Heads up, the Warhammer 40k Meta Monday is in a state of emergency, as the game is probably in its most dire spot since 10th edition dropping in 2023, and here’s why.
It’s time for another 40k Meta Monday, and the latest Warhammer 40k competitive scene is on fire right now, and not in a good way.
With the latest balance dataslate, the shiny new Tournament Companion, and the mission deck stirring up chaos, some factions are running rampant, while others are left scratching their heads.
Death Guard are still impossible to kill, Knights are steamrolling everything, and those new Challenger Cards? Let’s just say they’re “deciding” more games than the players.
If you’re wondering who’s winning, who’s struggling, and why this meta feels like an emergency, you’re in the right place.
Let’s break down what’s happening as of July 21st, 2025, before things get even weirder.
A State of Emergency
For the first time ever, I was really not looking forward to a major tournament. I attended the GW Tacoma Open, one of the major events in our hobby each year. Even though I made it to the top cut, the whole experience just felt off. I’ll break down a few reasons why it didn’t sit right with me.
Challenger Cards are a problem
I think Jack may have summed it up best in his self-proclaimed crash-out video, and I’ll go into a little bit of my experience with the new Chapter Approved Challenger Cards in the Tacoma Open.
Not good.
Every single one of my games was impacted by challenger cards, and every single person who drew challenger cards in games won because of them, myself included.
I was able to pull out a 2-point victory in a game I had no business winning because I had scored multiple challenger cards across all the turns and was able to exploit my knowledge of the gamestate by going second.
The same thing happened to me later in the event where my opponent drew four challenger cards and scored three of them, for a 6-point final victory. He scored 91 points to my 85, and 28 of those points came on the bottom of turn 5.
It was a terrible experience for me in both games because neither felt like I had control over it, and I was gifted a win and scammed out of one in the other.
Not a fun way to win, or to lose.
Even worse is when my opponent drew a challenger card after my strategically placed move block against his knights failed miserably because he just added 6″ to his movement and charged my Silent King.
The other problem with the cards is the wildly different power levels between them. The movement cards are absolutely insane when you’ve meticulously pre-measured everything, while the other ones, like grenades, might be a little bit more damage to get you over the hump against a big target.
Challenger cards need a rework. I’m not sure what it is, but an increase to the point differential seems like the most obvious choice. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re potentially removed from tournament play as a band-aid fix.
This is an emergency situation.
The Elephants On the Table
Imperial and Chaos Knights are also a, pun intended, BIG problem. They’re obviously undercosted and overstatted in their current iteration, resulting in poor play experiences for many armies that struggle to deal with them.
The increase to wound count, at the end of the day, is objectively a buff, and an even bigger one when coupled with the FNP the armies can take. Missing a knight by four wounds puts every army into “this is an emergency” mode.
I’m not entirely sure about this statistic, but I heard from a friend that 33 Canis Rex were played at the event, which seems fine until you realize there were only 28 Imperial Knights armies. The ability to ally these big beasts into other armies just adds fuel to the fire.
Luckily, this issue can be handled with a quick tweak. Knights were already one of the stronger armies in the game before the points drops and wound buffs, so if we revert one of those two things, it likely softens the impact.
Indirect is Dumb, and Death Guard are Still Broken
Death Guard are a problem. This army has absolutely been head and shoulders above all other armies since their codex came out, and we haven’t seen an adjustment to the absolutely oppressive (while uninspired) builds they’ve run from the start.
It’s three Plagueburst Crawlers, three Launcher Drones, some Mephitics, the Virulence guy, two Deathshroud with Leader and a splash of poxwalkers.
That’s it.
It doesn’t matter if you plan for it; they’ll just shoot your counter with indirect fire until it’s gone. If you’re trying to rush them, they can deep strike 6″ and slam you with an extremely durable “kills anything in the game” unit. That unit also stands back up unless you get close to it and charge it to finish it off.
All while manipulating your stats and making the math wildly skewed in their favor.
Deathguard has been needing some adjustments for a while. They can’t just be the most durable, most MSU, most lethal, and arguably still fast (deep striking their melee and just rolling 6″ charges really smooths over any tactical positioning mistakes you make along the way), and able to indirect fire better than anyone else in the game.
One army shouldn’t be this oppressive and ubiquitous. Please help.
Closing thoughts
For the first time in two years, I don’t have another event I’m planning to attend, and that makes me sad.
However, the new reveals are freakin sweet. Votann needed more models in their range, and as a Necron one-trick army, it’s nice to see us getting new models. Are those models also getting rules? Are we back?!
Regardless, I think the 40k meta right now is a bit of a dumpster fire. Between challenger cards handing out wins and losses like candy, Knights stomping everything with impunity, and Death Guard refusing to die (again), it’s tough out there.
In the meantime, if you’re heading to a tournament soon… well, good luck, and maybe pack an extra bottle of patience.
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What do you think of the top Warhammer 10th edition Meta Monday 40k army lists for July 21st, 2025?
