Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

===Successor Chapters===
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In the grim darkness of the far future, the bonds of brotherhood are as endless as they are diverse.<br>
All Successor chapters that don't already have associated Chapter tactics must make their own. It's the fourth edition all over again, you're once more allowed to create a bespoke chapter tactic for Your Dudes by combining any 2 of 18 available options or by using a First Founding chapter's tactics. The available options are listed below. A special note for DEATHWATCH, who have a stratagem for adopting 1 chapter or successor tactic: each of the options below is a distinct successor tactic, and you combine 2 successor tactics to make a custom chapter tactic for your chapter. As a result, if you're using the stratagem to pick from this list, you can pick one item, not two.
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*'''Inheritors of the Primarch''': Sacrifice the ability to take a second successor tactic in favour of directly copying a First Founding Chapter Tactic.
**As this still excludes you from taking named characters from that First Founding Chapter, the only reason to ever choose this is when you want a Forgeworld named character and his detachment to have a First Founding Chapter Tactic. Like giving the {{W40kKeyword|Astral Claws}} the {{W40kKeyword|White Scars}} trait so they can charge after advancing [[Red_Corsairs|like when renegade]]. While you could say it's so you can use your parent's tactic without the colour scheme...no rule actually requires you to match colour scheme and keywords, though some tournaments might get 'sniffy' on the subject.
**The only restriction is that, ''if'' your chapter's primogenitor is ''known'', ''if'' you use Inheritors of the Primarch it would need to be from their parent chapter. Examples: the {{W40kKeyword|Novamarines}}' parent chapter is the Ultramarines, so you can't use Inheritors to give them the White Scars' trait (because that's not their parent chapter), and you can't give any chapter the Black Templars' CT (because that's not a First Founding chapter). 
***Remember that ''suspected'' provenance does not count, so e.g. [[Carcharodons]] can take this with anything, not just [[Raven Guard]].
*'''Bolter Fusillades''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 when using bolt weapons. Not only ''frees your ONLY Captain'' from babysitting line squads so they can focus on the big guns, but it also means you can shift your HQ towards Lieutenants, as anything with bolt weapons is effectively inside a Captain's aura. That means not only your dozen primaris bolt types, but also the hurricane and heavy bolters of {{W40kKeyword|vehicles}} you can't boost because they're not core. Keep in mind the Lt's re-roll is statistically identical to the Captain's (better for anything that automatically hits, but worse for anything that hurts you on a 1; neither one affects the odds that a successful hit is a 6 or that a successful wound is a 6, although a Chapter Master's aura ''can'' be used to manipulate the former).
**Deathwatch: Useful to give Veteran squads re-rolls on SIA without a captain; assuming BS3+ shooters, this does outperform Master Artisans as soon as you make more than 4 shots, on average.  
*'''Born Heroes''': Add +1 to hit on the charge, a major step up from 8E's Heroic Intervention boost.  Strictly worse than Whirlwind of Rage, below: doesn't work on WS2+ models, ''and'' is harder to trigger.
**Deathwatch: Hard pass on this and take Whirlwind of Rage, which does everything this does, only better.
*'''Duellists''': When making melee attacks against enemy {{W40Kkeyword|infantry}} or {{W40Kkeyword|biker}}s, ''unmodified'' hit rolls of 6 auto-wound (the rule also grants auto-hitting, but you already have that as it's a game-wide rule).
**Duellists works better the tougher your target is, although it's somewhat limited in that Infantry and Bikers don't tend to exceed T5. The bonus is better than Whirlwind of Rage when you need a 5+ to wound (DG/Custodes), equal at 4+ (CSM/Orks) and worse when you wound on a 3+ (IG/Eldar/Tau). This also means anything better than a chainsword would be better with Whirlwind of Rage, so, unless you want something specific, like a melee Primaris chapter that fights T5 enemies, pick Whirlwind.
**Duellists also has no synergy at all with abilities you need to roll to wound to trigger - for example, a Judiciar's sword deals an extra mortal on 6 to wound, but if he uses Duellists, he can't roll to wound and hence can't try to proc the mortal.  
*'''Fearsome Aspect''': -1 Leadership to enemy units while they're within 3" of any of your units.
**Situational, but can be combined with other debuffing abilities, such as Reivers' aura, to provide an effect like Night Lords PLUS another chapter tactic, because this is only half of your trait. ''Night Lords, eat your hearts out''. 
*'''Hungry for Battle''': +1" to advance and charge rolls. Amazing for melee units and also pretty good if you want to spam Assault weapons. Has no synergy with bikes or anything else that doesn't roll to Advance (like anything with Supersonic), but at its most noticeable on slow things trying to advance or deep striking things that want to charge right now - you'll definitely notice this tactic's impact on cataphractii terminators, for example.  
** Gets really crazy with the Master of the Vanguard warlord trait for +2" move and advance. Gets even crazier, borderline illegal, with Lias Issodon for +3" to move and advance. 
*'''Indomitable''': Your units auto-pass combat attrition. Half of the Dark Angels CT. It can be okay for big units if you want to maximize the effectiveness of stratagems, but it's not likely you'll fail many morale tests to begin with, and you already ignore attrition modifiers.  
*'''Knowledge is Power''': Psykers with this tactic can re-roll "any or all" rolls of 1 when casting or denying. Half of the Blood Ravens tactic. ''Don't'' take this unless you're going all Librarians for your HQ.  
*'''Long-range Marksmen''': +3" range to all Rapid Fire and Heavy (except Flamer) ranged weapons. 27" Multimeltas! Your marines get to engage enemies from their own deployment zone, taking better advantage of Bolter Discipline. 
**Deathwatch: Can be extremely valuable by increasing the range of Eradicators, Eliminators, and Centurion Devastators to delete key targets.
*'''Master Artisans''': A ''unit'' with this tactic can re-roll a single failed to hit roll each time it shoots or fights (including overwatch). Units with a few strong weapons in small units benefit the most. Good for pretty much any unit (unless it's ''extremely'' focused on flamers as its only combat output), with the standard caveat that it's a lot better the fewer attacks per unit you have - always go MSU with this. 
*'''Preferred Enemy''': Pick one of the following factions: Aeldari, Tau, Heretic Astartes, Chaos Knights, Tyranids, Orks, or Necrons. Re-roll hit rolls of 1 with melee weapons against that faction. Absurdly bad; would still be worse than Whirlwind of Rage if it was always on, let alone forcing you to pick only one faction to work against before you have any idea what you'll be facing.
**Deathwatch: Under no circumstances take this - stick to Whirlwind of Rage.
*'''Rapid Assault''': Advancing no longer incurs a -1 penalty on firing Assault weapons. It's okay if you spam Assault weapons (especially meltaguns on bikes), but this tactic needs to be combined with something like Hungry for Battle to make it work. 
**Deathwatch: No penalty to advancing and firing Frag Cannons or Deathwatch Shotguns
*'''Scions of the Forge''': Units with damage tables count their wounds as doubled when calculating the effects of damage. 1/2 of the Iron Hands CT. Good for heavily mechanised lists, assuming you take high-wound stuff. 
**Deathwatch: Useful for reducing the effect of damage to key vehicles for a turn so they can fire and fight with little to few or no penalties.
*'''Stalwart''': When rolling for wounds against your models, natural rolls of 1 or 2 always fail, regardless of any modifiers or abilities the attacking unit might have. Makes your units somewhat better against plasma and other S8+ weapons. The other half of the Blood Ravens tactic.  ''Never'' take this in a highly mechanized list - it'll do almost nothing for your T5 stuff, like bikes, and actually nothing for your T6+ stuff unless your on the wrong end of a titan or certain lords of war.
**Deathwatch: Increases our infantry's durability. Most effective on large, expensive kill teams being targeted by s8+ weapons.
**Your dudes are generally T4, and S8 high-AP weapons like Plasma or Melta wound on a 2+. If your opponent can reroll 1s, they'll be wounding you 97.22% of the time - Stalwart brings that down to 77.78%, which is still high but can make the difference between holding an objective with a single model or losing it.
*'''Stealthy''': Count as being in light cover when at least 18" away from enemies. Half of the Raven Guard's tactic. By the time the enemy gets close enough to ignore this bonus you'll be within range for an easy charge. Good for gunlines, especially Vehicles and Flyers that can't usually get it any other way; meh for other types of units.
*'''Stoic''': +1 Leadership. Half of the Ultramarines CT. Skip it unless you need it for a very specific plan - it's usually fundamentally garbage compared to Indomitable.
**Stoic is better than Indomitable in the instances where the unit fails by EXACTLY ONE.  However, Space Marine normal leadership and unit size mean that this happens...  a bit more frequently than in other armies.    
*'''Tactical Withdrawal''': Units with this tactic can charge after falling back. Roughly 1/3 of the White Scars' tactic. Amazing for melee oriented armies, allowing you to trigger Shock Assault whenever you want. Useful when you're using another unit to shoot their target between withdrawal and charge, and you can fall "back" from some unit in order to better position yourself for a multi-charge, tying up more units now. Nice if combined with the Hammer of Wrath stratagem for jump troops.
*'''Warded''': 5+++ FnP versus mortal wounds only. Half of the Black Templars' tactic. Situational, but useful if your meta is full of armies [[Tyranids|who]] [[Thousand_Sons|spam]] [[Death_Guard|mortal]] [[Eldar|wounds]].
**All mortal wounds, not just those from psychic powers; this is basically Armour of Contempt but always active, all the time and not restricted to vehicles. A vehicle that fails a plasma roll has a chance to not lose a wound.
**What tries to counter TH/SS? Mortal wounds SPAM. Well, now your TH/SS are 1+/4++/5+++, simple as.
**CONGRATULATIONS. Your Sicaran Omega can now overcharge its main gun to shoot 6 S9 -3 D3 shots without fear of mortal wounds on 1s. 
*'''Whirlwind of Rage''': When making melee attacks for a unit that charged, was charged, or made a Heroic Intervention, unmodified hit rolls of 6 score an additional hit. Explicitly incompatible with the ''Duelists'' tactic, above.
**Unlike Duellists, mathematically the Whirlwind of Rage bonus constantly behaves as +1WS (one that also affects WS2+ models, making it strictly better than Born Heroes), irrespective of chances to wound and not limited by keywords. Its bonus is better than Duellists against targets you wound on a 3+ or better, meaning all of your power weapons benefit. Do note that, unlike Duellists, Whirlwind only works in the first round of combat, not that anything you were fielding was planning on staying in melee for longer than that.  Importantly, Whirlwind doesn't require your target to have a specific keyword.
**Deatchwatch:  Effectively nullify the to-hit penalty for Veterans and Terminators armed with Power Fists, Heavy Thunder Hammers, and Thunder Hammers on the turn they charge.

For gunlines, Master Artisans, Long-range Marksmen, and Stealthy are generally the best ways to play to your strengths: take Master Artisans, then auto-take Stealthy if you've leaned into Assault weapons.  If you're heavily into Rapid Fire and Heavy, Stealthy is still ''usually'' better, but Long-range Marksmen has some specific use-cases (like deep striking grav-guns) where you may prefer it.

For melee, Whirlwind of Rage is just better than Born Heroes or Preferred Enemy, and usually better than Duellists.  It should be your first choice if your army wants to be better at melee.  Your second choice should generally be Tactical Withdrawal or Hungry for Battle, depending on your plan.  In particular, melee focused first founding chapters - White Scars, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and to an extent, Dark Angels - automatically have to consider whether or not they'd be better off as Successors with two of these three tactics.

For bravery, Indomitable is better than Stoic.  Take it for spamming large, cowardly units, like Blood Claws, but you're better off going MSU and avoiding the whole issue.

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