The new Space Marines datasheets just gave Guilliman every Combat Doctrine at once, and it changes a lot more than just what he can do now.
Guilliman no longer picks a Combat Doctrine. He has all of them… every turn, so the usual question of which doctrine he’s running is gone for good. Best of a,ll but he’s not the only one powering up.
GW showed off four new datasheets from the upcoming Codex: Space Marines, and the ones they picked aren’t just random filler. This is pretty on par with how GW ramps up to an actual codex release: we got 15 detachments last week, now we’re getting the datasheets, and then pre-orders hit Saturday.
- Combat Doctrines: Guilliman has the whole army rule active all the time and can hand a nearby ally an extra doctrine on top of the army’s normal pick.
- Artificer firearms: Sternguard Veterans choose a weapon profile every time they shoot, with melta for Vehicles and Sustained Hits 2 for everything else.
- Hunter and Fury of the First: Terminators get anti-Vehicle chainfists, and armor cracking that keeps working in melee, on top of the detachment GW showed last week.
The Avenging Son is Now a Model You Have to Kill First
We expected Guilliman to get stronger, but what wedidn’t expect GW to hand him the entire army rule and leave it switched on. He wrote the Codex Astartes, so the logic is obvious enough, and the datasheet takes it pretty literally now.
So in game Guilliman gets all of this:
- Every part of Combat Doctrines is active all the time, so he doesn’t have to pick one or sequence around what comes next.
- He can Advance, Fall Back, Shoot, and Charge whenever he wants.
- He can hand a Combat Doctrine of his choice to a nearby ally, and it runs alongside whatever doctrine the army already picked that turn.
- Primarch of the XIII adds a new aura that pushes the hitting power of models around him.
That extra doctrine is where things gett messy for the other player. Most other doctrine-granting effects replace what you picked, while Guilliman’s stacks on top, so a unit beside him can run two doctrines at once while the rest of the army runs one.
Plus, it also feeds stratagems from the new detachments, so putting him in the right place can change how the army works around him instead of just making one unit hit harder. He also still punches heretics’ heads clean off, because apparently the Codex that already cut tons of models needed him doing that too.
Librarians Finally Get a Reason to Take the Slot
The psyker levels GW slipped into Codex: Orks clearly weren’t just an Ork thing. With Librarians, that psyker level has a purpose now: it tells you how many powers you can use per turn!
- Regular Librarians pick between Veil of Time and Force Dome.
- Phobos Librarians ward the unit with -1 To Hit, or strip cover off whatever they’re shooting at.
- Terminator Librarians boost melee Strength or stretch weapon range.
Veil of Time might be the one people underrate at first. A 4+ Invulnerable Save sells itself, but by turn four, when you’re behind on primary and need to reach an objective you probably shouldn’t make, a maxed Advance can win the game for you. So being able to make that call turn by turn is the real upgrade, not either power by itself.
Sternguard Veterans Pick Their Gun After They See the Target
Sternguard have spent years being the First Company’s marksmen in the fluff while often playing like just another a bolter squad with a nicer paint job. The new artificer firearms finally make the tabletop rules fit the lore now. Every special boltgun, combi-weapon, and exotic round the models carry gets folded into one entry, then the squad picks the profile every time it opens fire.
- Damnatus swaps in meltagun Strength, AP, and Damage when there’s a Vehicle in front of them.
- Infernus runs the improved bolt rifle profile with Sustained Hits 2 bolted on.
Sternguard used to make you commit at list building and hope the matchup gave them something useful to shoot. The Armageddon box datasheets worked the same way, but now it’s official that these guys can swap between armor and infantry once they see what’s actually in front of them.
Terminators Came Back Looking for Vehicles to Open
Terminators already had their detachment previewed last week, so we knew GW was pushing them. Their new Space Marine Datasheet doesn’t stop at making them tougher, either, and most of the interesting buffs starts once they target something with armor.
- Better Toughness and better bolters across the squad.
- Hunter on the chainfists, the same profile GW first showed on the Tankbusters, pointed at Vehicles and Monsters.
- Fury of the First now cracks armor all the time, close combat included.
- Improved assault cannon at AP -3 with Sustained Hits 1.
Fury of the First gets nastier once you realize charging them doesn’t switch it off, either. If the armor-cracking rule stopped in combat, melee would give you a way around it, but that’s not the case at all.
If Terminators can handle the tank that drove up to stop them, the dedicated anti-tank unit you were auto-including gets a lot easier to cut from your list. That is also a meta-changing effect that can start showing up in weekend results two weeks after release.
Strength 5 Bolters Change Who Marines Are Allowed to Kill
One extra point of Strength doesn’t sound dramatic until you actually run the numbers. A Strength 4 boltgun wounds a T4 target on 4s and a T5 target on 5s. At Strength 5, those rolls become 3s and 4s. That works out to roughly a third more wounds from the same squad without adding another model or stacking on a stratagem.
That’s a lot more than a little cleanup around the edges. GW is finally making the bolter behave more like the weapon the lore has spent decades telling us it is.
Strength 5 Chainswords Break Everyone Else’s Wound Math
Now we get to the stuff Marine players are actually going to enjoy. Basic warriors move to Strength 5, and GW really does mean basic. Combat knives, chainswords, and bolt pistols all go up with them. Intercessor bolt rifles get two firing modes, one at Strength 5 and another at Strength 6, while Tacticus armor moves to Toughness 5.
So, now, that starts changing wound rolls all over the table. Guns that were comfortably wounding Marines on 3s need another look, because plenty of those matchups now push out to 4s. And unlike a Space Marine detachment bonus, you’re not building around this. These stronger profiles are now just part of the army.
Phobos Stays Squishy But Gets Eight Inches Of Movement
Not every Marine gets the same upgrade. Phobos armor stays at Toughness 4 while the Tacticus version increased, but Phobos picks up an 8-inch move instead. Their job looks pretty obvious now: get across the board, chase down isolated units, snag objectives, and don’t stand around trying to trade shots with the heavy stuff.
That fits in with how the 11th Edition rules have been pushing different units into clearer jobs. Phobos gets around the table while tougher Marines sit in the places where somebody actually has to survive getting shot. But whether Phobos gets anything new out of the model refresh people keep rumoring is another question entirely.
Final Thoughts on the New Space Marines Datasheets
GW is burning through this reveal: detachments last week, four new Space Marines datasheets today, First Founding Chapters tomorrow, and then pre-orders Saturday. Sure, this reveal isnt enough to judge a Codex this size, especially when GW picked them specifically to show it off, but it’s still pretty cool to see.
Either way, Blood Angels and Dark Angels are up next, and now GW has something to prove. If Codex-compliant Marines are starting out here, those Chapters can’t just be “the same thing, only a little better” and call it a day. GW has spent two editions wrestling with that problem, so those previews should quickly tell us whether 11th Edition is handling it any differently this go around.
🔗 Related Reads:
- New Space Marine Codex Buffs Marines but Cuts Model Counts
- New 11th Edition Space Marines Detachments Drop Big Buffs For Every Major Chapter
- New Space Marines Codex, Model Pre-Orders Revealed in GW’s Sunday Preview
- Warhammer 40k Orks Codex Review: 15 Detachments, 54 Buffed Units
- New Warhammer 40k 2026 Roadmap, 11th Edition Release Schedule
- Space Marines Armageddon Datasheets Drop With 2-Damage Power Swords
- New Space Marines Codex Rumors: Models + Vehicles For 11th Edition
What do you think of the new Space Marines datasheets, and is always-on Combat Doctrines too much to hand Guilliman?
