Ancient
SWORD: what Ancient kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 40 pts kill ~7 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 47 per 100
Best against hordes, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Ancient is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 40 pts take ~135 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 305 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- A sticky objective holder for take-and-hold 1 of 6
- A cheap carrier for the best enhancement 1 of 6
- Close to the bottom of the list 1 of 6
- Only worth it if it's cheap 1 of 6
- Not in any undefeated list 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient40 pts | C | Bottom 5% | Top 36% | 24of 817 |
| Apothecary45 pts | C | Bottom 7% | Bottom 48% | 43of 817 |
| Apothecary Biologis60 pts | C | Bottom 4% | Top 29% | 16of 817 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 18 | 83 |
| SHIELD | 338 | 247 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 18 | 61 |
| SHIELD | 338 | 299 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Ancient, 40 pts, with 1 Bolt pistol, 1 Ceramite Fists, 1 Bolt Rifle - Focused Fire, 1 Bolt Rifle - Saturation. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
40 pts → kills ~7 pts → 18 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~135 pts → 338 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 930 units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 8 reviewers' newest Space Marines tier lists: Brother Tobias (Ultramarines tier list livestream, after the codex) (14 Oct), Auspex Tactics (codex unit tier list) (16 Oct), Art of War 40k (ranking every datasheet, two hosts) (20 Oct), TacticalRock40K (four post-codex boards: ranged infantry, combat infantry, vehicles, characters) (21 Oct), TacticalTortoise (The Best Armies in 40k, three weekly meta watches: 14 undefeated Space Marine lists) (26 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (Competitive Innovations, two weeks of event write-ups) (28 Oct), Grimdark Breakdown (five videos grading the leaked codex, before points) (19 Sep), BA Commander (what he likes in the codex, before points; a Blood Angels player) (2 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
53 public Space Marines tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 6 Nov.