It’s March and that means it’s time for the latest Warhammer 40,000 Balance Dataslate, alongside updates to the FAQ and Errata. You can download the full document below, while the Warhammer Studio kindly discusses some of the key changes below.
Adepta Sororitas
The Adepta Sororitas have struggled a bit in their fight against the foes of the Imperium so we have reverted the part of Acts of Faith that allows you to gain a Miracle Dice each time a unit is destroyed. We were not happy with the results last time, and hope this puts the faction into a more fun and fair place.
We’ve also brought down the points on a handful of units to better represent their strength without having access to as many Miracle Dice as they did in the past.
Adeptus Custodes
The Adeptus Custodes have been having a great time recently and we are quite pleased to see people playing them in different ways. To make sure everyone is having the best time playing against them, we’ve moved around points on a few units for the Emperor’s Golden Favorites. The Blade Champion and Custodian Wardens have gone up as we still feel they are more powerful than their points. The Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought and Telemon Dreadnought have also received minor increases as the recent Solar Spearhead Detachment has made them shine quite brightly.
We reduced points on a few units that we felt were more expensive than their comparable units, such as Aleya, the Custodian Guard, the Knight-Centura, and Shield Captains.
Adeptus Mechanicus
Belisarius Cawl and the Tech-Priest Dominus have fallen in points a little to make it easier to include them in your army. .
Aeldari
We have made a change to Asumen’s ability, the Hand of Asuryan, changing its Anti-Infantry ability to 5+ to reduce the amount of Devastating Wounds it could put out.
Astra Militarum
We’ve made a change to the Combat Engineers’ Remote Mine, reducing the Mortal Wounds to D3 to bring it into line with the Kasrkin Melta Mine.
The Bridgehead Strike Detachment has proven to be very strong, so we've increased the points on the units it boosts. We’ve also changed the Bridgehead Strike Fire Zone Purge rule to add +1 to Hit instead of to Wound as the Tempestus Scions’ Storm Trooper ability has now changed to re-roll wounds with the Codex release. Additionally, the Firing Hot Stratagem has an increased CP cost as it’s particularly powerful.
Blood Angels
Certain Death Company Marine units and the Death Company Captain have been reduced in points to bring them into line with the other Codex units. On the other hand, the Rage-fuelled Warrior Enhancement brings so much rage that it’s getting a moderate points increase.
Chaos Daemons
The Legion of Excess has proven quite powerful, and we’re making changes to the Detachment rule to be less punishing. Seductive Gambit now no longer grants full re-rolls to Hit and Wound – though units still get full re-rolls within their Shadow of Chaos. We feel this is more fair and links better with the twisting power of Daemons outside of the Warp.
The Thieves of Pain Stratagem has been changed so that the unit intercepting damage must be visible to the target, as it was previously possible to hide the unit that the damage was being moved to before.
We have removed the Battle-shock portion of the Overwhelming Excess Stratagem so it’s now -1 to hit against the unit in all cases – but you can now use it during the Shooting and Fight phases.
Leagues of Votann
Since the Leagues of Votann are always judging both you and your army, the Army Rule now allows you to pick two enemy units at the start of the battle and give them two Judgement Tokens. We’ve reduced the starting values of the Oathband’s Judged enemy units to align with these changes.
Orks
We’ve made a change to the Lissen ‘Ere rule in the Takital Brigade Detachment to better represent the Ork way of bossing each other around. Orks units will now only get one Taktik and will always make a Leadership test to see if they need to smash some eads’ to get the message across. This change aligns better with the theme and reduces some of the stacking combos that were making some units too powerful.
We have changed Tankbustas so they need to see an enemy before they send out their Bomb Squigs, and tweaked the wording to ensure that they may only dispatch one at a time.
Space Marines
We’ve been quite happy with the recent changes to Space Marines, but a few Chapters have been attempting to claim they are Codex compliant – even though we are pretty sure they’ve never even attempted to look at the book... So we’ve clarified that the Oath of Moment benefit only works for Codex: Space Marines Detachments.
Uriel Ventris can now only grant deep strike to Phobos, Gravis and Tacticus units.
Certain sneaky Phobos Lieutenants were able to move, shoot and then charge. We’ve now added a limitation to the Strategic Dispersal Rule so that they can’t declare a charge after moving.
The Wind Swift Evasion Stratagem was targeting some units that would not be described as Swift. As a result we have now limited the targets of the stratagem to Infantry and Mounted units.
All this and more can be found in the latest Balance Dataslate. Download it below.
