The new season will start on Monday, November 25th.

Greetings, citizens, 

Disgusted by the poor use of steel and machinery by the Orks in the Evil Sunz Season, the Iron Hands have taken to the field to show what true mechanical might looks like! They’ve also been emboldened by the news of ancient Terran customs being discovered by the Brotherhood of Mars describing a holy day named “Tanks Giving” and the Iron Hands can think of no better gift than receiving an armoured war engine.

With that, we’ll get stuck into the balance changes looking at a range of Space Marines, particularly with a Ranged focus, including the two Iron Hands in game. Beyond the Seasonal Space Marine buff, we’ve also got a number of impactful trait changes in other factions and a small buff to a Supreme Commander.

One of the original cards on release, Crusiaus, has never been adjusted (other than receiving Barrage on the traits release), and this has left him very expensive compared to the other options now available. As an original card, many players are likely to have him at a high level, and this may make him more usable in ranged decks.

Another classic, and one of the original Space Marine Fear cards. In a similar fashion, many cards have surpassed the Legion of the Damned since the early game, and where Fear by itself was enough of a unique selling point, his damage just doesn’t compete now. A hefty damage increase should give Mhorkar a much more fiery punch.

Slightly newer, and by his usage stats, a card that players are trying to use, but without much success and all round buff should help with his all round viability.

While not a ranged card, Teutonis has obviously snuck into the queue hearing about buffs for Space Marines with Black Armour, and the tech priests were too scared to correct him. Again another card competing with a lot of similar cards, and since his raw stats are very strong and price decrease seems like the logical place to go.

Now we get to the Iron Hands themselves. Similarly, Chaplain Furnos has a good stat sheet, but compared to the other character cards in the 20s is a bit underwhelming. Space Marines can make good use of Regeneration, so being able to bring it to the field for less points should make him much more appealing.

Already on the cheaper side and with good durability, the main issue for Feirros is his damage output. Keeping his evenly balanced attack stats with this buff should now see him as a very potent option at a good price point for Space Marine decks looking for a flexible dual attack type build.

A familiar card when it comes to balance changes, Agemman is nearly there. Having settled firmly on his dual damage traits, giving him his unique identity, he still isn’t hitting the mark. And that’s quite obvious because if you want a card with two damage traits, you want it to have good damage output. So we’re shaving off a chunk of his impressive health, and redistributing that into his attack stats which should make his traits much more impactful. 

A longstanding Aeldari card that has always been in the red for balance attention. After many adjustments to stats and cost with no effect, Aethayad is having his identity changed a bit with a trait swap. Aeldari doesn’t lack high-impact damage, so the primary trait of BGH wasn’t much of a unique selling point. What Aeldari does lack is significantly durable cards. A big card like this with Regeneration does just that and matches the theme with the other Wraith constructs.

Similarly, Silverhelm has been toeing the line for a long time with the lower end of Aeldari competitiveness. With a similar approach, we’ve taken the Shining Spear rule of always being -1 to hit, along with a baked-in invulnerable save to turn him into a Shield card. Shield is a trait that is very rare for Aeldari, with good reason, so we’ll see how this one works, but overall makes Azadaar a much more viable piece in almost any list.

With the buffs to the Lion and Guilliman, both have seen their win rates stabilise in Ranked. While they are both in the lower end of competitiveness it’s no longer a noticeable drop-off like before. That now just leaves one Warlord in that category, which is Supreme Commander Trajann. Given how new Trajann is, we’ve been more conservative in his buff; however, it should be enough to bring him to that same point of stable lower-end competition.

Also sneaking into the queue around for Iron Hands, UR-025 has taken that description as literally as the sons of Medusa do. Not wanting to turn it away, UR-025 is getting a nice buff to its Ranged enhancing its Precision Shot alongside its already durable profile.

A potentially attractive option, particularly when looking to fill out a full Cults roster, the Rockgrinder is a bit too fragile for the investment, and a big part of that is it straying into BGH hunter range. Taking it out of that spot should make it much more viable and help support its squishy brethren.

Another card getting a trait change, the Psychophage was a bit of an outlier with Barrage when Ranged was its lower stat, and while Berserk could enhance this, it wasn’t meaningful enough to make a noticeable difference. Moving Barrage to Fear, along with the pairing of Berserk should make this an extremely potent card in the later levels, but with Fear being the secondary trait, it shouldn’t be too oppressive even at max level.

Cards added to the general pool:

T’au

Servants of the Emperor

Orks

Aeldari

Space Marines

Tyranids