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JFizzle51 wrote:So basically everyone thinks the Ultramarines are Perfect?

The codex says they are. But all codexes exaggerate their prowess.

The thing I like about Ultramairnes is they don't feel gimmickly like Space Wolves and Blood Angels.

They also potrayed with a far more level headed mindset/ethos.

Wolves -Insane/stupid bravery, singing songs/sagas about how good you are and drinking to excess.

Blood Angels -Tragic cursed marines in Ferrari red.

Dark Angels - Paranoid, secretive self serving marines obessed with attempting to remove the stain of their past.

Black Templars - Crusade Knights. Zealots, narrowminded in the extreme.

Salamanders - Fighting for the people.. Are now depicted and lava golems with black skin and red eyes. (I like them alot before the latest recon)

Iron Hands - Wish they were mechanical.

Jagahti Khan - Speed, Speed, Speed Blitzkreig. Also Mongols.

Imperial Fists - Siege warriors also stubborn as a mountain goat.

Ravengurad - Guerilla Warfare

Ultramarines - Honourable and prideful warriors. Very Traditional.

Everyone in the list above the Ultramarines are honourable and prideful also. Ultramarines are vanilla with a hint of too much tradition (the codex). They are roman themed but their fighting style is open to interpretation. (many of the others encourage a particular style)

Ultramarines dominate the vanilla codex because they most exemplify the codex astartes, the central teachings around which none weirdo marines operate. Their primarch wrote the book after all.
That and their legion pretty much protected the imperium single handed after the defeat of Horus and the traitor legions until the others could recover their strength

The Ultramarines are by far the most pampered and beloved of the chapters, and i personally have to say that if you put the ultramarines in a battle with say the Imperial Fists the ultramarines would get wiped out.

Yes, because fending off multiple Tyranid incursions in your home sector is "pampered".

JFizzle51 wrote:The Ultramarines are by far the most pampered and beloved of the chapters, and i personally have to say that if you put the ultramarines in a battle with say the Imperial Fists the ultramarines would get wiped out.

nuett ehhh

ultramarines have Astartes Mk XXMIIVX plot armour

SW have been attacked by the Ecclesiarchy (SP?) and other supposed friendly organisations.
DA don't have a homeworld.
BA are messed in the head.
Salamanders have it easy as far as i can tell.
Ravenguard are all secret and stuff so go figure.
Imperial Fists just have a really big ship so they're fine i suppose apart from having yellow armour that sucks slightly.
Iron Hands homeworld is beind the eye of terror AFAIK so that sucks massively.
White Scars are fine as far as i can tell.

I think my point here was some chapters have it easy and some don't Ultramarines do have it easy compared to some.

Tortoiseer wrote:
That and their legion pretty much protected the imperium single handed after the defeat of Horus and the traitor legions until the others could recover their strength

And the only reason as to why?

They were conveniently on the other side of the Galaxy during the Horus Heresy.

If you read their IA (or the current dex I don't remember) however it suggests they had so many marines becasue of their efficent style warfare and excellent organistation. I.e not charging and building a wall of corpses like some legions. And their success is suppose to of taken them out of position, so they could no help.

But I play Ultramarines partly becasue of the hate. Its so easy to irritate people with them.

I think because they are the iconic image of 40k for better or for worse. Also a new player to the game can paint them to look quite decent even if they have no prior painting experiance.

Agreed. Except my first model

looked like a slab of melted smurf.......

Yea basically since they are the poster child for 40K when a kid walks in he goes mommy i want those guys cuz i played an intro game with them and theyre sooooo cool. And from there on thats all they play. I on the other hand play Heresy Khorne and Slaneesh all the way.

Yea the Ultramarines are one of the easiest chapters to paint. And the fact that everywhere you look in the SM codex an ultramarine is seen. I think it's unfair to the other chapters that do just as much work but get half the credit

I think Black Templars are easier to paint.

Back Templars are definitely easier to paint.

Black undercoat + touch ups + detailing and what not and you’re done.

are you kinding me? Imperial fists do 2x times more work than the Ultrasmurfs.

candy.man wrote:Back Templars are definitely easier to paint.

Black undercoat + touch ups + detailing and what not and you’re done.

I totally agree. I painted a black templar for one of my friends and it took a quarter of the time than to paint one of my ultrabadasses

So maybe Black Templars arew easier to paint but they are way better than the Ultramarines. My list of Chapters goes
1. Black Templars
2. Space Wolves
3. White Scars
4. Raven Guard
5. Dark Angels
...
37. Ultramarines

Pfft. 1 is definitely Grey Knights.

Ohh yea i forgot about them.

1a. Grey Knights
1b. Black Templars
2. Space wolves

Simple answer is there has to be SOMETHING popular, if it were blood angels or crimson fists, people would ask the same question.

People do ask that, actually... why are Blood Angels so popular?

he was kidding. Grey knights are pretty hard to paint. Without using metalitic paints.

Actually she was referring to "way better than Ultramarines" rather than the "easy to paint" idea, heh.

Because they play a kinda big part in the fluff before the horus heresy. i think...
And they have wings

You mean after the Horus Heresy? Before and during I don't think they had THAT big of an impact. AFTER the Horus Heresy, they did, as their legion came back mostly unharmed and therefor could form the most chapters.

And they were the largest. They had alot of success. But I still don't like how they are over the top good guys. -.- They have a secert.

Shaman wrote:Salamanders - Fighting for the people.. Are now depicted and lava golems with black skin and red eyes. (I like them alot before the latest recon)

Actually, the "African" Salamanders were themselves a retcon. In 3rd edition when they made Codex: Armageddon the studio painter painted them brown instead of the official pitch black. They just decided to roll with it, and that was the first skin color retcon. The recent one was the un-retcon.

Ultramarines are probably the most sold WH40K miniatures. Hence they get a favourable treatment by GW, in all likeness, because they're profitable and very popular in the teen-twen customer demographic range (notably because Ultramarines feature proeminently in WH40K art, miniature displays and book covers), which is an emergent market.

My oldest son is 6th, and his favourite army by far is Ultramarines, despite the fact I have at least some miniatures for all armies (both WH40K and WFB) except for Space Marines (excluding Space Hulk's).

Myself, I dislike Space Marines for being munchkins/power gamers and exceedingly powerful (being immune to armour piercing to all effect and exceedingly cheap in points while three times as resilient and twice as accurate in shooting as an Ork for only twice the price), but that's my personal taste.

Real men like a challenge. Real men play Orks.

(That, of course, was flamebait - don't take me seriously!) I'm joking!

I think it's best if we ignore the prattling nonsense that Matt Ward writes. The guy is near Goto-level bad.



Anyway, Ultramarines are popular because they are the brand image of 40K. They're on virtually every Marine box, and since 3rd Edition (except for the starter box, oddly enough) have been the core of 40K.

They get loads of flak simply because of tall poppy syndrome. If Blood Angels were the GW poster children, we'd be having this exact same conversation except with a find/replace Ultramarines for Blood Angels.

I don't think it's quite that simple. The BA have mephiston, who has punched out as many world ravaging bad guys as marneus has, except mephiston has the whole "might have chaos to thank for his super powers" while marneus just punches everything in the face. Or chokes it.

Basically, if something else was the GW poster child, it would be a bit less annoying because they would have at least some sort of flaw.