I’ve been a little unsure how to feel about the Space Marine codex for 11th edition. There are definitely some glow ups, there are definitely some eyebrow raising question marks, and doctrines are great but the loss of Oaths hurts.
I threw together a new iteration of a list I’ve been playing competitively for a while to see what it was like with all the new rules. This is down about 250 points from where it was in the 10th codex, and that translates to two scouts, a stormspeeder (eyebrow raising question mark there) and some enhancements.
I chose to play in Assault Brethren/Stormlance/Darkflight Pursuit to get fast bikes that hit really hard. I’ll talk a bit about how the detachment combination felt at the end.
Here’s the list! The points on the Dark Angels models that aren’t the Lion or Vengeances (which had their points revealed in Tabletop Battles) are my conservative guesses on what they’ll be – 20 points each added on to the command squads, 20 points added to the Black Knights, and Sammael staying roughly the same. I wouldn’t be shocked if I’m 5-10 points over, I also wouldn’t be shocked if I’m 10 – 20 points under once points actually drop.
For Sammael, I am playing him as his current melee stats, with a D3 gun with 3 shots and blast as Tabletop Battles has previewed.
I’m playing all the Black Knights as t6 with one extra attack, and the revive on the Apothecary being d3+1 wounds now as opposed to a model (also as shown via tabletop tactics).
The Vengeances are now t9 with 11 wounds and deep strike, and their gun is s10 overcharged at ap3 for 3 still, but with d3+3 shots blast. I assume their heavy bolters are also going to rapid fire 2 like most of the rest of them are.
My opponent Aaron was running a bit of an experimental brew in Shadow Legion and Cavalcade of Chaos. A couple of important proxy notes – the very snakey looking things are Screamers with their leader (he’s building the correct sized ones, so they weren’t available) and my second and third landspeeder vengeance are obviously 3d printed proxies while I decide if I really need a second and a third one.
We played Mission C of the Recon vs. Purge matchup, which is the triangulation vs. consecration mission. I’ve been on both sides of this, and I feel like Recon is at least reasonably favored if you can afford to hold back a bit.
I won the deployment roll off and asked him to deploy first. Top to bottom, he has his 3 “man” squad of chariots behind Belakor and a Keeper of Secrets. There’s also a unit of Cultists hiding in the ruins there, with a second unit in the middle flanked by the Screamers.
Off the table, he has a unit of Bloodcrushers and the fade Bloodthirster.
My deployment is Incursors with a Land Speeder Vengeance, then Sammaels’ unit of bikes with the Lion and the Techmarine, then a bunch more Land Speeders and some Incursors.
I kept the big unit of Black Knights off the board with the Chaplain.
I usually try and do a really tactical overview of games when I write them up, but this report is more for me to get a feel for how the new Space Marines play so I’m going to focus a little more on the combinations of things they could do and how they felt than the finer points of the gameplay.
I lost the roll off for first, and scouted both units of Incursors forward after Aaron chose not to scout his Keeper of Secrets forward.
Daemons Turn 1:
Aaron drew Secure No Man’s Land and A Tempting Target. I tempted him to my expansion objective.
His Cultists rolled very nice advances to get up the table on the middle objectives, and he decided that he wanted to gamble on an 8″ charge (+1 from the musician or something, Daemons are drowning in this rule) on a turn 1 deep strike with his Bloodcrushers. His thought process here was that if he rolled the charge, he can pretty easily swing around to get the Vengeance as well and if he can trade that unit for a Vengeance, 5 points from tempting, and a Consecrate on the really difficult to get to expansion objective, it’s probably worth it.
He did, unfortunately, fail the charge and had no re-roll for it because he spent a CP to drop them on turn 1.
Aaron scored 5 on Secure for the turn making the score 10 – 15 (I know we’re not painted, I’m lazy about that in practice games).
Dark Angels Turn 1:
I put Sammaels’ unit into Assault Doctrine with his captain ability and stuck the Lion in reserves. I drew Beacon and Engage on All Fronts. I picked the top unit of Incursors as the Beacon, and then lined up three Speeders and Sammael’s unit on the Bloodcrushers. I took the center objective with my other Incursors to deny Aaron the bonus for holding more objectives on his turn.
The re-roll 1s to hit from the Incursors allayed a lot of my fears about inconsistencies here (I think two units is a mandatory number for a lot of gunlines) and after the Speeders stopped plasma bolting, only 2 Bloodcrushers and the character were left. Sammael’s squad charged in, finished them off, and then used the fancy new Stormlance Stratagem to run VERY far away.
Aaron picked up his Screamers with the Shadow Legion strat.
I scored neither of my secondaries.
Daemons turn 2:
Aaron drew Forward Position and Outflank and scored 4 on primary.
He dropped Screamers and Bloodthirster down, and I responded by using Rapid Ingress to get the Lion behind my Incursors for a heroic.
His shooting phase picked all the Incursors off, so he opted to charge the middle Vengeance with the Bloodthirster (and succeeded) and the Vengeance, Sammael’s Squad, and my Beaconed Incursors with the Screamers (also succeeded). I failed the Lion’s heroic, so I lost the Incursors and the Speeder, but the Outriders clapped back to kill 5 Screamers and engage the Bloodthirster and take back my expansion objective, denying him Forward Position AND Tempting Target and also getting me primary and stopping the Fade Thirster from fading.
Aaron consecrated two objectives and scored three more points.
Pictured: The board pre-charges.
Dark Angels Turn 2:
I scored 4 on Primary and drew Bring it Down and Burden of Trust.
The operations this turn were pretty simple. The Lion chose to be in Assault Doctrine, and Sammael picked Tactical for his unit.
Sammael’s unit fell back, and then failed their desperate escape battleshock from the irritating stratagem that Daemons get, losing an Outrider to mortals.
I moved the Lion up between the big Daemons and dropped the Ravenwings down to get lines on Belakor.
I was able to put a ton of shots into Belakor, dropping him to 3 wounds, and then started off the charge phase with the reserved unit of Black Knights making their 8″ charge into Belakor. This left the Lion and Sammael to charge the Bloodthirster and remaining Fluxweaver.
Everything died a horrible death, and the Black Knights used the run away stratagem to go hide from the Keeper of Secrets.
I also was able to Triangulate my central objective for a few points, and scored 3 for Engage and 5 for Bring it Down.
The rest of the game was functionally just Aaron’s army flailing at the Lion and then making all the Invuln saves back (I handed the Keeper 23 wounds with the Lion and it failed 4) until the end of the game where he ended up finally living on 1 with nothing else around him.
Here’s a fun shot of him surrounded by Daemons.
That unit of Black Knights that ended the last turn on the top table edge advanced 21″ (Move 12 base, +2 from Stormlance, +1 to advances, rolled a six but could have auto sixed it) to murder the Cultists hanging out on the objective on the opposite side of the table.
And here’s the end-game state after the Keeper finally died.
So…how’d it feel?
It’s certainly a much less consistent army. Limited hit re-rolls mean that if you don’t have a good quantity of attacks you are often not guaranteeing kills anymore.
Also, I felt like I had very few activations per turn. I was mentally preparing to do actions with Landspeeders.
On the other hand, the new Stormlance is a very fun thing to play around with – fast bikes are cool, and having a “sprint” mechanic (shoutout Warmahordes players) is extremely fun on them.
I’m not…entirely sure what the point of doctrines is going to be in a lot of cases as army rules. I don’t think I went into a doctrine army wide ever this game. The Lion chose one for himself, Sammael picked one for his unit every turn, and everyone else kind of floated. I wish the non-doctrine specific detachments did cooler things in doctrines with their stratagems maybe?
Incursors feel absolutely mandatory if you have any guns, the Techmarine was surprisingly impactful, letting things ignore hit mods very nicely, and I really enjoy Sammael’s little unit still.
Outriders with sustained 1 and +1 D actually feel incredible now, and I am excited to play more with them.
Overall, I came out of this game feeling like my army was still relatively consistent if I built it right and used positioning tools well, and I think there are going to be some interesting things to come out of the codex.
Aaron’s assessment was “this was a lot more fun than when you had Oaths, I’m so glad it’s gone” and honestly….fair.
Thanks for reading, see you next time.
