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New 40k Rules For Valerian & Aleya Are Unplayable

sisters of silence Top 5 New 40k Rules We'd Like to See in Future White DwarfsTwo new datasheets for Warhammer 40k are here! Check out the new rules for Valerian & Aleya, the latest Talons of the Emperor.

Good news/ bad news here folks. New datasheets are here for Valerian and Aleya, but at first glance, they may be unplayable.

UPDATE: Since the latest official GW previews, it looks like Custodes and Sisters of Silence will be getting a rules tweak to be playable with one another in-game

New Models Valerian and Aleya Datasheet SPOTTED

An Adeptus Custode and a Sister of Silence have banded together in one of the latest novels from the Black Library. To celebrate the book, GW also revealed the models for them earlier on. But they’re also going to be fieldable in 40k and even come with matched play points.

custodes valerian and aleya

Coming from GAINAX01 on Reddit, we’ve got a full look at the datasheet.

valerian and aleya custodes datasheetSo there are a couple of things to point out about this rules sheet. These two characters come as a unit so you have to field them both if you want to use one. They both have named weapons which slap about as hard as you’d expect a Custodes/ SoS character to slap in melee. On top of that, they both come with a few unique rules to set them apart.

  • Valerian: Let’s you reroll 1’s for other Custodes and has a 5++ invuln (which is all pretty standard issue). However, the Golden Laurels gives you a nice little power spike once per game giving you a free reroll on the hit, wound, or damage.
  • Aleya: Aleya is obviously squishier than the Custode, but she can mess up a Psyker’s day. The fact that she can’t be targetted by Psychic power is also really nice. And she’s just another way to debuff Psykers with your other SoS force.

The “Unplayable” Part

Up until now, all of these stats seem pretty dope. Except there’s a major discrepancy that we’re seeing in the keywords and points. For starters, Valerian and Aleya have their own keyword bracket and the ONLY keyword they share is the IMPERIUM keyword.

If you remember the FAQ that shut down hardcore soup lists at the start of 8th, you can’t just have the only keyword as Imperium anymore.

Battle BrothersOf course, with the way that the keywording works, this unit is technically unfieldable. However, even if it were usable on the tabletop, the egregious points cost would turn players away as well.

Note that is says Points per MODEL: 188. Seeing that there are two models in the unit, that comes out to a whopping 376 pts for a T5 model and a T3 model. For 376 pts you could basically be bringing a Knight.

If you were stoked to be using these guys in your next game you might be better off just using them as an unnamed character for their faction (i.e a Shield-Captain for Valerian for example).

What are your thoughts on the new datasheet for the characters? Is GW continuing to show us that they’re moving too fast for the rules department? 

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About the Author: Wesley Floyd

Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.