Analysis → Thousand Sons → Rubric Marines
Rubric Marines
Warhammer 40,000 11th edition · Thousand Sons · measured datasheet analysis
B naked at 11/20 in its codex — A once built (Sorcerer). Earns its slot in most lists.
The verdict
Rubric Marines are a B. Add an 80-point Sorcerer and they're an A. That's the whole review — the rest is me proving it, and telling you which flamers to glue.
Here's the frame: 100 points buys a wall that costs your opponent 391 points of shooting to remove. The guns are a rounding error until you decide who rides inside and what's in their hands. Two decisions. Both yours. Both measured below.
What 100 points actually buys
The 5-man brick holds 10 objective control per 100 points behind a ward that shrugs a third of everything armour-piercing was supposed to fix. Our durability gallery — 6 reference gun profiles, points versus points — says the enemy burns 391 points of firepower to clear 100 of yours. Only the Scarab brick beats that in this codex, and it costs nearly twice as much.
The fine print: 58% to pass a battle-shock test. Space-marine Leadership, nothing special. Drop below half strength at the wrong moment and that beautiful control number reads 0 until the next test. Plan the squad count around it — 1 squad of 10 puts all 20 control behind a single test; 2 squads of 5 never lose more than half of it to 1 bad roll.
- Ranged
- Melee
Computed at 5 models for 100 points, default loadout, against gallery v1.0.0.
One more thing the tier board can't say: the squad's sorcerer is the cheapest way the army rule gets cast. You're not buying 5 bodies. You're buying 4 bodies and a spell platform. Screen accordingly.
Flamers or boltguns? Here's the math
The option box lets any number of the 9 rank-and-file swap inferno boltguns for warpflamers. Per 100 points, into infantry:
- Boltguns: 8.6 at range, 8.8 up close. Steady. 24 inches of reach.
- Warpflamers ×9: 4.5 at range, 14.2 up close — +61% where it counts, -48% where it doesn't.
So the question is not "which gun is better". It's "where will this unit stand". Boltguns hold the midfield from cover and never move. Warpflamers want the enemy to come to them — and when someone charges your objective, torrent weapons hit automatically in Overwatch while boltguns are fishing for 6s. A flamer brick on a contested marker is a 1CP ambush the charger priced wrong.
The leader changes the answer, and the model measured it. A Sorcerer's lethal hits need hit rolls to crit: boltguns gain +8% up close, flamers +3% — auto-hits never crit, the buff mostly misses the flamer build. An Infernal Master's extra hits on 6s: boltguns +25%, flamers +8%. Every hit-roll buff in the codex pays the boltgun build first. Going flamers? You're buying the unit's own wall, not its ceiling.
And take the soulreaper cannon in every build: +15% into infantry, +33% into vehicles, for free. There's no argument on this one. Glue it.
Who rides inside
- Sorcerer, 80 points: 6s to hit wound automatically — +92% into vehicles, +20% into elites. The B-to-A button. This is the default.
- Infernal Master: +25% into everything. The flat-rate pick when your list already has anti-tank.
- Exalted Sorcerer: the ward climbs to 4+ for the whole unit. The anti-tank counter-punch starts bouncing. The durability pick.
The sequence costs nothing and pays every turn: pick the ritual's victim, cast, then shoot the same target. The cheap ritual lands 83% of the time and hands the whole army rerolls of 1 to hit into that victim. A unit that reads as a Battleline tax is, sequenced, a fire platform your opponent has to answer.
How you actually play them
Naked 5-man: park it on your home objective and forget it. That's 100 points doing 2 jobs — holding and casting — and it needs nothing from you.
Led 10-man: that's your midfield. Boltguns if it holds centre from cover. Warpflamers if your plan is "come and take it" — and in Rubricae Phalanx, the detachment adds 1 to their armour against small arms, so the massed-fire half of the incoming spectrum turns into paint while the flamers wait.
The 1 mistake the sheet punishes: buying them as a gunline and leaving the socket empty. The guns you paid for are average until the codex switches them on, and the switch costs 80 points.
Go put it on the table. Seriously.
The numbers behind it
| Measured, per 100 points spent on this unit | Value |
|---|---|
| Damage into light infantry Wounds the default guns and fists are expected to deal, in one full turn, to cheap 1-wound bodies — our reference horde and infantry targets. | 5.3 |
| Damage into elites Same measure against tough multi-wound infantry with good saves — think heavy armoured veterans and terminator-grade bodies. | 2.3 |
| Damage into vehicles Same measure against tanks and monsters — high toughness, many wounds. The anti-tank column of the codex. | 1 |
| Staying power Points of enemy shooting (averaged over 6 reference gun profiles) needed to put 100 points of this unit in the case. Higher = tougher per point. | 391.3 |
| Objective control Printed OC across the unit, per 100 points — raw ability to out-number an objective. Ties deny, so more total OC is how you take ground. | 10 |
| Nerve Chance (%) the unit passes a battle-shock test. Below half strength, a failed test zeroes its OC — a big squad with weak nerve can hold nothing at the worst moment. | 58% |
| Kill points conceded Victory points the enemy’s kill-based secondary missions can bank when this unit dies (big squads, big models and characters all pay extra). | 2 |
At 5 models for 100 points, default loadout. Modelled: 100% of this sheet's printed abilities carry a typed verdict.
- Ranged
- Melee
Computed at 5 models for 100 points, default loadout, against gallery v1.0.0.
Which guns? The options, priced
Same unit, same points — the option box changes what it kills and from where. Expected damage per 100 points: the default loadout against each printed option exercised in full. “At range” stands the target 24 inches out (short weapons contribute nothing); “up close” brings it inside short-weapon range, where rapid-fire and melta guns double down.
| Loadout | infantry, at range | elites, at range | vehicles, at range | infantry, up close | elites, up close | vehicles, up close |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default loadout | 8.6 | 3 | 1.5 | 8.8 | 3.1 | 1.5 |
| Inferno bolt pistol → Warpflame pistol | 8.6 | 3 | 1.5 | 9.4 | 3.3 | 1.6 |
| Inferno boltgun → Soulreaper cannon | 9.9 | 3.7 | 2 | 10.1 | 3.8 | 2 |
| Inferno boltgun → Warpflamer ×9 | 4.5 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 14.2 | 4.6 | 2.2 |
- Inferno boltgun → Soulreaper cannon: +15% into infantry up close, +15% at range, +33% into vehicles versus the default.
- Inferno boltgun → Warpflamer ×9: +61% into infantry up close, -48% at range, +47% into vehicles versus the default.
- Add Infernal Master and the close-range infantry numbers move: default +25% · Inferno bolt pistol → Warpflame pistol +22% · Inferno boltgun → Soulreaper cannon +26% · Inferno boltgun → Warpflamer ×9 +8%.
- Add Sorcerer and the close-range infantry numbers move: default +8% · Inferno bolt pistol → Warpflame pistol +7% · Inferno boltgun → Soulreaper cannon +8% · Inferno boltgun → Warpflamer ×9 +3%.
Computed at 10 models for 190 points, each option taken to its printed maximum with everything else at default. Options the parser cannot price are listed in the model's audit, never guessed.
Pairings that move the numbers
| Leader | Unit | Measured effect |
|---|---|---|
| Exalted Sorcerer | Rubric Marines | 4+ invulnerable save (Arcane Shield (Psychic)) |
| Infernal Master | Rubric Marines | +25% vs infantry, +25% vs elites, +25% vs vehicles |
| Sorcerer | Rubric Marines | +13% vs infantry, +20% vs elites, +92% vs vehicles |
Numbers re-derive from the published datasheet model (gallery v1.0.0, corpus snapshot 2026-05-09 23:42:21). Unit names are used nominatively; all characteristics shown are our own derived measurements.