It’s Balance Dataslate time once more, bringing joy/terror to 40K players worldwide, and sowing the seeds of a whole new metagame. As always, we’re unpacking the changes and the impact across the game’s factions, and in this article we’ll be covering the Space Marine factions, talking about what changed and what it means for your games.
The rest of our regular Dataslate coverage can be found at the links below:
This time around there are also four new Detachments and an Index update, giving three factions that have had their Codexes for a while some new toys, and unleashing a whole raft of changes and a new Be’lakor-themed detachment for Daemons. These can be found below.
- Index Chaos Daemons 2.0: The Goonhammer Review
- Detachment Focus: Shadow Legion (Daemons)
- Detachment Focus: More Dakka! (Orks)
- Detachment Focus: Lions of the Emperor (Adeptus Custodes)
- Detachment Focus: Experimental Prototype Cadre (T’au)
Thanks to Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of the Balance Dataslate and associated content.
Codex Space Marines
Points Changes
- Bladeguard Veterans: -10/-20
- Centurion Devastator Squad: -20/-40
- Gladius Task Force – Fire Discipline: -15
- Ballistus Dreadnought: +10
- Company Heroes: +10
- Predator Annihilator: +5
- Predator Destructor: +10
- Vindicator: +10
- Whirlwind: +10
- Ultramarines – Marneus Calgar: +10
- Librarius Conclave – Fusillade: +20
Rules Changes
- Only Codex: Space Marine detachments get the +1 to wound Oath of Moment bonus.
- A unit can no longer charge after using a Lieutenant in Phobos Armour’s Strategic Dispersal ability, but the ability was changed to a flat 6” normal move.
- A Captain in Gravis Armour’s Heavy Bolt Rifle now has the ASSAULT and HEAVY rules, which were oddly missing.
- Uriel Ventris can now only provide Deep Strike to a TACTICUS, PHOBOS, or GRAVIS unit.
- Stormlance Task Force’s Wind Swift Evasion stratagem now only applies to INFANTRY or MOUNTED units.
Impact
Ejection from the Game for Bloodless Angels lists, and Loser for Codex Space Marine lists.
Thoughts
MasterSlowPoke: After their big rules refresh in the last Balance Dataslate, Space Marines are getting a handful of points of adjustments and rules tweeks. Chief among them is the Oath of Moment +1 to Wound bonus only applying for Codex: Space Marine detachments which contain none of the divergent chapter units. Liberator Assault Group lists that contained zero Blood Angels models were a common sight at the top tables of GTs for the last few months, and now there is no benefit to doing this.
It should be noted that armies merely painted as Blood Angels or whatever that are running only codex units in a codex detachment do in fact get the bonus, a fact that might trip you up the first few times you run into it.
Outside of the divergent chapters, there’s been many more changes to the poster child faction. Ballistus Dreadnoughts and Vindicators are common sights in competitive space marine lists, as they’re very efficient shooting platforms. Both ate a 10 point increase. Both kinds of Predators and the Whirlwind also got token increases, in line with every other faction that has access to them.
The universe heard people talking about Reivers being great and wanted to put a stopper in that. The Phobos LT is now much better for attaching to Incursors, so they can come out, tag a unit with +1 to be hit, then jump back behind cover or to a safe place or objective upfield. He won’t impact their scouts, though you’ll have to take him by himself if you want to use his Deep Strike ability. They unfortunately can’t be joined to Eliminators, so your dreams of moving 18” with your Sonic Hedgehogs Chapter snipers are gone before they started.
Bladeguard at 80 and 160 for 3 and 6 models is very interesting. While 4A S5 AP-2 D2 might be the most whelming combat profile available in 40k, at 80 points, a small unit in Strategic Reserves will have a far larger mental effect on your opponent, as they’re not exactly trivial to deal with. If you’re going second, a turn 3 Rapid Ingress could see them punching way above their weight. The saddest part is that the Bladeguard Ancient didn’t get a discount in addition, ensuring they remain unpainted in their Indomitus boxes for even longer.
The Ultramarines have been the first choice when it comes to picking a codex chapter, and against predictions, they got a surprisingly light touch. Calgar got a slight increase, but Roboute Guilliman and his double oath got through the first Dataslate of the year unscathed. The biggest impact felt for Ultramarines is in the Vanguard Spearhead. A mainstay of that list was a big unit of Centurion Devastators being redeployed into perfect fire lanes. If you’re like me, you freaked out when seeing the massive 40 point drop on a unit of 6, and soberly asked yourself if you’re prepared to paint Centurions in 2025. However, this drop is explained by Uriel Ventris no longer granting them the Deep Strike ability, meaning if you want to pick them up they are forced to come in on a board edge, which is much easier for your opponent to screen and plan around. With the 10 point increase on his Company Heroes friends, we’re likely to see a lot less of Ol’ Squareshoes.
Black Templars
Points Changes
None!
Rules Changes
Black Templar detachments no longer get +1 to Wound on Oath Targets, regardless of there being any Black Templar units in them or not. You must be this holy to ride.
Impact
Neutral
Thoughts
Wings: Very limited impact on Black Templars here. They’ve dropped off a bit from their heights after a few rounds of nerfs in the last few Dataslates, but this time around they’re left alone, and even do quite well out of the Bladeguard change. They do, however, take a small knock from the Vindicator increase, as 2x Vindicator was pretty much the conventional fire support choice for Templar lists.
Blood Angels
Points Changes
- Death Company Captain with Jump Pack: -10
- Death Company Marines (both foot kinds): -5 / -20
- Liberator Assault Group: Rage-fuelled Warrior: +10
Rules Changes
Blood Angels detachments no longer get +1 to Wound on Oath Targets, regardless of if there are any Blood Angels units in them or not.
Impact
Jail for “Bloodless” Blood Angels, Very Slight Winner for the OG Red, Black, and Gold ones.
Thoughts
MasterSlowPoke: Liberator Assault Group was just a bit too much with both +2 Strength and +1 to Wound, and ruined the codex oath fun for the rest of the divergent chapter detachments. Probably better to nip this in the bud regardless, as we have no idea what the Black Templar and Space Wolves detachments have in store when their books eventually drop.
The discounts on foot Death Company are intriguing. It’s not exactly a common unit – Intercessors with 0 OC instead of 2 is a big downside. However, you get a lot of wounds with FNP 6+ for 160, and your opponent is not going to want to spend the shooting required to deal with the little ragelords.
It’s not a Blood Angels specific unit, but Bladeguard are also at 160 for a full squad. We may have downplayed how excited a master crafter power sword is in the codex section, but in Liberator Assault Group they’re an entirely different unit. 5 attacks at S7 with copious access to Lance, Lethal Hits, and/or advance/fall back and charge. A unit with a Judiciar is impossible to charge, as not many things can survive them after they pop Savage Echoes.
As far as Death Company Marines with Bolt Rifles are concerned, in the last three months, they’ve only made a single appearance at a GT or higher level event, where a Lost Brethren list with a solitary unit of 5 went 0-6 at LVO and ended up in 1,040th place. Ryan, I’m sure thrilled about the five additional points you can spend.
Wings: Worth adding that Baal Predators did not go up in price, unlike most Predator hulls, which gives Blood Angels a bit more room to maneuver around the point changes than other Marines.
Dark Angels
Points Changes
None!
Rules Changes
Dark Angels detachments no longer get +1 to Wound on Oath Targets, regardless of whether there are any Dark Angel units in them or not. There are few brave attendants to the Outer Circle, so this won’t really have an impact. At the very least, it will kill any argument about whether Sternguard get Deathwing if you don’t take any other Dark Angels.
Impact
Slight Loser
Thoughts
MasterSlowPoke: The stoic Dark Angels evaded nearly any change with this Dataslate. With no chapter-specific units getting increases, and the lack of Dark Angels detachments being taken without Dark Angel units, their gameplan after this Dataslate is mostly unchanged.
The most exciting change for Dark Angels is probably going to be Fire Discipline finally going back down to 25 points after the bonus effect for it was gutted in December. Dark Angels love their Gladius Tasks Force, and being able to reroll a bad Advance roll isn’t actually that bad of a rule; it just wasn’t 40 points good. Fusillade going up a big 20 will hurt Librarius Dark Angels, as they like that with their Sternguard.
Vindicators and Ballistii going up means you will probably need to move a few small things around to get back in line, which does net them out to being mild losers, but the Sons of the Lion will still be going strong.
Deathwatch
Points Changes
- Deathwatch Terminator Squad: +10/-10
Rules Changes
The Black Spear Task Force no longer gets +1 to Wound on Oath Targets if you refuse to take any Deathwatch units. This affects precisely no one.
The Black Spear’s Adaptive Tactics stratagem is confirmed to grant Mission Tactics to a unit that doesn’t already have the Mission Tactics ability.
Impact
Winner
Thoughts
Wings: Deathwatch are the biggest winners in Marines by dint of the fact that the general point increases barely affect them, and the one nerf they do catch is a very small increase on Terminator MSUs. Given that they were LVO-winning good going into the Dataslate, and well able to adapt to a diverse metagame thanks to their various ammo strats, they should be set for glory. The only possible stumbling block there is that their best builds lean on 3W elite infantry, and massed rokkit fire from the new Ork Detachment could be a challenge for them, but we suspect they’ll still rise to near the top of the pile.
Space Wolves
Points Changes
None!
Rules Changes
Space Wolf detachments no longer get +1 to Wound on Oath Targets, regardless of whether there are any Space Wolf units in them or not. The Champions of Fenris and/or Russ will permit no imitators.
Impact
Neutral
Thoughts
Wings: Similar to Deathwatch, many Space Wolves builds do not use any of the toys that got caught in the point increases, and in their case can make decent use of Bladeguard in some lists. They’re not as strong going into this as Deathwatch, and definitely had some builds that really liked Vindicators, so it’s a bit more of a mixed bag for them, but not the big hit that core Marines took.
TheChirurgeon: Space Wolves weren’t nearly as likely to make use of that +1 to wound as Blood Angels, since if you’re running them you want to run their bespoke units. They didn’t really need help or nerfs this time around, and got a solid improvement last month when the Champions of Fenris Detachment was updated to allow you to pick up any terminator unit.
Final Thoughts
Space Marines saw a huge improvement in their fortunes following the December balance update, where changes to their datasheets and the Oath of Moment rules transformed the Codex chapters, primarily Ultramarines, from a below-average faction to one of the game’s more formidable factions. These changes have been mostly geared toward dialing them back a bit, in part because Ultramarines have started to eclipse every other chapter on the Codex compliant side. This likely does that, though there are still some real bogeymen lurking out there, most notably Deathwatch and Dark Angels.
That’s it for the Space Marine factions, but there’s plenty more to unpack across the game, so make sure you check out the rest of our coverage, which you can find linked from the top of the page or from the Overview.
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