Captain
SWORD: what Captain kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 90 pts kill ~34 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against line infantry, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Space Marines
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Captain is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 90 pts take ~214 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Space Marines
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
7 reviewers- A strong carrier for the best enhancement 1 of 7
- Named characters fill his slots 1 of 7
- No real reason to take him 1 of 7
- Not in any undefeated list 1 of 7
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Captain90 pts | C | Bottom 14% | Bottom 18% | 32of 817 |
| Captain in Gravis Armour90 pts | B | Bottom 29% | Top 20% | 70of 817 |
| Captain in Terminator Armour90 pts | B | Bottom 24% | Top 47% | 52of 817 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 38 | 69 |
| SHIELD | 238 | 215 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 38 | 54 |
| SHIELD | 238 | 256 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Captain, 90 pts, with 1 Heavy Bolt Pistol, 1 Master-crafted bolter, 1 Master-crafted power weapon. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
90 pts → kills ~34 pts → 38 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.
~214 pts → 238 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 566 melee 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.