World champion Richard Siegler sizes up Warhammer 40,000's new edition

Warhammer 40,000’s new edition is being judged by one of the few players who can spot a broken system before it spreads, and Richard Siegler’s early take points straight at the rules most likely to change real games first. Warhammer Community published the interview on June 10, after Siegler had already played the new edition in a Warhammer Open Dallas showmatch, and his feedback landed with extra weight because he is the 2025 World Champion of Warhammer 40,000, a two-time ITC champion, and the winner of all three Warhammer Opens in 2021 at Orlando, New Orleans and Austin.

The biggest shift Siegler flagged is the new Force Disposition system. Games Workshop has built 11th edition around five of them, Take and Hold, Disruption, Purge the Foe, Priority Assets and Reconnaissance, with the Chapter Approved Mission Deck packaging those into 15 mission matchups. That matters on the table because the mission is no longer just a generic “kill stuff or stand on objectives” script. Fast armies, objective traders and hard-to-shift brawlers each get a clearer lane, which should make list building feel less one-note. The competitive edge is obvious: players will have to think about which detachment and disposition pairing actually supports the way an army wins, while casual games should feel more varied without needing a full tournament pack to make sense.

Siegler also zeroed in on points changes, and this is where spammable units get squeezed. Warhammer Community says some units, including Adepta Sororitas Retributors and Adeptus Mechanicus Ironstrider Ballistari, will have separate base and wargear costs, while especially strong datasheets can rise in price when players take a second or third copy. That is a direct hit on autopilot list construction. A unit with the right gun package may no longer be the obvious default, and the second and third copy tax is designed to stop armies from stacking the same standout threat three times and calling it efficiency.

The other two changes Siegler highlighted should shape how games feel minute to minute. Secondary cards can now be held for later turns instead of being burned immediately, and players can score no more than 15 secondary points in a single turn. That gives trailing players more room to recover and makes bad draws less punishing, especially in longer competitive rounds. On top of that, Warhammer Community says the new terrain layouts are standardized from Combat Patrol tables all the way to the Warhammer World Championships, pushing battlefields toward meaningful positions and objective terrain instead of cluttered marker-heavy layouts. After the May 25 live event at Esports Stadium Arlington, Texas, where three showcase games included a rematch of the 2025 World Championships final between Siegler and Liam VSL, the message is hard to miss: 11th edition is being tuned for games that reward planning, not just list spam.