Space Marine 2 Vanguard Grapple and Armour Build

The Grapnel Launcher

The Vanguard’s signature ability latches onto an enemy or the environment and pulls you to that location, finishing with a diving kick if you hit an enemy. The kick deals damage and, more importantly, restores armour on the grapple itself. That means every time you close on a target you are also refilling a segment — which is why the Vanguard can stay in the fight longer than its two armour segments would suggest.

The armour math favours aggression

Because the grapple restores armour, a Vanguard that grapples more often is a Vanguard that survives more often. Perk priority should follow that logic: take the perks that improve your armour restoration first, damage second. A Vanguard that restores more armour on grapple can grapple more often, which ends up being more damage than a flat damage perk would give. Team perks that help the squad are undervalued in matchmaking — take them anyway.

The Duellist window

The Duellist perk is a Vanguard class perk that adds +50% to perfect parry and block windows. On a two-segment class with little margin for error, a wider parry window is gold: it lets you keep your armour up through the fights where a missed parry would otherwise bleed straight into health.

Playing the two-segment class

The trade for all that mobility is only two armour segments, so target choice matters. Grapple the enemy you can actually kill or the one isolating a teammate, not the Terminus beast across the map. The grapple is also your escape: if a red attack is coming and you are swarmed, grapple out to reset the engagement rather than trading hits you cannot win. For the shared defensive foundation, read parry timing by defence type and armour segments and regen. The classes overview places the Vanguard next to the other five, and which defence type to carry helps you pick its melee weapon.