Your first look at 15 new Space Marine detachments

The upcoming Codex: Space Marines has 15 new detachments to mix and match into your ideal army, from task forces that work alongside specific Combat Doctrines to detachments of Gravis- or Phobos-armoured troops enhancing your tactical flexibility. Let’s have a look at a few…

Space Marines detachments are split into three broad types – those which affect your Combat Doctrines, those which affect your core infantry, and those that affect more specialised groups of units. The first includes the 3DP Gladius Task Force, which lets you use any one Combat Doctrine an extra time per game and includes stratagems useful for all kinds of units, plus three 1DP ‘Brethren’ detachments that each let you use their associated Doctrine once more per game and have enhancements and stratagems tailored for those roles.

Each of the Assault Brethren, Tactical Brethren, and Devastator Brethren detachments has the Unique: Doctrines tag, so you’ll need to pick the one best suited to your play style. The next six are split into three pairs matched to specific types of armour, giving you options for how you want to field your Tacticus, Phobos, and Gravis units.

The Gravis Linebreaker Force, for instance, focuses on an implacable wall of advancing firepower by letting your Heavy Intercessors and Eradicators with Heavy Bolters move their full distance without losing the accuracy bonus from Heavy. 

Now, a natural 5” Movement stat means that Gravis troops have their work cut out for them when dashing for objectives, but now there’s a stratagem to help level the playing field. Purgation Push gives them a last ditch burst of speed to get onto a nearby objective after shooting, so you can clear out some interlopers before you surge in and claim it for yourself.

Where the Linebreaker Force is all about pushing onto objectives, the Gravis Siege Force concerns itself with holding them once you’re there. Indomitable Defence is a powerful protective ward that cuts down on wounds from the kinds of powerful weapons opponents tend to aim at your chunkiest lads, and if you need to out-muscle your opponents’ level of control when contesting an objective, a Suppression Volley or two can break their cohesion and reduce their OC to -.

The Siege Force also gets one of the most versatile upgrade enhancements yet, giving any Gravis unit a boost to their own OC. Between these tools, you should have no trouble standing firm in the centre of the battlefield.

The detachments in the last category improve smaller groups of units like Transports or Terminators, and are great for spicing up some of your favourite models alongside the rest of your army. You’re naturally free to combine them however you wish in case you want to go all-in on, say, Terminators in Land Raiders,* or bikes and speeders alongside heavy battle tanks.

We gave you a teaser of the detachment names when we revealed the Codex to the world, and here’s a quick look at what they do:

• Gladius Task Force – Four enhancements, six stratagems, and an army rule that gives balanced bonuses to anything you want to deploy.

• Assault Brethren – For the Space Marine who really wants to shove a chainsword into their foes. (Unique: Doctrines)

• Tactical Brethren – General abilities that help you survive longer at the front line. (Unique: Doctrines)

• Devastator Brethren – Shoot better, sometimes even in your opponent’s turn. (Unique: Doctrines)

• Tacticus Attack Force – Aggressive, mobile attacks with a slight preference for Assault Intercessors. (Unique: Tacticus)

• Tacticus Firestorm Force – Make the most of your Rapid Fire weapons to anchor your firing line. (Unique: Tacticus)

• Phobos Shadow Force – Stay hidden, even when you’re shooting people in the face. (Unique: Phobos)

• Phobos Shock Force – Launch deadly ambushes and evade any reprisal. (Unique: Phobos)

• Terminator Storm Force – The First Company hits faster, harder, and more reliably than ever.

• Stormlance Task Force – Mounted units and Speeders move extra fast. Like, really fast.

• Ironclad Champions – Powered up Dreadnoughts for people who always liked the Iron Hands.

• Gauntlet Task Force – Transport vehicles supporting the units that disembark from them.

• Ironstorm Spearhead – Make your tanks extremely accurate and more able to soak up damage.

• Gravis Linebreaker Force and Gravis Siege Force – See above! (Unique: Gravis)

There’s a ton of variety between all of these detachments, and if you’re anything like us, you’re already thinking about ways to combine your favourite units with their ideal abilities. 

Finally, you may be wondering how the more independent Space Marine Chapters like the Blood Angels and Black Templars are going to work alongside the new Codex, and whether they’ll need to combine older rules with the new ones from the Codex. 

In short, they won’t. The Blood Angels, Black Templars, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, and Space Wolves will be getting updates to tide them over before their own Codexes release. We’ll be talking more about these next week, so make sure you come back for more Space Marines intel.

* It’s a classic for a reason.