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So I've been playing 40k for almost a year now, and I love it, and have had some success with it. I've played in one friendly league at my LGW, (which i won) and there's another league coming up that's more competitive that I've joined, and I've had people telling me I should start going to some local tournaments. Now I mostly play for the love of the game, but prizes are a good way of building up my second army (nids) so I was wondering, can vanilla marines be competitive? I play a drop pod heavy Vulkan list, and I'm not looking to get into a "Vulkan is over played" argument nor am i looking for advice on my list at this time, I'm simply asking if vanilla marines have the ability to put enough hurt on the table to deal with things like Grey Knights or Dark Eldar "Venom Spam" or mech Guard.

I know it comes down to the dice rolls and the person playing the army more so then the army or codex themselves, so I guess I'm just opening this up to general discussion. Do Vanilla SM have the fire power to be competitive?

I think they do, just there aren't many OP units to spam.
TH/SS terminators I always find to be good, but only in 2000pt or so games.
I've heard positive reports of sternguard with combi-meltas, but I don't run them much so I wouldn't know.
I don't really know apart from that

Every army has a weakness. Grey Knights have to get in range, DE have weak armor and toughness. C:SM are relatively balanced between decent tougness, and good armor (13 on most tanks and 3+ on bodies). The downside is numbers.

Can C:SM compete? Absolutely. I've run a pedro/sternguard list several times from pods and ruined mech guard armies. Something my DE have never done. The list would translate decently to Vulkan with the sheer amount of melta I use, you would just be a little light on troops. In a 2K game I can get 2 x 10 man squads of sternguard w/ 8 combi-meltas and 2 meltas in pods and a third squad with 8 combi-plasmas and 2 plasma guns in a pod. Then supplimented with a master of the forge with conversion beamer and a bike, then have 2 rifleman dreads as HS.

The other option I use is tac squads with razorbacks w/ TLAC and rifleman dreads but that isn't using pods.

Vanilla marines can be competitive. I have run several successful MSU lists at my LFGS and won several tournaments with them. A couple units to take advantage of is:

Riflemen dreads (two twinlinked autocannons - chimeras and DE hate these)
TH/SS termies - nothing ruins your openents game plan then these guys
Librarians with Null Zone
Thunderfire cannons - I know most people hate these but I always take atleast 1. There is just something about shooting 4 blast tamplates at one squad that is lovely
MM/HF or Typhoon speeders - great fire support and last minute objective grabbing

C:SM do very well, vulkan lists are crazy good, Ironclads are more or less impossible to destroy, thunderfire cannons are amazing, the ability to run all bike armies is impressive, TH/SS termis are extra hard to kill and just as killy, sternguard are amazing, and so on.

But one thing C:SM aren't good at is something other armies specialize in. You can't out assault blood angels, and you can't out shoot guard, ect.

The main problem with vanilla is that a lot of the new marine codexes take what ever they do, and do it better or cheaper. Blood Angels pay a few points and get fast preds, vindicators, rhinos and razorbacks. Instead of the ironclad they get the furioso. Instead of combat tactics they get red thirst. Instead of thunderfire cannons they get sang priests. Their devs are also cheaper. Fenrisians get longfangs and 2 attack, 2 special weapon, cheaper tac marines and all of the other wonderful things in that codex. Black Templar (an older codex) gets universal preferred enemy, PotMS vindicators, lance immune land raiders, tank hunting missile termies.

So after considering all that vanilla has only a few answers. Pedro sternguard, Kor'sarro "Outflank" Khan and Vulcan Myentirearmy'smeltassandflamersaretwinlinked He'stan. So basically a couple special characters are carrying the book with a few other tricks like null zone and TFCs

I think the best approach is just show up with the best army you can field and have a good time.

The biggest issues are going to be players who come onto DakkaDakka with BA,SW and GK and ask how to make the nastiest lists on earth to pummel everyone.

Lists designed to destroy with an above par codex are tough to beat for anyone.

The good thing in the end is that you can give a bad commander an 1850pt GK list and he could still lose with it since he dosen't know how to work it. Give that same list to a competent commander and you get rocked =]

With that said I would expect a Vulkan list to do well in the right hands.

There are 3 C:SM lists people talk about today as decent.
Vulcan
Shrike
Bikes
They are not in the same grade as GK, IG or SW but they do OK when done right