Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Balance Update Losers
Goatboy here with the Warhammer 40K Hot Mess let behind by the Balance Dataslate Update. There were some losers.
While we still have one big event left using the old rules (LVO) we can look to the future and figure out some of the upcoming Hot Messes.
Marines – No Longer Whipping Boys
Thankfully a ton of Marine stuff got updated so my old Hot Mess standby is mostly gone. All those pesky weird vehicles, jump pack heavy weapon guys, and other fun options are cheaper and better now. So that Hot Mess has been swapped over to maybe good. We’ll see as the meta continues on.
Sorry CSM Terminators
Of course, we can’t all be winners, so here are some of the things that got kicked in the teeth by the points updates and Dataslate fun. The biggest losers coming out of this is most likely the old CSM standbys – the Chaos Terminators.
This unit got a point hike for each model, their mark got a point update they like to use, and they lost AoC. This is a whole slew of punches to the face for a unit that was cool and didn’t really kill things as easily as you wanted to. I utilized this unit as a brick to be a pain in the butt to chew through. But it really wasn’t the damage highlight for my Creations of Bile list. I don’t know if they will stay in or get swapped to Chosen in any upcoming updates. Of course, my brain has shifted over to Chaos Knights who didn’t get kicked too bad. So we’ll see how long that stays. World Eaters rearing up to cry blood for the Blood God, may alter the CSM Terminator meta.
The Doctor is Not In
To continue the pain train of losing AoC the CSM Creations of Bile army got a nice kick to the junk by losing an auto-fight on death. Moving to a 4+ is still good, as the rest of the upgrades still work. We’ll see if they stay around or just become a mid-table try-hard army. I think that for CSM to continue working, they need to move to a pressure-style build like Orks can do. This means looking towards Red Corsairs or other armies that can quickly engage and lock down the opponent with big monsters or damage options. The army is still very aggressive. Also, as one of the newer ones, it can easily slide in some Chaos knight options to help out. We’ll see as the events start to run the new rules and options while we go thru one old dance with LVO.
Tyranids Devolving
Tyranids got a big kick in the teeth this time around with a large amount of points increases and a change to their old free Spore Mines. Of course, as the army worked well due to having strong Units and basic rules – this hit is probably going to push them to the side. Points going up throughout the whole army will have to move it to a horde-style list – which Marines will love to smash into. Heck, a ton of armies would love to smash into the Tyranids. The meta has a lot of power lists set up to crush a ton of models.
I don’t know if they needed to hit the Tyranids this hard, but I think the codex from the beginning has some of the same issues as Dark Eldar and other releases. The units were pushed too hard, and then when you price things too aggressively to match the current “testing-meta-death-match” they had, the army came out too mean.
Send In the Clowns
Harlies got another kick in the teeth with a move for each invulnerable save to get a -1 as well as just a tiny bit harder set of secondary’s. I don’t know if this is going to completely remove the army from the standings. The players who ran it were normally pretty good and pretty into the dancing elves. Still, the army will not survive like they did. Most likely Harlequins will have to play based on using as many Star Weavers as they can to push the primary and control some parts of the secondary. It is one of those aspects of an army that just forgoes really hitting you hard. It instead just says I will play the game and you can do whatever you want.
T’au Empire Moving Down
T’au got hurt just by losing the Sunshark bombing you on the first turn. Mix this with some point changes and army build options, and the army is just in a weird place. I am sure someone will find some kind of terror shooting build, and it is neat to see Stormsurges show up in armies again. It just feels like this is another army that GW has issues tuning right. Right now, making them good at what they should be good at – isn’t very fun to play against. I am not sure really how to build it out without fleshing out some other parts or really just going heavy into the whole “merc” idea that Tau could do. I really wish we had a Farsight & The Eight minis but that is just me. That Shadow of a T’au model has me hoping we get the Daemon Blade Wielding T’au Vampire of doom.
Armor of Contempt Down & Out
The loss of AoC though really hurts Chaos and Sisters more than it hurt Marines. That is the frustration in all of this and most likely why they had to fix Marines in a different direction that wasn’t just making them tougher. I still didn’t think some things needed AoC but really the issue is the cost of 3+ armor is just not worth it in a lot of armies. This is always an issue where so many AP-1 things mean your expensive shoulder pads are just not nearly as good as it needs to be.
We’ll see what ends up being the hot mess as the game moves along. I expect Marines to sit in the middle of the table with a few strong lists coming out top piloted by decent players. Of course, we’ll see if Space Marines get meaner when a new Codex or set of rules actually comes out. Those 2023 preview shadows appear to be pretty marine looking to me – but full of missiles and murder options.
For the Emperor!
