Improved Space Marines (PvE Balance) – Space Marine, Blood Angel, and Dark Angel Bundle

Hello There!

Are your Space Marines not Space Marine-y enough?! Do you want to burn more heretics and purge more of the unclean? Then use this mod to make your Marines into the Xeno-Purging Super Soldiers they were meant to be!

This mod uses the original game scaling, if you want Gladius+ Scaling you can get that here: Improved Space Marines Gladius+ Scaling. Please note you must be subscribed to both mods for things to work as the other is just for scaling changes.

This mod rebalances Space Marines for more PvE fun! This is not meant to be used for PvP. This bundle also includes the Blood Angels Faction at the same power level as the Vanilla Marines. Soon, it will also include the Dark Angels Faction.

If you want to see the changes for Blood Angels, please click here: Blood Angels Faction. That mod is for PvP use and is balanced with the base game per the developers/codex; the power level in this mod matches the improvements below but Steam does not give me enough room to list all the changes in one workshop description.

All changes are listed below:

Tactical Space Marines

• Now have 6 models instead of 5
• Now cost 48 REQ instead of 40 REQ

Assault Space Marines

• Now have 6 models instead of 5
• Now cost 48 REQ instead of 40 REQ

Devastator Space Marines

• Now have 4 models instead of 3
• Increased cost to 65req from 60req and upkeep to 3.5req from 3.0req

Apothecaries

• Now have 5 models instead of 3
• Now heals for 10HP instead of 8HP

Thunderfire Cannons

• Now repairs vehicles for 10HP instead of 8HP

Chaplain

• Now uses a modified ‘heavy’ flamer, it deals increased damage to infantry and open-top vehicles but reduced damage against high-armor units and vehicles.
• Canticles of Wrath now affects a 2 tile radius and has an increased cooldown
• Oration of Restoration now heals for 8HP instead of 6HP

Hunter Anti-Air Tank

• Now has 2 Skyspear Missile Launchers instead of 1
• Now costs 60 REQ instead of 40 REQ

Vindicator Tank

• Now costs 60 REQ instead of 80 REQ

Terminators

• Health increased from 3HP per model to 4HP per model

Fortress of Redemption

• HP increased from 36 to 42

All Heroes

• Base HP increased from 9 to 12

All Units

• Morale increased by 2

Tier 5 Research Upgrade "Extra Infantry Armour" has been replaced with "Veteran Infantry Improvements" which provides two traits:

• "Improved Infantry Armour" – the same 1 armor bonus to all infantry as the previous Extra Infantry Armour Upgrade provided
• "Veteran Infantry" – additional 0.5HP per model to Apothecaries, Assault Space Marines, Devastator Space Marines, and Tactical Space Marines. This provides an additional 2HP to level 1 Apothecaries and Devastators and an additional 3HP to level 1 Assault and Tactical Space Marines.

Tier 7 Research Upgrade "Terminators" has been replaced with "1st Company Task Force" which provides access to Terminators, as before, as well as the following new units:

• Flame Terminators
• 1st Company Sternguard Veteran Squads
• 1st Company Vanguard Veteran Squads

New Unit: "Flame Terminators"
They cost 88 REQ and have a 4 REQ upkeep. Flame Terminators are identical to normal Terminators except that they have had their Storm Bolters exchanged for Flamers. The addition of these terminators provide an extra high model count anti-infantry option which will allow more versatility in the way that you deploy terminators.

New Unit:"Vanguard Veteran Squad"
They cost 80 REQ and have a 3 REQ upkeep. It is identical to the normal Assault Marine Squad except that it has a new icon and has 9 unit models instead of 6. It is subject to the health increase provided by Veteran Infantry Improvements. Vanguards also have white helmets per 1st Company standards, white helmet textures kindly provided by TOFFster!!

New Unit: "Sternguard Veteran Squad"
They cost 80 REQ and have a 3 REQ upkeep. It is identical to the normal Tactical Space Marine Squad except that it has a new icon and has 9 unit models instead of 6. It is subject to the health increase provided by Veteran Infantry Improvements. Sternguards also have white helmets per 1st Company standards, white helmet textures kindly provided by TOFFster!!

New Unit: "Thunderfire Cannon Squad"
It costs 50 Energy and 50 REQ. It has a 5 Energy upkeep. It is identical to the normal Thunderfire Cannon except that it has 2 unit models instead of 1. Thunderfire Cannon Squad is unlocked with the Tier 6 Technology Bolster Defenses, making taking that tech worthwhile!

Thoughts and Rationale
While there are some ways to abuse the added model count of the basic units in early game, on anything other than a tiny map there shouldn’t be much opportunity. Since you can only produce a maximum of 1 infantry unit per turn, the additional health allows marines to be more survivable and useful throughout the entire game, especially in games that last 50+ turns. The Tier 5 upgrade gives them an additional small boost of health that allows them to still be effective against mid to late game units. The Tier 7 upgrade allows you to produce infantry units more efficiently, by adding the 1st Company Veteran Squads. This allows you to produce units with a 50% increase in upkeep for a 50% increase in unit models; allowing you to be more competitive with only 1 building to produce infantry units, as it overcomes some of the disadvantage of only having one city worth of production, and at Tier 7 it does not arrive too early to negatively impact the balance of the earlier game. This slight increase makes it so that you will hopefully have a chance to use Apothecaries to heal, or at least makes it feel like the unit you produced doesn’t instantly die, whilst giving you higher-tier infantry options for use in late-game that actually feel like they are worth producing.

There is a passive damage increase provided by the additional models in the basic infantry units, but no other bonuses have been given to weapons other than the adjustment to the flamer. The only other weapon modification is on the Hunter which has 2 missile weapons instead of 1, bringing it closer-in-line with the anti-air of other factions at a 20% increase in production cost. Previously, it would take 4-5 Hunters to bring down 1 aircraft; with the addition of the second launcher it now only takes about 3 Hunters, a much more reasonable number – especially when balanced against the fact you can only produce a maximum of 1 armoury vehicle per turn but the increased cost makes it so that spamming Hunters does not diminish spamming Predators.

All in all, I have tried to provide incremental/marginal increases in the areas I feel most lacking, primarily Hit Points, without overtly affecting balance or making any sweeping changes. I hope that these changes are subtle enough to improve the viability of mid-late game marines in a way that doesn’t just involve spamming Predators, while not being so overwhelming as to throw off the balance of the rest of the game.

If you choose to use this mod please add your feedback below so that I can improve!

Thanks and have fun purging!