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Hi, so I am about to receive my first units, which are :

a rhino
2 razorback
20 tactical squad marines
a bike squad
Terminator tactical squad
Chapelain
Librarian
Assault squad with jump pack

I was wondering what MeQ (by that I mean C: SM, BA, DA, BT, not including SW and CSM) would be the best for a beginner and why ? It's more for semi-competitive and fun play btw.

Well with the models I'd say Either Vanilla Marines or Blood Angels.

Vanilla guys will be a bit easier to use from the get go imo.
They'll also get a bit more use out of the 20x Tac marines.

Go with the vanilla codex. Its the most straight forward of them, and therefore the easiest to pick up. From there you could use any of the others, though Black Templar and Dark Angels are probably the most difficult to use since they are so old.

Space Marines, they can be fun to play as well as semi competitive and are open to customization due to their mechanics and plethora of special characters.

Space Marines, For the Emperor!

That would be a pretty nice little C:SM force with decent mobility.
Run one full Tac squad with the rhino. Spilt the other in to 2 squads with the Razorbacks, and toss an HQ in with each for decent forward objective hunters. Use the TDA, Bikes, and Assault marines to keep the pressure of your scoring units. All in all that is the core of solid army.

Y U NO LIKE SPACE WOLVES?!

Like everyone else said go with the Vanilla Marines and when you get a bit more used to it you can start looking at a specific chapter. Don't let the fact that Chapters like Salamanders, Iron Fists and White Scars make you blanch at the sight of them. A lot of people will tell you how much fun it is being able to use the Vanilla Codex while still being able to have a fun, fluffy army.

I concur, start with vanilla and later you can always proxy them as another codex if you want to try one out.

With what you got?
Blood Angels!!

- that gives you 3 troop choices and our razorbacks/rhinos are faster
- we also have more badass chaplins and if you use something to count as a priest you will have a FNP bubble which makes you more badass.

Badass with bad geneseed.

You say bad I say flavorful.

But in all honesty given what he has BA just uses those elements better. Vanilla marines have no advantages with that starting point.
- Rhino and Razorback -> Fast tank in BA codex
- Assault Marines -> count as troops, decent of angels rule
- Chaplin -> Can be run as rescularch
- Librarian -> Divination is awesome, but vanilla is good too
- Tactical Marines -> the same across the board
- Terminators -> the same across the board
- Bikes -> This would be the vanilla advantage if you had a biker captain.

The only thing I want to stress is that 1-2 priests can make this army much much more effective.

Depends what you want from your codex.


Want easy wins ASAP as a newer player? go with blood angels as their codex is more forgiving and the choices are pretty much given to you its a very "noobish" codex IMO and I don't mean that as an insult only that the units are stronger individually and pretty much laid at your feet on what you should be using.


If you want a more challenging codex, go with the basic marine codex. there are tons of options and you must know how to balance them or you will simply lose to lets say the blood angels codex who has easier choices to make.


Of course this is all coming from a competitive type of play.

I would take offence to that if I was one who took offence to minor things, there is no "noob" codex (this is generally what one calls other codex's they believe to be OP for w/e reason, I am pretty sure GK and noob are the most paired term in search in relation to codex) just ones that are more current and relate to the current rule set earlier.

The BA codex has the same amount of mix and match as a vanilla (save the named HQ chapter tactics), it just has some general themes across the board -> speed and durability.

there is no overpowered codex. but there is different army construction. BA is just more forgiving. Its easier to slap assault units down on paper then shove them down your opponents throat.

Its harder when you don't have such assault units and actually have to come up with a balanced list or you fail to inflict heavy damage against such units.

Now I am in no way saying doing this with BA is going to win you every game we are simply talking about someone new starting the codex.

I would say that space wolves currently is a very easy starter army. Grey Hunters are a bit undecosted for what you get. Grab some long range options to reduce mobilaty (not neceseraly long fangs) and get into rapid fire range. Easy peacy.

As a BA player, I recommend the vanilla dex. Tactical marines got a lot better in 6th edition. I like the vanilla flyer better better than the storm raven. There is the versatility of the chapter masters. There are a lot of reasons, really.

Or you could wait a bit and do the Dark Angels. I bet they will be pretty nice.

Space Wolves are probably the easiest Codex to play right now. All you really needs is Rune Priests, Grey Hunters, and Long Fangs.

Then I'd say Grey Knights > Blood Angels > Codex: Marines > DA + BT.

Until the DA codex in the new year, at least. I can Imagine DA being bumped up to Blood Angel/Grey Knights level. Depends how good they are, and according to the rumors, they are going to be the bane of anything in Power Armor or Terminator Armor, with all that plasma flinging around.

I don't think they are going to do Grey Hunters again, with a CCW, Counter Attack, and a free special weapon all for a point cheaper than a Tactical Marine per model. Woo!

I have a SW codex and it is so easy to play them. Grey hunters are boss, and you can build your lists very freely. You get a special weapon every five model instead of 10, and the wolf guard detachment ads a lott of flexabilaty. You do not need long fangs per say (they are very undercosted) but you would need some long ranged backup.

SW has many difenrent playstiles. But then I supose the other marines also have. with what you have I would just buy a box of wolves to "wolf" them up a bit and go to town.

I'd say vanillas are some of the hardest to make use of with combat squads and tactics being important finicky things for them and not having any clear plan or extremely advantaged situations as the other breeds. They also have weak troops if not used with lots of care and can't just spam scoring units like other SM armies

Drop pod wolves or mech wolves seem like they would be a neat way to get into it for a new player and I'd try to include lots of transports and have variability in the way you field your squads so you can get some learning out of it. The core is pretty simple too. Some hearty grey hunter units and 2 units of long fangs.

Might be hard playing other armies after, the troops feel so expensive!

I play SW and tyranids and dark eldar. SW are by far the most "plug and play" although the other once are very odd. They are quite far from the soft center of the rules.

Just read that he said no SW, So:

Blood Angels are probably the best book right now.

You'll get use out of all of your models. The Assault Marines are scoring. You can use the Razorbacks as transports for your Tactical Marines, or just take the top gun off and use it as a Rhino.

Blood Angel Librarians can get Divination, which automatically make them more awesome than Vanilla Marine ones. (Except for Null Zone. That's the only thing Vanilla Marines have. The look on Demon Players faces...)

What would be best for a beginner and why?

Vanilla. Because you have so much versatility to learn. We can do AMs, good tac lists, heavy in a variety of elites, lots of great heavy support.

Per respective suggestions above, other codex pushes you to a narrower range of similar lists.

Last tournament i took 2 tac squads as my troops at 1750. One before that i took 5 tac squads. Both were entertaining and competitive to play with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit realise list flexibility applies to other codex, ie belial termi list, or dante sang guard list, but if objective is learning rather than winning every early game, i would say easier to go vanilla to other dex than a specialised codex over to vanilla.

Crazyterran wrote:
Just read that he said no SW, So:

Blood Angels are probably the best book right now.

You'll get use out of all of your models. The Assault Marines are scoring. You can use the Razorbacks as transports for your Tactical Marines, or just take the top gun off and use it as a Rhino.

Blood Angel Librarians can get Divination, which automatically make them more awesome than Vanilla Marine ones. (Except for Null Zone. That's the only thing Vanilla Marines have. The look on Demon Players faces...)

But SW is the best choice so...in addition to you guys offering valid opinions within his criteria, I feel it is also worth suggesting his criteria be shifted to include SW.

They are a well-rounded codex, very versatile, and great to learn on. Much more forgiving to new-player mistakes as well.

 TheCaptain wrote:

Crazyterran wrote:
Just read that he said no SW, So:

Blood Angels are probably the best book right now.

You'll get use out of all of your models. The Assault Marines are scoring. You can use the Razorbacks as transports for your Tactical Marines, or just take the top gun off and use it as a Rhino.

Blood Angel Librarians can get Divination, which automatically make them more awesome than Vanilla Marine ones. (Except for Null Zone. That's the only thing Vanilla Marines have. The look on Demon Players faces...)

But SW is the best choice so...in addition to you guys offering valid opinions within his criteria, I feel it is also worth suggesting his criteria be shifted to include SW.

They are a well-rounded codex, very versatile, and great to learn on. Much more forgiving to new-player mistakes as well.

Well, I did mention SW is the best Marine codex at the moment, but he said that he doesn't want to play Space Wolves.

So, out of the choices of BA, DA, BT, and C:SM, I'd say BA are the best choice for newer players.

But SW is the best choice so...in addition to you guys offering valid opinions within his criteria, I feel it is also worth suggesting his criteria be shifted to include SW.

They are a well-rounded codex, very versatile, and great to learn on. Much more forgiving to new-player mistakes as well.

I just started playing early this year. I started out playing C: SM and have transitioned to BA in the last 3 months so I'll throw my 2 cents in here. I'm glad I started with C:SM. I felt like it gave me an understanding of the majority of unit types and their functions as well as multiple different characters to choose from each with a different play style. I say start with C: SM. You can always switch to another codex later on down the road if you feel like a different platstyle. If you want to get a taste of the different codexes, run some allied detachments from the ones that grab your interest. That's an easy way to see if you're going to like their playstyle or not. That's how I figured out I really liked the BA codex.

I don't think BA are that simple for new players. New players will get fooled into thinking they are still a premiere assault army, when they are not. BA units in general end up costing more than vanilla units, and so positioning and movement are even more important. Furthermore, many BA tricks only work on the charge, and they get crushed on a counter charge by the enemy. Not so simple, imo.

Blood Angels are much weaker in 6th edition than they were in 5th edition thanks to nerfs to some of their core army elements. That doesn't mean they're bad, but it does mean that they aren't a default choice anymore In 5th edition I would recommend them over "vanilla" Space Marines, but now I would recommend starting with Space Marines.

If you find Blood Angels extremely suited to your playstyle, you can always switch over, just as ScionofSangunius did. But committing to the Blood Angels playstyle probably is not something that you want to do as a newcomer.

Do the BA even have a "play style" anymore? My most successful lists are motley assortments of shooty units that abuse the new FNP as much as possible. For what that's worth. And I still feel completely outclassed by Space Wolves and Chaos Marines. Oh well.

Sanguinary Priests, fast vehicles (Vindicator, in particular), and superior scoring jump marines, and the Stormraven make for some nice unique bonuses for playing BA.

SW simply have more min/max stats and wargear and CSM have wildly different aesthetics and new units. That doesn't mean BA isn't unique when compared to C:SM.