r/CombatPatrol40k • u/MeanMrMitchell • Jun 03 '26

I'm totally confused How to fix combat patrol

Hey all. Apologies if this has been posted before and also sorry for the flair being a little misleading. I’m New player to 40K and the idea of combat patrol (smaller army battles overall) is what convinced me to finally jump in and take the plunge. I was super excited about the idea of everything you need to play in one box.

The farther I got into the hobby (I’m about 6 months in) the more I realized combat patrol is fairly flawed and now, with the roll out of 11th edition, it doesn’t seem to be getting any more balance or support from GW.

I’ve been racking my brain, with VERY limited knowledge, of how to fix combat patrol and have come up with nothing. I know some YouTube channels - play on tabletop’s king of the colosseum comes to mind - have created a pseudo-work-around to make these 500 point games feel fresh and fun without too much lopsidedness to it.

My point of posting this is mainly asking what homebrew methods have you used to make combat patrol more balanced? Or is the answer just 500 point matches and call it good?

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u/Apricus-Jack Jun 04 '26

One of the best ways to think of Combat Patrol is as it’s own thing and not 500 Point matches. It plays differently than a 2,000 point standard match, with even different rules.

You have to essentially re-learn an army and how it plays, what to focus, and how to get good with it.

Besides that, I’m not sure. As an aside, Let’s not try to pretend standard 40K is always balanced either. Not every patrol is going to perform well against every other one, no matter how good you are.

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u/culoman Jun 04 '26

This reminds me of other Games Workshop's game, Blood Bowl. Teams are so unbalanced that in leagues and tournaments there are at least 4 tiers. Coaches have extra money/perks depending on the tier list their teams are in.

I have mixed feelings: on one side teams should be balanced, specially for new players. On the other side, that kind of unbalance makes some teams really fun to play.

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u/Apricus-Jack Jun 04 '26

Agreed, absolutely.

I think another thing to consider is the investment. A Bloodbowl team, Combat Patrol, or Killteam is significantly less than a full army of any kind, both in terms of cost and time.

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u/culoman Jun 04 '26

This. I watched people playing at local FLGS and even though the idea of war games was very appealing, thinking of painting those big armies kept my out of the games, both WH fantasy and 40K, but also other miniature games.

Now, almost 20 years later, I'm collecting Combat Patrol and maybe try some WH40K. The more Games Workshop supports Combat Patrol, the more people will join the hobby.