Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Fall 2023 Balance Dataslate – About Those Point Changes
Goatboy here and beyond the 40K Balance Dataslate we got a big batch of new points. Here’s what you need to pay attention to.
The updated Munitorum Field Manual is here. Points for everyone and it appears most armies got tweaked in some ways. A few felt thoughtful in their design like hitting things that are in every army. Other felt very targeted on the bad things in 40K’s meta currently. Overall it isn’t too bad and most likely we’ll see some lower-tier armies step up a bit even though some of the points could stand to go higher.
I won’t go into each thing and more so looking at the armies I currently play or plan on playing. Thankfully most of the stuff I am looking at had meaningful point changes. They hit things that felt a bit to high and attacked other options that just happened to always be present in an army. If every game has one of these units you have to start looking at it as either being too good to not take. Especially if you look at it as the lynchpin in how the army works. This is especially relevant to all the characters that are seemingly defining their index armies.
CSM Key Changes
On the CSM front we of course saw Abaddon get a point hike. The Forgefiend got kicked up as it was a backbone of CSM shooting! Obliterators saw a points increase. The Chosen and Possessed got a slight drop which is good too as those units seem poised to be part of the Assault renaissance that might show up at some point. I am interested in messing with CSM at some point but thankfully my Daemons didn’t get hit nearly as hard as I was worried about.
Chaos Daemons Key Changes
Chaos Daemons and my desire to try Soul Grinders was rewarded with some nice point drops to ensure I still can play some of my big boys. My brand new GUO looks poised to have a fun return on the table as well as some other stuff. The big hits went to Hexbane, Lord of Change, Be’lakor, and those poor Flamers. Things that always showed up got hit a bit but nothing too bad as it really just forces you to look at other things.
Death Guard & World Eaters Key Changes
The big winner was the Death Guard with a huge amount of point drops on top of the new rules they got. Look for 3 Plagueburst Crawlers and some Helbrutes to show up with Morty and friends. They might actually be good too with some Rhinos to push the battlefield as well. This is another army I might look into as their shift is pretty neat and painting more Helbrutes is fine by me.
World Eaters got nice point drops across the board but I don’t know how good they will be. Without serious updates to the assault rules, it’s an uphill battle.
Chaos Knights Key Changes
Chaos Knights got some points hit to their War Dogs with the thought really looking like – 13 War Dogs is ok but 14 is too much. I do think the Cheap Rampager might be worth it as he can now hide again and shadow form thru a wall for a surprise attack. That ability to Pressure with him and some Karnivores (as they took a point drop) might be good enough to keep CK working in this new environment of Walls being useful.
Grey Knights Key Changes
Grey Knights saw some point drops too which is great as their Terminators saw a point drop and other options. I think this army could have some legs as an annoying teleport hungry list and will see if someone gets it working right. Jack from AoW did well with it at WTC and while it might not score big to win the whole thing it could be a really fun thought provoking army.
Aeldari Key Changes
Aeldari saw some point hikes with all the big hitters getting hit. I don’t know if it is enough but most likely it still ends up being the army to beat. While it won’t wreck you as hard it is still able to do a lot of high damage and mixed with speed it will be a pain. The Avatars are just jerks too and even if they are super expensive they are able to show up all over the place and just be a jerk.
How It Will Pay Out
Right now based on points I expect Aeldari to be towards the top with Necrons showing up behind. Having the ability to not be scared of Mortal wounds means those pesky robots are going to move up, get healed up, and just take over the middle of the table pretty reliably. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go and if the removal of Mortal Wounds from so many weapons is the right thing or if some kind of tweak to it again was a better choice.
Happy gaming and always roll 6s!
