Space Marines have come a long way (both good and bad) but let’s check out where they’ve been and how they may play in 9th Edition for real.
Space Marines came out the gates strong in 8th Edition with Guilliman leading a ton of Razorbacks (pre-nerf of course). That eventually evolved into players splashing Smash Captains into Guard/Knight lists. We’ll get into all of that shortly.
But another important note to make is that with all the reveals circling the Space Marine codex, it seems like there have been more NERFs made than anything else.
But For Real, How Are Space Marines Going To Play?
Let’s go back to when Guilliman and all of his Primaris goons first graced the tables of 8th Edition. It started out with Guilliman making a Razorback gunline. But why Razorbacks and why Guilliman?
Well, before Guilliman was “updated”, he was able to reroll all hits and wound rolls for everyone within 6″. He was a force-multiplying beast. He’s since been nerfed to only reroll 1’s to wound (which is still good) but not nearly as powerful. As for the Razorback options, they were taken as a means to get solid firepower on a high-toughness chassis while getting around the rule-of-three mechanic GW implemented.
If you don’t know, the Rule of Three says that unless it’s a Troop or Transport, you can only take three squads of a given unit in any Matched Play game. Luckily, Razorbacks are Transports. Got ’em!
Then, Blood Angels got their Codex and Smash Captains were in. People were mainly taking a Battalion full of Scout Squads to create space on the table and generate CP while bringing at least two Smash Captains. Obviously, this Battalion wasn’t close to 2,000 pts so they were usually splashed in with Guard/Knight lists.
The Dreaded Doctrine Era
Then…GW broke Space Marines (shame on you GW). The Doctrine era ushered in full-on Space Marine lists and they were B-B-B-Busted. Especially factions that had their bonus within the Devastator Doctrine. When Doctrines were first introduced, players weren’t forced to cycle through the different Doctrines like they have to now.
That meant that Iron Hands/Dark Angels/Imperial Fists Etc. were able to have a massive upper hand over armies that either weren’t Space Marines or against Space Marines armies that had to wait until the Assault Doctrine for their bonus rule to turn on.
9th Edition Space Marines Post Codex?
We’ve just seen a massive wave of rules hit for the 9th Edition Space Marine codex and we recommend you give everything a generous lookover. At first glance, these changes may look a little heavy-handed to some. Some of these highlights are:
- Scouts Are Now Elites
- Only in Death Does Duty End is only usable if you did NOT fight already
- Chapter Master rerolls only apply to one unit
- Aggressors can no longer shoot twice.
Adeptus Custodes were already tailing them in the competitive leaderboards. As for Xenos, they may be about to have a field day against Deathwatch and repay them for all of the times they got rolled over by Special Ammunition combined with their other anti-Xenos bonus rules.
We’ll have to see how pro Space Marine players pilot this army in the future, but with known elements like codex creep being a recurrent theme across older editions, Space Marines may be about to fall off the edge. Or perhaps the edge will get moved further downrange with equally curtailed codex books for non-Astartes factions.
Only time will tell. Begun, this 9th Edition truly has…
What do you think about Space Marines in 9th Edition? If the codex rumors are true, will Space Marines continue to be a top army or take the backseat?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.
