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C:SM seems to be the first army that a lot of young players collect. I know that people will yell about how they started with Tau/Necrons etc. but the fact remains that the last time I went to GW for an apoc game, this happened:

3 players who were under 16 attended the game, out of these players 2 where Ultra, and one was C:SM homebrew chapter. Normally that's all good, but when my kanz chopped through their Dreadnoughts I realised something. The game was Imperium versus aliens, and the Imperial left flank was held by the C:SM players. To even out their lack of experience they were given a Baneblade to help them out. The forces that we were marching up to them consisted of: A small Farsight bomb, 4 Killkans, a Monolith, and 40-odd boyz. We were anticipating some serious hurt in their shooting phase, but when they placed the main cannon shot of the baneblade down, they placed it on the Farsight bomb! To put this in perspective, with skillful placing, this template could have been covered the monolith, 30 boyz, 4 kanz, a big mek, and a couple of tomb spyders, none of which had invulns. Farsight however, did, and his block of battlesuits sponged up wounds in drones and marched onwards.

I know these players were new to the hobby, but they were hardly on their first game, and the way they played put the rest of their team at a significant disadvantage. I am not a WAAC player, but all these players had marines, they all clustered around one bit of table, they clung to the older teammates in a way that really annoyed them...

Anyway, back to my original point. Space marines, with all the promotional art and starter sets, really is the army that draws new players into our ranks. Is this a good thing, or can you think of a better army to start out with? And what is you opinion of younger player in general?

Space Marines are popular with young and old - it's obvious. Games Workshop don't need to push SM a great deal, but they are well supported because SM related products sell more than all the rest of Citadel's product combined. They form small but resilient and well-balanced armies, and are quite easy to paint. I think they're perfect for the starter pack, although many seem shocked that they're always present!

Space Marines are pretty easy to start with, but very hard to master methinks. Heck I started with Marines.

The thing with Space Marine is that you can have a lot of flexibility depending on the chapter you choose. So, I don't think its a noob army because as the previous poster said : they are easy to start with, hard to master.

I don't know how you make it out that being easy to start with makes them a veteran's choice rather than a beginner's choice.

Most people would agree that SMs offer a number of advantages over most other armies.

Excellent stats and armour save, and great morale, make them very forgiving of mistakes.

Good space magic and anti-space magic.

They have a well designed unit composition which provides lots of excellent weapons in all the different slots, and few downright bad units. This means list design is easier than with various other armies.

All of the above makes SMs a good "pick up and play" army.

However SMs have two downsides:

1. Because they are so widely used, it encourages enemy players to load up with anti-tank weapons.

2. It is harder to squeeze synergy out of the codex, owing to the balanced and flexible design.

I think its good that Space marines is the go-to starter army.

1. They're pretty hardy, so you can (generally) afford to make a few more mistakes. this is unlike my experience with the paper skin and glass bones of the Tau
2. They have a good balance of close combat, shooting, Tanks, psychers...really a little of everything. it gives people a well-balanced palate of options, and allows a player to find what aspect of their army they like best, and maybe base their next army decsision on that

that's my standing anyway. As for me, I started with Tau and haven't played anything since, and I had some pretty hard lessons at first because of it.

Take a good look at the GW website. Around half of the available factions are Imperial, with just below half being alien, and the last remaining two as Chaos. Note that this ratio drastically changes if you consider all of the SM factions as one. They're just too iconic, and kids always goes with the crowd. In addition, SMs are, as someone else had put it, very much the "Mario" of the series, and given that the hobby is cost intensive and time consuming, alot of people rarely collects more than one or two armies, and both tends to end up as two variant SM armies to cut down on costs (using elements from the first army as a basis for the second one).

Your starting army doesn't prevent you from making bad choices. They could have made the same mistake playing Eldar, Tau, or any other army. I was hardly a noob before I ever encountered the kinds of excessive wound allocation you can do with complex Tau units. I'd only ever played against Space Marines (of one form or another), Eldar, and (old school) DE at the time, so it was something new to me, and I'd never contemplated wound allocation that thoroughly.

Everyone makes these kinds of mistakes starting out. It's a disingenuous to say otherwise. Now whether or not they learn from their mistakes and make better choices in the future is a different story all together.

7/10 Troll. 7 serious responses to a camouflaged 'Lulz I kicked newbie gak even when they had a baneblade'.

sourclams wrote:7/10 Troll. 7 serious responses to a camouflaged 'Lulz I kicked newbie gak even when they had a baneblade'.

Yeah, but he brought up a good point: People seem to have labelled SM as a crutch player/bad player/new player army. SM isn't necessarily a bad player's army, and if anything, is completely standing in the shadow of BA as far as power level. Playing SM when you could be playing BA is like fencing with your off-hand.

That's simply not true (about BA being fundamentally stronger than Marines). BA do have much more breadth to their builds by simple virtue of all-fast-vehicles but Null Zone really does level the playing field that much against several important armies.

When facing down Deathwing, Chaos Daemons, or Space Wolf Missile spam I'd rather have C:SM at my disposal than C:BA.

daedalus wrote:

sourclams wrote:7/10 Troll. 7 serious responses to a camouflaged 'Lulz I kicked newbie gak even when they had a baneblade'.

Yeah, but he brought up a good point: People seem to have labelled SM as a crutch player/bad player/new player army. SM isn't necessarily a bad player's army, and if anything, is completely standing in the shadow of BA as far as power level. Playing SM when you could be playing BA is like fencing with your off-hand.

SMs are more or less designed that way. Every game with varying factions and choices will have "The Mario", something to fall back on and does everything generally well. It's just that GW puts way too much focus on them (whereas Fantasy doesnt have this problem since there's at most 3 variations of humans, only two of which are "normal", and they all play very differently).

I started of with Imperial Guard. I don't think they are that difficult to master, but that may have something to do with the fact I have been playing guard for 4 years now.

I think GW should motivate players to choose other starter armies, but with the latest Marine Spam GW is holding, that will be difficult.

I don't know. Fast vehicles, Chaplains as Elite, Assault squads (or dreadnoughts!) as troops, not to mention handing out FnP like candy hardly seems balanced by the biggest downside being "Can't take Null Zone". I mean, if it were a case of Tac squads being elites (like I recall them being in the old BA codex) then it would be a different story. It just seems like they have about everything that SM have, and then a bunch of improvements on top of that.

Edit: As an afterthought, it occurred to me that, as I don't like Ultramarines, I don't play Special Characters out of C:SM. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life.

Space Marines are (imo) perfect for new players. Very forgiving, and they get good starter sets. Marines can get exspensive though. If the young kids can afford it, Marines are a great place to start. Not to mention, ton of fluff, so easy to get and stay motivated.

daedalus wrote:I don't know. Fast vehicles, Chaplains as Elite, Assault squads (or dreadnoughts!) as troops, not to mention handing out FnP like candy hardly seems balanced by the biggest downside being "Can't take Null Zone". I mean, if it were a case of Tac squads being elites (like I recall them being in the old BA codex) then it would be a different story. It just seems like they have about everything that SM have, and then a bunch of improvements on top of that.

Edit: As an afterthought, it occurred to me that, as I don't like Ultramarines, I don't play Special Characters out of C:SM. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life.

Tac squads weren't elites in any Blood Angels codex. Scouts were, oddly. Also, not all special characters in C:SM are Ultramarine. About half are, but many aren't.

daedalus wrote:I don't know. Fast vehicles, Chaplains as Elite, Assault squads (or dreadnoughts!) as troops, not to mention handing out FnP like candy hardly seems balanced by the biggest downside being "Can't take Null Zone". I mean, if it were a case of Tac squads being elites (like I recall them being in the old BA codex) then it would be a different story. It just seems like they have about everything that SM have, and then a bunch of improvements on top of that.

Edit: As an afterthought, it occurred to me that, as I don't like Ultramarines, I don't play Special Characters out of C:SM. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life.

I actually played a game today in combat patrol with only Sternguards and Tact Squads. The army was the same in the BA codex as was in the SM codex point wise. However BAs get the possible chance of having FC and Fearless, plus I filled out the extra 70 points I had with a Sang Priest (whereas I had to settle for some point fillers if it was in the Vanilla Dex). When two elements are completely the same and one being evidently more appealing, there's something wrong there.

I was 30 when I started with 40k. I gravatated to Space Marines because there's just something cool about genetically engineered super warriors in massive armor. When you start 40k, you start with an army you're interested in painting and playing. IG didn't do it for me because of all the WWI and WWII imagery, Guardian heads just looked silly, and (at the time) Orks were stupid goofballs instead of feral killing machines. After that, Tau were boxy and Necrons lacked variety.

Today I play Dark Eldar. I bought heavily because the models just look so damn cool.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

daedalus wrote:

sourclams wrote:7/10 Troll. 7 serious responses to a camouflaged 'Lulz I kicked newbie gak even when they had a baneblade'.

Yeah, but he brought up a good point: People seem to have labelled SM as a crutch player/bad player/new player army. SM isn't necessarily a bad player's army, and if anything, is completely standing in the shadow of BA as far as power level. Playing SM when you could be playing BA is like fencing with your off-hand.

SMs are more or less designed that way. Every game with varying factions and choices will have "The Mario", something to fall back on and does everything generally well. It's just that GW puts way too much focus on them (whereas Fantasy doesnt have this problem since there's at most 3 variations of humans, only two of which are "normal", and they all play very differently).

What funny about this comparison is that Empire, the equivalent to Imperium, is actually not very beginner-friendly at all.

Really, I think the reason so many players start with SM is because GW are so eager to push them on people.

Because they're small elite, easy to build and paint and have one of the most complete model ranges as well as flexible units capable of taking out a wide variety of enemies.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

daedalus wrote:I don't know. Fast vehicles, Chaplains as Elite, Assault squads (or dreadnoughts!) as troops, not to mention handing out FnP like candy hardly seems balanced by the biggest downside being "Can't take Null Zone". I mean, if it were a case of Tac squads being elites (like I recall them being in the old BA codex) then it would be a different story. It just seems like they have about everything that SM have, and then a bunch of improvements on top of that.

Edit: As an afterthought, it occurred to me that, as I don't like Ultramarines, I don't play Special Characters out of C:SM. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life.

I actually played a game today in combat patrol with only Sternguards and Tact Squads. The army was the same in the BA codex as was in the SM codex point wise. However BAs get the possible chance of having FC and Fearless, plus I filled out the extra 70 points I had with a Sang Priest (whereas I had to settle for some point fillers if it was in the Vanilla Dex). When two elements are completely the same and one being evidently more appealing, there's something wrong there.

First off, combat patrol is a pretty extreme version of 40k, and at best the game is balance for between 1500 and 2000pts. So citing that as an example of inherent inbalance is misleading.

Second, the BA gain Red Thirst at a cost of givng up combat tactics. Combat tactics might not be as flashy, but are always there.

Third, I'm not sure a MM/HF speeder or AC predator really qualifies as "filler."

@ Polonius: Touche. I did not realise they didnt have Combat Tactics. However I wasnt citing Combat Patrol as a point of balance, but rather to give context as to why I was only using Sternguard and Tact Squad (which isnt an legal army otherwise).

@ Cerebrium: Yes, but the same could be said for all of the other races. Fantasy is alot more diverse in that each army has it's own unique rules. The Empire though seems to have a bit of everything. Ironically so does Chaos. Going back to my point, in fantasy Humans in total have, at most, 3 factions (Empire, Bret and WoC), whereas in 40k, Space Marines alone dominate most of the factions, much less the other "human" forces (there are 6 loyalist Marine factions, including Grey Knights, and 1 Chaos faction. I'm only counting the books here, not the potential amount of factiosn that can be generated with each book, as that'd just make the situation even more slowed). Note that there are currently only 7 playable non-human factions in total, this means that SMs (as a single faction) holds the majority of the options the players get, to say nothing of how they also have two of the top three codexes as well.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:@ Polonius: Touche. I did not realise they didnt have Combat Tactics. However I wasnt citing Combat Patrol as a point of balance, but rather to give context as to why I was only using Sternguard and Tact Squad (which isnt an legal army otherwise).

Right. BA have an advantage over SM in terms of being able to take quality, damage dealing troops choices, but the SM have several advantages in other areas (Ironclads, biker troops, vulkan, etc.). When you look a the two armies in terms of power armor, I think BA get the nod (as do wolves), but there's more to codex:space marines than power armor.