Used with permission from Jervis
Hello everyone! I'm back from my wargaming and blogging hiatus (my real world job got INTENSE!!11!) and Jesus tap dancing Christ wouldn't you know it a fucking codex gets released. Not just any codex, mind you, but the codex for the army that started it all for our socially awkward hobby, The Space Marines. I've been a Space Marine player since back in the 4th edition and like most other people in this hobby I have been growing sick and tired of my Marines collecting dust on my hobby shelves. They definitely needed a shot in the arm and I was REALLY excited that they were finally being updated for the 6th edition. Last Friday I made sure to get out of work early enough to get to my local store, Frontline Gaming, so that I could get my hands on this 400 page monster. I sped home like a fat guy with a rapidly cooling bucket of KFC chicken and did a 360 into my covered parking spot. After kicking in the front door I threw the cat out the got' dang window (I didn't have time for her shit) and popped open the codex.
After a few hours of reading and re-reading the unit entries and staring at all of the shiny new toys and pictures it occurred to me. The codex was about as MEH as the last but cost around double the price. THANKS, OBAMA. The economy! The new codex didn't even remotely fix the issues the Marines are having on the tabletop in the 6th edition. Mainly the obsolescence of the 3+ armor save and the complete erosion of cover. Ironically, this new codex has actually made their own units WORSE. While it's very cool that they got the Dark Angels points reductions ,they unfortunately followed the Dark Angel's tactics of getting Hell Draked, Blade Stormed, and Riptided off of the top 10 tournament tables. As stated above, one of the new shinies that the Space Marines received was the Grav Gun. A weapon that wounds against the target's armor save and automatically immobilizes vehicles on a penetration roll of a 6. Are people still bringing terminators or Land Raiders? Not now they aren't! A lot of people are saying how great the new anti-flyer tanks are. REALLY? You basically have a quad gun on an armor 12 tank that does not have Interceptor. NICE ONE. Oh they missile launching tank that has one shot and if you miss you have the potential to hit the target at a later time (that is, if they don't elect to just go off the table). AWESOME.
The sad fact is that this codex fails to address the current issues with Warhammer 40k 6th edition. Armor 3 no longer matters. With so many weapons that are not only AP 2-3 but also ignore cover Space Marines are essentially obsolete. This codex has no way to effectively deal with the 2 Hell Drake, 2 Riptide, 6+ Wave Serpent tournament lists that you are seeing on the tables. Not to mention what Demons are capable of. So while it is cool that the codex gives us an Eternal Warrior storm shield and a flaming sword that is strength 7 AP 2, I believe in the next few months when we see the results of the next large tournaments we will see that the codex (while adding to the variety of the 40k universe) did little to change the current Tau/Eldar/Demon dominance.
