Another few months have passed in the 40k hobby, and that means another Balance Dataslate from GW. We all know that when these get released not everyone is going to be happy. Sometimes players are unhappy because their army received a bit of a toning down, or sometimes they are unhappy because their army didn’t get the boost they felt was needed (Abberants NEED that Core keyword GW), but this Balance Dataslate has players disappointed for a different reason. The beautifully constructed graph included in the Warhammer Community page article shows a game where win percentages range from 39% for the poor AdMech, to the impressive 59% of the Tyranids. At a casual glance this would lead players to believe the game is in a much better place than the days of 80% win rate Harlequins, and while the game is definitely in a better place than it has been for most of 9th Edition, that doesn’t mean that the game is in a GOOD place. Players recognize that more could be done to balance the scales for various armies, and this Balance Dataslate did not do enough to tip those scales toward balance.
Tyranids- First we will cover what actually was changed. This will be quick. MagikarpUsedFly posted an excellent article covering the main change to Tyranids, so go check out his article for this welcome change.
Necrons- As for the other biggest change, that has to be the Silent King losing the Core keyword. I am a Necron player, and I will admit playing games where the Silent King was Core felt slightly too powerful. This stops all of the Silent Kings auras affecting himself, so no more re-rolling hits for Shooting or wounds while in combat. No more using certain Stratagems, like +1S, on the Silent King, no more (if you are playing the Szarekhan Dynasty) Veiling the Silent King across the table, and no more healing the Silent King with a Technomancer.
This is more of a slight inconvienince for the Necrons than a hit to their ability to win games. The Necron’s ability to go all ObSec to score a ton of points extremely quickly is still unchanged. The only way you beat a Necron army that is doing this is stop their scoring train from getting going early, and the sad fact is some armies just cannot accomplish this task. This change to the Silent King might actually make it even harder for those armies to stop the Necron scoring machine if Necron players just drop the Silent King altogether and take 400 more points of good ObSec bodies.
Space Marines- Enjoy your 79 point losses with those extra few points from Shock Tactics. GW says they expect this change to move the Space Marine win rate needle. It sure will; from 39% to 45%. Space Marines issue is not their ability to score points on the table. Their issue is that their units are hilariously costed for the durability that they provide in the current game. While the League of Votann are also highly costed models, with Armor of Contempt (not to mention no re-rolling wounds against the Votann), they also have the offensive output to absolutely table other armies before scoring is much of an issue. Space Marines just don’t enjoy this luxury as a faction.
Harlequins- Assault weapons from units that are embarked on a transport hit on 4s instead of 3s now.
Ynnari- 55% win rate?! Nerf Ynnari!
Adeptus Mechanicus- Ok, this is my hot take, having the original release version of AdMech back in the game is going to be hilariously bad. With the release of the Guard Codex upcoming (speaking of Guard now is the time to start building that army of charging cavalry!), the Leagues of Votann, and now AdMech back to their old selves, I believe there is going to be some army builds out there that just remove entire armies from the board in the course of one Shooting Phase. While both AdMech and Votann have subpar Secondary games, and this will be enough to ensure they will not light the world on fire in the tournament scene, these rules will cause all kinds of feels bad games at the middle and lower tables. Auto wounding on 4+ to hit just isn’t something that should exist.
Overall I would describe this Balance Dataslate as unimaginative. Don’t get me wrong, it is amazing GW has started reliably taking a look at the balance of their game every 3 months, but it is also alarming that the player base as a whole feels like these changes are not only needed, but that more aggressive changes are needed. This isn’t really an indication that GW is making the wrong decisions for their games balance in these Balance Dataslates, but it is an indication that the game itself has gone off the rails. There will be players who mention how badly balanced the game was back in 7th Edition, and they are absolutely right. The game was wild back then, but that was two Editions and years ago. I am not going to be impressed with a Games Workshop who puts out Balance Dataslates every 3 months to patch a seriously flawed game. I will be impressed with a Games Workshop who learns and grows from the difficult task of game development and releases a greatly improved 10th Edition that has a firmly balanced foundation.