More army spoilers? Yes, please!

We’re mixing things up this Warmachine Wednesday, with the second preview of the 2026 balance update releasing January 21! If you missed part one, you can find it here. 

Warmachine gets a big yearly balance update to level the battlefield, making now one of the best times to start playing Warmachine. If you’re looking for a sign to jump into the Iron Kingdoms, this is it. 

Once again, we’ve got Warmachine Creative Director, Mat Hart, and Jamie Perkins, Warmachine game development lead, here to take us through the preview. Massive thanks to the wider SFG team, Privateer Press, and playtesters for the many hours given to playtesting that helped make this update a reality. On to the spoilers!

Cygnar Gravediggers overview

There are two key things we needed to address with Gravediggers, as well as some knock-on effects of the global lethality adjustments explained in more detail in part one. 

While the Gravediggers win rate is in the right range, they haven’t been the most fun army to play against. With a heavy focus on destroying as much of the opponent from range as possible, their optimal game plan has been to hit early and hit hard. 

If the plan works, the opponent no longer has the models to fight back. If the plan doesn’t work, the Gravediggers were often losing slowly instead of the healthy back-and-forth you’d want to see in an exciting game.

To start with, many long-range Gravedigger weapons and abilities had their range reduced — the most of any faction. As you’d imagine, this made Gravediggers one of the weaker armies in early January testing. 

To balance this, we made the second key change: introducing more raw hitting power to give the Gravediggers tools for back-and-forth play. Airdrops are unique to Gravediggers, so that’s where we brought this change into play.

Before we get into the details, it’s important to preface that to make the changes balanced, all airdropped crates, including the heavy weapon crates, have gained the Inconsequential rule introduced in the last update. This means they can neither score or contest any form of scenario objective. 

Now, let’s start with the Fuel Canister. We’ve tweaked this bad boy’s existing rule to grant a Gravedigger construct +2 SPD instead of immediately making it advance 2”. This slight reduction in flexibility comes in exchange for a new ability: Augment. Augment is like a construct melee version of the Ammo Crate. You can cause 1 damage to the Fuel Canister and, each time you do, the construct’s next melee attack gains +2 to the damage roll.

This means you have a choice of whether to drop a Fuel Canister into your battle lines and give a speed buff to nearby constructs, or drop it into enemy lines and let your constructs hit their target harder. Why choose? Go all in and drop two canisters for both effects. Have your crate and eat it!

Next up, the Ammo Crate. This is already a popular choice, so we’ve given it a light touch. You can no longer use it to extend your ranged attacks by 2”, but you can increase their POW, and its health has gone from 5 to 8, so you get more increases per Ammo Crate. Nice and simple, and a good trade-off for Gravedigger Ranger Gunners gaining Lone Gunman. No more Volume Fire stacking on Combined Ranged Attack!

Speaking of Ranger Gunners, the Medical Crate is no longer restricted to returning Grunts to play. Now, you can return any non-character friendly faction model to a unit. Did your Gunners get sniped out of a unit? Bring them back!

All three weapon options delivered by the Heavy Weapon Crate have had their ranges cut by 2” as part of the reductions we mentioned earlier. Last but not least, the Mantlet now grants +3 ARM against ranged attacks when in base contact, instead of +2.

Major Allister Caine, as a warcaster, is a microcosm of the wider “problem” we saw with Gravediggers. Relatively balanced in terms of maths and power level, but not fun enough to both play with or against.

Levelling with you, we tried a few approaches, and none gave the results we were hoping for. So, we looked to the past. Which versions of Caine had been most popular with players? To play with, and against!

So you’ll notice, when you see the full card, that Caine’s now had a fairly substantial rework. He’s gained a number of abilities that look suspiciously similar to Captain Allister Caine (aka Caine 2).

Specifically, Caine’s Spellstorm Pistols don’t have Reload [1], or even Reload [2]. They have Reload infinite. Yes, we want Caine shooting, and shooting a lot.

Next up, he’s gained a passive version of Gatecrasher that allows him to teleport within 5” of wherever he was, and end his activation. The only catch is that he only triggers Gatecrasher by destroying or removing at least one enemy model from play.

Caine’s feat has also been replaced with one similar to the Caine 2 design: he gains a cumulative +1 to ranged damage rolls after each attack that hits an enemy model. And any enemies he destroys? They explode, dealing POW 10 blast damage, and are then removed from play for good measure.

Lastly, his spells. Because Caine has Gatecrasher, he doesn’t need Teleport, so that’s gone. Instead, he’s gained Blur, Magic Bullet, and Mage Sight.

This one is less an update on the Heavy Machine Gun itself and more to the Tracer Rounds rule, which wasn’t performing as we’d like across the army. Tracer Rounds should have a lot of interactions with Flare, which wasn’t happening. So, every instance of Tracer Rounds has been updated as follows:

Tracer Rounds: The first attack made with this weapon each activation ignores Stealth when resolving the attack. A model hit by the first attack made with this weapon each activation suffers Flare. (A model suffering Flare loses Stealth and suffers –2 DEF for one turn.)

Instead of giving up your initials to use Tracer Rounds, you now get it as a passive benefit to your first shot each turn. Super useful!

Dusk House Kallyss overview

We want to see House Kallyss more in 2026! Until now, these undead Iosans have been too reliant on a handful of powerful beings. So, we’re upping the selection appeal of more models and spreading out that power level.

Scyrafael was designed to be a warjack-focused warcaster, but that hasn’t been the reality. So, for starters, we’ve made her feat more simple and more strong. It no longer needs to damage an enemy model to force a d3” push. The POW 10 damage roll and the push both happen each time an enemy model triggers the feat effects, giving her more dedicated control.

Additionally, Scyrafael has a new Field Marshal, Sanguine Fate, an ability she also has for herself. When a model with Sanguine Fate makes an attack roll, you’ll roll a separate die that isn’t added to total. If the separate die result is the same as another die used in the attack roll, and the attack hits, it’s a critical hit.

In practice, when you roll an attack, you’ll throw in another die of a different colour. That die isn’t part of the attack roll — it doesn’t make you more accurate — but it does increase your chance of scoring a critical hit.

Want more? Arcane Propulsion now works on warjacks of any base size!

Before you get too excited, the colossal Phantasm’s base DEF has reduced from 11 to 10. Why? Because with Poltergeist or Arcane Propulsion, its DEF would’ve reached 13, which is pretty spicy for a huge base under the new lethality adjustments. DEF 12 is still worth achieving, but far more within reason.

As for Scyrafael’s spells? She’s gained Force Blast, last seen on Adeptis Rahn, and Polarity Shield.

Lastly, Scyrafael’s Storm of Blades ranged attack has been reduced from 10” to 8”. Sanguine Fate makes its Critical Decapitation much more likely; you just have to get a little closer. And who doesn’t love a nice Crit Decap? Those on the receiving end, probably…

Speaking of spicy, Morayne is all about that base… list of spells. The only change to Morayne herself is that she’s gained Resourceful; another reason to consider how many warjacks you’ll want her to take. 

The main event for Morayne is indeed her spell list. She’s gained Mirage and Revive from the former House Kallyss spell rack, which House Kallyss players will already be familiar with. 

And to put Morayne back in touch with her mage hunting roots, she also gained Pursuit, last seen on Lylyth, Herald of Everblight.

This lets Morayne to haywire her opponent’s plans by casting (or recasting) it after triggering Funeral Rights. Yes, as an upkeep spell, Pursuit adds another lever to pull when unleashing her devastating feat on unsuspecting enemies.

Speaking of Mage Hunters, we had to make a few tweaks to both the Mage Hunter Rangers and the Mage Hunter Assassin units. Mage Hunter Rangers have gone from MAT 6 to MAT 5, but also saw their cost reduced from 7 to 6.

Finally — adding further context to the recent reveal of the Soulless Blademaster changes by Spell Rack, wherein they gained Flank [Warjack] — House Kallyss no longer has access to the Battle Lust spell. 

So, we needed new ways to crank hitting power. As one example, in exchange for dropping from POW 10 down to POW 8 and increasing from cost 6 to cost 7, Mage Hunter Assassins have gained Weapon Master.

Khador Winter Korps overview

Another army we’d love to see more of in 2026 is good ol’ Khador Winter Korps. They needed some love, and by the Empress, we’re here to give it to them.

As part of the global balance pass for Warmachine, we’ve reviewed models with selectable arms and heads (what we’d call “modular cohorts”) across the board to determine what’s been preventing some build options from seeing play.

Winter Korps cohorts have been compressed, with too many modular options vying for the same points bracket at similar costs. Too many interesting options were falling by the wayside because they couldn’t justify their price tags. So, we’ve made a couple of statistical adjustments, but we’ve mainly redistributed the costs of everything to give it all room to breathe.

Let’s take the Dire Wolf. Khador purists will be of the mindset that Khador “don’t do light warjacks”, and not without cause. The Dire Wolf is as close to a light warjack as Winter Korps gets. But up until now, you’ve been paying a heavy warjack cost for a “not quite heavy” reward. 

All the heads on the Dire Wolf were too expensive, so those all came down by 1 point. The head granting Overtake has been replaced by a head granting Righteous Vengeance. Finally, the head granting Pathfinder has been replaced by a head granting +1 RAT.

Why the RAT head? Well, as part of lethality changes, the Dire Wolf’s base RAT has come down from 5 to 4. You can still have RAT 5, you just need to pay a point for it. While we’re on base stats, the Dire Wolf is now so cheap we had to bring its DEF down from 11 to 10 to make it fair. 

On to the arms. The Heavy Chain Gun used to cost 6 points; now it costs 5. Volume Fire is in a few too many places in the game right now, so in this instance, it’s been replaced by Volley Fire. Instead of a flat +1 or +2 to hit and damage relative to the target, the Heavy Chain Gun now gets boosted attack rolls when attacking warrior models.

The Flame Fist still costs the same, but now grants the Dire Wolf fire resistance. If you hit enemies with the ranged attack, you also apply Flare.

We did need to increase the cost of the Plow Shield from 4 to 5. Getting an ARM 21 warjack, even if it is a Dire Wolf, is a little too good when it costs less than 10 points total.

What does all this add up to? There’s now plenty of varied Dire Wolf builds that come in at 9 or 10 points. And if you want that little extra bit of output or functionality, you can get something a little more spicy for 11 points.

Now we’ve stretched the bottom end of the cost scale by discounting the Dire Wolf, and upped the cost of Medveditsa to 17 (as covered by ZeroCamp), let’s look at how we’ve used that new cost space for the Great Bear.

Like the Dire Wolf, the lethality changes were applied before anything else. In this case, the Great Bear has gone from MAT 7 to MAT 6. That’s the only chassis change.

Where the Dire Wolf got a 1 point cost reduction to its heads, the Great Bear gets the same discount to its right arms. The Heavy Cannon got an extra bump with a 2 point discount. 

Certain weapons with Volume Fire — usually the ones on cohorts that are boostable — have had their range reduced by 2” due to the effectiveness of these weapons under new lethality changes. The Grinder has reduced from range 10” to range 8”.

There’s also one change to the heads: the head granting Mage Static now instead grants Mage Ward. While within 6” of this model, friendly models gain Magic Resistance. (When this model is targeted by an arcane attack roll, roll one additional die. Discard the highest die of each roll.)

Now most of the main warjack options are cheaper, we need someone to lead them. Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova has always been on the cusp of greatness, with abilities that either weren’t quite good enough or weren’t fun to play against.

To thread that particular needle (pretty tough when you’re freezing your digits off in the frigid climes of Khador), we’ve made a couple of key changes. First off, to turn Baranova into the premier spell slinger we know she can be, her ARC has gone up from 7 to 8. Second, she needs some spells to sling! 

Baranova has gained Tempest from the former Winter Korps spell rack. More poignantly, in homage to her past as a Greylord — Khador’s once-powerful society of ice-wielding mages — she’s gained Veil of Mists and Occultation. More subtle than other Khador spells, but very fitting for Baranova.

Finally, Baranova’s Storm of Ages feat is already powerful; she just needs to be able to project it further. So, we’ve increased her CTRL stat from 14 to 16. Now, she can reach models further away. And as a side benefit, Invocations of Wrath to catch more friendly models, too.

Orgoth Sea Raiders overview

Horruskh’s back must be aching from carrying Sea Raiders throughout 2025. Like Dusk, we’ve spread out the power level of the army to give other warcasters, cohorts, units, and solos their time to shine. Seriously, guys. Other casters are available. 

As a faction, Orgoth would benefit from a more clearly defined, cohesive, and thus more thematic playstyle. So, in a perfect world, that would mean a full army overhaul, which is way deeper than the scope of a January update. So, let’s just consider this an early insight into our wider intentions for Orgoth overall.

For the time being, we’ve given these invaders more quality-of-life changes, focusing on individual model adjustments that will help them see more play, and make them more fun to play with.

Some of you might be thinking, “the Gharlghast sees play already, why buff it?” And you’re right, it does — but only with Horruskh. We’d like this colossal monstrosity deployed with other Orgoth casters. 

Our changes here are simple, and in line with the modular cohort updates we’ve already touched on for Khador. Global lethality aims require the Gharlghast’s RAT to come down from 5 to 4, but the Spider head now grants +1 RAT instead of Critical Amputation.

The Rocket Pods have lost Reload [1] in favour of its base rate of fire increasing from 1 to 2.

Pain Maddened is now a base rule for the Gharlghast; you always have it, and don’t need to select the Frother head to enable it. Instead of Pain Maddened, the Frother head now grants Aggressive. A free-charging Gharlghast!

Last but not least, as part of reducing the impact of spray attacks, the Infernus Cannon has changed from a spray attack to a range 10” AOE attack with POW 12/7, swapping continuous fire for critical continuous fire. Finally, its cost increased from 4 to 5.

Like Baranova (don’t tell her we said that), Sabbreth is on the cusp of being an excellent warcaster. She also wants to be a spell slinger — and she’s pretty good at it already, thanks to her Invocations of Fire feat — but we felt we could turn the dial further.

In addition to casting each of her spells for free, Invocations of Fire now lets friendly Faction warrior models gain +2 SPD when they charge. Time to get those melee infantry moving!

Speaking of spell slinging, Sabbreth has picked up a tasty selection of spells. From the former Sea Raiders rack, Sabbreth gained Inviolable Resolve, Hex Blast, and Death March. She also gained Ghost Walk to help with getting all that infantry through terrain.

And speaking of infantry, in the Lock & Load US 2025 keynote we confirmed all Reaver units and the Reaver Commander have picked up Last Word — an ability that allows a model to move 3” and make a melee attack when destroyed. But we’ve made some specific unit tweaks, too. 

The Strike Reavers saw the least action of all the Reaver units in 2025, so they’ve increased from base ARM 15 to ARM 16. They’re also cheaper, reduced in cost from 8 down to 7.

Assault Reavers took a hit from the lethality ray, losing Prey. However, the base POW of their Harpoons increased from 12 to 13, and the POW of their spears increased from 10 to 12. Combine that with gaining Last Word, and they’re better at delivering consistent damage while still being in line with global adjustments.

Aside from gaining Last Word, the Reaver Skirmishers got off unscathed. Meanwhile, the Reaver Commander has dropped from MAT 7 to MAT 6, and from RAT 6 to RAT 5.

The Reaver Standard Command Attachment dropped Inspiration as part of the lethality review, but is now a point cheaper at cost 1.

Other Command Attachments in Warmachine have seen similar changes. So, they’re all less inspired, but you’ll pay less to recruit them and they’ll see more play. Perhaps the true inspiration is the friends they’ll make along the way…

Southern Kriels Brinebloods overview

Brinebloods have been one of the most complicated armies to work on for this January update. Navigating overlapping layers of buffs to determine where to make fair adjustments to lethality was both exceedingly fun and extremely challenging. Fitting, for a pirate faction.

Brinebloods can stack offensive buffs perhaps better than any other army. Our job was to mitigate their ability to stack those buffs to obscene levels. Buff stacking is still part of the Brinebloods’ identity, but it’s closer to the realm of reasonable, and players will need to put more models at risk to do it.

We also saw a golden opportunity to up the flavour factor of the Brinebloods playstyle, in the same way as more recent armies like Gravediggers and Old Umbrey. Simply put, every non-flying Brineblood model that didn’t have Amphibious, now has Amphibious.

This was a neat way to make Brinebloods care more about water (makes sense, right?) while giving them an army-wide method of implementing simple, ranged defence, because being Amphibious while in shallow water gives concealment. Even on tables where there’s no shallow water, the Brinebloods can make their own. Ye afraid to get wet?

Apparently, we’re in the mood to talk about spell slinging leaders today. 

From January, Captain Shadowtongue will be slinging Fog of War and Scything Touch. Hold the telegraph, those are Cryx spells! And wouldn’t you believe it, Shadowtongue’s got history with Cryx. As resident Loremaster Sherwin would recommend, definitely check out Shadowtongue’s lore if you haven’t already.

In fact, as his story goes, Shadowtongue’s got an undead crew. So, he now has an Elite Cadre rule that makes all friendly Faction warrior models in his army, aside from himself, undead. You’d better start believing in ghost stories… you’re playing one.

Now, raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Ragemonger’s feat. It’s okay, this is a safe space. 

Okay, okay, we’re not throwing it out. Ragemonger still turns ones into sixes. However, we have made some adjustments as part of reshaping the gameplans and firming up the individual identities of the Brineblood warlocks. 

Captain Firequill’s updates, revealed by A Musing Panda on YouTube, are designed to make Firequill the premier ranged warlock of the army. To enhance Ragemonger’s role as the premier melee specialist, his dice-fixing feat now specifically applies to melee attacks.

To more easily weather ranged damage during early turns and actually reach melee, Ragemonger’s army needed more defensive tech. To that end, he’s also picked up Field Marshal Shield Guard, letting his warbeasts absorb more dangerous ranged attacks while his army advances. 

Leaning further into Ragemonger’s melee specialism and dice manipulation, we’ve given him Starcrossed. Opponents at close range will have a much harder time landing consistent hits on Ragemonger’s army. 

Finally, Ragemonger should really be, well, a ragemonger. Now, with Ravager, his warbeasts can finally go Berserk!

Dark Operations overview

Dark Operations was the first successful re-launch of an Army of Legend. The Cephalyx are now fully available to print at home or to pick up here on our website; an excellent route back into the game for any returning players, and fun to play. 

Dark Operations have a solid win rate (just ask Fraser from the Warmachine dev team about his record at this year’s World Team Championship), so we mainly used the global lethality adjustments to make Exulon Thexus, Khythos, and Cognifex Cyphon all viable options.

Xiphus is a simple change with a big impact, losing Veteran Leader for Drudges. On top of access to Gang, Xiphus was tipping the MAT of Dark Operations models over the top. Losing Veteran Leader here keeps Dark Ops in line with global lethality. To keep Xiphus coming to the table, we’ve reduced this solo’s cost from 4 down to 3.

Criterions came racing out of the gate as a solid heavy infantry unit with excellent defensive rules in Battle Driven, Tough, and Rapid Healing. None of the Criterions’ defensive rules have been removed, but they’re now paying the fairer cost of 9 points for the unit up from 8. The Criterions sit alongside Xiphus in the Dark Operations Command Starter, so the points adjustment also ensures the Command Starter is still playable at 30 points like those for other armies.

Lastly, as part of the global adjustments, the Criterions’ MAT has come down from 7 to 6.

A sidenote for Cryx Necrofactorium players: in the last article we confirmed Mechanithrall Brutes have come down in cost from 8 to 7. This change, combined with a clear offensive role for Brutes and defensive role for Criterions, should even out the rates at which we see these two units on the table.

Not technically a pair of Dark Operations models, but they are friendly Faction and very clearly Cephalyx, so close enough.

Nostilla and Aberration saw a decent amount of play last year and it’s been great to see this lovable pair received so well. The only adjustments needed here were in relation to global lethality.

For Aberration, it’s just a case of RAT 5 reducing to RAT 4. It’s still possible to increase Aberration’s accuracy using Hormone Manipulation.

Nostilla’s ranged attack has reduced from spray 12 to spray 10 and her AAT, MAT, and RAT have all come down by 1. Finally, Awe had to be cut because of the problematic way it would’ve stacked on top of other defensive buffs if it stayed. All that did feel a tad harsh, so we bestowed Nostilla with the ability to give Aberration Aggressive. Aberration with free charges!

Another simple update here: the dominated units were all a little too expensive. Dominated Winter Korps Infantry have reduced from cost 8 to cost 7, Dominated Stormblade Legionnaires have reduced from cost 8 to cost 7, and Dominated Strike Reavers have reduced from cost 10 to cost 8 (they also picked up Last Word and 1 point of ARM like their undominated brethren). 

Lastly, the MAT and RAT of all three Dominated units has come down by 1. This is partially to obey lethality adjustments, since their Dominator models have retained Inspiration. From a lore perspective, it makes sense, because these units are at their most effective when the Dominators are alive to direct them. When the cat’s away, the dominated mice will hit less accurately.

Convergence of Cyriss overview

As one of the Armies of Legend we’ll be re-releasing as part of Warmachine 3D, Convergence of Cyriss will see further development closer to their re-release. 

As happened with Crucible Guard, Dark Ops, and Thornfall Alliance, some models in the 2025 Convergence of Cyriss Prime army will move into Legacy: Aurora the Numen of Aerogenesis, Aurum Lucanum Athanor Locke, Diffuser, Galvaniser, Mitigator, Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex, Artificer Prime Nemo, Asphyxious the Sanctified, Destructotron 3000, and J.A.I.M.s.

Before the Crucible Guard players riot, Locke will still be playable in the Crucible Guard Prime army. She’ll only drop out of the Prime army for Convergence of Cyriss.

And speaking of Convergence, the focus of their January update is twofold: quality of life changes, and replacing abilities and strengths they’ll lose with the models moving into Legacy.

We want to help Convergence make more use of vector warjacks. Force Induction is such a unique and interesting resource efficiency mechanic for moving focus points around your battlegroup and re-spending them, but it’s been underfunded. Convergence needed a better way to kick off the Force Induction chain.

To that end, we’ve given Empower to the Optifex Directive. This lets them serve a similar function to Empower units in other focus armies, adding focus to vectors mid-turn to take some strain off their warcasters. In exchange for such a powerful ability, the unit cost has increased from 3 to 4.

With the Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex (try saying that quickly) moving to Legacy, this leaves Convergence without a method of channelling spells. This is where the Frustrum Locus comes in.

The Frustrum Locus is already responsible for dispelling enemy upkeeps with its Phase Singularity gun, making it right at home on the outskirts of the skirmish. Plus, existing interactions dispelling enemy spells, makes it the logical thematic choice for channelling tech. So, in place of Void Generator, the Frustrum Locus now has Channelling instead.

As for Archnumen Aurora, we’ve got a small change with a big impact. Just like Scyrafael, Aurora already has the Arcane Propulsion spell. And just like Scyrafael, Aurora can now cast this spell onto huge based vectors like the Prime Axiom.

Even more spoilers?!

If you’ve had your ears to the ground you may have picked up on a number of awesome Warmachine community channels sharing official secrets!

• For more Cygnar Storm Legion changes, check out The Business

• For more Khador Winter Korps changes, check out the Bokur Broadcast and Zero Camp

• For more Dusk House Kallyss changes, head to Spell Rack and Tried & True

• For more Southern Kriels Brinebloods changes, visit A Musing Panda

• For more Convergence of Cyriss changes, attend Simon’s Gaming Academy

• For more Khymaera Shadowflame Shard changes, it’s Blight Bringers

• For more Orgoth Sea Raiders changes, listen to Battle Driven

• For more Khador Old Umbrey changes, you want Power Swell

• For more on Thornfall Alliance, Euromachine has you covered

• For Cygnar Gravediggers secrets, watch Dice Down Gaming

The Cryx Necrofactorium spoilers were shared in the Warmachine Discord. Check ‘em out below:

That’s all we’ve got for you today. Set your reminder for January 21 now, when the full balance update releases in the app!

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