Warhammer 40,000 July Update – what you need to know!

The new edition of Warhammer 40,000 has now been out for one month!

As promised, the Warhammer Studio Rules Team have been monitoring the rollout of the new rules, and across the first three months of the edition will be looking to step in monthly to address any common queries and adjust anything that is not working quite as it’s meant to.

The first of those updates goes live today with a selection of clarifications and a few rules tweaks.

If you want to dive straight in and read the update yourself, you can find it all on the Downloads section of this site, and the changes will be made available in Warhammer 40,000: The App over the next few hours.

Want a brief summary of the big stuff, and what it means for you? Read on…

What’s New?

Purging and Disrupting

Detachments and Force Dispositions are a huge part of the new edition, and there has rightly been great discussion about which combination of detachments, units and disposition is the way to go for each faction.

So far, the event win rates between dispositions are remarkably balanced, though we have seen a slight leaning towards Purge the Foe, thought by many to be the most efficient. It’s certainly been the most taken. We want to make sure that players feel that ALL the dispositions are viable choices, so there are a few amends to Purge the Foe.

One thing you’ll now see is that all Purge the Foe mission maps now have six objectives rather than five. This makes things a little easier for the Purge player’s opponent, who is generally trying to capture these objectives, or perform actions on them. It also means that, as the central objective is now split in half, it is considerably harder to position something like a Titanic Knight or Defiler in such a way that it has an easy view across the whole battlefield, and unfettered access to obliterate anything it likes.

Several Purge the Foe detachments have also had their DP increased, and several detachments have been reassigned to other dispositions. This means that if you really do want a Purge the Foe army, you will generally need to commit to that theme as your main force.
There have also been point tweaks to a few overperforming units common to Purge the Foe armies – notably mobile, high-output gun platforms, as these have been quite dominant in early games. On the other end of the spectrum, many dedicated transports see a small decrease in points with this update, so if you’ve gone for a mobile infantry force, you can now squeeze a few more things into the list.

Conversely, several map layouts for Disruption, which has a couple of tougher match-ups, have been amended to make it a little easier for the Disruption player. Disruption is currently only marginally down in performance vs the other dispositions, and certainly some players are doing very well with it, so we’re continuing to watch it particularly closely rather than make any radical changes at this point.

And Stay Down!

Elsewhere there have been a series of amendments to specific rules interactions.

Characters and healing in units has been changed. A slain character that is able to revive now returns on its own, as a unit of one, rather than returning as part of their unit. This puts the reins on the much-feared “Unkillable Super Death Block™” of Necron Warriors that have been roaming about the last few weeks. Now, at least, you have a counterplay – wipe out the unit AND the character and at least only one model returns. Healing still remains a powerful ability, but not quite the game-breaking gotcha it was threatening to be in some combinations.

Here are a few other changes to be aware of:

We’ve clarified that yes, you can only generate a single extra CP per battle round.

Dedicated transports like Rhinos, Devilfish and Chimeras now, as in the previous edition, must start the game with a unit embarked within them.

Units can now only use a single normal move per phase. This stops units that have access to multiple reactive moves through overlapping stratagems and datasheets from scooting across the table in counterintuitive ways. It also stops units that have moved from reacting to another unit’s reactive move triggered by their own move…

Stackable debuffs have been removed in a bunch of places. Generally, you’ll find you’re limited to -1BS, rather than -1BS AND -1 to hit rolls, for example. Some units affected by this have had their points amended downwards in line with this change. However, some intentional exceptions remain such as the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim

Several units that didn’t have the Frame keyword, but have quite small bases, now gain the Frame keyword – stuff like Aeldari vehicles and Necron Arks. Some smaller units have had Frame removed, like Screamers, who will now measure distances from their base, like most other comparable units.

We’ve clarified which rules specifically allow first turn deep strike and which don’t. Previously, you had to read around the rules to work it out, so we’ve just made it really clear now to avoid any confusion.

Those are the highlights. There are more changes in there, many clarifying more obscure interactions. Read the full updates for yourself in our Downloads section:

There are also some major updates to the Combat Patrol rules in the Warhammer 40,000 app, including full mission support in War Journal, meaning you can now track and score your Combat Patrol games digitally.

A Final Note

We hope you’re enjoying the new edition of Warhammer 40,000. Our studio rules team will continue to monitor all the data coming in about games of the new edition, sifting through the numbers and looking for trends so they can make your games better and more balanced. 

They’ll also be in attendance at several large Warhammer tournaments in the coming weeks. Our team has just returned from the Warhammer Open in Tacoma, Washington, USA, and will soon be on their way to the Warhammer Opens in Newport, UK, and Krakow, Poland to speak to players about their experiences of the edition so far.

You can expect another rules update in around a month’s time before the first regular quarterly balance datasheet will drop in the autumn. After that, we’ll fall back into the usual cadence of quarterly balance updates.

Happy gaming!