About This Series

With the release of the latest Battlescroll, Games Workshop have once again adjusted points across multiple factions in an effort to keep Age of Sigmar balanced and competitive. As always, these changes have sparked plenty of discussion, with more than a little debate.

This article is part of a wider Woehammer series examining those points changes through a data-led view. Each faction is analysed using real tournament results to assess whether Games Workshop’s adjustments align with how armies and warscrolls are actually performing on the table.

Our full thoughts on methodology and where it differs to Games Workshop are explained after our faction analysis.

Skaven Analysis

Win Rate: 50% (Rank: 13th)
Average Elo: 420.2 (Rank: 22nd)
Popularity: 1181 Games (Rank 2nd)

Skaven land exactly where you’d want them, at 50%. Given their massive popularity and fairly low Elo this is another well balanced army.

GW have actually made me chuckle here. They’ve sent a message to the Skaven players over the Deathmaster – “You can’t be trusted!”. With a +10 to their points even though they’re at 50% win rate both when included and excluded GW are saying ‘Stop doing that!’ This is GW slapping those players on the wrist. Fair.

Why no points increase for Plague Monks? 60% when included, 46% without and a large sample size. Prime candidate right? Because they are not the problem unit. They are cheap bodies and buff recipients. GW learned that taxing core infantry in Skaven tends to punish players and collapse list types. Instead GW chose to adjust the units around the Plague Monks.

Some of you may also be expecting a whole host of points drops for those underperformers at the bottom of the list. But if GW started handing out -10s everwhere you’d get the risk of broken lists and GW wouldn’t be able to track the cause of the break. Instead GW made selective reductions with Stormfiends, Stormvermin, Thanquol and Vizzik. There are all either centrepieces that should feel better or units that players actually want to use.

Units like Globadiers, Hell Pit Abomination, Plagueclaw, Grey Seer on foot and Warlock Engineer are all underperforming, but touching them all at once would be reckless.

This way GW leave the core intact but try and discourage those abusive lists. They’re also trying to encourage those much loved centrepieces.

How Games Workshop Use Their Data

Games Workshop have previously stated that their balance decisions are informed by results from the last 60 days of events, primarily drawn from Best Coast Pairings. This dataset includes both one and two day events.

This approach gives GW a very broad view of the game, capturing everything from highly competitive play to more casual, experimental lists. From an accessibility and participation standpoint this does makes sense. It reflects how the majority of players experience the game.

How Woehammer Uses Its Data

For this series, Woehammer takes a narrower approach.

Our analysis is based exclusively on two-day events (typically five-round tournaments), drawn from multiple platforms, including:

• Best Coast Pairings
• Milarki
• Ecksen
• Mini Head Quarters
• Longshanks
• Tabletop Herald
• Championshub.app

These events are competitions where lists are refined, and player skill is more consistent across the field.

Why Focus on GT Data?

One day events and casual tournaments introduce significant variance when used for balance decisions:

• Fewer rounds mean higher randomness
• Greater spread in player skill
• More thematic or experimental lists
• Less pressure to optimise for the meta

Two-day events, by contrast, are where balance issues reliably surface. Strong warscrolls and strong combinations tend to rise quickly, while weaker options are filtered. If a unit or build is genuinely pushing an army beyond a healthy win rate, it will almost always show up here first.

For that reason, Woehammer prioritises signal over volume. The dataset is smaller, but the conclusions are clearer.

How to Read These Articles

Each faction articles follows the same structure:

• Overall faction performance (win rate, average Elo, Popularity)
• Warscroll performance when included vs excluded
• A review of the points changes and whether they’re supported by our data
• Pointing out any changes that appear questionable or which we think may be missing.

Throughout the series, we use a 45–55% win-rate band as a reference point for healthy balance. Units or factions consistently operating outside this range are flagged as potential problems in either direction.

Final Note

This analysis isn’t intended to dismiss the value of casual play. Instead, it offers a view on how the game may behave being pushed in its competitive format.

Games Workshop looks wide, aiming to satisfy all players in the hobby, whether thats with pick-up games, or at competitive events.

Woehammer looks deeper at the competitive side, believing that balance for casual play can fall from balancing the game for competitive play.