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Hi, very soon, I am getting a howling griffons army, and I was just wondering which space marine codex I could use, as I am getting an assault marine based army, so could I use the Blood Angels codex, or do I have to use the normal marine codex? Thanks, any feedback helps.

You can use the BA codex, but there will be lots of BA specific characters and unit types that won't really fit in with the Howling Griffons, you'll just need to figure out a series as "count as"

BA. You can use any codex you want. Nothing forcing you to use the vanilladex

Thanks to the both of you for the quick feedback!

I would say vanilla, since they're a codex chapter that isn't big on flying apothecaries or being REALLY MAD one sixth of the time.

As a codex chapter they should really use the vanilla codex. Their fluff is in no way linked to Blood Angels, Space Wolves or any of the other "special" marine codecies. If you care about the background and intended rules for them use the vanilla codex (Howling Griffons are on page 26). If you want to take advantage of whichever codex has the "perceived" best rules then use one of the others.

For example - the vast majority of people who use the blood angels codex but dont have a blood angels army or successor army are doing so because they think the Blood Angels codex gives their army a better chance of winning than if they use the correct codex for their army. In my opinion it is cheating but people will come up with all kind of excuses why their army should not use the vanilla codex!

monkeypuzzle wrote:
For example - the vast majority of people who use the blood angels codex but dont have a blood angels army or successor army are doing so because they think the Blood Angels codex gives their army a better chance of winning than if they use the correct codex for their army. In my opinion it is cheating but people will come up with all kind of excuses why their army should not use the vanilla codex!

I don't collect BA, but plan on getting the dex, and just use my stuff from Vanilla Marines for them. A Captain is a Captain. A Land Raider is a Land Raider. A Stormraven costs a lot of money. And I don't plan on doing it for wins. I will be doing it for the awesomenesws of the army. Gives my amnry something different.

monkeypuzzle wrote:As a codex chapter they should really use the vanilla codex. Their fluff is in no way linked to Blood Angels, Space Wolves or any of the other "special" marine codecies. If you care about the background and intended rules for them use the vanilla codex (Howling Griffons are on page 26). If you want to take advantage of whichever codex has the "perceived" best rules then use one of the others.

For example - the vast majority of people who use the blood angels codex but dont have a blood angels army or successor army are doing so because they think the Blood Angels codex gives their army a better chance of winning than if they use the correct codex for their army. In my opinion it is cheating but people will come up with all kind of excuses why their army should not use the vanilla codex!

There can be plenty of reasons to use a BA codex but not play BA themselves...
Not all chapters follow the Codex but by the same vein they may not do what SW, BT, DA or BA do...
It's Counts As and it's fine.

Paint and fluff makes no difference what so ever. As long as the models are WYSIWYG to the oppoenet's satisfaction, then he can call them whatever he wants. hell, he could use them as GK as long as they had the stuff.

Yes they can and that's fine, but it IS going against the fluff. A rhino is a rhino, but a blood angels rhino is fast and they are the ONLY chapter (with their succesors) that have such fast rhinos. A captain is a captain but a blood angels captain can suffer from red thirst and gain furious charge. Blood Angels land raiders can deep strike etc, etc. Yes there are vanilla chapters who have some fluff that can be linked to one part of the BA codex,i'm sure salamanders players would like assault squads that can take 2 meltaguns but the point is that salamanders have their codex - the vanilla one!

Like I said people can come up with lots of reasons why their army gets to be "counts as blood angels" which goes against the fluff, I still think of it as not following the fluff ie cheating.

People who create their own chapter and say "its a blood angels succesor chapter" that's fine with me. Even people who normally use vanillla and just want to try out a different codex for a change I don't mind. It's people who turn up every week with an ultrasmurf army or imperial fists and then say its blood angels that peeve me.

The point is that the guy who started this thread asked about Howling Griffins and they are a vanilla chapter, in the vanilla codex and so he "should" use the vanilla codex IF he cares about the fluff. If he doesn't, it's his hobby he can do what he wants.

Brother SRM wrote:I would say vanilla, since they're a codex chapter that isn't big on flying apothecaries or being REALLY MAD one sixth of the time.

As he said: Will be difficult to use the BA Codex without all the BA specific things like blood rage, Death Company, feathered wings and Storm Raven.

All the reason to buy a nice flying gunship.