The Space Marine Codex: A Review by JC
Neither Dean nor I are qualified enough to give a full and valuable breakdown of the Marines Codex - so we asked a Primaris Lieutenant, 2023 WTC Netherlands team member and Space Marine specialist - Jan Coen. JC - Thank you for taking the time to review the second codex of 10th edition and for providing some juicy combos for you aspiring Space Marine players out there. Without further ado - JC Take it away!
The boys in blue are back!
The great (and very attractive) Adam & Dean have asked me to write a bit about the Space Marines codex. Since I love talking while others can’t talk back I jumped at the chance. The codex is out and lots has been said already so I want to focus specifically on marines in the Dutch meta. What do you need to succeed and how are you going to beat all the other marine players you’re going to see? For those who don’t know me: I’m JC and I play Space Marines a lot.
THE META
In order to effectively discuss what will be good in the Dutch meta, we first have to define what it is. It’s quite varied with almost every faction seeing regular representation. It generally follows the meta in the US and UK. If you see something online that did well overseas, there’s a reasonable chance you’ll run into it at a tournament in the coming weeks. There are however a few unique features of the Dutch meta to keep in mind.
Terrain- Dutch tournaments generally have quite a bit of terrain. This means that in most missions you’re going to be able to hold two objectives from outside line of sight, fast melee infantry will have good staging points, and pure gunlines will struggle to win big.
Big things- Players in the Netherlands love their big models. You’re quite likely to run into the three Daemon Primarchs, Rogal Dorns, Land Raiders, and the abominable Chaos Knights. With the rumblings of a vehicle meta this will only get worse. You want to be able to deal with multiple T10 3+/5++ hulls or a T12 2+ centerpiece.
Tough infantry- Whether it be Custodes, terminators of every stripe, or those people who will not give up on Grey Knights, there’s a lot of tough infantry rolling around. AP3, AP2 ignores cover or AP2 melee are profiles that pay off big.
No hordes- Parallel to the above trends, you’re unlikely to see a lot of horde builds. You’ll see the occasional Necron but even the Nid players tend towards monster mash. Marines have quite a bit of high volume damage units. This means that unless you foresee a specific problem, you don’t have to tech into anti-horde.
THE FIRST 400
So, now that we have a rough understanding of the meta and having read through the whole codex, where do you start building your marine army? Marines are very good at scoring secondaries. While you should always keep fixed in mind I prefer tactical, both because of the options you have to score them and because extra CP can really make your army sing in builds like Firestorm. The datasheets you used for utility have gotten even better/cheaper with the new codex. The Lieutenant with Combi Weapon is an autotake, as is your first squad of infiltrators. The lieutenant opens up a lot of early scoring options and I see him as paying 70 points for 5+ victory points. Infiltrators are great for locking down your backfield and ruining your opponent’s secondary plan, but you already knew that, they’ve been great since they came out. After your first 2 units take your preferred mix of action monkeys. I like inceptors and eliminators because they combine utility and the possibility of damage, and I like scouts because they’re cheap. The exact amount you need is going to vary according to your playstyle but try not to go overboard. I try to keep my total for mission play units under 400 points. That’s generally enough to do what needs to be done while leaving room for “the real” toys.
So, vehicles are good again?
THE FLAVOUR
So, now that you’ve locked down 30+ secondary points a game, what’s next? Marine datasheets are expensive and often inefficient without buffs. However, with the right buffs you can catapult your units into the stratosphere. To do this, I recommend picking a style for your army that you want to run and fully leaning into it. Trying to do multiple things a bit is going to end up with you doing nothing a lot on the table. Luckily for us, there’s a bunch of detachments that happen to line up with different styles of play. In no particular order:
GLADIUS
You know it, you love it, it still does the same thing. A solid detachment that gives you a lot of options. Build it like you were already doing.
IRONSTORM
Even a cursory glance should tell you this detachment has power. The army rule is simple efficiency, the enhancements are aura’s for some reason which makes them very good, and the stratagems are solid. If you go this route you’re obviously going to be running a lot of vehicles. Gladiators are an obvious choice. Other options like whirlwinds or dreadnoughts will require some testing to see if they fit in your play style. The hardest part of this army is going to be finding the right balance of fighting and mission play. Remember that your opponent also has two objectives out of LoS. Either plan around them scoring a lot of primary or figure out how you’re going to push them off it. The placement of your fall back and charge aura is an important skill to practice because if you get caught out and tied up things could get hairy. Finally, figure out what you’ll do with all your hobby time after you’ve played everyone once and no one wants a rematch.
FIRESTORM
Now we’re talking. This detachment makes me feel warm on the inside. Through stratagems it has access to +1 to wound, which I consider one of the best rules in the game. It also has the option for dev wounds on flamers, which is great into all the vehicles and tough infantry I mentioned. Finally, there’s movement and shooting in your opponent's turn to mess with their head. I’m very excited to get this on the table. Something to watch out for is the lack of fall back and shoot/charge. Movement errors will punish you hard. Due to the great strats you’re probably going to be running some big expensive units which makes proper positioning even more important. The obvious things to take are flamers (hello aggressors) but there are quite a few weapons that get a lot better with +1 strength. Strength 4-6 and 9/10 are the most obvious ones to look out for in my opinion. Maybe Eradicators will finally be good with this ruleset. Various chapters can add a special sauce. I like Death Company as they can take flamers and make great use of the +1 to wound, but Vulkan Hes’tan and his rule for rerolling to wound on flamers is also spicy.
STORMLANCE
Speaking of great rules, advance, and charge. I built my entire 9th edition career off this rule. Not only does it open up a bunch of new options for units, it’s also very fun. The main question for this detachment is which successor units you want. The generic datasheets can get into combat with advance and charge, but they’re not going to do that much without a detachment rule buffing their output. The most obvious choice is thunderwolves as they benefit from the mounted keyword. Terrain can get in the way for them but a 20” advance move should be enough to get somewhere. I think this detachment also gives you the best chance for a melee MSU build in marines, as the advance and charges makes 6 time 5 Death Company an option on dense terrain. For those Dark Angel players among us, I invite you to play around with the idea of advancing and charging deathwing knights. You can even mix in Black Knights to actually use the options for mounted units.
VANGUARD
When I told Ruud infiltrating terminators were back I learned some new curse words. The obvious draws here are the enhancement to infiltrate a unit and the strat for +1 BS and AP. Find the biggest scariest unit you can, infiltrate it and make it your opponent's problem. It should be quite easy to infiltrate close by and out of sight, forcing some very strange counter deployments. Then pick your favorite shooting units and use them to clean up the chaos. Remember that Strike from the Shadows is a Battle Tactic and bring a captain. I’m undecided if this detachment is mostly a gimmick or a viable strat but it’s worth exploring.
ANVIL SIEGE FORCE
I don’t know what my poor Fists did to make GW hate them. The detachment has some cool stratagems that can catch people off guard but the main power comes from standing still. With gamingtables full of terrain I mentioned, this strategy puts all the agency in your opponent’s hands (or fists… I laugh so I do not cry). If you want to stick your hand in the pain glove and try to find gold here go ahead, but I won’t be joining you.
FIRST COMPANY (AKA WTF)
Terminators are cool. Teleporting terminators are even cooler. You can play those in Deathwatch and get an actual detachment rule. This detachment may be fun for a themed army, but I think there are better options to make your veterans actually feel useful.
RIGHTEOUS CRUSADERS
It’s not new, but it deserves a mention. BT started seeing some play pre-codex. With multiple options for Lethal Hits on a 5+ and some efficient statlines they should do well even without wound rerolls. If you want to go for an infantry-based melee build take a good look at these guys. Also, you haven’t lived until you’ve thrown a hundred melee attacks from one marine unit.
DATASHEET CHANGES (OR THE LACK OF IT)
Very few datasheets have changed. There’s a few tweaks but nothing shocking - the most impactful of these is probably the Lt. with combi-weapon having his aura ability changed to units on the board, which allows you to play a bit wider away from him and still benefit from rerolling wound rolls of 1 at enemy models in range of that objective marker. The other “big” change is to the Sternguard Veterans. They lost their once-per-game ability to double-shoot. It’s been replaced with a generic re-roll a wound roll of 1 on your Oaths target. This makes them virtually unplayable in my book in any competitive list.
There are some new datasheets, including scouts and company heroes - both of which are likely to find their way into competitive lists (especially the company heroes with Azrael - sustained hits, 2 OC and -1 to wound - chef’s kiss).
Other than that, you already know what units are decent and which ones you like. Your detachment choice will help to narrow this down. One thing I do recommend for every marine player is to read through every named character and all the non-codex-compliant chapters datasheets. They have better versions of generic units. No marine army should ever be completely generic and leave value on the table. If there’s nothing you need, then pick up two units of Fenrisian Wolves for 60 points.
HOW DO YOU PLAY AGAINST MARINES?
There’s a lot of marine players, because it’s the coolest army. You’re going to run into them at your next tournament. If you don’t want to take the time to read the rules for every detachment (which I do recommend if you want to do well), here’s a quick rundown of what you’ll see most often and some tips to play against them.
As mentioned above marines are quite good at secondaries. Their ability to hold objectives for primary leaves something to be desired and gives you an opening. For example, on Dutch tables there may be two objectives that can be held from cover, but one of them will be somewhat exposed. If you can run a throwaway unit onto it for two turns to deny it you can force the marine player into a position where they have to push. That leads us into the second weakness. Most marine builds have fewer assets than they would like, and most armies have weapons that are great at killing marines. If they take a few bad trades the game snowballs out of control. Play your cards right and the marine player is stuck in a lose-lose situation. To do so, you will need to understand what your opponent's plan is. I expect to see three general types of marine armies running around. The Ironstorm, the brawlers, and the gimmicks.
IRONSTORM
The big boogeyman is back. Plenty of people were playing them last edition and have the models and the playstyle is easy to learn, so if you prepare for anything prepare for this. These lists are going to have great shooting and a lot of hulls. You might be able to win a shootout depending on your list. Marine tanks generally don’t have invulnerable saves, so any point of AP up to 5 is value. More likely is that they outshoot you. In those cases, have a good look at your opponent’s list. The balance between mission play, objective holding and kill is hard to strike. If you see that the IH player has underinvested in something, push on that weakness. A mass tank list will have trouble pushing you if you stay out of sight and moveblock, so if you can get ahead on points you’re in a good spot. Their OC is also mediocre. This is a matchup where I think it’s ok to trade inefficiently as long as you’re using that to control the board and you ration out your units properly. If you’re tabled but have more points, you still win.
BRAWLERS
These lists will primarily be running Gladius or Firestorm. They want to fight at medium range, using advances and strats to force good trades. A Land Raider full of aggressors is a common sight, as is a block of deathwing knights or death company. In this matchup, threat ranges are the name of the game. Measure carefully, think through where your opponent’s units want to go and when they can hurt you. Know how hard it is for you to kill a land raider or 10 deathwing knights and let that inform your strategy. Due to the heavy investment into the centerpiece units these lists are even more vulnerable to falling behind in trading. Use your movement to force a mistake and punish it.
GIMMICKS
These lists are built around a certain strat or enhancement. Things like infiltrating terminators in Raven Guard, thunderwolves that go 20” and charge in White Scars. For these matchups be 100% sure that you know what the gimmicks are. Read what you can, talk it through with your opponent, clarify what the named characters do. Once you understand it you can devise a counter, which 90% of the time will come down to screening properly. Anything that isn’t deathwing knights will melt once it’s made to commit into your inconvenient screening unit. For deathwing knights, I don’t know, stay outside 17” or something.
THE WRAP-UP
There you have it, an overview of the new codex. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to play and generally well-balanced. There is a lot of flavor and options in the codex so it’s a good time to be a Space Marines player. If anyone has Inferno pistols and hand flamers lying around, or you want to have questions regarding space marines, you can find me in the DTC40K discord.
JC-
Thanks, JC, Me and Dean are filthy xenos boys so we’re glad you shined the Emperor’s light on this new codex! If you like our content and the dutch ranking system please consider joining our Patreon where you will also get access to our discord. Thanks for reading and till next time!
Adam & Dean