Best Vanguard build in Space Marine 2: Weapons, perks & how to play

Space Marine 2’s Vanguard build is based on the classic Primaris style of Astartes who became the Emperor’s new Angels of Death, effectively replacing Tactical Marines. Here’s how to assemble the build and use it effectively.

Those who’ve played the Warhammer 40K tabletop game will know that a Vanguard Marine is the latest model of Adeptus Astartes. After returning from his ten thousand-year slumber, the Ultramarines Primarch, Robute Guilliman unveiled his new upgraded Space Marines, then encouraged all the Chapters to incorporate them.

In Space Marine 2, all the Marines are Primaris, but their main combat style, the “Intecessor Primaris” is represented by the Vanguard build. In the game’s story campaign, Titus has just been upgraded to a Primaris having gone through the “Rubicon surgery.”

Recommended build for Vanguard

Here are the best weapons, items, and perks for the Vanguard build:

Category	Item
Weapon	– Auto Bolt Rife – Chainsword
Grenade	– Frag Grenade
Perks	– Moving Target – Duellist – Melee Mastery – Conviction – Honed Reactions – Consecutive Execution – Emperor’s Blessing – Retribution

Best weapons explained

Primary weapon – Instigator Bolt Carbine

While you can use more, these are the best perks for the Instigator Bolt Carbine:

Perk	Description
Head Hunter	Headshots do 10% more damage.
Magazine Restoration	When your health drops below 30%, your ammo reserve is restored by a full magazine.
Fast Reload	Reload all weapons 10% faster.
Adamant Reload	When your health drops below 30%, the equipped weapon instantly reloads.
Perpetual Fire	Fire rate increases by 10%.
Fast Regeneration	Killing an enemy restores armor 0.5 of a second earlier.
Perpetual Range	Range increased by 1 metre.
Extended Magazine	Magazine size increases by 15% of the maximum.

These perks will help you do more damage to all enemies while ensuring your armor stays topped up at all times. We’ve also targeted perks that help you reload quicker and carry more ammo so that you can stay in the fight longer.

Secondary weapon – Bolt Pistol

The Bolt Pistol is the ideal secondary weapon for the Vanguard build, use the following perks:

Perk	Description
Great Might	Damage increases by 10% against Terminus enemies.
Retaliation	After a perfectly timed Dodge, you deal 25% more Damage for 5 seconds.
Gun Strike Reload	After a Gun Strike, the equipped Weapon instantly reloads.
Perpetual Precision	Maximum Spread decreases by 10%.
Head Hunter	Headshots deal 10% more Damage.
Elite Hunter	After killing a Majoris-level or higher enemy with a Melee Weapon, Headshots deal 50% more Damage for 5 seconds.
Extended Magazine	Magazine size increases by 15% of the maximum.
Divine Might	Damage increases by 10%

The Bolt Pistol is intended to be your backup weapon, but there are some perks that make it much more deadly. Ensuring it instantly reloads, does more damage, and can carry more ammo will help the weapon feel like more than just a sidearm.

The Elite Hunter and Retaliation perks also mean that when used as part of a combo, the bolt pistol is a powerful tool, and not only does it buff you, your other skills can buff it.

Melee weapon – Combat Knife

The Combat Knife is the fastest and most efficient melee weapon in the game, so it’s perfect for the Vanguard build. Here are our recommended perks:

Perk	Description
Armored Strength	When you have full Armor, Melee Damage increases by 10%.
Sharp Impact	Right and Left Skull Crusher AOE damage radius increases by 50%
Perpetual Strength	Melee Damage increases by 5%.
Chaos Slayer	10% damage increase against Chaos.
Reeling Blow	Enemies hit by Whirlwind Slash deal 30% less damage.
Hard Target	While performing a Light Combo, you take 15% less Ranged Damage.
Tyranid Slayer	10% damage increase against Tyranids.
Extremis Slayer	Melee Damage against Extremis-level enemies increases by 10%.
Kill Streak	After killing 10 enemies in rapid succession with a Light Combo, you do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hit and you cannot be knocked back for 5 seconds. Cooldown in 10 seconds.

The Combat Knife is ideal for slaying enemies quickly, but its limited reach makes it not as good as the Chainsword for crowd control. The purpose of this weapon is to kill a few enemies quickly, and then get back to shooting.

With this in mind, we’ve focused on perks that make it more deadly, so you can do more damage in a faster window of time. However, we’ve also added defensive perks and upgrades that buff your overall damage such as the Chaos and Tyranid Slayer perks. This way, you can receive the buff quickly, and then apply it to your firearms.

Best grenades for Vanguard – Frag grenade

Frag grenades are the most common form of explosives you’ll find in Space Marine 2 and are effective crowd control options as well as being effective against elites. They’re also more common than Melter Bombs and Krak grenades can be restocked quickly.

Our advice is to use them as your main form of explosive throughout your sessions and throw them liberally due to them being so easy to come by. Slower, more ponderous enemies will be especially vulnerable to their blast radius.

Best perks for Operations

While PvP gets a choice of grenade, the Operations get character perks, which can be perfect for expertly crafting a powerful Space Marine. Thankfully, you can grab multiple — and we’d suggest prioritizing the following ones for the Vanguard build:

Perk	Description
Moving Target	Each melee attack you land reduced ranged damage by 1%.
Duellist	Perfect Parry Window increased by 50%.
Emperor’s Blessing	Taking lethal damage restores all armor instead of incapacitating you.
Conviction	Take 15% less health damage when armor is depleted.
Melee Mastery	Melee damages increased by 10%.
Honed Reactions	When your health is less than 50%, your Perfect Dodge window is doubled.
Consecutive Execution	Killing 10 enemies in rapid succession restore Equipment Charge by 1.
Retribution	Deal 20% more melee damage after getting knocked back for 10 seconds.

These perks all work passively to buff your Vanguard skills and weapons. Used in tandem, they’ll also make sure you’re as powerful as possible. We’ve focused on skills that buff and help you perform parry and dodge enemies, ensuring you can remain mobile and do increasing amounts of damage as enemies fail to land a hit on you.

We’ve also tailored to the build to help you recover from being knocked back quickly, and use the Retribution perk buff to come back swinging with a 20% damage increase. The Emperor’s Blessing perk will also keep you alive for longer, allowing you to keep fighting after a killing blow. This also works in tandem with the Conviction perk, making you extra hard to kill.

How to play the Vanguard

The Vanguard build is essentially the classic rogue setup, focusing on speed and maneuverability instead of strength and power. The combat knife in this build is for close encounters, but it’s mostly designed to keep you alive and send you right back to shooting, buffed, and more dangerous than ever.

Therefore we recommend you welcome melee combat, then take advantage of the buff to gleefully mow down more Tyranids. Just know that you’re not as powerful in prolonged melee battles as you would be using other builds.

The Vanguard setup is a specialist build for those who want to play as an Intercessor Marine rather than one of the “First Born” Space Marines, enjoying all the benefits this style of combat brings. Your mantra for this build should be move, shoot, stab, repeat.

If you want to use a more specialized loadout, check out our breakdown of the Bulwark and Assault builds.