• Three new Elite units
  
• Three new multiplayer maps
  
• Five new Elite skins, including the Primaris skin for Chaplain Diomedes
  
• New custom game options
  
• Various bug fixes

This patch will include the content that we’ve been teasing over the last few weeks: new Elites, new multiplayer maps, and some surprise skins! Additionally, there will be a balance update, the details of which are outlined below.

This patch will introduce a 30% health increase for non-heavy infantry, making early game time to kill more forgiving. Some T1 units have had their damage tuned to compensate for the overall boost. To ensure that these units don’t over-scale in the late game, health upgrade effectiveness has been tuned in parallel.

As a result, these changes make units healthier, and early game fights last longer. Fights over resource points and open-field skirmishes now have a slightly different feel, but the key takeaway is that we’ve shifted towards a greater focus on tactical decision-making.

• New Elites: Ironclad Dreadnought, Wraithseer Kayduin, and the Lifta-Droppa Battlewagon
  
• New maps: Shrine of Asuyran (1v1), Serpent Chasm (2v2), and Da Extraktor (3v3)
  
• Free skins: Primaris Chaplain Diomedes, Salamander Ironclad Dreadnought, Helmeted Kyre, Deathwing Terminators, and Deathwing Assault Terminators

• New Custom game options: toggle Elites on or off, toggle doctrines on or off, toggle global abilities on or off
  
• Missions 1 to 3 difficulty tuning

• Health and shields of non-Elite infantry increased by 30%
  
• Buildable turrets (from doctrines) for all factions have had their damage increased from 7 to 13

• Elite point generator cost increased from 80 Requisition / 20 Power to 120 Requisition / 45 Power
  
• Elite point generator cost is no longer affected by the scaling of other generators
  
• Building an Elite point generator no longer increases the scaling of other generators

• Listening Post damage increased from 7 to 9
  
• Listening Post health increased from 2200 to 2500
  
• Power Core turret auto attack damage increased from 12.5 to 16.25
  
• Power Core beam attack increased from 15 to 19

• Shrine of Asuyran (1v1) has been added into the Custom match and Quick-Match map lists
  
• Serpent Chasm (2v2) has been added into the Custom match and Quick-Match map lists
  
• Da Extraktor (3v3) has been added into the Custom match and Quick-Match map lists

• Frag Grenade: Damage increased from 15 to 26

Frag grenades were already behind the curve compared to similar abilities, but it needed a substantial boost to maintain relevance in conjunction with the infantry health changes.

• Cluster Mines detonation radius decreased from 5 to 2.5
  
• Cluster Mines area of effect increased from 5 to 6

To improve the effectiveness of Cluster Mines, we decreased their detonation radius and the ability’s area of effect to ensure that more units will be hit by the explosion.

• Damage increased from 25 to 30

With the sweeping health changes, Scout Snipers would have had to take an extra three or four volleys of shots to kill a squad. We’ve modified the damage so that it only takes one extra volley than it did previously. Though it is overall more forgiving to fight snipers using infantry units, early game Elites will have a tougher time soaking their damage.

• Ranged damage increased from 7 to 7.25

One big focus for this patch was to examine how the infantry health increase would affect the relationships of early Tier 2 units. In particular, it was important not to change the relationships drastically between early skimmers and their counters. We ran a lot of combat tests to monitor how the relationships changes. The Land Speeder’s DPS was high enough to trade well with its counters, so it only needed a slight tweak. We tested bigger damage increases, but this made them absolutely shred through early game Elites.

• Health decreased from 3100 to 2900

Diomedes has quickly risen to be one of the most frequent Space Marine picks in upper skill brackets. After these changes, he was a bit too resilient given all his other benefits, so we scaled him slightly down.

• Health increased from 2250 to 2500
  
• Emperor's Light allied damage buff duration increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds while within Stonewall
  
• Emperor's Light allied damage buff duration increased from 7 seconds to 10 seconds while outside of Stonewall

Jonah is still a strong Elite unit in terms of his overall potential - he can make great plays, but in many ways felt less effective in the early game. We wanted to slightly increase his resiliency and improve the buffs of his Emperor’s Light.

• Health increased from 5400 to 5750

Although Assault Terminators can be quite strong in the right situation, we found that they needed a bit more resiliency considering they are most effective in melee range, and are susceptible to being kited.

• Orbital Bombardment: Levitation channel time increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds
  
• In-combat reinforcement time for infantry units increased by 60%
  
• Level 1 health increase reduced from 15% to 12%
  
• Level 2 health increase reduced from 30% to 12%
  
• Level 3 health increase reduced from 45% to 12%

• Plasma Grenade damage increased from 20 to 26

• Improved Plasma Grenade: Damage increased from 40 to 52

Dire Avengers are very dependent on their Plasma Grenades and though they’ve never done as much damage as similar abilities, we’ve tuned them to keep up with the health changes.

• Damage increased from 25 to 34

As with Scout Snipers, we needed to increase the damage to ensure that it didn’t take substantially more volleys to kill an enemy squad. We also found in testing that without this increase, Rangers were disproportionately less effective than Snipers in terms of cost.

• Melee damage increased from 8 to 16

It was intended that Wraithguard could be countered by being tied up in melee combat, but it was far too easy to achieve that with worker units. Of course, the cost effectiveness of sacrificing a worker unit for a squad of Wraithguard was imbalanced, and these changes should make them less susceptible to this tactic.

• Twin-linked shuriken catapult damage increased from 3 to 3.5
  
• Twin-linked shuriken catapult shots per second increased from 5 to 8
  
• Twin-linked shuriken catapult cooldown decreased from 1 second to 0.75 seconds
  
• Increased targeting width from 5 to 15, meaning it can hit targets for longer before needing to readjust its facing

We opted to roughly double the firepower of its twin-linked shuriken catapults so that this change mostly affects its effectiveness versus infantry.

• Focused Beam: Damage increased from 60 to 120 and now deals reduced objective damage (to the same value as pre-patch)

A concern we kept hearing from the community was that the Focused Beam doctrine felt weak. After testing this more thoroughly, we agreed, but we had to reduce its damage versus objectives to compensate.

• Psyker Blast damage reduction decreased from 75% to 60%

There’s been some discussion about the Psyker Blast damage reduction bonus that Macha applies to allied units. Though it’s correct that you can choose to abdicate the fight, it does last for a substantial amount of time and given the infantry resilience changes, it needed a slight reduction.

• Health increased from 480 to 576
  
• Shield increased from 720 to 864
  
• Damage increased from 250 to 280
  
• Long Shot damage increased from 275 to 360

Though Ronahn recently received buffs, his health change felt like a big step backwards for him. He went from being viable in some cases to irrelevant in most. Line other snipers, his auto attack needed to be increased but his Long Shot took a dive with the increased health. He was always fragile to begin with, but now that units can survive and pressure him easier, we increased his health to counteract it.

• Health increased from 960 to 1080
  
• Shield increased from 1440 to 1620

Though she can be quite lethal, Jain Zar also suffers from being kited easily and is lower among Elite Elite picks. This change should help her to find a better niche in the new meta.

• Fixed a bug where Kyre was not correctly prioritized on the command crd
  
• Fixed a bug where if Kyre was using a skin, he would change back to his default model when using Skyleap

• Improved Webways: Now properly reduces the cooldown for Webway Holofield and Webway Shield

To boost his Improved Webway doctrine, it will not only affect the cooldown of teleport but also other abilities.

• Eldar will no longer gain full shields when upgrading their shield health; instead, they will gain the difference between their old and new shield values
  
• Infinity Portal now starts with one charge of Soul Recall
  
• Level 1 shield increase reduced from 25% to 20%
  
• Level 2 shield increase reduced from 50% to 20%
  
• Level 3 shield increase reduced from 75% to 20%

• Stikkbomb damage decreased from 2 to 1.9

Shoota Boyz always had high damage relative to their cost. With increased survivability, we felt they were just a bit too good and needed a slight tweak. We didn’t want to go too far considering the health change will affect one of their cornerstone abilities - the Stikkbomb.

• Damage bonus versus skimmers reduced from 40 to 25

Tankbustas have always been very effective versus skimmers because they deal their damage in bursts. We needed to tone down their bonus damage so that it is now equivalent to Lascannon Devastators and Shadow Spectres, which should make it a bit easier for simmers to harass an Ork army.

• Damage increased from 11.1 to 12.8

Deffkoptas have received near-constant buffs and though we feel that they’re viable, we’ve increased their damage to compensate for the health buffs. This makes them that much more effective as low cost Elite counters.

• Melee damage reduced from 30 to 25
  
• Critical Strike damage reduced from 90 to 80

Stormboyz have always been strong as a 2-point Elite, with their high burst damage and jumping capabilities. One of the major design intentions for this rebalance is to affect the early Elite units, and we felt that in comparison to Striking Scorpions especially, their base damage was too high.

• Fixed a bug where Gorgutz would get stuck after casting Grapplin’ Klaw when performing a Critical Strike

• Orbital Scrap damage increased from 350 to 455
  
• Orbital Scrap damage against objectives reduced from 350 to 200
  
• Orbital Scrap outer radius damage increased to 50% of base damage, up from 20%
  
• Scrap Turret damage increased from 12 to 15

Although Traktor Beam is really awesome and provides great utility, Big Mek Wazzmakka’s overall toolkit felt underwhelming - especially in comparison to similarly-priced Elites. Due to the design of Orbital Scrap, his damage was inconsistent - so we’ve made that less variable. Orbital Scrap damage will no longer be capped at 1 entity, making it more lethal to squads.

• In-combat reinforcement time for infantry units increased by 60%
  
• WAAAGH Tower damage increased from 6 to 7
  
• Level 1 health increase reduced from 15% to 12%
  
• Level 2 health increase reduced from 30% to 12%
  
• Level 3 health increase reduced from 45% to 12%

• Fixed a bug where Deployable Energy Shields could be built on top of one another

• Fixed a bug where swapping between the Campaign and Army Painter screens would sometimes cause them to overlap
  
• Fixed a bug where error message text would appear when targeting a
• Deffkopta while the Slice ‘Em doctrine was equipped
  
• Fixed a bug where error message text would appear while viewing the Vyper Haste tooltip when the ability was on cooldown

• Fixed a bug where the Space Marine Listening Post’s targeting indicator would vanish when the structure caught on fire