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I am trying to pick a force to start with. I am getting back into 40k and over the years I have played lots of SM chapters but this time I am going to limit my collection to one force until my son gets old enough to play and take my force.

Space marines- Are fun to paint and build. They do very well for starting players and a very strong force.

Space Wolfs- All the plus of playing space marines- Some limits on the force so not as much flexibility but cool minis.

Blood angles - Not a big fan of painting red

Dark angles- cool fluff but not sure about the deathwing or ravenwing stuff.

The others are a option also but not sure them.

You can use a Blood Angels army that is a successor chapter, so they don't have to be red.

BT are a pretty strong CC force.
SW are pretty versatile and more or less have an answer for everything.
Vanilla SM are the most versatile and probably the best starter army.
BA are a very strong fast assault army with the possibility of the mechanised role.
Dark Angels have very strong Deathwing armies and pretty good Ravenwing support.

I had forgot about doing some of the successor chapters.

Flesh tearers look cool and so do the knights of blood.


Anyone got a place for BA tactics or painted forces?

Blood Angels are up-to-date and very awesome in the right hands, with some spectacular characters and awesome colour schemes.

Ultramarines.

Do you want to pick your army based on fluff, playstyle or maybe their codex competitiveness?
If its fluff, I cant help you and tell you what you like.
Playstyle sure I could give some hints but really, these topics have been done to death and just a quick search with google-fu and you can read for hours how people play their armies.
Codex competitiveness, just go with the latest codex really, atm its either BA or SW, and soon you can probably include GK here.

Mirror the above - what do you want to play, and why?

I would go for Ultramarines - easiest to understand, archetypal heroes, very flexible and powerful.

I like all the space marine fluff so that is a wash.

I like a force a balanced force that can shoot some and hold its own in assault. But shooting gets old so I like to charge across and kick some ones head in.


I have been searching but nothing pops so far, but going to keep it up.

SW might be a good idea then...
Pretty good shooting and some decent CC units.
Nothing massively over powered but some of the builds and tactics start to smell strongly of cheddar.
Quite a few under-costed units as well...

What chapter do you like the look of the most? Thats where I'd start. If you like the look of the models then you will enjoy building and painting them more.

How about a custom chapter made by a really good writer? (Not me)

Black templars, you know you want to

Im guna start sm soon and after looking over every chapter it came down to imperial fists and black templars, i picked templars purely because of their need to kill anything that moves, and love of fighting make them seem kick ass!

Do people not build their own chapters any more? Those are always my favourites.

I made my own chapter then you can use what ever sm codex you want.

Personally I love the BA, both fluffwise and in play. However perhaps you could lurk around the forums and find some good writers and get them to write a nice background for you (assuming they are willing). That way you can literally have any army you want with the background you want. Also, maybe ask your son what he thinks.

Blood Angels

I like either BA or SW
Although I hate SW being a bunch of drunkards unruly, we defy authority guys, hence my wolf being pre heresy , more orderly guys
Ultramarine is one of the best for people learning 40k

NIGHTLORDS!

If you fancy making a DIY chapter i'll give you a hand...

I hate the regular SM codex now after building Space Wolves. Even trying DIY chapter was kind of bland list building. But my Space Wolves I feel like I have a ton of options and some of the things included in their sprues make some impressive models.

Just paint your SM's in your own colors and use whatever book you feel like on any particular day. If they aren't specifically in say, Space Wolves colors or Dark Angels colors, nobody is going to tell you which book you must use or care which book you use as long as your wargear is modelled appropriately.

That said, I think in terms of power and best troops, C:Space Wolves is still the way to go when it comes to loyalist Marine armies.

I think I am going to do Blood angle.

Thinking it over I have never done a red force in 19 years of painting and playing.

And knowing me I will build and paint the force then sell it in a year or two.

go salamanders. with all the tanks and transports running around, twin linked melta/flamers are alot of fun.

well if you like charging in you could go with the fast attack of White Scars. Granted painting white does pose a challenge, but depending on how closely you want to follow their fluff they can be ran identical to ultramarines but really stand out on a battle field being one of the very few white armies. plus its a rather uncommonly used chapter.

I made my codex marines orange. The reason being is it the opposite of blue. That is pretty much my only reason. Plus people could believe me if I ever decided to run them as blood angles, orange isn't far from red.

What do your regular opponents play? I chose my Sable Swords because a) their armor is black and b) my usual opponent plays Tau, which the one paragraph of fluff my guys have in C:SM indicates that they beat the pants off of.