40k Space Marine Throne of Skulls Tournament Review

Allo again

Today i shall be discussing the space marine codex and its bearing in the Throne of skulls final and the state of marines in 5th edition.

My first impression of the book back last year was that it was amazing and it finally was going to give codex marines that much needed lift. The book itself is well presented and is perfect for introducing people to space marines as well as providing extra content for us veterans out there. The army list and structures are the most balanced in any book GW has currently produced. However there is nothing outstanding in the book that hasn't had some sort of suitable counter balance, which in most cases is the marines point costs. While they have been given a list of numerous options to make all sorts of armies from a tournament perspective there isnt anything outstanding to do with the book in comparison to other armies.

Eg -

Eldar, have aspects/psyhic powers
Choas have the lash and numerous hard troop types
Orks have sheer numbers and a very good basic troop

Now these are the other top armies seen in the Throne of skulls final. I did a small bit of number crunching of the stats to give you an overview of how marines did.

Standard Codex Armies -

Total Armies - 17
Total No of games - 102

Wins - 27
Loses - 47
Draw - 28

Win % = 38%


Non codex chapters
Win Ratio (%)
1x Black Templars - 0%
3x Space Wolves - 44%
1x Blood Angels - 50%
4x Dark Angels - 29%


Now bear in mind these stats are abit messy as there arent equal number of armies, but of the lot the wolves seem to do well as always. If we include all of the results we get the following -

Codex and Non Codex Chapters -

Total Armies - 26
Total No of Games - 156

Total Win - 45
Lose - 73
Draw - 38

Win (%) = 29%


So what does this say? Now bear in mind i should really include all the results from the other heats, but these results alone seem to suggest my theory that marine armies at 1500 points cant hack it at the top. Now at 1750 to 2000 i think marines are a force to be reckoned with. Anyway what do you guys think?????


In other news, i'm at warhammer world for the Carnage tournament next weekend, i am a 40k judge! So ill hopefully be putting up my experiences there with lots of photos!