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I know this is going to sound very... noobish of me, but what the hell is the difference between all of these? to my untrained eye they just all seem like Space Marines with a different paint scheme and a few different elites or hqs. So, what is the real difference between them all besides some different colors or a wolf head on their backs?

Well Black templars are a close combat army, and so are SW, and so are blood angels, dark angels are the guys without any options

@OP, you're basically correct. Along with CSM, they're pretty much all SMs with some tweaks so that they look and play differently from the default SMs.

Why doesn't GW fold this all into the SM Codex like IG Regiments / CSM Cults & Legions? Because GW apparently thinks they make more money this way.

Is it just their special rules that are differnt?

Pretty much. There's also some unsubtle cost biases to steer armies in to various playstyles.

Fluff plays a massive role as well. All of the four special Chapters you mentioned have much more specific and interesting fluff, not just the generic stuff you get from the Marine codex.

And while there isn't a huge difference, you'd probably be able to tell the difference between the four armies if you saw them in a game.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@OP, you're basically correct. Along with CSM, they're pretty much all SMs with some tweaks so that they look and play differently from the default SMs.

Why doesn't GW fold this all into the SM Codex like IG Regiments / CSM Cults & Legions? Because GW apparently thinks they make more money this way.

GW doesn't just think they can make a profit from having more flavors than Skittles for Space Marine chapters, they DO make money off of it. As long as people keep buying these different primary colored marines, GW will keep giving them their own codices above armies that actually need help like DH, Necrons or DE.

If people didn't buy SMs, there wouldn't be any money to fund the other stuff that GW does, like DH, Necrons, or DE - that is, without the SM cash cow, likely all of the above would have been Squatted.

Space Wolves are really divergent from the vanilla codex Marines. Dark Angels are barely divergent at all. Blood Angels used to be barely divergent, but their new codex makes them really wacky and different. Black Templars are almost as different as Space Wolves.

Each army has their own thing going on that makes them different, but yes, to the untrained eye they appear to all be the same.