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OK so I am a nilla marine player that has been wanting to play a CC oriented army for a while. I want to stay with power armor and i don't want to play chaos because my primary gaming buddy is a devout follower of Khorne and it would just be mimicking his list. So that leaves me with either SW, BT, or BA. I want to play BA when they come out because I have an unhealthy interest in vampires.

Now for the question: if all of these marines; SW, BT & BA; are CC oriented how are they going to differ? Why does GW have so many codices covering horses of the same color?

Please explain the practical differences in the armies, fluff is fine, and how the gaming rules represent these differences on the battle field.


Aside: BT used to be reveled as the best loyalist CC power armor choice but now SW rule the land with tons of USRs. What can GW possibly do to represent BA so that they differ from BT, SW AND Chaos/Khornate Chaos?

honestly, I think you should just roll with standard codex marines. as a devout follower of the codex astartes (straight codex SM for me) I find there is nothing that the normal space marines cannot handle in hand to hand. whenever something big and scary threatens my list, my answer is always an invariable.... "i'll just take it in hand to hand".

Null zone makes you many times more deadly..
assault terminators led by a chaplain is insane. nothing can stop it.
scouts with hand to hand weapons hit as hard as assault marines.
assault marines are great for horde control... with 2 flamer templates and then 25 attacks on the charge, they decimate orks and other light armored infantry blobs.
venerable dreadnoughts are unstoppable. I had a player recently crash into my army with a battlewagon full of nobs + a warboss... I assaulted him with 2 venerable dreadnoughts. there were no survivors on his side, both dreads were undamaged.

you can do a decent assault based list with codex marines... and its not exactly normal, so people won't expect it. You could do a pretty decent assault based drop pod list. say 5 pods, 3 tac squads and 2 ven dreads. first turn, bring in the tac squads or 2 dreads + tac squad, depending on enemy composition... keep in reserve 2 bare squads of vanguard, maybe a relic blade on the sarge, and locator beacons on the pods, allowing you to bring the pain to anyone crazy enough to assault your forces.

Normal space marines get thrashed in CC hands down.. only TERMINATORS can fight.

Not sure where the quote about marines being able to hold their own comes from when virtually everyone else is better

BAs style is you strike first with I5 S5 and reroll misses.. Thus hitting and killing first

SW dig in and overwhelm and can handle a charge very well with 3 attacks

Bts just have a lot of guys with preferred enemy (See BA above)

DA - uh.. they die I guess

SM - Awful hand to hand EXCEPT they have the best terminators of any chapter (However, BA and BT have better lightning claw terms. BA probably have the best terminators due to cost (33 pts a model) just they dont have 3+ storm shields)

tactical marines suck in hand to hand, sure... but there are plenty of other options for the SM codex that don't.

assault terminators, venerable dreadnoughts, assault marines (against certain targets), command squads, vanguard, ironclads, dreadnoughts, regular terminators, hand to hand scouts, ect.

there are plenty of options.

Horst wrote:tactical marines suck in hand to hand, sure... but there are plenty of other options for the SM codex that don't.

assault terminators, venerable dreadnoughts, assault marines (against certain targets), command squads, vanguard, ironclads, dreadnoughts, regular terminators, hand to hand scouts, ect.

there are plenty of options.

I have pined over the SM dex and I agree dreads of all makes are decent and termies are excellent. CC scouts are great for the cost. But beyond that, the rest of the units you mentioned are lackluster. ESPECIALLY assault marines! Vanguard are far too pricey. I simply don't use command squads; they are also too pricey and aren't even scoring.

Regular Chaos Marines wreck every non walker option you mentioned at equal points.

Well Blood Angels Jump Assault count as Troop choices so you can have a bunch of them but unfortunitly scouts count as Elites in the new codex!

Dark Angels are good if you go double wing, but as you said you want to stay with power armor, not termy and bikes.

Sounds like you have your heart set on BA already. Go with them, suffer with their crappy PDF codex for a while, and await the (rumored) new dex.

the regular space wolves come with a bolter besides a bolt pistol/close weapon. That makes them more flexible? I'm a noob, though.

Blood Angels are good at getting into assault first, as they're really assault marine-heavy at the moment. Death Company make for a really heavy hitting unit as well. They've got some good characters, but a lot of the regular Marine options (scouts, tactical marines, etc) are overcosted compared to codex: Space Marines.

Space Wolves move a little slower, as they're not as reliant on fast attack. However, they can tear it up in melee like nobody's business. They're a smaller, more elite army though. Heroes are really important in a Wolf army, but regular Wolf Guard (veterans/sergeants) can do a lot of damage.

Black Templars are simultaneously a horde and herohammer army. They can have huge squads of mixed power armor and scouts, but really rely on characters to get the punches in. You can conceivably have 3 or 4 ICs in one Black Templar army. Chaplains can be taken in a retinue for your commander, along with another chaplain taking up the other FOC slot. Then the Emperor's Champion can do his own thing. Black Templars are a bit trickier and can't use a lot of the regular tactics that Space Marines enjoy.

Blood Angels are allegedly getting a new codex next year. Some sources say as soon as March, others say later. For now, however, they have a free codex on GW's site. It doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of options, but it's not bad.


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Beowulfen wrote:the regular space wolves come with a bolter besides a bolt pistol/close weapon. That makes them more flexible? I'm a noob, though.

They're incredibly flexible. The shoot as well as tactical marines and assault as well as assault marines. They also get 2 special weapons in a squad, so you can run dual melta or plasma. One of the best troops choices in the game.