Detachment Focus: Spearpoint Task Force and Suboden Khan

In our Detachment Focus series we look at key Detachments, their rules, how they work, and how you can play them and build around them. In this article we’re looking at the Spearpoint Task Force Detachment for White Scars Space Marines.

Vroom vroom. The greatest injustice of eighth edition is finally answered, and White Scars have a Character on a bike again. As you’ll probably be unsurprised to learn, he’s leading a new version of the Stormlance Task Force Detachment, adding an extra White Scars spin on this powerful Marine option. Will it tear up the metagame like so much tarmac? Let’s find out.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes. We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual update for some of these rules – please note that all points costs are subject to change until published on Warhammer Community. Note that we have not yet received the costs for Enhancements in this Detachment.

Also – yes a bunch of the model shots in this are Heresy, because Scott’s White Scars rule.

Suboden Khan

White Scars finally get a Mounted Epic Hero, and he’s essentially everything you could want from a bike Character.

Suboden costs you 115pts, and is both quite potent in his own right, and really good when leading Outriders. As you’d expect, his focus is mobility; his unit has permanent Advance/Fall Back and Shoot/Charge and can always move through Terrain when making a Normal Move, Advance, Fall Back or Charge. Combined with the speed of a biker unit this gives him a massive threat range, and notably these abilities work when he’s solo, not just while Leading a unit. As we’ll cover in a sec, you probably want three Outriders with him most of the time for the damage boost, but it means that if he’s left alive after his squad falls (which will be pretty common given he has 8W and a 4+ Invulnerable Save) he’s just as quick. There’s even an extra bonus +1” to Advance and Charge rolls that he gets if he’s already affected by an ability that lets him Advance and Shoot/Charge, though this ends up being more narrow than expected – he has to be eligible for both shooting/charging for this to activate, and the Spearpoint Detachment rule only provides Advance/Charge, so you’d need to activate a Stratagem as well, which you’re unlikely to do for 1”.

Offence-wise, Suboden has strapped an onslaught gatling cannon to his bike, providing a nice little bit of anti-chaff firepower (particularly as he can use it, plus his units bolt rifles, while Advancing), and in melee he swings his spear for 6A at S6, AP-2, D2 with Lance and Anti-Monster/Vehicle 4+. That’s certainly not bad , but also not quite killy enough that you’ll routinely see him taken solo – the real juice comes from the +1D that the Outrider ability provides him on the charge, at which point he’s very dangerous. He also has a power sword he can use instead, giving more attacks but with a much weaker D1 profile, and that’ll usually be an afterthought.

At baseline then, Suboden and three Outriders is A Good Unit (and part of me actually wonders if you consider adding an ATV to it, as an Advance/Shoot multi-melta is a fun surprise to add to this setup). The squad projects decent threat a long way out from wherever they’re lurking, and while Suboden’s solo statline isn’t quite good enough that you’d frequently want to start him that way in your lists, if he’s kicking around in the late game when both sides have depleted resources he’s a complete menace, able to rapidly move to where he’s needed and put down some stragglers. Is he as good as access to Guilliman/Calgar? No, obviously not on that basis alone.

As we’ll see, however, Spearpoint is a pretty good Detachment, to the point where trying him out in it seems credible. Like the other new Characters, he gets an additional bonus when you do; if his unit destroys an enemy unit in the Fight Phase, then at the end of the phase they can make a Normal Move of up to 6”, which can be through a wall thanks to Suboden’s ability. Outriders have big bases, so this isn’t always going to be enough to get you fully back to safety, but it’s a powerful effect that makes his unit even more effective on a flank, and him even more annoying once he’s left working solo.

Spearpoint Task Force – Detachment Overview

To nobody’s particular surprise, the White Scars special Detachment is an improved version of Stormlance Task Force, which like most of these cuts out some of the lesser-used tools for more valuable ones. That is an incredible foundation for a Detachment since Stormlance is one of the most consistently powerful out of the Marine selection. Like its forerunner, this Detachment rewards you for taking powerful melee units, Mounted units, and FLY Vehicles, and supports the last of those especially well, even better than the vanilla version.

The Video Version

If you’d like to watch a video version of this Detachment Focus, we’ve got you covered here:

Detachment Rule: Storm-Swift Onslaught

Adeptus Astartes units in your army can Advance/Fall Back and Charge. Simple, clean, effective. Obviously this is great for melee threats, and the main challenge you have with it here is that this is most often used with Chapter-specific threats like Deathwing Knights and Thunderwolf Cavalry. With the Marine core, it’s really strong on Assault Intercessors, Bladeguard, and VanVets, and there’s been a few people tentatively trying out Assault Centurions again, which are probably worth a look here. Assault Terminators are also an option if you want to go big.

Enhancements

The Enhancements were the low point of the original Stormlance, generally being a bit too niche to be worth taking, particularly because of the paucity of Mounted Characters available. That still affects some of the options here, but there’s some new juice in the others.

• Spearpoint Paragon (TBCpts): Gives a Character +1S and AP on their melee weapons, or +2 if they charged this turn. Importantly, unlike the version of this in the original Detachment, any Marine Character can take this, not just Mounted, which opens up a world of possibilities. The most vanilla of those is probably the best mind; it makes a basic Captain leading Assault Intercessors a very strong package, as you hit like a truck all the time, and exceptionally so on your Finest Hour turn (though it is a shame it doesn’t tip you over to S11). Hitting AP-4 with a wide variety of D2 weapons is just exceptionally clutch at the moment, as there’s a bunch of melee Marine armies out there who hate to see it.
• Stormseer’s Wisdom (TBCpts): Re-roll Advances while leading a unit. Strictly a nice to have unless you’re building an Assault Terminator doomstack.
• Hunter’s Eye (TBCpts): Gives a unit Sustained Hits 1 and Ignore Cover . This is pretty exciting on Eradicators or Hellblasters, and could also be dropped on Desolation Marines if you’re feeling spendy.
• Chogorian Huntmaster (TBCpts): Lets a Mounted Character’s unit come in from Strategic Reserves as if it was one turn later. Unfortunately this is still killed dead by the fact that it’s Mounted only – maybe in eleventh edition we’ll get some more Bike Characters/Units to use this with.

Stratagems

A great Stratagem suite is one of the things that drives this detachment – it’s basically an even better version of standard Stormlance.

• Armour of Contempt (1CP): It’s Armour of Contempt, you know what it does (reduces AP by 1 for one round of attacks). It’s good – it’s always good.
• Spear Thrust and Sabre Swing (1CP): Give a unit Lance or Lethal Hits , or both if it’s Mounted . Very solid, and one of the places this improves on vanilla Stormlance, as this can be popped on Bladeguard or Assault Intercessors to help get them over the line into harder targets.
• Mobile Lethality (1CP): Lets a unit Shoot after Advancing or Falling Back. Always good to have in the tank.
• Hunter’s Instincts (1CP): A 6” Reactive Move for Infantry or Mounted. Consistently high value everywhere it turns up, and particularly nice for Suboden since it lets him go through walls.
• Evasive Maneuvres (1CP): Gives either a Mounted or a Fly Vehicle Unit -1 to Hit and Wound against shooting. Great with a Stormraven.
• Withdraw and Regroup (1CP): Pull either a Mounted or a Fly Vehicle Unit into Strategic Reserves at the end of the Opponent’s Fight Phase. Now, obviously the place one’s mind initially goes here is the Stormraven, but that runs into a snag that it’s too physically big to ever set up wholly within 6” of a Battlefield Edge (we checked), so if you pull it into Reserves you’re always going to sacrifice its shooting when you turn up. Despite that disappointment, this is still pretty useful with Storm Speeders, and I can see an argument for taking a bare bones 80pts Outrider unit just to go with this as well.

Playing This Detachment

This Detachment (appropriately) favours a very mobile Marine strategy – you hit hard, you move on, you repeat. You want some FLY vehicles (Stormraven is ideal, add some Storm Speeders too) to take advantage of the Stratagems, and some elite Infantry to take advantage of the Enhancements. The obvious comparator for this build is with the traditional Ultramarine Stormlance Stormraven build, and the difference is that this hits a little less hard, but is even faster, as you have access to Suboden’s unit and the option to take Hellblasters to use with Hunter’s Eye as Infantry Shooting. Hit them hard and fast, take no prisoners.

Strengths

• Great support for a high-speed Marine army.
• Strong force multiplier Enhancements.
• Versatile Stratagems.

Weaknesses

• Loses access to Chapter-specific melee units compared to vanilla Stormlance.
• Some options still pointlessly Mounted-locked.
• Expensive to squeeze in users for all the tools.

A Sample List

Note: We don’t have Enhancement points, so I have hit this at 1940pts because I assume that will definitely cover it.

Suboden’s Spearpoint - click to expand

Unsurprisingly, this is a Spearpoint spin on the Ultramarine builds, swapping out some Dreadnoughts and the Primarch package for units that take advantage of this Detachment’s specialities. Hunter’s Eye is really nasty on Hellblasters coming out of a Stormraven, and the Impulsor full of 5 Assault Intercessors with a Captain that can go murder mode is a classic in any Marine detachment that can assemble one. Overseeing things is Suboden, promising lightning-fast death to anything that strays from the pack, ideal for picking up targets on flanks. A fun speedy toolbox build to tear apart your foes.

Final Thoughts

For White Scars players who have been desperate to actually put some bikes on the table, Spearpoint with Suboden finally gives you a reason to try it out. It’s probably not going to tear up the metagame as much as Shadowmark, but it has enough going on to at least be appealing for people who want something different from regular Stormlance, which is no mean feat.

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