Chapter Approved 2022: War Zone Nachmund and Munitorum Field Manual is up for pre order today! The Matched Play Grand Tournament release that offers new scenarios and updates points values has always been something that players are keen to get their teeth into to see how it affects their armies and impacts list building, and today we’ll be running though each faction to see who the big winners are and if any armies are hit with points increases!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free early copy to review and share with you all!

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So is your army going to change? Let’s dive into War Zone Nachmund and take a look!

Chapter Approved: War Zone Nachmund: Grand Tournament

A little while ago, we learned that Games Workshop was planning to move to 6 month long “Seasons” of Warhammer 40,000, each season backed up by a Matched Play, Crusade and Narrative book that explored the story line of that arc and amended and tweaked the rules based on feedback and play testing in a goal of making a more balanced game. The first of these releases is the latest Chapter Approved for 2022, this time set in War Zone Nachmund, the location of the first season of the year! This is the mission pack that Games Workshop will be using for their official tournaments, and it’s safe to say that most matched play events will tend to follow suit in order to ensure balance and competition at a high level.

Games Workshop have actually made a couple of big changes to how armies are now constructed. The biggest of these is how selectable sub-factions work. Previously, when building your army you could have multiple selectable keywords in your army – So if you wanted to have a detachment of Goffs, a detachment of Evil Sunz and a detachment of Snakebites then you could do that, as each self contained detachment was itself legal giving you the best of both worlds with faction specific buffs tailored to the units in those detachments. As of this mission pack you can no longer “Mix and match” sub-factions – every unit in your army (With the exception of special characters who have fixed keywords) MUST have the same sub-faction. So in the example above you would need to take a Goff army OR an Evil Sunz army, you can no longer take a detachment of each.

This is a massive change that will really impact how competitive lists are made – personally, I was never a fan of multiple detachments of different flavours as this often detracted from the game making it a slower experience and simply meant that you could cherry pick units to subfactions based on rules – Now you have to just pick an army wide subfaction you are going to have to give a lot more thought to how your army operates as a whole rather than by detachment.

There are some exceptions to this rule – so Marks of Chaos and Allegiance keywords can be different, allowing you to mix different flavours of Chaos marks across the force (While making sure you adhere to a single Legion) or still have an unaligned daemon force under Be’lakor. Dreadblades and Freeblades are also allowed to have different faction keywords to represent how those units operate.

We also see the change to Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachments return from the Grand Tournament 2021 pack – this gives you a 2 CP refund when you take one of these detachments that is not your Warlord as long as it shares the same faction as your warlord. Essentially this means that you can take a single super heavy as a separate detachment for just a single command point, making fitting these units into your army much more appealing!

To make deploying fortifications easier, the player is now allowed to remove a single piece of area terrain or obstacle that is in their deployment zone if that then allows them to place their fortification – essentially allowing the player to swap a pre deployed piece of terrain with a purchased one, again making this something that players may want to consider in their army list writing – especially if it gives you tactical options to mix up the battlefield.

Every mission in the book has been tweaked, changed or completely replaced from objective positioning to deployment zones sizes and placings, and while most are variations on previous ones we do get a couple of brand new ones too.

One thing that has changed for every mission however is the fact that we now have 2 primary objectives for each mission rather than a primary and an optional secondary. The 15 points that was previously up for grabs for just the primary is now split across both of these objectives, meaning that you will have to make sure you can fulfil both parts of the mission in order to score maximum points! These will often be based around holding a specific objective marker on the table, so you will have to make sure you keep that in mind when moving your units around the battlefield.

We see some updated Secondary Objectives added, and while most of these are the same we do get a couple of tweaks (For example engage on all fronts requires a unit of 3 or more or a single monster or vehicle). In a way of bringing some older books in line with 9th edition codexes we also see some army specific secondaries for Astra Militarum, Chaos Knights, Tyranids, Chaos Daemons and Imperial Knights giving these armies a little bit of variety in what secondaries they can pick! Another change here is that you have to pick at least 2 objectives from the list in CA22, you can only have a maximum of 1 from a Codex OR Supplement not one from each.

Finally in regards to the main Mission pack itself, the core rules have been removed from the book – an interesting change considering the rules being in one place was always a selling point of these books, and this book is sadly noticeably thinner due to that. Personally I’d have also liked to see a change to the format of the General’s Handbook with a hardbacked spiral bound approach, sadly the book is presented and bound in the same way as last years volume.

Munitorum Field Manual 2022

So moving onto the points updates for this season, what do we see? Well there seems to be push to encourage some of those big tanks and vehicles, as a lot have had points cuts here. As expected some of the books released over the last year have had some adjustments as have some of the go-to tournament units that maybe performed a little better than they should have. So lets check out each faction and see what’s changed! Keep in mind there’s a lot of points to review here so may have missed a handful! If I don’t mention a faction then they get away with no changes!

Space Marines

We see a big focus on encouraging vehicles with Storm Speeders dropping by 25 points, all Gladiators dropping by 35 points, Land Raiders dropping 20 points and Repulsors and Stormravens also dropping 20 points. Inceptors get a 5 point drop, but that is matched by a 5 point increase on Plasma Exterminators. Centurion Devastators get a huge 15 point drop too! In increases we see Attack Bikes go up by 5 and Redemptors get a 10 points hike.

In Forge World options, Vulkites go up 10 points and the Astaeus goes down a massive 75 points

Blood Angels

The sons of Sanguinius get some decent points cuts with Mephiston dropping by 5, Dante by 10, Death Company of both flavours dropping by 2 and Sanguinary Ancient getting a 15 point cut. The Sanguinary Guard however go up 2 points each.

Dark Angels

The Dark Angels get a 15 point cut to both of their flyers and Black Knights drop 5 each, the Ravenwing Talonmaster however sees a 15 point increase.

Space Wolves

The Space Wolves get some decent points cuts on Wulfen with a 5 point drop per model and discounts on both frost axes and thunder hammers! Thunderwolf cav also get a 5 point drop. Finally both flyers get a decent 20 point drop!

Deathwatch

The only change for the Deathwatch is with the Corvus Blackstar, which drops 15 points!

Grey Knights

Like with the Space Marines, all Land Raiders and Stormravens get a 20 points drop, in addition Terminators, Paladins and Interceptors all get a 2 point discount! They do get a couple of price increases however with all flavours of Dreadknights increasing by 10 points

Adepta Sororitas

The Sisters of Battle get a couple of price increases with both Celestians and Dominions getting a 2 point increase, however Castigators, Exorcists and Immolators go down 10 points and Paragon Warsuits drop a massive 30 points a unit!

Adeptus Custodes

So this is the controversial one! A week following the release of the codex we see considerable points changes, but on the whole your Custode army just got cheaper! Misericordia now no longer have a points cost and are instead free giving you back a load of points across the army. Allarus Custodians go down 5 points and Valerian, Trajann and Shield-Captains on Jetbikes each drop 10 points. As with Space Marines Land Raiders also drop 20. We do get some points increases however with Praetors and Shield-Captains increasing by 5 and Blade Champions going up by 10.

Most Forge World units also get a points cut with Aquilon Custodians down by 5, Caladius Grav-Tanks down by 20, Coronus Grav-Carriers down by 30 and both flyers down by 50

Astra Militarum

The Guard get some decent vehicle discounts with Leman Russ tanks and Manticores dropping by 10, Deathstrikes dropping by 30points and all Baneblade variants dropping by 40 (Except the Doomhammer, which drops by 30) Finally, Ogryns get a 5 point discount.

For the Death Korps of Krieg we see an increase on horses with Death Riders up 5 per model and Death Rider command up 25 points a unit!

Adeptus Mechanicus

The Admech get a handful of discounts, but on the whole a lot of units have got more expensive. Starting with the reductions, Kastelan Robots drop by 10 and Fusilaves and Stratoraptors drop by 20 points each. However, Rangers and Vanguard increase by a point, both flavours of Sicarians go up 2 points, Serberys Raiders increase by 4, and Marshals, Manipulus and Ironstriders go up by 10 each.

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Space Marines get points cuts across with the army with Cultists and Chosen dropping by 1, Chaos marines down by 2, Warp talons getting a 3 point cut, Dark Disciples going down by 5, Obliterators down by 10 and Chaos Land Raiders and Venomcrawlers going down by 20. For some reason the Lord of Skulls has gained a 15 point price increase!

As with Loyalists volkite goes up 10 points and all Forge World Land Raider variants drop 20 points

Death Guard

On the whole, Death Guard get some decent points reductions. While the Foul Blightspawn goes up by 15 points, Poxwalkers drop a point, Myphitic Blight-Haulers go down by 10, Plagueburst Crawlers down by 15 and Chaos Land Raiders by 20!

Chaos Daemons

Daemons get a big points increase on the Lord of Change which gets a hike of 30 points, however Bloodthirsters of Insensate Rage drop 10, Soulgrinders go down by 15 and Flesh Hounds and Seekers get a 2 point cut

Craftworlds

Elder get some good cuts with the Avatar dropping by 35, Firedragons, Wraithblades and Wraithguard down by 5, Dark Reapers get a 3 points decrease, Nightspinners down 10, Fire prisms down 15 and Hemlocks down 20, Support Weapon Platforms go up 5 points.

Drukhari

The Dark Elves get a mix of adjustments. The Succubus gets a big 20 point increase, Reavers and Raiders both go up 10 points, and Grotesques and Cronos go up 5 each. We do get some cuts however with Ravagers, Talos, Drazhar, Haemonculus and both flyers getting a 10 point drop, Wyches and Incubi go down 2 points.

For Forge World fans both units see points cuts with the Reaper down 10 and the Tantalus down 30

Harlequins

The voidreaver drops 10 points and the Solitaire gets a 2 point drop!

Necrons

Outside of a single 10 point increase on the Command barge, Necrons get some much needed reductions! Flayed ones drop by 3 points, Skorpekh Destroyers and Ophydian Destroyers go down by 5, Doomstalkers and Lokust Destroyers get a 10 point discount, Lokhust Heavy Destroyers and Night Scythes go down 15, Doomday Arks, The Monolith and The Silent King each go down 30, the Obelisk goes down 40 and the Tesseract Vault goes down a massive 50 points!

Orks

Orks see quite a lot of changes with Beastboss on Squigosaurs going up by 30, Mozrog up by 15, Squigbuggies and Kill Rigs up by 20, Scrapjets up by 10 and Kommandos up by 2 each, however Flash Gitz drop by 2, Bossbunkas, Mek Guns and Meganobz down by 5, and all Battlewagon variants drop by 15!

In Forge World units we see the Kannonwagon and Sqiggoth drop 20 points and the Garganruan Squiggoth and Kustom Stompa drop by 50

Tau

Yes, there are changes here (Including suits down by 5) – but on the grounds this Codex is due very soon we’ll cover any changes when our Tau Codex review drops!

Tyranids

Hive Guard go up 5 points, but the nids get a lot of points drops! Swarmlord is down by 30, Tervigons drop 20 points, Haruspex, Exocrine, Tygon Primes and Tyranofex all drop by 15 and Genestealers are down by 2!

The Forge World Dimachaeron goes down by 50 points.

Fortifications

Aegis Defence Lines and Skyshields go up 10 points – most likely due to the changes in deploying them making them better than they used to be! Bastions however come down 30 points.

Summary

From a points standpoint we have seen a lot of vehicles and tanks drop some decent points levels with the only increases really being those units that seemed a little too good out of the gates, some armies in particular will be able to fit a lot more in their lists too depending on builds! It’ll be interesting to see how the new rules regarding army construction affects what kinds of units people take too.

Overall I’m a little torn on this book – I love the changes and the new missions look fun, making it more difficult to score 15 for primaries will keep people on their toes too!

However, I do think it is a massive shame that the core rules have been removed from the book – especially as this is one of the selling points of previous copies, the fact that you don’t need to take the full rule book to events with you! I also think it’s a shame that the book doesn’t quite stand up to the quality of the General’s Handbook with it’s hardback fold flat design to make using during a game really easy!

I do worry that with a 6 monthly cycle we might start to feel a little bit of fatigue, however we will have to see how all this plays out, as ultimately an update every 6 months will also ensure the game is refined, fighting fit and able to react to any trends we see at events.

Chapter Approved – War Zone Nachmund: Grand Tournament is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 29th January

Games Workshop provided Sprues and Brews a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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