Chaplain
SWORD: what Chaplain kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts kill ~29 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 Chaplain is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts take ~164 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- Gives a big Assault Intercessor blob extra punch 1 of 6
- No foot melee unit worth buffing 1 of 6
- Not in any undefeated list 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chaplain60 pts | C | Bottom 38% | Bottom 34% | 32of 817 |
| Techmarine55 pts | C | Bottom 49% | Top 43% | 85of 817 |
| Judiciar50 pts | C | Top 27% | Top 40% | 3of 817 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 49 | 89 |
| SHIELD | 273 | 230 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 49 | 68 |
| SHIELD | 273 | 279 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Chaplain, 60 pts, with its datasheet's weapons. 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.
60 pts → kills ~29 pts → 49 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.
~164 pts → 273 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.