The Chime of Eons - The Space Marines

“We are the slayers of kings, the destroyers of worlds, bringers of ruination and death in all its forms. These things we do in the name of the Emperor and in the defense of Mankind. Let none stay our wrath.”
- Cato Sicarius, Captain Ultramarines Second Company, Master of the Watch, Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke of Talassar, and High Suzerain of Ultramar.


Hey again, and thanks for returning to The Chime of Eons, a column about the fluff of the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG.

So far, we’ve covered the Tau and Eldar cards of the core set. Moving round the alignment wheel brings us to the Space Marines.
The Space Marines are the iconic faction of the Warhammer 40,000 setting, present since the first edition of the game and featured as an included army in every box-set of the core tabletop game right through to the current 7th edition. They’re the poster-boys and front cover stars of the IP, with more rules written for them, more fiction written about them, more miniatures produced of them and more attention given to them than any other faction. They’re also the most popular of the factions, and by far the best sellers.
Broadly, they’re extremely popular with 40k fans, as if you dislike space marines, you generally don’t get into Warhammer 40,000 in the first place. Over time many gamers prefer other factions, but it’s a rare 40k minis collector who doesn’t own at least one space marine.

Because the Space Marines have been shown such favouritism by fluff-writers over the years, there’s a lot more to say about them! Expect this article to be longer than others in the column, and even then it’s likely we’ll just be skimming the surface of the established background.

THE SPACE MARINES
The Space Marine Faction Meta-Fluff Score: 3/5

The Adeptus Astartes, colloquially called the Space Marines, in their current fluff incarnation, are genetically engineered, surgically modified warriors who represent the elite fighting forces of the Imperium. They have better armour, better weapons, better training, better strategic capabilities, better mobility and better quality than any other force in the Imperium. In the history of the setting they were once organised in twenty Legions of approximately twenty thousand space marines each, with each Legion based on the genetic template of one of the twenty Primarchs – demigod-like heroes personally crafted by the Emperor to be his champions and generals. Because of this genetic heritage the Space Marines are far greater than an ordinary human in every way.

Despite being superhuman, the Space Marines are still human and subject to human flaws.

The schism known as the Horus Heresy set the Legions against each other and plunged the Imperium into a civil war that almost ended human life, and which left the Emperor himself forever crippled. The Traitor Legions that turned against the Emperor were defeated, and became the Chaos Space Marines. The loyalist Legions that remained were disbanded, and reorganised into Chapters, each one thousand marines strong, according to the directions of the Codex Astartes, penned by the Primarch Roboute Gulliman of the Ultramarines Legion. At this time (the much spoken-of Second Founding) the Adeptus Astartes as we know them now were formed.

There have been many more Foundings since, and there are now an estimated one thousand chapters in existence, making approximately one million Space Marines across the whole Imperium. This, of course, is not nearly enough to serve the military needs of an Imperium which numbers several million or more worlds, so the bulk of the Imperial military is served by the Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum, as Games Workshop very recently redubbed them), the Planetary Guard and the Imperial Navy. This makes the Space Marines a force deployed in special circumstances, as elite forces without peer. It is commonly said that while the Astra Militarum are the Hammer of the Emperor, the Adeptus Astartes are His Scalpel.

Each Chapter is its own unique entity, autonomous and answerable only to itself and the Emperor. Their limited size is intended to keep them from becoming the sort of threat that triggered the Horus Heresy and in limiting the ambitions of their commanders. A thousand marines is still a potent force though, and each Chapter has its own transport ships, base of operations, manufactories and logistics support.

While renegade chapters, chapters turning to Chaos and full secessions from the Imperium have happened (such as with the Tyrant of Badab, Chapter Master of the Astral Claws chapter) the threat has been contained because of the wisdom and foresight of the Codex Astartes. When a Chapter goes renegade, it will be at no more than a thousand marines, barring a small number of extra recruits it has hidden from the watchful monitoring of the Inquisition, so the level of its threat is limited.

Each Chapter has its own distinct identity: the Blood Angels and their successor chapters, for example, are famed for their dark rage and are tainted with a vampiric craving for the taste of blood, while the Iron Hands are obsessed with replacing weak flesh with cybernetics and their reverence for all things mechanical.

Because Chapters are so distinct and because they must be able to react quickly to changing tides of war, they act more or less freely in the name of the Emperor, deploying their armies outside of the chain of command of the Astra Militarum and participating in fleet actions without the direction of the Imperial Navy.

This independence, combined with the fastest warpships and best Navigators (achieved through longstanding agreements with the Adeptus Mechanicus and Navis Nobilite), mean that the Space Marines can respond far faster to threats than the army or navy.

Also, because they are so distinct in identity, fully loyal Space Marine chapters can sometimes come to blows over differences in doctrine and approach. It is even possible for Battle Brother to fight with Battle Brother over differences in doctrine and strategic approach, though such conflicts are thankfully rare.

When it comes to representation of the fluff in an LCG, an immediate failing of the mechanics is that the Space Marines are lumped together as one faction, when actually they are a thousand different factions. The Deathwing Company of the Dark Angels and a Space Wolves Great Company might both be Imperial forces, but they answer to separate chains of command and are unlikely to submit to the authority of the others’ commanders. Indeed, thanks to age old grudges its likely they’ll come to blows if in the vicinity of each other, or at the very least refuse to cooperate with the plans of the other.
A talented and charismatic Imperial Warmaster might beg both to join them in a joint military campaign, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll choose to respond.

While it is nice that they’ve made Chapters into traits, chapter identity isn’t currently a big thing in deckbuilding, resulting in an odd mish-mash of marines thrown together.
With regards to mechanics, one key thing that needed to be represented was how fast to respond the Astartes is compared to most Imperial forces. The Imperial Guard might take months, years or even decades to reach a warzone, and arrive to find that the Space Marines have arrived and finished their part of the campaign. This element isn't really well represented, save for the occasional special ability that lets you put Units into play during the Combat Phase, though the Astra Militarum cards don't altogether lack this option either.

Another key fluff element we want to see is that the Adeptus Astartes is a small elite force. Every space marine is a hero, and a company of space marines should be worth several regiments of guardsmen. The game accounts for this a little, but its not a theme that is strongly pushed through. In game design terms its clear that we’d be looking at a very different game if it did. Still, it’d have been really great if – upon deciding that the game was fought across multiple Planets - that the Space Marines were the only ones who could move from planet to planet with ease, or if they were especially adept at seizing the initiative.

The tabletop game was notoriously bad at matching the presented fluff of space marines with game mechanics. Space Marine armies tended to be smaller than Imperial Guard ones, but they weren’t nearly as amazing in wargame performance as the written fiction implied they ought to be.

The novels, written background and fictional history of the Imperium have a single marine being worth ten ordinary soldiers, and a company of a hundred marines as effective as multiple regiments of Astra Miltarum. The tabletop game, on the other hand, gave marines marginally better fighting skill and equipment, and made each marine worth about two and a half guardsmen. It wasn't just in subjective statements that a marine was valued as a hundred guardsmen either: there's fiction pieces which show space marines to be superhuman and near forces of nature, with an individual or squad able to turn the tide of a battle when thousands of guardsmen haven't. Some games have reflected this well: FFG's own Relic, for example, has the Ultramarines Captain as a real master of battle, able to wade his way through hordes of enemies. FFG's Deathwatch roleplaying game has Space Marines operating a whole level above ordinarily human characters, superior in almost every way. The Space Marine computer game had one Ultramarine carving his way through thousands of orks, and reshaping an entire warzone with his heroics.

The wargame, however, failed to fully transmit the exceptional nature of Space Marines.
The LCG is not much better: there’s not much indication on individual cards that Space Marines are of higher quality or lower numbers than Imperial Guard: when you have a trio of Ratling Snipers able to stop Tactical Squad Cardinis dead in its tracks, something is not right. Still, some credit is given for having Space Marine army units usually be either sole individuals or single squads, though my usual complaint about scale and stats is still there. A strong and explicit contrast of scale with more numerous foes would have been really fluffy, and it’d have been fantastic to have the LCG echo the fiction rather than the tabletop game, with a tactical squad of marines proving the equal of a company of Guardsmen or a warband of Orks. Its almost there, but not quite!

You could point to specific comparisons that make it seem as if Space Marines are big damn heroes, for example an Eager Recruit being able to take down a whole squad of Biel tan Warp Spiders, or an Honoured Librarian putting out the firepower of two whole squads of Altansar Rangers. Mostly though, this is because the whole LCG is messed up in scale, with individuals and larger deployments not matching up well, and broadly there's no feel that the Space Marines are more Elite warriors than any other faction.

Some elements do transmit the right feeling of heroism, however. When you play an event card to have a single space marine unit take down a big bad monster, or you have an AoE effect mowing down hordes of mooks, it does feel right with the narrative of the Adeptus Astartes. Event cards in particular are excellent for showing the heroic capabilities of Space Marines, with cards like Indomitable, Drop Pod Assault and Fury of Sicarius making the Space Marines formidable in the heat of battle and making Space Marines decks ub energent play more fluffy than Space Marines cards.

The hardiness of the units is nice too, with solid statlines reflecting their strength and toughness. It’d have been nice if every Space Marine got the Elite trait, as they’re the million strongest warriors in an Imperium that has many billions of men under arms, but as we've discussed before, fluff-led design is definitely not how FFG have chosen to apply the Elite trait.



The Alliances here are pretty much polar opposites in feasibility:

The Astra Militarum alliance is entirely sensible, especially with a Space Marine commander at the fore. While the Space Marines aren’t allowed to maintain and direct Regiments on a permanent basis, it is entirely within setting for a Space Marine officer to take command of existing Imperial forces when he arrives in a warzone (though of course Imperial politics can get in the way of this). It also works in reverse, with an Imperial Guard commander able to ask for the assistance of space marines, and for Astartes to consent to be under their command for a campaign (though with it being fully unnecessary for them to state that they'll only obey the chain of command as long as they think is reasonable).

The Tau alliance, in contrast, is almost entirely senseless. I can only think of one single in-fiction example of the Space Marines and the Tau working together as allies, even though the game rules of the tabletop game do allow this. This was when in the face of the Tyranids, the Tau worked alongside the Ultramarines to try to halt the Hive Fleet.

In fact, every other fluff mention of the Tau and the Space Marines together is as enemies, and the above reference was a single sentence in a preamble mentioning that this was why the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines respected the Tau as enemies, and part of a full background piece describing the subsequent Ultramarine crusade to defeat the Tau!

Whether it’s the Imperial Fists taking on the Tau in the Damocles Crusade, or the Ultramarines seeking to undo Tau expansion in the Zeist Campaign, the background places far more emphasis on the Adeptus Astartes being firm enemies of the Tau. In fact, its widely the case in the Tau background that the Adeptus Astartes are their main enemies. While they've had to fight off the Tyranids, and have had to battle the ubiquitous orks, its only the Astartes who have given the Tau real trouble.
If we’re going to look at the Core Set in particular, its notable that Cato Sicarius is perhaps the Space Marine commander who has had the most dealings with the Tau, in that he’s killed more of them and warred more against them than any other space marine! The timeline in Codex: Space Marines even has him campaigning against them within the last few years.

There’s many fluff mentions of temporary alliances between Space Marines and other factions such as the Eldar and even the Orks (though also of many many more wars), but of the Tau there is almost no mention of alliance ever made.

All in all, a fluffier approach would mean a complete rewriting of how factions work in Conquest, for example having individual Space Marine warlords able to recruit from their own chapter and from a generic pool of Imperial resources, with perhaps an ally or two from more specialised Imperial organisations and other Chapters. Its likely best for game design and play elegance for it to be the way it is (and don’t get me wrong, I love my Tau/Marine deck) but if we’re looking purely in fluff terms, the sorts of decks you can make with a Space Marine commander can be very very unfluffy.
Rescuing the Space Marines from a lower score is the nature of emergent play with this faction. Its not uncommon at all to see the Space Marines punching above weight against big bads, or demolishing several units at once. They play somewhat like Space Marines ought to, if this game was a battlefield simulation rather than a sector-wide conflict. In the opening salvos they can hit exceptional hard, and in the long run they rely on durability and heroic feats to turn the odds.

So overall, we end back at the average score: 3/5.


THE SIGNATURE SQUAD


Captain Cato Sicarius (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

We’re going to spend a little longer than normal discussing Warlord fluff here, as the Ultramarines are one of the best fleshed-out factions within the 40k setting.
Cato is a great choice for the first Space Marine warlord. He’s a first tier character, with a miniature, special rules and plentiful fiction about him. He’s very much an archetypal space marine hero, embodying the virtues of the Ultramarines, who in turn are the archetypal space marines. Whether you call Ultramarines the ideal space marines or the “vanilla” space marines depends on whether you like them or not, but from the very beginning they’ve been part of the 40k setting and are probably the baseline from which all Space Marines chapters should be compared.

A small complaint about the inclusion of the Ultramarines as a core faction and an Ultramarine commander as the warlord is that in the current timeline (40,999 AD) the Chapter have just been recalled en masse back to Ultramar in order to set out to take on Abaddon's Black Crusade so they're not really active in warzones in Ultima Segmentum right now, as they're about to set off across the galaxy to war at the edges of the Eye of Terror. That’s something we can handwave though, as there’s nothing in the rulebook that says the LCG is set in the exact same timeframe as the wargame, and it’s a rare Ultramarines wargamer who insists that every mini battle they play out represents part of the Eye of Terror campaign.

The Ultramarines Legion was in the strongest position numerically of all the loyalist legions at the end of the Horus Heresy and the time of the Second Founding.

This was thanks in part to their being too far away to have participated in the climactic Battle for Terra - such was the respect and fear of the Ultramarines held by the traitor Warmaster Horus, he planned his assault on the heart of the Imperium to be timed with the Ultramarines as far away as possible!

The other reason for their strength and numbers was the logistical skills of their Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, whose carefully administered realm of Ultramar provided a steady stream of high quality warriors for his Legion.

Thus the Ultramarines Legion was the source of by far the greatest number of Chapters. An account called the Apocrypha of Skaros described that fully twenty-three Chapters were founded from the Ultramarines Legion, with most other legions providing between one and six Chapters. These twenty-three Primogenitor Chapters all revere Primarch Guilliman and are strictly adherent to the precepts of the Codex Astartes, with its directions on every subject from organisation, training and recruitment to the execution of approved strategies of war.

The Ultramarines chapter themselves were the first of the 23 chapters that came from the old Legion, and they are widely considered to be the template and archetype that other Codex Astartes chapters look to emulate. Their adherence to its dictates is absolute, and they revere it as a near-holy text.

They’re also (unlike many marine chapters) uncorrupted in their geneseed over ten thousand years, with none of the mutation or madness exhibited by many of their cousins. The only other two chapters noted to have this exceptional purity of geneseed were the Dark Angels (who have their own deviations and secrets that make them less ideal as Imperial role models) and the Luna Wolves, who would go on to be the traitor legion known as the Sons of Horus and in their current incarnation as the Black Legion chaos marines definitely are not uncorrupted!

The only unconventional aspect of the Ultramarines is that they are so respected that they are entrusted to rule an entire region of space (whereas most chapters have only a single world), acting as the feudal lords of that domain in the Emperor’s name. Thus - somewhat against the Codex Astartes - the Ultramarines actually do command several hundred Guard regiments directly. There's an inherent irony here, of course, that the most pure, most respected, most Codex-devoted chapter is also the only one that is allowed to break the Codex's most important rule: that Space Marines rule themselves, and not an Empire!

In game terms, if FFG had gone the route of giving each Warlord their own list of allies, it would have made perfect sense for an Ultramarine commander to be able to call upon Primogenitor allies, as well the Guard armies of Ultramar and the the Ultramar navy.

The Ultramarines, like all Codex Chapters, are nominally one thousand marines divided into ten companies, with each company at full strength of one hundred men, save for the 10th Scout Company which fluctuates according to rate of recruitment.
As Captain of the Ultramarines Second Company, our man Cato isn’t actually the Chapter’s commander, instead placed at the command of a mere one hundred marines. Still, he’s certainly a hero of sufficient stature to stand alongside the other Warlords in the game.

His art here is spot on, a perfect translation of existing art and the miniature into LCG art. A quibbler would point out that his sword is in the “wrong” hand, but I’d counter by pointing out that he’s warrior enough to be pulling the Inigo Montoya trick here!

As a fun side note for veteran fans of Warhammer 40,000, who may think they know the fluff inside and out: did you know that in the original fluff the Ultramarines weren’t originally deemed a First Founding chapter? No? Well here's a treat!

"Chapter Ultra-marine of the Legiones Astartes was founding during the inter-legionary wars of the thirty-second millennium. tradition places the date at 4001001.M32 - the very first day of the millennium. The chapter is therefore over eight thousand years old, making it a chapter of the third founding. Upon its inception, the Emperor gave the chapter the number 13 - formerly the number of one of the treacher-legions (sic) now banished to the Eye of Terror 'without number and name with all honours erased'."
- White Dwarf 97

Most consider that little tidbit to be thoroughly “retconned” (that is retroactive continuity as in Games Workshop has rewritten the background and now considers the above to be obsolete and the current background to have always been true) but personally I love the idea that it could be true, and that the Ultramarines are fakers, with a manufactured history pretending they were a First Founding Chapter, and that their conspicuous absence from Terra at the culmination of the Horus Heresy was because they didn’t exist yet. I also love the idea that their supposed superiority is an Administratum-manufactured propaganda piece, with revisionist history in place! My own hope is that one day GW or FFG will unearth this tidbut again, and reveal the Big Lie, with the truth emerging that the uncorrupted geneseed of the Ultramarines is actually the uncorrupted geneseed of the original Sons of Horus!
That’s just “headcanon” though, so feel free to ignore me!

Swinging back to the fluff assessment, the 2/6 stats here are okay, but the ability is a little odd. Gaining resources on destroying armies is the sort of thing you’d expect of the biomass-consuming tyranids, or of an Ork Bad Moon Warlord looting for parts.

I’m not entirely sure what it represents here. It’d have been good to see Cato’s extreme personal heroism, his mastery of strategy or the loyalty he commands to be represented instead. If anything typifies him as a commander, its his particular ability to formulate grand strategies on the fly. He’s repeatedly noted in the fiction as being able to make brilliant strategic assessments in moments, and to come up with complex codex-approved strategies that lesser commanders could not have contemplated given weeks of consideration. One could argue that the Ultramarine style of war has an emphasis on logistics and supply, and this represents Cato’s Codex Astartes style allowing him to marshal resources more efficiently, but tying this to the destruction of enemy units makes no sense. It’s a stretch to justify his ability with any sort of fluff, and looks to have been designed with a mechanics-first mindset.

It'd have been fluffier if he just had 3/7 stats and no ability, as his main unique feature is that he’s a Big Damn Hero who gets into the thick of the action! As an alternative, it'd have been fluffy to see him give all Space Marine units in his hand of cards Ambush, as it would reflect his ability to react on the fly and to execute flawless battle plans with everyone in the right place at the right time.

The only saving grace here is that the nature of the ability does persuade you to put him right into the heart of the action, and that you don’t get the most out of him till you throw him into the biggest fights. That at least, is fluffy.

As it is, please note that I'm not lobbying for a change! His game mechanic might not be fluffy, but it is a great game mechanic, and far more interesting in mechanical / LCG playability terms than the options I stated. Its only because the Chime of Eons is about fluff that I raise this at all!

The Fury of Sicarius (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5

Is Sicarius an angry man? Well, not especially: rather he’s a calculating and brilliant warrior and general. One of his quotes (which I opened the article with) ends “Let none stay our wrath”, but you get the impression he’s talking about righteous action rather than losing his rag. The word “fury” does turn up in some fluff pieces describing Cato’s heroic deeds, even if its referring to the smiting done by his troops rather than him personally.

All in all, its acceptable for a card to be named Fury of Sicarius, so long as its clear to all that this is the military fury of armies unleashed, rather than emotional fury we’re talking about!

That aside, I really like the fluffiness of this card, as what it does is perfect for the game’s narrative. It makes every Space Marine a hero, capable of taking down the biggest of threats once in a while.

When a lone marine drops a Heldrake thanks to this card, you can almost see him standing astride it in mid-flight, forcing a meltabomb into its daemon-tainted central cogitator while yelling “For Ultramar! For Sicarius! For the Emperor!”

This card makes the Space Marines faction feel like Space Marines fiction, and my only real complaint is that as a signature card we’re not going to see it playable for other Space Marine Warlords (as in the card effect, rather than the card title).


Tallassarian Tempest Blade (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

Tallassar is the home world of nobly born Cato, and the blade is a relic power sword forged there. It’s his weapon, and we might say it should be part of his profile by default, but I have no real complaints about it being a unique signature weapon instead.

Attaching only to a Unique unit is good too, as a sword is only as good as its swordsman. The fluffiness will decrease if we start seeing non-Loyal Unique army units however, as this belongs in the hands of a space marine, rather than a Tau or Eldar ally.

The art, incidentally, is from the front cover of “The Siege of Damnos”, a novel by Nick Kyme. If you want to read about the heroics of Cato Sicarius, you could do a lot worse than starting here.

Sicarius’s Chosen (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

The punctuation fanatic in me objects immediately to “Sicarius’s”, but I’ll not count that against this card’s score. The apostrophe - like the comma - is so evolved, abused and varied in its application that even a stickler like me can't really mark a score down for incorrectness.

The artwork here is of a second company Ultramarine in suitably ornate armour and a variant of the chapter symbol incorporating the Imperial Laurel, which is an Honour badge befitting their status. This is all good.

While Sicarius isn’t especially known to have a squad called Sicarius' Chosen as a notable feature of his fluff, his tabletop rules do mention that he can have a single tactical squad upgraded to veterans for free, and that these represent the best of the Second Company.

Also, in a separate place, the Space Marine Codex describes his command squad as being called “The Lions of Macragge”, and gives us their names, roles and pictures: from the art of this card, this clearly isn’t the same group of people.

However, we’re looking at four army units here, and given that the Second Company is a Battle Company of 100 marines and that a Tactical Squad is 10 marines, its clear that they can’t represent a squad per card unless we're saying that every marine in the company counts as "Chosen". Thus I have to interpret that Chosen is referring to a marine singular here, and each card represent one of the marines drawn from the company to form Sicarius’ top squad of tactical marines. This makes the guy in the front of the art the Chosen, and everyone else just background detail (or indeed the guys on the other cards). This is acceptable for Space Marines, as they’re near enough superheroes by fluff default.

It’d make sense for such heroic individuals to have an Elite trait (even beyond it making sense for all Space Marines to have this trait). It’d be even better if they had the Hero trait (though but FFG has taken the odd decision of making that a Tau-only trait at present, and only on one Tau character).

The activated ability is the bit that makes least sense to me: do they arrange transport for an enemy unit from a neighbouring planet then open fire with their boltguns at the spaceport? Or maybe they draw said units in with decoy tactics into a trap? Very Tau, very Kauyon.
It makes the faction fun to play as an LCG, and makes it a good quality card in mechanics terms, but its not very fluffy.

Better would have been something to represent their inherent versatility and competence. I’d have liked to see them be able to spend a resource to gain a keyword till the end of the phase.


Cato’s Stronghold (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

The art here is okay, in that it depicts an Imperial stronghold: mix of gothic and brutalist architecture, lots of ninety degree angles, eagles decorating the place, made of stone: that’s all excellently Imperial.

The smaller fluff-criticism here is of the art: its very dark and broody, whereas the traditional art associations of the Ultramarines are of shining warriors, white marble and Greco-roman stylings. This is more of a generic Imperial building than one in the Ultramar style. We could certainly argue that this is a fortress on Talassar, which is an ocean world with stormy seas and rocky islands, and if there were signs of battle damage this could even be Castra Tanagra, which was the site of a great battle and is now a training site for the Ultramarines.

That in mind, the fluff makes less sense here, in that Cato is a company Captain in the Ultramarines, and thus doesn’t have a static base of operations other than those back home in Ultramar. He’s always on campaign, moving from one warzone to another, and will either command his campaign from the front line, or from his Battle Barge, or from a requisitioned existing building.
Given that the Traxis Sector is not where the Ultramarines are from, and given that we know that warp travel takes a long time (even for the relatively swift Space Marines) we have to then assume that Cato’s Stronghold is his claimed base of operations in the Traxis Sector. This is a huge fortress, apparently claimed as Cato’s temporary HQ, in a warzone that stretches across seven planets at which Cato will deploy such might forces as one or two land raiders, an eager recruit, a squad of assault marines. The art doesn’t depict a field HQ, but a long established fortress, so we must assume now that this is an old Imperial bastion that Cato has taken over.

Building or even stopping to claim a Stronghold in the Traxis Sector for him to make plans is basically not Cato’s style: he’s always depicted as being at the front line in the heat of battle, and is in fact renowned for crafting his brilliant strategies on the fly, in the midst of war. The typical Cato fiction narrative has him arriving, creating a plan near instantly and with speed that amazes his comrades, and then executing that plan and winning the campaign with incredible speed. Stopping to set up a Fortress as a base of operations is far more the shtick of the slow-and-steady specialists of the Imperial Fists.
Coming onto the ability, it could perhaps be justified as Cato being able to sweep from one target to the next thanks to his superior Astartes strategies. That’s good, and the effect suits Cato, though I would have liked this location to be something that more reflected his style and personality.


LOYAL CARDS

Deathwing Guard (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

Of the one thousand space marine chapters, the Dark Angels are the first, and were created before any other. Amongst the Dark Angels, the one hundred Terminators of the First Company are known as the Deathwing, so named because they painted their armour bone white when they knew that they were going to die in the face of a massive alien incursion and chose to accept their fates, and to fight till the end. They won through against the odds, and have found their place in Imperial legend since then. In combat they’re known for their tenacity and determination, and also for their feared teleport assaults coordinated with the highly mobile Ravenwing Second Company. The well established Dark Angels tactic is for the Ravenwing to launch a fast assault, and for the Deathwing to lock onto the teleport homers that have been brought into the midst of the enemy, and then beam directly into the battleline. They’re all round warriors, adept at the surprise assault and ferociously determined in defence.

We must thank the Emperor they have the Elite trait! If any unit in the game deserves this, it is them!

Loyal is appropriate too, though it would have made even more sense if the Deathwing were saved as a signature squad card for a Dark Angels Warlord (such as their leader, Belial). Their presence alongside an Ultramarine force is hard to justify, and come the expansions, placing them under the command of Ragnar Blackmane (of the Space Wolves, who the Dark Angels have a historical grudge against) is almost as likely as a Tau Commander having a Dark Eldar Archon as his buddy.
4 command and 9 toughness are fine, but 5 cost is a little low and 2 attack is far too low. However the emergent play of these units is grand: they arrive, they hold the line, they dominate, and they do so with no help from anyone else. Ideal fluff would have seen them have Ambush as well, but all in all this is a passable representation, with almost sufficient feeling of impact on the game to represent their heroic status.


Drop Pod Assault (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5

Now we’re talking! This is a great Space Marine card, in that it represents the Space Marine style of war and replicates that experience in the LCG.
In planetary assaults, the Space Marines usually deploy in one (or more) of four ways: in Thunderhawk gunships, by slower deployment nearby then using land transports like the Rhino, by teleportation or, when speed and shock is most required, in Drop Pods.

These armoured one-way transports are fired at high speed from low orbit, decelerating at the last moment with retrothrusters and open petal-like on the battlefield to disgorge their space marine cargoes directly into combat. A Combat Action with the Tactic trait is a good way to represent this, for sure.
The only fluff failing here is that it seems very against the Ultramarine and Astartes style of war to not know who is in the drop pod till it lands, though the search function could represent the Space Marine commander looking over his options before deciding which to deploy, so we’ll leave it at a 5/5 score!

Honored Librarian (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

For newcomers to the setting wondering why a “librarian” is a potent force, this is because in 40k parlance, a Librarian is a space marine psyker, combining the combat skill and discipline of a space marine with potent sorcery.

A Chapter’s psychic potentiates are sent to the Chapter Librarium for training in the arcane arts. If they complete their training they attain Lexicanium rank, and can then progress through the ranks of mastery to become Codicier, then Epistolary, then (for the single greatest among them) Chief Librarian.

I’d have rather seen Honoured Epistolary as the title here, but that’s not a flaw, just a preference.

The art and equipment is good here, as casting lightning from their hands is exactly the sort of Psyker power that Space Marine Librarians manifest. The character is reminiscent of but not exactly matching Chief Librarian Tigirius of the Ultramarines.

The odd passive ability is justified by the “honoured” bit, as it is imaginable that marines will put themselves in the line of fire to protect an honoured individual, and that a Librarian might allow them to do so while other Space Marine Commanders would insist on being in the thick of battle. Generally though, the thematics of a “shoot my lessers first” special rule like this seems much more suited to the Astra Militarum than the Adeptus Astartes.
It’d be nice if Conquest had more fully formed psionics rules, but as it is 4/2 stats are a reasonable way to represent a Librarian’s might.


Iron Halo (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

The art shows an Iron Halo, which is a space marine Honour Badge given for exceptional bravery in the battlefield, and which incorporates a defensive refractor field, that has a chance of converting incoming attacks into a flash of light.

A Unique Character only requirement is excellent to see, and Relic is reasonable given that these are ancient artifacts that the Imperium has lost the technology of producing (something that is true of many technologies in the setting). The rules are spot on too, except that the effect is reliable, while the device in fluff is purely random about which attack it deflects.

A potential fluff letdown here is that it can be attached to a non Space Marine unit, and to any unique one.

The Ultramarines have strict rules allowing the Iron Halo to be worn ONLY by Captains and Company Champions. This is fine at present, as there are no non-Loyal Unique units, and the only two applicable recipients are indeed a Captain, and Veteran Brother Maxos who looks as if he is a Company Champion. However, if in future we see any Unique Tau or Unique Astra Militarum that lack the Loyal trait, or if we see any Unique Ultramarines that don't fit this criteria, then consider this fluff score one point lower.

Also a possible fluff failing is that Cato Sicarius already has the Iron Halo, and indeed already has the Talassarian Tempest Blade, and so technically you should put both these cards on him before the game begins. Good luck with convincing your opponent of this!


Ultramarines Dreadnought (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

The Imperial saying "Only in Death Does Duty End" isn't absolute in the case of Dreadnoughts! These war machines are essentially walking sarcophagi, with an honoured near-death mortally-wounded space marine hero interred within it so that he can continue the fight beyond when his injuries would normally allow him to do so. Indeed, the dreadnought suit is little more than a walking tomb, as he can never be removed from it once interred. Dreadnoughts provide the space marines not only with a formidable fighting machine, but also preserves the experience of a veteran marine who would have died long ago were it not for it sustaining him. Thus Dreadnoughts and their interred pilots are accorded great honour, and often act as strategic advisors and the voice of experience to company commanders.

There’s very little going on with this card, given its absence of abilities, so it is hard to criticise, though I would have liked to see command icons present, and I think 8/8 is rather high statwise for any single individual unit, even if said unit is a walking tank. A dreadnought has less firepower than a land raider, for example, and nowhere near its resilience.

Veteran Brother Maxos (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

An original character, I think, though I welcome any correction in this. Searching through multiple editions of space marine codices and rulebooks I can’t find any mention of Maxos, though its possible he is in a novel or campaign book I’ve not encountered.

Original is fine though, as he’s not stepping on any established characters’ toes, and his artwork and flavour text suggests him to be a Tyrannic War Veteran.

The Tyrannic War Veterans are elite survivors of the battles against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth. After that war, they were initially placed under sanction at the Conclave of Hera for deviation from the writ of the Codex Astartes, and forced to prove their right to existence in trial by battle on the world of Espandor. This special force – separate from the ten companies – has therefore earned its place in the Chapter and has been deemed in keeping with the teachings of Guilliman, even if as a formation they fall outside of the strict organisational rules of the Codex.

All this probably doesn’t mean a great deal to a newcomer, or even to a mildly fluff-seeking individual, but there’s a lot of backstory here apparent from the art!

I’d have liked to see the Elite and Hero traits here, but it looks as if the former is tied purely to cost, and the latter is a one-off Tau trait at present. Conquest is a bit inconsistent and unfluffy in how it chooses to assign traits!

The special ability is a good one, giving a feeling of Maxos leading troops into the breach, or calling for reinforcements. Regardless, it has a nice Space Marine feel to it, as fluffwise this is the faction of the surprise assault!


NON-LOYAL CARDS

10th Company Scout (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

In Codex Astartes adherent Space Marine Chapters, the 10th Company is assigned as the training company, and is allowed to fluctuate in numbers to account for the inconsistent rate of recruitment.

The Battle Brothers within it are relatively inexperienced, and as yet the biological modifications implanted in them at induction haven’t yet fully developed. Within these modifications includes the formation of a neural-integrated plastic-like "black carapace" beneath the skin of a marine’s torso, which allows Space Marines to interface with their Power Armour.

This fluff is reflected in the art of this card, in that much lighter scout armour is worn.
Here’s the thing, of course: Space Marine Scouts aren’t specialists in the Chapter, they’re recruits in training who aren’t able to use full equipment yet and who are learning to be marines proper. A single 10th Company Scout is all round far less capable abd experienced than a single 2nd Company Tactical Marine, and generally the scouts will have to operate in groups of 5 or 10 under the command of a veteran sergeant, who’ll teach them as they fight.

In Space Marine thinking, scouts are sent scouting because away from the thick of the action they can learn the skills they’ll need for the battlefield, but without being in the face of massive fire!

This makes this card, 1/2/1 single individual, somewhat jarring when a whole Tactical squad is only 2/1/3 (though with area attack). That’s ten fully trained Tactical Marines who have served multiple campaigns in Devestator and Assault companies being not much better than a single trainee. Ask yourself if you’d rather have ten copies of 10th Company Scout in play, or 1 copy of Tactical Squad Cardinis, and you have an idea why this jars with my sense of fluff.


Blood Angels Veterans (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

The Blood Angels are a cursed Chapter, as though
they are steeped in glory and famed for their strength in assaults and in close combat, they carry the secret burden of the Black Rage and the Red Thirst in their geneseed.

Or to phrase it as 40k fans normally do, they’re vampires-in-spaaaaaace!

As you might expect, they’re not quite as Codex-adherent as the Ultramarines and the Primogenitor chapters are, but they still broadly follow its organisational doctrines. This unit of veterans is in terminator armour in the art, and this clearly makes them 1st Company: a bit like the Deathwing Guard we’ve already seen.
I find the difference in stats acceptable here, perhaps representing abstractions of different means of fighting. Both these and the Deathwing are resilient units, and the Blood Angels, as suits their fluff are somewhat more aggressive and less strategically minded.

Emergent play can potentially be a bit of a letdown, as one of the best uses of the Blood Angel Veterans is with a Bodyguard attachment, which isn’t very fluffy. That’s just one card interaction though, and the idea that the Blood Angels are generally best against hordes of weaker troops where they can slake their bloodthirst is actually quite thematic.

They do deserve the Elite trait, and again I must grumble that FFG has applied this trait as a mere indicator of resource cost, which makes no sense at all.


Daring Assault Squad (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

More Blood Angels, this time an Assault Squad – Space Marines who specialise in close combat. The equipment depicted here is of pistols and swords, and the packs are jump packs, which let the marines leap across the battlefield like deranged froggers, landing in the midst of their opponents. Jump packs aren't true-flight enabling, but do lend considerable mobility and speed, allowing Assault squads to close the distance with an enemy as fast as if they were in transport vehicles.

The yellow helmets are an accurate detail, and fit with the Blood Angel's colour schemes for assault squads.

Whats interesting here is in how Conquest deals with an essentially close combat unit. A conscious decision must have been made at some stage not to separate close combat units from shooting units (save for the long ranged units with Ranged) and I think that’s a shame – it’s a major thematic element of 40k that close combat means braving enemy fire, but that the attacks are decisive. I’d like to have seen a Close Combat keyword that has attacks happening only after all un-keyworded units have exhausted, but with a commensurate boost in power to make up for this.

A big Area Effect trait and decent attack score is a good compromise, as it does in emergent play mean that opponents try to gun down your assault unit before they can strike. Thus despite my reservations, I’m still giving an average fluff score.


Eager Recruit (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

All my complaints about the 10th Company Scout apply here too.
I dislike the idea presented on the flavour text that an Ultramarine scout would leap in head first like this, and much less that this is some sort of surprise attack play.

Emergent play improves this a little, as you’d expect this to be how Space Marines fight in general, but as an Ultramarine card this should be a card representing a deliberate strategy by Tactical or Assault Marines, not the eagerness of a frankly undisciplined single scout, whose highly orthodox chapter is likely to put on disciplinary charges straight after the battle!

A chapter trait more fluffed to wild aggression would have made sense – Space Wolves or Flesh Tearers and would have rescued this to a higher score. Indeed, the special ability and flavor text makes perfect sense for the headstrong Bloodclaw squads of the Space Wolves who are absolutely renowned for breaking the battle line and charging into battle with their lust for glory and feral high spirits!

Exterminatus (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 0/5

This is a card I both want to love, and actually loathe.

Exterminatus is the ultimate sanction.

It is the obliteration of an entire world’s population (and often the world itself) through weapons of mass destruction, be they cyclonic torpedoes, virus bombs, or just all out naval bombardment. It is an option never undertaken lightly, and is intended to be the Imperium’s last resort when corruption must be burnt out, or heresy contained, or a xenos threat cannot be defeated by military means. The innocent must die along with the guilty, so that the Imperium may survive.

In setting terms, it’s a great indication of how the Imperium thinks and also a demonstration of the scale on which it must wage war. A planet of many billions of humans may be burnt to ash if it is to the right strategic decision.
Indeed, so callous is the Imperium that they might even invoke this when other options have not been exhausted, as with Inquisitor Kryptman and the Exterminatus of Chordelis, done to deny an advancing tyranid fleet the biomass it would gain from conquering it.

I love the idea of this card, because the game really needed an Exterminatus card. This LCG wouldn’t be a representation of the Imperium at war if they didn’t have this as an option.

The art here helps too: an Imperial warship unleashes its weaponry, and the planet burns!

In execution, I loathe this card because of its complete lack of sense of scale and moment. In play, Exterminatus might get triggered up to three times in the course of the war, with no more cost that deploying a single Techmarine. You might use it to wipe out a handful of Tau lurking on the second planet to then give yourself an advantage in the upcoming battle.

That’s absolutely wrong: if Exterminatus has taken place, there shouldn’t be any planet there to battle over!

Using Exterminatus strategically is fine, but the effect here is much too small. If this card was called Orbital Bombardment, I’d love it, and call it an excellent fluff representation. If this card was once per game, cost 10 Resources and removed the Planet and all the units on it from the game, then I’d also love it, and say that this is a card that the game wanted and needed.

As it is, the fluff-lover in me feels like there’s a great waste of a card concept here: this is one of the biggest and most apocalyptic events possible in the setting, and it’s depicted as a relatively cheap soft reset played as a preamble to battle proper.

Indeed, it offends me so much that this is my first 0/5 score for the faction!

As a smaller complaint (that pales into insignificance), it should be noted that Cato Sicarius doesn’t have the authority to call Exterminatus, nor does low-ranked Colonel Straken, and Commander Shadowsun both isn’t even an Imperial and would loathe the idea anyway.

You have to be an Imperial Inquisitor, a Lord High Admiral, a Lord Commander Miltant or an Astartes Chapter Master. As such, there’s exactly one Ultramarine who is allowed to call Exterminatus, and Cato isn’t him.

Fortress-Monastery (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 1/5
This is such a generic card when the fortress-monastery of a given chapter is such a unique, vital and important location.

The Fang of the Space Wolves shares the hardy and brutal character of the Space Marines who are based there.

The Fortress of Hera is a wonder of engineering that holds the stasis-frozen remains of the Ultramarines' Primarch.

The Basilica Malifex of the Exorcists is probably the greatest archive of occult lore within the Imperium.

The Citadel of Titan of the Grey Knights is a prison for sorcerously bound daemons, and a repository of the forbidden and forgotten.

These aren’t places you represent with a generic “fortress monastery” card, they’re key locations of greater importance than the whole Traxis Sector put together. And, on that topic, none of them are in the Traxis Sector!


Godwyn Pattern Bolter (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 0/5

Its going badly for fluff analysis here. Two 0/5 cards are swiftly followed by yet another.

The Bolter or Boltgun is a symbolically important weapon in the Imperium. It is seen as the holy instrument of the Emperor’s righteous wrath, and is crafted only in specialist Adeptus Mechanicus forges by the Techmarines – those few Space Marines initiated into the dark and arcane secrets of technology.

A worthy and fluffy card, then?

No, its not at all. The other thing about the Bolter is that it is the STANDARD ARMAMENT of the space marine, as in every space marine save for the Scouts has one of his own. If you equip this to a Deathwing Guard or Blood Angels Veterans squad and you’re actually significantly downgrading their weaponry. You equip it to Tactical Squad Cardinis, and they’ll show you that actually they have ten of them already, one for each soldier.

So the bolter is the standard space marine weapon. But the Godwyn Pattern?

The Godwyn Pattern is the standard and newest version of the boltgun, which is more commonly used than any other boltgun pattern.

The boltgun does have many fun variations:
There’s the Hesh-pattern used for close quarters and cramped confines, the wrist mounted Angelus boltgun that suits the dual wielding melee work of Blood Angels, the long ranged Stalker pattern usually issued to sniping scouts to keep them out of immediate harm’s way. What there isn’t, however, is an anti-aircraft variant, as the Boltgun is very an anti-personnel weapon.

The Tactical Space Marine who fires his boltgun at the Soaring Falcon flying unit far overhead will be reprimanded for wasting the Emperor's blessed ammunition!


Holy Sepulchre (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 1/5

This would be where the honoured remains of a dead space marine hero will lie. The Imperium as a whole is a religiously minded organisation, and the remains of honoured heroes are places of great importance to them. Pilgrims across the Imperium might travel interstellar distances to pray for the saintly intervention of a fallen hero, and the space marines are amongst the greatest heroes of all.

Question one: Why did they disinter the corpse, move the shrine and set it up again in the Traxis Sector?

Question two: Why does it heal marines?

Titled Apothecarion Field Hosptial, the card would have made sense. As it is, the only fluffy thing about it is how it makes the Space Marines as a faction able to recover from seemingly mortal injuries. Thus, purely for its meta-effect, we’ll let this one have 1/5.

Indomitable (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5

A blessed relief, a fluffy space marine card at last after the last four clunkers!

This is a good fluffy effect, as the fiction of the space marines is full of stories of heroic individuals surviving incredible injuries through sheer force of will, then fighting on to win the day.
The artwork here shows the Banner of Macragge being lifted, which is traditionally borne by an honoured Ultramarine who gains the title “The Ancient”. In the fiction, this banner is as old as the Chapter itself, presented to Guilliman by the Emperor.

Also, the Banner of Macragge was formally lowered and placed in safe storage for two hundred years following the Battle of Macragge where a tyranid attack near-annihilated the chapter, with the Chapter Master decreeing that it could not be flown again till the Ultramarines had been restored to full strength.

It is now flying again and has been now for less than a decade. This makes the banner truly a symbol of the indomitability of the Ultramarines.

A good card art choice!

More directly, the emergent effect in game is very much in keeping with space marines: you can smack Cato Sicarius with a direct hit from the main battle cannon of a Leman Russ tank, but when the smoke clears and the dust settles, he strides on towards you. Fear the Adeptus Astartes!

Iron Hands Techmarine (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

This is a complex unit in fluff terms. Within the Imperium, technology is seen as akin to magic: dark secrets managed by the cognizant few, with many secrets lost to the ages, and ritual and superstition in place of science and progress. Almost all of the Imperium’s military technology is over ten thousand years old in design, and in large part, the mechanisms behind it are misunderstood, preserved only by the priesthood of the Adeptus Mechanicus, otherwise known as the Priesthood of Mars.

Techmarines are the privileged few marines who are sent away from their Chapter to train on Mars, and who are inducted into the secrets of the Priesthood. As such, they are the only marines in the chapter whose loyalty doesn’t lie wholly with the Adeptus Astartes, instead serving dual oaths as space marine and tech priest. This makes them feared and a little mistrusted, but also gives them rank and respect. In most chapters, its unthinkable for a Techmarine to ever rise to be a Chapter Master or a Company Captain, though their previous skills will often find them placed on those officer's command retinues. The part allegiance to Techmarines to Mars and the Cult Mechanicus is represented by a portion of red on their armour, usually on a single piece of armour in place of the predominant scheme of their chapter colours.

The Iron Hands chapter are an oddity amongst Space Marines, in that they are obsessed with the weakness of flesh and the strength of iron. Bionic replacement of organic parts is a common practice for them, and will be undertaken deliberately even without need (where most chapters will only use bionics if the original flesh is injured beyond repair). What’s more, they are ruled over by a council of Iron Fathers, who are techmarines, chaplains and commanders all in one. This links them closely to the Adeptus Mechanicus, which gives them all the best equipment, but also the mistrust of the other Space Marine Chapters!

The art here is correct, as the Iron Hands are one of the few chapters who don’t have red armour for their techmarines, but instead stick to chapter colours. This isn’t that surprising, given that they’re essentially a whole chapter of tech-adepts!

The contraption we see on the Techmarine’s back is a servo-harness, which is wired into the marine’s nervous system giving him direct control of its arms, and is a common techmarine accoutrement. The high stats for a solo character are justified in this case, as Techmarines proper are high ranking heroes in the Iron Hands.

The special ability is an oddity. While it’s a fun effect in gameplay terms, it doesn’t seem to match the fluff of either Techmarines or Iron Hands. Growing stronger and more commanding in the face of increasing odds is more of the shtick of the Imperial Fists. A more appropriate ability might have been to link the Techmarine to gaining bonuses with Wargear attachments, though it seems that has been deemed a Tau design space for this LCG. Thus, while I’m a great fan of this effect in game design terms, the fluff analysis has to give a low score here.


Land Raider (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

The Land Raider is the primary heavy tank of the Adeptus Astartes, boasting the best all round armour of any Imperial tank of its size, seriously powerful armaments, its own sealed controlled internal environment, and a “machine spirit” automatic control system. It is a suitable vehicle to deploy in a wide range of planetary theatres of war, as well as an excellent defensive bastion, aggressive linebreaker, tank-hunter and monster-killer.

There are several variants, but this is the most common Land Raider Phobos, armed with two powerful anti-tank twin-linked lascannon and an anti-infantry heavy bolter. Close inspection shows the Dark Angels chapter symbol on the side, and some Deathwing Terminators, so the Dark Angels trait would have been welcome, but this isn’t enough to mark the card down.

While the Land Raider isn’t the main ground transport of the Astartes (that role is filled by the Rhino), it is definitely a superior one, able to transport even space marine terminators into battle, and with a special assault front ramp that lets it disgorge its occupants straight into melee combat.

That in mind, the special ability is more or less on-fluff, as it provides a means for just about any infantry to get into the thick of battle while protected by its armoured shell. 3 power and 7 toughness is suitable too, and though the 3 command icons suggest this is an important unit it takes a degree of abstraction to suggest why a Land Raider battle tank is so good at controlling territories.

The Land Raider joins the Dark Eldar Vile Raider and the Eldar Soaring Falcon on the list of vehicle units that ought to have the Transport trait, but don’t. This is especially notable on this unit, as its special ability so clearly represents it transporting troops about. Right now, this isn’t a huge problem gamewise, as the trait remains unreferenced by any rules, but it’s a notable fluff omission in its inconsistency of application.

No-one is expecting FFG to have traits for every aspect of a unit, but if a trait exists on some units (as Transport does), it should be applied in all the places where it is applicable.


Raven Guard Speeder (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

Continuing with the splashing in cards from various Chapters, FFG gives us the Raven Guard, who are the 19th Chapter/Legion and who specialise in stealth, guerrilla warfare and work behind the enemy lines. They’re generally a Codex Chapter (though as a separate First Founding Chapter they’re not related to or descended from the Ultramarines geneseed) with only a few idiosyncrasies that deviate from it.

The Land Speeder is a light recon vehicle used by most Chapters, though isn’t particularly associated with the Raven Guard. As an anti-grav skimmer, its limited to an operational height of 100 metres. The art shows this to be the standard Tornado pattern, albeit with assault cannon instead of heavy bolter and a targeting surveyor vane normally seen on other patterns. This is fine: Template Construct variations are common enough. Iconography and colour scheme are also present and correct.

The stats here are generic enough, representing its scouting and fire support role, though I’d note Flying seems out of place for a low altitude skimmer, especially as there are units in the game that don’t have that keyword which are better flyers. I mentioned the Falcon previously (which in comparison is capable of twice the Land Speeder's speed and can reach altitudes comparable to modern fighter jets) which notably doesn't have Flying in this LCG. There’s also the Tau Devilfish which can perform similarly to the Falcon and yet is unkeyworded, and in terms of other skimmers that are as aerially adept as the Speeder, there’s the Vile Raider and the Wildrider Squadron, who lack Flying as well.

The tabletop game isn’t perfect with this either, but it at least puts Land Speeders in the skimmer category, recognising that they aren't aerial superiority vehicle: they're basically just attack bikes that don't have to touch the ground.


Tactical Squad Cardinis (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

There’s great things about this card, and some flaws.

On the upside, its great to see that a Space Marine Tactical Squad (that is, ten experienced battle brothers who have served through devastator and assault companies, and who represent the pinnacle of Imperial soldiering) is scaled as an army. This is eminently fluffy, and better than in the tabletop game where they’re the basic troop type that costs least army points per miniature, and who are undoubtedly less valuable in play than their assault company or devastator company brothers. This was always a serious fluff disconnect in the wargame, when the codex backstory would describe Tactical Marines in a Battle Company being the perfect, well rounded experienced Space Marine, and then make them less valuable and effective than all the ranks they come up through en route.
To have a named Tactical Squad (and each squad is named for its Sergeant, so Sergeant Cardinis is leading this one) be scaled as being an Army in a warzone is just right, and Area Effect 1 feels like a sensible ability, showing that they can mow down hordes of mooks without too much trouble. 2/3/3 stats would have been nicer to see than 1/1/3, but that’s just in comparison to other space marine units and judging where they ought to be. As it is, its still very pleasing to have a Tactical Squad be the card you really want to see when the Drop Pod Assault opens up.

The art is great too: Second Company Ultramarines, kicking ass in the midst of the enemy.

There are two failings, however: a small one and a bigger one.
The small failing is that in established fluff we know what the names of the ten squads and sergeants are in the Ultramarines Second Company are. They’re listed on a double page spread in one edition of the Space Marine codices, and Squad Cardinis isn’t one of them. Having said that, this isn’t a huge problem, as this is a dynamic setting and we’ve never specified the exact timeframe of the Conquest LCG. We know its roughly wargame contemporary from the technologies and characters present, but its not explicitly 40,999 AD and not explicity directly and exactly contemporaneous. If we say that its a slightly different time frame, one of the fluff-established Sergeants could have died, and Brother Cardinis could have been promoted to Sergeant Cardinis, making it his squad. So, only a minor complaint, and one I've only spent so long talking about because I find it so interesting!

The bigger failing is that its just plain odd to have three of Tactical Squads Cardinis in play. Unless Cardinis is coincidentally the surname of three of the ten sergeants in Ultramarines Second Company, then this should have been a Unique card. You might argue that each non-Unique card represents a portion of the squad, but even that doesn’t make sense because the Ultramarines are a strictly Codex adherent chapter. The Codex Astartes states that space marines are deployed either as a full squad of ten or as two battle squads of five. Splitting a squad into three for deployment would be the sort of thing that has the Ultramarines calling a conclave to question Cato about his heretical strategies…
Its clear the actual reason here for Tactical Squad Cardinis being non-Unique is that FFG wanted to maintain design symmetry in the core set, with exactly two unique characters per faction: one Warlord and one Loyal "lieutenant" character with a cool ability. This left Tactical Squad Cardinis the victim of broader design decision over-ruling individual card fluff. This is understandable, but enough to mark it down.


CONCLUSION

This is a fine faction, presenting an overall game experience in the LCG that in many ways feels fluffier than the tabletop wargame. When you play this faction, you feel like your playing the marines: dominant in battle, aggressive in strategy, indomitable in spirit and righteously wrathful in smiting the xenos. The build of space marine deck encourages surprises in battle: an opponent must expect sudden swings in battle due to the many combat tricks the marines can pull off, and can never know whether his Warlord unit is safe from a drop pod assault or whether Sicarius is going to face down his Heldrake, prove Indomitable against its attacks, then bring it down from the sky in his Fury. The narrative of the Space Marines in play is excellent, with the fluff disconnects only occurring rarely, as when you see an Honored Librarian toting an Ion Rifle, or Exterminatus being deployed to wipe out a gathering of Void Pirates and Rogue Traders.

The fluff pedant (that’s me, hi!) will bemoan the details failing in places, but as an overall emergent experience the faction is fluffy. That’s good enough, for now!

The Chime of Eons signals again, and we consign this article in triplicate to the Administratum Archives, stamped Chapter Approved, to be accessed only by those of Inquisitorial or Chapter Master clearance.

We’re not done with the Imperium just yet though!

Next time, we’ll take you to join the real soldiers, the grunts with boots on the ground who do the hard slogwork of attrition warfare while the namby pamby marines dash off on their next glory hunt.

You’ll find ourselves in the midst of the Regiments, equipped with a lasgun that is more likely to prettily illuminate the xenos than kill it, wearing flak armour that is pretty much useless against any alien or human weapon, and you’ll only hold the line because there’s a Commissar ready to shoot you in the back of the head if you take one step back.

You’ll have to trust to your mates to watch your back, and if you die like so many Guardsmen have before you, you can rest assured that the Imperium has lots of warm bodies to take your place, and that the Departmento Munitorum has probably (or maybe, or probably not) noticed that you have fallen in battle and will make a mark in a register somewhere.

Chin up, soldier, we’re heading to the Astra Militarum!