Templars' Guide on How NOT to suck at Bulwark

Table of Contents

Basics
Healing Economy and Invigorating Icon
Weapons Overview

Melee
Ranged
Your Shield

Loadouts/Builds

Without Prestige
With Prestige

Synergy With Other Classes

Tactical
Assault
Vanguard
Sniper
Heavy

Survival on Ruthless+/Carrying Your Team
Terminus Group Healing For Recently Graduated Apothecaries
Terminii and How to Solo Each Because Your Team is Twiddling Their Thumbs or They’re Dead

Carnifex
Helbrute
Tyrant
Trygon
Neurothrope

Random Bits of Knowledge They Don’t Teach You
Solo Survival on Lethal+
Guide to Fighting Chaos: Enemy by Enemy
How to Squish Bugs Like a Pro: Guide to Fighting Tyranids, Enemy by Enemy
Epilogue

Basics

The Bulwark Tenets

- Stem the tide of the horde before it can reach your Brothers - Your faith may be your shield...but YOU are theirs:

The Bulwark is a FRONTLINE tank. Unlike other classes, incoming melee attacks are a means to deal significant damage to a well specced bulwark. Your shield is a way to, at worst, nullify incoming ranged fire and at best reflect it to enemies surrounding you which includes some otherwise unblockable attacks. Remember, as long as the Horde or the legions of Chaos are focused on you they are not focused on them.

- keep your Brothers stocked - The Emperor provides...through your selflessness and guidance.

In general a Bulwark is less reliant on items and drops. While this might depend on playstyle you only have a sidearm while your sword and shield will do the vast majority of the heavy lifting. Let your brothers have the supplies.

- Keep your Brothers Standing - No Astartes falls under your watch. There is no greater honor.

Being team Healer is not mandatory…but at the same time, Bulwark is the only healer class in the game (subject to possible change in the future) ignoring that out of some sort of misguided principle is not exactly wise.

*Remember: “As the Emperor is my shield, so am I for my brothers!”

- Protected the Gene-seed. - You are the best equipped to endure the vicissitude of the battlefield and protect the future of your chapter.

Perhaps alongside the sniper, but for different reasons, bulwark is the one class best suited to carry the prized progenoids. Tankiness and survivability are built into the class.

Healing Economy and Invigorating icon

This would be a good place to talk about one of the most important facets of the Bulwark class, Healing.

While the Vanguard class can heal themselves Adrenaline Rush) and indirectly allow the team to heal themselves (Unmatched Zeal), the Bulwark is the only class that can directly heal themselves and the team using the Chapter Banner ability paired with the Invigorating Icon perk. While most players should be 100% familiar with the healing mechanics the old latin motto still

How does “standard” healing work? Unless you are a Vanguard your sole means of healing is a Medicae Stim. The Stim will heal a portion of your health (less and less as difficulty increases bottoming out at 30% on ruthless and above). Up until now this is nothing that has not been done in video games countless times but it changes when you apply the Contested Health Mechanic
Contested Health. Similarly to some recent games (such as Lords of the Fallen) when Damage is applied to you the red Health bar will give way to a white bar which will soon begin to slowly fade, that is called Contested Health. While this white bar is visible you can restore the lost health by dealing damage to an opponent. The Amount of Contested Health refunded to you depends on the weapon used, the enemy it was used on and the type of damage. (more below)
Sitms and Contested Health. Popping a Stim while contested health is in play will refund ALL contested health AND…heal 30% of your health bar on top of that. Tis means if you are at 50% health and take damage that brings your red bar to 25% and IMMEDIATELY pop a stim you will heal all contested health plus 30% bringing you back to 80% full health. If you wait for the contested health to fade the stim will only bring you back up to 55%
Stims and Mortal Wounds: A Mortal wound is a status that comes into play when you have been incapacitated and revived too many times (ruthless and above just once is sufficient). Being incapacitated again means you will be out of the game for a certain amount of time depending on the operation’s difficulty setting. “Overhealing” is the act of healing using a Stim for more health than you have lost (so for instance using a stim when you are 80% health). Overhealing while you have a mortal wound will REMOVE it. 1% over maximum health will trigger this.

So how does this work with the Invigorating icon? Let’s look

Invigorating Icon: Perhaps the most talked about perk in the game, Invigorating icon is triggered by dropping the Chapter banner and it will bring ALL team members in its AOE to full contested health (on top of all other banner benefits). This gives the player a chance to convert the contested health into FULL health either through damaging opponents. Since you will not always be able to set up executions for your brothers and/or be able to make it near them in time to take advantage of a specific instance you will need to know how Contested Health is refunded in order to strategically pick the best moment to drop the banner to heal someone if that is your intent.
How to Effectively regain contested Health: not all ways of regaining contested health are created equal, the only common basic is “do damage - > refund contested health”

- Executions: Executions will refund ALL contested health available. All of it. They will even freeze it and “lock it in” for the duration of the animation. This is the safest, surest way to refund contested health. If a Bulwark is sitting by an execution and pinging it for you that means he is trying to fully heal you that way. Killing a minoris pouncing on you (blue attack) COUNTS AS AN EXECUTION. So, if in need of healing you can wait for a minoris blue prompt, drop the banner, then hit parry and you will be rewarded with a full contested health refund. Of course while possible to do this for one of your brothers but because you are not able to see your brother’s prompts this might be a tad hard to pull off.

- Gun Strikes: Lethal Gun strikes are as good as executions (on anything besides minoris). Non lethal gun strikes refund incrementally more damage depending on who you hit. From lowest to highest Minoris, Majoris, Extremis, Terminus, Boss (yes there is a difference). The Amount of contested health refunded in such a manner depends on the gun used. This method is really only useful for the Bulwark. For instance, fighting the Trygon prime solo I (u/CrimzonSorrowz) have occasionally perfect-dodged a dive attack, dropped the banner and immediately did the gun strike which refunded ALL my health. Much harder to time with a brother tho.

- Melee Damage: not the best way in general BUT some weapons have built in ways to make the process easier. The power sword for instance with “power restoration” or “speed restoration” allows to double the refunded contested health via power sword. Especially effective is “Power Restoration”. Being swarmed and performing power mode attacks at a group of minoris will de facto allow you to out-do any damage coming your way (save for massive one shot damage like special attacks). In general, if swarmed back to back with your wounded brother DROP THE BANNER. The regenerating armor will protect their health and their melee damage will refund the newly gained contested health. Hopefully they are aware of which attacks and enemies help the most.

- Ranged Damage: This can be a VERY effective way to refund contested health…or an absolute waste of time. In general, single shot side arms on minoris will be a waste of time, high power damage weapons on majoris/extremis/terminus (headshot with a sniper rifle, several bolt rifle shot, charged plasma bolts) will refund almost instantly a VERY large chunk of health, in some cases even 100% in one hit. Sustained fire or AOE weapons (HBR, Melta, Plasma) aimed at a crowd will yield AMAZING returns. In other words, Dropping the banner ahead of a battle while staring down a whole CROWD of enemies majoris and minoris virtually guarantees a full heal as long as your brothers have the proper weapons and ammo available and just open up on them (so…give them the heads up on Vox perhaps).

-Grenades, Environmental Damage and Indirect Damage: These DO NOT refund contested health, do not waste your time.

Lesser Know Banner Mechanics: There are a couple more mechanics that are independent from the ones described above but are immensely important and worth knowing

- Terminus full team heal: this is described below, it is complex and requires synergy and communication, thus, it has its own section

- Banner + Stim Wombo Combo: if your brother is at low health and a has a mortal wound BUT he has/you find a stim you have the right conditions to remove his mortal wound. Because the Banner gives full contested health a brother can immediately pop a stim after the banner has been dropped thus over-healing and wiping off the mortal wound. I cannot stress enough how little this combination is known. Be vocal, warn your brothers of what you are doing in chat or on vox before executing

- Banner Rez: By using Rejuvenating effect you can resurrect a downed teammate. The main use of this is to insta-rez someone in a hectic situation but ALSO this stacks with invigorating icon so, if you have both your brother will be rezzed with full contested health allowing your Brother to immediately use a stim, overheal (see above), and remove the mortal wound or fully heal if you have set him up with the opportunity to refund the contested health (Visual Aid video Banner Rez )

Weapons Overview

Melee

POWER SWORD: The Power Sword used to be the class specific bulwark weapon, part of its identity and as such unique in its nature. The only weapon as of patch 7 with two modes, power and speed.

Each mode has its uses and switching between the two is not merely recommended but pretty much a necessity or else you would be severely hampering yourself. The special attacks, power rake and power whirl can be performed in each “stance” without limitations. Power Rake Stuns Enemies, with the right perk it de-buffs them and causes extra damage (increased by prestige perk) AND it breaks guard, this last part is exceedingly important when fighting bone sword warriors. Power Whirl is an AOE attack on the other hand most useful for creating breathing room but it will also obliterate barbed wires the importance of which cannot be overstated. Like Power Rake, Power Whirl will stun and break guard.

Speed Style is ideal for 1v1 encounters and boss battles, swipes are targeted, quick and easy to interchange with special attacks (especially Power Rake). Taking the momentum gain perk is highly recommended. Speed Style allows for an air dash attack from sprinting which allows you to cover a lot of ground and will stun multiple enemies as long as they are lined up and will also proc gun strikes on affected minoris.
Power Style is the mobbing style, each swipe will proc gun strikes on minoris and it will allow you to mow down your way from point a to point b. The second most appealing feature is that if paired with the Power Style contested Health refund perk simply swinging away ar a group of minoris will allow you to out-damage a lot of incoming damage should your armor break

Chainsword: The slower brother of the power sword, chainswords have good crowd control thanks to its access to the Stomp skill (which can be even more easily accessed if you put on the Full Throttle perk and learn how to animation skip, which will let you skip the first light attack that is needed in order to access stomp, so you can just do two quick attacks and immediately stomp).

The Artificer Block variant of the chainsword has comparable speed to the Relic Fencing Power Sword (this is no longer applicable as of patch 8.0), however, do keep in mind that if you take a block variant weapon, you will not have access to gun strikes that parrying offers you.

Power Fist

How to properly describe the power fist… well, imagine having a melta strapped to your arm that requires charging time. That is the jist of it. It has the highest damage output per shot than any other weapon but it is less versatile and very much high risk high reward.

I sincerely do not recommend using the Fencing or balanced variants, the power fist is all about the block variant to maximize the damage. The block Variant, like every block weapons, is less versatile than fencing in a number of cases, such as instances which require multiple consecutive parries or parrying minoris enemies but the upside is that adrenaline stacks will make up for it once discharged, mostly. Being surrounded by minoris can be problematic if defensive advantage is not ready to proc but if you build 2 stacks you can discharge them with a shield bash or a shield rush for breathing room and armor replenishment.

Yes it is slow as molasses but used right it will massacre hordes of enemies at once and melt bosses. The one drawback is that in order for you to do the insane amounts of damage you see in certain videos, certain stars need to align properly (yes, Pyre cannon DOT and debuff + damage focused Auspex + fully charged attacks = melted boss)

The above perk tree is what I settled with but in reality the 3 most important perks are the increased charging speed (you will rely on charged attacks because the regular ones are SLOW and do not pack a lot of punch all considered), the increased wave range and the last perk of the top row for an extra 50% damage.

This weapon does NOT pair well with the hard tank build, this should be used with the Shock Trooper build. Why? Because you will NOT be making a lot of use of amor reinforcements (no gun strikes on blocks because of the adrenaline stacks)

There will be instances where you will likely take damage while charging, on higher difficulties that might cost you all of your armor but chances are if you aimed right you will have MANY majoris in execution state waiting to replenish it. Oh, unique to the power fist is the fact that you won’t be able to be knocked down if you are charging your attack

When seeing a horde heading your way STOP, do not charge at them but stay and charge your attack, it has a reach of 8 meters, and let it go while they are charging you. Pretty much all majoris in the AOE will be downed

Don’t play chicken with Snipers…

Thunder Hammer

The weird sibling of bulwark’s melee weapons, big damage, slow swing speed, while he does have perks that synergize with it, bulwark lacks the mobility that is needed to make up for the slow speed of the thunder hammer, as such the playstyle requires something like a bastardized version of a vanguard and assault. Do not stay in one place, always relocate before executing big bonk.

Utilizing perks changed in the bulwark perk tree for the TH is highly recommended (pair with defensive buffs and area denial), because you are effectively a much weaker assault without the jump pack.

Power Axe:

The power Axe is basically a slightly less versatile power sword with a trick up its sleeve. On the surface the weapon is marketed as being more effective against single targets, and that it is, but it does have mobbing capabilities.

The Power Swings can be linked into combos indefinitely and with the right set up it can be quite good at taking down hordes of minoris but in doing so one would be neglecting what makes the weapon special for a bulwark which is the backstep.

After a successful perfect parry the weapon goes into a “power stance”. Holding the melee attack will result in a back step maneuver, which, as the name implies, allows you to take a step away from the enemy you just parried and get in a bonus attack before the gun strike. With the right perk this can become TWO bonus attacks with an AOE explosion on the second one as well.

All in all a very viable weapon which does neither mobbing or dueling as well as the power sword (the power sword is faster, has slightly higher damage and power stance and power whirl are superior for mobbing) but has a clear advantage in the counterattack department

Ranged

Heavy Bolt Pistol (u/Abyssal_Paladin): My favorite utility tool, pops minoris skulls, good enough to be an actual source of damage to a point where you can actually use it to take down a bulwark’s biggest enemy (Zoanthropes). Pick all of the ones that will boost headshot damage and take the variant that gives you more ammo and combine it with his prestige perk that gives overall more ranged damage and you’ll actually be able to do damage to the evil flying beanstalks even if you don’t have a sniper on the team (snipers will still be your best friend when in the case of dealing with multiple thropes, especially when you are doing absolute, because snipers can easily one shot delete each thrope if they spawn in the triplet of doom).

HBP also has a surprisingly good amount of contested health regeneration, especially post nerf for the plasma pistol, so you can absolutely just mag dump into the nearest majoris if you get accidentally slapped by a sniper to lose most of your HP.

Bolt Pistol (u/Abyssal_Paladin): The little pea shooter when compared to its meaner cousin. However, BP does beat out HBP when it comes to accuracy, allowing you to take advantage of sniper’s Squad Renewal perk. But outside of that, I don’t really think there is a reason to take BP over HBP, due to it now having such a niche use when compared to HBP which can easily out damage it while having similar amount of ammo.

Plasma Pistol (u/CrimzonSorrowz): This is the Bulwark’s best friend. While recently nerfed like all other plasma weapons (twice mind you, through a rework of perks and a reduction in contested health refunds) it still is by far the most useful and synergic weapon in the kit. The Plasma pistol has the highest Gun-strike damage potential which, as a bulwark, you will rely on a lot. Bonus on the gun strike, it counts as a CHARGED shot which is affected by charged shot related perks and causes AOE damage. A Gun strike on a minoris will indeed kill multiple ones, a gun strike on a majoris will also damage adjacent units. While shot per shot it might not be on the same level damage wise the Charged Shot mechanic changes that. Charged Shots cause massive damage although at the cost of more Ammo. They can refund a LOT of contested Health (depending on the enemy you hit...you do not want to use that on minoris, it is a waste) and a single hit is enough to cancel a reinforcement call which makes it a sure shot…unless you miss. This is the reason why I always suggest taking any perks that increase the charging time speed, the faster you are at full charge the faster you can regain contested health (with less faded bar) and the faster you can halt calls. Remember, a side arm to a bulwark is more of a tool than a DPS instrument.

Volkite Pistol (u/Abyssal_Paladin): It’s in a special spot. Pre-HBP era it would be the best weapon for taking down thropes and stopping reinforcement calls all in one weapon, but nowadays it’s only really good for killing bosses due to its insane reach/% based burn buildup, and stopping rein-calls since it can reach across the field so long as you still have a view of the enemy (HBP requires mag dumping into their skulls for consistent halting on reins).

It’s a good tool against bosses, as I mentioned before, especially against a Neuro who largely remains stationary (making it easy to build up burn especially if someone else on your team also has volkite), because with the more melee oriented bosses (carni/tyrant/helbrute), it’s a lot easier for a bulwark to just face them down in melee combat instead of hanging back and hoping for volkite buildup (melee strats will be added in a later section).

SHIELD

Your Shield is a tool unlike ANY OTHER. Besides having quite a few synergizing perks, which are described in the appropriate section, it can, as a default, protect a Bulwark from ALL sorts of incoming damage including from sources one would assume otherwise.

Holding the Block-Parry button will raise your shield. Standard sprint will ALSO raise your shield making you able to charge while deflecting incoming fire. Should you issue another command while sprinting (like switching power sword stance) you will lower your shield and it will need to be raised again.

Below is a list of all attacks that can or cannot be blocked with your shield

Ranged and Melee Attacks from minoris: full protection (both gaunts and cultists)

Ranged attacks and REGULAR (no red prompt) melee from majoris: full protection

Sniper Shots: Full Protection ( you will soak it and reel back unless you have armored advance)

ALL blue prompt attacks- full protection but will reel in some cases unless you have armored advance

All orange prompts attacks- no protection (few exception below)

Patch 10 ADDENDUM: As of Patch 10 a new move has been added. Shield Rush. Shield Rush allows a bulwark to dash forward and slam into an opponent covering significant ground while remaining protected from all forward incoming harm

Shield Rush

Note that Shield BASH perks apply to shield rush too as well as the overcharge prestige perk. Focused Strength is especially effective

Zoanthropes green ball attacks- FULL PROTECTION even though it is announced with an orange warning but you will reel unless you have Armored Advance. There are 2 versions of this attack. The direct one you can tank. The one that looks like it gets lobbed in the air in an arch and drops on the ground can still get you with splash damage. You have to take those attacks on. The shield. If they hit the ground besides you, you will be damaged

Zoanthropes beams - no protection.

Neurothropes Ball projectiles, same as Zoans, full protection if directly hitting your shield but id hitting besides you they will damage you. Lightning, pulses and beams...no protection

Carnifex spikes - full protection. If he is above you (say on an incline) high enough the spikes might go OVER your shield and hit you

Rubric Bolter: full protection

Rubric Bolter orange attack: Full protection

Rubric Flamer: full protection

Rubric Flamer orange attacks (both) no protection

Terminator assault cannon: full protection

Terminator missiles: no protection

Sorcerer's beam and salvo: full protection AFTER PATCH 10 this is a NO PROTECTION attack

Tzangor thrown spear: full protection

Tzangor ORANGE thrown spear: no protection because it's AOE once it hits the ground

Helbrute plasma cannon : no protection

Spores and skulls: no protection

Vortex Beast Barrage: Full Protection

Vortex Beast Lasers: No Protection

Loadouts/Builds

Preface: There are perks we consider universally useful and must-have.

The first being The Team Perk Advanced Conditioning. This is by far the most beneficial team perk in the kit. Absolutely invaluable especially when your brothers have contested health regain perks.

The Second is Invigorating Icon. more on it later on but it is considered by some the most valuable perk in the kit (to some, in the game). While by no means an absolute necessity it is insanely powerful for YOU and your team. A little more complicated is the Choice of the signature perk. The authors of this guide agree on the use of Armored Advance, the ability to tank harder hits without knockback and loss of control is invaluable especially while charging or deflecting heavy ranged attacks with the shield…but at the same time Emergency Countermeasure is basically Defensive Advantage on a slightly longer cooldown but triggered by losing all armor…it synergizes quite well with this build. As an added bonus it WILL be triggered by the ambush of an extremis (lictor, ravener, terminator) and effectively knock them off upon activation as if a teammate intervened.

Defensive Mastery is, as of patch 7, less useful than it used to be. Intimidating aura has the same effect for most enemies on a 5 seconds cooldown with the exception of some extremis. While the ability to take down ANY extremis with a single parry/block is amazing on paper it can be wasted way too easily on a random majoris just before the arrival of an extremis because there is no way to manually activate it.

Without Prestige

Shock Trooper: Shock Trooper might be the most aggressive bulwark build. Focusing on sustained AOE damage and clearing hordes quickly.

Intimidating aura: (a must) as of patch 7 intimidating aura does enough damage to send nearly all Majoris and even some extremis enemies into execution state upon successful parry/block. This is in a 5 meters AOE which means multiple majoris will fall at the same time in the right conditions. Double Parry Kill

Defensive Advantage: every 30 seconds a successful parry/block will detonate a 5 seconds shock grenade on your position causing massive AOE…leading into

Shock and awe: Anything within an electrical field takes extra %damage from all sources, needless to say when these 3 perks line up at the same time the result is an exterminatus level event in your proximity. Entire hordes of majoris and minoris will simply drop like flies within moments. This also applies to shock grenades and to ANY incoming damage including that caused by your teammates synergizing quite well with Auspex scans

The next two perks are quite subjective, while I prefer Focused Strength for Shield bash purposes (so it can generate gun strikes and push back minoris) and Rejuvenating Effects (Rezzing Brothers with full contested health upon banner drop is exceedingly effective Banner Rez Plus Heal Banner Rez Plus Heal 2) Purity of Purpose and Rapid Regeneration are completely valid…in this build ESPECIALLY purity of purpose (which will cause another layer of AOE-DOT when the banner is dropped, As well as inspiration and merciless resolve.

This build, while weapon agnostic, benefits from the use of blocking weapons especially if replacing armored advance for emergency countermeasure, more details in the next section

Hard Tank: Hard Tank is the most durable build for the bulwark. Focusing on sustainability over the AOE perks

While Intimidating aura remains the kernel of a bulwark’s offensive capabilities this build switches shock and awe for Armor of contempt and Defensive Advantage for Armor Reinforcements.

Armor of contempt allows the reflection of ranged damage onto nearby enemies, as of patch 6 the damage output scales with difficulty making it even more effective especially against range spamming enemies like Terminators (and chaos in general, because of the reliance on ranged attacks).

Armor reinforcements: This is THE tank perk. Each non lethal gun strike refunds armor. I cannot stress enough what kind of boon for survivability this perk is. Each perfect parry, each perfect dodge (with minor exceptions). You will be doing a LOT of parrying and with this perk each parry (or almost each one) will result in massive damage to the attacker, proc a gun strike which will refund armor and cause MORE damage and most likely proc an execution which will result in yet another armor segment being refunded.

Because of this very perk this build basically begs the use of FENCING weapons since blocking weapons do not offer gun strikes upon block.

With Prestige (I-IV)

(As of 8.0, Bulwark gets access to Thunder Hammer, I tried to arrange a build that works the best with this new weapon as using a hammer removes bulwark’s shield).

Thunder Warrior focuses on using banner for defense and area denial. Survives best when paired with teammates, because you gave up a shield for the big bonk hammer. Your face is not a valid shield option.

Due to the lack of a shield with this build, Armor of Contempt and Masterful Defense both go out the window.

Intimidating Aura still works, and helps synergize with your lean into AOE damage and area denial.
In place of Armor of Contempt, I used Scrambled Targeting, stacking defense in lieu of using a shield.
The following perks have been reworked to synergize with Thunder Hammer, I would recommend equipping all of them to make most of the weapon: Concussive Force and Merciless Resolve, both of which boost your melee damage.
While theoretically, you can use Focused Restoration to boost your armor restore, I stuck with using Advanced Conditioning, which perk you take in this category is absolutely up to you. I have not tested it with FR, but it might work better than Advanced Conditioning due to one of the abovementioned perks dropping Invigorating Icon.

Icon is very nice to have, but without a shield, you’ll need the buffs provided by the banner for longevity in battle. Also without Masterful Defense, banner cooldown is VERY long, thus lowering its usefulness.

Yes, you could argue that it is good if you have squad members that provide ability cooldown speed. I myself however, like to formulate builds that can survive with or without a team, because operations can and will get messy, especially on higher levels (and Siege Mode is even messier), where you will need to survive solo until your brothers can actually reach you.

Synergy w/ Other Classes

Tactical

Similar to sniper, a fully specced out Tact can be a bulwark’s best friend, albeit with less survivability than sniper due to Tact not exactly having a way to regain contested health easily (Plasma Incin. Tact does not count). However, with Tact having auspex, it normally should not be a problem for him to delete everything before they can truly pose a danger. And much like sniper, tact can help with deleting enemies that bulwark often has more trouble dealing with (namely the evil brain bugs, the flying beanstalks of bullshittery: the thropes triplets).

I have personally always found it the easiest to synergize with a tact by following behind him, covering his back and that will also give him the opening to use his auspex on a larger crowd around the next corner or room to make deleting them far easier. Stand back to back with your tactical brother when the waves come, then let your chosen melee weapon sing.

Assault

The most annoying class to try and heal due to thunder hammer’s kill frames being so off (this will be covered in more detail in a later section). Between vanguard and assault, it’s hard to pick who is harder to synergize with due to their extremely high mobility and often love of diving face first into a crowd of enemies with complete disregard for his own safety. While a well timed banner with Invig Icon can let an assault completely restore health off of a single ground pound, the biggest challenge of working with any assault is trying to keep up with them (comment from A_P: Also because I rarely see a god tier Assault brother, due to just how stupidly hard it is to be a good Assault player. We salute you for your service).

Vanguard

One of the more difficult brothers to work with, but generally you can expect them to be probably outside of your range at all times. Keep an eye on their HP bar and make sure to take a look at their team perk.

Vanguards with Zeal + the level 25 signature perk Adrenaline Surge are almost good enough that you won’t need to worry about guarding them too much, a wave of majoris is literally just a bunch of health waiting for them to consume. However, do keep in mind that some vanguard brothers will let the thirst of battle consume them and end up knee deep in shit that you will have to bail them out of, this is standard practice, don’t get annoyed at your brother for it.

Sniper

A bulwark’s best friend. A properly kitted out sniper can handle enemies that bulwark often has trouble dealing with (or difficult to deal with without compromising his own defensive power), and can be basically invulnerable if paired with an Apothecary Bulwark thanks to Purification (sniper lvl 6 perk) restoring all contested health upon use, and Squad Renewal (10% ability back on headshot) which could be invaluable for bulwarks who have yet to prestige.

Comment from u/Abyssal_Paladin: Masterful Defense Perk is better than Inner Fire and Squad Renewal Combined because of how completely busted it is. Even without the bug that enables friendly fire to refill it, just parking in front of a minigun terminator or a squad of ranged Tyranids or flamethrower Rubric can earn you back your flag in under a minute if situation permits. Regardless of if you run Apothecary Bulwark or just Bulwark without healing capability, you can use this to spam your flag placements… If Masterful Defense is Inner Fire at home, it’s Gordon Ramsey waiting for you at home ready to make a five star dinner. (possible video proof ? https://packaged-media.redd.it/qof07vhnlmve1/pb/m2-res_1080p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1748052000&s=3897328b73e33366095e722366f1936a80e40949)

Stick to the side of the field or generally just outside of your sniper teammate’s view, generally try to provide an open vantage point for your sniper so they can take out majoris tier enemies to provide easy mop up. CQC specced snipers are different, they can usually clear out a good chunk of majoris by themselves in close range, so in this case, stay a healthy distance (re: not so close all your brother can see is your helmet in their HUD) close and make sure they don’t get swarmed, snipers only have two bars of armor and the fencing knife is not an often pick.

Heavy

One of the easiest classes to synergize with, regardless of what build they are running. Your job as a bulwark is to pin the horde away from your team heavy, so they can provide support/suppressive fire. If you choose to take Invig. Icon with you, do not wait for the heavy to do an execution, drop it next to him while he’s firing into a wave and it can heal him just as finely as if he’s done an execution.

Try and stay out of his firing lane by being aware of where he is as well as what weapons he is using. Heavy Bolter users tend to like to hang back and aim for the bigger targets that are the majoris+ enemies, whereas Heavy Plasma will lob shots aimed at the most highly clustered groups of enemies, and multi-melta will likely be in the middle of the fight like you yourself are.

Survival on anything higher than Ruthless + team carrying (aka how to survive “LAST BROTHER STANDING” situations without losing your shit and the gene seed in your pocket while your brothers are looking at you)

This particular part gets its own section since it’s fundamentally different from soloing anything higher than Ruthless, because human teammates are much more capable than bots and you will be truly alone during a Last Brother Standing situation.

Much of the fundamentals for soloing will still apply here, but enemy prioritization will be even more important, with specific tooltips supplied below (sequence can vary).

Identify what killed your brothers - First and foremost of any situation is to see what exactly caused it to happen in the first place. Oftentimes this can be a cluster of several majoris enemies, or a single or several extremis, get ready to dodge or fight.

Assess the situation - Know what you are dealing with, what terrain you are battling on and how you can use it to your advantage. There is no such thing as cowardice, only retreating to better battlegrounds.

Utilize choke points - You’re a bulwark, you are MADE to be good at holding choke points, find a good point on the map that is easily defensible (if possible), and don’t be afraid of using your banner to help you hold your ground until your brothers respawn.

Cut off the head of the serpent - Abuse the fact you have a shield, advance towards the majoris that is leading the wave. For Tyranids, killing their majoris can thin out the horde, for heretics, this means clearing out the highest threat targets and leaving the easier foes that you can easily mow down.

Never back yourself into a corner - Exercise battlefield awareness, never allow the heretics and the xenos scum to have you cornered up against a wall, this will mean certain death and mission failure.

YOU ARE A SPACE MARINE, KNOW NO FEAR - You are one of the Emperor’s Angels of Death, fear not the foe, but also do not fear failure. To know no fear is to gain calmness in battle, that you may always know your next plan of attack. Every majoris and above foe you slay, if you are on lethal and above, shortens the waiting time between your brothers returning to turn the tide.

Note: We are well aware this is easier said than done, take the offered advice above as just that, advice, everyone can do the big talk without panicking in the midst of a massive wave. Ultimately in the end, it’s what best works for you in the situation but I have found the above tooltips to be extremely helpful.

Note: As of 8.0, Absolute level ops have been buffed in terms of difficulty, with high probability of a second Terminus enemy spawning in, with bonus enemies and buffed enemy aggression.

Absolute Survival: The Only Thing They Fear is You.

Absolute level used to just be “lethal, but 3rd extremis”, after 8.0, Absolute now has the following: a high probability of a second Terminus enemy spawning in the level, extremis enemies spawning during Terminus battles when enemy reaches half health.

It is not for the weak of will, arm, or hearts.

Much of the previously suggested tooltips apply here still, but keep in mind of the other enemies that will now attempt to dogpile everyone once the Terminus reaches a certain level, be it against helbrute (Terminator/Sorcerer), or the bugs (lictor, ravener, biovore, zoanthrope).

Treat it much like the Tyrant boss fight that is in the next section: watch the Terminus’ HP, then peel away to deal with the adds while your brothers juggle the boss. If they can handle themselves, perfect, focus on the high value targets like Terminators or the biovore, dispose of them then return to cover if needed, or help your brother(s) jump the Terminus, faster the Terminus dies, the better it is.

Terminus Party Healing for Recently Graduated Apothecaries

(NOTE: THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE, DEPENDENT ON IF SABER DECIDES TO REWORK INVIGORATING ICON)

One of the neatest tricks about being an apothecary bulwark is that you quite literally have the ability to bring the whole team back from the brink with one well planted flag.

in order to get the whole team heal the following conditions must be met

1: Bulwark needs to have Invigorating Icon
2: it needs to be a TERMINUS (as in they have a boss HP bar) execution, no other executions have this effect
3: someone OTHER THAN THE BULWARK needs to take the execution
4: everyone who needs healing needs to be within the banner's range when it drops but the Bulwark DOES NOT NEED TO BE (tho it is better for perfect timing since you can see the animation. You can drop the banner FAR away from the execution to heal someone else and as long as the banner is dropped at the right time you and the other person WILL be healed.
5: the banner needs to drop at very specific times during the animation of the execution or else contested health will wane for 2 of the brothers resulting in partial heals. Carnifex = just after the claw rip, Zoanthrope = just after the first stab, Helbrute = at the face punch preceding the head-rip

https://www.reddit.com/r/Spacemarine/comments/1j3xs7o/one_flag_full_team_heal/ (Carnifex healing time reference)

Terminii and How to Solo Each Because Your Team is Twiddling Their Thumbs or They’re Dead

CARNIFEX

(Fun fact, Carnifex stems from the latin "Caro, Carnis" which means meat and "facere" to make...MEATMAKER!)

Carnifex

the video is to give a visual aid (and to show I am not talking out of my ass)

The Carnifex will drop down from the environment or round a corner and be announced by a thunderous roar.

The first thing he will likely do (like 90% of the time) is slam its taloned arms in the ground and launch several volleys of spikes. If you are a bulwark, raise your shield and charge, you are immune to them UNLESS he is WAY above you somewhere then the spikes might bypass the shield, in which case do like every other class.... dodge and keep moving closer.

Now, as of Patch 7.0 changes were made to the Terminus fights

melee attacks will cause a slight push back similar to using block on regular enemies, sometimes making follow up attacks NOT connect which means trying to parry them will cause it to miss leaving you open
Intimidating aura is now ineffective on them, whether this is a bug or intended has not been revealed
Gun Strikes were added after each successful parry

Once you reach the beast GET BEHIND HIM OR TO HIS SIDE. being in front of him will only trigger ground pounds, charges and spike attacks which while dodgeable make you waste time. Wale on him with light attacks, he will get angry and try to swipe at you.

There are 2 kinds of swipes, a fast one that has no warning (you are going to need to be on the lookout) and a series of 2 to 4 slower swipes which he will perform in a circular motion often changing his orientation. At this stage there will be a bit of "hang time" when he rears up for the swipe, WAIT until he starts moving again after the hang time before you hit parry, or you will miss it. Note that once the Carnifex gets to half health the swipes will become faster and there will be nearly no hang time. Be prepared to change your timing.

Due to the push back the Carnifex might be able to turn itself to face you BEFORE you are able to reposition yourself, if that is the case be prepared to dodge or raise your shield because either a ground pound or a hail of spikes is coming your way.

Gun Strikes against the Carnifex are a mixed bag. They will cause decent damage but the Carnifex is NOT staggered by them so you are wide open for a strike. Choose them wisely

Sadly, before patch 7.0 it was possible to stun lock the carnifex in this manner but its behavior has been changed, after the half health mark is reached the beast WILL start throwing in random unblockables at you including charges. If charged DODGE FORWARD if at all possible

THE HELBRUTE (I am sorry, he does not have a cool Latin name)

Helbrute

once again, video for reference

The Helbrute is going to teleport in with a loud deranged scream and immediately attack. Unlike the Carnifex the Helbrute's movements are less predictable, he almost looks like a marionette or a strung puppet at times the way he uses his mechanical joints to "roll" his attacks makes them harder to call out.

For this fight you will want to stay in front of him (I mean you can be behind him too, but it is not necessary). he will swing at you normally at first using his left arm which is equipped with a Thunder Hammer. No matter how hard hitting and insane those attacks look, unless there is an orange YOU CAN PARRY IT. Even the foot stomp can be parried (mind you that attack only stuns, does not cause real damage, I was hit by it once and took no visible damage to armor (I may have been lucky tho).

he will alternate left to right swings with ground slam swings, surprisingly once you figure out the timing they are quite easy to parry.

keep parrying and swinging your weapon in between attacks, unlike the carnifex the Helbrute will teleport even without being aggroed, but when he does, he will teleport NEAR YOU (unless someone else aggroed him then just...follow him and pick up the brother who just got bonked) and swing his hammer down, do not be intimidated, just parry and riposte.

As noted above the same changes that affected the Carnifex as of patch 7.0 apply to the Helbrute with a difference. The Helbrute gets STAGGERED from gun strikes making them much more palatable while not making up entirely for the loss of intimidating aura. Notably, when the helbrute does 2 very quick attacks in succession (rolling his entire body bringing the attack down vertically) he cannot be staggered out of the second attack while he can be for nearly all other combos.

The Helbrute has 3 non-blockable attacks.

1: Hammer slam - this is pretty self-explanatory. it will be prompted by an orange indicator, and you will need to dodge. it will highlight an area on the ground, you need to roll ALL the way out of that area BEFORE you perform a gun-strike or you will be hit by the incoming aftershock. Once you dodged it...get back to melee range

2: Triple hammer slam - same as above, this will be prompted by an orange indicator but also the Helbrute will charge towards you first covering whatever ground between him and his target before slamming the hammer down. He will slam it down three times. Do not be fooled by the initial highlighted area, it will DOUBLE in size after the first slam and you need to be out of that increased range BEFORE you do a gun strike. do not get cocky, it can do a hell of a lot of damage. Just get out of the way. Once you dodged it...get back to melee range

3: Plasma Cannon shot - the shots will NOT be individually prompted, he is going to take aim at you and fire after a brief pause, you need to look for the small flash of sickeningly green light before he fires and dodge then, not before or he will adjust the aim and hit you. Dodge PERPENDICULARLY to the shot, do not dodge towards it or away from it because it will leave a streak of Plasma behind that causes AOE damage. he can fire up to three blasts, but you can easily hide behind cover, unlike the psychic beams of a Neurothrope this does not go through walls. Bulwarks, you CANNOT shield-tank this. Once you dodged it...get back to melee range

PATCH 10 ADDENDUM: After Patch 10 the new move Shield Rush can stun lock the Helbrute.

Shield Rush vs Helbrute 9/11/25 This has been patched out but the Helbrute can still be stunned out of certain attacks. The stun is on now a few secopnds timer

Hive Tyrant:

The big mean fuck of the Hive Fleet who definitely would have wiped our team if we didn’t drop an entire building sized statue on him.

Tyrant will start off with the fight with Leaping Sword Slam, dodge towards the left side (your left). If you wait just long enough you can get a perfect dodge and gun strike off of it.

Couple of things to note when you fight Tyrant:

Every parry gets you a gun strike, so if you are not using Armor Reinforcement, you are missing out on easy defensive advantage. (u/CrimzonSorrowz note: as of patch 7 every Terminus gets gun strikes for each parry but that caused Intimidating aura to stop working on them as well. The tyrant still has BOTH)
You can effectively trap the Tyrant in a parry loop by doing a gunstrike from a parry, walk behind him to his tail, which will prompt him into doing another blue or normal attack. Rinse and repeat for juicy damage.
If you played Dark Souls/Elden Ring, even better, apply everything you learned and it works perfectly: dodge INTO his attacks, not away from it.

Tyrant prefers to use most of his kit if you stay outside or on the fringe of melee range, so get up close and personal with that big ugly bastard and show them the business end of your power fist/chainsword/power sword.

However, as most cases, always keep in mind that Tyrant’s aggro will constantly change due to your teammates likely hanging back to shower him with Emperor’s holy bolts. Which means that the parry loop is not a consistently maintainable way of combat (unless of course, there’s coordination from earlier that your teammates will let you solo the big ugly)

The Tyrant, unlike other Terminus enemies, has TWO phases. Once his health reaches zero he will scream, start causing psychic waves which will work exactly as the Neurothrope’s with the same dodging mechanic, and his health bar will refill. (Note from u/Abyssal_Paladin: Assault can easily stuff this attack with a well timed Ground Pound, if you don’t have an Assault on your team, you can use this time to approach and set down a melta)

In this state the Tyrant does more damage and relies more on psychic attacks in the form of “shockwaves” for lack of better terms fired off by his sword.

He will also be able to use the psychic shock waves and lightning attacks straight from the Nerothrope repertoire. (u/Abyssal_Paladin note: The lightning attacks are a lot easier to dodge when compared to Neuro’s, because the screen will turn grey and Tyrant will let out a skyward roar, that’s your cue to look down and MOVE. Always abuse I-frames at every given chance, if you can use your i-frames to invul your way out of something that you can’t dodge in time, better to get scraped going into execution than trying to roll out of it and get your health chunked).

It is notable that each time the Tyrant reaches the half-health mark he will summon a group of ads to harass you.

A good team will always have at least one person peel away to finish off the adds, which can come in the following observed variety: green snot wave of doom, OH BOY GAUNTS FOR DAYS, or majoris brothers and their wave of ankle biters. Out of the three types mentioned above, if it’s a gaunt + warriors pairing, it’s usually the easiest to deal with, as most of the gaunts will immediately die from synaptic shock when the warriors are down (if your brothers are keeping tyrant busy, peel away to take care of the adds, with Intimidating Aura you as a Bulwark can very quickly take out warriors leading the swarm, which is usually a pair of them)

Tyrant in phase 2 will also randomly do the arena wide pulse attack, which is especially annoying if you still have adds in the arena, so it’s especially important to get rid of the adds as soon as they spawn. Nothing worse than getting grabbed by a gaunt when a tyrant is charging up his AOE psy-pulse attack, which does not have invulnerability and can easily stagger you for even more follow - ups by the other adds (A_P’s notes: also one of the main ways that I’ve seen teams get wiped, not killing the adds and focused more on tyrant, so if your brothers are not on adds duty, jump in).

In this phase, try and keep everything on your screen if possible, because the tyrant seems to be more prone to randomly charging and changing aggro, it’s either that or you will get hit from off screen by his sword waves and those will absolutely decimate your health.

u/Abyssal_Paladin demonstrate true solo Hive Tyrant as bulwark, parry loop tech for both phases.

Patch 10 Addendum: As of patch 10 the new Shield Rush move can permanently stun lock the tyrant

tyrant stun lock

Note, the discovery and all credit for this goes to u/Vast-Emu3492 on reddit

Note 2: this has been patched out as of 9/11/25

Trygon Prime

Trygon

Oh BOY! This Terminus Enemy was TAILORED to be face tanked as a bulwark. Introduced in patch 7, as the boss of the mission Exfiltration, the Trygon Prime is basically a Ravener on steroids with a few extra tricks up his sleeve.

Unlike his smaller sibling the Trygon will not try to grab you (Thank the Emperor) but he can one-shot you even before arriving at the Mission’s final arena. Any time you are not on solid ground (E.G. you are on sand) you will see his telltale burrowing wave. His “emergence” will be telegraphed by an orange marker and while being grazed will only cost a couple of armor chunks being hit head on while standing near his landing area will IMMEDIATELY down you.

Once in the arena you will immediately notice that the Trygon, much like the Ravener, uses hit-and-dive tactics which makes it intensely hard to deal with for ranged classes, so be a Man and STAB that thing in the face

The Trygon will start the fight with a roar and a dive about 90% of the time. (you can damage him during the opening roar, this is a PERFECT time to plant the banner and let your WHOLE team heal 100% taking potshots if you arrived there in poor conditions). There is nothing you can do while it travels under the sand. It will emerge from random points and arch in the air aiming at one specific brother. These need to be dodged because failing to do so will cause MASSIVE damage. There are TWO kinds of dives which can only be discerned if you are their target.

A: Regular dive. The Trygon will pop out, aim at you and try to crush you in the dive. You can easily dodge forward. If you do then immediately turn around and center on the hole it just created. 9/10 times it will re-emerge there or close to it for the next dive. He performs usually up to 3 in a row). There is no perfect dodge with this attack. If he aims directly at you and you dodge forward it seems to piss him off and make the the next target usually with its SECOND kind of dive.

B: Swipe dive. This can only be identified by looking at the front claws during the dive. If the claws CROSS the Trygon is about to swipe on the downward motion and it will NOT dive back into the earth but remain on the surface. This dive can be perfect dodged but DO NOT take the gun strike too late because the Trygon will immediately telegraph a blue attack which you will need to parry.

The Trygon, once he targets you, will engage you hand to hand. He does a series of 2 swipe attacks one after the other. Normally if his first swipe is done with HIS left claw the 2 swipes will be very close to one another (parry immediately after the first attack connects or you will miss the second), if he starts with the right there will be hang time in between swipes (similar to the carnifex before he loses half of his health). The only exception to this rule is if the Trygon charges the left claw doing a face turn…in that case the attacks will be slow as well. Do NOT attempt to gun strike after the first swipe, the second one will hit you. Parry both attacks THEN gun strike. This is your chance to do quite a bit of damage to the Xenos scum.

Occasionally the Trygon will climb on the walls and dive bomb while spinning using his tail like a lawn-mower blade. Dodge forward the moment it hits the ground, you will be safe and if perfectly timed you can get a safe gun strike from it. Immediately after this the Trygon will perform a smilar attack followed by a slither attack where he will use his tail to create an AOE damage, these attacks are best dodged BACKWARD (they cannot be parried) because he will claw swipe right after.

The Trygon Prime will often finish a series of swipes one of two ways

A: an unblockable ground slam similar to the Carnifex. This is an easy dodge. Actually RUN forward because it might put you at such an angle that the Trygon can only hit far behind you even if you mess up the timing…dodge forward

B: A cross Claws swipe, this can be parried and the follow up Gun Strike to the face is ALWAYS safe

Close to Half Health the trygon will burrow and create two or three emergence holes which will spawn ads and need to be melta bombed shut. There are melta bomb spawn points in the arena

After the above mentioned melta phase is over the Trygon will emerge and charge electricity and cause several large shocks to go off on the ground in one single burst. Look at the the outlines on the ground, move in between them to avoid any damage whatsoever

Here’s a short Video of the attack loops Trygon Prime Loop Clean

Mutalith Vortex Beast

Cthulhu’s angry chihuahua

Oh…GOODIE! We totally needed a new Souls-like boss SM2, especially a CHAOS one.

This Boss has 3 phases (no health recharge) but clear divider sections in between. I will describe each one later but first, its attacks…

1: Unblockable Grab attack: Probably the most dangerous attack. It will be telegraphed by a red marker, LOOK at the beast because that is not the only unblockable attack that he can initiate from that far but failing your timing on higher difficulties can mean an almost instant down. It will start this attack in a “downward dog position”. If you perfectly dodge it, go ahead and gunstrike it, it’s safe.

2: Warp energy turrets: it will summon a number of spheres that will unleash a barrage of projectiles. Do not bother dodging them. Raise your shield and tank them, they will do you no harm.

3: Warp Disco Ball: the beast will summon a ball of energy above its head which will shoot continuous moving beams of light. These things do IMMENSE damage, have knockback effect and they immediately give you a full corruption meter. At the same time this attack will summon warp tentacles which will whip you if you get too close AND shoot you. What you need to do is put distance between yourself and the ball. LOOK AT THE GROUND IN FRONT OF YOU (not at the ball) and dodge the beams moving towards you. Move left or right as you do and keep your shield up. Do not bother trying to banish the tentacles right now. The beast cannot be stunned out of this attack so wait until it is done.

4: Ground Pound - simple: As advertised. It will jump with a red heads up indicator and then slam down on your location. Just dodge and gun strike if possible

5: Warp Blast Ground Pound - Same as above but you will see a halo of warp energy around the beast. You need to dodge this and then dodge again because these waves are exactly like the neurothrope and hive tyrant waves. Normally he will do 2 hits. If you are the designated target, what you want to do is dodge the first attack, dodge the wave and THEN gun strike, then dodge the second wave (you will be out of the pound hit AOE)

6: Short melee combo: ALL the beast’s melee attacks that are NOT marked with a red indicator CAN be parried. This combo is short, only 3 or 4 hits BUT while performing this combo the beast will have the disco ball above its head and it will target YOU after every parry so you need to parry the attack, dodge the blast THEN gun-strike

7: Long Melee Combo: As Above, melee combo. Each attack is parriable and there is NO disco ball BUT the attacks are so close together that gun strikes in between them are inadvisable. You will need to learn the timing of course. It will attack 5 or 6 times in a row. After the last attack you may be able to gun strike the beast once, sometimes twice

Now, the phases

1: Initial phase. The beast will always start by summoning the turrets and target one of the marines for a ground pound or direct attack. Once you have whittled down its health to 75% it will drag you into a warp portal for the next phase.

2: The Warp darkness Phase: you will be dropped in an empty black space with the beast. RUN, don’t fight. There is a portal at the end of the darkness. Go there and you will be ported back to the arena without the beast and there you will be attacked by some enemies and tentacles. Fun Fact. Shield Rush can 1 shot the tentacles easily without you needing to get close.

3: The Final Phase: The beast will then return. Once you have dropped its head to 25% it will hide under a barrier and summon enemies through many portals (now, if you have Melta bombs drop them at its feet). These enemies will bum rush the beast and kill themselves on the barrier. If they reach the barrier they will HEAL the beast!. Stop them. Once the waves of enemies end the beast will emerge from the barrier (immediately detonate the meltas if you put them there). Just finish the beast off now

Neurothrope

The big brother of the Zoanthropes, and arguably the easiest boss out of all of them if you’ve a good team and decent amounts of shots in your sidearm.

Neurothrope fights as a bulwark can go one of two ways, if you are matched with competent range focused brothers it might take mere moments (auspex scan and a whole lot of charged plasma shots/las shots…poof, brain bug gone)...and if you are not it will become a drawn out but not overly complicated affair.

The Neurothrope has 2 alternating phases which require different tactics

The Flying Phase: this is how the Neurothrope will start the fight. In this phase it will hover above the ground outside of melee range so go ahead and unload your side arm but the damage caused might not be worth it unless you have a Headshot specced HBP.

In This phase the Neurothrope has 4 attacks.

1: The psychic beam (same as the Zoanthropes but not as janky and and the Neurothrope will not follow you Souls-style). Dodge forward if you want to try and get a perfect dodge for a gun strike or run to the side, you will be ok.

2: Psychic Lightning: the area will be highlighted before the strike. Get out of the way, once the lightning start it will not move and as long as you are out of the AOE you can safely just shoot the bastard.

3: Psychic globular shots: These guys come at you with a curvature. You CAN shield tank them at no damage but it is very risky because they can (and will) land just beside you and hit you with splash damage that bypasses the shield. Dodging might be safer…but not nearly as heroic

4: Psychic scream: if you are foolish enough to get too close the Neurothrope will screech and cause immense AOE damage. There is no protection against this.

The Grounded Phase: After a while the Neurothrope will lower itself to the ground and shield itself becoming impervious to ranged damage, this is your cue to SPRINT to it. The Shield will begin to pulse and send shockwaves out, you can dodge forward into the incoming waves to avoid damage. Once you are within the perimeter of the shield you are SAFE and you can start dealing melee damage to it. After a few hits it will fall entirely to the ground but a few moments after that it will glow and start to rise again. Back away, it will cause an AOE pulse soon, and you do not want to be in the way, and then go back to a flying phase

Random bits of knowledge they don’t teach you

For Apothecary Bulwarks: You can place your banner either before the execution starts, or you can do it immediately after you see the red flash disappear from the enemy, that’s your indicator your brother has triggered an execution. This is the easiest and most reliable way to heal a Thunder Hammer Assault, because the kill frames on that particular weapon are much earlier on when compared to other weapons.

For best results, put your flag as soon as they lock in for an execution/when you see the red disappear.

There are several ways to stance switch between Power Mode and Speed Mode, but the most popular would be Parry Switch, which involves you hitting a parry and holding down the light attack button during or shortly after the animation ends. There is also the Block Switch, as I like to call it, where while holding up your shield, you hold down the light attack/stance switch button AS you are releasing the button to block, a successful one will have your bulwark performing a bash attack while their sword lights up/powers down, indicating a successful stance switch. This one needs a bit more practice and is very much subject to the sensitivity of your buttons. (NOTE: Patch 8.0 seems to have busted this)
This one is more of my personal strat and can be applied to all of the classes. Melta bombs can actually take out a thrope even if they are hovering above it, I think the max range I’ve seen it reach upwards to is one full Marine height. So if you are in a hallway and Thropes spawn, you can easily just drop a melta and detonate it when Thropes get close enough, it’ll delete that flying testicle fuck.
Gun-Strike VS Execution: Given a Bulwar’s playstyle you will get a LOT of executions and Gun Strike opportunities perhaps more than any other class. Choose Wisely. Executions will offer you a wealth of I-Frames which will allow you to get a breather and, of course, give you a moment to assess your situation. The downside is that you are stuck in place (albeit invulnerable) for longer and after the animation there will be a handful of frames where you are completely open as well as possible input delay (watch video demonstration below). Lethal (and non lethal) Gun-strikes do not afford I-Frames but they are substantially quicker with the added bonus that they will cause an immediate AOE stagger that can and will interrupt your enemies including otherwise un-blockable attacks. Both Executions and Lethal Gun Strikes (ON MAJORIS OR HIGHER, THIS DOES NOT APPLY ON MINORIS) will refund full contested health. Gun-Strike VS Execution

Solo Survival on Lethal+ Because Why Not

PREFACE

When Space Marine 2 first was released Ruthless was the highest difficulty. As Time progressed Patch 4 introduced Lethal and Patch 7 introduced Absolute.

It is my experience (u/CrimzonSorrowz) that many players psych themselves out when moving from Ruthless to higher difficulties and as a result play differently and are punished for it.

Ruthless, Lethal and Absolute share the very same damage multipliers, health pools and dodge/parry/block windows. In other words, the habits and skill you develop in ruthless WILL TRANSFER to Lethal and Absolute.

The Higher difficulties differ from Ruthless in the following way:

A: Lethal:

A reduction in supplies (crates, stims, ammo)
Removal of Heads up display hints regarding threats (wave size, enemy type and closeness and such)
Double Extremis event (extremis events will spawn two enemies)
Absolutely Guaranteed Terminus encounter (as opposed to high chance)
Enraged Mechanic. Majoris will occasionally fly into a rage, this will bring their health back up and makes them resistant to stagger/stun, more below

B: Absolute: (in addition to the above)

Triple Extremis event (same as above…but 3)
Removal of wave limiter during Terminus enemies encounters. In other words if you take too long taking out a terminus enemy more waves will spawn, this is not the case in previous difficulties where only already spawned enemies would be an issue)

As of patch 8.0, it means additional enemies will also spawn when the terminus reaches 50% health, treat it as you would with a Hive Tyrant fight, work on taking out the adds in terms of danger (ie: sorcerer first, before any rubricae), then focus on the boss.

Buffed boss health by about 30%.

With that out of the way, this is what I found out helps the most to survive solo lethal+ ops.

You need to be even more alert of your surroundings on lethal+, because of the lack of wave indicators, you need to keep an eye and ear out for when extremis - tier enemies spawn, getting caught unaware by lictors might not be deadly, but if you get caught unaware by minigun terminators, it is almost a guaranteed death sentence.

Combine that with the presence of high damage sniper enemies (enraged ‘nids snipers, cultists), a bulwark who is unaware can very swiftly get cut down by the enemy if he doesn’t keep his eyes and ears open at all times. Take a page from vanguard’s book and be swift on your feet, keep repositioning yourself so you don’t end up getting absolutely swarmed by enemies. On ‘nids missions, your first focus should always be to take out the warriors that are leading the swarm, as soon as they are down, most of the horde will go down with them (extremis deaths will also cause a synaptic shock, unless it is a biovore, which is not a synaptic node creature), whereas on chaos missions, you should keep moving, never stay still in one place unless you are waiting to get your banner refilled from one of the Rubrics (and they are alone, because as I said, you will want to keep moving on lethal and above).

Don’t be stingy with your banner, regardless of if you specced as a apothecary or area denial bulwark, because you absolutely will get drowned in enemies (enraged enemies are also harder to knock out of reins calls in melee).

Have knowledge of the map that you are going into is, and I cannot stress enough, one of the biggest factors that will help you in solo survival: know your choke points, know your ammo/supply possible spawn points, know your relic spawn points.

I cannot reiterate this enough: lethal and above have much lower stim/supplies spawns IF ANY, keep that in mind while you are selecting your perks.

In regards to guardian relics, I should note that there is also no shame in tucking the gene seed away in a safe corner, if you find a guardian relic and are low on health (assuming you are not running Invig. Icon or it is on cooldown + some bullshit happened). Put the gene seed there and grab the relic, that way you can have some sort of insurance until the hairy situation passes for the sector you are in, and won’t risk losing the gene seed.

In the similar vein, do not be afraid of running away if the situation gets bad: triple minigun terminator, or triple biovores can easily spell a mission failure. If you can run to an elevator, or doors that close in those situations, book it. You can deal with the wave that will accompany them in the next area, but without the extremis enemy pressuring you.

Put your pride down and go, if the situation is too much to handle, a dead Astartes and a mission failure means you are failing the Emperor, don’t fail the Emperor.

In Short:

Be swift on your feet, always reposition, always be on the move, never dawdle for too long in one area.

Yes, you are an Angel of the Emperor, but a dead Astartes cannot do anything, swallow your damn pride and move!

Keep your eyes and ears open for spawns. You are alone, you do not have the luxury of the firepower of human brothers, make everything count.
Don’t be stingy with your banner.
Know your battlefield and where the supply caches/relics are hidden.
Tuck the gene seed box away somewhere safe if you can find a relic, then go back and pick it up after the hairy situation passes.
Learn your weapon and how you can most efficiently handle every enemy group with it.
There is no shame in running away from a bad situation, it’s tactical retreat to a better situation and win another day.

Chaos Guide Enemy by Enemy

Tzaangors foot soldiers:

Jumping jack chickens, beaky bastards with optional shields

These blue bastards are by far much more annoying than gaunts. Their parry timings are inconsistent and their shields (if they have them) make mobbing a fucking pain...

2 words

Power whirl. The full power whirl. Start from POWER stance. Run, attack, pause, then attack again

Tzaangors vs power whirl

Power Whirl vs Tzaangors

The full move WILL kill them from full health even if they hide behind their shield AND it will proc gun strikes to regain armor which will cancel the full animation if you choose to take advantage of it so you are not locked into the full ground slam.

Once you learn their patterns and timings a single parry with intimidating aura on ONE of them will kill about a half a dozen standing around you as well, alternate that to the power whirls.

Rubric Marines:

You Heretic Bastard stop shooting at me and slowly walking backward

Both Variants are a pain if you are used to tyranids because they will always...ALWAYS rely on their ranged attacks and they are almost NEVER alone forcing you to face multiple ranged volleys which will result in considerable chip damage if you were to just engage in melee willy nilly.... that is unless you bait them out of the pattern.

Approach aggressively if you have the initiative, use staggering attacks and stay in CQC, they WILL come at you

Rubrics Aggressive Approach

If they take the initiative remember, You have a shield...USE IT. Armor of contempt has been buffed in patch 6 and and will cause continuous damage to them baiting them into a melee attack if you keep taking their shots

Tzaangor parry - Rubric Bait

A single parry with intimidating aura will put them in execution state...if not the gun strike will.

Multiple staggers and multiple intimidating aura execution prompts are actually possible

Double execution

All normal attacks will be blocked by your shield. Bolter Rubricae's orange attack can also be blocked with no damage but NONE of the flamers' orange attacks can be

If they are stubborn, wait until they raise their weapon and show them the business end of your shield to stagger them and open them up for a combo

Enlightened Tzaangor:

The disc shaman, the spinner fidget...the flying menace.

Believe It or Not these are not very annoying if you know how to approach them.

If seen from afar all you need are 3 charged plasma shots

Enlightened Tzaangor 3 shot

From full health to execution state. More likely than not the first shot will stagger him if it's a direct hit allowing you to land follow-up shots. If you're lucky he won't even be able to move like he did in my clip. This is why I always Advocate to get all of the charge time reducing perks on the Plasma Pistol tree

Or 4 headshots from the Heavy Bolt Pistol

Enlightened Tzaangor vs Headshots

If in close combat BAIT them. Intimidating aura downs them in a single attack (if not the gun strike will)

Enlightened Tzaangor

remember, besides the orange ones, all his ranged attacks can be blocked with your shield at no damage.

As of the latest patch they can link a SECOND attack after the first and it will appear as if they were just knocked back by the parry, but they are really readying a second strike, be on the lookout

Enlightened Tzaangor double attack

Chaos Spawn

Souls 40K

These guys are big, ugly and pack a punch. They come in 3 varieties with different move sets. They are almost exclusively melee brawlers but one of them comes with an AOE attack

Chaos Spawn AOE

This attack cannot be blocked, waiting for a perfect dodge is unadvisable because it will cause Damage over Time in the area of effect during the charge-up time. Run out of the area and dodge the follow up attack.

Chaos Spawns Tentacle Parries

As you can see Intimidating aura will still kill them nearly instantly with a follow up gun strike

In terms of parry timing most of them are similar to a Lictor, unless….

Chaos Spawn Hesitation

Some of them pull a Dark Souls and start throwing feints and hesitations or even worse…

Chaos Spawn Flopping

Straight up flopping like a fish out of water

Learn your timings and hone your muscle memory, once the pattern is clear to you they go down easy thanks to Intimidating aura. They are also easy to stun lock because they have a rather lengthy knockback animation

Occult Scarab Terminator with Power Sword

Chonky Stabby, The most hesitating melee attacker in the game

these guys can cause fucktons of damage but unlike their ranged missile spamming counterpart this one can be dealt with relatively easily for a bulwark (or a melee class in general)

Terminator with Power Sword

Unlike other enemies this fat bastard punishes you for perfect dodges. as you can see in the first clip a perfect dodge will, of course, proc a gun strike for you....AND FOR HIM TOO! either dodge twice (which is always risky) or trade the shots, (also Risky), OR remember you have a shield and use it

Terminator with Power Sword gun strike block

A single parry with intimidating aura followed by a gun strike might very well be enough to take most of its health away

Occult Scarab Terminator with Soul Reaper

Chonky Shooty(seriously...face me like a man, you fucking heretical coward!!)

Terminator With Reaper Cannon vs Armor of Contempt

Double Soul Reaper

For real, Bulwark Brothers, stop sleeping on armor of contempt, this has the potential to Auto-Melt this Terminator variant (btw it works perfectly for punishing trigger happy Rubrics and bait them into melee or stunning them with a shield bash as an opening AND can auto kill all surrounding cultists and push back Chaos foot soldiers).

The only thing that is still annoying is the golden shower of rockets. The only thing I can say is dodge, if you take a hit use your plasma pistol to regain your contested health and then let him unload the assault cannon at your shield again.

Also, here's a couple of videos showcasing the approach and baiting of a melee attack, yes intimidating aura still does a fuckton of damage on them. If they have taken any damage on your way to them they will do down after the first parry.

Terminator with Soul Reaper 2

Terminator with Soul Reaper 3

(Note from A_P: This guy is basically free banner refill if he doesn’t missile spam, and if you have Masterful Defense and running melee that isn’t Thunder Hammer).

Lesser Sorcerer

Floaty Casty, The Chaos Drum Major, The Resurrecting Bastard, Eyeball Shield Dude

Sorcerer

ALL HIS DIRECT ATTACKS ARE SHIELD BLOCKABLE. At no damage. PATCH 10 UPDATE: The Beam will now bypass your shield so DODGE IT

The skulls he can summon are essentially like spore mines for Chaos. Unlike mines they are slow, but they will home almost indefinitely, so you need to shoot them down. DO NOT shield tank them, just like mines they will damage you

One charged plasma shot will break one of his shields or even 2 (beware, the eye of Sauron will turn to you if you do, shield up) or even 2 if close together as you see in the video. Do not melee the shield, you will get punished for it and chances are you will get a near full "corruption" meter too (I hesitate for that reason in the video) . If you are using the HBP you need to target the center of the eye

Once the shields are down Stun lock him using heavy attacks or bait a staff strike, a single parry + gun strike, as you see, brings him from near full health to execution state.

(Note from u/Abyssal_Paladin: Chaos Sorcs are DEADLY on absolute if they spawn as triplets because they can keep pelting you with spells like the foul witches that they are while resurrecting every rubric in vicinity, so hoard your krak grenades and melta bombs. Krak ‘nades can one tap a sorc and almost or also one tap a Thrope or Biovore, learn to love your krak grenades, they are the God - Emperor’s best gift to a bulwark. Alternatively, drop a melta at their feet and watch them go boom, because it’s the magic delete button).

How to Squish Bugs Like a Pro: Guide to Fighting Tyranids, Enemy by Enemy

Gaunts:

The fleas and the bulk of Tyranid forces, those scuttling bastards can easily drown you if you are not careful.

Spawning in small groups of 3 to large groups of 20, or covering the map when a large wave spawns, gaunts can be easily farmed for gun strikes by using your sword in Power Mode, or by using Stomp with the chainsword (both of the authors of this guide does not use the Power Fist, sorry fist users), or even liberal amounts of parrying. However, do not underestimate those fleas.

Because on lethal+, a large swarm of them can easily take out even the most skilled battle brother.

Aside from the abovementioned methods, power sword users can also use Power Whorl to take out larger groups of gaunts: accessed through doing one attack, pause, and attack again. When done correctly, bulwark will go into a stance, and with the final attack, do a spinning slash into a leap that will end in a ground stab that does an area of effect that can knock back/kill large amounts of gaunts.

Warriors:

Most commonly seen, leader - type enemy. They should always be your number one priority target if an extremis enemy is not present on the field, every warrior slain is a cluster of gaunts vanquished. Learn the parry, love the parry, because it’s your best attack against large clusters of them. Following is a list of warrior variant breakdowns:

Dual Bone Sword: A bulwark’s favorite target. Those guys are basically just begging to be parried, slap their sword aside and show them your pistol, repeat until dead. They have exactly one unblockable attack that is highly telegraphed, that is a double downward chop, it will stagger you if you do not have Armored Advance active. However, still do not underestimate them, 2 sword wielders can easily stunlock anyone into oblivion with one botched parry.

Dodge into the attack for the best chance of triggering perfect dodge.

Venom Cannon: The worst fuckers, can decimate your health if you don’t have your eyes open. On lethal and above, venom cannon shooters can fire twice in quick succession, each shot heavily devastating if you get caught in its trajectory. Note that if you have Armored Advance, you can keep your shield up and advance on the snipers and they won’t be able to stagger you, provided you still have armor. Once you are in melee range, after a while they will attempt a blue parriable attack, parry and kill as needed.
Lash Whip: Another warrior variant, armed with lash whip and sword, you can parry their first swing, or if you have the armor to spare, you can let them pull you in with their unblockable attack, then parry their sword followup (on absolute, the whip grab attack will take out 2 armor bars).
Devourer: Unlike venom cannon warriors, those guys will launch shotgun-like attacks at you in bursts (those are worms, don’t think too deep into it), sprint at them with your shield up so you can deflect their attacks back at them. Like the venom cannon warrior, they will attempt to do a parriable melee attack if you stand in range for just a couple seconds. Enraged devourers are much more dangerous, as similar to Terminators, they can and will destroy your armor and your health bar.

Note for Thunder Hammer users: zigzag at them, don’t bother trying to use charged attacks against them, especially if they are enraged for the exact abovementioned reason.

Barbed Strangler: You can quickly tell they have the Barbed Strangler by the drooling green acid dripping out of their cannon. In terms of priority, if there isn’t any other warrior on the field or if this one is your closest enemy, eliminate them first, because just 2 Barbed Strangler warriors can quickly fill the field with their seedpods (they seem to fire in 3 pod bursts), resulting in slow down and toxic vision (when your screen goes green and cloudy). Slaying a Barbed Strangler warrior does not seem to affect their pods (u/A_P note: I’m not completely certain on this part, will have to test it out some more).

Anything that has an AOE can quickly eliminate seedpods to clear the area, such as Heavy’s stomp attack, chainsword’s stomp, or explosives (risky, don’t do it unless you see there are no brothers nearby to be staggered by it, also technically a waste of grenades unless you have a tactical on the team that gives you back a grenade every minute).

Ravener:

Trygon’s annoying little brother, you can notice a Ravener’s presence just by the ground showing particles of something wiggling underneath it. Raveners commonly attempt to grab you when they burst out of the ground, dodge when you see an orange icon on your screen (honestly, dodging when you see orange should be your default setting, because it’s either spore mine [BAD], this guy, Sorcerer throwing his spells, or terminator [BAD]).

Ideally, you will want to battle a Ravener when they are alone and the area provides enough open space so you can avoid stepping on their snail trail of acid. Once they erupt from the ground and you have dodged their attack, they will probably turn around and do one of 2 attacks:

Low slither into double claw swipe: This one has a blue circle, parry when you see blue, waiting even a second longer only makes you block their attack.
3 attack combo chain: Ravener stands up, and does a left-right-double stab attack. Note that you have to parry all three in order to get a gun strike on the Ravener.

Do not attempt to roll away from the Ravener during his attack chain, they will just lunge forward and do a double claw stab, which can stagger you.

Once wounded, a Ravener may attempt to slither away, leaving a trail of acidic blood that will do immense amounts of damage if you linger around it for too long (u/A_P note: This can be either extremely annoying, or actually deadly when paired with the biovore). Then they will dive back under the ground, and attempt the same ambush tactic they opened the fight with. Do note that if they do not choose to use the grab attack, their ground burst can also cause damage and stagger to everyone near the site of eruption.

Raveners have 2 unblockable attacks from tunneling: Grab attack, or bursting emergence.

Parry them until they are dead, or since they do stand relatively still, dump a few shots into his head.

Lictor:

Predator - bug McGee who seems to think cosplaying a Yautja makes him a big scary ambush hunter. Spoiler: it does not.

Lictor, much like the Ravener, will attempt to ambush you. Both him and the Ravener have the same high pitched ringing noise alert as well as the orange icon when they are attempting to pounce on you, dodge. After that, lictor will attempt to lunge at you, attacking like an angry cat with a series of swipes. Honestly, they are probably the easiest one of the Tyranid extremis enemies to fight, just keep your eyes open, and parry until they fall over.

Because Lictors do not have a special gimmick like the Ravener does, at best he has a couple unblockable attacks, but if you can dodge on orange, you should be fine.

Zoanthropes:

THE WORST, THE MOST HERETICAL OF THE BUGS, A DAMN PSYKER WHO HAS A BEAM THAT LITERALLY IGNORES OBSTACLES.

Zoanthropes often spawn in a pair, with one of them shielding the other one, alternating roles as they take damage. Their attacks can be divided up into generally either: the bullshit snot beam(™), or the psy-orb attacks (note, you can block a Zoanthrope’s orb attack if you have Armored Advance active). The best way to quickly and swiftly deal with them would be to launch a krak grenade into them, or if you have a sniper/heavy on the team, ping the thrope(s) and keep to cover while your ranged brother takes them down.

Their deadliest attack is the green beam, which is almost a guaranteed one tap when on ruthless+, clipping through the terrain and making them deadly obstacles if you are dealing with a terminus (worst if said terminus is the Neurothrope, because trying to dodge the psy - wave attack from Neurothrope while trying not to get your healthbar deleted by the Zoanthrope is extremely difficult.). Perfect dodging the beam will net you a gun strike.

You can tell a Zoanthrope is on the field via careful observation, if hearing the sound of an extremis spawn and you see fine green filaments, there’s a thrope or two nearby. Be on even higher alert when on Absolute difficulty, as thropes can even spawn as a trio when on this difficulty. As such, it should be almost first priority to take them out when you can see them spawn (refer back to my earlier section when I said a sniper is a bulwark’s best friend for that exact reason: snipers can delete them before they can even do one bullshit beam).

(u/A_P note: They are a bulwark’s absolute worst enemy, purely because they often loom way out of range of melee weapons save for a small handful of instances where they come close enough to the ground).

Biovores:

Oversized ticks who carry spore - based ammunition. Biovores are the top priority target, rating even above Zoanthropes, if they spawn on the field.

Ideally, you want to jump them as soon as they spawn, using heavy attacks from a power sword seems to stagger them fairly easily when they are not trenched in. The safest way of eliminating them, assuming you have a melta bomb on hand, is to drop a melta bomb next to them, use your pistol to trigger them into standing up, then trigger the melta bomb. This should either outright kill the biovore, or do enough damage that the next parry that you get will be able to allow you to kill it/execute it.

Melee is not recommended (because you do not want to die from Tyranid balls, do you?), but you can easily bait a biovore into doing its blue circle/parriable attack if they are standing up/not dug in by shooting at it from a distance. The biovore will leap at you like the oversized tick that it is, parry and introduce its ugly skull to your pistol. When in close combat, the biovore will do a 1-2 claw stab attack followed by a blast of its spore cannon, you can perfect dodge the close range spore blast which will help you further in taking it down.

(Note: as of Patch 9.0, biovores now count as synaptic creatures, killing them will now also set off spore mines)

Epilogue

In conclusion: bulwark is one of the easiest classes to be specced into a full support build while also being a powerhouse in combat.

We hope you find our advice useful, and use it to smite many more enemies of the God Emperor of Mankind.

See you brothers on the battlefield.

(Signed)

u/Abyssal_Paladin

u/CrimzonSorrowz