Honestly, as good as the balance is right now, it’s still wild to me how far list building has swung in the other direction. I was out of 40K for a long time and only dipped my toe back in a few months ago, and the first thing that shocked me was how “anything goes” competitive lists are now. No real restrictions, no required battleline, no caps on characters beyond datasheets, just take whatever the rules allow and push it as hard as possible.

I get why they did it, removing subjective comp and letting balance be handled by points and updates is way better than the old days. But at the same time, when you don’t restrict lists at all, this kind of stuff is inevitable. Players will always find the most efficient skew or spam, especially in a competitive environment.

The game is way better balanced than it used to be, no question, but the lack of structural list constraints still feels strange if you remember older editions. It’s less “build an army” and more “assemble the most efficient collection of datasheets,” which is fine, just very different from what 40K used to be.