With the full launch of Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 on Monday, legions of new Space Marines are joining the vanguard of early access players in the Eternal War multiplayer mode. We’ve been playing games and taking skulls alongside since the game mode went live on Friday, and we’re ready to share our hard-won lessons with the new recruits.
If you’re a Warhammer 40k fan first and a videogamer second, we urge you to give Space Marine 2’s PVP multiplayer mode a go – not least because it’s great. While reflexes do help, it’s designed so that being smart is as important as being quick, and knowing how each type of Marine fights in the lore will help you get to grips with their different abilities in multiplayer really quickly.
These five tactical axioms will help you fight better in Space Marine 2 Eternal War multiplayer:
1. Squad up
Space Marines rarely go down to a single shot, but in PVP mode they do still die quickly once their armor is breached. These two facts mean it’s very hard for a single player, no matter how skilled, to take on multiple enemies in a fair fight: the side with more numbers in a skirmish has the advantage. Try to engage the foe only when the odds are even, or in your favor, and be willing to wait for reinforcements before you commit.
2. Know your role
Each of the Space Marine 2 classes has a distinctive set of capabilities, determined by its loadout and its special ability. You will perform better when you play to your class’s strengths.
Tactical
Your Auspex Scan creates a zone that marks enemies and applies a damage multiplier to them. This greatly weakens enemies, great for softening them up when attacking. It can also deter them from taking certain routes to your position when you’re defending. You’re not particularly survivable, maneuverable, or deadly in melee, but you have a very flexible arsenal of guns and can take twice the grenades of most other classes.
Vanguard
Your Grapnel Launcher lets you zip around the map, or zip to an enemy, stunning and then landing a heavy attack on them – great for interrupting a Heavy or Tactical Marine’s shooting, or breaking a Bulwark’s guard. Your combat knife is effective against a single target, but you don’t have the reach or area damage of the Assault ‘s melee weapons, and you will be shot to pieces if your target has allies. You have surprisingly good short to mid range shooting. You can act as a line-breaker if you have support – otherwise, hit hard and fade away.
Bulwark
When you raise your Storm shield you become invulnerable to light attacks from the front. Your Chapter Banner creates a healing aura for your allies which can stiffen a defense or add longevity to an assault. You only have pistol weapons, and as you don’t have any movement abilities, your melee weaponry is mostly going to be used fending off enemy attackers. Bulwarks let your squad take objectives, hold objectives, and blunt enemy attacks.
Assault
Your Jump Pack lets you attack from routes unavailable to other classes, see more of the battlefield, and make devastating slam attacks onto enemies from above. You lack armor and die quickly if your foes get a clear shot – which includes every time you make a jump. Activate the jump pack when you’re sure the enemy’s attention is elsewhere, and don’t be shy about using your secondary weapons to shoot with if you’re too far away to attack in melee.
Sniper
Your Cameleoline cloak makes you invisible, letting you set ambushes or move around the map unseen. Your long-ranged weaponry can pick off enemies, but it’s slow to reload and struggles to respond to a Vanguard or Assault marine’s sudden charge, and is usually stopped dead by a Heavy’s Iron Halo or a Bulwark’s Storm Shield. While you may be physically isolated from your squad, you will be most effective if you act in support of them, as there will be more openings for you to deal lethal damage.
Heavy
You wield the biggest, most dangerous guns in the game: you can force enemies into cover or rip apart those in the open at medium ranges. The Iron Halo provides you with a temporary front facing barrier against enemy weapons fire, letting you stand out in the open for a great fire line for a short time. With no melee weapons, you’re very vulnerable to Vanguard and Assault marines, and your weaponry is too cumbersome to wield effectively at close ranges.
Swap classes
Each class has strengths and weaknesses. When different classes work together, you can cover for these weaknesses. Likewise, certain classes are better at exploiting the weakness in enemy classes than others.
If your squad is struggling with enemy Heavy and Tactical shooting locking you out of zones, check if the squad needs a Bulwark to tank shooting. If your opponent is negating your firepower with their own Bulwarks and Heavies, consider a Vanguard who can stagger them, or an Assault Marine who can strike from above. If you’re dying to enemy assaults, the flexible firepower of a Tactical Marine or the hidden threat of a Sniper can be an effective deterrent.
Maneuver
All the map areas have multiple entry points. If you only attack from the closest route to a given location, your opponents can easily form a cordon and blast you apart as you enter. Get around to their flanks or behind them and you can split their attention, negate directional defenses like the Bulwark’s Storm Shield and the Heavy’s Iron Halo, and tear them apart in a crossfire.
Co-ordinate
You will perform best when a whole squad brings its abilities to bear simultaneously. That’s hard to do unless you activate voice chat, but at a bare minimum, you should wait for allies to get into position before you launch an assault on an enemy position.
Capture and Control mode is the real test of this. There’s a single zone,a and once a team controls it they can muster all their troops in a single location. They will easily deal with piecemeal attacks, and need to be broken by a concerted assault from multiple angles.
While every class performs better when the squad is co-ordinated, this is more obvious for some than others: the Assault Marine puts itself at risk whenever it fires its jump pack, and relies on allies with better ranged weapons to keep the enemies’ heads down; the Sniper can get away with being a bit of a loner.
Wargamer has a separate guide to all the Space Marine 2 weapons, including the veterancy level you unlock them at: and for those of you playing the PVE mode as well, we have a guide to all the Space Marine 2 enemies.