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(obligatory Ultramarine to start the post - this is by no means indicating that Ultramarines are the most boring)

So I'm considering coming back to 40k. I used to play Tau way back in the day but the recent draught in Fantasy has me itching to get back into the future.

Now I'm considering a few armies. I dug through my old stuff and have found, Imperial Guard (apparently now renamed) - A few Space Wolves + A Space Wolf FW Dread, and some Orks + Ork Warboss on Bike from FW.

I originally bought all of these just to paint, and I'll still do that, but I want to start an army.

I love Vikings - have since I was a kid and went on that terrible/awesome Disney ride Maelstrom. The Space Wolves appeal to me on many levels. I like the models, I like the idea of not having a TON to paint and being able to spend a lot of time on each guy.

However, seeing as some variants of space marines are the most popular army pretty much everywhere. I have to ask, are they boring to play? Is it boring to go against similar armies, do the space marine armies have enough customization within their list building to keep things interesting from a collecting and playing perspective?

Thanks!

There are as many ways of playing vanilla marines as there are marine players. Especially if you do your own chapter a/o are willing to swap your chapter tactics around. Some might be more competitive then others, but you can play bikes one day, drop pods the next, and finish off with a gunline on the third. I play a different list every time I take the field, but admittedly have a large stock of minis to pull from.

Due to the large number of ways you can put together a marine army, you will almost never get a pure mirror match. I don’t mind playing other SM players myself. YMMV.

As boring as getting instagibbed by eldar or un budgable like crons?

I find they are boring builds and interesting builds in Space marines.

Space Marines arent really that boring, and have a ton of different playstyles they can do and have quite a few strong builds.

Put simply they are 'easy to learn, difficult to master'

Like any army really, you can have interesting builds or boring builds. Space Wolves can be interesting (Dreads!) or boring (really, MORE Thunderwolves?). Bikes can be fun, or boring. Lots of troops can be fun and boring. Its literally up to what do YOU find fun, not what the other Joe likes.

But we can all agree (well, most of us) that Necrons are boring. Same list. Every. Single. Time.

The only "boring" SM armylist, in my opinion, is a super-popular netlist bristling with such nonsense as gravcentstar w/ tiggy and loth, 2 grav command squads, 3 drop pods full of sternguard with combi-meltas, etc etc. After you face off against that list a certain number of times it begins to become a bit dull. But that's true of literally any Codex.

So I guess what I'm hearing from you guys is that Space Marines have a lot of playstyle variety, and Wolves are no exceptions?

I like the idea of starting with Astra Militarum because of the fluffy things you can do with 3rd party models - I am considering the Victoria miniatures still.

The appeal to me of Space Wolves (aside from being Vikings) is that i'll be able to actually field an army sooner.

I like Orks and probably have more of them than anything, but I think I'll hold off on them as a 2nd army later down the road.

Is there anything inherently bad about Space Wolves? Like they seem to have a ton of options compared to normal marines - is that true and/or confusing?

The only "bad" thing about space wolves is certain players denigrating them for overuse of the word "wolf" on certain items of wargear ("WOLFWOLFWOLF," they will say).

 j31c3n wrote:
The only "bad" thing about space wolves is certain players denigrating them for overuse of the word "wolf" on certain items of wargear ("WOLFWOLFWOLF," they will say).

A fair point. I am fond of wolves (even though my Screen-name is taking from a novel) - but even Space Wolves kind of border the obsessive, but that's GW for you.

A faction that is slightly morbid? Skulls everywhere!

Nope.

One thing I know from playing Chaos mainly, but having delved into Loyalist books is that the Space Marine unit upgrades and wargear are pretty limited, and structured. I assume it is to reflect the Codex Astartes, which was kinda the foundation for the game.

With CSM I can completely customize my HQs, Squads special weapons, and add marks and such for flavor.

The loyalist books kind of force to you to take their units As Is, with not many options or choices. Vanilla may get fancy Chapter Traits, but it's still the same flavor.


That is why people may find Marines boring. But me personally, I love playing Power Armor armies, and love playing against them.

I've found that SM are one of the, if not most, flexible Armies out there.

Almost anything you want to do, you can do with Marines, Mech, Alpha Strike, Gunline, Swarm of Bodies (Black Tide ftw).

But being the most flexible comes with a few issues, while you can Black Tide, you will never get close to Greenskin or 'Nid levels.
You can gunline with the most durable troops in the game and some really good tanks, but IG do it better.
You can go CQC (Crusader Squads are good for this), but again, Orks and 'Nids will do it better.
On the reverse, your Alpha-Strike is one of the best in the game and your Mech lists are nigh-unstoppable (Grav-cents, grav-bikes we know how this goes).

You also have the HQ options to allow a ridiculous amount of Flexibility, Chapter Masters, non-geared, are better then most geared HQs; tooled up, they become unkillable Juggernauts (2+/3++/6+++/5++++), MotF are great for Mech/Stormraven/LR spam, Chaplains are a little overlooked, but in a CQC army, Zealot is really useful. Libbys are always useful (I don't use them, filthy Psykers) Captains fill the same role as a Chapter Master but cheaper and on top of that, a command squad of 5 guys can take 5 plasma guns for total silliness (Requires a non-chapter master HQ).

I disagree heavily with Nightlord on options, you have a wealth of options, but you get so much as-standard, that not even elites of some armies are as well geared as your grunts (Bolter/Pistol/Grenades/3+/ATSKNF/Chapter Tactics), for 14 points no less! No Power Armoured Chaos squad comes close to that loadout unless paying a premium (VOTLW/Icons). Your options come in the flavour of squad size, spec/heavy weapons and mode of transport. Your Tact squads are so flexible, that they can literally do almost anything. 5 man melta/DP for alpha strike, 10 man melta bunker/Rhino for AV/AMC, 10 men Las/Plas combat squadded into a Razorback for backline fire support and Objective snatching, you can drown the opponent with 20 men crusader squads to soak up firepower, you can stick 'em in a LRC for a linebreaker unit that wrecks everything through weight of S4/I4 3A on the charge.

And then there's chapter tactics, these can either dictate the army you play (White Scars) or enhance your army to make them even more effective (Iron Hands/Imperial Fists), each tactic lends itself to a style of play. Obviously there are builds with a set tactic more optimal then others (Iron hands without any Mechs is a bit weird since you can't utilize IWND effectively), but there are some that are just outright useful regardless of list (Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, Salamanders). All of this adds another dimension to your army, and the best thing about them, without changing your list, you can change your tactics to try something else! And to what Nightlord said about Flavour, Black Templar tactics are nothing if not flavour, the tactics are fun, even useful sometimes, but not even comparable to optimized White Scars or Iron Hands tactics.

I think most people find them boring because they are Space Marines, they are the poster-boys for the entire of 40K. When some people think Space Marines, its normally along the lines of Tacts in Rhinos, Sternguard in DPs, done. But if you look deeper, you have one of the best-designed and flexible codices out there. I mean c'mon, you can take Gunslinging Jump-Pack veterans (Cowboy hats and dusters required)!

Oh, and we get Contemptor Dreadnaughts to use as alternative Dread models (if you don't use FW rules like me).
Have you seen Comtemptor Dreadnaughts? They are why I play Space Marines. (As well as all that waffle above I posted)

I personally find that marines are boring to play AGAINST. Everyone plays marines. That´s a fact.
Everyone knows exactly what they do and that can be a boon to new players, but as time goes by they just become more and more dated.
Everyone wants to play against something other then marines, yet everyone wants to play marines. At my club people stand in line to play against me because they
are so tired of facing yet another marine army. Something to consider.

Maybe it is because I am newer, but I don't get bored with my C:SM or my Blood Angels. I don't really feel like I am ever just doing the same thing over and over again.

Space Wolves are not vikings. They could have been cool Space Vikings with nordic-style helmets, and perhaps shields.

Instead they've become Space Furries, featuring Lone Wolf McWulf and his wolftales with cousin Wolf Murderfang.

Edit: also this and this.

 Korinov wrote:
Space Wolves are not vikings. They could have been cool Space Vikings with nordic-style helmets, and perhaps shields.

Instead they've become Space Furries, featuring Lone Wolf McWulf and his wolftales with cousin Wolf Murderfang.

Edit: also this and this.

Are you telling me you DON'T like Logan Claus?

No, Space Marines are far from boring. The only thing that might make them boring is lack of imaginative ways to play them.

I play several different flavours of Marine and get a lot of variety and different play styles out of them. At no point have I ever found them boring to play, if anything they become more and more interesting when I discover new ways to play them. If you ever find your lists getting a bit stale, mix it up with adding different detachments, allies and formations.

 j31c3n wrote:
The only "bad" thing about space wolves is certain players denigrating them for overuse of the word "wolf" on certain items of wargear ("WOLFWOLFWOLF," they will say).

Yeah they make fun and say we have ridiculous gak like the "fangsword of the death-wolf" in our army.

Or a model called MURDERFANG who uses MURDERCLAWS and has the MURDERLUST special rule. Which, fittingly, my phone auto-capitalized.