Detachment Focus: Emperor’s Shield and Captain Lysander

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Emperor’s Shield Detachment for the Imperial Fists Space Marines.

As Codex: Space Marines has grown long in the tooth, Games Workshop have taken to releasing updates in the form of new Detachments to accompany the chapter-specific character releases they’ve been doing. With this latest update and the release of Captain Lysander, the Imperial Fists have a new Detachment to work with, Emperor’s Shield, which more or less updates the First Company Detachment, tailoring it to Imperial Fists. 

Captain Darnath Lysander (100 Points)

We can’t properly talk about this Detachment without mentioning the new character released alongside it: Captain Darnath Lysander, of the Imperial Fists’ First Company. Lysander’s new Datasheet gives him +1 wound (modeling his thunder shield properly) and removes the “while this model is leading a unit” requirement on his Icon of Obstinancy rule. These are pretty minor updates, but appreciated, and he currently retains his “Inspiring Commander” rule from the Dataslate as well. On top of that, Lysander gets a special bonus in the Emperor’s Shield Detachment, which we’ll detail below.

Detachment Overview

The Emperor’s Shield Detachment is an updated version of the First Company Detachment, retooled for the Imperial Fists with improved Enhancements and Stratagems. There are some good extra tricks here, and a bonus ability for bringing Lysander, who’s more or less a must-take in this Detachment with a unit of Assault Terminators.

Detachment Rule: Wrath of Dorn

When models in your army with the Oath of Moment ability attack a target affected by Oath of Moment, they re-roll wound rolls of 1.

Each time a model in a DARNATH LYSANDER unit attacks your Oath of Moment target, you re-roll the wound roll. 

Restrictions: You can only include Imperial Fists units in your army – no other chapters allowed.

This is more or less an improvement on the 1st Company Task Force rule, giving you always-on re-rolls of 1 for your army, plus an added rider for Lysander that lets you have full re-rolls be “always on” for his unit. It’s a decent ability, and works particularly well for units with Devastating Wounds, like Darnath Lysander and the Thunder Hammers on Assault Terminators, where you can use the +1 to wound against your Oath Target and also re-rolls to reliably fish for 6s in melee, creating a very nasty threat for opponents to deal with. When you combine this with Lysander’s OC buff to Terminator units and Storm Shields, you get an incredibly nasty, difficult to kill midtable brawler unit that can put out some real damage.

Enhancements

Half of these are reprints of the First Company Task Force enhancements, but the other half are brand new.

• Champion of the Feast – A reprint of The Imperium’s Sword, giving the model +1 attacks and +1 attacks to the attached unit once per game. This is nifty and really mean on a unit of Bladeguard or Assault Terminators.
• Disciple of Rhetoricus – Another reprint, this time of Rites of War. It’s Terminator only and the model gets +1 OC and once per game the unit the character is attached to can get +1 OC as well. This combos nicely with Lysander already giving Terminator units +1 OC, letting you pinch a key objective when necessary.
• Indomitable Champion – The first new one. Another Terminator Only one. When this character dies, you can get back up on a 2+ with 3 wounds remaining. Pretty nice on anything, but nice on a terminator ancient to just act as an annoying action bozo who’s more trouble than it’s worth to remove.
• Malodraxian Standard – Another new one. It’s Ancient only and gives a unit -1 to be wounded if the strength of the attack is higher than their toughness. This gives you a second Lysanderesque unit to run around and be a nuisance. The only issue is it has to go on an ancient who traditionally aren’t great. 

Stratagems

All of these outside Armour of Contempt and Dropship Extraction can only be used on Terminators, Bladeguard, Sternguard, and Vanguard Veterans

• Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): The classic. Always useful and always welcome.
• Fury of the First (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Gives the unit +1 to hit and +1 to wound if they’re under starting strength. This is effectively a rewrite of the base Detachment’s Heroes of the Chapter but not having to be below half is a massive buff.
• Obdurate Vengeance (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Fight on death on a 3+. This isn’t anything unique but is great on a unit of assault Terminators.
• Wrathful Conquerers (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Sticky an objective. Great for your elite force to allow them to move around the table.
• Disciplined Extermination (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): In the Shooting Phase you can give a unit Ignore Cover and +1 AP. This is fantastic on Sternguard but can also do work on a normal Terminator Squad.
• Dropship Extraction (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Terminator only, at the end of your Opponent’s Fight phase you can remove the unit from the table and put it back in reserves. This is a very handy ability but also very funny on your Terminator Ancient with Indomitable Champion to make a budget Callidus.

Playing This Detachment

If you’re running this Detachment, you’re running Terminators. In particular, you need to run Lysander with a unit of Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers to act as a midtable brawler and objective holder unit. Beyond that having another squad or two is a fine shout, but those will get pretty expensive pretty fast and they’re not exactly the best terminator options space marines have to work with. You also should take Tor Garadon because you’re already locked into Imperial Fists at that point and he’s pretty scary in his own right, getting +2 AP and Damage against monsters and vehicles (and also fortifications, but who cares) and giving his unit IGNORES COVER. That makes him incredibly nasty on a unit of Heavy Intercessors with Heavy Bolt Rifles, which have a 30” range and really want Ignores Cover to go with that AP-1 shooting. That said, the units he can join won’t benefit from any of the stratagems you have on offer, so just keep that in mind.

Most Space Marine armies take Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs to act as cheap harassment units; you’ll want to do the same but swap those for Vanguard Veterans, who offer better melee profiles at only 5 points of additional cost. What you lose in mortal wounds on the charge you’ll make up for with [LETHAL HITS]. The same can’t be said for Sterngard Veterans, who are very good but get very little out of this Detachment, since they already re-roll wounds against your Oath of Moment target all the time. Not necessarily a reason not to bring them, and they really like the Stratagems here to ignore cover and get extra AP against targets. 

Strengths

• Lysander. If you’re taking this Detachment, you want to have Lysander in it, who gets an added buff for his unit that makes them pretty nasty in melee.

• Terminators. The buffs here for Terminators help make them actually playable in a way that you don’t normally see outside of Dark Angels and Space Wolves. 

• Versatility. Veterans already have good datasheets; the buffs here just make them better, and offer a variety of different effects you’ll want to use, from stickying objective to uppy-downy. It’s a good suite of abilities.

Weaknesses

• First Company Only. All of your support outside the Detachment rule and Armour of Contempt is tied to your first company units. Most of these units don’t really see the table outside Sternguard and Bladeguard and you can’t really build a list around just those.

• Very Elite. If you’re looking to lean into the first company only theme, you’ll find yourself running out of points quickly

• Outclassed. There’s a lot to like here, but ultimately it’s not enough to recommend this Detachment over the Gladius Task Force, which more or less does everything you want without restricting your units.

A Sample List

Putting all these concepts together, we end up with a Captain Lysander-focused list that looks something like this:

The list - Click to expand

Lysander and the Terminator units here are your anvil; the Repexes filled with Bladeguard Veterans and Sterngard Veterans are your hammers. They’re a nasty one-two punch of ranged output supported by Garadon’s unit while your Terminators teleport in to hold the middle of the table, and you’ve got plenty of scoring with the Scouts and Combi-Weapon lieutenant.

Final Thoughts

On the whole this Detachment isn’t doing a ton that first company wasn’t already, but it has a few key changes to help it stand out and improve on that Detachment. The Stratagems and Enhancements here are just plain better, and the extra buffs for Lysander help push it over the top and encourage you to take Assault Terminators. We don’t know that it’ll be super competitive, but it’ll be worth another look, at least.

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