Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Top 5 January Balance Dataslate Changes
Goatboy here again with a discussion about the new 40K Balance Dataslate that just came out. Here’s what you need to know!
The Warhammer 40K January Balance Dataslate contains a host of changes that affect a lot of armies, but I want to just discuss the top five. I think the overall shakeup is going to be pretty big, with one army looking way ahead of the others due to a few things.
Aeldari Nerfed…Again
First of all Aeldari got another set of nerfs that is very harsh. The initial one was dropping the number of fate dice from 12 to 6 – halving their ability to effect dice. Then they took the Yncarne and made it only able to teleport on your turn. They tweaked spinners to only affect one unit hit with the Spinner slow down rule. Fate’s Messenger only affects the bearer of it too which is a huge shift. Then even the Wraithguard – if targeted can only shoot back at what targeted them. All of these things basically wreck the common “easy Aeldari lists’ that are out there and most likely will see this army left at home.
Necrons Fairly Unscathed
On another side of things – the Necrons only got a few small point increases and no nerfs. I think that is a mistake as a lot of their “trouble” matchups now got nerfed, which leaves them looking very pretty. Heck, I can expect most finals will have more than a few Necrons with a ton of C’Tans. I get the feeling we will have to wait and see what comes up as the game moves on and events run the new rules.
CSM Beatdown
The Chaos Space Marines also got some of the harshest hits. Between Stratagem changes, point upgrades, rules changes, and just a ton of Mark shenanigans resolved. You can no longer ride in a vehicle that has a different Mark than you. The Dark Obscuration shifts to now needing to be 18” or farther, and with the removal of using Nurgle Marks on vehicles, this is a huge one. Profane Zeal now only targets Undivided and lets you reroll the wound roll and not the hit. Plus, all the Accursed shifted to OC1 and not OC2 anymore. You mix this with a ton of points getting pushed up, and you have an army that won’t work as well and have less stuff. This is a big hit to CSM, and most likely, they will get put away or go back to the “Abaddon shooting brick”.
World Eaters Punched – WHY!?
World Eaters got hit, too, which is really frustrating. Their points went up on some of the Eightbound, they fixed the Rhino Exalted Eightbound thing, nerfed the Favour of Khorne Enhancement to once a game, and hit the Glaive too with a nerf. All of these things just kinda suck as I was wanting to mess with them next, but overall, the army still sorta works the same. You just don’t have nearly as much on the field and a chance to regrow Angron.
Adeptus Custodes are Golden
The final one is a big buff for Adeptus Custodes players. Their FNP roll can now be used for Devastating wounds. This is a huge buff for them and will probably bring them out to the table top. I don’t know how good they will do versus Necrons but it at least is an army that might work. I really wish they got the Custodes bikers working better, but maybe the new codex will fix em up.
There are a few other things in this, and with a shift in points, we will have a really updated 40K edition. I am not sure how much I really like all of these as a lot of them feel very heavy-handed and I hope for things like CSM – their upcoming codex will fix stuff. I feel like the miss of relooking at Necrons is going to make for a rough few months as beyond the C ‘Tans the army isn’t too hard to get a hold of.|
See ya on the tabletop!
