by Calvin Rarie

It’s finally here! After almost six months of waiting, GW has decided to grace us with the Battlescroll.

There’s an absolute SHITLOAD to unpack here, and I’m going to do it in no particular order, but I will be calling out what I believe are the winners and losers, as well as some pretty spicy hot takes regarding what is likely the last balance update before 4th edition drops. There’s no way to cover all the minutiae in this battlescroll, so if something was missed or you’d like to get our thoughts on it, we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Anyway, let’s jump in.

WINNERS

Winner #1: 32mm infantry (that aren’t Savage Orruks)

At long last, basically every 32mm infantry unit in the game that’s been languishing behind 1″ reach has been fixed! The armies most affected by this change are Fyreslayers, Nighthaunt, and anything running Tzaangors. Nighthaunt especially desperately needed this change, since they’ve been basically a dead fish competitively since the Galletian Veterans battalion went away–now you can expect a bunch of spooky scary ghosts to be terrorizing a battlefield near you and soon. Meanwhile, Vulkites (of both flavors) and Tzaangors also got their reach buffed, which most importantly means that Vostarg Vulkites are back on the menu, and I expect see a big bump in their win percentage soon.

No more Sawtoothing to get your models into combat, hooray!

Winner #2: Big Waaagh made out like bandits

The Battle Tactics juggernaut is not for stopping.  The previous Battlescroll’s KB and IJ tactics were never going to stick around in their existing format, so realistically there were two ways it might go:

• “In a Kruleboyz army”.  Taking them off BW entirely.
• “If your chosen general has the Kruleboyz keyword”.  So you still get access to one suite of Orruk-specific tactics, plus the late-game BW freebie

They went with the latter, which is the kind version: take a KB general and you can still score the tactic for doing some damage, and the tactic for standing near terrain.  The real power of Big Waaagh’s BTs is that it gives you a shining path right through the game: stand near terrain at the start, have some Waaagh points at the end and do some damage and stand on board edges in between. 

Big Pigs got their Momentum mechanic boosted and if that wasn’t enough, there’s a suite of points adjustments to help too:

• Ardboyz at 200 gives you an anvil at a more realistic price point
• Gougers at 160 gives you an efficient monster and cheap access to Rampages. Is now the time to think about Battleline Big Pigs? 
• While he’s hardly a competitive staple in Big Waaagh, the Gnashtoof Boss is getting ridiculously cheap at 110 points
• Even the Monsta Killaz got rounded down instead of up

Everything’s coming up Milhouse.

Winner #3: Flesh-Eater Courts (Dragons and Nagash Specifically)

Sweet mother of god, look at those points drops!

While I’m not very big on Terrorgheists, there’s some massive utility coming with the Zombie Dragons. Between Terror turning off Inspiring Presence within 3″ of them and the Zombie Dragon monstrous action means you can cause some pretty horrendous battleshock rolls for your opponent.

In addition, Nagash is now cheaper than ever, which is awesome for FEC in particular because thanks to the points drops on him an the Royal Beastflayers, now you can bring in blocks of 3 wound Morbheg Knights that Nagash can return models to or even resurrect thanks to his Invocation of Nagash and Supreme Lord of the Undead abilities.

LOSERS

Loser #1: Kharadron Overlords

Boy oh boy are those point changes rough.

Fun fact, that’s about 80% of the warscrolls in the book getting points increases, which means losing at minimum one unit for the average KO list. Now, KO doesn’t win many events, so why the big point changes?

Well, KO is an absolute MENACE to armies in the middle of the pack in a tournament thanks to a fairly easy Grand Strategy in Rule the Skies and a bevvy of easily achievable Battle Tactics. Pairing those two points with the raw firepower that a KO list can put out means unless you are on your A-Game, it’s easy for a competent KO player to tear your game apart.

I expect to see a big drop in KO participation for the next month or so, but everyone’s favorite sky pirates will be sailing the high…. clouds? again soon.

Loser #2: Starborne Seraphon

Let’s start off with points, shall we?

Assuming your stock Seraphon list only takes one of each of the units that got points increases, as well as an Aethervoid Pendulum that’s now up 10 points, that means you’ve gone up 90 points baseline before considering anything else–that’s an entire Skinks unit you can’t take any more. Well, okay, that sounds pretty rought, but Seraphon can summon, so who cares, right?

This is a subtle, but important change from the previous wording, which was EACH TIME the general casts/unbinds/dispels they gain 2 cosmic power points. While it doesn’t sound like much, it’s important to remember that the game is in fact five rounds long, even when a Seraphon hero phase feels like five hours long.

Importantly, this means that if Seraphon goes first (or if you’re going first and have no spells to get unbound), and assuming they have Kroak, a Starmaster with the command trait, an Astrolith Bearer and a Starseer, then at most they’re gonna generate 12 CPP, which is an important number since Raptadon chargers and the like cost 15 CPP to summon in. This kind of snowball effect is going to make summoning harder, and board wide nukes harder to generate as well. Sure, a unit of 10 Skinks can still be summoned in the first turn, but Skinks aren’t exactly setting the world on fire.

Loser #3: Steam Tanks.Army

Steam Tanks were the boogeymen of the Las Vegas Open, and you can really tell that the Steam Tank army really shook the balance writers, which is likely why the Battlescroll got delayed so long. In case you didn’t know, Steam Tanks tabled 160 Zombies in two turns. TWO TURNS.

Obviously, that kind of nonsense cannot stay. So, the army got nerfed threefold, first with points:

The Steam Tank list from LVO went up 150 points, which means cuts are going to have to come, and it’s likely going to be the Freeguild Command Corps, since the Core Rules have been updated to prevent units from being picked multiple times as targets of an ability (such as the healing from Sawbones in the Corps), but also because the Whisperblade’s command point stealing has been severely curtailed:

So there’s no more reason to take multiple Command Corps anymore, so obviously it’s being dropped. But there’s still one more big change, and it has to do with the Alchemite Warforger’s warscroll spell:

This represents a dramatic decrease in offensive power from the Steam Guns on the tanks, who now won’t be able to reliably drop 150+ wounds worth of damage in just a couple of turns. The Warforger is still great, don’t get me wrong, because giving out a +1 to save bubble on 2+ save models is uh, pretty darn good. That said, rest in peace to Fusilier damage output.

The combination of these nerfs doesn’t mean Tanks are out of the picture, as I suspect them to still be quite strong, they just won’t be “Eldar blowing you off the table top of R1” strong.

HOT TAKES

Hot Take #1: Why is Blizzard Still a Thing?

Look, I get it, Wizard Finders was just a straight up bad battalion, and now as well as extra attacks, units in that battalion gain a 5+ spell ignore. Hooray.

But that doesn’t do anything at all to deal with just how game warping a Merciless Blizzard is, from top to bottom. It’s BAD game design, and probably the biggest source of “Are you fucking kidding me?” that exists out there in the game currently. Keeping it in on its current version is a big, big downer for this Battlescroll if only because now we have to continue to be vigilant about 12″ bubbles of death that have essentially no drawback when your opponent gets lucky with their dice.

Hot Take #2: Khorne Deserved More Nerfs

Khorne is finally starting to feel like proper Khorne again, now with a punishment mechanic designed to discourage you taking any Wizards:

So now, T1 Magical Dominance has a 33% chance of failing. But to tell you the truth, it’s the opposite: now instead of being basically an automatic tactic for Khorne, it’s just a 66% chance of being successful. While I prefer not to leave victory points to dice, I’m definitely cool with attempting a tactic that works 66% of the time for a relatively easy tactic.

But let’s say you drop all your wizards out, because they’re nerds and you’re not–what else do you do T1? Surround and Destroy is almost 100% guaranteed to be your best bet, but Khorne’s best units to score that tactic (thanks to their pre-game move) went up in points:

So what now?

Well you ally in Furies from Slaves to Darkness and you go about your merry way. Yes, yes, there’s opportunity cost with not having an easy tactic later in the game, but the point remains that this is a very slight change that isn’t going to fundamentally alter Khorne’s game plans. It’s still going to operate exactly as it has before, and will continue to be a tactics denying machine, just as before.

Hot Take #3: Yes the Bilepiper Change is Rough, No Nurgle is Not Dead

In case you aren’t aware, the Sloppity Bilepiper is now playing a cover of his hit single “My Love is Like a Ripe, Ripe Fart” that now gives out a -1 to hit bubble for Nurgle Daemons instead of just flat stopping pile-ins for enemy units within range of his godawful music.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, this is a SUBSTANTIAL change for everyone’s favorite intestinal bag piper, because denying pile-in’s is a ridiculously strong ability. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen 480 points of Gotrek unable to do anything because he’s locked into combat with a unit of Plaguebearers, unable to hit anything because of his 1″ short-king reach.

So changing from that to a -1 to hit bubble is a big deal, but Nurgle is still good–you don’t play the army because of the Bilepiper, but it was an important trick that you had in your backpocket. The trick is still there, but it’s been toned down to just a static debuff rather than pulling off some of the most disgusting movement blocking in the game.

Nurgle is still Nurgle and will continue to be a good army, you just have fewer game warping tricks and will instead be playing a fairer game.

Hot Take #4: Surely the updated Mega-Gargant rampage is a mistake?

Fresh off the presses is a reworked Earth-Shaking Roar monstrous action, which is now almost your stock Roar effect with the “make models flee” added bonus:

What’s weird about this one is that it specifies orders, not command abilities – I know a lot of people have skim-read this and assumed it was actually command abilities. This seems really weird – do the writers really intend for Megas to have a rampage that specifically (and only) targets Cities of Sigmar?

My gut feel is that this one has to be a mistake — that they’ve simply written orders instead of command abilities, and if that’s the case, hopefully we’ll see a quick correction. This could be a big deal for Sons, giving them two different Roars–meaning they can spread the love when they start diving in. Even better is if you’re charging a Monster with a Beast-Smasher Mega Gargant and you really need a Roar to go off–well now you get two chances! I rate Roar as the single most powerful universal ability in the game, so I’m hoping to be yelling a lot in the near future once this gets cleaned up.

Conclusion

I think this is–overall–a pretty good Battlescroll. I’m personally disappointed in GW’s inability to just flat out admit that Merciless Blizzard was a mistake, but I feel that the change we’ll be seeing in the meta is going to result in an overall healthier game moving forward. I’m hopeful this is a sign of good things to come as we lead into 4th Edition and move into a whole new world of opportunities.

Credit for cover image to Games Workshop

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