Age of Sigmar: GHB 2021 Updates Points And Shifts The Meta Once Again
“The Game Changer” is doing it again. The General’s Handbook is mixing things for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
The Rumor Mill has spun up again online and leaks have dropped regarding the points updates in the upcoming General’s Handbook 2021 for Age of Sigmar. Here’s the thing: The new edition isn’t even out yet and this book is already causing meta shifts. How is that possible? Well, it’s really a trio of factors from what we know from the Core Book and also the new points in the GHB that are going to cause folks to have to re-work their armies – some armies will have more to rework than others.
Points Updates
The Points Updates in the General’s Handbook are almost universally increases. Most armies are seeing points increases of around 15% with some outliers. It might be a 10 point bump here or 15 point there, but those add up. And yes, GW has also implemented 5 point increments again. The armies are getting more granular in points after the move away from that in previous editions.
That said, the increase in points is based on the army total. There might be some key units like a battleline or two that were spared. But overall, most armies are going to cost more. That’s a balancing factor based around the new Command Points and Abilities the are getting access to. While those abilities may be “Free” the points costs were really rolled into the units and army builds. At least in Matched Play, you won’t be spending points on Warscroll Battalions so that could be considered a refund of sorts…
One army did actually get spared from the points increase and that was the Ossiarch Bonereapers. Overall, their points mostly stayed the same or shifted down. Characters like Arkhan the Black stayed the same. A few units did happen to increase, too. That’s probably to account for their in ability to use the new Command Points. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s enough to overcome the changes and if their Relentless Discipline will be enough to keep them in the running or not.
Other Meta Shifters
We’ve covered these things already so I’ll just mention them briefly. The army construction rules changed for Matched Play and so did the table sizes. While it’s not much, a smaller table does mean that combat is more likely to happen faster and there is less jockeying for position and more straight forward charges.
When taken in combination with the increase in points overall, this means you’re likely to see more minimum sized units on the tabletop. This is going to be a good thing for Heroes and Monsters as they can have a much easier time vs a 10 man unit vs a 20 man unit. Take Yndrasta as an example:
With her damage output she’s a threat to a block of 20, but she might be able to completely wipe the floor vs a unit of 10 – without any support! And this is just one hero. Many of the heroes who might need just a little more help to tackle a unit in the current edition will be just fine in the next edition. Especially when you factor in the new hero abilities. It’s a similar thing for monsters and this is a big shift.
I also think those units that used to just harrassment units (like a Cavalry unit) will now be able to mop-up those smaller unit on the tabletop a lot easier, too. Expect a lot more units dying instead of just models getting pulled in the new edition.
We’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out. The good news is we won’t have to wait much longer. The new edition is going up for Pre-Order this weekend. Get ready for your army to get reworked!
Meta-shifts can be a lot of fun. It all depends on where you land!
