The new Assault Intercessor Analysis
Hello chaps and chapettes, it looks like we have a(nother) new unit for the Space Marine roster, the Assault Intercessor!
Yay?
Sorry, I actually am kind of excited about these guys, but as they are now just falls short of what I was expecting and would have liked.
There are various images of them out there now:
With some more images over there which are not so easy to copy across.
The information leaked around and disseminated is that they have chain swords (you don't say...), and one other bit of information given out by Games Workshop is the heavy bolt pistol.
If you thought this made the Reiver now completely redundant and dead in the water... yeah you'd be pretty much right. Apart from the niche outflanking/deep striking kind of annoying harassment unit, and the even more niche Leadership bomb set up, they have lost their one saving grace; cheap non-power weapon close combat attacks.
I really loved the idea of Reivers way back when they were first released, but as their overwatch and leadership gimmicks proved to become less and less useful and more and more difficult to set up, they have completely fallen off all of my list building attempts. A great shame, since I tried to shoe horn them in everywhere, reasoning that a few hundred points on a deep strike-able harassment unit was useful to any army.
Then we became able to do the same thing with Aggressors through Raven Guard, White Scars, Space Wolves and Death Watch stratagems and Warlord traits.
They had a very small place after that as cheap wounds in a Black Templar blob, and were a true close combat unit compared to the sort of close combat Incursor. And even then they are close-combat ish... no special weapons options means you lean hard on Assault Doctrine and White Scars or Blood Angel tactics to make them worthwhile.
But their Achilles heel was always the placement in the Elite slot. The lack of ObSec meant that when it came a choice of 100 points spent on Reivers or Intercessors, the points usually went to the Intercessors. Even if you were considering the deployment options of Deep Strike or Outflank, the Incursor was there, with better shooting and Objective Secured.
Relegated to cheap screening unit, now the final blow to the Reiver is in the Assault Intercessor, who does all all the useful bits of the Reiver but (probably!) in the Troops slot.
And because of that, the Assault Intercessor is most likely destined for the shelf too.
Think about what the model represents:
Now let's compare this to the shooty Intercessor:
The analogue to these guys has been Chaos Space marines, and although they have the option to have close combat weapons and bolt pistols they very rarely do. The simple truth is that a basic close combat attack is effectively worse than an extra shot at range (when they are the same strength, AP and WS/BS of course). For the close combat attack to work you need to be in melee, but the shot can happen at range, meaning your value is not destroyed by simply not being able to use it.
It doesn't matter how many sword swings you've got if the enemy is just 2-inches away from you... you're still not hitting anything.
So any close combat army is going to be looking at the options they've always had; Intercessors with Auto-bolt rifles and a Thunder hammer/Power Fist Sergeant, Incursors for the deployment, or standard Bolt Rifle Intercessors to keep costs down... and even then you'll probably still take Stalker bolt rifles for the long range deployment zone objective camping.
Now I've made a big assumption by saying these guys will feature in the Troops section. If they appear anywhere else, then they're going to have an even more niche place. Off the top of my head, if we assume Fast Attack being the best fit beyond Troops, then they can feature in All-Primaris Marine Brigades as the Fast Attack slot filler, if you wanted something cheaper than a Suppressor. But I think that'd be unlikely.
Fundamentally, these guys are lacking the one piece of equipment which the Primaris have been sorely lacking. The one teased by Kayvaan Shrike:
Jump packs. Where are they?
With bikers just announced it's unthinkable that Games Workshop didn't think about it, and Blood Angels and Raven Guard have been crying for Primaris Assault Marines for a long time now. The big fat bumblebee Inceptor literally doesn't cut it, instead preferring to shoot it. So where are they?
Now it could be that these are infantry versions exclusively for the new 40K Starter Box. Even GW must get bored of mono-pose shooty Intercessors, and Incursors and Infiltrators have already been burned on Shadowspear (and weren't very popular in the first place... I could write 1000 words on the waste of development time spent on the Phobos Vanguard marines ((except for you Kayvaan and the Eliminators, you look great!))). Monopose assault marines give the box a pseudo-rank and file "Troops" choice, and the real kit could contain the jump pack ones.
But it seems like a waste of buzz though, both in marketing terms and chain swords.
Overall I think these Assault Marines will be largely forgotten. I know Black Templar players will love them for their good old fashioned zerg rushes being possible again, and Blood Angels will certainly get some work out of them, but I really doubt they will make competitive sense for a lot of Chapters.
Or maybe this is just a precursor to Primaris Blood Claws for the Space Wolves?
Who knows.. but right now they strike me as being a little underwhelming, and we can probably expect some weird special rules to make them attractive as an alternative to regular Intercessors. Off the top of my head?
That's all I've got without more concrete rules. I'm coming down relatively hard on this unit now, and on the Reivers too really, but it mostly stems from disappointment. I had really hoped the Reivers would become the close-combat Troops choice, and has the other Phobos Marines came in it looked less and less likely that would happen. And I really hoped there would be jump pack Primaris Marines coming out, and this tease of an Assault Intercessor which has to run on the ground just frustrates me with it's redundancy even more.
Sorry, I actually am kind of excited about these guys, but as they are now just falls short of what I was expecting and would have liked.
There are various images of them out there now:
 |
| From Warhammer Community |
The information leaked around and disseminated is that they have chain swords (you don't say...), and one other bit of information given out by Games Workshop is the heavy bolt pistol.
If you thought this made the Reiver now completely redundant and dead in the water... yeah you'd be pretty much right. Apart from the niche outflanking/deep striking kind of annoying harassment unit, and the even more niche Leadership bomb set up, they have lost their one saving grace; cheap non-power weapon close combat attacks.
I really loved the idea of Reivers way back when they were first released, but as their overwatch and leadership gimmicks proved to become less and less useful and more and more difficult to set up, they have completely fallen off all of my list building attempts. A great shame, since I tried to shoe horn them in everywhere, reasoning that a few hundred points on a deep strike-able harassment unit was useful to any army.
Then we became able to do the same thing with Aggressors through Raven Guard, White Scars, Space Wolves and Death Watch stratagems and Warlord traits.
They had a very small place after that as cheap wounds in a Black Templar blob, and were a true close combat unit compared to the sort of close combat Incursor. And even then they are close-combat ish... no special weapons options means you lean hard on Assault Doctrine and White Scars or Blood Angel tactics to make them worthwhile.
But their Achilles heel was always the placement in the Elite slot. The lack of ObSec meant that when it came a choice of 100 points spent on Reivers or Intercessors, the points usually went to the Intercessors. Even if you were considering the deployment options of Deep Strike or Outflank, the Incursor was there, with better shooting and Objective Secured.
Relegated to cheap screening unit, now the final blow to the Reiver is in the Assault Intercessor, who does all all the useful bits of the Reiver but (probably!) in the Troops slot.
And because of that, the Assault Intercessor is most likely destined for the shelf too.
Think about what the model represents:
- 3 close combat attacks (4 on the charge)
- 3+ Armour save and 2 Wounds
- 1 Str 4 AP -1 shot out to 12-inches
Now let's compare this to the shooty Intercessor:
- 2 close combat attacks (3 on the charge)
- 3 + Armour save and 2 Wounds
- Variety of shots coming out, ranging from 3 out to 24-inches and 1 AP-2 out to 36-inches
The analogue to these guys has been Chaos Space marines, and although they have the option to have close combat weapons and bolt pistols they very rarely do. The simple truth is that a basic close combat attack is effectively worse than an extra shot at range (when they are the same strength, AP and WS/BS of course). For the close combat attack to work you need to be in melee, but the shot can happen at range, meaning your value is not destroyed by simply not being able to use it.
It doesn't matter how many sword swings you've got if the enemy is just 2-inches away from you... you're still not hitting anything.
So any close combat army is going to be looking at the options they've always had; Intercessors with Auto-bolt rifles and a Thunder hammer/Power Fist Sergeant, Incursors for the deployment, or standard Bolt Rifle Intercessors to keep costs down... and even then you'll probably still take Stalker bolt rifles for the long range deployment zone objective camping.
Now I've made a big assumption by saying these guys will feature in the Troops section. If they appear anywhere else, then they're going to have an even more niche place. Off the top of my head, if we assume Fast Attack being the best fit beyond Troops, then they can feature in All-Primaris Marine Brigades as the Fast Attack slot filler, if you wanted something cheaper than a Suppressor. But I think that'd be unlikely.
Fundamentally, these guys are lacking the one piece of equipment which the Primaris have been sorely lacking. The one teased by Kayvaan Shrike:
Jump packs. Where are they?
With bikers just announced it's unthinkable that Games Workshop didn't think about it, and Blood Angels and Raven Guard have been crying for Primaris Assault Marines for a long time now. The big fat bumblebee Inceptor literally doesn't cut it, instead preferring to shoot it. So where are they?
Now it could be that these are infantry versions exclusively for the new 40K Starter Box. Even GW must get bored of mono-pose shooty Intercessors, and Incursors and Infiltrators have already been burned on Shadowspear (and weren't very popular in the first place... I could write 1000 words on the waste of development time spent on the Phobos Vanguard marines ((except for you Kayvaan and the Eliminators, you look great!))). Monopose assault marines give the box a pseudo-rank and file "Troops" choice, and the real kit could contain the jump pack ones.
But it seems like a waste of buzz though, both in marketing terms and chain swords.
Overall I think these Assault Marines will be largely forgotten. I know Black Templar players will love them for their good old fashioned zerg rushes being possible again, and Blood Angels will certainly get some work out of them, but I really doubt they will make competitive sense for a lot of Chapters.
Or maybe this is just a precursor to Primaris Blood Claws for the Space Wolves?
Who knows.. but right now they strike me as being a little underwhelming, and we can probably expect some weird special rules to make them attractive as an alternative to regular Intercessors. Off the top of my head?
- Native Assault and charge
- "Master crafted" Damage 2 chain swords
- Movement 8-inches
- Power weapon options on all models
- 11-points per model for super cheapness and to make everyone upset
That's all I've got without more concrete rules. I'm coming down relatively hard on this unit now, and on the Reivers too really, but it mostly stems from disappointment. I had really hoped the Reivers would become the close-combat Troops choice, and has the other Phobos Marines came in it looked less and less likely that would happen. And I really hoped there would be jump pack Primaris Marines coming out, and this tease of an Assault Intercessor which has to run on the ground just frustrates me with it's redundancy even more.
Basically, it's not what I wanted, and I can't see them filling any meaningful gap in the current Space Marine line up. Unless something spectacular happens, and by that I mean something completely bonkers like in Age of Sigmar... maybe psychically charged Marines? But that's a discussion for later.
Until next time!
Thanks for reading.
If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please leave a comment. Sharing this with your friends, and following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ would also be hugely appreciated.
If you have anything you want me to look at, let me know in the comments below. I'll probably be able to write an article about that topic within a day!
If you want to support me directly, use the affiliate links below. I get a small percentage of purchases you make there, and you get cheaper miniatures! If you really love what I do, you can make a one off donation at my PayPal, or become a true hero to table top education and make a regular donation to my Patreon. Every Little helps!
Element games gives you usually 20% off all 40K purchases, and I get 5% of your purchase.
KB Silk is my own business, selling authentic silk scarves. If you're looking for a present then this is your one stop shop.
Thanks for reading.
If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please leave a comment. Sharing this with your friends, and following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ would also be hugely appreciated.
If you have anything you want me to look at, let me know in the comments below. I'll probably be able to write an article about that topic within a day!
If you want to support me directly, use the affiliate links below. I get a small percentage of purchases you make there, and you get cheaper miniatures! If you really love what I do, you can make a one off donation at my PayPal, or become a true hero to table top education and make a regular donation to my Patreon. Every Little helps!
Element games gives you usually 20% off all 40K purchases, and I get 5% of your purchase.
KB Silk is my own business, selling authentic silk scarves. If you're looking for a present then this is your one stop shop.
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