There are lots of Space Marine 2 enemy types to fight across the campaign and Operations, from swarms of aliens and daemons to hulking monstrosities. The Tyranids and Thousand Sons are massive threats to the Recidious System, and knowing how their units work and what weapons and tactics they use will help you a lot when it comes to fighting them head on. Here’s what you need to know about all the Tyranid and Thousand Sons enemies in Space Marine 2, as well as what other enemies could arrive in the future.
Watch out for Space Marine 2 campaign and Operations spoilers, particularly at the very bottom of this guide.
All Space Marine 2 Tyranid enemy types
The Tyranids are a race of vile and vicious alien bugs that use scything talons and claws, poisoning and psychic ranged attacks, and overwhelming numbers. They’re the first enemy faction you face in the game, so our Space Marine 2 beginner tips will help you in your early fights against them as you learn the ropes of combat. Here are the different shapes and sizes of Tyranid you can find in Space Marine 2 across the campaign and Operations:
Hormagaunts
These clawed critters are the most common Tyranid enemy type in Space Marine 2. They’re very easy to kill but are fast and dangerous in large groups, particularly if they surround you. They can also leap and tear a chunk out of your health, but this attack is easily parried.
Termagants
Termagants are the ranged Hormagaunt counterpart, holding ranged fleshborers which deal surprisingly high damage and inflict poison build-up. They’re also bit more durable than Hormagaunts and the best way to fight them is to shoot them back as they still resort to using their guns even at melee-range.
Tyranid Warriors
These larger, elite Tyranid creatures present an early challenge in Space Marine 2. They’re strong and there are several versions that each use different armaments but fighting all of them in melee is the best approach. Warriors are also synapse creatures, which means killing them causes nearby lesser Tyranids, such as the above Hormagaunts and Termangants, to also die.
- Boneswords and whip: Their swords can cleave massive chunks out of your health bar and their ranged whip attack is surprisingly deadly. They can also block your bullets, so use combos of guard-breaking melee attacks, parries, and Gun Strikes to quickly tear through their armor, leaving them open for an easy execution.
- Devourer and talons: The arcing volleys from devourers can be very annoying, requiring lots of rolling, but you should take advantage of the weapon’s poor range to snipe the Warrior from far away or rush in for melee combat.
- Venom Cannon and talons: This sniper weapon hurts a lot and can knock you over (players using the Assault Space Marine 2 class can get sniped out the air when using their jump pack!), so you need to be careful when these Warriors are around. Fire back to disrupt their aim and dodge roll towards them until you can strike with your melee weapon.
- Barbed Strangler and talons: This grenade launcher-like weapon fires a small pod that shoots out a poisonous cloud that quickly causes poison build-up and are generally very disruptive. You can clear the clouds by shooting the pods on the ground, then you should charge the Warrior.
Spore Mines
Biological seeking mines that explode on impact. They usually come in big clusters, and you can shoot one to blow up several others nearby. If they do seek towards you, keep trying to shoot it or wait for the orange attack indicator and then dodge to avoid the explosion.
Raveners
Serpentine Tyranid creatures with large talons and the ability to burrow underground, bursting out to attack. Always be ready to dodge out the way of this attack, then parry its talons and use Gun Strikes to keep it staggered and minimize the chances of it burrowing again. If you fail to dodge some of its attacks, it can grab you, triggering an escape quick time event, but teammates can free you by attacking the Ravener.
Zoanthropes
Hovering bugs with massive brains that unleash deadly psychic attacks. These include firing large, green projectiles and beams that apply a disorienting effect. Since they hover well above the ground, focus all your ranged fire on them as soon as you can and they’ll fall out the air, ready to be executed at ground level – they’re also synapse creatures, so killing them should be a priority. Finally, if you come up against multiple Zoanthropes, you’ll find that they can shield each other!
Gargoyles
Very weak flying infantry bugs that only appear in missions to gnash at important machinery tied to objectives. Don’t waste you bullets on the massive swarms of them that fly around, but when you need to shoot them for an objective, make sure you’re using an automatic weapon with a big magazine, such as the Auto Bolt Rifle or Heavy Bolt Rifle, to clear them quickly.
Lictors
These assassin bugs are very similar to Raveners, using their agile movement and invisibility to effectively teleport before pouncing from a high position. They can also grab you, dealing massive damage and triggering a quick time event. Once they reveal themselves, parry their melee attacks for Gun Strike and melee combo opportunities leading to an easy kill.
Ripper Swarms
These swarms of tiny Tyranids usually flee in your presence but one missions sees you having to fight them with a pyreblaster flamethrower weapon. You can’t exactly kill them, but you can keep them away from you by torching them when they start to close in. Additionally, when they start building up into a mound, get ready to dodge as they charge at you, then blast them with fire.
Carnifexes
Massive walking-tank creatures with an array of melee weapons and the ability to fire spines out of their backs. Carnifexes appear as bosses in various missions, mostly using their huge talons, punishing tail swipes, and deadly leaping and charging attacks. You can parry some attacks, but your focus should mainly be on perfect dodges to set up Gun Stikes for damage.
Neurothropes
The Neurothrope is an even more powerful Zoanthrope with added resilience and some new and improved attacks. It fires three disorienting beams at once instead of one and it can create pools of damaging psychic energy.
Arguably its deadliest attack is its psychic wave where it lowers to the ground and fires out several green blasts that you must roll through, and it shields itself. Either lob a Krak Grenade at the Neurothrope or dodge towards it and start hacking it apart with your melee weapon. Deal enough damage and you might stun it, letting you continue attacking without it fighting back.
Hive Tyrants
A massive and highly aggressive Tyranid beast that appears as a boss fight in one Space Marine 2 Operations mission. It’s essentially a hybrid of a Carnifex and Neurothrope, combining the resilience and melee power of the former with the psychic powers of the latter. Aim for perfect dodges when facing its melee attacks to set up Gun Strikes, but parry what you can and dodge its psychic attacks to stay alive.
All Space Marine 2 Thousand Sons enemy types
The Thousand Sons traitor legion is the Chaos-worshipping faction that appears in Space Marine 2. They mainly use ranged attacks in the form of conventional firearms and sorcery, both of which can apply the corruption effect to confuse you with fake enemies. Here are all the different enemy types of the Thousand Sons that you’ll face in Space Marine 2:
Cultists
These heretic human enemies are the Thousand Sons’ cannon fodder. They die to one shot from pretty much any weapon but use surprisingly powerful guns of their own. Watch out for the telltale light-blue laser beam that comes from the Long-Las sniper weapons that some cultists use. Additionally, you’ll sometimes see a ghostly, blue head rise out of a cultist which will track to you like a Tyranid spore mine.
Tzaangors
Violent, sword-wielding Tzeentch Chaos Daemons that attack in large groups. While they can be shot or cut up in melee, some carry shields that block most damage, except for heavy melee attacks and grenades.
Rubric Marines
These Heretic Astartes are the standard infantry of the Thousand Sons. As such, they’re quite well-armored and are competent with a couple of ranged weapons and in melee. Their ability to teleport makes them hard to attack consistently at times, so sniping them in the head is a great strategy.
- Inferno Boltgun: An ensorcelled bolter weapon carried by most Rubric Marines. The eyes of these marines glow just before they fire a burst or a more powerful shot, so that’s your sign to dodge.
- Warpflamer: A flamethrower weapon that deals a lot of damage. Rubric Marines carrying this weapon can also fire a burst that can stagger you or an area-of-effect fire blast around them, so attacking in melee can be tricky as you need to react quickly.
Scarab Occult Terminators
These are heavily armored traitor Astartes that pack some serious firepower in the form of missile racks and a rotary cannon that can spew bullets. In my experience, the Scarab Occult Terminators don’t use their rotary cannon that often, but it tears through you when they do. They tend to be pretty immobile, firing clusters of small missiles that are quite tricky to dodge, and they can fire them at very close-range, practically raining them on top of themselves.
Getting in close also causes them to switch to using deadly melee combos, so they’re dangerous at pretty much any range. Use cover and be prepared to dodge roll a lot when facing these Terminators.
Lesser Sorcerers
Sorcerers are the Thousand Sons’ spellcasters, using Warp-fuelled magic to damage and disorient with the corruption effect. Lesser Sorcerers can fire magic beams, summon biting ghost heads, and shield themselves, so there are a lot of attacks and effects to deal with. They can also teleport and can resurrect dead Rubric Marines, though are pretty ineffective in melee, so your best option is to use close-range weaponry.
Helbrutes
The Thousand Sons occasionally deploy Helbrutes, massive mutations of flesh and machinery, that wield big hammers and plasma weapons. I found that they almost never use the plasma gun, though it can knock you over if you get shot by it. The much more common hammer swings are slow and far-reaching, which means they can have a slightly unconventional parry timing, but you can parry most of them. The other attack to look out for is the area-of-effect blast, which you should run away from when you see the purple ring appear on the ground.
Heldrakes
Heldrake are massive, dragon-like machines that fly around spewing fire. You battle one in a boss fight during the Reliquary Operation, although the fight is more of a puzzle. Before you can damage the Heldrake on its perch, you must activate three terminals with holographic symbols that match the three glowing symbols on the stained-glass windows surrounding the Heldrake, then it’ll become vulnerable.
Will more enemy types be added to Space Marine 2?
Yes, the Space Marine 2 roadmap says a “new enemy” will be added in Seasons 2 and 4, though this is still subject to change. I assume that these new enemies will just be a single new type for either the Tyranids or Thousand Sons – perhaps a new boss fight during a specific mission or a new common enemy.
For Tyranids, it could be something like the Winged Tyranid Prime to lead Warriors more effectively or a new type of Carnifex like the Screamer-Killer, but hopefully it’s something new for the game, such as Genestealers, Pyrovores, or Barbgaunts. As for the Thousand Sons, we could see a more powerful sorcerer type arrive, such as an Exalted Sorcerer or Infernal Master, or a new Chaos Daemon type.
Finally, while I think this is incredibly unlikely, the end of the campaign sees the Thousand Sons and Ultramarines vying for control over a set of Necron artifacts, and the world of Demerium is a Necron tomb world. It could be that the immortal robots lying dormant on the planet are reawakened and appear as a new Necron faction, somewhat tying in with the Pariah Nexus story in the Warhammer 40K tabletop game.
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