Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Fall 2023 Balance Dataslate – First Impressions
Goatboy here and we have a new Warhammer 40K Balance Update. But did it do enough? Let’s dig in.
The new Balance Dataslate is here to help reel in some of the nonsense we have in the current meta of 40K 10th Edition. Or as I like to call it – your Eldar friends don’t want you to have any fun. It has been a pretty abysmal batch of events lately with a ton of Eldar winning and really only losing to each other. A mixture of powerful rules interactions with a very strong army makes for a game that well – isn’t that exciting lately at the top levels.
Now towards the bottom people are having a blast because when you have an army that can’t just do everything and wrecks you – you got to work to get it done. You just can’t go out there be the hottest on the block and expect everyone to buy your milkshake. Which makes for a much more interesting game if you ask me because if things worked 70% of the time it isn’t that exciting to try and pull for that 30%. Plus – who wants to win a game in easy mode right?
Thank the Emperor – We NEEDED This
Anyway the balance does a lot of things mixed with points to basically reset the game a bit. I don’t know how much will bring up the bottom-tier stuff but it does bring down the upper level things. A few of the big bads get knocked knocked down pretty well (probably not enough but at least you might have a chance if you are playing a good army) so will see how it all ends up. I do applaud GW for coming out with a balance and actively trying to resolve the game. This is a huge difference from what we have had in the past and no matter how annoyed I might sound – I love that GW and team have worked to make this better. I have faith the game will get to a place where will always have a top section of armies but the bottom is much less and a heck of a lot closer.
Devastating Wounds
Anyway let’s go with the big overall changes. I will discuss points later on but I just want to hit on the big ones. The first one is the massive shift to Devastating Wounds. If you haven’t read yet the big change is removing the damage become Mortal Wounds and just changing it to where the damage now ignores all saving throws. That means you only get your basic Feel No Pain roll for any damage hitting you.
This does 2 things – first it makes regular Feel No Pain that much more powerful and important. It also shifts how those heavy damaging guns now don’t deal splash damage. This is HUGE as an example weapon could have 2 shots, do the bad wounds twice, and now at most it will only kill 2 models instead of an entire unit. This is a huge shift and one I am very happy about as it still leaves these guns being extremely powerful into single target/model units and no longer the best thing to remove hordes. This is great and this shift changes how the Aeldari do damage as well as how much a Custodes unit can take as their Feel No Pain for Mortals no longer works.
Overwatch
From there the next big shift is in Overwatch and how it works too. You can no longer Overwatch things that are out of your line of sight. This is huge as your No-LOS guns no longer can just pound enemy assault units as they cower behind those helpful walls. This helps out a ton. The second shift to Overwatch is removing the ability for Titanic Models to use this Stratagem as well. This is huge as Knights or WK shooting you over and over were just not fun.
Towering is Fixed
On top of this they shifted Towering units to utilize the FLG rule of terrain blocking their LOS and then they were allowed to Toe into terrain and be able to shoot thru it. This is a pretty clean and elegant solution that I enjoyed playing at the LSO and glad it’s s now a rule for regular matched play 40K for all events to use. It just shifts the damage potential down and lets terrain matter again.
Stratagem Combos
They also shifted some of the 0-cost abilities for Stratagems to only affect Battle Tactic stratagems which helps curb a lot of the issues the game has. It just helps eliminate some of the crazy issues we saw and will just hopefully curtail some of the shenanigans. I don’t know how much it will matter in the end – or if a ton of Stratagems really need an update to clean up more. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Army Updates
There are a few other things but really the other big batch of changes is true balance updates to Armies.
Nerfs
Eldar had Phantasm change from being any unit to just infantry only.
Custodes had their unit sizes changes, dropping from 10 to 5 man maximums. Plus a key Stratagem lost Battle Tactic rule.
GSC saw their recycle ability heavily changed and with the shifts in Free Stratagems I expect them to take a serious hit in playability.
The Marines saw Desolation squads got to 5 man squads to help balance out those units.
Death Watch’s ammunition now specifically call out bolt weapons in another ding to that army.
Buffs
Death Guard had their contagion shifted as well into a much more interesting set of rules choices to pick at the start of the game. You get to pick your stench and it does stuff if the enemy is in contagion range – or shot by that new fancy Helbrutes the DG just bought.
Admech got some shifts to their units saves to help make them a bit tougher before their new book comes out.
Leagues of Votann now hate more units at the beginning of the game which will see if it helps with point changes. Imperial Knights lost their big knights gaining the Bondsman ability when they give it out which is a pretty rough loss to them.
The Balance Dataslate Verdict
Overall its a ton of changes. I think Thousand Sons got a lot of hits with some of the stratagem stuff and what looks like some rough point hits. I still think Eldar will still be powerful and an issue even though they got hit a lot and I expect them to get some other round of point adjustments in the future. Still overall it is a bunch of good stuff that will hopefully refresh the game, get some players to come back, and let other armies get to the podium that isn’t Aeldari. Overall, look for more army variety at the tabletop after this.
And not a moment too soon.
