GW have just dropped a new FAQ that makes some big changes for the Space Marines. For more reviews and analyses, check out the Tactics Corner.
The new FAQ will shake up a number of Space Marine armies. You can read the new FAQ in the link, but I will repeat some of the text below to cover the main changes.
Combat Doctrines
Combat Doctrines is an ability that we always intended to be purposefully rigid, in that you have to progress through a combat doctrine sequence in a specific order, starting in the Devastator Doctrine and finally ending up in the Assault Doctrine. We maintained a degree of flexibility by letting players choose when they would progress to the next doctrine, imagining that every Space Marines player would wish to progress through the sequence as quick as they could – after all, an average ‘combined arms’ army has more melee weapons in it than it has Rapid Fire weapons (every model technically has a melee weapon) and fewer still have Heavy weapons. The idea was that as the game progressed (and the enemy got closer) you’d get more of a bonus by switching combat doctrines. However, that has not come to pass, and in the months since its release many players attending competitive matched play events have built lists that are designed to excel in one particular combat doctrine – typically the Devastator Doctrine – to the exclusion of all else, and without any intention of ever progressing through the doctrine sequence. The flexibility of being able to choose when to progress (or not) has ironically led to very inflexible armies, albeit very powerful ones, that dominate the battlefields with an excess of Heavy weaponry throughout the game. We have received plenty of feedback from players on the receiving end of such lists and, after much thought, agree that such armies are currently too powerful. Such armies also do not encourage players to collect the ‘typical’ combined arms force Space Marines are famed for. As a result, we are changing how the Combat Doctrines ability works so that your army must progress through all of the combat doctrines over the course of the battle. You will still start the battle on the Devastator Doctrine, but you will not be able to stay on that doctrine for the duration of the battle and, at the start of the second battle round, you must change to the Tactical Doctrine. We have maintained some modicum of flexibility, in that you can choose to progress to the Assault Doctrine at the start of either the third or fourth battle rounds, but what you can’t do is stay on Tactical for the remainder of the battle. The effects of the combat doctrines themselves remain the same, and all the combat doctrine bonuses found in the various codex supplements remain unchanged.
Errata to Codex: Space Marines (pg 109), Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal (pg 34), Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned (pg 35), Combat Doctrines Replace the Combat Doctrines ability with the following (note that the Devastator Doctrine, Tactical Doctrine and Assault Doctrine remain unchanged):
‘If your army is Battle-forged and if every unit from your army has this ability (excluding Servitor and Unaligned units), this unit gains a bonus (see below) depending on which combat doctrine is active for your army, as follows:
• During the first battle round, the Devastator Doctrine is active for your army.
• During the second battle round, the Tactical Doctrine is active for your army.
• At the start of the third battle round, select either the Tactical Doctrine or Assault Doctrine: until the end of that battle round, the doctrine you selected is active for your army.
• During the fourth and subsequent battle rounds, the Assault Doctrine is active for your army.
Unless specified otherwise, this bonus is not cumulative with any other rules that improve the Armour Penetration characteristic of a weapon (e.g. the Storm of Fire Warlord Trait).’
Adaptive Strategy
Given the change to the Combat Doctrines ability, we are also deleting the Adaptive Strategy Stratagem. This Stratagem allowed you to push the combat doctrines ‘back’ by a turn. Though rarely used presently, if a player was forced to move through the combat doctrine progression it would essentially undo what we are trying to achieve with the changes to the Combat Doctrines ability.
Errata to Codex: Space Marines (pg 183), Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal (pg 56), Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned (pg 53) Delete the Adaptive Strategy Stratagem.
Duty Eternal
This Stratagem can be used to boost the durability of Dreadnoughts to extreme levels, in some cases doubling the amount of damage these ancient warriors can endure. In conjunction with a nearby character such as a Techmarine – who can easily repair any damage incurred – it can create a disheartening experience for your opponent to face, especially if the Dreadnought in question is something as tough to damage in the first place as a Relic Leviathan Dreadnought. We have listened to this feedback and agree that, in its current form, this Stratagem is too powerful. As a result, we have decided to slightly tone down the damage reduction effects of Duty Eternal. We have also taken the opportunity to make sure this Stratagem will no longer combine with other damage reduction rules, such as that afforded by the Iron Hands Relic, ‘the Ironstone’. Note that, where this Stratagem appears in publications other than Codex: Space Marines, the Adeptus Astartes keyword changes depending on the faction the Stratagem relates to. See the FAQ documents for those publications for the exact errata text.
Errata to Codex: Space Marines (pg 180), Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal (pg 54), Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned (pages 51 & 69) Change this Stratagem to read: ‘Use this Stratagem when an Adeptus Astartes Dreadnought model from your army is chosen as the target for an attack. Until the end of the phase, when resolving an attack made against that model, you can reduce any damage suffered by 1, to a minimum of 1 (this is not cumulative with any other rules that reduce the damage).’
Cogitated Martyrdom
This Iron Hands Stratagem has been used by some players in order to transfer wounds taken by Dreadnought Character models. This was an oversight on our part – the Stratagem is not intended for use on such durable models who, amongst other benefits, already enjoy the protection of being a character with fewer than 9 wounds. Being able to do so creates situations where certain character Dreadnoughts are virtually invulnerable to enemy fire. Furthermore, several questions regarding the exact timing of this Stratagem have also been raised – this errata should also resolve this commonly asked question.
Errata to Codex Supplement: Iron Hands, page 61 Change this Stratagem to read: ‘Use this Stratagem at the start of the Shooting phase. Select one Iron Hands Infantry unit from your army. Until the end of the phase, when a friendly Iron Hands Character model (excluding Vehicle models) within 3″ of that unit would lose any wounds as a result of an attack made against that model, that unit can attempt to intercept that attack. Roll one D6 before any rolls to ignore wounds (e.g. The Flesh is Weak, Adamantine Mantle etc.) are made; on a 2+ that model does not lose those wounds and that unit suffers 1 mortal wound for each of those wounds. Only one attempt can be made to intercept each attack.’
Master of Ambush
A tactic that has come to light in recent events is using the Raven Guard Warlord Trait ‘Master of Ambush’ to position a unit of Assault Centurions extremely close to the enemy front lines, almost guaranteeing a first turn charge. Assault Centurions – warriors in mobile warsuits closer to the stature of a Dreadnought than an infantryman – have been designed and costed with their low speed in mind, but this Warlord Trait essentially overcomes the Centurion’s builtin weakness. We feel this combination is too easy to utilise for its devastating effectiveness. As such, we are preventing Centurions from being able to be so stealthy.
Errata to Codex Supplement: Raven Guard, page 57 Change the first sentence of this Warlord Trait to read: ‘At the start of the first battle round, before the first turn begins, if this Warlord is on the battlefield you can select one other friendly Raven Guard Infantry unit (excluding a Centurion unit) on the battlefield.
My Thoughts
I think most people can agree that the Space Marines have been dominant in the game since the release of the new codex and supplements. These new rules are an attempt to address some of these issues, let’s take a look at how they are doing.
Doctrines
This is a huge change for the rules and will have a big effect on a number of armies, most notably, the Iron Hands, who have been using the Devastator doctrine to very good effect.
Space Marines now have the Devastator doctrine in turn 1, the Tactical Doctrine in turn 2, then in turn 3 can choose the Tactical or Assault Doctrine, and the Assault Doctrine from turn 4 onwards. This new rule forces players to move through the Doctrines, so they cannot stick with the most powerful one for their army for most of the game.
This is a big counter to the power of Iron Hands and Imperial Fists armies that were very powerful in the tournament setting. The ability to move and fire heavy weapons without penalty, as well as re-rolling 1’s to hit was a massive boost for the firepower of Iron Hands armies in the game, getting this ability from turn 1 for the whole game made them one of the strongest armies in the game (in combination with a number of other abilities).
Now, you get one turn with the bonus to your firepower, then must move into the Tactical Doctrine. Additionally, the Tactical Doctrine has become slightly less effective for the Raven Guard, as you can only get the bonus for a maximum of two turns.
This actually makes armies that have a doctrine bonus in the Assault Doctrine a bit more powerful, as this is the doctrine you will be using the most in games. Depending on when you switch the doctrine, you have to spend around 50% of a standard game in the assault doctrine, or up to 70% in a seven turn game.
This change will actually have little effect on my White Scars army, as I tended to activate the Assault Doctrine on turn 3 anyway. This means most Marines will be in a similar situation, but the White Scars get the damage bonus that will help them out against other Primaris Marines.
This won’t do much to limit the firepower of the triple Repulsor Iron Hands list, other than having to sit a Captain or Chapter Master next to them to get the re-rolls, if you weren’t doing this already. However, for the flyer list, they will be less effective after turn 1, not getting the re-rolls and suffering the -1 to hit for moving and firing. Equally, Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles will only get a turn of damage 3, increased AP firepower.
This will be a big change, as if you are going second, you can simply try your best to hide your army on the first turn, stopping your opponent from utilising the bonus for their first turn. It will also not do much for artillery-heavy armies on the first turn, as many of these units do not require line of sight to fire, so an army that can smash you with indirect fire on turn 1 will still be able to do so with the bonuses intact.
The other change is that the Adaptive strategy stratagem is now gone, preventing you from reversing the clock on the doctrine changes to keep in line with the new rules.
Duty Eternal
A big change for this one, is that the damage is reduced by 1 for Dreadnoughts, rather than being halved. In addition, it cannot be combined with other methods that reduce the damage of the attack.
This is a big boost for taking out these vehicles, as you can no longer combine the stratagem and Iron Stone.
High damage weapons, such as the Lascannon and Missile Launcher can now do more damage to these vehicles if you get a good roll on the damage result. In addition, you can no longer reduce the damage on a Thunder Hammer to 1 if used with the Iron Stone, and White Scars in the assault doctrine will still be doing damage 3 on the charge.
This makes dealing with character Dreadnoughts more manageable, as you cannot simply keep buffing them to stop a ton of damage getting through.
Cogitated Martyrdom
This stratagem can be used to pass off wounds on characters onto nearby Iron Hands’ infantry units. It could be exploited to be used on character Dreadnoughts to keep them alive for even longer.
This has been changed that it now only works on Infantry characters. This gives your characters a chance to stay safe from sniper weaponry, but no longer allows Chaplain Dreadnoughts to pass off wounds. It also occurs before any ignore wound saves are made, so you don’t get to do double “Flesh is Weak” saves on both the character and the unit taking the wounds.
With the changes to Duty Eternal, this makes the Chaplain Dreadnoughts much more manageable.
Master of Ambush
This warlord trait no longer works on Centurion models. This stops you from using the trait to move Assault Centurions to the enemy front line, forcing you to either put them in reserve or to march across the battlefield to get into range.
You can still ambush these units using the stratagem to arrive on turn 2, but this gives your opponent more chance to screen out important units and push your ambush deployment backwards on turn 1, rather than being unable to do anything against the units if you get the first turn.
As well as the Raven Guard stratagem, you can still use the White Scars’ Encirclement stratagem to bring the Assault Centurions in from reserve on a board edge.
Overall
GW have made some significant changes to how certain Space Marine armies will play in the current meta. I think this will have the biggest influence on Iron Hands armies, which is reasonable, as this was one of the biggest problems in the game at the moment.
As I have said, this isn’t going to have much effect on my White Scars army, but I don’t think anyone was that worried about the White Scars in competitive play. These changes may actually allow you to see more varied use of Chapters on the tabletop, as some of the strongest factions have seen some reduction in power level.
What do you think of the new changes? Do they strike a nice balance, or do they not go far enough?
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Glad they acknowledge the problem.
Still seems half-baked and timid compared to the Ynnari re-balancing, say.
Core Marine mechanics like all those insane re-rolls or the inflation of attacks imo still need fixing.
I have the nagging feeling it’s not enough, but it’s thematic and it’s worth a try before asking for more nerf.
The fact a lot of marines armies tried to optimize being in Devastator all the time was seriously stupid.
Yes, it tones down the big offenders. Now I bet we see WS rise to the top of the Marine pile.
I will be happy about that!
WS are terrible in a side by side comparison to RG.
Marines are not an assault army, they are a shooting one. If you try to make them assault they just die in droves trying to assault the marine armies focussed on should RT range firepower, but are incidentally also totally top tier in melee.
Terrible compared to RG? No, not at all. Look at the data friend, you are incorrect.
I find White Scars are solid in combat. The extra AP and damage on the charge is awesome. You can kill Primaris with one wound.
Plus, my Chapter Master can kill a Knight in one round of combat.
DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD
Okay, not really. Marines still have a massive stock of stratagems, relics, global special rules and whatnot and if at least three different Marine lists don’t remain regular top 4 contenders I’ll eat my hat. But this does help put an end to the dominance of IH and IF leafblowers. This was sorely needed and I’m glad GW didn’t wait till April. I’m excited to see what the meta looks like going forward, hopefully there’ll be some more diversity.
Indeed. We all wanted and needed this.
It is all a welcome change but I would have liked to see a tremor shell change. It is frustrating how much a single TFC and 3CP, remove agency from a melee heavy army.
Yeah Tremor Shells is straight busted, it means any plan against Marines that involves moving is gonna have problems.
Funny, I’ve been banging the drum of how stupidly good that start is all edition, lol.
It’s been really, really good all edition, it’s just that it wasn’t enough to carry the faction entirely on its own.
For sure, LSM 2.0 made even better with the TFC changed to BS:2+. It is near impossible for a no-hit mod unit to not be affected by tremor shells. Before LSM 2.0, LSM just wasn’t played enough for it to be a concern.
It just feels bad when your large horde unit or monstrous creature, is slowed and starts to traffic jam your entire army, and you get shot for another turn.
Yeah, and you can multi-shoot now. TFCs are dumb good.
Literally screws me as a Green Wing Dark Angels player who only VERY RECENTLY got a second chapter tactic “Relentless Hunt” which is ONLY applicable in the Devastator Doctrine. Relentless Hunt’s new wording should be revised to work in any doctrine or give Dark Angels the ability to stay in devastator indefinitely. How many other chapters have a major tactic that’s only viable turn 1?
Anyone that wants to be in the Dev doctrine is in the same boat.
I never really rated the Dark Angels doctrine bonus. It always seemed pretty lacklustre to me.
I do believe that is the point though. Their new doctrine, while not amazing, was something. Now it is back to only apply t1. I’d rather see DA be changed to when in the Tac doctrine – which honestly makes more sense to me anyways… or a + x” range when in doctrine Y for those weapons.
It’s actually pretty useful in combination with other stuff. Talonmasters only have range 24″/36″ on their guns, so extending those out makes a big difference.
I agree that Dark Angels were caught in the cross-fire here.
A simple change could have helped:
– Heavy weapons benefit from +range in the Devestator doctrine
– Rapid Fire / Assault benefit from +range in the Tactical docrine.
The marginal benefit would therefore be offset that the benefit lasts for 2-3 turns rather than the single turn for Iron Hands / Imperial Fists.
(copy and paste from the other Space Marine post that appears deserted)
We Space Wolves didn’t even get to experience these doctrines so uh…no big deal?
Seems like a fair tone down to me.
What did catch my eye was the justification to nerf raven guard and centurions for bypassing the “builtin weakness”
***
Assault Centurions – warriors in mobile warsuits closer to the stature of a Dreadnought than an infantryman – have been designed and costed with their low speed in mind, but this Warlord Trait essentially overcomes the Centurion’s builtin weakness. We feel this combination is too easy to utilise for its devastating effectiveness. As such, we are preventing
Centurions from being able to be so stealthy
***
Does this set a precedent for other tricks to be specifically nerfed?
My space wolves can outflank aggressors who have low mobility and lack of transports as part of their design.
White scars and successors can use encirclement (basically outflank with no keyword limit) and send a leviathan to outflank.
I’m sure there are countless other examples…have we entered the next phase of rule balance where we have to expressly forbid combos on specific units because the keyword structure just isn’t good enough?
Uh, hello. We painted them black you know. Just cos your armour’s stuffed so full of fur we can smell you from orbit doesn’t mean some of us can’t be stealthy.
*Turns off the landraiders lights and waits*
The really funny part was where they explicitly confirmed what had been the assumption most people had about doctrines- that GW figured that everyone would move through the progression over the course of the game because “of course they would, there’s way more Rapid Fire and Melee weapons than there are Heavy weapons!”
Which is incredibly naive because A, there really aren’t, and B, it’s easy to build an army of nothing but heavy weapons and C, an army that is at full strength on turn 1 is better than one that doesn’t come online until turn 3, and D, heavy weapons already have the best profiles so making them even better is naturally going to be the winning strategy.
And it’s not like nobody told them this, they just chose not to listen because that’s how GW do.
GW tend to consider that players will use the system the way it’s intended, and not the way it’s optimal. It’s a common flaw (particulary common and hilarious in tabletop RPG), and it’s obviously way worse as soon as people try to play to win.
(no value judgement ; in fact, I find easier to try to make the best army and win, than try to guess the power level of my opponent and make an army that is a fair match, so I consider competitive to be easier for pick-up, casual game at the store)
Once you are in that mindset, of course that the warnings are easy to ignore. After all, if people try to use the rules in the way they are intended, the fact they could potentially break them isn’t an issue.
That being said, they fall in another, closely related pitfall : they don’t really explain their intent. They don’t explain how many impulsor they expect in a typical army, or what represent a combined army for Iron Hand, that even in fluff are obsessed with siege warfare and big guns. Even if people weren’t trying to break the system open, there’s very little guidance to make a “fair” army, which is too bad given that it’s also not particulary easy to do.
“GW tend to consider that players will use the system the way it’s intended, and not the way it’s optimal.”
The thing is, they’ve had 7 previous editions to learn that this isn’t how reality works. Not to mention the playtesters they claim to be employing.
Exactly this. Whether they wanted it to be or not, Warhammer has become a game that is played competitively- and it’s to GW’s benefit to lean into that to at least some degree. Continuing to pretend that the game is just played by two best friends in a dimly-lit basement with half a dozen house rules tacked on “because one time Jeremy had a Dreadnought and it killed my Captain and it doesn’t seem like that should happen” is pure delusion.
40k is played competitively using a rule set that accentuates and encourages all the worst behaviours.
Deep strike in centurions, kill a unit (1vp) charge a unit, kill it and take their objective (another 2vp) completely disregard the actual mission because it is utterly worthless as a victory condition and I can always do it after I’m finished murdering things.
If instead the only way to win was the primary objective, then killing things would be a way to minimise the opfor’s ability to contest, I would have to make a choice. Right now I just murder people then decide if you can be bothered with the objective after.
It’s still called the primary objective and secondary objectives, but watch some top table play and take a look at how much armies are designed around completing the mission, Vs making sure they do t give up kill more :p
After they expressed utter shock in the Salamanders FAQ that people would think to combine the “shoot flamer hard” and “shoot flamer lots” stratagems, nothing really surprises me about GW.
The thing is, it’s not surprising. It’s a common bias, and only board games seem (mostly) out of that. That’s the #1 cause of broken rule in wargames, and tabletop RPGs often have system who are hilariously, utterly broken because of that. Even WotC regulary forget that people don’t use cards as intended.
That don’t make the Space Marine any less of a fuck up, and if we want to be honest, it’s probably half a cover up in that they deliberately pushed Space Marine very, very far, but prefer to look like bubbling fools than manipulators, so they aren’t admitting “yeah, we wanted them to be dominating and succeeded”.
As I agree with all the changes are good for the game and I already go through all the doctrines as a Dark Angels player, I really don’t agree with losing the Adaptive Strategy stratagem. They really should have made that a 3CP cost or change it to “as long as your warlord is on the field” and pay 2CP or 3CP. I mean that was a good strat to have and now it’s just gone. Come on man, it’s a once per battle stratagem, now being forced to move through the doctrines, I would gladly give up CP to go back to Devastator Doctrine for that sweet DA kindness.
For DA, it wouldn’t be a big problem.
But for IH and IF, it potentially is. Staying in Dev Doctrine twice as long is a huge change- it means that an IF army has two full turns to clean out vehicles before the damage bonus expires, for example, and in many cases that is more than enough time. I don’t think it would be balanced at 3CP, either, because it has such a huge effect on the game for those armies.
Firstly, I agree this is a step in the right direction to tone down the overpowered armies.
However, it does affect the different chapters unevenly, and highlights a bigger problem: how many rules and exceptions are stacked on the same army.
Using Drukhari as an example: You get rules for each unit. You can get either codex detachment bonus OR Psychic Awakening detachment bonus, but not both at the same time. You do not get bonuses if you mix certain units into the same detachment (separation of kabal, wych, and coven)
There is limited stacking of rules, and certain units cannot get particular rules.
For marines: You get rules for each unit. You get codex detachment bonus, and mono-faction bonus. You get sub-faction chapter bonus, and a Psychic Awakening bonus. There are few restrictions, new FAQs now restrict certain units being combined with certain rules.
There is a huge amount of rules stacked on top of each other, and a growing list of conditions and edge cases to restrict which of these rules should stack.
With this FAQ, I feel like Dark Angels gunline got screwed because Iron Hands and Imperial Fists were to powerful.
I would prefer to see devastator/tactical/assault doctrine left as something pure vanilla home-brew marines get, maybe as a custom trait (as it is still a pretty cool mechanic). The named chapters instead get their own specific rule, balanced around how that chapter is supposed to work.
For example, my fluffy home made Sons of Generic System VII with 6 different colours on their armour, can use combat doctrines and maybe master artisans. Iron Hands can instead use an IH rule, and named characters, and extra relics, and extra strategems.
All the rules have become too intertwined, and changing one causes a variety of changes across several chapters. Balancing could be better done by reducing the number of rules, rather than adding more and more exceptions.
Rant over.
Totally kills the DA Relentless hunt ability. They need to rework that if theyre going to make changes to the doctrines like this.
I think this is exactly it. Allow chapters to maintain their ‘specialist’ doctrine across the match but make it only apply to the specific weapon type in each doctrine (i.e. Devastator = +6″ range to Heavy, Tactical = +6″ range to Rapid Fire, Assault = +3″ to Assault and Pistol type weapons). Would allow the bonus to continue throughout the match and make chapters reasonable different in play style (Ranged vs Melee focus).
It would kinda undo the nerf on IH/IF, though, and both of their bonuses are very problematic.