Games Workshop - Warhammer 40,000 - Space Marines: Assault Intercessors

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Deadly Sharpshooter: For this operative’s bolt weapon, decrease their critical damage by 1 and they get the MW1 critical hit rule. The weakest of the Discipline of Iron, if this had been a straight addition of MW1 it might see play, but the requirement to reduce your crit damage to compensate makes this a minor improvement. Go ahead and skip this one. Gives the operative the Tilting Shield ability, which means enemies can’t retain dice in combat as criticals unless they scored a 6, turning off Lethal 5/4+ and Rending, and similar abilities. This is great if your opponent has a lot of Rending or Lethal melee. This is a very niche choice, and is more useful if you’re running Assault Intercessors, otherwise avoiding combat is a great way to negate the lethal special rule… B Purity Seal [3EP] Gives all of your models a 6+ Feel No Pain roll. This keeps your models alive longer, and can be used with any style of marine list you want to play (melee, balanced, shooty). It’s not a top-tier chapter tactic, but it’s a chapter tactic that you can always use. It’s got a lot more useful now that marines have more wounds and you will get more opportunities to use the tactic. On average it’s basically a 20% increase in your effective wounds In a 12-wound kill team. B Salamanders – Master Artisans

Against hordes or mid-range teams any shooting activation is basically a kill so you want your shots to be as good as possible. Don’t be afraid to do Move+Dash+Shoot to put your operatives on the opponent’s half of the table and put pressure on them. For Competitive play you will likely be taking advantage of the panoply of choices that Marines have, and that will mean taking single models from a lot of different data sheets. However this is not what most people want to do, particularly starting out – they just want to paint fun and thematic kill teams and play games. So consider this additional wrinkle if you’re planning to play marines competitively. As blood angels, a bonus on the wound roll, charges, advances, etc. really go well with the close combat orientation of this unit Flexibility: Without being able to perform mission actions you can suffer a lot, especially in missions A and B. Once per battle Command re-roll Tactical Ploy for the model without spending CP. In effect you’re spending 3 EP for a command point, and that isn’t what I’d call a good trade. Hard Pass. D Auspex [2EP]

Liam’s Method

Strong Fundamentals – While you only have basic weapons with the exception of the one shot per turn auxiliary grenade launcher, those basic weapons are pretty good. Depending on your opponent you might go with Ceaseless Assault Bolt Rifles or P1 Bolt Rifles (I would say that having a Heavy basic weapon has so many problems for moving around the board that I wouldn’t take it). Similarly a P1 pistol on Assault Intercessors is decent enough for a melee model and six inch range is fine in the Gallowdark. Pariah Nexus updates the Tactics list for Space Marines, reprinting the list they had in the 2019 Annual, with one major adjustment, which we’ll get to immediately. Note that while Deathwatch share unit datasheets with Space Marines, they’re a separate faction for the purposes of Kill Team rules, and as a result have a different set of Tactics. We’ll be covering those in more detail in a separate article on Deathwatch Kill Team tactics. Terrain Features [Advanced rules] With the INFANTRY keyword they can get benefits in area terrain, and obstacles. At the start of the battle, each objective marker on the battlefield is said to be contested, and so is not controlled by either player. To control an objective marker, a player will first need to move models within range of it. A model is within range of an objective marker if it is within 3" horizontally and 5" vertically of that objective marker. As we showed off over the weekend, you can totally load-up your Death Company with Astartes Chainswords. And you probably should because they are WAY more effective in close combat than as a static gunline. You can take regular Blood Angels when it comes time to shoot. You take Death Company if you want to tear the enemy to shreds in close combat.

When the Adeptus Astartes fight, they employ a set of combat doctrines to eliminate the enemy. After pounding the foe with heavy weapons, warriors advance to lay down a hail of bolter fire before charging forth with chainswords roaring to finish the foe.If every unit from your army has the ADEPTUS ASTARTES keyword (excluding AGENT OF THE IMPERIUM and UNALIGNED units), this unit gains a bonus (see below) depending on which Combat Doctrine is active for your army. During the first battle round, the Devastator Doctrine is active for your army. From the second battle round onwards, at the start of the battle round, you can change which Combat Doctrine is active for your army, as follows: One layer of Khorne Red and then another layer of Mephiston Red on the red bits (left gauntlet, shoulderpad) Once you have selected an eligible unit to declare a charge, you must select one or more enemy units within 12" of it as the targets of that charge. The targets of a charge do not need to be visible to the charging unit. For everything in your roster, you need to know what it is for. What problem does it solve? It’s a Good Time for Space Marines in Kill Team If the Devastator Doctrine was active for your army during the previous battle round, you can change it so that the Tactical Doctrine is now active.

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One of the best Warriors in the game. You always want these equipped with bolt rifles and whenever you put a bolt rifle on one you’ll give him a scope. With Lethal 5+, P1, and access to re-rolls you have a weapon that will absolutely have your enemies knowing fear. With Intercessors your plan is often going to be to have a very conservative first turn where you don’t lose any models, or better yet you don’t take any damage. You want to score as much as you can in this first turn without losing models. During this first turning point you’ll want to do as many Move + Score + Dash rounds to get into heavy cover as you can. Abuse those 3 APL profiles to place yourself and score where you should. Honor the Chapter - fight twice can be a huge advantage in at least three ways (somebody smarter can add more). (1) It could prevent you from losing your squad in subsequent combats. (2) It could eliminate a key enemy squad. (3) Pile ins and consolidations are always a big way to change the position of your unit towards other enemies or objectives. The Assault Intercessor Squad keyword being, well, the key to this working because it used to be an army-wide stratagem, and often abused in the prior edition. BUT, you don't need a 10 man sanguinary guard squad for this strat to be awesome... so do not lament (unless that is your successor chapter's namesake, then by all means go a head). Remember, stratagems being limited to one use per phase as a general rule encourages you to avoid saturating the table with these guys.

When a friendly operative incapacitates an enemy operative, reveal this objective. At the end of the battle if this operative has incapacitated more enemy operatives than any of your other operatives, score a VP. If this operative has scored more than any of the enemy operatives, score a VP. S Auspex Scan (2 CP) Lets a readied model ignore penalties to hit. Ideally you’d just use an actual Auspex but if this can let you make a critical shot then it’s probably worth it. C Leadbelcher basecoat then Ironbreaker layer on the metals – gun, chest eagle, and in this case the soft bits of the armour The operative would still count as performing the action for all rules purposes. For example, if it performed it during its activation, it would not be able to perform the action again during that activation. Unlike their bigger brothers, Scouts have stayed at one wound and ten points, with gunners and sergeants at 11. Scouts are the cheapest way to get a heavy bolter, at 17 points, vs 21 for a tactical marine gunner, and one or two scout gunners in a gunline marine team remains a viable choice, though camo cloaks and keeping them in cover will keep them alive more. Scout sergeants get access to everything a standard marine sergeant can (combi-weapons, pistols and power weapons) and can take a gunslinger loadout. At 11 points, the Scout Sergeant is also the cheapest Leader specialist you can take, and worth consideration in that role for competitive play, though Eliminators now occupy that role much better most of the time despite a higher cost.Veteran Marines ( Sternguard Veteran • Vanguard Veteran • Veteran Intercessor • Veteran Assault Intercessor • Bladeguard Veteran) • Terminator Squad • Terminator Assault Squad Additionally Deathwatch can take Deathwatch Veterans but can’t take Scouts, Sternguard Veterans, or Tactical marines.

Armour of Contempt (1 CP) You can use this tactic when a model suffers a mortal wound. Ignore that mortal wound and any other mortal wounds that phase on a 5+. If you have the extra CP this can be nice, but it’s a lot more reliable to use Death Denied to keep your models alive. C Rapid – Add ▲ to this operative’s movement characteristic. This means you’re moving 7” (not 9”) with the operative, but it does mean you can get 9” charges, which is pretty huge. Speed kills, you’re basically getting the Vanguard ploy from the Phobos team for free, you can never go wrong with this choice.

Rare Equipment

Aggressor • Desolation Squad • Eradicator • Hellblaster • Vanguard Eliminator • Vanguard Suppressor • Infernus Squad • Firestrike Servo-turret • Hammerfall Bunker