Detachment Focus: Stormlance Task Force (Updated November 15, 2024)

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Stormlance Task Force Detachment in Codex: Space Marines.

The core Codex: Space Marines includes seven detachments, one of which represents the First Company and the other six of which are thematically linked to one of the First Founding Chapters which doesn’t have a supplement. The Stormlance Task Force is very clearly designed with the White Scars in mind, giving players access to an aggressive play style which incentivizes you to use MOUNTED units and FLYING vehicles and gives you a ton of tricks around movement. The only downside is that Space Marines don’t have any good mounted units in their codex.

Detachment Overview

Space Marines are blessed with more detachments than any other faction, and that can make it hard to stand out. The Stormlance Task Force doesn’t have that problem, however – it immediately emerged as one of the key ways to play the faction, in part because the ability to Advance and Charge with your entire army is always very strong. Being able to do it on the Fall Back is just extra icing on top. The Stormlance Task Force also offers some great Stratagems for movement and from its initial publication pretty much immediately became the way to run Space Wolves and Blood Angels… at least, until those factions’ detachments received some additional love in their own balance dataslates. If you’re taking the Stormlance Task Force, your primary goal is taking advantage of that army-wide Advance and Charge mechanic, and using it to strike early and often, boxing your opponent in and forcing them to fight through durable melee threats if they want to compete with other deadly threats at midtable.

If you’re just sticking to the units in Codex: Space Marines, it can be tough to make this detachment work; Outriders and Storm Speeders aren’t really good enough to build a whole army around here, even at their reduced costs – but if you look at some of the other chapter options – most notably, Space Wolves – you’ll find a lot more to get excited about here. And again, that’s even after a Q4 balance update significantly increased points costs on Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Changelog

• 2024-11-15 (Current): Updated for the Q4 Balance Update
• 2024-08-31: Original Publication

Detachment Rule: Lightning Assault

A familiar rule for anyone who played White Scars in 8th or 9th, Lightning Assault gives your units the ability to declare a charge after Advancing or Falling Back. Army-wide Advance and charge and Fall Back and charge is just great, both for its raw power but also for what it means in terms of missions and your ability to switch the play, and happily this applies to all of your units so it’s fantastic for all kinds of stuff. The only real negative is that a lot of Marine melee units aren’t that good, but everything looks better with an extra d6″ of threat range each turn.

The real way to take advantage of this has been with the Space Wolves, who feature both a large number of strong melee units and also their own Mounted unit – Thunderwolf Cavalry, who absolutely love being able to Advance and Charge, and who benefit tremendously from being able to Fall Back and charge as well with their Ferocious Charge ability. You can also still make a mild case for taking Blood Angels or Black Templars in a Stormlance Task Force, but those factions are ultimately better off running their own detachments these days.

Stratagems

Like all other Space Marine detachments, the Stormlance Task Force has access to Armour of Contempt, plus five other exclusive Stratagems. These are primarily based around movement, and three focus on MOUNTED units.

• Armor of Contempt – Battle Tactic, 1 CP: Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase or the Fight phase when one of your units becomes a target. Worsen the AP of incoming attacks against that unit by 1 for the rest of the phase. Always useful.
• Blitzing Fusillade – Battle Tactic, 1CP: Used in your Shooting phase. Pick one unit which hasn’t shot; their ranged weapons get ASSAULT until the end of the phase, or SUSTAINED HITS 1 if their weapon already has Assault. This is great for units like Inceptos and Hellblasters, and gives you an additional movement boost with a key unit. The timing on it is great as well.
• Full Throttle – Wargear, 2CP: Used in your Movement phase. You can pick one MOUNTED or VEHICLE (but not WALKER) unit in your army, and give it auto-advance 6″, or 9″ if it’s Mounted. It’s pricey, but it’s a powerful Stratagem, and key to making the detachment tick. Being able to get this at -1 CP with a Captain or Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf is a solid bonus, and combining this with Advance and Charge gives you some incredible movement ranges.
• Shock Assault – Battle Tactic, 1CP: Used in your Charge phase. You can pick one MOUNTED unit in your army which hasn’t charged yet, and give it re-roll Charge rolls and LANCE until the end of the turn. A handy combo that makes your charges more reliable and also makes the unit hit harder when it arrives. Again, great on Thunderwolf Cavalry.
• Ride Hard, Ride Fast – Battle Tactic, 1CP: Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase after they target one MOUNTED or FLY VEHICLE unit in your army. Until the end of the phase, attacks that target that unit are -1 to Hit and -1 to Wound. The one-two punch of debuffing both Hits and Wounds is a strong effect, making a unit much more survivable. This is also amazing on Thunderwolf Cavalry, making them one of the game’s toughest units.
• Wind-swift Evasion – Strategic Ploy, 1CP:  Used in your opponent’s Movement phase, just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance, or Fall Back move within 9″ of one of your units. That unit can make a Normal move of up to 6″ so long as it’s not within Engagement Range of any enemy units. Good clean fun – reactive moves are a powerful effect wherever they’re found.

Looked at purely in terms of effects, the Stormlance Task Force Stratagems are excellent, but watch out for those restrictions – a lot of these really want MOUNTED units to work on, and in the mainline codex you just don’t have enough of them in your game plan. But again, that’s where Thunderwolf Cavalry helpfully come in as your core option.

Enhancements

There are four Enhancements available to the Stormlance Task Force and given that Codex Marines only have one MOUNTED character – the Chaplain on Bike – these seem tailor-made for Space Wolves.

• Fury of the Storm – MOUNTED model only. Improve the Strength and AP of your melee weapons by 1, or by 2 when the bearer ends a Charge move. Good, clean fun from whichever designer is still big into Dragonforce and huge on a Wolf Lord or Battle Leader on Thunderwolf, where having AP-3, 3-damage Relic weapon or Thunder Hammer attacks will let you just absolutely plow through heavy infantry.
• Portents of Wisdom – While the bearer is leading a unit, re-roll Advance rolls. Cheap and always useful, and helps you get into the proper position to stage your charges.
• Feinting Withdrawal – While the bearer is leading a unit, you can Fall Back and shoot. Completely fine and OK if you have the points, but largely underwhelming and it just doesn’t align well with what your army is probably doing.
• Hunter’s Instincts – MOUNTED model only. If the bearer’s unit is in Strategic Reserves, then for the purposes of setting up that unit on the battlefield they can treat the battle round as being one higher than it actually is. This is absolutely bonkers, letting you bring a unit of Thunderwolves Cavalry onto the board from reserves on turn 1, setting up for an early charge and helping build the fearsome “Wolf Jail” reputation of the army, where early moves are used to box an opponent in, forcing them to fight through a bunch of 4++ save wolf units. It’s also very good on turn 2, where you can use it to arrive in your opponent’s deployment zone if they haven’t screened well.

Hunter’s Instincts is a must-take here if you’re running Thunderwolves – it’s an incredible ability to have on a unit and can completely define how the army plays. Fury of the Storm is also great, and worth putting into most lists. The other two are fine if you have the points but also very skippable.

Playing This Detachment

While this Detachment was written with White Scars in mind, the reality is that it’s meant for Space Wolves, who have the melee-focused MOUNTED units to make it really sing. You absolutely want a unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry with a character rocking the Hunter’s Instincts Enhancement, and a Wolf Lord with Portents of Wisdom isn’t a bad shout, either – in fact, a typical competitive list like the one below won’t shy away from taking three Wolf Lords and three Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, just to get the maximum size on their Thunderwolf Squads. When you do this, put Hunter’s Instincts on a Wolf Guard Battle Leader, so you can attach him to a unit with Logan Grimnar on his sled, letting the entire unit benefit.

This combination was so good it led to some major points nerfs in the Q4 balance update, with units of 6 Thunderwolf Cavalry going up to an eye-watering 240 points. This means that a list running three full units plus characters is going to spend something like 1200 points on its mounted core. That’s a lot… but it’s still mostly worth it. The Wolf Jail concept is just really strong, and TWCs are among the game’s best, most durable units. The price you pay is having fewer extra units to run around with and score secondary objectives, so you need to be extra protective of those. Wulfen had previously dropped in value in Pariah Nexus with the loss of their ability to score some secondaries, but they still show up in Stormlance lists as well – the raw damage output they can provide for their cost is hard to top.

If you’re not into running Space Wolves and want to keep that pure White Scars mentality well, your options are limited a bit by the lack of strong MOUNTED units in the Space Marines Codex. Only having Outriders and Bike Chaplains to work with isn’t great, but you can do worse than having a unit with Hunter’s Instincts. Here your best option are Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs, which make capable melee units on the cheap, – though note that this is not generally the best place to run them. Support those with three units of Inceptors and a Storm Speeder and you have what will look largely like a standard White Scars list and play like a poor man’s Blood Angels – not the end of the world if you’re just going to an RTT or playing a pickup game. There have been successful Dark Angels lists which run Stormlance Task Force, though not with Ravenwing – the ability to Advance and Charge is plenty good on Deathwing Knights.

Brent Simon – Route 66 Warhammer 40k GT – 1st Place

Brent took this list to a 6-0, first-place finish after beating two blood angels players and two Astra Militarum players in a row (first two rounds were Necrons and Dark Angels). It’s perfectly capable of chewing through hordes of infantry or tying up and destroying tanks.

The List - Click to Expand

This list is pure offense with only three units of Wolf Scouts to hold objectives and perform actions. You’ve got Ragnar in an Impulsor with Assault Intercessors, Bjorn the Fell-Handed for Disruption, and three double-character units of Thunderwolf Cavalry to sprint across the board. The general idea here is to stage on turn 1 for a big turn 2 where you can press forward with Bjorn and get everything into combat, but if an opponent doesn’t show proper deference on turn 1 you can just go for some of the outrageous turn 1 charge options. The key will be striking early and cohesively enough that your opponent cannot pick and choose targets and will buckle under the weight of the onslaught.

Jak Payne – Dark Sphere November GT – 1st Place

If Space Wolves aren’t your thing, how’s about Dark Angels? Jak took this list to a 5-0, first-place finish at the 62-player GT in early November, beating Astra Militarum, Adeptus Mechanicus, and three flavors of marines to take home the gold.

The List - Click to Expand

This is more something you’d expect to see in the Gladius Task force, but it does just as well here. You’ve got two units of Jump Intercessors and while those make the best use of the Detachment Rule you’re also going to get good value out of it from the Inner Circle Companions and Lion’El Jonson, who becomes a cruise missile when given the ability to advance and charge. For only 285 points you can just yeet him into the enemy lines early and watch him wreak havoc. With no mounted units and no enhancements in the list the detachment value comes primarily from the detachment rule and the Armour of Contempt, Blitzing Fusillade (ranged weapons gain ASSAULT), and Wind-swift Evasion (6″ reactive move) Stratagems.

Final Thoughts

The Stormlance Task Force is an interesting detachment – there are a lot of strong abilities and stratagems here, but the detachments in Codex: Space Marines aren’t really suited to it. Instead, it offers Space Wolves players a fantastic way to play their faction,  and mad them competitively viable for a big chunk of the first year of tenth edition. That said, Assault marines are still a solid unit in space marines armies, and a dedicated player looking to run more standard marines can find good ways to make this Detachment work.

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