Warhammer 40K: 10th Has a Major Battleline Problem

Take a look at why 40K’s Battleline is a major problem and causing big issues for the game.

Even though Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition isn’t all that old we’ve already got a pretty good look at the meta. In fact the meta hasn’t changed all that much in the weeks events have been running 10th. We’ve already taken a look at how the meta has some big issues with certain armies. That is a major issue. However today I want to take a look at an issue that is far more basic and important as it effects pretty much every army. It’s the fact that Battleline as a concept is a massive misfire.

What Is Battleline

Battleline is in effect the 10th Edition version of previous Editions’ Troop choices.  These are the most basic and common units in an army. In theory, the bulk of an army should be made up with these core units. They can be bad units or very good units, but they tend to be less complex and often less lethal than other options. GW has tried various things to represent this over the decades. In 10th Edition, Battleline units tend to have two big things going for them. First off you can take up to 6 copies of each Battleline unit, rather than the normal 3. Secondly, Battleline units tend to have a higher OC as they represent the common troops that take and hold ground while the elites go on killing rampages. However, these incentives have failed.

People Just Aren’t Taking Battleline

With a few notable exceptions, a ton of armies in the game aren’t taking Battleline units AT ALL. Eldar, the bogeyman of current 40K are pretty much ignoring them. Look at a lot of their winning lists, like this one, and you’ll see no Battleline units at all. A few might take a single unit. You can see Necron and Daemon lists running blocks of Lychguard and tons of Big Daemons and skimping on Battleline. You can see this with a lot of armies. Marines, a core army, also are seeing a ton of lists taking little to no Battleline and others are following that pattern.

The reason is pretty clear. Overall, Battleline units just tend to be worse than others and aren’t always that much cheaper. The incentives to take them aren’t strong enough. Being able to take 6 of a unit you don’t want to take 1 of … isn’t actually a bonus. Extra OC is nice, but OC doesn’t matter if you can just kill the enemy with your better units. That’s an age-old issue 40K has had for edition after edition.

The Armies That Do Take Them

Now we are seeing a few armies that are doing well running Battleline. These are Custodes, Knights and GSC. Custodes, which have done well recently, and Knights are both very different from normal 40K armies. They are so super-elite, that their Battleline units wouldn’t be called that in any other army. These super-elite units get used because they don’t really follow the rules of other armies’ Battleline units. Their “elite Battleline” units are already good and points effective. The fact that they are Battleline on top of that, is really kind of secondary. They kind of don’t count. GSC on the other hand, don’t have incredible Battleline units. But they get a lot of use out of theirs due to their army rule, which effectively allows dead Battleline units come back for free. While this rule makes Battleline useful, it’s also a bit broken. But without that GSC recycling rule, I don’t think you’d see as much Battleline. However, that fact that these outlier armies do use Battleline should not fool you into thinking that Battleline as a concept is working.

Trying To Fix Battleline

GW has for a long time struggled with how to get players to use the more basic troops in their armies. Most armies, or strike forces, would be a somewhat balanced force, but that can be hard. For the longest time in previous editions, GW used very restrictive Force Organizational charts. These not only mandated you take a certain number of Troop/Battleline units, but severely restricted how many other units you could take. This worked. You would see Troops (I’m going to call them Battleline from now on for ease) units all the time. But a lot of players thought this was too restrictive.

Later editions switched to a Detachment system in which your army was made of a  number of detachments. You could pick which detachment you wanted to use and it would allow, and force you, to take certain units. This led to a more flexible type of list building where you could take almost anything you wanted in an army. However, it also led to a drop in the use of basic Battleline style Troops. It was possible to build armies, for the first time, without any of the core Troops of the army. Even if you had a detachment that required them players would often fill the slot with the cheapest and most stripped down unit they could. This lead to things like the Loyal 32. Battleline got used, but not well, and that lead to the current issue.

How To Fix It

The best way to get people to use Battleline is likely to bring back a very restrictive Force Org chart. However it’s clear GW doesn’t want to do that, and players may not want it. There is another way it could be done, that draws on some old Warhammer, Warhammer Fantasy in particular, rules. That’s just to force a percentage of your army to be Battleline. GW could put out a rule tomorrow saying, for competitive games likely, that 50% of your army points must be Battleline, and I think the game would be better if they did.

This would refocus the game around basic troops supported and lead by more elites units. It would, in a stroke, make the game less lethal and simpler, yet more tactical. Instead of loading up on the best most lethal units you can, players would be forced to play with and use more basic core units in large amounts.  At the same time you’d still have a lot of flexibility in list building.  I just personally think this would improve the game a lot. Now some players would be sad that their special armies, such as the all Terminator force wouldn’t be legal.  But that is where Detachments come in. You can simply make some detachments change which units are Battleline. The Deathwing or 1st Company one makes Terminators Battleline. Fixed. It’s a simple solution that opens up a lot of really cool options. Now maybe 50% is too harsh, maybe it needs to be 40%,  you can argue the number, but overall it seems this would be a great way to fix a major issue with the game.

Example army construction percentage system from Warhammer Fantasy 5th Edition, back in 1996!

Let us know what you think of this idea, down in the comments!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.