Detachment Focus: Ceramite Sentinels

As chaotic forces surge from the Eye of Terror, new Detachments and datasheets arrive for traitors and loyalists alike. This article dives into the Ceramite Sentinels Detachment for the Space Marines.

Unbelievably, there’s another Space Marine Detachment in the Eye of Terror release. This time it’s themed around the Imperial Fists and their style of siege warfare.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for review purposes. Any points referenced in this article are subject to change until published on Warhammer Community or the 40K App.

Detachment Overview

Imperial Fists Terminator Assault Squad. Credit: Jack Hunter

Look, Space Marines have as many Detachments as canonical Chapters at this point, and several of them are very good. This one looks fine. It’s not better than the best ones but if you really like what you see here you should go ahead and play it because you’ll probably enjoy yourself. It wants you to shoot stuff with tanks and infantry and have a good old time doing that.

Detachment Rule: Adaptive Defence

There’s two parts to this rule. Firstly, any of your ADEPTUS ASTARTES models re-rolls 1s to Hit and Wound if their unit is within (note within, not wholly within) terrain.

Secondly, your ADEPTUS ASTARTES units gain the ENTRENCHED keyword while all of the following are true:

• That unit is within (again, not wholly) a terrain feature
• That unit was not set up on the battlefield this turn (no deep striking, but also no getting out of a transport)
• No model in that unit has moved more than 3” this turn

The keyword doesn’t do anything on baseline, but it links to some of the Stratagems later on.

As rules go, getting broad re-rolls on anything in your army is reasonably strong, and only needing to be touching terrain to benefit makes it pretty flexible. That said, you will have to weigh up when you want to get the re-rolls vs. giving up visibility to other units shooting back at you.

Enhancements

None of these interact with ENTRENCHED at all, which is a little odd.

• Honour Indefatigable (25 pts): GRAVIS only. The first time the bearer is destroyed, they get back up on full wounds on a 2+. Neat for doing an imitation of the solo Gravis Captain that people have run in Gladius sometimes, trading off the better save and FNP for the res.
• Castellum Omnivox (20 pts): Each time the bearer’s unit makes a Fall Back move, they can either do an Action or shoot and charge. A useful, flexible enhancement that you’ll likely end up taking to give you a way to get out of sticky situations or score points that you would otherwise have lacked.
• Spy-Skull Data Link (15 pts): Ranged weapons equipped by models in the bearer’s unit get IGNORES COVER. Inexpensive and potentially worth sticking into some Heavy Intercessors to get over their lack of AP.
• Defensive Mastery (25 pts): After both players have deployed their armies, you can redeploy up to 3 of your ADEPTUS ASTARTES units, and put them back into Strategic Reserves for free. Like all other such abilities, hampered by needing to do this before you know who’s going first.

Stratagems

Sternguard. Credit: Rockfish

Like all Marines, you have Armour of Contempt here. The other five Stratagems are:

• Unyielding Might (Battle Tactic, 1CP): Used in the Command phase (either one!). Pick a unit in Engagement Range of one or more enemy units; until the start of your next Command phase, they get +1 OC. Handy for flipping objectives in either phase, and the condition only matters when you use it - so if it’s your turn you can score and then still Fall Back if you need to.
• Priority Strike (Battle Tactic, 2CP): Use in your Shooting phase or the Fight phase on one of your INFANTRY or MOUNTED units that hasn’t fought yet. That unit gets Wound re-rolls against CHARACTER, MONSTER, or VEHICLE units until the end of the phase. 2CP is pricey, but Wound re-rolls are always great, especially into the Oath target.
• Stand to the End (Epic Deed, 1CP): Use in the Fight phase just after an enemy units has picked its targets. One of those target units can fight on death on a 4+, adding 1 to the result if they are ENTRENCHED. Fight on death is always handy to have, and the effective 3+ makes it more reliable than most.
• Augmented Targeting (Battle Tactic, 1CP): Use in your Shooting phase on a unit that hasn’t shot yet. It can pick either SUSTAINED HITS 1 or LETHAL HITS until the end of the phase. If the unit is ENTRENCHED, then you get both. A straightforward boost to the damage output of one of your units, and worth planning on keeping things ENTRENCHED for.
• Evasive Repositioning (Strategic Ploy, 1CP): Use in your opponent’s Shooting phase after one of their units has shot. One INFANTRY or MOUNTED unit that was selected as the target of those attacks can make a Normal move of D6”, and re-roll the D6 if they are ENTRENCHED.

This is honestly a pretty good Stratagem suite, with plenty of useful effects on hand.

Playing This Detachment

The Detachment delivers on what it’s clearly intended to do - if you want to set up a load of Space Marines in terrain and blast away at people, then that option is available to you. There’s some decent melee options too though, especially as Priority Strike gives you access to full Wound re-rolls. The main thing you lack is any way to boost movement - you have one narrow bit of access to Fall Back and shoot/charge, no Advance and charge, no bonuses to Advancing or anything else - but if your goal in a game is to stand on exactly 3 objectives and unload on anything that comes towards them, you have plenty of tools for that. The Detachment rule applying simply for being within terrain makes it more flexible than it looks, too, because you only need to trail back one guy into a ruin to make use of the re-rolls you get on baseline.

Strengths

• Straightforward power boosts to your damage output.
• Useful defensive/objective play Stratagems.
• Reactive moves always welcome for avoiding sticky situations.

Weaknesses

• If you want to cross the halfway line of the table, you’re gonna need to do it the hard way.
• Enhancements are only so-so.
• It’s not Gladius Task Force.

A Sample List

Rainbow Warriors Bladeguard by Craig "MasterSlowPoke" Sniffen

Let’s take this Detachment in the spirit it was intended and build a shooting-focused Imperial Fists army.



The idea here is to shove two bricks of Bladeguard Vets forwards to keep melee away from you while the shooting goes to work. Sternguard Vets can deploy on the table or live in the Repexes to then jump out and shoot (though remember they won’t get ENTRENCHED if they do), while Tor Garadon and his Heavy Intercessors try and make fetch happen by combining IGNORES COVER, SUSTAINED HITS 1, and LETHAL HITS if they get the chance.

Final Thoughts

It’s fine. It’s probably fun! I’d like to try running it once just to see how it went. It’s not better than GTF so 95% of you will ignore its existence.

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