40K Tactics: Space Marine Heroes – Marneus Calgar
Hey guys, I am Learn2Eel and this is my Codex: Space Marines Tactica! Today, I will be looking at Marneus Calgar – the man, the legend!. I hope you enjoy this article!
Space Marine players have access to the most extensive roster of unique characters in the game, providing so many diverse play-styles and inherent advantages that encourage players to experiment with a wealth of differing army lists. Unlike some other codices, few of these characters are solely based around damage potential; instead, they provide ground-breaking support abilities and potential for thematic army creation that you simply can’t find anywhere else. Though they are restricted to their own Chapter Tactics now, the advice given in the previous Space Marines codex very much rings true to this day; these are templates for mighty heroes to lead your forces, built to give you something you simply cannot find from a kitted out regular character. Where Marneus Calgar allows you to control the morale aspect of Warhammer 40000, Kor’sarro Khan provides free early movement to an entire force, allowing them to dominate positioning and deployment. As Helbrecht is the lynchpin for an army-wide massed and devastating assault, Vulkan He’stan gives you the means to make a Salamanders army the true masters of anti-vehicular warfare. It is such that you cannot judge these characters on the merits of combat or martial prowess alone, but on how they allow for incredible strategic flexibility in the army list creation phase, and in tactical adaptability through their considerable, palpable aura on the field of battle. These Space Marines count themselves amongst the finest heroes in all of the Imperium, and each has their own mark to leave on your army.
Due to the extensive array of unique characters in the codex, Part One of the Unique Characters section solely covers Marneus Calgar, Cato Sicarius and Varro Tigurius. Part Two, Part Three and Part Four will cover the remaining Unique Characters. A note here that as Unique Characters have pre-defined wargear selections, I have instead included ‘Maximising their Abilities’ as it also relates to the army list creation phase; to rid the article of arbitrary information, I also combined ‘Where to Put Them’ and ‘Best Uses’ with ‘Maximising their Abilities’. That these characters also have preset Chapter Tactics means that I eliminated the section to save space and time. Let me know if you like or dislike the changes – remembering that these are only for Unique Characters.
Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines
Overview – When hobbyists are asked who the most iconic character amongst the Astartes is, there will be dozens of unique responses; such is the rich tapestry of history that Games Workshop has woven about its flagship creation. But few Space Marines have been given more voice than the Lord of Macragge himself, Marneus Calgar; and not without good reason, either! Calgar is the almost obligatory “super hero” character in the codex, with insane combat prowess, some truly ridiculous support abilities, and all the while being one of the toughest nuts that can be found in the game. He is the most expensive unique character available in the codex by the length of the straight, but it is not without justification. First of all, as a Chapter Master with Eternal Warrior and either Artificer Armour or Terminator Armour, he has four wounds, a Toughness of four, a 2+ armour save and a 4+ invulnerable save, and the cherry on top is his immunity to instant death. Wow! To add to this, he hits like a steamroller in combat, with five power fist attacks base due to his Gauntlets of Ultramar; he can even swing with four attacks base with a power sword, and all at Weapon Skill six! His Initiative of five is great for sweeping advances and for striking before enemies with the power sword, giving him a lot of flexibility in dealing with different kinds of enemies. To add to the ridiculousness, he is still able to sweep up enemy units even when equipped with his Armour of Antilochus, unlike every other Terminator-armoured character in the game. There aren’t too many characters to be found that hit as hard as Marneus Calgar, nor soak up damage quite like he does. He can’t match someone like Abaddon or Skarbrand for pure damage potential, but he makes up for it by providing your army with some incredible advantages that extend beyond his personal contribution.
Provided you include Marneus – and be aware that he has to be your Warlord if you take him – all of your Space Marines with the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics can choose to automatically pass or fail and morale check they have to make. Before I dig into this, I’ll just say here that his ability to roll up three times on the Space Marine Warlord Traits table and then pick one is awesome, giving you a 50% chance to get something like Storm of Fire or, unfortunately for your opponent, Champion of Humanity. Marneus Calgar with six power fist attacks on the charge who gets D3 victory points plus Slay the Warlord when he kills the enemy leader? Ain’t nobody got time for that! Now, some might say that an army brimming with And They Shall Know No Fear and above average Leadership values doesn’t really get much benefit from this ability, but I can personally guarantee that they can’t be further from the truth. Think of the potential this ability brings in an edition with random charge lengths and a focus on objectives. Say your opponent softens up a squad of Space Marines before launching an assault with a nasty unit, such as Daemonettes or Tyranid Shrikes, forcing them to take a Leadership test. They expect that due to your high Leadership, the squad won’t fall back and you will be forced to sit there and accept the probably successful charge, proceeding to lose the entire unit in a fusillade of blows and bloodshed.
With Marneus leading your force, the squad can automatically fall back out of assault range and, with And They Shall Know No Fear, rally without requiring a test. You can then move them up to nine inches in any given direction, and launch a devastating counter attack – whether through bolt or through blade – against the enemy unit that is now stranded in no mans’ land. When faced with heavy fire on the last turn, you are forced to make a clutch play with your Tactical Marines so as to stay on an objective and secure it to either achieve victory or tie up the game. The Sergeant is dead, and thus there is a pretty high chance the squad will fail and fall back, losing you the clash. Inspired by Marneus Calgar, the squad holds firm against the onslaught, and keeps you in the battle. In an edition where the advent of Terrify, Fear, Leadership-bombs (Fiends of Slaanesh and their ilk) and the like are becoming increasingly popular, being able to effectively ignore an entire, and major, aspect of the game is simply astonishing when put through its paces. Though it isn’t necessarily the easiest ability to make full use of, a skilled player can easily adapt their army and force through otherwise risky tactics to secure a victory against detrimental odds. I think this ability alone justifies Marneus’ cost, but there is even more to this god amongst super-humans to speak of.
The Ultramarines Chapter Tactics have seen some backlash from the community, with many players displeased that the three Doctrines are each only available once per game. While I personally feel that such criticisms are unjustified due to the sheer tactical flexibility and incredible boosts to effectiveness the Doctrines provide, it is irrelevant to the fact that Calgar provides you with an extra use of one of them. In a standard six-turn game, this means that your army can benefit from a Doctrine four out of the six turns; that doesn’t seem like too much of a downside to me, does it? Given that the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics really encourage a mixed army list that favours the Space Marines themselves, it is no surprise that Marneus benefits this kind of force better than others. In a drop pod assault army, how will your opponents feel about facing two turns of the Tactical Doctrine, or even the initial alpha strike including Relentless Devastators – one of the more daring and brilliant uses of the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics, if I do say so myself – ? Massed Sternguard with re-rolls of ones to hit on special ammunition and combi-weapons, or even the standard Tactical Marine effectively having Prescience cast on themselves with special, heavy and bolt weapons? I can guarantee those opponents won’t be happy, not for one turn, and certainly not for two turns. Regardless of how you use the Combat Doctrines, the extra use of one provides your force with a lot more potential to really devastate the enemy and get into your favoured positions, particularly with Fleet and the like as you need it.
Adding to his extensive array of abilities, Marneus even throws in an Orbital Bombardment, like other Chapter Masters, that no longer prevents him from launching an assault in the same turn. Add to that his Gauntlets fire a nifty AP two storm bolter and you have yourself a character with a lot of pluses and very few minuses. To add to the carnage with his fists, he can re-roll failed armour penetration rolls against vehicles, allowing him to effectively annihilate almost any vehicle in the game in a single round, short only of Land Raiders and their ilk. Heck, he even allows you to take three squads of the now vastly improved Honour Guard as opposed to just one, which is awesome especially for thematic and modelling purposes. Though I probably don’t see much value in this in smaller games due to the sheer cost of such a force, anything that allows you to take arguably the best assault unit in the codex in greater numbers is undoubtedly a bonus.
And on that note, the only real downside to Calgar is his exorbitant cost; though I feel he is definitely appropriately costed for what he brings to the table – remembering that no generic character you make can replicate his God of War special rule – there is no doubt that he should be reserved for larger games. In games of 1500 points or less, he is simply too much of a points sink to really make back his points or maximise his potent abilities, as you will have too few models comparatively to truly capitalize on them. Once you throw in an escort unit, whether it be Honour Guard or even Tactical Marines, and a transport – he pays to be a hammer in the assault phase as well, so you don’t want to waste that by leaving him in the backfield – you are talking a huge amount of points for those kinds of games. For that reason, I would reserve him up until you get to the 1850 point mark or thereabouts – the tournament standard – as that is when I would feel comfortable with his investment due to the number of units you can field alongside him. He isn’t solely a unit crusher, but a unit buffer, and to really maximise his abilities, you want as many units benefiting from them as you can.
Maximising their Abilities – I will preface this by saying that between a choice of stock Artificer Armour and the Armour of Antilochus, I would honestly keep Calgar with his basic armour. The reason for this is that the Terminator armour really doesn’t give Calgar too many benefits aside from a Teleport Homer, given that he also loses frag grenades for his power sword, so I would just save the points – unless of course you bought his amazing Terminator-armoured model! Moving on, getting the most out of Calgar invariably involves giving him a melee-oriented bodyguard to get him into combat and crush things, such as Honour Guard or Assault Terminators, or a shooting-oriented bodyguard for him to babysit, such as Sternguard or Devastators.
Ideally though, you want him to get into melee combat as often as possible, so I would preferably go with assault units in a transport of your choice – or restriction, in the case of Terminators – so that he can get there safely and quickly. Honour Guard with Calgar in a Land Raider Crusader is incredibly expensive, but also near unstoppable – Land Raiders can be quite hard to crack in 6th Edition with the general shift to Strength seven weaponry, so even though it is a big points investment, it does provide you with the best guarantee that he will survive to get into combat. Of course, this chunk of points should only really be used up in bigger games of 1850 or more, so you need to always consider that Calgar should be reserved for those larger forces. This basic principle applies to all of the unique characters in the codex, as they are primarily unit buffers and force multipliers more than anything else; that is the genius behind them, and why they justify their inclusion over regular characters. So, to get the most out of Calgar’s particular abilities, given his cost, you want to reserve him for those larger games where he can benefit more units than he would otherwise. Where God of War is concerned particularly, those clutch morale checks become more pronounced in larger games where the devastation is so much more involved.
Given that the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics favour mixed infantry-centric army lists, with great buffs to Tactical Marines, Sternguard Veterans, Assault Marines, Devastators and the like to name but a few, this is also understandably, and thematically, the kind of army Calgar excels in. His God of War ability obviously doesn’t affect vehicles, and the Combat Doctrines provide massive boosts to your infantry. With that in mind, that being him providing control over the Leadership-based portion of the game, as well as an additional Combat Doctrine use, it is best to take a mostly infantry heavy army, with a mix and balance between Tactical Marines, Assault Marines and Devastator Marines primarily, and supporting elements of Sternguard and Vanguard Veterans to taste. For Calgar himself, you can employ him in a Rhino-rush or Drop Pod assault list, either in a Rhino, a Land Raider, or Drop Pod to match the list and get him to combat while preserving the mostly ranged advantages Ultramarines have. Realistically, he can turn the tide of combat involving almost any unit, so your choice of where to put him isn’t as much of an issue as I may have previously made out – the key is that he is better suited in an assault unit so that he can have a cushion against other armies’ melee specialists, such as Flesh Hounds and Assault Terminators. He is best used as part of the spearhead in an assault unit, though baby-sitting expensive Sternguard Veterans certainly isn’t a bad use of him either.
Thanks for reading everybody and by all means chime in down in the comments. How have you been running Marneus?
