Warhammer 40K: Are Space Marines About To Become Superfriends 2.0?
Space Marines are the spearhead for 10th edition rules and it’s leaving us with more questions than answers.
So after yesterday’s preview of the Space Marines rules a few things stood out to us. But before we get into those I want to preface this by saying we don’t know all the details. There’s a lot more pieces to this puzzle that we’re still missing and eventually those things will be revealed.
In the meantime we have some questions that we hope Games Workshop answers because right now we’re a little worried that Space Marines are going to become Superfriends 2.0.
Oh no, not those superfriends. These superfriends. You might remember them or have heard the stories from old vets of 40k from the 7th edition Era. Back when Space Marines could take an assortment of units/character from the various different chapters and cross-pollinate their special rules on each other to create a Death Star that required virtually zero tactical skill to play. I’m not bitter or anything. But even GW knew that it was a problem and eventually nerfed it into the ground. Six-feet under to be exact.
So then why would they resurrect that zombie and bring it back in 10th edition? Moreover, why do we even think that’s a possibility?! I blame Guilliman.
A few people spotted the “thing” in question but let’s just point it out for everyone else. Take a look at Guilliman’s abilities…notice anything about them? More specifically, who are the eligible targets for those abilities? If you answered Adeptus Astartes you’re correct. So why is that a problem? Because it goes back to list building.
Superfriends 2.0? Please, No!
We got a more detailed breakdown from GW but list building is (thankfully) pretty straightforward in 10th. The way it’s setup you’ll be able to create a basic Army Roster and then quickly change your army around if want by swapping out Detachment Rules. For now, we only have the one Space Marine Detachment and it’s generic enough that you can use it with pretty much any chapter.
But before you choose your Detachment you’re supposed to choose your Faction. Looking at the Datacards we can see that for most Space Marine units they are Faction Keyword: Adeptus Astartes.
This all makes sense. All Space Marine Chapters are made from Adeptus Astartes units. However, I don’t see a step in the army building process where you choose a Chapter (unless it’s a part of the select a Faction or Detachment, which it could be). If you look at Guilliman’s Faction Keywords he does have both Adeptus Astartes and Ultramarine. Again, we’re missing something here — when does being an Ultramarine come into play? Because looking at his abilities that keyword doesn’t matter; only Adeptus Astartes does.
So how does this create the Superfriends? It’s simple: you just take all the Space Marine Characters (aka Epic Heroes) you want and have their aura effects stack up.
According to the list building article, there’s not really major restrictions on doing that. Sure, you can only have 1 max of EACH Epic Hero, but you can have multiple different Epic Heroes in your list. And if even only a few of them have abilities like Guilliman (where they apply to any Adeptus Astartes unit) it’s going to compound the problem.
One thing we think will help to prevent his is the new Leader setup and how those abilities only apply to the unit they are joining. Other than that, we’re sincerely hoping we’re just missing some key info here because we DO NOT want to go back to era of the Superfriends. And while Guilliman’s abilities stacking with say a Primaris Lieutenant’s abilities might not be game breaking we don’t know what other effects might stack. For example, what is Lion El’Jonson going to bring to the tabletop in 10th and what would a double Primarich list be capable of?
I seriously doubt this didn’t come up in the design process or playtesting so I’m really hopeful that GW solved this by nipping it in the bud. However, based on the limited info we’ve seen so far this is a pretty glaring blindspot. GW, please don’t let Superfriends 2.0 be a thing in 10th Edition!
…Also, where are those Space Marine Chapter specific rules?
