From two posts by turelhim vampire at The Bolter and Chainsword:

I don’t know if this has already been mentioned but I don’t have time to scrawl though 38 pages whilst I am at work. I just got off the phone with a GW employee – this was from ringing GW mail order at Nottingham - who had the book in front of him and gleaned a few tid bits.

Salamanders Special Character:
NOT Tu’shan – his name is Vulkan Estan he is the ex-4th Company Captain and is a kind of wandering champion. Apparently he has almost inquisition like leverage over the Salamander Chapter, as his task is to seek out and recover 9 holy relics made by Vulkan before he disappeared. Apparently if all 9 are recovered Vulkan will return. Estan has recovered 3 and is using them. One is a Salamander Hide Cloak, one is a Gauntlet which counts as a Heavy Flamer and allows him to re-roll to wound. The third is the Spear of Vulkan - a S6 master crafted power weapon.

On top of this he allows any and all Salamanders in the army to replace their “vanilla” Combat Tactics with the Salamanders version – they get Master Crafted Thunder Hammers for free. All Melta/flamer weapons in the army, no matter their source, count as twin linked – also for free.

In addition (this is a general marine rule) Storm Shields now grant a 3+ Inv. Save against shooting and combat. And all Salamanders Terminator Assault squads come with them, and there thunder hammers are master crafted if Estan is present.


Also I heard the Spearhead will include:
Codex
Drop pod
Telion
Cantor
Sicarius
Tank Commander character
Scout Bikes
5 Vanguard
5 Sternguard
1x Speeder (could be a storm)


Just thought I’d contribute.

Second Post:

Right, now work is over and I can talk in some depth, here is what I was told:

-The special characters are designed to be taken by any chapter using "counts as" rules.
-If you give a commander a bike, bike squads are troops.
-Tac squads can have any number of marines - from 5 to 10, but can only have special/heavy weapons if you take a full 10 man squad. They can be split into combat squads during deployment. To make up for the "must have 10 for special/heavies" rule flamers, missile launchers, multi-meltas and heavy bolters are now FREE - you only pay points to take the rest of the options.
-Drop pod assault: Half the drop pods deploy on turn 1 - these half have "deployment beacons" that allow the rest (held as reserves) to come in more accurately. Tac squads choose to deploy as combat squads AFTER they land.
-Scouts in all their forms (including the storm) infiltrate in one of two ways - normally or can come in as reserves from ANY table edge and get to use their free "scout" move when they arrive. Scouts are still troops - Marine Airbourne Cavalry of Doom anyone?
-3 Dread options - Standard, Venerable, and Ironclad - all separate elite entries. Venerables are back to how they used to be and have WS/BS 5. Ironclads have 13/13/10 armour, can take 2x DCCW, Hurricane bolter, twin linked heavy flamer, and some others, I forget now. It also has a rule which could be a weapon option called the "seismic hammer" which counts as a thunder hammer and allows difficult terrain tests to be re-roll as it batters terrain out of the way.
-Dreads are crazy now weapons include - Assault Cannon, Multi Melta, twin Heavy Bolters, twin Heavy Flamers, twin las cannon, twin autocannon, plasma cannon, DCCW, Missile Launcher, and maybe more I have forgotten. Oh, and AT LEAST the twin autocannon can be purchased for BOTH arms.
-Sternguard vets have DW style ammo, 2 can take special/heavies/special CCW - Including HEAVY FLAMERS. biggrin.gif For +5pts each they can also take ANY combi weapon - and still keep the specialist ammo type.
-Vanguard vets are similar but are combat-heavy and can have jump packs as an option. Interestingly, they can be further upgraded to "Honour Guard" if you take a Company Master.
-Scouts and Characters can take Combi-Grenade launchers, which are the same as they used to be but are now RAPID FIRE.
-Crusader is now cheaper but does not come with the multi-melta - but this can be purchased as a pintle mounted weapon - possible for ALL land raiders. Redeemer flame cannons are S6 AP3 but are NOT inferno cannons - the template has to touch the weapon - however the machine spirit now allows each weapon on the raider to fire at a separate target.
-There are 13 special characters in total. White Scars character confirmed. No model as yet for him or Vulkan.

Thats all I can remember.

Marines should be powerful, but this sounds like a little too much, although the munchkin in me is pretty stoked on the possibilities!

Boss_Salvage wrote:
Pure hate from me, shocked that the same design team that gave us the new CSM codex - which I can deal with and have even learned to like - turned around and amped the freaking hell out of the SM codex

NaZ wrote:would totally wipe out the point of blood angels, black templar, and dark angels if basic marines are that crazy good.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Blood Angels are the only way to get Assault Marines as Troops, along with Death Company. DA are still the only way to get Termies as Troops. And Templars are still the only guys with the throwback structures allowing Troops to take Heavies with less than 10 SM. But yeah, more homogenization and fewr options would have been better.

Anyway, I think making any free special or heavy weapons is just not how 40k works, though I know other games do this with SAWs and whatever for squads (often bought at a set size). Flamers aren't taken in foot infantry often because of the limits of 6" movement vs 12" assault, but there-in we see the benefits of transports to, well, transport shorter range weapons in for the kill. And add in the benefits 5th gives to hordes and the need for anti-horde weapons goes up. 5 points for a flamer? A steal I say, but it's just a more situational weapon than the other options.

And back to the start of your post, it seemed to me that 5 guys = free flamer or pay to upgrade it. 10 guys = free flamer, free heavy (from the list), pay to upgrade them.

I'll also inject here the abilities of combat squads to make special and heavy weapons better at what they do (in the case of the more specialized weapons - flamers for closer support, meltas to hunt tank, lascannons to kill tanks). THAT is the benefit to marines for taking 10 dudes: access to a heavy weapon and the ability to split a squad up to make the best use of what it has been armed with. Chaos? 10 guys gets us a heavy weapon. End.

- Salvage