The past week has seen a slate of new updates with datasheets for Berekh Stornbrow, the Twin Lance, the Tyranid Prime, and the new Tyranid Prime with Lash Whip. But that was the appetizer for today's main course - the Q1 2026 Balance Dataslate drops right as the player base cries out for a solution to our C'tan-shaped problems. But does it solve those problems? And who are this update's big winners and losers? As always, the Goonhammer crew have reviewed the updates and are here with thoughts and analysis - what changed, what it means, and how you can adapt moving forward.

Before we dive in, we'd like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the balance update for review purposes.

What’s In the Dataslate?

Surprisingly little. There's an adjustment to C'tan for the Necrons, some nerfs to Marines, and a few other small surprises. As with prior updates, we've split our analysis into a series of articles in which we run down the changes and sort out the faction-by-faction impact, which you can find below:

You should check those out before proceeding; in the rest of this article we'll be giving our overall thoughts on the update and what it means for the meta.

Overall Thoughts

Andrew: It’s a tough day to be a lover of Rogal Dorns, Redemptor Dreadnoughts, and Repulsor Executioners.

The nerf to Astra Militarum isn’t too bad in the grand scheme, likely dropping one unit at worst. The lack of changes to Orks is really tough, though. The changes to Ghazkhull made late last year injected a bit of life into the army but list variety remains pretty low and not seeing any movement in Orks to at least nudge the struggling units is frustrating.

Curie: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Necrons have been too good for too long now and the C’tan changes don’t go far enough to curtail their dominance. The worst offenders buffing C’tan - Starshatter stratagems and Necrosor’s sustained hits aura - were removed, and this is a good first step. That being said, the C’tan datasheet itself remains the problem. Each one being T11 3+/4++ with -1 damage and a 5+ FNP coupled with the ability to heal up to 2d3 a turn makes them downright oppressive at their updated point cost. Pantheon of Woe took a heavier hit, but the Detachment remains very strong and GT-winning lists will usually only need to shuffle around their scoring package rather than dropping a whole C’tan. In my opinion they needed to revert or adjust the datasheet changes that they made with the Nightbringer model release. The stacked buffs to durability and damage output in that update made them wholly too powerful and have skewed the meta as a whole to armies that have potential answers to C’tan datasheets and those that don’t.

I will say that there were some good points here - they removed the points for Marneus Calgar and Captain Sicarius from the MFM, effectively removing them from the playing field. This is the first instance of a codex entry unit being removed from the game after being superseded by a different datasheet. Both of these units are no longer sold in stores and so in this instance Games Workshop holds to its “no model, no rules” tendency we’ve seen throughout 10th Edition. This is particularly impactful as Marneus Calgar & his victrix guard were very potent when paired with Victrix Honour Guard. Now you’re “stuck” with running the new terminator armour variant.

The lack of meaningful changes to factions that were struggling - Grey Knights, Aeldari, and Imperial Knights come to mind - also reinforces the disappointment in this Dataslate from a metagame health perspective.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Norman: Not gonna lie, this is kind of a bummer way to end the edition. I think there were a lot of folks with armies that aren’t quite floundering but also aren’t particularly exciting to play right now who were hoping for some interesting shake ups. Instead we have a half measure of a nerf for Necrons and Twin Lance for T’au. There’s plenty still to come down the pipe clearly, we’re getting steady new releases with new Detachments, but this is a bit of a sad way to end the edition if you're, say, Orks who already got their shot at a new Detachment and missed hard.

Also, what the HELL is up with that Tyranid Prime?

TheChirurgeon: Everything here was always going to come down to what they did with the C'tan and honestly they needed to do more. There are some armies - Drukhari being the one which most comes to mind at the moment - who just cannot deal with multiple C'tan threats and while this update does scale them back a bit (particularly in Starshatter and Silent King builds), I don't think it does enough to stem the tide. Likewise, I think Scintillating Legion sneaks away easy here and potential top-of-the-meta threats like Thousand Sons, Adepta Sororitas, and Adeptus Mechanicus.

The big upside here is finally losing double Calgar and resin Sicarius, and I'm happy to see that Death Guard were left untouched. But I think some of the Chaos factions could have used more love. It's not surprising to see Renegade Warband lose Cult units but it is devastating to that particular army, and more or less kills it with no compensation for the blow. And dropping the points on World Eaters Forgefiends by 5 points is a bit, right? They're doing a bit. It has to be.

TwoHorse: Necrons survive on a few wounds and live to regenerate next turn. Good riddance to Resin Sicarius. I’d be mad about how absolutely bonkers the Twin Lance is, but the models slap and every time I see them I feel compelled to fire up Armored Core and shirk my responsibilities doing Mecha Stuff, so they get a pass in my book until I have to deal with them on the table.

I’m a bit higher on the changes than everyone else because I didn’t have high hopes for fundamental changes to Necrons as we head towards the end of the edition, and all the changes are at least directionally appropriate, even if the amplitude leaves something to be desired. I’m looking forward to riding into the sunset no worse off than I was last week.

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Tags: 40k | Warhammer 40k | competitive play | balance dataslate