Codex Space Marines: Initial Thoughts
Everyone and their brother is grabbing the new Space Marine Codex. Let’s crack the cover and take a look:
Getting Started
At $58 this is the most expensive Codex to date. It’s also the biggest at 180 pages – that’s a mighty 36 pages more than the previous Space Marine Codex. So what’s it full of?
Pictures – this is one of the first things that jumps out. There are two pieces of black and white artwork, the inside front cover and the inside back cover. All the other pictures in the book are full-colour. There is a mix of familiar colour art, all-new artwork and a lot of black and white art that has been coloured.
Background – there’s lots of background information. Lots of inset boxes have quotes from great Space Marine heroes and there’s plenty of different timelines and flavour text. Seven Space Marine Chapters are detailed in depth and then so are some of their successor chapters. If you’re playing with a Codex of your own design you won’t miss out; there’s plenty of generic information about medals, Space Marine equipment and the creation of Space Marines.
Miniatures – there’s a lot of photos of miniatures. This is helped as, unlike previous codices, every single Space Marine model has been released. All seven main Chapters are shown which does mean a fair few black Marine models (Black Templars, Raven Guard and Iron Hands) but variety is provided by a few pictures of Successor Chapters.
The Rules Section
Chapter rules – Each of the seven Chapters receives its own set of extra rules (Chapter Tactics) to reflect the way they fight on the table and background.
• Ultramarines – The most flexible tactics, Ultramarines can choose from three Combat Doctrines over the course of the game either making them better in assault, shooting or moving and shooting.
• White Scars –get a big boost to bikes – they automatically pass Dangerous Terrain Tests, get +1 Strength to their Hammer of Wrath and virtually everything gets Hit & Run, especially useful as Combat Tactics is no more.
• Imperial Fists – Basically the army gets Bolter Drills, they can re-roll to hits of “1” with bolt-weapons. Their Devastator and Centurion squads also get Tank Hunter!
• Black Templars – In Challenges Black Templars re-roll to hit and get rending. They all get Crusader which lets them run to the enemy quicker and Sweeping Advance further.
• Iron Hands – Probably our favourite – they get Feel No Pain and all vehicles and characters have It Will Not Die. Techmarines then get a bonus to repair rolls. If you’re playing a vehicle heavy army these could be rather good!
• Salamanders – re-roll saves when wounded by flame weapons they also re-roll to wound with their own flame weapons. All Sergeants gain a master-crafted something of their choice.
• Raven Guard – they all have Scout and get Stealth on the first turn. They get better jump packs too.
Weapon & Equipment – All of the Space Marine equipment is described in depth. Characters now have a bigger selection of equipment choices including more powerful Chapter Relics that can make them the equal of the special characters.
Notable weapons and equipments are: –
• Grav-weaponry – this is a whole new category of weapon. Basically these use an enemy’s armour save to wound him rather than toughness. This lends itself well to taking on heavily armoured infantry, even better as they are all AP2. They fill in the same section as Meltas and Plasma. . The downside being they are reasonably poor against vehicle, with the exception of Grav-Cannons.
• Auspex – this now reduces an enemy’s cover save. Not so special now are we Tau players?
• Shield Eternal – this makes your character into Lysander – it’s a Storm Shield with Eternal Warrior and Adamantium Will.
• Burning Blade – Strength plus three and AP2 this sword also causes Blind. Sure there’s a chance it will kill you too but that’s because it’s so much awesome! (maybe take a Storm Shield too)
• Armour of Indominus – This provides a 2+ armour save and then for one turn an Invulnerable 2+ save! Oh, and you get Relentless too…
The Army List
Named Characters
There are a whopping 12 named characters in the Space Marine Codex. The big catch is that you can’t mix and match Chapters in your list and only members of the same Chapter get the boost. It should lead to some nice themed armies though. Most of the characters have been tweaked a little.
Our two favourites are: –
Varro Tigurius – He’s amazing! He’s 65 points cheaper and has got much, much better. He is the only librarian who can have Divination and can re-roll the dice to choose his powers. Oh and he can re-roll failed psychic tests and reserve rolls. Point-for-point he is the best psyker in the game offering plenty of protection from psychic powers while supplementing other units. If you’re playing Ultramarines you would be mad not to take him.
Kor’Sarro Khan – If you’re taking bikes then Khan is a great choice – he gives White Scars with Bikes Scout which makes them the equivalent, if not slightly better, than Dark Angels Ravenwing (sorry Dark Angels, you had your six months of glory!). He has the best Warlord Trait, Champion of Humanity, and with a bike is in a good position to use it with d3 Hammer of Wrath hits when he charges and a further five S5 power weapon attacks.
Generic Characters
Generic characters are back with a vengeance. The Chapter Master gets an extra wound and attack for an increase of just 5 points and all the characters get access to Chapter Relics. The Chapter Relics can add some really nice abilities that make them more than the equal of the named characters so now you can create your own Chapter with its own legendary character. This is one of my favorite things about the new codex.
Troops
Troops are pretty much the same although cheaper as you buy the extras separately. Tactical Squads now get Grav Weapons as upgrades – I’m looking forward to seeing how these fare on the battlefield. My personal favorite here is the move of Land Speeder Storms to Transport choices for Scouts. I’ve always wanted to field them but had a tough time justifying it. Not anymore!
Black Templar Crusader Squads can now be found here. They’re ok…I guess…
Elites
As you’d expect there’s lots of Elite choices. No major changes, just a few points tweaks here and there. The big change is to Legion of the Damned and the addition of Assault Centurions: –
Legion of the Damned – these have changed immensely. They’re now massively cheaper and ignore cover saves which is a great ability at the moment as Cover Saves are rather common. They still have their Invulnerable save which will be useful in some situations but I’m not too convinced by as they are still T4 and are likely to be boltered to death. They Deep Strike with a re-roll as well. To summarize they’re no longer god-awful as they have been, aren’t cheap but in the right army could be useful.
Centurion Assault Squad – New toys! Basically these are super-terminators. T5, 2 wounds and a 2+ Armour Save is going to take some shifting. At first they don’t look too much of a big deal in assault with just one attack but this quickly becomes two for two weapons and three on the charge. Siege Drills are also not unwieldy so they could be good for Dreadnought bashing and other slow armoured targets.
They have Slow and Purposeful which will be frustrating as it means they can’t Run into position and neither can they fire Overwatch. They’re not a cheap option but should last a while on the table. First impressions are that they will need a Land Raider to work but we look forward to hearing how you fare with them!
Fast Attack
There’s still a strong selection of Fast Attack choices. Bike Squads have plummeted in price so expect to see a lot more of these, especially with the boosts White Scars get. Storm Talons are now properly in the Codex so we can all burn our White Dwarfs!
Heavy Support
Once again Space Marine players will be spoilt for choice here. Devastators are a little cheaper and gain access to Flakk Missiles – which are NOT cheaper. The Storm Raven can be found here – meaning that you can have three Storm Talons escorting three Storm Ravens and really dominate the air.
We also get three new units: –
Centurion Devastator Squad – The same stats as the Assault Centurions the Centurion Devastators come equipped with Hurricane Bolters and Twin-linked Heavy Bolter. They can be upgraded to have Missile Launchers in their chests and a Twin-linked Lascannon or Grav-Cannon. Our favorite option is the Grav-Cannon as they can fire 5 shots each and the Grav-Amp re-rolls to wound and to penetrate. It is short ranged at 24” and so again a Land Raider wouldn’t go amiss to get them in close.
Hunter – Another new toy. This fires a single missile that if it misses a flyer or flying monstrous creature will continue to try to hit them in subsequent turns. It has Skyfire so only fires Snap Shots against ground targets. Basically this is a must-have if your opponent has flyers but at 70 points isn’t going to break the bank if your opponent doesn’t have any. Be warned though that it will do NOTHING that game.
Stalker – This has a similar anti-flyer them to the Hunter. Again it’s limited to flying targets but has the option of firing 4 twin-linked shots or 8 single shots. Those 8 single shots come in handy against ground targets as there are so many shots some are bound to hit! The Stalker is probably the better choice of the two new vehicles unless you are sure your opponent has flyers when the Hunter will come in handy.
Conclusion
Bikes seem to be the big winner here. They’re both cheaper and White Scars add a whole host of new abilities to them. The army will pretty much write itself.
The other Chapters will depend on your style of play. Lots of vehicles and you may want Iron Guard, Flamers and Meltas (unsurprisingly) suit Salamanders, and an infantry army would do well with Imperial Fists.
This is a great looking Codex and almost certainly my favorite so far. The only disappointment is the loss of Combat Tactics and Black Templars who seem to have a bit of a rough time of it. There are no units that I wouldn’t want to play with and there’s plenty of variety through a good mix of units choices, characters and Chapter special rules. Marine vs Marine games used to be a bit boring but hopefully this will provide enough variety to make it easy.
For a more in-depth analysis, go check out Toys In the Hood (thanks Steve!).
~So what are your thoughts on the book after 24 hours everybody? Yay or Nay?
