Grotmas brings with it a whole new Balance Update, and today we’re unpacking all the changes as we find out which factions have ended up on Da Red Gobbo’s naughty and nice lists.
This article covers the Imperium factions. You can find the rest of our coverage via the links below:
We would like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of the balance update for review purposes.
Adepta Sororitas
The Adepta Sororitas have been on the rise recently, and were lowkey considered one of the game’s stronger armies going into the World Championships, and have only accelerated in performance since. They’ve generally arrived at a point where everything is fairly strong on a per-datasheet basis, and it’s overall too cheap given how easily they can turn off variance to get the best value out of their units on a moment’s notice, resulting in one of the highest pre-Dataslate win rates.
Points Changes
- Canoness +10pts
- Celestian Sacresants +0/+10pts
- Dominions +5pts
- Hospitaller +10pts
- Morvenn Vahl +15pts
- Retributor Squad +15pts
- Sanctifiers +10pts
Rules Changes
None.
Impact
Loser
Thoughts
TwoHorse: Sisters have consistently performed well since the last slate, and win-rates remained high even after the bandwagon returned to the faction to dilute the outsized impact of die-hard faction specialists (it’s me; I am the bandwagon). That suggests Sisters were a bit too strong, and so the balance bell tolls once again.
Some of the changes here target the consistent features of most top-performing Sisters lists. The Hospitaller + Sacresant unit appeared in triplicate in Champions of Faith lists, while still showing up everywhere else at least once, and Retributors came out in force for their 10th edition debut after finally getting a rules change that allowed them to see play. Both of these changes seem reasonable and will help internal balance without breaking the faction as a whole.
The other changes are a tax to the faction overall, hitting staples like Vahl and Dominions that have shown up at both higher and lower points values throughout the edition and will continue to do so.
The good news for Sisters is that some of their toughest matchups have also been toned down, but the bad news is that there are new threats to consider while some of the old foes have remained untouched. Will Sisters keep the faith in this brave new world? Of course. Will justice be served? Not while the common man still breaks his back for the uncaring oppressor, toiling under the malicious gaze of an unjust master, until the Star Children at last bring us the foretold deliverance from evil and the righteousness of our cause is…. Of course not, this is the 41st Millenium.
Adeptus Custodes
Things have been quiet on the Custodes front over the last year, with the army largely sitting in a place we’d think of as “fine”. The challenges with balancing Custodes are always twofold: The first being that as an army they can just randomly win games by passing 4+ saves, and the other being that you can drop the cost of the army 40 points and still not buy them a single model. We weren’t expecting to see buffs this time, but here they are.
Points Changes
- Allarus Custodians -5pts/model
- Custodian Guard -10/10pts
- Vigilators -5/10/10/10pts
- Witchseekers -5/10/25/25pts
Rules Changes
None.
Impact
Winner
Thoughts
Wings: Weird groundhog day here because we’re apparently buffing all the same units as last time, but the buffs last time worked! People are taking more Custodians and Allarus! They’re even taking Vigilators!
I guess they’ll be taking even more, because this update only helps with squeezing a few more activations into Custodes lists, which can now have a lot of units on the table if they put their minds to it. Also, 9-model Witchseekers at 90pts is potentially quite spicy, that’s a big Overwatch piece to park somewhere. These changes were probably the biggest surprise for me when I went through the Dataslate, and they’re definitely good news for Custodes players.
Adeptus Mechanicus
The World Championships were just a prelude to a rush of Adeptus Mechanicus armies flooding the meta. While the sudden advent of Victrix Guard and the usual barriers to Admech entry - insane model counts and army costs - have kept Admech from dominating statistically, anyone who’s played against them can attest to how their armies feel like they have a bit too much to work with. So it’s not a shock to see them catch some nerfs.
Points Changes
- Belisarius Cawl +35pts
- Ironstrider Balistarii +10pts/model
- Pteraxii Skystalkers +5/10pts
- Sicarian Infiltrators +5/15pts
- Sicarian Ruststalkers +5/15pts
Rules Changes
None.
Impact
Significant Loser
Thoughts
Wings: So yeah, it turns out that just giving the faction Oaths (in Cawl form) was, in fact, enough to make them good when added on top of the extremely cheap Datasheets. Too good, in fact - AdMech won the World Championships, and while there’s obviously the Siegler factor there, three other players took them to the top 16, and they’ve been winning events left, right, and centre.
This set of nerfs squarely slams the most optimised Hunter Cohort builds on points - the ones all-in on Ruststalkers, Infiltrators, Ironstriders and Skystalkers narrowly exceed 200pts of increases, which is obviously very real. However, these aren’t the only builds that have been winning events - Haloscreed lists that mix in more Kataphrons and/or Skorpii take a still significant but much more modest hit in the ~120pts range, and there’s a bit of space to pivot exact compositions to bring that down. Still a sizeable impact, but also this faction joined Sisters in having a >65% win rate in some recent weeks, so extremely justified, and this is very much knocking them out of S+ tier rather than killing them.
Agents of the Imperium
Agents aren’t really a concern when it comes to balance outside of their impact on other factions.
Points Changes
None.
Rules Changes
None.
Impact
None
Thoughts
No changes here aren’t a surprise.
Astra Militarum
The Astra Militarum are a solid performer, though hampered as always by a large player base with varying levels of skill. It can be difficult as a result to place their actual relative strength - two weeks following the World Championship they put up a massive showing, with 7 TiWPs across GT events, including a win by a Hammer of the Emperor list, the week after there was nothing, and then this week there have been a flurry of top performances from players unleashing Cadian Castellan stacks to push more damage into enemy alpha units.
Points Changes
None.
Rules Changes
There’s a new Detachment! Check out our Grizzled Company Detachment Focus article.
Impact
Winner
Thoughts
TheChirurgeon: The new Detachment looks to be very good, and Guard players are right to be excited about it. It’s very versatile - it has benefits for both infantry and tanks and the ability to attach Commissars to Bullgryn is something Guard players have been asking for a long time. No point changes while the top meta threats take nerfs is a good deal any way you slice it and we expect the faction to see better results moving forward.
Wings: I'd go further and say that Guard have timed a surge in their win rate perfectly, and thus go into the new metagame looking super strong.
Grey Knights
The Grey Knights never see a ton of play and have largely been just fine since their ability to indirect fire was reigned in. Their mix of decent Datasheets and mobility keep them a threat, and when they show up in the top standings it’s almost always with a Warpbane Task Force list.
Points Changes
- Interceptors -5/10pts
- Purgation Squad -10/20pts
Rules Changes
None.
Impact
Slight Winner
Thoughts
Wings: A weird one here in that this is a minor buff to a faction where the best build is fine (and certainly good enough to benefit from the top armies getting nerfed), but it still feels like a miss because the Codex needs some major Tyranid/AdMech style love to sort out the terrible internal balance of the Codex and broaden the unit options. As it is, Warpbane builds spamming Dreadknights and Purifiers will continue to be solid, and might spoil themselves with either a second unit of Interceptors or a Purgation squad as tech for slower foes (and I guess maybe cheaper Purgation squads helps Brotherhood Strike). I don’t think Grey Knights players can technically be sad about this, but I know I’d rather see Banishers and Augurium Task Force get a review so their cool tricks can have some outings.
Imperial Knights
The Imperial Knights have been hurting since their Codex dropped and the cost for the Knight Atrapos went up. They tend to lack the kind of busted threat Chaos Knights have with the double Gatling Despoiler, and so as a result we’ve seen more of a wide variety of lists out of the faction, which is healthy, but the volume of TiWPs produced less so.
Points Changes
- Knight Crusader -10pts
- Knight Defender -10pts
- Knight Errant -10pts
- Knight Gallant -10pts
- Knight Warden -10pts
Rules Changes
- Code Chivalric’s “We pledge to reap a great tally” now requires you to kill more units in the current Battle Round than the Battle Round number, rather than in a specific turn, giving you a bit more leeway to kill things on your opponent’s turn, but also doesn’t trigger until the end of the round, so you’ll have to wait for it to activate.
Impact
Significant Winner
Thoughts
Wings: Now, obviously, these changes alone don’t add up to anything more than minor winners - the big impact comes from the hits to their top predators, most notably Aeldari. Every Knight player is celebrating the death of Skyborne Sanctuary tonight. Combining that with some small but welcome drops that include some of the better Questoris options is strong for the army, although there is a rules nerf to one of the Deeds to go with it. This is presented as errata rather than balance, so potentially it was always supposed to work this way, but it's a genuine hit to Questoris Companions because they no longer get an effective freebie on their first Deed into 80% of armies. Still doesn’t even come close to offsetting the upside here though, and I expect to see quite a big uptick in Imperial Knights success in the coming months.
Wrap Up
Did the Red Gobbo bring you all the buffs you wanted? If he didn't, can you at least salve the blow by pointing and laughing at elves? Make sure to check out the rest of our coverage from the links up top.
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