The Warhammer 40k points system has been been greatly simplified for 10th edition, bringing it much closer to its sister game Age of Sigmar – you no longer pay for individual models or wargear. Games Wokshop released points values for the new edition of Warhammer 40k in the Munitorum Field Manual on Friday, available for download on the Warhammer Community website.
The points values have been eagerly awaited by fans, as – with the release of free Index army rules for each Warhammer 40k faction, not to mention the Warhammer 40k 10th edition core rules – the new edition of the game is completely playable.
Click here to download the Warhammer 40k 10th edition points in a free PDF.
Here are the big changes for unit and army points costs in Warhammer 40k 10th edition:
Units come in fixed sizes
Rather than paying for each model in a unit, players buy units with fixed numbers of models. For example, T’au Empire Stealth Battlesuits can be bought as three models for 75 points, or six models for 150.
Some units have more flexibility: Ork Meganobz can be bought as squads of two, three, five, or six models. If those numbers seem odd to you, consider that the Ork Meganobz box set contains three models, one of which can optionally be built as a Big Mek in Mega Armour. It seems that all the unit sizes are tied directly to Games Workshop box sets and the ways players can build them.
Unit wargear is free
There are no points costs for unit wargear; no matter which guns you give to your units, they will cost the same points. At the start of ninth edition 40k each wargear items cost points, but updates to the Munitorum Field Manual gradually removed the cost of wargear for certain units in some armies (something my Death Guard were very graetful for.
Army Enhancements cost points
Unit Enhancements, which upgrade one character in your army with a unique ability, cost points. In eighth and ninth edition 40k Relics and Warlord Traits were provided to characters for free. That was actually something of an oddity: from Rogue Trader to seventh edition, when unique Wargear was available to characters, it cost points.
These changes make it much simpler to calculate the points cost of an army. Players also won’t have to worry about tweaking the loadout on infantry models just because of points costs: whatever you’ve glued to your miniatures will cost the same.
It will be annoying for armies without any cheap units like the Imperial Knights or Chaos Knights to use up all their points neatly. Consider your options to add in an Agent of the Imperium or single Daemon unit.
For competitive players things are a little more mixed. Now that Enhancements cost points, designers can balance these buffs with points updates, which is very welcome. Fixed unit sizes make the game simpler to balance as there’s simply less permutations of model count for the designers to consider.
Problems could arise if one of a unit’s weapon options proves to be absurdly potent. Raising the cost on the unit because of that wargear option may balance the competitive playing field, but will make the unit far weaker for casual players who don’t pay attention to optimal choices.
If you’re going to play your first game of 10th edition this weekend armed with these points costs, we’ve a couple of reference guides for you to bookmark on your phone: a guide to all the weapon abilities and core abilities in 10th edition, and a guide to the core 40k stratagems in 10th edition.