Tabletop Battles sizes up Chaos lists as 11th edition points arrive

Chaos players got their first real 11th edition reality check when the final points pass landed on 17 June 2026. Warhammer Community paired the update with a refreshed Warhammer 40,000 app and a new interactive Munitorum Field Manual, and said the new edition would be playable that weekend. For Chaos lists, the practical question was immediate: which shells still fit, which premium pieces had quietly become too expensive, and which detachments were actually worth spending Detachment Points on.

The broad answer is that Chaos did not get one clean winner or loser, it got a sharper sorting process. Warhammer Community said the points changes were driven by core-rules shifts, with some units climbing because they are stronger in the new edition and others dropping because they are less effective. The categories singled out for upward pressure were the usual suspects: vehicles with stronger mid-range firepower, large combat monsters and vehicles, fast melee infantry, large flying models, titanic units, and battle-shock manipulators. In practice, that means the big-pressure Chaos staples are the pieces most likely to get taxed, while cheaper utility units and scoring tools become more attractive by comparison.

That matters because the Chaos faction packs arrived on 10 June, a week before the points update, and they introduced a second layer of list-building friction. Chaos detachments now carry both Force Dispositions and Detachment Point costs. For Chaos Space Marines, Cabal of Chaos, Devotees of Destruction, and Murdertalon Raiders sit at 1DP, while Pactbound Zealots costs 3DP. Warhammer Community also set the baseline at 2 Detachment Points for 1,000-point games and 3 Detachment Points for 2,000-point games, which makes the expensive detachment an actual list-building decision rather than a free costume change.

That is the part Chaos players need to read carefully before buying more kits or rewriting their competitive rosters. If a list wants to lean on the same premium monster, transport, or pressure piece twice over, the new points structure is built to make that harder to do blindly. The smarter shells now look like the ones that mix reliable damage, enough bodies to play the mission, and enough speed or durability to survive a board that punishes overcommitment.

The launch-week rollout makes the picture even clearer. Space Marine faction packs went first on 8 June, xenos followed on 9 June, Chaos landed on 10 June, and the points and app update completed the sequence on 17 June. That staggered schedule left Chaos commanders with exactly one week to digest their detachments before the real list-building math hit. The old habit of locking in a favorite shell and filling the rest later is a lot riskier now.