They've been known to get pre-5th Edition [[Necron]] players to rage-quit.
They've been known to get pre-5th Edition [[Necron]] players to rage-quit.
==On The Tabletop==
Rubric Marines aren't quite as good at ignoring the sustained fire of 40 Shoota Boyz as their counterparts, the Plague Marines are, but unlike them they can ignore a direct Battle Cannon shot, since Rubrics possess a phenomenally-dickish 4++ invulnerable save. Even better, Rubric Marines pack Inferno Bolts, which means their Bolters are AP3. Suffice to say, they can carve through a squad of [[MEQ]] effortlessly, and, prior to their massive Tomb Kings in Space update, fielding one squad of intelligently-managed Rubric Marines essentially guaranteed victory against a typical [[Necron]] player (or current-gen [[Tyranid]] player; [[Skub|thanks a fucking ''bunch'']], [[Robin Cruddace|Cruddace]]). They're also led by a Sorcerer, who gives them access to one psy power (typically something like Bolt of Change, so the squad can pop transports). The Sorcerer's [[Bolt Pistol]] also has Inferno Bolts.
Rubrics are cursed with Slow and Purposeful, and unlike the other aligned Chaos Marines, do not have close combat weapons or bolt pistols. At a glance, this makes them a very easy-to-target melee weak-spot, but in practice, this isn't quite true; they still have their beefy-as-shit 3+/4++ saves, and the Sorcerer's Force Weapon means that no MC worth their shit will get anywhere near them. What they ''are'' vulnerable to is being [[Tarpit]]ted, due to their relatively lackluster number of attacks and immense focus on shooting to take advantage of their juicy AP 3 Bolter shots. Note that whilst they lack grenades and thus hit last if they (counter)charge into cover, they still have a marine statline for close-combat and a 4+ invuln save besides, so seeing these guys win a fight with a squad of Banshees isn't as absurd as you might think.
They also don't have grenades, so charging through a cover or blowing tanks with krak-grenades might be a problem, and even more so if they got caught in melee with AV11+ walker, since they're fearless and cannot choose to run away.
Rubrics benefit heavily from having a [[Rhino Transport]]. Not because they need the survivability (they're tougher than the vehicle they're in, to be frank), but because the mobility they get is such an enormous boon. Take full advantage of their ability to shoot out of their transport, and use it in glorified [[50 Copper and Ludi'drizz't|Tzeentchian drive-by shooting]], before disembarking in rapid fire range and warpfire-blasting a bitch.
=== Mainstream opinion ===
Rubric Marines are garbage, absolute, complete garbage. If you are taking them you are guaranteeing your defeat. Like [[Warp Talons|many]] [[Forgefiend|many]] [[Defiler|Chaos]] units, they have good looking stats but are too expensive to be worth taking. Even with a 4++ they're only MEQs, who also are shit in close combat, and can't run. Their main job, with AP3 Bolters, is to hunt down other MEQs and with only S4 and no means of bypassing reanimation protocols or feel no pain they aren't really amazing at it and remain frightfully ineffectual against Necrons and [[Fail|Nurglites]] and are of course; poor against monstrous creatures, vehicles, and TEQs. The thing is, basically any other expensive unit can kill MEQs far better than Rubric Marines can. You could get a lot more bang for your buck by putting points toward a [[Daemon Prince]] instead, who can straight up liquify MEQs, and just about anything else too. The sorcerer that comes with the squad is also pretty lackluster, since he's forced to roll his powers from the [[fail|Tzeentch table]], easily the worst out of the Chaos Space Marine specific disciplines. In the end you're paying for a MEQ killer that's outshined by just about everything. They're also [[finecast]].
To make matters worse, Rubric Marines lack any means to deal with cover, so all their shootiness goes out the window the moment the enemy puts his MEQs behind cover, which is all the time. And they are much worse per point at dealing with GEQs who are going to be in cover anyway, Soul Blaze might seem like it can help but it won't because Soul Blaze is the most ineffectual USR of all time and more often than not mostly just serves to make you more useless against certain units. Due to having no extra rate of fire or strength per shot compared to regular Chaos Space Marines and lacking any special weapons at all, Rubrics are literally only better than a Chosen squad with plasma guns at killing Marines standing in the open for their points and basically nothing else in the game, and with the general finickyness of psychic powers in 7th edition and the overall terribleness of the Chaos Space Marine Tzeentch table the Sorcerer won't do much to improve their lethality and can be shut down entirely if your enemy's got more psychic game than you do. Which they are quite likely to have unless you're running a mono-Tzeentch list (in which case you probably don't care about winning because mono-Tzeentch CSMs are ''terrible'').
Rubrics melt when exposed to weight of fire just as easily as regular marines do and thanks to their high cost you won't have as many bodies to soak up the punishment your marines will suffer. So expect them to be gone when those Ork Shootas, Guardsmen Lasguns, Fire warrior pulse rifles, Necron Tesla blasts, or just about any form of Tyranid shooting gets their hands on you. Sure they can tank MEQ killing shots better than most marines and their anti-MEQ killing save can't be stripped away like cover saves, but nobody is going to care because most serious lists in 7th edition can put out more than enough dice to mulch your rubric marines' overcosted ass. And it's worth reiterating that they're all going to die the second they're put into melee because they are firewarrior level terrible for their points cost in melee> Fucking ''grots'' will tie them up all game long, if some flayed ones get into assault with them you can kiss that whole squad goodbye.
And no, they're not all that great against Necrons because Necrons will tend to have cover saves and Rubric Marines can't do anything about the reanimation protocols that Necrons get. Meaning that they're not even very good against one of the most heavily used top tier armies in the game. And while they might be rather resilient against Eldar shooting with their invulnerable saves, they certainly aren't going to survive tangoing with Striking Scorpions or the huge weight of poor AP but high strength hits the Eldar can lay down on them, and you can probably just forget about getting to use your sorcerers against the Eldar and their psychic spam. Oh and against AdMech lists? You might survive the grav guns and the pieplates, you probably won't survive anything else the Adeptus mechanicus can shoot you with. So yeah, like just about everything Tzeentch related on the tabletop regarding the Chaos Space marines for edition after edition they're garbage, leave them at home and never even think about bringing them to any competitive games.
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
Revision as of 03:44, 21 October 2016
The last thing many unfortunate MEQs ever see.
"Immortality is a terrible curse." -Simone de Beauvoir
Rubric Marines - the cursed automatons of the Thousand Sons, and one of the two toughest infantry units that are available to the Traitor Legions, right alongside their Nurglite rivals, the Plague Marines. They serve a similar tactical role in that they're absolutely tough as balls, but whereas the Plague Marines, owing to their diseased bulk, can resist large volumes of anti-infantry fire, the Rubric Marines, protected by dark sorcery, will shrug off even the most powerful hits from anti-tank weapons.
They've been known to get pre-5th Edition Necron players to rage-quit.
