Detachment Focus: 1st Company Task Force

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific Detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the 1st Company Task Force Detachment in Codex: Space Marines.

While there's recently been a glut of Chapter-specific variations on the 1st Company Task Force with the Hammer of Avernii and Emperor's Shield Detachments, we haven't yet covered the vanilla flavor of ice cream they all spring from. Today we're covering the most elite of the basic codex Detachments, the 1st Company Task Force, a Detachment focusing on Terminators and Veterans of all flavors.

Detachment Overview

Both the Hammer of Avernii and Emperor's Shield Detachments are pretty flat upgrades of this one, but if you want to run characters other than Caanok Var or Lysander, this is where you'll have to go to try out a veteran-themed Detachment. While that does open up loads more possibilities with list building, making up for those two characters is going to be a tall order.

The Video Version

If reading ain't your style and you'd rather hear my dulcet-adjacent tones, check out the video version below:

Detachment Rule: Extremis-Level Threat

Once per battle, in your Command phase, you can choose to use this ability. Until the start of your next Command phase, when models with the Oath of Moment ability attack your Oath of Moment target, you can re-roll the Wound roll.

The problem here should seem pretty immediate - you can only use this ability once. It should all but guarantee that one thing you wanted to kill is certainly dead, but you're really only getting one battle round of benefit out of your entire army rule. This is a great opportunity to fish for Devastating Wounds with your Sternguard and Thunder Hammer-equipped models, but once your target's dead or the battle round's over, you're back to not having a Detachment rule.

Ultramarines Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields. Credit: SRM

Enhancements

The Enhancements are decent, with a solid mix of durability, attack power, and objective control. Only Fear Made Manifest is a true dud.

The Imperium's Sword — Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of the bearer’s melee weapons. Once per battle, at the start of any phase, you can use this Enhancement to give the whole unit +1 attack to its melee weapons for a phase. Fine on Assault Terminators where you need +1 attack on the hammers.
Rites of War — TERMINATOR model only. The model gets +1 OC and once per game the unit the character is attached to can get +1 OC as well. Solid on a unit of something like Terminators where getting them to OC 2 in a pinch – or 3 with an ancient – can flip an objective.
Fear Made Manifest (Aura) — When an enemy unit (non-MONSTER, non-VEHICLE) within 6” of the bearer fails a Battle-shock test, one model in that unit is destroyed. Once per battle, when they fail a test, you can make it D3 models instead. This is really funny if you can have it go off on something like a character below half wounds but it’s too unreliable to ever see real use.
Iron Resolve — TERMINATOR model only. The bearer has a 5+ Feel No Pain, and, once per game, can give their unit a 5+ Feel No Pain for a phase. If you want to make a tanky Terminator Captain and a nigh-indestructible brick of 10 Terminators, this is what you'll wanna do. Note that the Terminator Chaplain hands out a 4+ Feel No Pain against Mortal Wounds already, so it might not be as useful on him.

Black Templars Bladeguard Captain. Credit: SRM

Stratagems

All of these outside Armour of Contempt and Dropship Extraction can only be used on Terminators, Bladeguard, Sternguard, and Vanguard Veterans

Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) — Used in your opponent’s Shooting or the Fight phase to worsen the AP of attacks against your unit for a single activation. It's a classic for a reason, and can get some extra mileage in an army built around 2+ saves.
Heroes of the Chapter (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) — TERMINATOR, STERNGUARD, BLADEGUARD, or VANGUARD only. Gives the unit +1 to Hit if they're below starting strength, and +1 to Wound if they're below half strength. This punishes your opponent for pinging off a random model with incidental fire, as your Terminators or Bladeguard swinging on 2+ is reasonably scary, though by the time you're getting +1 to Wound, your squad is likely too damaged to be effective. Obviously best on bigger units.
Terrifying Proficiency (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) — TERMINATOR, STERNGUARD, BLADEGUARD, or VANGUARD only. Used in the Fight phase on one unit that Charged and destroyed an enemy unit this phase. In your opponent's following Command phase, every enemy unit within 6" of yours must take a Battle-shock test, subtracting 1 if they're below half strength. There's a few hoops to jump through to make this one work, and it happens in place of any normal Battle-shock tests instead of stacking with them, so its use is limited. You might get lucky if you've got a squad in the middle of your opponent's army though, and the timing means it could deny some objective scoring.
Duty and Honor (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) — TERMINATOR, STERNGUARD, BLADEGUARD, or VANGUARD only. Sticky an objective. Great for your elite, melee-heavy force to allow them to move around the table.
Orbital Teleportarium (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) — TERMINATOR only. At the end of your Opponent’s Fight phase you can remove one unit that is outside of engagement range from the table and put it back in reserves, where it will arrive in your following Movement phase. It's handy, but since it has to arrive in your next Movement phase, you can't hold onto units for later, which slightly limits its use. Still, it could be good for an annoying Terminator Ancient to do some objective play.
Legendary Fortitude (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) — TERMINATOR, STERNGUARD, BLADEGUARD, or VANGUARD only. Select one unit that was the target of a Charge move. For the rest of the turn, each time that unit is targeted by an attack, subtract the Damage by 1. This is almost a great stratagem, but is too situational to count on. Against an army with loads of multi-Damage melee units like Knights, this can be fantastic. Into any sort of Shooting-heavy army, you're not likely to get to use it at all. If you can tee it up right though, it'll make your Terminators or Bladeguard a brick wall.

Bladeguard. Credit: Rockfish

Playing This Detachment

The biggest thing you'll need to work around is your Detachment ability. Planning when to pull the trigger on it will be what can decide victory or defeat for your army. There are some natural targets for this - a huge infantry deathstar, tough vehicle like a Rogal Dorn Commander, Dominus Knight, or even a Titan in a more thematic game - but if you don't manage to kill that target in the turn you pull Extremis-Level Threat, it'll all be for nothing. Of course if your opponent has several units like this, making that decision will be difficult, and you'll want to ensure the maximum number of units can take advantage of it. Worse is if you're up against an army that maybe doesn't have anything worth using those Wound re-rolls. You're not gonna need much help cracking a bunch of Drukhari Venoms full of 5-man infantry squads, and any commitment of that ability will feel like overkill.

Most of the Stratagems and Enhancements want you running bigger Veteran units to benefit from them. After all, getting bonuses to damage output when you're below starting strength means a lot more on nine Terminators than it does on four. Leaning into that durability and playing the objectives is gonna be the strategy here, and ideally a unit with a Captain will be stickying an objective with Duty and Honour every turn. Start a Veteran squad with a Captain on an objective, sticky it first turn, then hop in a transport parked conveniently nearby and rush off to the next one. Alternately, a deep striking Terminator squad - even one pulled up with Orbital Teleportarium - could drop in and do the same on midfield objectives or even in your opponent's deployment zone if they left it open.

As this Detachment isn't locked to a character or faction like its remakes, it does leave options open to try it with more chapter-specific units. That means Space Wolves and Dark Angels can put up some good results here, as their specific Terminator units can take advantage of the various buffs the 1st Company Task Force offers. Unfortunately, other chapter-specific units like Inner Circle Companions, Sword Brethren, and Headtakers don't get much out of this, as they lack the BLADEGUARD, VANGUARD, or STERNGUARD keywords.

Strengths

Versatility. Stratagems range from buffs to durability and damage output to sticky objectives, all of which enhance your units and help adapt to your needs on the board.
Objective Play. Rights of War is a handy OC buff, while sticky objectives and uppy-downy stratagems play nicely with Terminators' Deep Strike abilities.
Terminators. There's a decent support here to make your Terminators better at what they do, and those benefits aren't locked to any single type of Terminator unit.

Weaknesses

Limited Use. The Detachment rule really only works for a single full battle round, and only against a single target.
Elite. Your army is going to be low model count to boost your Terminator and Veteran units, and every casualty will hurt.
Outclassed. This is outclassed by the Emperor's Shield and Hammer of Avernii Detachments, and those are in turn outshined by Gladius for its versatility and strength.

Imperial Fists Terminator Assault Squad. Credit: Jack Hunter

A Sample List

We're going to wait on a sample list for the time being, as with the new Assault Terminators (and Terminator-armored Marneus Calgar) we might see some new opportunities emerge for this Detachment. Watch this space!

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, this feels like watching the rough draft predecessor to a more refined remake. Of the Detachments in the base Space Marine codex, this definitely languishes behind most of the rest, in large part to having something of a dud for its Detachment rule. There's still some good tools in the Stratagems and Enhancements, and it's clear what the designers want you to do with it, but only having your Detachment rule for a single turn is a real bummer. Maybe down the line it'll get rebalanced to bring it in line with some of the other variant lists, but for now, 1st Company is decidedly second rate.

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