by Zak Rockman

Fuuuuuukkkkkkkiiinnnnngggg hell – What the fuck is going on in this Battlescroll? There’re some good changes, some bad changes and some completely wild changes.¹

Winners

Beasts of Chaos

Bestigor went up in points! But only 10!?!! So that list only lost like 10 of the fuckers?!?! So the meta netlist of spamming Bestigors over and over again now just kills you slightly slower?

I got the “joy” of playing Nathan Thompson’s Bestigor spam at LLGT and got bullied because he used weighted dice and distracted me with his good looks².

Additionally, a bunch of the other units in the book took some significant points drops – so maybe some people have the inspiration to but some different units in their list. Maybe. I think this is definitely a overall win for the faction (before it gets drop kicked out of the game).

I am now very intimidated by this quote from Nathan Thompson:

“I ah, I think BOC got better.” ~ Nathan Thompson, a few days ago

Blades of Khorne

See over here at Plastic Craic we have one writer that has been on a 6-month-long rant that mimics “Man shaking his fist at a cloud” over the state of Khorne in AOS4. So it feels like either the rules writing team likes to read Pat’s ramblings, or Pat has slept his way to putting Khorne at the top of the meta.

Firstly, one big change is Blood Tithe:

Allowing Blood Tithe to be used each phase means that if they have enough Tithe, they can use almost every ability other than Brass Skull Meteor and the Spelleater Curse. Basically what this means is that every phase they will be using Murderlust and occasionally also dropping meteors or automatically unbinding spells, without impacting their Murderlusting hard on. This is a great change for Khorne and should send them flying upwards in the meta.

Khorne can benefit from changes in the Regimental abilities: their small heroes as Field Sergeant can add 2 inches of movement to all their foot sloggers, which can now give Skullreapers a 16 inch movement and then charge³.

Khorne will also enjoy the ability to throw large Monsters in Regiments and give them the Prized Beast trait, and since they are all baseline 3s & 2s, a free +1 to hit is great for a Monster Mash build (especially when paired with Halo of Blood).

They got a significant amount of points drops for the army; I think Pat’s LLGT list has dropped about 100 points?? Letting Khorne grab another unit to Murderlust and generate another Blood Tithe is a huge buff while they pick and choose their combats.  It definitely feels like it’s Khorne’s time to shine and I expect them to start doing very well at events.⁴

Pat Nevan vs Myself at LLGT, moments before his defeat.

Hedonites of Slaanesh

A nice change for Slaanesh is giving the Crit 2 hits to the mount attacks, hopefully providing a touch more damage.

A spattering of points reductions across the army feels pretty good as these reductions are large enough to squeeze in another unit and provide more presence on the board.

I think the Synessa/Dexcessa pair can be pretty powerful in the right hands and them dropping about 100 points is great. Similarly, Sigvald no longer taking up a regiment when taken with Glutos might mean he sees a bit more play – unfortunately though he is still a bit expensive for his points.

Glutos and Twinsouls are still extremely strong so I wonder if the army will diverge much from there? – but I assume all Slaanesh players are feeling pretty good now.

Skaven

Bam! Lord Skreech is now a Power Two Wizard (Finally!!)

Plague Furnace and Bell getting their ranges extended feels really nice – especially the Furnace’s Corrupting Influence ability. I have played A LOT with a Warsong Revenant, with a similar 12inch -1 to ward aura, and it is extremely beneficial and just scales up the amount of damage your army outputs.

Skaven also had a huge amount of points drops, which was justified and it’s exciting to see that people might actually take something other than Ratling Guns?? Additionally, GW didn’t chicken out – a lot of the points drops are down between 20-40 points which can actually make a difference in list construction.

Some of the highlights:

• Vizzik down 50 points
• Brood Terror down 40 points
• Hellpit down 30 points

The general consensus from Skaven players is that it’s overall a good change and we would love to see what the rat community comes up with⁵.

The Middle?

Not many huge changes, but these armies are fine?

Maggotkin of Nurgle

Some menial points changes maybe letting you upgrade a chaff unit to something a bit stronger… it’s fine? Nurgle are already doing okay.

Nurgle are another army set to benefit heavily from Field Sergeant cos they hate being slow. Blight King spam in AOS4 so far hasn’t overly impressed me but maybe these changes will greatly benefit the army.

Slaves to Darkness

+10 points on Varanguard – hardly enough to force them out of the meta.

Some menial points changes on a bunch of random units that saw the table approximately 0% of the time. Maybe the additional abilities to take the small heroes in Regiments might have them see more play but Slaves players usually have the “oH i WilL jUst sPaM tHiS uNit tHAt hiTs haRD aNd BelaKOr” so I don’t think this is enough to actually see changes.

Losers

Disciples of Tzeentch

Ohhh baby some decent points hikes for the army on all of the Deamons⁶. Tzeentch have been doing stupidly good at the moment and seeing them knocked down a peg is probably a good thing⁷.

In other news – I can’t understand why the GAUNT SUMMONER ON FOOT went up 10 points in Tzeentch and not 10 points in Slaves to Darkness?? I don’t understand why this man has gone up in points? It must be due to his Crit Mortal shooting attack.

Tzeentch did get some internal balance juicing up the neglected units – so is it worth looking at the other units? (Not really). I would like to see people start taking Fate Skimmers and driving over people for 5 turns, and turning the world to fire using their Wake of Fire and Fuelling the Inferno abilities. It’s time for Dom Toretto to join the Disciples of Tzeentch.

I think this is enough of a points increase that while not nerfed into the ground, Tzeentch can still be mid tables but will not dominate the meta anymore. I’d probably start looking closely at Tzangoors.

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Overall, a pretty good outcome for most except the Blue Birds. You can still spam Bestigors and the factory-standard S2D lists will still work, plus there’s maybe a few more interesting builds that have been opened up. We might even see Pat crack a smile over his Khorne – place your bets regarding that one, and check back soon for our thoughts on the other GAs.

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1. In all fairness – I think on average, it’s a solid battle scroll which did a lot for internal balance in armies. ↩︎
2. In all seriousness Nathan’s a top player and my list was never beating his on an 8 objective mission. ↩︎
3. 5 inch base, 6 inch from Bloodstoker run and charge, 3 inch Murderlust and Field Sergeant for 2 more. ↩︎
4. Maybe Pat will get a 5-0 … probably not. ↩︎
5. Eh as long as it’s not just more Ratling Gun spam. ↩︎
6. The good ones that is. ↩︎
7. My list went up something like 150 points. ↩︎