Balance Dataslate - June 2025

[Karhedron]

For all the complaints, GW are not actually doing a bad job at balancing the game. If you look at the faction winrate data from tournements, only Imperial Knights and Death Guard are over 55% and only Tau, Dark Angels, Black Templars and Imperial Agents are below 45%. So of the 32 factions available, 26 of them are within GW's target 45-55% winrate which is surprisingly good good going IMHO.

 

https://www.stat-check.com/the-meta

 

Dark Angels recently got a new Detachment which won't be in the data yet. Death Guard were strong at launch so expect a few targeted tweaks. Imperial Knights are getting a new codex in the next month or so. Imperial Agents are mostly run in support of other factions. Just Black Templars and Tau are really struggling at the moment.

 

Of course this only addresses the most powerful builds from each faction which tend to turn up at tournaments. There are definite balance issues within some factions (such as Knights of both flavours spamming Armigers/Wardogs). 

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, Antarius said:

I'm no fan of the current model of patching either, but I think it's mostly that it's actually hard (if not impossible) to balance a game with that amount of possible interactions. 

 

Most people get this, which is part of why folks were excited for the whole "simplified but not simple" thing. Streamlined rules were going to make the task of balancing less insurmountable, in theory.

 

Anyway, if people feel like using these balance patches is a net positive to their hobby and free time, then more power to them.

[Darwhine]

18 hours ago, Karhedron said:

For all the complaints, GW are not actually doing a bad job at balancing the game. If you look at the faction winrate data from tournements, only Imperial Knights and Death Guard are over 55% and only Tau, Dark Angels, Black Templars and Imperial Agents are below 45%.

How can anyone believe that GW is doing a good job balancing when Imperial Agents don't even have army rules, are at the bottom of the rankings, and have done nothing to improve them for two data slates already?

And when I say nothing, I really mean nothing: not even a drop in points for some units!

Their Christmas detachment is a scandal: it makes the army even weaker than it is originally (which is unheard of in practically any codex).

 

This is typically the case that makes me think that GW's balancing is geared towards marketing reasons.

 

Just look at the power of the latest codexes: how many are top tier?

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Darwhine said:

How can anyone believe that GW is doing a good job balancing when Imperial Agents don't even have army rules, are at the bottom of the rankings, and have done nothing to improve them for two data slates already?

 

Probably because GW recognise that IAs are rarely fielded as an army and are mostly used to add allied units to other armies. If you look at the units they can pull in, most of the mainline ones have their own army books (Grey Knights and Sisters) or are a variant of Marines (Deathwatch).

[irlLordy]

Imperial Agents is such a frustrating example.  The general concensus is "Oh they don't need to be balanced, they're just supposed to be used as allies." But the codex is priced as being a full codex, not a supplement, and GW have never to my knoweldge actually come out and said that.

 

New players aren't going to "know" that Agents aren't supposed to be a real faction (assuming that is GWs intent) and it is a real feels bad for anyone who picks it up and expects the same level of rules support as any other codex on the shelf. I dont understand how they've gone so long without even a basic army rule for them.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 08:32 AM by irlLordy

[chapter master 454]

I think Imperial Agents was purely just to get something out for all those really odd ball units that don't fit anywhere else.

 

I do agree it should of been a supplement or something and been cheaper but ultimately I don't think any half decent store will let a new player pick Imperial Agents as their first, nor are new ones likely to anyway especially with how other factions are pushed.

 

They are an exception, not a rule. They should of been a supplement yes but oh well.

[ZeroWolf]

42 minutes ago, chapter master 454 said:

I think Imperial Agents was purely just to get something out for all those really odd ball units that don't fit anywhere else.

 

I do agree it should of been a supplement or something and been cheaper but ultimately I don't think any half decent store will let a new player pick Imperial Agents as their first, nor are new ones likely to anyway especially with how other factions are pushed.

 

They are an exception, not a rule. They should of been a supplement yes but oh well.

Problem would have been, who would they have been supplement to? As they'd have to be used in conjunction with at least 2-3 other codecies.

[Mana]

Imperial Agents is a faction with a released codex by GW, they should get full support from GW, but actually get ZERO support, there has been multiple balance dataslates without touching the faction. If a faction gets a codex I expect it to be supported long term, like all the other factions that get codexes.

 

When GW presented the faction in warcom they said the point to the faction is to use it stand alone and as allies, they said both, they got a full faction codex, no, they aren't meant to just be the allied faction, they are also meant to be a full faction.

 

Also using winrates of Imperial Agents as an argument for anything is laughable, when the faction doesn't get played at all, for example look at most weekends of metamonday data, there are like 2-3 IA players at most, the data you get from that is not reliable. Maybe if the faction were getting proper support more people would play it.

 

I myself am painting an Imperial Agents army, love my arbites boys, my hope is since GW said all factions with a released codex will get new detachments, IA will be thrown some crumbs before the edition ends.

[Maritn]

On 6/10/2025 at 6:00 PM, Karhedron said:

It sounds as reasonable request on the face of it but I have worked in software for 25 years and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of releases that have been right first time. And that is for a single product with just one set of requirements. Now imagine 15+ (or however many factions there are now), each needing to be balanced against each other and each with half-a-dozen detachments. There are probably getting on for 100 different detachments in the game. They are never going to get it right first time, especially if people want codex releases faster at the start of the edition.

 

Yes, it is not easy to get it perfectly right. But the 40k codices to me don't seem like software where they put in the effort to design a clean architecture, write unit tests for all the classes and implemented everything in a clean way without all these code smells, using either pair / mob programming or doing proper (I mean like PROPER) code reviews, but more like software developed without a software architect, where every developer just committed the first code that compiled and generally got the software to run, without writing unit tests and then adding one person to a code review that just glanced over the code and approved with a "looks good to me", outsourcing QA to the customer.  I mean come on, they didn't even manage to get the keywords right in the Astra Militarum codex. That's not hard to get right. 

 

Also, it's not like this is the first release of a brand new software, but rather version 10.x of a 30 year old software. 

 

To be honest, after writing this, GW & 40k seem more and more like Microsoft & Windows to me. 

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, irlLordy said:

Imperial Agents is such a frustrating example.  The general concensus is "Oh they don't need to be balanced, they're just supposed to be used as allies." But the codex is priced as being a full codex, not a supplement, and GW have never to my knoweldge actually come out and said that.

 

New players aren't going to "know" that Agents aren't supposed to be a real faction (assuming that is GWs intent) and it is a real feels bad for anyone who picks it up and expects the same level of rules support as any other codex on the shelf. I dont understand how they've gone so long without even a basic army rule for them.

 

 

Imperial Agents have never BEEN a real army since the inception of the random datasheets and codex since 6th/7th. 

 

While I agree an actual army rule would be neato, they don't necessarily need one. 

[DemonGSides]

It's a codex that should really just be a supplement and not be trying to be a whole army.  Then it would not only make sense, but people might even buy it just to have, as $60 for what it presents is laughable.

 

That being said, any small amount of research into the army would show anyone curious that it's a bad investment for an army.  Older fans should be used to the dog and pony show at this point.

[irlLordy]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

Imperial Agents have never BEEN a real army since the inception of the random datasheets and codex since 6th/7th. 

 

While I agree an actual army rule would be neato, they don't necessarily need one. 

 

If they're selling a codex at full price, that codex should have the same support and balance passes as any other codex. That shouldn't be up for debate, and saying that they're not a "real army" isn't an excuse for not doing so. GW decided they had enough datasheets to make up a codex and sell it to people, even coming up with seperate unit points when using them as allies, so clearly they are supposed to be their own thing.

 

Not that GW have actually come out and said that is their reason mind, instead they are keeping radio silence on why Imperial Agents aren't being touched in the Balance updates when every other codex is. Again very frustrating.

 

 

[HeadlessCross]

1 hour ago, irlLordy said:

 

If they're selling a codex at full price,

We can stop there, because I'm already of the mind that full codices are too expensive as is, and they need to switch to a digital method to save cost. 

[ZeroWolf]

2 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

It's a codex that should really just be a supplement and not be trying to be a whole army.  Then it would not only make sense, but people might even buy it just to have, as $60 for what it presents is laughable.

 

That being said, any small amount of research into the army would show anyone curious that it's a bad investment for an army.  Older fans should be used to the dog and pony show at this point.

Given how GW handle supplements these days, IA wouldn't have worked as you'd need several codexes in hand. They needed a third type (that could be then used for other armies like lost and the dammed and some fun other xenos that aren't fleshed out enough for a full army.)

[01RTB01]

44 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

We can stop there, because I'm already of the mind that full codices are too expensive as is, and they need to switch to a digital method to save cost. 

Nope. There are plenty of people that like having physical books. Just because you have a view, doesn't mean it represents the majority.

 

Although aspects of Imperial Agents, they were indeed proper armies as both daemon hunters and witch hunters have been proper armies, unlike your assertion of never. Hence they did have their own codexes around 5th/6th edition.

[jaxom]

15 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

around 5th/6th edition.

Hell, Daemonhunters was 3rd edition. My opinion is GW doesn't know what to do with Imperial Agents at the moment. I think they had an idea for what they wanted, but the community feedback post-release was such that they can't decide if they want to change how army works to match how the community perceives (or wants) it to work.

[Blindhamster]

2 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

Nope. There are plenty of people that like having physical books. Just because you have a view, doesn't mean it represents the majority.

 

Although aspects of Imperial Agents, they were indeed proper armies as both daemon hunters and witch hunters have been proper armies, unlike your assertion of never. Hence they did have their own codexes around 5th/6th edition.

yes but most of what made those (militant arms) are their own things now.

deathwatch 

grey knights

sisters of battle

 

got made militant orders of specific ordos back then, but actually they’re all distinct organisations that just have strong ties to specific ordos of the inquisition.

 

honestly I’m in the camp of making allies books, even as an old timer. I think most of the imperial agents stuff works much better as interesting units that ally into other imperial forces - that’s basically how most work in the lore too (if they have to operate in battlefields directly at all)

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 6/13/2025 at 7:03 AM, Karhedron said:

For all the complaints, GW are not actually doing a bad job at balancing the game. If you look at the faction winrate data from tournements, only Imperial Knights and Death Guard are over 55% and only Tau, Dark Angels, Black Templars and Imperial Agents are below 45%. So of the 32 factions available, 26 of them are within GW's target 45-55% winrate which is surprisingly good good going IMHO.

 

https://www.stat-check.com/the-meta

 

Dark Angels recently got a new Detachment which won't be in the data yet. Death Guard were strong at launch so expect a few targeted tweaks. Imperial Knights are getting a new codex in the next month or so. Imperial Agents are mostly run in support of other factions. Just Black Templars and Tau are really struggling at the moment.

 

Of course this only addresses the most powerful builds from each faction which tend to turn up at tournaments. There are definite balance issues within some factions (such as Knights of both flavours spamming Armigers/Wardogs). 

A 10% target win rate is a pretty road target and they’re still missing with 19% of the factions.

 

doesnt matter to a DA player how well balanced orks are against mechanicus if they’re playing against imperial knights or death guard and there’s a 15-20% gap between their win rates.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

Given how GW handle supplements these days, IA wouldn't have worked as you'd need several codexes in hand. They needed a third type (that could be then used for other armies like lost and the dammed and some fun other xenos that aren't fleshed out enough for a full army.)

Then they could have done multiple supplements.

[DemonGSides]

5 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

Given how GW handle supplements these days, IA wouldn't have worked as you'd need several codexes in hand. They needed a third type (that could be then used for other armies like lost and the dammed and some fun other xenos that aren't fleshed out enough for a full army.)

I don't think that's true at all.  They could easily have it as a supplement book to any other Imperial army and then you'd just need the IA book and the army you're souping into, which is what you need anyways to make anything in IA playable. Except for deathwatch, which are basically their own army now as well. 

[Antarius]

I sort of think they want them as their own faction precisely because allies are pretty much impossible to balance under the current system. I also tend to think that their uselessness goes back to them being used for allies.

Not to resurrect the "should unit X in all armies be punished for this one weird trick in army Y"-argument, but since that's the way they're going about it, how do you balance "Unit X" when it can be taken in all imperial armies? That's a whole lot of interactions to account for, so of course it's going to be a mess - and the likeliest solution given the way they currently balance the game is that "unit X" (and all the other units in the book) are going to be overcosted, so people can't abuse them.

Yeah, it sucks, but that's the way they're doing it now. I kinda wish they did it differently, but it does make a certain amount of sense when you look at it that way.

[HeadlessCross]

21 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

Nope. There are plenty of people that like having physical books. Just because you have a view, doesn't mean it represents the majority.

 

Although aspects of Imperial Agents, they were indeed proper armies as both daemon hunters and witch hunters have been proper armies, unlike your assertion of never. Hence they did have their own codexes around 5th/6th edition.

Calling 4th Edition Daemon Hunters a proper army is laughable when they're the prime example of why balance patches are necessary. 

[ZeroWolf]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

Calling 4th Edition Daemon Hunters a proper army is laughable when they're the prime example of why balance patches are necessary. 

Technically you mean 3rd edition right? If I recall Daemon Hunters got nothing else till the first Grey Knights codex in 5th/6th edition (not sure which).

 

Both hunter codexes were late 3rd edition, though witch hunters might have had an eye towards 4th edition since they would have actively working towards it.

[jaxom]

Maybe meant 5th Ed Grey Knights? They’re infamous.

[ZeroWolf]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

Maybe meant 5th Ed Grey Knights? They’re infamous.

Given what I heard about that release, that could be likely.