Goatboy here to talk about the state of 40k. Somehow we got more Space Marines when (obviously) it wasn’t planned!

Leaks of Salamander rules and some Imperial Fist Chads have shown that while we are worried about the reign of Iron Hand Vehicles and deep striking Raven Guard, we should also be scared of a dude with a crazy superpower fist. It’s starting to feel like most events are going to be Marine heavy so preparing for them will be what any non marine player needs to.

Salamanders Leaks & Reveals

Onto the leaks – won’t go entirely into it as we will get a full review when the book finally comes out next month. Overall the Salamanders leaks feel like the army. Flamers work, they are tough as heck and, oh, they are green too. The spells seem ok – nothing completely insane and it feels like the army will struggle to get moving. But I will say, my good friend Bad Touch Ben Mohile is very excited to run Redeemers into his opponents’ faces. There is a leaked strat saying all flamers in a unit can become Pistol D6. That’s pretty nutty if you somehow get stuck in with the Sallies and don’t escape during your turn. Vulkan looks pretty good, and the exciting thing in all of this is somehow we have more than just one unit in the Codex. Well, the leak says so, so will see. I was kinda hoping for a Dreadnought character, but it isn’t like I plan on playing Green Marines.

Beyond all of this, depending on how powerful/needed Vulkan is we’ll see if a successor chapter becomes important. This is the big thing in all of this – when an Army has powerful Stratagems that allows it to ignore not having the main rule for their army, and go with some kind of weird Successor combo. Like I said on the Raven Guard, going Successor isn’t nearly as good because Shrike can be an essential piece of the army. Thus it leaves you as fo’ real Raven Guard versus green Raven Guard Friends. This whole thing is starting to get a bit annoying as you come to the tabletop and question – are these Red Marines Blood Angels/Ultramarines/Iron Hands/etc.? It makes me think we might see more of a push to try and keep things easier for new players with locked-in colors or schemes. Or I just find some way to play Space Goats again.

Imperial Fists Reveals

The Imperial Fist character leak is also pretty dang cool as he has an insane-looking power fist. That giant glove of doom looks nutty, and the rest of the model isn’t bad at all. The crazy thing about it is that we finally have a true Angry Marine with this guy as that fist is nuts, he is bright yellow, and totally looks like a Chad who is going to push you into a locker.

There haven’t been any true rule leaks for Imperial Fists beyond a character Dataslate, so who knows how they will stack up. Friends within the game have said they are pretty nutty and I expect them to be crazy. Heck, they made a lot of yellow Contrast right? Who said only black armored marines are easy – now yellow marines are easy, too.

I do feel annoyed we got mini leak/reveals, and now we have to wait a whole month for the new Marines to reach us, and to finally get all the models to play the game with. I still think there will be something with Impulsors as they will allow you to deliver some things quickly and stay protected with a 4+ inv save. Beyond that, I grabbed some Infilitrators online just in case I go with a Raven Guard army. Which points me into the direction of if you can’t beat the good guys with bad guys – then just become a good guy. It’s pretty annoying, but that is the life of a game with an extended release schedule – you see initial design ideas get dropped and changed into better options for future releases.

Gatekeeping Marines

A friend online stated this army will be a gatekeeper Army (Matt Root what what) and I tend to agree with him. The best way I can explain: this is the new Imperial Knights. This is the army you need to figure out how to beat if you want to get to a winning record at a GT. As it is, Marines will be a heck of a lot more prevalent than the Knights as everyone and their mom has some Marines in a box somewhere. Knights are expensive to purchase, and as a player of them you have to understand how your army changes as you lose one or two. Marines will be the same way as while they are not low model count – they are expensive model count and each death removes more damage potential as you work through the units.

The big thing to remember is that Marines are no longer just objective holders and mission winners – they are now going to murder a ton of stuff. You have to worry about all their weapons as combinations of doctrines, stratagems, and character rules mean everything can be deadly. Mix this with some abilities to make units very tough to deal with, and you got the recipe for the type of armies you will see. Thankfully they have a hard time doing everything, so we will see what ends up being the best army to come out of the Space Marine Factory.

I guess as a bad guy player I have to wait to see what Psychic Awakening gives me, or just slow roll a Marine army out there. I feel for the other bad guy army – The Dark Angels – as they really need to get a good rework. I think a lot of armies need to be “Marined” in the coming months – we will see. What are you guys hoping comes out for the other armies? What kind of reworked plastic units should we see? I know Dark Eldar need a ton of finecast removed so maybe will see more than the canoe riding Incubi.

~ What do you think about Marines moving back on top of the meta?