Faction Focus: Space Marines – Gladius Task Force *Updated January 3rd 2026*

Space Marines are the most iconic faction in Warhammer 40K. For decades the Space Marines have been the standard bearers for the game and hold the distinction of being the “flagship” face of the brand.

In competitive Warhammer 40K the Space Marines, and particularly the Ultramarines, have had a well documented track record of success at events in 10th edition. In this article I’m going to be focusing on the core Space Marines detachment; the Gladius Task Force. Let’s dive into it.

***Updated on January 3rd, 2026 after release of the new Victrix Honour Guard unit and the Q4 Balance Dataslate ***

Why Play Space Marines?

Why play Space Marines? Well, they are the most ass-kicking and badass faction in the Warhammer 40K universe. Of course you already knew that part I’m sure.

The great thing about Space Marines is that as a faction they offer a variety of different builds which you can easily adapt to your playstyle successfully in competitive 40K. Want to charge your power armored Astartes into glorious combat? The Blood Angels have you covered. Want to out maneuver your opponent? The White Scars make a great choice. Want to play a balanced army with both solid combat options and efficient shooting? Look no further than the Ultramarines and the Gladius Task Force.

Before we get into the Gladius Task Force detachment, it’s important to note the Space Marines Army Rule: Oath of Moment. At the start of your Command Phase you select one enemy unit on the battlefield and until the start of your next Command Phase, each time a unit from your army selects that enemy unit as the target of an attack you can re-roll the hit roll. Further if your army is using a Codex Space Marines Detachment and does not include one or more units from Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves or Deathwatch, you can add 1 to the wound roll as well.

Gladius Task Force Detachment Rule

The Gladius Task Force detachment rule offers three different combat doctrines you can cycle your army through over the course of the game (with the option to swap a unit into another doctrine with a stratagem which I’ll cover later).

All three of the doctrines are useful, but the timing of each is crucial. Often you may want to skip using a doctrine entirely in the first battle round for example to setup a big second turn push with Devastator Doctrine while you stage your combat units for a turn 3 advance and charge for a nasty go-turn push.

Gladius Task Force: Enhancements

The enhancements for Gladius Task Force are decent but have taken some hits since the original codex was released through various updates and errata (such as Fire Discipline). That being said, there’s still some decent takes here.

• Artificer Armour – 10 Points – The bearer has a save characteristic of 2+ and the Feel No Pain 5+ ability. This one is great on a Captain in Gravis Armour to take advantage of his datasheet ability to halve the damage characteristics of attacks. He makes a great solo harassment piece to go push into the opponent’s expansion objective or as a counter-punch piece for the midfield.
• The Honour Vehement – 15 Points – Add 1 to the Attacks and Strength characteristics of the bearer’s melee weapons. While the bearer is under the effects of the Assault Doctrine, add 2 to the Attacks and Strength characteristics of the bearer’s melee weapons instead. This is a nice little enhancement to throw on a Judiciar or a standard Captain (especially when he pops his Finest Hour datasheet ability). It’s one of those that if you have some points left over throw it on one of your melee characters but otherwise you’re probably not building a strategy around this enhancement.
• Adept of the Codex – 20 Points – Captain model only. At the start of your Command Phase, if the bearer is on the battlefield, instead of selecting a Combat Doctrine to be active for your army, you can select the Tactical Doctrine. If you do, until the start of your next Command Phase, that Combat Doctrine is active for the bearer’s unit only, even if you have already selected that Combat Doctrine to be active for your army this battle. The Tactical Doctrine can be useful in Gladius having the ability to fall back and shoot and charge and being able to take advantage of this detachment’s reactive move stratagem (which I’ll cover a bit later) for a full 6″ reactive move. The price point of this enhancement, however is a pretty big deterrent from taking it and it will rarely see use in a competitive Space Marines list.
• Fire Discipline – 25 Points – While the bearer is leading a unit, ranged weapons equipped by models in that unit have the Sustained Hits 1 ability. In addition, while the bearer’s unit is under the effects of the Devastator Doctrine, you can re-roll Advance rolls made for that unit. At codex release this enhancement was the bread and butter of a Gladius build as it allowed the bearer’s unit to score a critical hit roll on a 5+ while in the Devastator Doctrine, which meant you could quite easily pump out nasty shooting with the Sustained Hits 1 ability. Alas, that has been nerfed and while being able to re-roll an Advance roll is nice when you have the doctrine selected to Advance and shoot, it’s very rarely worth the 25 extra points to take anymore for such a limited use.

All in all you have basically two enhancements here that you might consider using and they both only buff the individual character as opposed to being force multipliers for the unit. Fire Discipline is still taken every now and then in Gladius Task Force builds, but it is a bit lackluster for the points. The most useful of these is the Artificer Armour enhancement on a Captain in Gravis Armour.

Gladius Task Force: Stratagems

This is where the real money is for Gladius Task Force. The stratagems are all incredibly useful and have stood the test of time as more and more codexes have released. The detachment offers a powerful suite of stratagems to choose from. That said, this detachment is incredibly CP intensive and the army that makes the most of their use is certainly Ultramarines with Roboute Guilliman for his ability to hand out a reduced CP strat use to a unit within 12″ once per battle round. This makes Ultramarines the most efficient sub-faction of Space Marines to run the Gladius Task Force (although there’s certainly an argument to be made for Black Templars as well.)

• Armour of Contempt – 1 CP – Used in the Shooting or Fight Phase after an enemy unit selects a target of their attacks. Worsen the AP of those attacks by 1. Everyone is probably familiar with Armour of Contempt by now. A great defensive strat and a staple used by every Space Marines player. This stratagem is present in almost every single Space Marines detachment including Gladius Task Force.
• Only in Death Does Duty End – 2 CP – Fight Phase after an enemy unit selects it’s targets. Until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit is destroyed, if that model has not fought that phase, do not remove it from play. The destroyed model can fight after the attacking model’s unit has finished making its attacks and is then removed from play. Fight on death! Gladius Task Force is one of the few remaining detachments in the game that has access to a full fight on death (as opposed to needing to roll a certain number on a dice to trigger it for each model). This is particularly useful on units like Guilliman or Marneus Calgar and his unit when it’s clear they are probably going to die in the Fight Phase. This is an incredibly powerful stratagem for the detachment. **UPDATED January 3rd 2026** This is also one of the core stratagems for Ultramarines builds centered on Victrix Honour Guard. Having access to pure Fight on death with CP reduction from Guilliman combined with the Victrix surge move, makes them a deadly force on the tabletop. Being able to yolo into the enemy on their turn and still fight if the opponent charges them with something else gives them a huge problem they have to account for in their approach to dealing with this army.
• Honour the Chapter – 1 CP – Fight Phase. One Adeptus Astartes unit from your army. Until the end of the phase weapons equipped by models in your unit have the Lance ability and if your unit is in the Assault Doctrine improve the AP characteristic of such weapons by 1. Lance and extra AP makes this an incredibly useful stratagem for those assault units that really need to get damage through to a crucial target. ***UPDATED January 3rd 2026: Another great strat for Victrix Honour Guard getting Lance on their Strength 5 attacks and pushing their Master-Crafted Power Sword attacks to AP -3.***
• Adaptive Strategy – 1 CP – Command Phase. One Adeptus Astartes unit from your army. Select one of the three Combat Doctrines and until the start of your next Command Phase that Combat Doctrine is active for that unit instead of any other Combat Doctrine. Another core stratagem for the Gladius Task Force. Need to Advance and Charge with your Bladeguard Veterans? Swap them into Assault Doctrine. Really need to Fall Back and shoot with those Eradicators? Put them in Tactical Doctrine. A great tool to maximize the value of your deadliest units precisely when you need them. *** UPDATED January 3rd 2026: This is really great in combination with Squad Tactics (below) to get the full 6″ reactive move with Victrix Honour Guard. This combined with either option of Cato/Captain Sicarius gives up to 2 units a full 6″ reactive move option when the rest of the army is in another Combat Doctrine.***
• Storm of Fire – 1 CP – Your Shooting Phase. One Adeptus Astartes unit that has not been selected to shoot this phase. Until the end of the phase ranged weapons in your unit have the Ignores Cover ability and if the unit is under the effects of the Devastator Doctrine, improve the AP of such weapons by 1. This is the stratagem that most Gladius Task Force builds are centered around. Generally speaking most Gladius builds are powerful gunlines and use Guilliman to combo Adaptive Strategy and Storm of Fire for 1 CP total to use both. Units such as Gladiator Lancers, Vindicators, Redemptor and Ballistus Dreadnoughts with Ignores Cover and extra AP can really punch through difficult targets with potent shooting firepower. Especially so with Oath of Moment for re-rolls and +1 to wound.
• Squad Tactics – 1 CP – Your opponent’s Movement Phase just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move. Select an Infantry or Mounted unit within 9″ of that enemy unit that just ended that move and not in Engagement Range of an enemy unit. Your unit can make a Normal move up to D6″ or up to 6″ instead if it is under the effects of the Tactical Doctrine. The dreaded reactive move. This ability is incredibly powerful and you will often see Black Templars players use this to push Sword Brethren back into transports. It is also useful to pop deadly shooting units like Eradicators back inside a nearby Repulsor or Land Raider in an Ultramarines build. ***UPDATED January 3rd 2026: As mentioned above, this is a great strat for your Victrix Honour Guard units being able to either do a full reactive move behind a wall to hide, or move even closer to enemy units making their surge move after being shot that much more potent.***

Running a Space Marines Gladius Task Force Army

Let’s take a look at an example of an army for an Ultramarines Gladius Task Force army list. ***UPDATED January 3rd 2026: Updated list to reflect the new Victrix Honour Guard units***

***UPDATED January 3rd 2026***

This build features three full bricks of 6 Victrix Honour Guard led by Captain Sicarius, Uriel Ventris and Marneus Calgar backed up with powerful shooting from Ballistus and a Redemptor Dreadnought. Calgar is getting you an extra CP every Command Phase and Uriel allows you to put one of these Victrix Honour Guard units into reserves with Deep Strike making them a terrifying Rapid Ingress threat.

This build is all about leveraging the utility of the Victrix Honour Guard and their Glory of Ultramar ability to make surge moves into combat along with full reactive moves when the opponent gets close. Having the flexibility to Fall Back and Charge in Tactical Doctrine or Advance and Charge in Assault Doctrine makes them a difficult unit to deal with for most opponents.

Generally in this build you want to put the Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs into reserves for secondary play along with Uriel and his squad of Victrix. Deploy Intercessors on your home objective to “sticky” it early while Scouts can be used to prevent opposing infiltrators in deployment and safely make a pre-game scout move to move behind a wall for protection. Ballistus Dreads and the Redemptor threaten the shooting lanes, while Victrix move up to stage for their turn 2 or 3 “go turn.”

This unit is fast and hits incredibly hard with the combination of Oaths of Moment for full hit re-rolls and +1 to wound, a great combination of stratagems that take advantage of the Victrix datasheet abilities, along with leader units that are providing excellent utility in the game. Overall Victrix Honour Guard have changed the way Ultramarines play in 2026 moving from a more “shooty” oriented build to a more melee focused threat.

**Updated on January 3rd 2026**

While certainly capable of putting down one of the best gunlines in the game, with the new addition of a new Victrix Honour Guard unit for Ultramarines, this army can potentially be one of the deadliest melee Space Marine armies in the game as well. Victrix Honour Guard with Marneus and his two little Victrix buddies he comes with already as well as Uriel Ventris giving another unit of Victrix the Deep Strike ability, they have the potential to put out some absolutely deadly combat power. Marneus Calgar attached to Victrix Honour Guard creates a menace on the table-top being able to Advance or Fall Back and Charge, be -1 to wound, and make a surge move to get into combat on the opponent’s turn, combined with access to full fight on death, this unit becomes an absolutely deadly threat the opponent has to take into account.

Final Thoughts

The Space Marine Gladius Task Force detachment has managed to stand the test of time through multiple other codex launches and over the course of now three mission packs for 10th edition. It is still a formidable army in the hands of a capable general and has some amazing tools available in the form of powerful Combat Doctrines and Stratagem support. This is especially important for Roboute Guilliman who was really built to be used in a Gladius Task Force detachment for Ultramarines. It’s worth noting that the Gladius Task Force also sees a lot of play with Black Templars, however the build and strategy is quite a bit different then that presented here. Perhaps in a future Faction Focus I will cover the Black Templars version. Two and a half years now into 10th edition and the Gladius Task Force is still holding strong and has become a staple of competitive 40K Space Marines players.

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