With the absurdity that has been 9th Edition, Games Workshop had decided to introduce something they like to call the Balance Dataslate. A quarterly update of rules and patches designed to balance the game. This sounds great on the surface, but in the end, did it really even matter?
As 9th draws to a close, we’ve seen our fair share of dataslates come and go. We’ve seen Talos/Cronos lose core, only to get it back with about 30-60 days left in 9th. We’ve seen Necrons get patched into one of the most passive non-interactive armies we’ve seen in an edition that also rewards Sisters and Guard players for not really interacting. We’ve also seen aircraft get effectively nerfed out of the game, as well as Tau receive nerf after nerf, and still stay insanely strong in the damage-dealing department.
Custodes were nerfed, only to be un-nerfed, only to be re-nerfed.
In fact, if you count Armour of Contempt, the two armies that have been meddled with the least appear to be GSC, and Orks. Orks got hit hard early, (The aircraft nerf alone was enough to cripple a generally shit codex that had 1-2 stand-out units), only to be effectively pushed back into mediocrity with the dataslate that updated their waagh. And I genuinely have no clue if GSC has even been touched. Not that they need it. Its a high-skill army, and if you can win with them, you deserve it.
While I appreciate what GW is trying to do with the constant updates and tinkering, it feels poorly implemented. Especially in what feels like a truncated edition. The short lifespan of 9th, at 3 years, coupled with quarterly updates and constant meddling with army rules, meant that we never really had any kind of stability within the edition. Which is what I think players really wanted. By the time 10th was confirmed, players seemed to be suffering from a sort of rule-fatigue. Constantly aware of the cycle that GW seems to be continuing to push. Release a codex. Nerf a Codex. Rinse. Repeat.
January of 2022 saw the release of Custodes, which was followed by Tau, Craftworlds, then Nids, then CSM/Daemons. Of all of these, Chaos Marines seemed to be the most balanced on release, and really, out of all of them have been touched the least.
This is all really just a long-winded way of saying “hey. I appreciate the effort, but what I’d really like…” And what I would really like. Is for codex creep to actually be minimized before launch, not after. If you are going to continue to trickle codices out like its still the 90s, and the internet isn’t really a thing, then the least you could do is actually test them and try to balance them before hand. The dataslate wouldn’t need quarterly updates if your rules team actually spoke with each other and didn’t work within a vacuum.
9th showed me so much. It showed me some of the best GW can do. Listening to player feedback, and showing that they can at least attempt to fix their mistakes, but unfortunately it also showed me some of the worst. An edition that had books like Nids, which dealt unparalleled amounts of mortal wounds, while still being a very strong every phase army. Indeed, that book has seen constant nerfs and continues to play well/strong. This book came out in the same edition that the Necrons codex came out in, a book that had less than five total “core” units in it at launch, while its launch partner, Marines, had around 5 units that DIDN’T have Core. Absurd.
So in 10th. Please go back to a 5ish year life-cycle. If you’re going to trickle release codices, take your time to get them right. Trust me. If you balance your books, and write them well, you will still sell models/books. You don’t need to power-creep your books. And you DON’T need to write rules reactively if you promote communication within your rules team. Thank you.
Chris