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I’m a little biased, but the Techmarine could be the greatest addition to Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 since executions turned fighting from a dull slog into an exciting display of combat prowess. I haven’t even played as the new class yet, and it already looks set to fix my biggest problem with the game so far.
But first, a caveat. I want to be fully transparent with everything I do as a columnist here at TheGamer—it’s a case of integrity. So, full disclosure: I’m an Iron Hands player. My first serious conversions were gluing Necron legs onto 4th edition Space Marines as crude bionics. I’ve built more Techmarines than I most players have ever seen on the tabletop, and that’s not even counting the Iron Fathers.
Put simply, I’m biased. I’ve been excited for the Techmarine since last year’s roadmap revealed the new class would be arriving with Patch 12. With Patch 12 almost upon us, Space Marine 2 developer Focus Entertainment looks to be using my favourite character to fix my biggest problem with the game.
Space Marine 2’s Techmarine’s Greatest Asset
The Techmarine has more weapons at their disposal than your average Space Marine owing to its servo harness. This is basically an exoskeletal backpack that grants Techmarines various numbers of additional limbs, each of which is equipped with a weapon or other armament to aid it on the battlefield. In the tabletop game, these can be anything from flamethrowers and hydraulic claws, to the techno-fied skulls of their forebears.
In the video game, they get a gun. A classic shooty-shooty. It’s not even a particularly special gun, although they give it a fancy name (the Servo-Gun). It’s a bog standard rifle that regular Space Marines carry into battle and everybody ditches as soon as they unlock something better in Space Marine 2. Why then, I hear you ask, is this boring old bang bang more exciting than the Omnissian Axe the Techmarine wields in battle?
I get what you’re saying. Who’d get more excited about a gun, even if it is situated on a mechanical arm, over a bespoke two-handed axe imbued with the power to detonate an alien’s head? A really big alien head? Or several alien heads at once? The answer, my friend, is its automated horde-killing potential.
Bring It Down
My favourite part of Space Marine 2 is killing big bugs. Thousand Sons traitors are too spongy for my liking and worst of all are the Tyranid masses. They make sense from both a lore and a gameplay standpoint — you need to fight through the chaff to get to the boss — but the little guys just do my nut in. The smaller the critter, the more annoying they are. Hormagaunts are the worst offenders, but any time I’m faced with a swirling mass of Rippers? Forget the honour of the Chapter, I’d rather paint ‘Fulgrim is a legend’ on my chest and step out of a drop pod on Medusa than face another measly scything talon.
The Servo-Gun, or Bonus Bolter as I like to call it, solves this problem. Instead of having to take down dozens, if not hundreds of grizzly bugs every round, this backpack-mounted bolt rifle does the work for you. An automated turret sat atop your Techmarine’s bulging pauldrons, it locks onto annoying chaff and shoots explosive rounds into their faces so you don’t have to. While you probably won’t be able to have this online all the time, I’m happy to invest all my perks into reducing cooldowns and maximising lethality so as to never have to look down my sights at another undersized ug for the rest of my days.
You may be reading this and think, “maybe this guy doesn’t actually like playing Space Marine 2.” You might be right. I haven’t touched the game in a good few months now, and with all my pals moved onto the dulcet AI-generated tones of Arc Raiders, playing with strangers is even more hit and miss. So when I do log on — which I will, for the Techmarine — I want to do the cool takedowns. I want to decapitate a Carnifex and defenestrate a Lictor. I want to see my Omnissian Axe glint in the sunlight as it slices clean through the chest of a gargantuan tunnelling monstrosity and turns it from a Trygon to a Try-gone.
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The Techmarine is clearly intended as a support class, and I won’t betray its battlefield role in search of glory. But at the same time as supporting my teammates, it will support my preferred playstyle, allowing me to focus my fingers on the most exciting of foes. After all, what’s an evening’s gaming without brutalising a Brobdingnagian bug?
