Balance Dataslate Review – April 2022 | Tabletop Tactics State of Play
The Chef April 14, 2022136
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136 Likes
It’s that time of the Quarter!
Well well well, another Balance Dataslate, and this one is well worth talking about, with some big changes within here that not only affect individual armies, but some core mechanics as a whole.
A few caveats to start with:
- As with all Balance Dataslates, this latest one is the version in use as it replaces the previous one. This does, technically, mean that Imperial and Chaos Knights have lost their Towering Foe and Objective Secured changes, which I’m sure has nothing to do with any upcoming Codexes…
- Tyranids aren’t in here cos THEY AREN’T EVEN OUT YET. Yes there are some big concerns with them, but come on guys. Common sense.
- “Alright then CHEF (in Spider’s voice), what about Harlequins?” Well they’ve been out for a little while, yes, but they actually have a Codex officially released and in use. As said by the WarCom article itself, they’ve been pretty oppressive already. So this is the emergency patch so many people call for. Craftworlds have escaped so far, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be adjusted in the future.
- I have no idea why Daemons aren’t in here
- Genestealer Cults are also untouched, but generally feel fine as they are
So, let’s go through this in order shall we?
Armour of Contempt
ASTARTES of all kinds and SORORITAS worsen the AP of attacks against them by 1. Power Armour feels powerful again! This is a huge survivability boost in an era of basic units having ludicrous AP, as well as increasing their chances of surviving heavier weaponry. It even applies to your VEHICLES, which might make them viable…maybe? Time will tell on that one, but a PREDATOR with an effective 5+ vs Lascannons could be actually usable.
This will help greatly against all manner of weapons, and as its modifying the AP, it will work with Sv increases such as Light Cover, making them tough indeed.
Now there’s some limitations, namely if you have a Storm, Combat or Relic Shield it won’t work, nor if you are a SACRESANT or DREADKNIGHT, and it doesn’t apply if you already reduce AP in some way. So let’s break those down.
Not working on units with Shields sort of makes sense, as you effectively already have it by virtue of the +1 Sv and Invun they give. There will be cases where it would be better to have the AP reduction, often AP 2 or 3, but against everything else you’re generally better off, so its kind of a wash. It probably wouldn’t have hurt to allow it, but it does avoid Deathwing Terminators with Storm Shields being impossible to remove without AP 5 weapons. The Dreadknight and Sacresants is much of the same issue, where it will lead to some odd situations where they are worse than a normal unit, but they will come out on top against others. The not stacking with other AP reductions isn’t so big of a deal as the two main contributors of that are covered later. On the odd occasion where you do have an ability or rule where it won’t stack (such as the Icon of Heinmann for Black Templars), chances are it was better anyways, and Contempt specifically says it doesn’t apply on top of that, so you just use that rule.
It’s also worth noting that no, this has zero effect on AP 0 Weapons, so no you don’t suddenly have 2+ Sv Marines vs Lasguns. If you can find a precedent of a +1AP Weapon, I’d love to see it, but first go to pg 364 of the Core Rule book, and read what it says about reducing AP Characteristics (Hint: It says to a maximum of AP 0). If on the other hand you’re going to try and argue about how it totally would work due to the semantics of “worsen by” versus “reduce by”, you’re the reason why rules are eight paragraphs long.
Aircraft
They’re still limited to 1 in Combat Patrol, 2 in Strike Force, 3 in Onslaught. Moving on.
Indirect Fire Weapons
Basically if you have a weapon that ignores Line of Sight, and you can’t see the unit you’re shooting at, you have a -1 BS, and the target gets +1 Sv. This will help curb these weapons by a substantial margin, though given many of them are on units with a good BS and have decent AP already, it shouldn’t make a massive impact to the point of them never being usable. They just now have a bit more of a niche application, rather than being a go to choice or being game defining, but this will definitely be felt by those looking to spam them.
Note as a BS reduction, it will stack with -1s to Hit, such as Dense, so something to be aware of. This also doesn’t apply to Astra Militarum, so artillery batteries are still on the menu.
Bodyguard
FINALLY. Any type of Bodyguard rule (see the list in the Slate) now just lets them provide Look Out Sir with less than 3 models. Now whilst this does mean you can still hide them bravely behind a wall, you’ll now need another unit closer to the attacker to keep them safe as well, in addition to Snipers being able to…well, snipe. It’s a small change, but will mean placement of the characters can’t be as gung ho, as an opening to them could lead to being blasted off the board now.
Given the change, it could be argued this does invalidate the GSC Locus and Vargard Obyron, as being CHARACTERSthey couldn’t offer Look Out Sir in the first place, but that doesn’t seem intended. It’s also worth noting that for the upcoming Tyranids Codex, HIVE TYRANTS now count as less than 9W for Look Out Sir when next to TYRANT GUARD, meaning they can use it still.
A Miracle Dice at the start of every Turn now, instead of every Battle Round, gives them a lot more flexibility and use out of Act of Faith, as well as abilities that are fuelled by them. Whilst Sisters can often find they have more Miracle Dice than they know what to do with, having literally twice as many dice gives you more chances of the value you do want.
Valorous Heart now prevents Wounds from being rerolled against them, as Armour of Contempt is just a better version of their old trait. A good improvement which can help against a variety of rules, the only losers here are Sacresants, who are now as tough against AP 1 and 2 weapons as normal Sisters, which is a bit of pity.
All the previous changes are still here – Tank Orders on all non-TITANIC VEHICLES, bouncing INFANTRY Orders and 2+ Sv LEMAN RUSS – but you have two new updates here as well.
Hammer of the Emperor giving you autowound on 6s to Hit with Shooting is a nice reliability boost, and given the quantity of fire you can chuck out, it will add up nicely, from Lasguns to Demolishers. Whilst it doesn’t help Flamers, nor does it help TEMPESTUS, its a nice boost all the same.
The second boost is for your humble Infantry Squads, who now go up by 5pts, but get all their wargear options for free. You get a Plasma Gun, and you get a Plasma Gun!. Heavy Weapons, Special Weapons, Vox-casters, Sergeant weapons, all free. So if you were running barebones Infantry, yes this is a nerf. But otherwise this lets you really load up with a range of upgrades, which whilst not a massive improvement, is a welcome one.
Three changes for the Custodes since their release.
First up, only their Troops get Objective Secured now. This is actually quite a big change, removing the ability to capture Objectives easily with anything but GUARDIANS. You still count as more models, but you better clear off other enemy ObSec, which you should be capable of doing anyways to be frank. Removing it from CHARACTERS probably would have sufficed, but here we are.
Next up, the following Stratagems become once per game- Esteemed Amalgam, Emperor’s Auspice and Martial Discretion. This removes a good chunk of the flexibility that made the Custodes a terror to face, as well as one of their most powerful defensive stratagems. These will remove a fair bit of their options from the game, making them more restricted in terms of gameplan and counterplay.
Finally, Arcane Genetic Alchemy (sorry…*ahem*…”ArCANe GeNEtiC aLcHemMmYY”) and Emperor’s Auspice are now INFANTRY only. Removing these from your VERTUS and VEHICLES makes the army a bit more reliable in being taken down, though it does remove pretty much all the defensive tricks for those units. Whilst they are plenty tough themselves, positioning might be a bit more important now, rather than bombing it down the middle of the board and turning off all your opponent’s offensive options.
Oh and their points stay the same, but given these changes, that’s probably fine now.
The same as before, just with a few updates from their FAQ/Errata rolled into here as well. It would have been nice to see CORE put on the KATAPHRONS at least, but perhaps another time.
You get Armour of Contempt. That’s big.
And to account for it, Salamanders now turn off Reroll Wounds against them, making them a decent bit tougher.
Otherwise that’s it, but Contempt is probably good enough by itself for now.
Death to the False Everything is still on modified 6+s, making it worthless for anything with minuses to Hit, but really good with pluses. Fine.
No you don’t get +1 Wound. Let it go. Your Codex is probably round the corner and you’ll get it then, alongside that nice 50% points increase Tactical Marines got. You forget about that don’t you.
BLIGHTLORDS and DEATHSHROUD get Objective Secured. This is huge, and almost justifies the points increases they got. This firmly makes them better than Plague Marines still, and whilst the points increases still sting, they now have even better ways of playing the primary. Coupled with Armour of Contempt and they are beefy indeed, as they should be.
As with AdMech, it’s the same as previously, with a few FAQ/Errata bits put into here, probably for ease of reference. Drukhari are still doing quite well, and with the updates to other armies, will probably continue to be a force to be reckoned with.
Same as before, lots of CORE on stuff that wasn’t CORE in the book. No points changes, no Reanimation Changes, no Protocols changes. All of those would have been good to see, but it’s fine, for now at least.
No changes, you’re still limited to 1 of each type of Buggy. This could have probably been removed given the changes to Indirect Fire, and the main offender’s previous points increases. Orks could be in a bit of trouble over the coming months, as they could do with a bit of a bump in terms of overall effectiveness now. Perhaps some point changes will come in the next Munitorum Manual?
Hold onto your diamond covered butts. Four big changes to the Murder Clowns
Mirror Architect is now a “Pick a CORE unit within 9” to get the rule” ability, rather than a 6” Aura. This is practically dead now, not helping your CHARACTERS or VEHICLES, and only affecting one unit, removing a bunch of defensive potential to the army. Now you’ll need to position much better and behave a bit safer, knowing retaliation is far more likely.
The Favour of Cegorach Warlord Trait now only turns a melee Hit, melee Wound, or Save, into a 6. The Harvester of Torment is still a good deal for its points, it’s just not a point and click character shredder anymore. It can still spike pretty well, but this won’t be seen on him again.
Finally there are two points increases, both for the VEHICLES. Starweavers go up 15pts, to 95pts, and the Voidweaver increases by a whopping 40pts, to 130pts. These are now comparable in points to output to other, similar tanks, and are by no means less effective and powerful, just not nearly as easy to cram tons in a list. The Voidweaver change might be too high, and doesn’t really feel appropriate for the Haywire version, but they are still very good, as is the Starweaver.
I’d say I felt bad for you if you rushed out to buy 9 Voidweavers, but that would be a lie.
Another big swathe of changes here to reign in the power of an all too dominant army, the first of which completely removes the AP Bonus from the Mont’ka Philosophy of War. This reduces the effective firepower of the army quite significantly, but most things already have a good AP, or other ways to boost it, so all this does is let your opponent actually get to interact with the game in some way, as well as encourage you to not rely on any weapon to punch through armour, instead needing to (gasp!) specialize. Remaining Stationary and rerolling 1s to Wound are still great benefits, but this might close the gap a little with Kauyon (though probably not).
Next up, Farsight take a hit to their Tenet, only getting their Markerlight within 9” now, rather than 12”. This stops you getting it from Deep Strike, as well as those looking to maintain as much distance as possible from the foe. You’ll need to actually have Markerlights to support those units now, which isn’t exactly a big ask, and the change can hurt a bit more in the mid-late game where Markerlights are thin on the ground, but it’s still a good ability.
BROADSIDES lose CORE. This removes their synergies with quite a few rules, including Ethereals, some Warlord Traits and Stratagems, as well as Commander Auras. This makes them a much more independent unit, and a fair bit less effective without the buffs, but they are still quite cheap for their output, though they will probably fall a bit from grace due to the loss of efficiency this will cause.
The Photon Grenades and Repulsor Impact Field Stratagems don’t stack with other minuses to Charge, so you can’t combine the two anymore, or be basically immune to charges in a Wood. A simple, but good change to niche but frustrating scenarios.
And that’s all
So will all this be good for the game?
Honestly, I think so. This is a massive update that will hopefully go a long way to redressing some pretty significant issues in power disparity, both in terms of core mechanics and Faction specific issues, bringing up those that are suffering, whilst reigning in those dominanting.
Yes there are still some armies that could have done with a reversal of some changes (Orks, AdMech), or needed perhaps a little extra nudge (Necrons, Orks again), but overall this should go a long way to helping out the overall health of the game, and we can see some positive changes in the coming weeks. There will likely be armies that will still come out on top, especially when comparing newer to older armies, but with any luck the gulf between them will be less, and some of the more oppressive aspects of the game will be reduced.
Time will of course tell.
But we won’t talk about the Great Devourer, maybe there will be an anti Custodes patch that bumps their points up next week, or an emergency patch to bring stuff down, I dunno. Until then, we’re all just impending biomass I guess.
👨🍳
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Appreciate the effort on the write up bud! Almost hoping Guard don’t get their codex til after the Chicago US Open. I’m hoping to attend and was already planning on bringing probably too many Guardsmen before the buffs: )
All of this has me wondering if they even try to balance any of this stuff before they print it. I honestly think it’s intentional. GW has figured out that if they write broken rules then people will rush out to get the new hotness only to discover a month later that it all sucks now and they’re left with a big case of buyer remorse. Not only that but it makes it less fun for the average player who might only play a handful of times a year (myself included) to go buy a book that is already overpriced,… Read more »
Excellent write up! Thank you very much for this.
Could actually hear Chefs voice as I read it, especially the sarcastic bits 😉
I’m kinda miffed they left out Sisters of Silence from armour of contempt.
RIP crusher and Octarius leviathan… finally. Chef you’ll have to amend your tactica with the good news 😂
Hammer of the Emperor works for Scions, because MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their . If it wasn’t, Voice of Command wouldn’t have worked for the entirety of 8th and 9th until Psychic Awakening. Sadly, any mixing of Scions and normal Guard will turn it off.
Still a really nice buff that works great with Guard volume of fire. A blob of 30 Whiteshields can potentially do some really silly things now if they don’t get whittled down before getting into RF range.
These were good changes overall, though I do think the obsec nerf on Custodes was too much. Glad to see marines actually be survivable again, the damage and AP creep has been insane and left power armoured armies in the dust. I do worry for poor Orks though, their codex is terribly internally balanced and was propped up by a handful of units that are now nerfed into oblivion. Add Armour of Contempt into the mix and it’s painfully obvious GW dropped the ball and to rethink Orks from the ground up again.
Great summary Chef, many thanks! Regarding Tempestus Scions, argument below suggests that they do indeed benefit from Hammer of the Emperor. Warning – Brush up on your legal training before diving in! The keyword of scions is their keyword in addition to whatever over keywords they might have. is an entirely different keyword to , in the same way is. Scion units have both a and a keyword. The keyword has already been taken by the keyword. The rules for this are in the guard codex referring to the keyword state: “Units with the keyword treat this as their keyword… Read more »
Tau got hit too far and Harlis not enough and that the rest of the eldar codex did not get touched at all(other than their indirect fire getting nerfed ofc)is a cruel joke. First GT results seem to confirm this with eldar, harlis, nids, custodes and DG(thats interesting) on the podium. We will also see a lot more Thousand Sons as they (and DG) are the biggest winners of armor of contempt. I do welcome both the indirect and fire and especially the bodyguard rule changes. I do think though the Mont’ka change is too much and I am a… Read more »
Seems fair enough overall, the Marines were taking a bit of a beating with the large amount of -1ap out there,and makes my plague marine better as well.Five squads of guard with plasma guns and Las cannons for 500pts or something like that if someone wanted is cool cuz there basically us and they need all the they can get against all the scary things that want our souls or eat us etc etc..
Custodes needed a nerf but got hit too hard.
I really like Armor of Contempt, especially for my black templars, it fits the army and that extra bit of protection makes power armor feel like power armor again which it hasn’t for most of 9th in my opinion.
armour of contempt letting me add a few more CSM to my Disciples of Belakor list, waiting on that white dwarf for some more shenanigans but feeling good about this. I have a mirror match into Red Corsairs this weekend, and we’ll see how good “armour of contempt” really is when I’m facing 90 Legionnaires advancing up the board at me.
Isn’t the points adjustment for the infantry for the Astra Militarum not also a direct buff to the options the GSC can take with their 25% allowance?
Its a shame about the Harlequins, they had one month in the spot light and now they’ve been canceled. (I guess that’s show business). I agree that ‘Mirror architect’ is now dead and so is ‘Favoured of Cegorach’. You can only take this WLT on a Troupe master now and no one in their right mind would take FoC instead of ‘A Foot in the Future’. Its just useless now. And 40pts increase on Voidweavers! So now they are the same points value as a Nemesis Dreadknight!!!! Wow, Ok!!! Can I make a controversial opinion: all the Codexis that come… Read more »
Thanks for the write up, much easier to understand and humour always helps.
I like the Custodes changes, more of a thinking persons army now.
Massive buff to Sisters, who is probably the most balanced and struggling 9th ed. codex. But my Speez Muhreens are quite happy as well. But I don’t like it – and here’s why. Introducing more rules, in an already heavily rules complex codex landscape. to counter unbalanced rules is just plain moronic. If anything GW needs to fix units/gear/rules that cause the problems instead of increasing cost or layering even more rules. Harlequins, Tau and what not aren’t less powerful because of this. Death Guard still shrug off so much damage and so many have DR now that it practically… Read more »
So darklight spam for drukhari will get even more prevalent, as all the anti infantry options are ap -1 or 0, so SMs in cover have 2+ sv :/
Loved the summary for the Clowns, thanks for the review!
I think the impact of armour of contempt is gonna be huge. I also think we might underestimate how bad this will hurt some armies (cough, cough, orks, cough). While I certainly feel that SM needed something to help them in their current state, I’m not sure if a blanket -1ap across the whole codex was the way to go. If you look deeper into it, it feels more of a nerf to everyone else (your entire book just lost a pip of AP against marines) than a buff to the SM’s themselves (like an extra wound would have done… Read more »
Thank you for your work, Chef! I think this Dataslate is quite good as a stopgag solution to some of the issues we are having right now. As with all the things done in a rush to resolve some deep design flaws there are some factions that were hit maybe too hard (Custodes), other maybe not hit hard enough (T’au and Eldars/Harlequins) and other that received upgrades that sidestep some problems without truly resolving them (Armout of Contempt). That said, it made me regain a lot of desire to play, that lately I had all but lost… so I will… Read more »
I am so tempted for an infantry guard army now…
Tested. Tau against Death Guard/Thousand Sons… Armour of contempt is massive. The Tau spend their first turn shooting at the DG termis mostly. This left the rest of the army quite protected and able to gain terrain, which is cool with Death Guard. It was a great game, more balanced we felt. More games incoming but yes, I love the feel of this dataslate. One thing less… why adding AP everywhere and then give a minus 1 AP to half of the armies. Looks like stacking figures for naught.
So quick Oo !
Thanks for cooking this up so quickly Chef!
Thanks for the write up Chef. I agree with most of what you said. The Custodies (I don’t play them) one seems to be the hardest, but they were the most oppressive to play against. And they did not get any points increase (Tragen is still way undercosted) so they can’t cry to much. I think the armor of contempt will really help TS and DG adding to their already decent defense. I think when the dust settles it will not carry SM or Sisters to S tier level, probably not even A tier. There is just so much high… Read more »
Any chance to see you run an all black primaris, salamander successor army against Tau? 😁
Good work Chef, thank you 😊
I play Custodes as my main army, never competitively or anything just with friends, and I really dislike these changes. Removing so much of the flexibility of the army just makes them less interesting to play, and while I’d definitely understand removing obsec from our characters it really hurts having it removed from our wardens and termies too. Honestly I just wish they’d removed the ridiculous points drop we got first and see how we were after that. Also I try my absolute best never to be salty, but armour of contempt making power armour better than a Custodes auramite… Read more »
Love chefs humour throughout it
Plasters for all 🤣
Great review, as ever. The nerfs for Custodes were mainly in line with what I was thinking: nerf the strats not the points. EA only being once per game is may be warranted. It was a feel bad strat for your opponent (but please, please, please GW. Stop with all the rerolls anyway!). Removing ob-sec from most of the army is going to hurt a lot of builds. But you know what, running a shed load of different flavours of Guard is what I did in 8th anyway… Not getting armour of contempt on the shushing sisters seems like an… Read more »
Thaks for rewiew Mister Chef
Time will tell if the removal of the extra AP from Tau will be too big of a nerf since it is coupled with all Astartes and sisters getting AP reduction against them. The declaration of the return of “fish of fury”(at least against the above mentioned) was perhaps a bit premature.
Also, having played against death guard as they are now with Tau they were a hard nut to crack, even with Tau firepower pre nerf. now Tau may need to be kept on the shelf when Deathguard come out on the table.
Got a feeling the Harlequin points changes may have been a bit harsh. Started writing a list and just including 3 Voidweavers feels hard to fit (I was never going to take more than 3) for those taking balanced lists. I really think they should have just limited them in number another way.
Thanks PChef, lovely summary and real helpful. Good for the power armoured friends of mine, crons still being a bit meh is lame but kinda accepted that for this edition now. Some really cool buffs for guard and sisters here which is gr8 to see, and shame no demon stuff!
Yeah GeeDubbz! Where my CORE Kataphrons at 🧐
I’m pretty terrible at the rules at it is so maybe someone can answer this one: How does the armour of contempt rule affect the (innocent) Thousand Sons, does it work with All is Dust?
Reverting Orks mob rule back to 8th would be a welcome change, got a whole lots of boyz that want to WAAAAGGGHHHHHH. Fine they’re T5 but with all the S5 weaponry on basic troops now they’ll still die pretty quickly, just not as quickly due to stupid morale.
I could actually hear Spiders voice…
Come for the insight, stay for the witty remarks
I think cultists are going to see a resurgence since they also ignore that ap 1.
Very nice article, spot on.
But at this point you cant really take 40k serious anymore. at least the competetive side. they need to start to playtest theses things more and start to listen. I really wish we could enjoy 40k for like 1 year, without changes and a winrate of all armies between 47% and 53%. Its hard to enjoy the game when you need to adapt every week.
Excellent post as usual
Can I ask a quick question in relation to Salamander Successor Chapters?
I tend to get a bit confused regarding the army abilities, for example as I’m a successor does that grant the ability to turn off reroll wounds and take my successor chapter tactics?
I see this changes positive for the game, my salamanders are celebrating today, meanwhile my necrons are even in a worst possition (not surprised anyway)
I just can’t not read it in Chef’s voice
Is it just me, or is Ork firepower now utterly useless against Marines of all sorts? Rokkits with just AP -1 against them? Come on James Workshop!☹️🙈😂
Finally a fix to the most obnoxious rule,bodyguard.
I like the little booster for astartes type stuff and the changes to Quins,Tau and custodes are much welcome.
The change to ignore los is cool too.
This really helped make sense of the updates. Thanks, Chef!!
You can’t hear words written in an article.
”ArCANe GeNEtiC aLcHemMmYY”
I stand corrected