Armoured Clash May 2026 Balance Update

 

The promised update is here, all praise the Devs! I’m mostly just putting in my impressions of what the changes mean for the various factions, and a little bit of analysis.

If you’re wondering about the faction order, it’s in what I’m most interested in seeing the changes for. Make of that what you will.

On Lookout Nerf

I’m putting this up front since a lot of people have thoughts on this. First of all, it’s an incredibly niche rule that has come up . . . maybe twice in the games I’ve played so far? So it’s not exactly worldbreaking either way. That said, I did like it conceptually. Set up a second unit behind your frontline to potentially protect them from charges (some of which can come from out of range or los)? Sounds good to me. I definitely wouldn’t mind house-ruling this back to the old version.

Melee Buff

Melee units didn’t feel weak in our games, though they did tend to be harder to use than hybrids or dedicated shooting units. I agree with the point cut idea, though I don’t think it should have been applied across the board (Heavy Constructs, Terracotta?). I’m also glad we finally got the Withdraw clarification, though I still need to send in the latest happening from the tournament which isn’t cleared up by their very nicely made examples.

 

Union – Buff

We had some point changes, but they’re fairly minor. Heavy Mechs went down on basic and reinforced but up on full strength, but I’m not holding my breath that that fixed them. VPR on Fireteams is irrelevant.

Bikes – Slight Nerf

Iron Eagles now have a distinct role, as a specialist anti-heavy hitter. Blazers losing those anti-heavy dice now puts them as specialist anti-light, no longer a generalist hitter. Overall I see this as a nerf, since I used blazers against heavies quite a bit, but it does open up Iron Eagles quite a bit.

Transports – Strong Buff

All hail or Ironhide overlords. They were already great, and now they’re cheaper and easier to fit into lists.

Kodiak – Lol

Keep adding keywords, maybe someday it’ll see a table.

After getting some sleep and looking at it again, maybe I was being a bit uncharitable. I could vaguely see a R1 move forward 14” onto an objective to contest and still getting a decent shot at anything within 26”. The problem is it’s competing with the Rolling Thunder which brings a great anti-heavy attack (which we’re generally low on), doesn’t have much less in the way of anti-light, and brings a cheeky anti-air attack just as icing. Or a train, which does similar damage to the Kodiak but is also scoring and potentially scary in melee. In order for me to think it worth bringing, I would probably want the anti-heavy attack to be matching the anti-light.

Sultanate – Buff

Hayalets losing range smarts, but the Pillar of Light is now hitting enough dice to make for a relevant artillery unit. Mostly a wash there.

Portals – Buff

I considered going to reserves from Portal Strike OP, so that being removed isn’t so much a nerf as a needed fix. If you want that rule, you can always bring To The Winds. Portals closing on deploying through them is also very minor; I’ve never used deployment portals for other things, but I have had to withdraw through them on a failed charge. But oh my god is replacing a model dieing with the unit being auto-suppressed nuts. Oh your Luftlancers closed my portal R1? Can’t charge now R2 (if they fail rally).

I can also see Sipahi being a bit nuts with passing through portals, but that probably won’t move the needle.

Transports – Strong Buff

I already showed what you can do with full strength Mergens, and now they’re easier to take and cheaper. This probably opens up Ulgens or the buggies a bit more too, since you’ll have a spare bolstered slot to play with.

Enlightened

Brute Enforcers getting point blank really doubles down on that whole faction identity silliness. The big thing is the point drop for Striders and Heavy Constructs; I loved them already. And Callistos finally punch hard enough that they’re not just a point filler anymore. Still, it doesn’t really move the faction in a new direction or open up any new builds, so I’m still waiting for the new box.

Crown – RULE BRITANNIA INTENSIFIES

Sovereign is going to be hillarious with holding objectives and an extra anti-light attack tacked on. The Defiance now acting as Anti-Aircraft as well as being a good generalist looks even more solid. The new tanks look great, though keep in mind Crown is a little limited in Bolstered Armour slots. The new Dragoons are probably best built as whatever you didn’t build from your existing sprues, but hey, it’s a great model.

On a balance level, this definitely moves Crown up on my potential OP list. 2 incredibly tough heavy (potentially) scoring units backed by all the other fun things Crown has access to? Certainly interesting.

Alliance

Mainly just benefiting from the transport buff here. The Corregedor was already very good before, and wardogs moving to infantry makes a lot of things cleaner.

Imperium

Mostly just slight tone-downs on the behemoths, scions, and armiger castellans (though you can just pivot to armiger commanders instead). Speaking of, Armiger Commanders look fun, though the point cut on crusaders makes that an interesting choice.

Empire

VPR going down on the support infantry units is quite interesting. Empire was the one faction where VPR actually felt a bit punishing, this should fix that.

Commonwealth

Subterranean Fix

I think this can work reasonably now. The Artillery borers can pop out and shoot R1, Krots are cheap enough that you don’t hate yourself for bringing them, and you could even make something resembling an argument for the Miron, deploying it R1 and immediately popping out some tanks for a decent alpha strike. The Behemoths are probably still not useable, but it’s a big step up. I also appreciate that it now just works like I thought it should (move each turn) rather than the awkward workaround for R1.

Krots are probably still worse than the heavy transports, but Penetrating combined with carried infantry does give a very flexible package into any target.

The Mamont probably also needs looking at on a functional level. Since you need Assault Ramp to make the carried beserkers work, you can’t shoot the cryo blast on the turn you bring it in, losing 2 turns of shooting. For a 700 point package, it’s incredibly anemic. I’m more scared of alliance drop pods with legionaires, and that’s less than half the cost I think.

Point Drops

Many Commonwealth units had quite silly costs, and a lot of that looks better now. Beserkers and Cavalry are the big winners here, with the Artillery as runner up. But . . .

Keshig Sky Cutters (And Command)

Still not seeing why these are so expensive. Incredibly fast, but they can’t really do anything with that speed. Really not sure what the intent for them is.

Closing

Let me know if you agree/disagree, especially for Commonwealth. I haven’t gotten as much experience with them as I would like, so it would be good to hear from someone with more games. Overall I’m happy with the update, though Sultanate is still looking like it’s too much. I’ll have to get them on the table again soon to see.

Oh god, now I have to update all those unit cards x.x