Hot takes on the February 2026 FAQ

It’s FAQ time babyyyyy!

GW has graced us with the first proper balance FAQ of the edition, and it’s a doozy. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll be starting with a quick State of the Meta, hitting the big changes in detail, touching off briefly on the smaller ones and then rounding out with a discussion on The Meta to Come.

Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

The meta that was

A snapshot of a somewhat cursed meta

The pre-FAQ meta was heavily dominated by Depths of Moria, in clear and undisputed first place. The raw efficiency of the Goblin horde, headed at most points values by the Balrog and its enormous suite of rules, made for an extremely potent combination.

Close behind were Army of the White Hand and Men of the West. In my view White Hand was actually the strongest of these three lists in the hands of a good player, but it had a much higher skill floor (in the bad way) and was thus less capable of dominating the mid tables. Men of the West, on the other hand, was just The Best Good List: it brought the classic Good-aligned playstyle of big heroes rampaging while solid troops stall, and did it better than everyone else. The attraction here was largely the sheer efficiency of the heroes you could bring, backed by good troops and some very strong army rules.

A clear step down beneath these three armies were Usurpers of Edoras (rising with the power of Crebain-spam), Moria Dragons, Eagles and a few other lists at different points levels. These lists may not have had the broad-spectrum dominance of those above them, but they were absolutely capable of performing well and winning events in the right hands and circumstances. Moreover, they were also all a bit problematic in their own ways.

Beneath these lists were a massive clump of other factions that were capable of strong performances, but weren’t quite at the level of the top armies (although some of them went close). Near the top here would have been Khazad-dûm, Shadows of Angmar, Battle of Five Armies and other such builds, but this section of the meta was very deep and varied. If the tallest of poppies get knocked down a peg, then these will be some of the armies to watch in the months to come.

And speaking of tall poppies getting chopped, let’s dive right into our meta-shaping nerfs…

The big changes

Starting from the top of the meta, Depth’s board-wide banner and -1/+1 Courage buff is now once per game. Huge.

It's a big 'un

White Hand doesn’t suffer any major hits, but is chipped away at by a litany of small changes to Grima specifically. He no longer blocks enemies from walking through him, can now be targeted as soon as Saruman cops a Wound, can’t be a target (including to protect) in Fog or Assassination, and blocks Lightning within 12” of him. How he enters in Maelstrom is also clarified to be the most logical approach. These changes turn off some of the sillier options available to White Hand (Grima loitering in doorways or getting nuked by Saruman were both hilarious), and will make a few classic White Hand tricks a bit harder to pull off.

Skipping down to the next tier, Dragonfire now only does a S10 insta-kill hit to the direct target, and instead sets all models within 2” on fire. Very impactful!

The Eagles have had major changes to their Piercing Cry ability, with it being clarified to work from where Gwaihir ends his move (probably a buff to Eagles) and to only turn off charging, not normal moves (a major nerf).

A good change for the game, and a very big nerf

Finally, Barge is now noticeably toned down, only forcing models to Make Way the minimum amount. Monsters of the world, it’s for the good of the community.

The small changes

In no particular order:

-         Army of Thror can now take 50% throwing weapons! Yay!

-         Road to Rivendell loses the ability to teleport their models all the way across the board in a single turn with Tom, which was clearly unintended and a bit game-breaking.

-         Army of the Great Eye does still get an army bonus in Maelstrom missions and Reconnoitre.

-         Multiple Taskmasters don’t give you multiple chances to get Might back. It may have been RAW correct, but this was always very silly.

-         Shieldwall has been errata’ed to work against charging cavalry (even if they pretended this was how it always worked).

-         Heavy objects have been slightly clarified, and Escort the Wounded now actually allows you to score points without TO houserules.

-         Brutal Power Attacks still can’t be made while prone. Asking this a second edition in a row with no real wording changes kind of feels like asking dad after mum said no.

-         Chariots being insta-killed don’t also make the heroes riding them disappear. I didn’t realise that was a potential ruling, but I’m glad it’s shut down now.

-         Heroic Combats work just like normal moves in terms of picking up objects and jumping/leaping/climbing, as expected.

-         Make Ways can go into control zones. Weirdly this did need to be asked, and I’m glad it’s been settled in the most logical way.

-         Missions that give points for killing the most expensive non-general model have had about one quarter of their ambiguity removed, as models that are purchased in groups (like King’s Champions) need all models to be killed to count as removed. How does that work for the VPs for Wounding them, or for two equally priced models that aren’t purchased together? Your guess is still as good as mine.

-         Heroes with Dominant only count as one hero for the purposes of getting heroes off the board in Recon. No sneaking off your leader and getting all 15VP for it!

-         If you pick the Watcher as your Champion in Contest then he deploys in the centre. Makes sense, and potentially a viable option for some Moria and Depths builds.

What these changes mean for the Meta to Come

This sort of Crebain spam is absolutely gonnabe sticking around

Putting these changes together, the headline is that Depths has been dramatically toned back. It will still be a strong list (it was decent last edition without a battlefield-wide banner, and the Balrog is a much stronger model now than it was then), but much more reasonable, and the days of 65 Goblins at 500 points are probably over. Depths players will either accept a reduction in efficiency or take the Blackshield Drum (which handily gives them banner VPs!).

White Hand honestly does quite well here, with Grima remaining an extremely powerful model and almost none of the rest of its tricks being adjusted at all. The Lightning will be a little harder to use in some matchups, but I expect it will still be a real hassle to play around. And most significantly, Crebain managed to dodge any nerfs at all. This is one of the biggest surprises of the FAQ, as they were much too strong and in real need of an adjustment. The core of White Hand lists will thus remain exactly as powerful as before, so expect to see them coalesce even more firmly into the ‘birds are good’ style in the coming months.

Similarly, Usurpers players will be thanking the Valar (or Morgoth) today for retaining 20-point Crebain with 4 Wounds. Competitive Usurpers players tended to run even more birds than White Hand lists, and with no changes today I would expect that trend to accelerate.

Jumping to the bigger birds of the meta, pure Eagles has been significantly toned down by this change. Piercing Cry remains an extremely powerful ability, but will be much easier to play around and mitigate. In concert with the massive Barge changes, it means that Eagle players will struggle to hunt down enemy heroes as easily, and will probably shift towards trying to burn through troops instead on their two turns of basically-unopposed slaughter.

Eagles will be very grateful for the Dragon nerfs, however, which significantly reduce the firepower (ha) of double-Dragon lists. As someone who took the list to a couple of podiums since the Armies of Middle Earth booked dropped, this is a very necessary and positive change. It probably spells the end of double-Dragon lists, with Set Ablaze not stacking and heroes being generally harder to snipe with fireballs. However, I could see a world in which the removal of Depths from the top of the metagame boosts Dragons nearly as much as this nerf sets them back. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Dragon/Drake combos become more prevalent (still in Moria though, because Dragons of the North remains a garbage list with garbage rules).

Definitely a toned-down list now, and for good reason

On monsters more generally, the Barge change is fairly quite significant. Barge was extremely hard to play around previously, and this change will significantly alter that dynamic. There is some ambiguity in how the change is meant to work, but in general it will be significantly harder to use Barge to pseudo-Compel models forward or to open up gaps in the enemy lines. Every monster in the game (except War Beasts I guess) will be noticeably impacted by this rule, and squishy heroes that previously hated to see a Gwaihr hunting them will feel a lot more confident going forward. The one downside is that it will affect weaker heroes like Cave Trolls just as much as the Gwaihir’s of the world, which is perhaps unfortunate collateral damage.

On the note of Gwaihir, the other surprise miss from this FAQ was Men of the West. This has recently become the second-highest ranked list in the UK, and has started to absolutely overrun events in Australia as well. With Depths taking a well-deserved rest from the top spot, I would expect Men of the West to only increase in prevalence, especially if players interpret its natural counters (White Hand and Dragons) as being significantly reduced in power.

And finally, the Army of Thror change will obviously have no competitive impact whatsoever, because that army remains awful. However, the principle on display is interesting: Games Workshop has now given a small errata buff to a suffering army in both of the last two FAQs. That sort of thing was once unheard of, and it’s definitely a positive development to see. They could absolutely afford to go harder, but baby steps.

Overall, I would expect to see this FAQ result in a meta focussed around Men of the West, Army of the White Hand and Usurpers of Edoras, with the next tier of lists like Battle of Five Armies, Khazad-dûm and Shadows all sneaking onto podiums.

FAQ report card

Overall, I think this was a good FAQ. A number of the top performers copped nerfs (even if unevenly distributed) and most of the lists that could have become problematic if the ones above were hit also got attention. Dragons in particular could have produced a horrific meta if White Hand and Depths were nerfed and they were left untouched, and I think it was a very far-sighted bit of game stewardship to identify and somewhat pre-empt that concern.

The lack of Crebain or Men of the West nerfs does hold the FAQ back from the top grades, but the presence of a single buff to a struggling faction does show potential. And ultimately, there weren’t any bad changes, so we’re definitely in a better spot for this FAQ. Overall, I’m going to give this FAQ a solid (B+): good work Games Workshop, much appreciated.

Perhaps the biggest miss of this FAQ is that the Troll got nerfed more than Elessar here

Agree? Disagree? Excited for the new Army of Thror meta? Feeling like Depths got hit too hard? Looking for the best places to buy 3D printed Crebain? Leave a comment down below, I’m keen to discuss.

Until next time, may your favourite armies always dodge the nerf bat!