Reviewing My Initial 10th Edition Hot Takes: Where I Went Right, and Where I Went Very, Very, Very Wrong

This is a safe space, right? You’re just going to keep what I say between you and I, right? Okay, good.

If you promise not to tell anyone this, I’ll just say it: I was extremely down on 40K when 10th Edition came out. I struggled to find motivation to play it, and thought I might stop playing the game entirely. I had a ton of thoughts about how 10th Edition were going to play. They were almost all negative.

Now that I’ve had a long time to actually play it, I’m enjoying 40K as much as I ever have. Clearly, a lot of my initial thoughts about 10th Edition turned out to be wrong.

People enjoy when they can point and laugh at someone for being wrong. They might pretend otherwise, but feeling smarter than someone else seems to be one of the most universal human pleasures. As a gift to you, I’ll give you that chance today. Let’s review my initial thoughts on 10th Edition and see how much things have changed.

In exchange for the chance to laugh at me, I have just one request: Please take a second and consider supporting the Warphammer Patreon, available here: https://www.patreon.com/Warphammer. Everyone that donates a few bucks provides more motivation to write these unique articles. As someone with serious ADHD, I need all the motivational help that you can provide.

Let’s break down some hot takes and predictions, and find out in hindsight whether they were justified or not.

Hot Take: Initially Hating the New Charge Phase/Fight Phase Rules

Accuracy: 1/10

One of the biggest mechanical changes from 9th to 10th Edition was requiring models to base their charge target when possible, and requiring Pile-Ins and Consolidations to base if possible too.

Honestly? I hated this change at first. My biggest worry was that they had removed a lot of the skill expression in Fight Phase movement.

But now that I’ve played a lot of 10th Edition, I’m ready to admit something: I was completely wrong. 10th Edition’s Charge/Fight Phase movement rules are really, really good.

It’s very tough to write a ruleset for a game like 40K that needs to achieve the goal of being fun and simple enough for casual/new players while providing enough depth to master for experienced/competitive players. The 40K ruleset basically has to be two different rulesets disguised as one. The Charge/Fight Phase movement system doesn’t nail both goals, but it comes pretty damn close.

On the surface level: The rules say move your guys as close as possible towards the target they’re charging or fighting. This makes sense, and is probably entirely what James Workshop intended the Charge and Fight Phase to be for.

But if you dig into it and are willing to put in the reps, you’ll discover there is still a massive amount of “big brain” plays possible. In fact, I think the gap between good and bad players in terms of Charge/Fight Phase mastery has grown from 9th to 10th, not shrunk.

We lost a few specific pieces of jank between editions, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. The main situation I can think of is having a multi-model unit charging a unit near an objective. In 9th, I would also trail my charging unit back to leave a few models on the objective. In 10th, there is a risk if I high roll that my unit will be pulled off the objective.

But let’s think about this situation a bit harder. Is it actually an issue that charging a unit away from an objective might pull you off of the objective? Or were people just too used to using a specific play, and are upset at having to adapt? If your only way to deal with an opposing unit is by charging it with a unit that needs to be somewhere different from the enemy unit, I think something has gone wrong with your gameplan.

Why is “charging a unit away from an objective” and “staying on that objective” a board state many players feel so entitled to?

In addition, if there is a specific board state you’re trying to set up with a charge roll, you almost always still can. You have a few options:

• Charge another unit first into the charge target to block basing points for the second unit, giving you almost complete freedom on where you place the second unit’s models.
• Charge using a unit with enough models that you can block off basing points with the first few models and then leave the rest trailed back onto the objective
• Pre-measure to see if your Consolidation can pull you back onto the objective if you kill the enemy unit before charging
• Depending on your exact charge roll, you can move block the movement of some models by moving models in the correct order
• Deal with that unit in other ways like moveblocks or shooting it or any of the other million rules in Warhammer. You have an entire rest of your army that can deal with that specific enemy unit

Basically, whenever I see someone complaining about the charge rules ruining their plans in 10th Edition? I only have one reply (which I’ll usually say much nicer):

Skill issue. And that’s something James Workshop can’t fix for you.

For example, the other day I saw a post on the WarhammerCompetitive page where someone was complaining about the new charge rules. They said that they can’t have 2 Bloodcrusher units charge a transport to get their mortal wounds on the charge, because the first unit had to base and it would block out the back unit. No one in the comments provided any solutions, they just all agreed that the charge rules were dumb.

The crazy part? This situation that person and everyone else was complaining about is easily solvable if you plan out your charges better! It is trivially easy to multi-charge with 2 Bloodcrusher units if you know what you’re doing. The trick is have the first unit base in a way that leaves a gap for the second unit to get within 1″ without basing. Bloodcrusher mortal wounds are by unit in engagement range, not models, so you still get all of your mortal wounds. See the extremely detailed diagram below to understand this:

Head GW Events Judge Justin Curtis laid down some real talk in the Warphammer discord about this topic: Basically whenever someone gets “screwed over” by the charge rules in 10th Edition, it was their own fault or entirely avoidable by better decision-making elsewhere. 10th Edition’s charge rules are one of the best parts of the game.

“But Mike, I want easy access to optimal Charge/Fight Phase jank without having to plan ahead or pre-measure anything. I can’t ExPrEsS mY sKiLl anymore!”

Don’t worry, your skill level is being very accurately expressed.

Prediction: Melee Being Dead

Accuracy: 2/10

Accuracy at the Time: 8/10

This is a prediction that aged very poorly not because it was completely wrong at the time, but because GW has been much more responsive with fixing issues in 10th Edition. I am very happy to be wrong in hindsight for that reason.

There were a few reasons I thought this, some of which have held up and of which haven’t. Let’s review them:

I thought the new Charge/Fight Phase movement rules were going to kill a lot of jank melee armies relied on

I talked about this in the section above, but I quickly realized this was wrong.

Towering Made Staging Incredibly Dangerous

Towering upon the release of 10th Edition was an absolute disaster, despite the passionate comments written by some Imperial Knights players about how if bottom floors were closed than Towering wasn’t actually a big deal.

Towering has since been very sensibly changed, and I think the current iteration makes a lot more sense.

Custodes were popular and a near impossible matchup for any melee armies

This was true, and Custodes being able to spam Fights First was one of the main reasons we got a complete re-work of the free stratagem system. This has since been mostly fixed. Custodes are still a very bad matchup for melee armies, but its not nearly as bad as it was earlier in the edition.

Melee units were way overcosted

This was unfortunately very accurate when 10th Edition launched. I remember being extremely excited for World Eaters when I first saw their rules. That enthusiasm collapsed when I saw their release points costs. Melee units were almost all way overcosted relative to the damage they actually did when they connected.

Just a reminder that Bloodletters were 160 points when 10th Edition released. You could get over 2 D-Cannons for the cost of 1 Bloodletter unit. Now, 1 D-Cannon costs more than a Bloodletter unit.

The most egregious examples have largely since been fixed. A few units like Sanguinary Guard are still stuck in points jail, but that will hopefully get fixed with time too.

Biggest One: I Completely Missed Just How Huge Removing the “You Can Only Fight Units You Charged” Restriction Would Be

As someone who had only started really playing in 9th Edition competitively, I was so used to only being able to fight units that I underestimated the impact removing that restriction would have.

Setting up situations where I can charge a nearby unit and pile-in to fight another unit is a core part of my melee gameplay these days. In addition, I’m constantly looking for plays where I can Tank Shock a unit I charged, destroy it in the Charge Phase, and then Pile-In to something behind it. I’m very glad any access to fighting twice in the same phase has almost entirely been removed from the game, because that would be gamebreakingly broken without this restriction.

The Removal of Paying Points for Wargear Options Was Largely Fine

Accuracy: 5/10

In 10th Edition, paying for wargear has mostly been removed. Many options were rolled together (much like Accursed Weapons were in 9th Edition), and various optional upgrades like Hunter Killer Missiles are all free.

In theory, I’m pretty okay with this change. In practice, it has often been implemented poorly.

There was sometimes too much granularity with differences in weapons. This made it more complicated than it needed to be for new players to build minis and start using them. It’s generally fine that Power Axes and Power Mauls got rolled into one.

I also really like that it allows you to take cool weapons on your chaff without feeling like you’re wasting points. You’re never going to pay for a special weapon on your backline objective holder, and in competitive play no one ever did. Now that the special weapons are free, go ahead and toss that power weapon on your sergeant that never sees combat. Go ahead and give one of your Cultists a Flamer and let him burn some Wyches to a crisp in overwatch once an edition. Being able to put sponsons on your tank and let it shoot harder without worrying about wasting points is a cool thing.

My issue is that there are many instances where the wargear options are still very imbalanced between each other, and there are still too many clearly “correct” builds. For example, let’s say your sergeant can choose between a Chainsword and a Power Fist. The Chainsword will have 4 attacks at WS3 at 4/-1/1. The Power Fist will have 3 attacks at WS4 at 8/-2/2. Seems like one option kills chaff well and one option kills elites well, right? Wrong! When targetting Guardsmen, the Chainsword kills 1.5 Guardsmen. The Power Fist kills 1.3 Guardsmen. The difference is negligible. When it comes to killing Space Marines, the Chainsword does 0.7 wounds. The Power Fist does 1.7 wounds. In general, the “anti-chaff” weapon options are too weak and need a bump in attack volume to be an actual choice versus the anti-elite weapons.

This seems like an idea that will be better implemented in a future edition once GW has had more time to see its impact. For now, the wargear change is fine, and I’ve neither hated it nor loved it.

And for the record, the common complaint I see of “It’s harder to build exactly 2000 point lists since I can’t fill 10 leftover points with wargear upgrades” is basically completely irrelevant. Having to have a list at exactly 2000 points is your mental hangup. I’ve done very well at competitive events with some lists that came in at 1985 points. You’ll be okay, I promise.

Underestimating the Impact of the Tank Shock and Grenade Stratagems

In theory, paying 1CP for a smattering of mortal wounds seemed like it would rarely worth it. In practice, I use these stratagems all the time. It’s gotten to the point that Tank Shock is my biggest consideration when considering different loadouts on melee vehicles, and having access to the Grenades keyword heavily boosts a unit in my mind. I literally won 2 of my games at Flying Monkey Con because of Tank Shock from my Predators.

Much like actually playing a bunch of games shifted my opinion on the Charge/Fight Phase rules, playing a bunch of games has drastically shifted my opinion on these two stratagems from niche options to mainstays.

My only issue with Tank Shock and Grenades isn’t their strength, but their very unequal accessibility between factions. A power armour list has access to Grenades on basically any unit. A Daemons or Tyranids army will have literally 0 access to Grenades. Tank Shock has a similar issue. Why can Vehicles use Tank Shock but not Monsters? Just rename it to “Brutal Charge” so things like Carnifexes gain access to it.

Why the hell does a Land Raider Redeemer have the Grenades keyword but Tyranid monsters throwing explosive biological material not have it?

I don’t think every army needs equal access to these core Stratagems, but every army should have at least some access to these important stratagems.

Prediction: The New Tactical/Fixed Mission System Was Amazing

Accuracy: 10/10

I was a huge fan of the Tactical/Fixed mission system from the first second I heard about it. I thought it was one of the best game decisions GW had made since I started playing. It makes games dynamic and lets the different strengths of different armies and playstyles shine.

Going Fixed instead of Tactical is a choice with both pros and cons. I love that there isn’t a clear answer on whether you should always take Fixed or Tactical as they’re both very viable (barring specific lists largely built with a Fixed gameplan in mind). Playing around which Tactical cards have been used up and which Tactical cards are left for both players is part of what separates great players from good players. It also makes it harder for someone to get a slight lead and “kneel out the clock”, as there are still big VP swings potentially left to both players. In 9th Edition, it was too easy to set up a board state round 1 that ensured you would glide to victory if you stopped interacting with the opponent.

I do think a few tweaks are needed. Personally, I’d like to see these changes:

• A Restriction on Taking both Cleanse and Deploy Teleport Homers as a Fixed pair
  • Being able to take this Fixed pairing and nearly max out your Secondary points without ever crossing the midfield or interacting with the opponent is silly
• Re-evaluating which Tactical Secondaries are re-shuffled if drawn turn 1
  • Storm Hostile Objective can’t be drawn turn 1, but Capture Enemy Outpost can’t. I’d like to see more consistency.
• Assassinate and Bring It Down being brought into alignment on whether they’re scored if the opponent has 0 models of that type left
  • Assassinate automatically gives you 5 points when drawn as a Tactical objective if all of the opponent’s Characters are dead, but you score 0 on Bring It Down if they have 0 Monsters/Vehicles left by that point. I don’t mind how they fix it, but I think both should have the same wording.

On the whole though, my gripes with the scoring system are minor. It’s a very fun and dynamic system, and one that I hope is tweaked from season to season rather than ever thrown out.

Hot Take: It Was Absolute Bullshit That Many Iconic Units Were Sent to Legends

Accuracy at the Time: 10/10

Accuracy Now: 11/10 and still going up

I know some people in the comments somewhere are going to call me a “shill” for being so positive about 10th Edition so far, so let’s make a hard pivot and go into one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen GW make: Sending basically every Chaos unit that wasn’t available in plastic (and even many that were) to Legends.

Seriously, what the hell?

Why did dozens of iconic and interesting Chaos (and other faction) units get effectively removed from the game in 10th Edition?

Leviathan Dreadnoughts? Contemptors? Decimators? Talonmasters? Fire Raptors? All sorts of cool Land Raider variants? So many awesome and fluffy Chaos units cut down in the Legends purge. This is one of those things that I’ll forget about for months, and then randomly remember happened, and get annoyed.

I had not one, but two Hell Talons. They were probably going to be unplayably awful given how 10th Edition has treated Aircraft, but still!

I’m also still baffled at the unequal treatment between factions. Why did CSM have their roster completely gutted by Legends while Guard still have endless piles of very similar FW units? Just to make it clear, I do not want Guard (or any other army) to lose more options to Legends to make things “equal”. I want everyone of every faction to be able to use their 40K minis they’ve hobbied on.

It is insanely greedy that they sold 40K players plastic Kratos kits in 9th Edition and then immediately sent them to Legends. Buying new units for the strength of their rules is silly, but you should be able to expect that your new models will have rules you’re allowed to use!

Don’t feel bad about getting your minis 3D-printed by a friend. These days, your minis come with a shelf life for usage in 40K anyway. It’ll be a lot less painful when your cheap 3D-printed minis get purged by GW than when your expensive plastic models get purged by GW.

Unrelated note: What the hell are The Purge up to these days? Anyone have any recent lore about these guys? I love the idea for that warband and hope we hear more about them. Some lore master out there, please fill me on them.

Prediction: Aircraft Were Dead

Accuracy: 6/10

My main issue with Aircraft in 10th Edition isn’t that they’re dead, but that they aren’t dead enough. GW has tried to make Aircraft a balanced and fun unit for both opponents for a long time. I’ve never seen them actually succeed. It’s time to admit GW has no idea what to do with Aircraft in a 40K scale game. Admitting you have an issue is the first step towards getting help.

The double Stormraven list popularized by my good friend Kit is an abomination. I kept quiet about it at first to keep his tech on the down low and let him win a few events with it first, but now that cat is out of the bag. Everyone paying attention to competitive 40K has seen this list just annihilate people with devastatingly mobile and powerful shooting. I would much rather Aircraft have been removed from competitive play than the hundreds of units that are on a similar scale to other 40K units but had committed the crime of being available in resin.

And for the record, I’m not worried about Kit once Stormravens get destroyed. He’s one of the sharpest players on the planet and will quickly discover some new powerful lists to outplay opponents and win GT’s with. My worry is for all the bad Marine players that are going to rush out to copy the list, go 3-2 after being stuck at 1-4 previously since they were hard carried by the strength of this list, and then will be stuck with 2 useless Stormravens after this list is nuked to the ground by the heavy hand of James Workshop and go back to going 1-4. Be gentle, James. Be gentle.

Hot Take: Indirect Was Busted

Accuracy at the Time: 9/10

Accuracy: 7/10

The 9th Edition solution to Indirect Fire in terms of both rules and points costs was basically perfect. GW had actually learned their lesson, and we had turned the corner on what was potentially a broken mechanic if left unchecked. For some reason, we went backwards when 10th Edition came out.

To GW’s credit, they’ve been more responsive with changes in 10th Edition, and it seems they quickly remembered why they had made those Indirect Fire changes in 9th Edition. After several rounds of points nerfs that were basically “anything with Indirect Fire goes up 10-20%”, Indirect Fire is in a pretty healthy place. Manticores went up 30 points and are still one of the best units in the game, Exorcists are incredibly powerful, and D-Cannons still dominate the midboard like few other things. But on the whole, Indirect Fire is a relatively balanced choice.

My issue with Indirect Fire is GW seems to think of as something that’s sprinkled on top of an army, with little consideration for “What happens if someone brings lots of artillery pieces and goes first?”. An army like Thousand Sons going second against an optimal Guard list is basically an unwinnable game. But “GW clearly never considered what would happen if this mechanic or unit was spammed” is an issue I’ve seen happen often, so I can’t say Indirect Fire is unique in that way.

My only worry is that when 11th Edition comes out, GW will forget everything they’ve learned about Indirect Fire again. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Final Thoughts

I wasn’t a big fan of 10th Edition initially. I had a lot of issues with the changes that were made. Sometimes, I still do.

But on the whole? I’m having such a great time playing 10th, and keep getting better at it the more I play. Now let’s just get some more codices to add some more variety to armies, because every Chaos army being stuck in Indexhammer is getting a bit stale.

Let me know any big changes that I’ve missed! I’d love to hear your thoughts on a lot of the game’s mechanics, in the comments here or elsewhere. And if you want to tell me directly what an unbelievable idiot I am for admitting I was wrong about some of these changes, jump into the Warphammer discord today! https://discord.gg/RnbundjS

And as always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls!