Games Workshop has given us our first look at Space Marines in the next edition – let’s take a deep dive into what’s new.
The road to Armageddon and the 11th edition of Warhammer 40,000 grows shorter by the day. Just yesterday, Games Workshop shared the first in their series of Faction Focus articles highlighting the changes coming to each army in the game. The Orks may have struck the first blow, but today the Space Marines return fire with an enormous article detailing detachments available to all Marine players and a selection of army-specific options. This article is a true deep dive, but if you want an even more thorough overview, you can watch the almost-hour-long video discussion!
Fulguris Task Force
Our first generic Space Marine detachment isn’t specifically Raven Guard themed, but with an emphasis on Land Speeders, it’s hard to imagine it won’t make its way into those players’ plans. The Fulguris Task Force overview sets the format for the rest of this article, featuring a look at the detachment’s overall rules set and then a look at secondary rules crucial to how that detachment will play.
Skystrike looks like it’s going to offer an extremely aggressive playstyle for marine players who like their speeders. An Ingress move is usually only available after the first turn, but using Skystrike, you’ll be able to drop your speeders wherever you want them right out of the gate. There are tons of heavy weapon options for the various speeders, so no matter the enemy unit you want to counter, you’ll have a strong, hard-hitting option that your opponent can’t afford to ignore.
We also get a peek at detachment-specific Enhancement, the Bellicose Weapons Spirits upgrade. This benefit gives a speeder the chance to reroll Damage rolls AND roll to determine the A of a weapon. Rerolling damage rolls is obviously a great choice, but combined with the chance to reroll a sad 1 or 2 for your multi-shot weapons means the speeder with this upgrade is a truly deadly threat.
The final reveal with the Fulguris Task Force is a new Stratagem available only to speeders of this detachment.
Reactive Evasion costs just 1 CP and lets you move an unengaged speeder up to D3+3″ in your opponent’s movement phase. This kind of surprise maneuverability will be huge in keeping your opponent off-balance and your speeders safely out of the enemy’s range.
Librarius Conclave
Surprising no one, the Librarius Conclave is a detachment to buff your Space Marine librarians. Where other detachments focus on a narrow bonus, the Psychic Disciplines detachment rules offer flexibility. And as a little bonus, we get a photo of the new Land Speeder and librarian models from the Armageddon box set in White Scars livery!
This is pretty cool stuff. Each round, you’ll get to choose a discipline from the list above. Every Mpace marine psyker in your army will gain the related ability for the rest of the battle round. None of these bonuses are particularly enormous in and of themselves, but the disciplines offer a Swiss Army knife of buffs that could tip a specific roll in your favor.
Temporal Corridor is the sole detachment-specific enhancement shared, but its existence suggests that Space Marine players will enjoy a whole list of psychic disciplines to choose from when adding Librarians to their lists. The enhancement is for any librarian, allowing them to be placed into strategic reserves at the end of your opponent’s fight phase. But crucially, if your librarian has the Telekenesis Discipline, he also gains Deep Strike. You’ll be able to get your librarian into the fight, back out of it, and then return him to the table where he’s most needed.
Subversion Assets
The final generic Space Marine preview is the Subversion Assets detachment. If your army is focused on scouts, Reivers, and other Phobos-armored units, this is going to be an undeniably strong choice for you.
Counter-insurgents extraordinare, Nowhere to Hide grants all of your Phobos and Scout squads Transhuman Perception. Acting as spotters for the rest of your army these units can get up close to paint the target on skulking enemies. Once they’ve been detected, that unit has a +3″ detection range, making them even easier for support fire to target and destroy them.
A unique stratagem available to Subversion Asset detachments, Strike from the Shadows, is almost certainly going to become a main-stay for players of this army. Phobos/Scout squads typically begin the game hidden but lose this bonus after shooting, leaving them vulnerable to counter-fire. But for just 1 command point you can retain the hidden bonus even after firing. This is undoubtedly going to drive your opponents crazy as they have to work harder to dig out your guerilla fighting scouts and phobos armor!
The final bonus previewed for the Subversion Assets detachment is the Shroud Field enhancement. This grants a Phobos model a pair of abilities: Lone Operative and Stealth. This also offered an opportunity for Games Workshop to share the rules for these abilities in the new edition.
Add this to your choice of Phobos-armored characters like the Phobos Lieutenant or Primaris Librarian in Phobos armor and they become a one-man insurgent army. Able to readily evade enemy fire a character with these bonuses is going to be a real pain as they claim unguarded objectives or threaten your the soft underbelly of your opponent’s army.
Black Templars: Living Miracle
Everyone’s favorite lunatic fanatics kick off the first of the four Chapter-specific detachment previews. It seems that numerous Chapters will receive three detachments each and the first to be previewed for the Black Templars is the Living Miracle.
Focused on powering up the already lethal Emperor’s Champion, this detachment makes him a one-man-army. Rerolling hit and wound rolls is a major buff, but critically, Anointed Champion means that any enhancements you purchase to buff your Emperor’s Champion don’t count against the total number available to your army. You can enhance him to the gills but not leave your other characters without their own bonuses. This detachment is only available to armies that only include Black Templar Space Marines, setting a precedent followed by the rest of the previewed Chapter-specific detachments.
Speaking of enhancements, Guiding Omens is made available in this detachment. A Greek diner menu worth of options are unlocked here. Each turn you can choose up to three for your Emperor’s Champion to enjoy as he purges the heretic/xenos/mutant as required
Blood Angels: Wrath of the Doomed
I’ve been a sucker for the Blood Angels Death Company since the 90s and this detachment might be the reason I finally take the plunge on an army themed around these doomed soldiers.
This is extremely cool and flavorful stuff. Your Death Company marines become turbo-charged murder machines. At the cost of losing 1-2 of their own number from D3+1 mortal wounds, they can advance and still charge!
This unique enhancement will likely become a mainstay of Death Company players reducing the Command Point cost of the Heroic Intervention stratagem by -1. Games Workshop took the opportunity to share that stratagem’s new rules, and there’s some interesting stuff to consider.
The basics of this stratagem will be familiar to current players, but excitingly, this stratagem introduces a new game design element in 11th edition. Heroic Intervention now has a base cost of 1 command point, but you can now choose to spend an additional point to unlock further options. The bonuses here are cool in and of themselves, but it’s exciting to consider which other stratagems may have variable command point costs.
Finally, a unique stratagem for this detachment, Rage-Fuelled Response. Your Death Company lads are barely in control of themselves but they still hate being shot at. This stratagem lets you respond to incoming fire by making a surge move to get them closer to the foe or maybe even into cover? No? Closer to the foe it is.
Dark Angels: Dark Age Arsenal
The first detachment previewed for Dark Angels is for you if you love a nice warcrime gun and are skilled at not rolling 1s.
Invocations of Ancient Fury is about as straightforward as detachment rules get. All your plasma weapons get +1 S. That’s it, and that’s all but that’s really nothing to sneeze at considering just how many plasma weapons you could cram into an army if you don’t mind the occasional self-detonation!
Another simple benefit, take this enhancement to add +6″ R to a unit’s plasma attacks. Hellblaster units, plasma-armed speeders, tanks, you name it, really anyone could benefit from this solid little range extension.
Ready to roll the dice on an overcharged attack? Use this stratagem to gain an additional +1 S on a HAZARDOUS plasma shot. Stacking with the detachment’s inherent + 1 S on plasma weapons, you can dish out some serious wound rolls even against the toughest opponents.
Space Wolves: Champions of Fenris
The final previewed detachment today is for the Space Wolves. Champions of Fenris is a detachment exalting the heroic warrior-poets of the Chapter.
This is a pretty straight-forward detachment bonus, essentially allowing you to use the Heroic Intervention stratagem (see above) twice per phase. This is going to give you a tremendous amount of disruptive control over the battle. Your opponent will have to make very difficult choices when charging your units knowing that multiple counter-charges are likely.
Maybe you feel your already stalwart Fenrisian heroes aren’t tough enough? This enhancement just gives a simple +2 W and +1 to an infantry hero of your choice. A Wolf Guard Battle Leader with this enhancement, for instance, would weigh in at a massive 8 Wounds and hit at S9 in melee!
Space Wolves have a reputation for being mindless berserkers, but this stratagem puts paid to that misconception. For just 1 command point you can grant a unit Stealth, ensuring they’ll get into position to make their berserker charge where and when it’s most needed.
Fear? They don’t know it.
That’s a wrap on the Space Marine faction focus and what a massive preview that was! It’s really exciting to not just see some of the detachments but to have enough that we can start thinking about how they’ll interact when included together in the same army. I think I’ve caught the Blood Angels bug with all that Death Company goodness but what other detachments will be available, I wonder.
Do you think any other Chapters will get unique detachments?
Don’t Miss:
Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Read more at this site