40K - The God of War

 was listening to this weeks 11th Company Podcast. During the list building segment. The gang was making a Space Marine list called the B-Team. The idea was to make a list that was composed of stuff that people do not generally take. Neal dubbed the list a collection of fail, which cracked me up until he suggested Marneus Calgar was added to it.


Really??? Was Neil suggesting the God of War is fail? Or was he mealy thinking of including him because so few people do? I will assume the later, since there are not many people who really play Ultra Marines. Which is ashame since they are an iconic chapter. In my Space Marine list I always take Calgar.

He is the rundown on selling points for Calgar:

• Calgar is an Eternal Warrior! What is even better is that he comes with four wounds, which means he won't be doubled out.

• He can re-roll wounds with his shooting which includes Orbital Bombardment! In theory this means every model under the template should be wounded. That could be utterly devastating if the blast marker lands correctly on top of a key unit. Best part is no cover save, unless they are in area terrain.

• His bolters are assault 2 with AP 2!

• On the charge, he can get 6 power fist attacks if you are willing to go at Infinitive 1. Put him in with an assaulty squad and let him finish them off. Six power fist attacks will ruin anyone's day.
  
The best part about Calgar is his "God of War" ability. This ability allows units with Combat Tactics to choose  to pass, or fail, morale tests as long as Calgar is on the table. This is critical to my non-mechanized marine list. I generally take 80 marines in that list, and being able to combat squad them and then automatically pass morale tests means my boys in blue are going to weather a lot of shooting and tank shocking craziness.

The down side for some of the 40K community, is that Calgar has to be on the table for this ability to be utilized. That means he cannot cower off the board in reserve. It also means that he will be a high priority target of the enemy. You will need to protect him by putting him in a squad. It would be awesome if you could get a Command Squad for him, but you cannot without taking another HQ.

Marneus Calgar also has only one fault that I can see. His power armor is only 3+. He is the fraking Lord of the Ultramarines, the God of War and he doesn't even get artificer armor?  I guess he is a true mud marine, not needing anything really shiny to do the job. I do not consider this one a huge problem since you can upgrade him to wearing terminator armor for 15 points.

He is rather pricey at 250 points. Truly, you need to play a specific army list to really get your points worth out of him. I am not sure he would be worth it in a fully mechanized space marine list. This is something I will experiment with  soon.