The 7/22/2026 Dataslate
I'm going to lead with changes to the Ravenwing, because I was playing a Ravenwing list for a year before it became fashionable, and there's a lot of excitement about them at this moment early in 11th edition. For starters, Sammael has unambiguously been buffed. He's 10 points cheaper and grants his unit the Mobile keyword, which allows his attached unit to go through walls. This is huge, as that's one ability that has been severely lacking in the Company of Hunters, and finally gives us a solid reason to include him in that detachment, especially if we're pairing it with Darkflight Pursuit so he can also grant his squad Ignores Cover. If you haven't looked at Sammy in a while, now's the time.
The Ravenwing Command Squad has also caught buffs. Specifically, it's also 10 points cheaper, and it's had its Leader keyword swapped out for Support. This does remove the ability to just field it solo, which I've considered doing because it was a solid unit on its own merits, but realistically I never did that and I doubt many people are going to miss the option. The RWCS being a Support leader means we can now attach other characters to a unit with a RWCS attached, which I've been dying to do ever since the squad debuted. I can finally have my Sammy+RWCS+6 Ravenwing Knights brick!
The Dark Talon got new rules for its Stasis Bomb that make it actually function in 11th edition. It now does Mortal Wounds and imposes Movement penalties on a target unit within 24". Interestingly, it doesn't seem to have any once-per-game restrictions anywhere. I checked the updated faction pack and the app. Is this a deliberate buff or an oversight? If we really can use the Stasis Bomb every turn, the Dark Talon may be worth its 200 points.
The Nephilim Jetfighter both took a 15 point drop in points (was it really 195 points before?) and had its Lightning-fast Manoeuvres ability buffed to impose -1 To Wound rolls against all ranged attacks. I remember that being only against ranged attacks from units with Fly before.
It's not all good news. Land Speeders Vengeance, Land Speeders, and for some random reason Storm Speeder Hammerstrikes all went up by 10 points each, though the third Land Speeder didn't seem to catch the unit-spam tax. I suppose that's fair play on the Vengeance and Land Speeders, though I'm a little puzzled about the Hammerstrikes, as I haven't seen Hammerstrike spam causing problems.
There have been some changes to the Company of Hunters rule. The detachment rule was just reworded in the 11th edition fashion but is functionally identical. The more interesting changes have been to two of the stratagems. Death on the Wind has been changed from the marginal Battle-shock effect to allowing a non-Ravenwing unit to declare a charge after an Advance move. I've got mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it will be great for my Inner Circles Companion unit in my current list, because it will extend their threat range considerably. On the other hand, I would have liked a stratagem that benefits Ravenwing units in the Ravenwing-coded detachment.
The other stratagem that was changed is Talon Strike. Gone is the +1 To Wound an Infantry Character or Mounted Character unit usable in either the Shooting phase or the Fight phase. Now, it grants a friendly Adeptus Astartes unit Lance. I'll be honest, I don't like this change. It does very little for the signature Ravenwing Mounted unit (Black Knights), since they were already getting Anti Big Thing 4+ on the charge and don't really have the weight of attacks or damage per attack to make putting them into tough multi-wound Infantry a good idea. I used Talon Strike in the Shooting phase quite frequently and I'm going to miss being able to get +1 to Wound with it.
On the other hand, this change helps Outriders a fair bit, and now that we can attach both a Ravenwing Command Squad and Sammael or a bike Chaplain to an Outrider squad, there's a solid reason to base a game plan around this stratagem. It also isn't keyworded to Mounted units, so once again it can benefit that supporting unit of Inner Circle Companions. It's also played in the Fight phase, so you can decide which unit to use it on after you've made all your charge moves.
In my opinion, the net effect of these changes has been to make the Company of Hunters less shooty and more punchy. I think it gained more in the punchy than it lost in the shooty, but I feel like whoever made these changes didn't really understand what the Company of Hunters was intended to do. That said I'm not rage-quitting the CoH or anything. I added Sammael to my current list, and then banged out a CoH+Interrogation Conclave list for funsies, though that will require me to buy or scratch-build up a second bike Chaplain.
Outside of Ravenwing, Inner Circle Companions caught a nerf so their Braziers of Judgment ability no longer stacks with Cover (boo!), but on the other hand a 6-man unit is now 10 points less.
Lion Dad got the Mobile keyword and his Forestwalk (aka Mist-wreathed Shadow Realms) ability was reworded so it can allow an Ingress move in the 1st turn like it did before, so basically his mobility functions exactly like it did at the end of 10th edition. He also got 20 points cheaper, so he's only 5 points more than that third Deathwing Knights squad.
Speaking of Deathwing Knights, now they only catch the spam tax if you take a full three units, so your second unit is now down 20 points.
The Shroud of Heroes from the Unforgiven Task Force has been reworded so when the character with it gets back up, he's not part of a unit anymore.
There have been points changes to various units from Codex: Space Marines. I'm just going to touch one the ones I think are most relevant to us. Heavy bolter Eradicators went up 10 points (fair). Inceptors went up 5 points for a 3-model unit. Librarians are up 10 points. Sternguard are up 10 points for a 10-man squad, to 200 points. I'm not shocked. The Combi-Lieutenant is up another 10 points, to 95 points. Jeez, I'm so glad Games Workshop is being so proactive about fighting Combi-Lieutenant spam (#sarcasm). Both Fusillade and Temporal Corridor from the Librarius Conclave went up to 25 points. Not shocking.
There's been some reassignments of detachment dispositions. I don't have the old ones saved anywhere, so I'm just going from memory, but I seem to remember Interrogation Conclave having the Purge dispo, and now it's Take & Hold. Ironstorm also got changed to Take & Hold, and Firestorm got changed to Priority Assets (WTF?). Now our only access to Purge is the excretable 1st Company Task Force, and the Lion's Blade Task Force. There is an interesting build to be had with the Lion's Blade and the Librarius Conclave, so that might be worth looking at now.
That, honored brethren, is what I have for you. We took a bit of a shakeup, but overall I don't think we suffered too badly. It gives us some reasons to take a look at things we weren't looking at before, which is never a bad thing. Enjoy the refresh to the list scheming phase of the game, and good luck in your future games. For the Lion!
Comments
Post a Comment