NEW Balance Slate Key Points and Changes

The new balance slate is out to couple with the points changes brought on yesterday and GW has come out to the ring swinging with this dataslate.

We’re going to go over the changes that are the most impactful for the game and what it means for these armies starting with the biggest one that people have been wanting since their 9th edition book dropped…

TYRANIDS

CHANGES

• Hive Tyrants must be your warlord
• If your warlord is dead you no longer gain your synaptic imperative abilities
• Your Hive Fleet adaptive trait must be chosen when building your roster

You only get your synaptic imperative abilities if your warlord is on the battlefield, if you have a Hive Tyrant model in your army it HAS to be your warlord, and you can no longer change your Adaptive Trait after you roll for first turn and has to be decided on your army roster.

These are some pretty big changes, but it really doesn’t affect the army too much. The only thing that this really changes is that you’re probably not going to run a Winged Hive Tyrant unless you’re also bringing either Swarmlord or another Walking Hive Tyrant protected by Tyrant Guard if you want to keep gaining access to your imperatives.

Usually by round 3 you don’t care about your synaptic imperatives too much and so this doesn’t mean all that much when you really just want the Zoanthropes imperative and your Neurothrope one most of the time. With the Maleceptor gone from most people’s builds as well it’s one less imperative to care about. All in all these are fine nerfs and doesn’t affect the army that much.

NECRONS

CHANGES

• Noble keyword changed to Necron Character
• No longer need Noble’s to be alive to use your protocol’s
• Choose a protocol and it permanently becomes active for the entire game in addition to any protocol chosen for each battle round
• All vehicles gain the CORE keyword

Talk about a glow up. From the Nephilim point changes to this dataslate Necrons got the largest boost of love out of any other army out there right now. Rightfully so as they’ve been struggling this entire edition. Making one of your protocols become active for every single battle round after it’s activated is a strong change to the army opening up a lot of options for them now.

No longer do you have to worry about your nobles to gain your protocols which is a nice addition. Makes it so then your entire plan doesn’t just fall apart when one of them dies.

Additionally every Vehicle unit for Necrons is now CORE. Uhm…uhh…okay. So the Silent King is now CORE? I N T E R E S T I N G

These are pretty strong changes and it’s going to be a huge step into the right direction to reanimate the bone brothers.

Eldar

CHANGES

• Hail of Doom is now all encompassing and can’t be taken with another trait
• Eldritch Storm is now always on a 4+, doesn’t stack mortals and marker has to be visible
• Matchless Agility is now a re-roll instead of an automatic 6″ battle focus move
• Fire and Fade can only be used once

Hail of Doom is now all encompassing so you can no longer run it along with Masterful Shots to ignore cover saves making the Hail of Doom archetype build for Eldar easier to deal with. Eldritch Storm also took a massive hit to no longer stack extra damage on multiple casts, you have to roll a 4+ to deal mortals and the mark you place Eldritch Storm on has to be visible to the person casting the psychic action.

With the CP changes Eldritch Storm was probably off the menu to begin with, but now it’s solidified as a stratagem people are more than likely not going to use for how much CP it costs.

Matchless agility has also been changed to a re-roll instead of being a flat 6″ move. Coupling this with CP changes and Fire and Fade only being able to be used once makes playing against Eldar a lot easier and less frustrating. Instead of every turn being the whole song and dance of being shot at and then having almost the entire army move again behind cover you can actually play the game instead of feeling like you’re just stuck in a simulation where you’re only allowed to roll your saves.

Harlequins

CHANGES

• No longer gain a 3 dice minimum for Luck of the Laughing God, you can only roll for them
• Light Saedeth only hit on 4+ ability is now 18″ instead of 12″
• Dark Saedeth no longer fight on death, now on a 4+ enemy unit takes 1 mortal wound
• Fire and Fade can only be used once

Man Harlequins really made GW mad. Luck of the laughing god being changed to where you only gain them off of the roll instead of having a baseline of 3 is a huge nerf to Harlequins which doesn’t make sense when Sisters of Battle’s Miracle Dice (which are significantly stronger) got better in the last data slate by gaining more dice AND Eldar’s Fate Dice (which are also significantly stronger) weren’t touched at all and those are automatic 6’s!

Why those are fine, but getting re-rolls in an army where their only form of a re-roll is through re-rolling wound rolls of 1 for CORE units near a Troupe Master and Luck of the Laughing God this feels like a huge slap in the face for Harlequin players.

The Light Saedeth trait change isn’t that bad, really this only protects Skyweavers and Troupes more than anything since their transports and Voidweavers are always -1 to hit anyways. Increasing the range to 18″ from 12″ is an acceptable change.

Dark Saedeth takes a massive hit in that they no longer gain fight on death when in melee combat and instead has been replaced with on a 4+ the enemy unit suffers a mortal wound…uhm…okay? It’s also to a max of 6 mortals. So a 10 man blob of players now can on average deal 5 mortal wounds to an enemy unit if it dies. Sounds like a fair trade…

Another huge hit is that the Fire and Fade stratagem Harlequins share with Eldar has been changed to once per battle and so they’re hit with another nerf by association. This is a VERY unexpected nerf and it’s laughable how much Harlequins were nerfed compared to something like Tyranids.

ORKS

CHANGES

• Stage 1 of Waaagh! now gives 1 pip of strength and a 5++ to your ork models
• Stage 2 of Waaagh! now also gives 1 pip of strength and a 6++

This is pretty okay for Orks. Boyz are still hard to sell people on with the changes to morale on them, but it makes Goffs a lot more interesting. This is one of the weaker buffs but definitely something nice for Orks after the Freebooterz Wanton Massacre of the SoCal open.

Adeptus Mechanicus

CHANGES

• All previous FAQ’s are gone
• Enriched Rounds is now on a 5+ and now only costs 1cp regardless of unit size

Rolling back the FAQ nerfs to Admech they’re getting a nice glow up here. Core has been given back to their Ironstrider’s so 2+ re-rolling Cognis Lascannons are back. Restrictions for Acquisition at any cost and Clandestine Infiltration have also been lifted.

These are pretty big changes but something I can’t go back and reference off the top of my head because I don’t have the Admech book in front of me.

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!