Codex Space Marine Elite

The Space Marine Elite section is where you will find the Space Marine specialist

Terminator Squad

Space Marine Terminator are designed for close proximity fighting. They first appeared in the Space Hulk games where their thicker armour and assault weapons where a great advantage in the Space Ship corridors. The Terminators still excel in these conditions. They are not fast, you need to load them it to Land Raiders if you want to ferry them about.

The Terminators armour is some of the toughest armour in the game. You should be careful of those rare AP1 and AP2 weapons. These will cause you to fall back on the fairly weak invulnerable saves.

Terminator Weapons

Terminators are armed with general purpose close quarter fighting weapons, the Storm Bolter and Power fist. Upgrades to heavy weapons is available.

Stormbolter

Warhammer 40k Space Marine Terminator with Storm Bolter and Chain Fist

The Stormbolter is a medium ranged assault weapon. This means that you can close in on your opponents and be shooting along the way. You can not run and shoot at the same time, but you can shoot and assault in the same turn. You will need to decide between shooting and running each turn.

Powerfist

The Power fist (almost) always strikes last, but when it wounds you will instant kill most creatures.

Power Sword

The Sergeant gets a Power Sword instead of a Power Fist. This means that he will strike in the usual initiative order.

Place him toe to toe with and power weapon character. Terminator is a bit vulnerable to power weapons, and you may have a change to kill the character before they do damage to the squad.

Heavy Flamer

One Terminator heavy weapon upgrades is the Heavy Flamer. A heavy flamer is a good weapon to choose if you are fighting in close cover like jungle fighting, or City Fight rules.

Assault Cannon

The assault Cannon is a great weapon for the Space Marine Terminators. It can fire four rounds per turn which is good against horde armies, specially with the Space Marines Ballistic skill, and it's a rendering weapon so it has a chance to crack open tanks and hard targets too. Assault Cannons only have a 24" range, but considering that Space Marine Terminators work better in built up areas, this is not a problem.

Cyclone Missile Launcher

Cyclone Missile Launchers add a bit of long range fire power to the Terminators. It's stats are the same as a regular Marine missile launcher. The Cyclone Missile launcher fires the same Frag and Krak missiles too, so you should be familiar with them. The one difference is that the Cyclone missile launcher can be fired in the same turn as the Terminator's Storm Bolter. This is a bonus against lighter targets.

Terminator Assault Squad

Terminator Assault squads are more specialised variant of the Terminator Squad. They give up their shooting ability for more specialised close combat weapons.

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Sternguard Veteran Squad

The Sternguard Veteran Squad is a new addition to the 2008 Space Marine Codex. The Sternguard by their name show that they are designed to be rear guard troops. The classic use of rearguards is to protect the army from sneaky attacks from the rear, and to hold strategic ground to allow the rest of the army escape if they need to run. The Space Marine Sternguard are designed to bolster the regular Space Marines.

Sternguard as Heavy Weapon Troops

The Sternguard make an excellent addition to a shooty Space Marine army or an assault army that want some support at the rear. Up to two Sternguard can upgrade to heavy weapons. This is an expensive alternative to the regular Devastator squads, but provides option if all your heavy support slots have been filled.

Sternguard as Shock Troops

All the Sternguard are veterans. This means that they have the extra leadership and attack that veterans get. These veteran skills added to the special ammunition available to them means that you can have 5 to 10 Sternguard that can pack a surprising punch in the shooting phase and then can follow it up with a decent close combat attack.

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Dreadnought

The Space Marine Dreadnoughts are part man and part vehicle. The are classed as 'Walkers' in the Warhammer 40k rules.

Being a hybrid of man and machine the Dreadnought brings the best of both. It has an armour value so anti-tank weapons are needed to damage it, but it has a weapon skill value so it can fight in close combat.
The Dreadnought can have carry heavy weapons too, and like a vehicle in can move and shoot in the same turn. The Dreadnought can also assault in the same turn it moved and fired.

The Dreadnought moves in the same way foot troops do so it will move 6" in the movement phase, and needs to take difficult terrain tests. The Dreadnought is too big to fit into any transport vehicle, this makes it a lot slower at moving around the table. Plan where you are going to need the Dreadnought when you set up. If you are playing on a large table, think about having a drop pod to deep strike the Dreadnought to a strategic location.

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Venerable Dreadnought

Venerable Dreadnoughts are the oldest of the dreadnoughts. In game terms they are very similar. The difference is that the Venerable Dreadnought gets an extra point of BS & WS, and the 'venerable' special rule. These upgrades cost an extra 60points. Worth it? I'll let you decide.

The extra BS skill will allow the Venerable Dreadnought to hit on 2's (or 5 times out of 6). This means that all the ranged weapons are better value for the points.

The Extra WS point will aide any close combat fights against WS4 & WS5 opponents. If you normally fight other Marines or Chaos Marines you could find this useful. If you normally fight WS3 opponents (Guard & etc), then this upgrade will have no effect.

The "Venerable" special rule gives the dreadnought some extra survivability. The ability to re-roll 5's & 6's on the damage table will frustrate your opponent!

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Ironclad Dreadnought

A new addition to the Dreadnought 'family' is the Ironclad Dreadnought.

The Ironclad dreadnought has been designed to fight in built up areas. It comes with two close combat weapons by default, with attached special weapons. This is a formidable combination that gives you an extra close combat attack. The down side is if you don't get in to combat then the Dreadnought could end up a waste of points.
You can replace the seismic hammer with a chain sword. The chain sword will cut through tank armour much easier with an extra D6 penetration, but causes less damage when you do glance or penetrate. Because of this I recommend the chain sword when facing tougher tanks.

If you want some shooty weapons on your dreadnought then you can replace the standard close combat arm with hurricane bolters. Hurricane bolters are mid range weapons (same range as a bolter), but can lay down a lot of twin linked bolter fire per turn. This is great against swarm armies (Orks, Tyranids, Guard & etc).

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