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Blood Angels or Ultramarines! Explain your answer. Pros and cons, etc

Blue is more fun to paint then red.

Blood Angels have flavor. Ultramarines are less vanilla than vanilla. More like frozen milk, compared to yummy blood(or strawberry, if your squeemish) ice cream.

To try and summarise the differences, strengths and weaknesses of both:

Both have:
- Solid dependable troops all round. Space Marines are Spaces marines, at least for your basic Tactical/Assault/Dev units. T4, 3+ and ASTKNF means almost any unit can decently hold an objective for a while
- Plenty of versatility, with stuff to make good use of in each FOC slot and catering to many styles of play.

Blood Angels have over Ultramarines:
- Death Company, which can be expensive but even run stock are tougher and killier than anything in the SM book
- Assault Squads as Troops, making it easier to pull off a threat overload assault focused list. They also have 'Chapter Tactics' that help with this, reducing DS scatter
- Baal Predators, which are faster and shootier than normal Preds, but have typically shorter range and cost more
- Librarian Dreadnoughts, Furiosos and Death Company Dreadnoughts, all of which are probably better at their respective roles than their C:SM counterparts.
- The good availability of FNP which can up the survivability of their troops.
- Sanguinary Guard, althogh in a trade between them and C:SM Honour Guard, I'd take the HG
- Mephiston, a super-powerful (but expensive) character that can take on most things, MC stats on a 25mm base and a Psyker to boot.

Ultramarines have over Blood Angels:
- Cheaper units across the board. This is the big one; due to the age of the BA codex, C:SM has lower costs on almost all units, sometime only a little and sometimes really quite a bit. Once the new BA codex hits (rumoured to be soon) this should be less of an issue, but for now, matching SM and BA lists will be cheaper for the SM
- The option for bikes as troops, and for competitve SM, this is where it's at.
- Less focused but arguably more versatile and reliable Chapter Tactics.
- Stalkers, Hunters, Centurions, Stormtalons, Thunderfire Cannons and Ironclad Dreadnoughts, all of which are decent if not great picks that BA don't currently have access to.
- Librarian Tigurius, one of the best psykers point-for-point in the game. Again, often used in competitive lists, especially paired with Sternguard or Centurions.


Basically, if you want a competitive army, SM are the better pick, and you're not likely to be trampling any tournaments with BA. However, if you like the up-close-and-personal style of BA more than the more measured C:SM feel, go Red. If in doubt, go with whichever you like the feel of or that you will enjoy painting the most.

Or option 3: make a homemade Chapter of unknown origin, and you can play them as basically anything in Power Armour as the mood takes you.