Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So yea, I'm at a loss here, why is SM the most sold of all armies/most popular etc? It's mind boggling for me... They are one of the most boring armies if you ask me, Superman Legion is so boring compared to the Xenos species and even Guard. Yes they have certain interesting aspects if you look at individual Chapters, but most of the individuality has been lost lately.

So yea, what's your oppinion on SM being the most popular army out there?

Marines are superhuman, but not supermen. They are heroic, powerfull but can still die in droves ( except the 5. edition Ultramarines ).
I think it is this mixture which makes them so appealing.

Regarding my personal preference, i like Grey Knights ( which arent "proper" Spacemarines but still close ) I consider the idea of a warrior, whose soul is completely filled with devotion to a single utterly horrible and souldestroying task, whose only wish for himself is, after a lifetime of enduring the very stuff of nightmares, to be buried in the hallowed crypts of Titan to be fascinating.

Well fist off it has been sold in ever starter set since the dawn of time. That means that about 50% of the players out there start with them.


Secondly (and the reason I play them, when not playing DE) is that they can use tons of different codexs without buying anything more.

I play souldrinkers so I can play CSM, Vanilla SM, BA, DA, SW, or BT without any problems.

And I can even legally take Inq models, WH models, and with some tweeking even IG.

And since they come in the starter sets its cheap to get a large army.

Well I kind of agree with you on marines, although I do like marines that have been themed or have had special care taken to make them look nice.

1. They are pushed by GW as a good starting army (which is true) and so lots of new players are encouraged to start with them.
2. They are iconic. There are lots of SM posters up in GWs.
3. Their background (great superhuman saviours of the human race) stands out to many people especially new people who are a bit unsure of where to start.
4. They are very middle of the road tactics wise. They are easy to learn the basics with but can also provide a powerful army for skilled players.
5. They have lots of variation. A SM list can be tailored to most styles.
6. Low model count. For someone just starting or who doesn't like the modelling side they are good as they are easy to assemble and can be painted quickly in basic colours.
7. Space marines can be painted in almost any colour. They have no set colour scheme.
8. As humans many people like them. People often find it hard to fight against humans. Many people are put of IG as they don't like the less sci fi appearance or don't want to paint 100s of models.
9. When list building it's hard to go wrong. If you are unsure how you want to play you can just buy stuff as you feel like.
10. They are good for learning new tactics and it's likely you will stand a reasonable chance against most armies.
11. They have lots of plastic kits. I believe they can be entirely made from plastic, they are one of only 2 armies that can do this the other being Tau.
12. They have no background flaws and can easily have a background made up for them.

Usually in the starter box.

Most support from GW in terms of models, codexes and general fluff.

Super-soldier trope appeals to young teen boys who are core market.

Easy to paint.

A forgiving army to play, thanks to excellent armour, good morale and a useful selection of equipment.

They along with the orks are the iconic army of the 40k.Everyone likes to see a superhuman slaughtering waves of xenos.

Its a self-fulfilling prophecy. Put marines in starter, and now almost everyone has a small SM core. Release badass sculpts, and people with some Marines already say "feth it, why not?"

GW sees sales go up, so release more marines, driving more sales. GW sees the sales as indicative of a lack of interest in Xenos, and neglect Xenos in favor of Marines. People react by avoiding Xenos and investing in what they see as a more supported product.

GW proclaims themselves genius prophets, and release moar Spess Mahreenz.

space marines super human and above that are supirior humansmeaning the act like heros (from a certain point of view). the offer the emperor their life willingly, a heroic act, which apeals to many people. not that many people want to lay down their lives for one person, but it is nice to see someone acting like he cares about something or someone so much that his own life isnt so important any more. because we ( as an individual mostly arent able and willing to do so) like this idea of a spac marine who fights hoplessly outnumbered against the ugly, the damned, strange and eaven crueler parties.

also space marines have more flat surfaces to paint, so their way easy to start as a model to paint... )

4M2A wrote:Well I kind of agree with you on marines, although I do like marines that have been themed or have had special care taken to make them look nice.

1. They are pushed by GW as a good starting army (which is true) and so lots of new players are encouraged to start with them.
2. They are iconic. There are lots of SM posters up in GWs.
3. Their background (great superhuman saviours of the human race) stands out to many people especially new people who are a bit unsure of where to start.
4. They are very middle of the road tactics wise. They are easy to learn the basics with but can also provide a powerful army for skilled players.
5. They have lots of variation. A SM list can be tailored to most styles.
6. Low model count. For someone just starting or who doesn't like the modelling side they are good as they are easy to assemble and can be painted quickly in basic colours.
7. Space marines can be painted in almost any colour. They have no set colour scheme.
8. As humans many people like them. People often find it hard to fight against humans. Many people are put of IG as they don't like the less sci fi appearance or don't want to paint 100s of models.
9. When list building it's hard to go wrong. If you are unsure how you want to play you can just buy stuff as you feel like.
10. They are good for learning new tactics and it's likely you will stand a reasonable chance against most armies.
11. They have lots of plastic kits. I believe they can be entirely made from plastic, they are one of only 2 armies that can do this the other being Tau.
12. They have no background flaws and can easily have a background made up for them.

This. Very well-balanced army, they can be built to be used in just about any way (Albeit almost always with a low model count; I say almost because Wolves can run upwards of 100+ models using Fenrisians). The range of paint schemes can be as simple to as complex as you want - an SM army could be painted with nothing more than a base coat, or it can be painted with immense detail. In addition, it's a very good army if you lack time to model/paint properly; with so few models in the army, it doesn't take quite as much time to get the entire army painted. Along the same vein, Marines can be much, much cheaper (Money-wise) than other armies because of such low model count; it only takes about 5 kits to get up to casual standard (Space Marine Kit, Space Marine Kit, Rhino, Rhino, Space Marine Commander).

They are a very beginner-friendly army, honestly. There's a lot of plastic, which is easier to work with than metal, smaller armies in terms of model count so it's easier to get a small force out to test in order to determine what to buy next. Also, they have no 'useless' units in the codex; everything is fairly well-balanced in terms of cost, and if you look at five different marine lists, there's a chance you'll see every single marine unit used from the codex. Other, older codices suffer from having units that are just plain bad or overcost (Tau have Vespids, for example). The Marine codex has well-balanced, cost-effective units. As I said up there, it's also very newb-friendly for painting, since a very basic color scheme is possible using just a basecoat.

The fluff makes me be a SM player. Also with a smaller model count you can follow squads and certain models through out your games. You can't do that with a ton of orks or nids

The above post is partially how i really got into this hobby.
But space marines are the noobs favorite and some people love them the best so its no wonder why they are liked so much.

I like the idea of holy warrior-monks who destroy their enemies with righteous fury.

I've liked marines ever since I was around 8 years old in the local game store with my brother. I'd be forced to sit there all day. I'd pass time by reading the Dark Angels codex for hours upon hours, never getting bored because I think marines are BADASS.

I never got to play DA because they always have TERRIBLE books.

ANYWAY, Marines are just good all around. I wish I played guard though.

Asherian Command wrote:noobs

newb's

---
I think everyone's hit the nail on the head. The only possibility that I don't think has been mentioned is the drug front idea.

RustyKnight wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:noobs

newb's

Depends, Space Marines could appeal to both newbs and noobs.

BECAUSE SPHESS MEHREENS ARE FULL OF THE EMPRAHS RIGHTEOUS FUREH AND SMITE ALL THE XENOS AND DOESNT AFRAID OF ANYTHING

I only play Space Marines so I can watch idiots spaz out over it.

I have had a Space Marine army for years, granted I have taken a quite extended break from the hobby(years) and still catching up on 5th ed. When I picked it back up I said "hey lets finish off the ultramarine army I started." reasons being like people have already stated, they are great to learn with, not very complicated rules wise, extremely forgiving tactically, don't need gobbz of 'em like da orksez and simple to paint (no flesh, just metal panels)


Now that I about it I have those two iconic and posteriffic races, orks and Ultramarines I'm a sucker.

The struggle of the imperium of man against xenos and chaos is what 40k is about. That struggle is most often represented in books and fluff as space marines vs xenos and chaos. When you play space marines (and to a lesser extent guard) you're playing the main characters in this space opera. People like to be the hero.

A third of the army books are space marines.

2/3rds of the advertising and demonstrations by GW involve space marines.

Alot more play them because they have alot of books. Plus they look good imo. But not only this they dont cost you alot of money like alot of armies, you can go online and buy crazy amounts for good prices on ebay.

They're also one of the easiest armies to transport. Everything is nice and boxy while everyone else tends to have awkward shapes with bits that stick out. As a DE player, I can testify that transporting my vehicles can be utterly, utterly infuriating.

I love the ironic nature of the Space Marines, they are the defemders of zealous pure-minded Empire, whilst not being humans themselves.

Like most people have said, superhuman warriors in power armour that defend humanity have a bigger appeal that any of the other armies. Is anyone saying that football hooligan fungus, hapless human grunts sent to march to their death, or mutant traitors would be the most popular army if they had more posters in the stores?

Wow, I have yet to see anyone even come close to agreeing with me o_O

And GW loves rubbing them in every little Johny and Billys' faces that walk into the store.
I can remember a GW staff member telling how much Orks suck and how crappy they are at shooting so I would start playing Spehss Marinez!1!
To prove his point, he said that he would show me how good they were in battle by versing my orks.
His army had suffered 70% losses by turn three.

I have many different marine armies (Inc Gk's) and i just love the fluff behind them and the characters especially shrike and cassius, i collect nids and orks as side projects it would've been guard but i couldn't get through a single box of cadians without getting bored, kasrkin are a different story but they are just a tad more expensive

Space marines are not that super, theygot sliced by the mega arachnids in the horous heresy book and even plague marines can easily get cut down, my army of plague marines got slaughtered by ultramarines when they have T5 and a feel no pain save.

They come with the Assault on Black Reach, they are the ones you play when you go in and ask for the game, they look relativley cool, and people like to play the super duper good guys. Players soon realise they are boring, and then switch to either GK, SW, BA or BT, because they can't be bothered to start a new one and just convert the old one.
Simples

What I don't understand is why people bitch that much about them, its the same principle of a troll, if you feed the troll you continue to get trolled. All the threads lately have been why are they releasing space marine codices? Blah blah its a marine I got to hate it because they are cool. Hell playing marines for me is fun, I enjoy it. But in the end if Eldar were the most popular then we would have people go off on a rant about why the hell are they already releasing the Baal'tan sect of Eldar before we got the new Tyranids codex since it is so out of date, or to the same response of cut and paste the race that doesn't deserve one.

We know for a fact that Necrons, Dark Eldar, and some other codices need an update and not in any order except for the the ones that you guys want to play where. In the end we already know that Games workshop works on Codices for both warhammer and fantasy, and many other games. I hope that new codices come out just as much as the next guy because this means a race that I wouldn't consider is now something that I would like to play.

Alright im done ranting out, in the end Dark eldar will get a new codex and all of us will just take a big dump in our pants of excitement. But as for now we get space marines, for whatever reason the gods decided to favor the heroes of 40k.

GW supports them more, so they sell more, so they support them more, so they sell more, so they support them more, so they sell more....continue ad nauseum.