Hi everyone, Michael here taking a look at the new Armour of Contempt rule, and some thoughts on the various Marine Chapters. For more reviews and analyses, check out the Tactics Corner.
The recent balance dataslate brought a nice surprise for the power-armoured armies of the 41st millennium; the Armour of Contempt.
This provides a great durability boost for the Space Marines, and I think will give the army a new lease of life in the current meta. This really improves the resilience of your Adeptus Astartes units, making them able to shrug off the high AP firepower of the game a bit better than they could a few weeks ago. Having played a couple of games with my White Scars with the new rule, I can say that Marines do feel a lot tougher. I was surprised with how long the army lasted, able to shrug off a lot of enemy firepower with ease.
Cover is Key
The armour save bonus with cover stacks with Armour of Contempt. This means that Marines in light cover get a 2+ save and are at AP-1. Your opponent will need at least AP-2 to get you back to your 3+ save. This made a big difference to my White Scars units, as they could safely sit in cover while holding an objective and weather the enemy small arms fire.
A unit of Primaris Marines in cover can be buffed by a number of other factors, such as Transhuman Physiology, or a nearby Apothecary, making them very tough to deal with. Your opponent will now need to put a lot of high AP firepower into them in order to shift a unit in cover from an objective. In a recent game, my Infiltrators were able to deploy on an objective in cover and shrug off a ton of Shuriken Cannon firepower from an Aeldari force. The -1 AP on the potent weaponry is ignored by Armour of Contempt, giving them a great 2+ save in cover. The durability allowed the unit to survive the firepower of a squad of Dark Reapers, as well as a Wave Serpent when paired with Transhuman.
This gets better when you are able to combine it with Gravis armour and get +1 save with the stratagem against D1 weaponry. Paired with Armour of Contempt, you can get to an effective 0+ save on Gravis models in cover. Your opponent will need at least AP-3 to get them back to their basic save.
Terrific Terminators
Armour of Contempt also greatly benefits those units with a built-in 2+ save. Since it does not stack with Storm Shields, your Terminators can now focus on melee or shooting, giving them more utility over the standard Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield load out. Your opponent will need to go to at least AP-4 in order to get past the 4+ save the Storm Shield would have provided.
Not only does this make your Terminators cheaper, but it adds to their damage output in the shooting phase. Twenty Storm Bolter shots are great for taking on cheap chaff units, especially when at AP-1 in the Tactical Doctrine. The Power Fist is also worth considering as a potent load out on the squad now. At AP-3, the extra point of AP is great for dealing with other powered-armoured units, who will take the Thunder Hammer to only AP-1 now. The damage 2 of the Fist is great for dealing with other Marines or infantry at 2W.
For the White Scars, things get even better for the Terminators. The damage bonus for the White Scars in the Assault Doctrine makes weapons light Lightning Claws a potent threat. A unit of White Scars Terminators with pairs of Lightning Claws will be a potent combat force on the charge. In the Assault Doctrine, each Terminator will get 5 attacks on the charge, hitting on a 3+, with re-rolls to wound, AP-3 and damage 2. Added to the fact that the squad can advance and charge, your Terminators will be doing great work and speeding around the table.
Other overlooked units with 2+ saves, like Centurions, could also see a resurgence, as their durability has increased with the new rules.
Resilient Raven Guard
Given how cover can boost the durability of your Marines, the Raven Guard get some nice bonus with Armour of Contempt. Almost all your infantry units are likely to be getting a cover save on turn 1, so it will be pretty easy to get a 2+ save ignoring 1 point of AP. This will boost your durability to enemy firepower on the first turn, and make it more difficult to alpha strike your forces with units that start on the board.
Not only that, but getting -1 to hit when in cover will be a great bonus too.
The changes to Indirect Fire also has a great boost for the Raven Guard. Units hiding out of line of sight in cover will be practically impossible to shift with indirect fire. As the BS modifier for indirect fire stacks with the -1 to hit penalty, any fire at Raven Guard out of LoS will be at -2 to hit in most cases, meaning even elite armies will be hitting on 5’s in most cases. This also gives a nice boost for using abilities that require a unit to hit the target. For example, getting Crossfire markers on Raven Guard Marines will be more difficult, shutting down the ability to use stratagems for denying overwatch, fighting last, etc.
Not only that, but a standard Raven Guard Marine will effectively have a 0+ save against indirect fire; +1 save for being in cover, +1 save for indirect fire and -1 to the AP of any attacks. Any weaponry at AP-3 will still be giving you a 3+ save in these situations.
Stubborn Salamanders
The other big winners of the Balance update are the Salamanders. Their Chapter Tactic changed so that you can no longer re-roll to wound against them, in order to compensate for the Armour of Contempt changes essentially negating part of the existing Chapter Tactic.
Given the number of re-rolls that are available for existing armies, this can seriously hurt your opponent’s chances of damaging your units, especially when paired with Transhuman Physiology. Using this stratagem will help more powerful attacks bounce off your units 50% of the time, with no chance of getting re-rolls to improve the odds. Great for keeping a unit on an objective and prevent them from being wiped out.
Overall
The Armour of Contempt is a great bonus for the Space Marine factions, and one that I (and probably most players) was not expecting in the balance update. I think this is a great boost for the Marines, and one that I am hoping to utilise in the coming weeks.
Are there any units you think will see a resurgence with the new rule? Are you excited to get your Marines back on the table?
