By Zak Rockman

Considering all the changes … Order was arguably hit the least? A lot of the Order Wanker armies have been doing well and yet it feels like not many of them got hit over the head with a chair (like they deserve).

Winners

Cities of Sigmar

A big change up for Cities – finally getting a bunch of points drops, mostly to all of the useless shit!

Executioners and Hammerers went up 10 points – which is fair, Executioners doing 20~ MW on the charge was pretty nuts while Hammerers that stood there and grinded extremely well was very solid and annoying for people to deal with.

However, a few units are now at a point where they might be playable because they are cheap enough. The points drops are enough that if you were actually using these units ¹ you could fit an extra couple dudes or reinforce something, which is nice.

Most importantly Cities benefit the most from the changes to adding the Sergeants to Regiments, to hand out extra orders. They also have a range of footsloggers who benefit significantly from the +2″ move in the new season rules.

The highlights are:

Galen Van Denst – the Wish.com version of Callis and Toll went down 40 points. Since this hero has another hero in their regiment, they qualify for the +2″ move bonus, and at 170 points that’s probably worth it? Some “whatever” combat and shooting that hates wizards isn’t really what you want from these two, but getting a lot of use from the extra orders and the +2 move on infantry certainly is.

Pontifex Zenestra at 200 points – maybe… just maybe she is okay? I haven’t play tested her or seen any lists with her. I think other than the prayer of Oath and Steel giving -1 to wound or a potential +1 to save, the rest of the prayers are pretty arse. Her warscroll prayer is okay and with the rest of the humans going down in points she might be worth dusting off and putting on the table.

Tahlia Vedra – didn’t change in points, just had a change to one of her abilities, giving her a once per game ability to dish out +1 to wound and a 5+ Ward to 3 units. This is a pretty decent ability when used on the Go turn. She also covers her cost by being able to issue an order twice to a different unit as Cities of Sigmar rely on a heavy hero tax to be able to play the game.

Steam Tank Commander, or more commonly known as MR. TANK! Went down 30 points.

Shoutout to Tom, who I completely ripped this off, who might in turn have ripped it off someone else, but eh whaddya do?

12 wounds with a 2+ save and the heroic trait Grizzled Veteran allowing him to only be wounded on 4+s, plus the artefact Glimmering allowing you to reroll a hit wound or save each phase…he can be kind of annoying for an opponent to deal with ².

Issuing the Strike Last/5+ ward order with a 2+ save and the buffs mentioned above, if an army doesn’t have some decent mortal damage output, they just can’t kill him easily. Additionally, with 9 attacks at damage two, he can hilariously do okay in combat. Now the rest of the tanks are absolute garbage, and I wouldn’t bother with those.

The Ogor Fusil Major I think has some great play if paired with enough humans, just target a dude and give everyone else +1 to hit, which rolls over to combat! Yes sir.

Other units have some okay point drops. The highlight would be the cannon going down 20 points, and paired with an Ogor it can output some solid damage. I’ve had a few games with 3 cannons and all I want to do is add more cannons.  

Seraphon

Oh fuck…. Kroak is back

The return of the fat frog in the chair is imminent and fucking no one ³ is happy about it. His spell has changed basically going back to his old ways of 18 inch 3 sets of 3d3 MW per hero phase. Knocking off key support heroes and being an all-around prick. I expect to see a lot more Kroak on the table.

Getting +2″ move on infantry means that with the Asterism, movement 9 Kroxigor plus run and charge is pretty hilarious. Kroxies really love half red / half blue missions where they can ignore a point of rend to stick around a lot longer and just grind it out.

With most of the army going down in points (including a bunch of Monsters), and only the Starseer and Bolas going up 10 points, Seraphon players are probably feeling pretty good.

I still think you will see Kroxigor and Bolas hit the table a lot, but now maybe Seraphon players will step away from adding in Callis and Toll, and that whole very copy-paste build.

Stormcast Eternals

“How the fuck, right, have Stormcast gotten away with murder?” – Jordan Rees (Australian Worlds Captain for 2025)

Basically no changes to the army, only seeing Palladors and Longstrikes go up 20 points each with everything else going down.

Stormcast remains one of the strongest armies in the game and I don’t think these point changes are enough to see a major win-rate drop for the army.

Stormdrake Guard going down 10 points and getting access to Prized Beast feels stupidly good on units of 4, and I definitely expect them to get heavy rotation on the tabletop. Quality of life is sky high for these Dragons, increasing their output while saving CPs from All out Attack to be ploughed into All out Defence (or rerolling the inevitable snake eyes charge).

I think the biggest plus is that people might have to put a little bit more thought into their army rather than just always auto-including 6 Longstrikes, which just nuke God models off the board ⁴.

Overall some of the more oppressive Stormcast units (such as Palladors with Javelins) should see a lot less spam. However it does feel like the poster boys apparently always need to be strong so the noobs can get some free wins.

Stormcast did get hit with a bit of a nerf – not being able to charge in Karazai and inflict -1 attacks to everything – but overall they are still in a very good spot.

Middle of the Roaders

These are the closest thing to losers in Order; they didn’t really get anything, but didn’t lose much either, so they can’t really complain. (Watch them).

Daughters of Khaine

Had some point drops, do I think its enough to make them good? …. No, but a change in the right direction, and no DoK players can be too sad about it.

Fyreslayers

Also had some points drops, but it’s pretty menial and hasn’t changed enough, so they are still a crap army.

They do benefit from the +2 move and having an extra unit or two isn’t horrible.  They just suck and probably will until they get a new book.

Idoneth Deepkin

Didn’t have huge changes to the army. They are doing kinda fine, relying on Aspect of the Storm with the Armour of Cythai and Ancient Pride making an Aspect super annoying for an opponent. Eels are still decent, turtles are good and the whole army strikes first on turn 3.

It’s a pretty annoying army to deal with and is sitting in a decent spot.

They had some minor points drops – but I don’t think it overly changes the army outside of spamming Thralls, which ends up at such a ridiculous number of Thralls you want to eat the barrel of a gun.

IDK players just keep swimming and doing your thing, and you’ll be fine.

IDK players version of “Live, Laugh, Love”

Kharadron Overlords

Had some more points drops!

I have seen people talking about KO becoming okay now, but that no one really wants them to be as the game is more fun when they aren’t a part of it.

I think the playstyle of KO has dramatically changed and it’s no longer just spam Thunderers and see how much “fun” they blast out as an opponent gets deleted off the board.

KO have regained their -1 to hit for all shooting and combat while they hide in their boats … great.

Lumineth Realm-Lords

Teclis went up!

Sentinels went up!

Other shit went down.

Is it enough for people to stop tacking Teclis and Senntinels?… Probably not!

Is that still an obnoxious way to play the game?… Yes

I really like so much of the rest of Lumineth, but this is just the same shit you always see, and it gets fucking exhausting when you’re facing Teclis and Sentinels for the 16^th time

so please LRL players, get creative and use the rest of the book⁵!

Sylvaneth

Sylvaneth had pretty minimal changes. One of the few factions that are ineligible to qualify for the Field Sergeant role as they have no non-flying infantry heroes that can be taken as a sub commander. It’s pretty rubbish that the Kurnoth and Spite Revenants don’t get to join in the fun, but it is what it is.

Another big points drop for the Treelord Ancient and Treelords – maybe you can spam them now?  No one knows.

I don’t think this switch-up changes Sylvaneth too much. Allarielle is still good, Belthanos is still a very solid screen at 350 points and they are just overall still annoying for people to deal with⁶.

I think Sylvaneth are sitting pretty solid atm, and as a Trees player myself I can’t complain too much. Being greedy I would like to see warscroll reworks for some of the units that are absolute garbage, such as Drycha, but I can’t complain too much … but I know someone who will.

Pat Nevan (Khorne) vs Myself (Sylvaneth) at LLGT. Pat pictured moments before grumbling about how unfair Sylvaneth are.

---

1. Which no one was ↩︎
2. This also makes his 1 attack money shot more reliable ↩︎
3. Other than Seraphon players ↩︎
4. Don’t get me started that these twats with sniper rifles and stands can run/retreat and shoot ↩︎
5. You probably won’t ….. dogs ↩︎
6. The amount of games I have won where there were only 1-2 models on the table is insane. ↩︎

If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!