

Sure: It’s only 5 points. They’re not 85 a unit. But it’s a sign to me, that someone is so hurt at Games Workshop and so afraid that an Aeldari players will be allowed to not be throttled for the mistakes of GWs past.

Something I didn’t talk about in the core changes, is the indirect changes.

You never hit on a 1-3 while out of line of sight. This is such a good change for the game. Should have been a thing from the start.

Why couldn’t you bring Support Weapons down in points?

They’ll hit like trucks still, yes. But you’re either using one of your SIX fate dice. Your limited resource to hit. Or you’re putting a very squishy body out in the open to shoot once then die.

Are we being punished for Fate Dice?

At this point, just change the rule. I’d like to be pointed according to the strength of my Datasheet, not Datasheet + Fate Dice Tax + Ynnari 7th Ed Tax + Jerry can’t beat Mike during the company retreat tax.

Most of the Phoenix Lords went down in points. Karandras was already interesting, he’s now more interesting. I’ll probably play him. If I could buy him. Thanks GW.

Maugen Raw-Doggin Ra still sucks. Sorry. I’d hate to play the coolest model in the Aeldari range.

Am I wrong about Aeldari? Come on the Podcast to yell at me about it. (Plug plug plug plug)

I’m getting off this. It makes me upset, clearly. D-

In other news, I woke up to my Admech list being 300 points more expensive.

Thank you, so much GW. Not even a joke. Last point update it was like, 200 more points I needed to buy and paint.

Admech restore any amount of hope I lost with Aeldari. I’m appreciative of the effort made here.

A++

Everything Else

Tank shock is dead, you use your toughness now instead of your S24 knight fist. Sad but acceptable. B

Grenades are only useable if you didn’t advance, fallback or shoot. This is good. Was very confusing before. A+

There’s a whole thing on pivoting, I’m not going over it, you’ll see a thousands videos on it soon I’m sure. Long story short, it’s bad. F-

The Lion and Guilliman can breach now. This took way too long to happen but I’m glad it’s here. A+

There’s so much here that I’m sure something is missing.

Overall, this in combination with a new mission pack has breathed new life into the game. I was pretty close to taking a half year hiatus from 40k after my weekend debacle, and focus on Sigmar. I’m likely going to focus on Sigmar now, but I’m excited to play 40k again regardless of how battered my Aeldari are.

Maybe I’ll force myself to paint some Drukhari and magnetize.

We’re in for an exciting time. Next weeks Podcast episode will either be the filler one me and Dan recorded or it’ll be a big review of the Dataslate and mission pack. Is this the start of the 2 part Patreon Podcasts?

Probably.

Let me know what you plan on playing in the upcoming season. What you’re happy about and what you hate (Space Wolves).

Next article is one I’ve been cooking up for a while about Sigmar and 40k Design differences and really hope you take the time to read.

Until then,

Be safe, drink water

Hug your dad.