Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys and girls,

I know there has been a thousand and one threads over the years asking how you pick a Space Marine Chapter... Unfortunately my turn has come, however it has a few twists !

Basically my question is, How do you choose a chapter to do ? Purely Fluff ? Purely looks ? Purely competitiveness ? Other ?

So here's my situation. Over the many years I've been in the hobby ive attempted a lot of marine armies at one time or another. Currently I have a large Space Wolves army, and a decent size Marine army from the Codex : Space Marines range.

At this stage I am looking more for how you choose a chapter from the Codex Marine book, not so much the specialized ones, as this is my dilemma . The army in question is pretty diverse, around 2000 points, and is currently entirely unpainted after stripping the few models that were done.

Originally, it was destined to be a Red Scorpions list, however the lack of black library novels at the time to draw inspiration from bothered me, so I decided to make them Salamanders. However whilst reading the first novel "Salamander" in a series, I found them a little soft for my taste ( And Tsu'gan annoyed the hell out of me with his childish sulking )

Then, upon reading the first book in the Soul Drinkers series I was inspired by their story of struggle and pride, and set to work ! I got the most done out of all previous decisions , even mutating some models within the army to reflect their story !

However once more, lost interest in them, and have reversed the mutations and stripped the paint, ready to make them Imperial Fists ! Having only attempted the fists once in my younger years, and my inability to paint Yellow ended that project pretty fast , however I am now much more advanced and confident in my ability

However yet again I find my eyes wandering ! Astral Claws....Mantis warriors....on and on and on.

The plus side is, since I keep recycling the same army, I have spent nothing on it bar the Dettol to strip the models ( I've always had a wide range of paints ) .


I believe the reason for this is linked to Depression which I've been hit with pretty hard this year after many years of unfortunate and life changing events.

So ! With this in mind, I thought I'd turn to the Dakka community for any advice or direction in this matter ! I Know the usual things are to read the fluff, look at the schemes, etc etc.. but I'm just checking to see if there are any new or interesting ideas or advice in picking a chapter !


Maybe even, which Codex : Space Marines chapter did you pick, and why ?

Thanks for reading guys and girls

The simplest way: the rule of cool.

I can't tell you why, but the only marine chapters I've ever really liked were the NovaMarines (when they appeared bone/purple in an old magazine) and the Mentor Legion. Just liked them, no other way around it.

 Elbows wrote:
The simplest way: the rule of cool.

I can't tell you why, but the only marine chapters I've ever really liked were the NovaMarines (when they appeared bone/purple in an old magazine) and the Mentor Legion. Just liked them, no other way around it.

I will admit, despite not liking the Ultra Marines in any way at all, I still find the current Nova marine scheme pretty sweet. Know absolutely nothing of their fluff however

Yes im thinking rule of cool may be what ends up sealing it really....the Astral Claws back story doesn't interest me at all and their symbol is horrendous ( the tiger looking lion head, not the awesome star claw , imo ) however the blue and silver meshes really well together.

What I found solved this problem is make a home brew chapter. Choose a colour you like and go with it. You then just say- Today may chapter counts as BA or DA or C:SM or whatever you want.
Obviously if today your army counts as C:SM you can't use your death company, etc.

Cheers, Vim

Its funny that im having the same problem at the same time, its on this forum right now lol. TBH your problem is nothing compared to mine. And if i were you just make a homebrew chapter, it seems that some of your chapters that you liked (mantis, red scorpions, astral, etc.) are all form the badab war. so what you could do is say that they are a bunch of marines from left over decimated squads, they all banded together and fought against the traitors and since they fought for the imperium they were pardoned and were established as a new chapter, but they cannot mix geneseed and cannot recruit because they have different chapters. or maybe they can recruit and they take geneseed from other chapters maybe salamanders because they are nice people? You could also say that a salamanders company was lost during a fight and they have become hyper aggressive and no longer become a nice salamander. just thinking out loud

I will admit Ive taken a bit of a shine to the Storm Wardens colour scheme...that Silvery Blue similar to the Astral Claws only more in balance rather than a primary with a hint of secondary. I may even use this as a starting point for a custom chapter.

vim_the_good wrote:What I found solved this problem is make a home brew chapter. Choose a colour you like and go with it. You then just say- Today may chapter counts as BA or DA or C:SM or whatever you want.
Obviously if today your army counts as C:SM you can't use your death company, etc.

Cheers, Vim

Im thinking the same thing. My only two issues are : 1 - Units would be taken exclusively from the Codex Space marine book, no Wolves/DA/BA/GK etc etc and 2 - I tried a home brew chapter twice now and both times failed....

That said, I did get close to somewhat of a nice colour scheme using a Jade Green / Silvery Gold look ( Ill attach a pic if I can find one, just remember that the gold half was metallic ). I believe I also had an idea for a Black/ White scheme at one stage.

If you don't mind me asking, what did your chapter look like ? I always enjoy seeing custom chapters (Probably since I fail at making one )

-v10mega wrote:Its funny that im having the same problem at the same time, its on this forum right now lol. TBH your problem is nothing compared to mine. And if i were you just make a homebrew chapter, it seems that some of your chapters that you liked (mantis, red scorpions, astral, etc.) are all form the badab war. so what you could do is say that they are a bunch of marines from left over decimated squads, they all banded together and fought against the traitors and since they fought for the imperium they were pardoned and were established as a new chapter, but they cannot mix geneseed and cannot recruit because they have different chapters. or maybe they can recruit and they take geneseed from other chapters maybe salamanders because they are nice people? You could also say that a salamanders company was lost during a fight and they have become hyper aggressive and no longer become a nice salamander. just thinking out loud

Really ? What was your situation ? Might be interesting to see what someone elses experience is with this

I will admit I know next to nothing about the Badab war. If I were to homebrew a chapter I'd probably just keep it simple and say they are an Unsung Hero type chapter

Yeah sure. Here is a linky to the gallery with my home brew chapter.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-22286-31061_Space%20Marines.html
Basically they are silver with black shoulder pads. Veterans were red. My problem was. I did not sit down and take some time to come up with their lore and fleshed out colour scheme before I started painting. This has led to them being slightly ad hoc.

As far as your problem goes. If you are sure you are sticking to C:SM and maybe want to go with an established chapter then consider this. There is absolutely nothing wrong at all with painting your army as UM (for example) and using IF chapter tactics if you feel like it one day. Just you will have to use IF SC instead of UM SC and make sure you make this very clear to your opponent.

Or, paint them as Raven Guard. As far as I know their founding chapter is unknown outside of hearsay. You can have an established chapter that you can change the chapter tactics of from game to game without potentially confusing your opponent while not having to go down the path of home brew. Seems like this may be your solution.

Vim

I picked Silver Skulls years ago for a few reasons:
1. Fluff- Just enough existed to give you a very basic understanding of their history and motivation, but left plenty of room to flesh out stuff on my own (this was before they had BL books)

2. Paint scheme- simple yet cool. And I totally dig skull motifs. Easy to paint lots of them (relatively speaking)

3. Tactics- They are (believed) Ultra successors, so I could basically play them any way imaginable.

4. Rarity- goolge Silver Skull armies and your bound to see pictures of my army and maybe 3-4 others.

The codex has a lot of successors that are rarely ever seen on the table. Go for one of those. Look in the 5th and 6th edition SM Codexes if you can. I think 5th had more successors listed than current.

If you do go custom, please do halved or quartered paint scheme...there aren't nearly enough of them around. They're exceptionally cool looking.

 Elbows wrote:
If you do go custom, please do halved or quartered paint scheme...there aren't nearly enough of them around. They're exceptionally cool looking.

And very laborious to paint. Which is probably why you don't see them. I always laugh when I see comments like that. If you think it's so cool then you do it! (That's a generic 'you')

Thanks for your replies ! Ive come up with another custom Chapter design ill attach below ! The grey colours are Silver and the blue colour is the Thunder Hawk / Dark Reaper colours from the current range.

vim_the_good wrote:Yeah sure. Here is a linky to the gallery with my home brew chapter.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-22286-31061_Space%20Marines.html
Basically they are silver with black shoulder pads. Veterans were red.

As far as your problem goes. If you are sure you are sticking to C:SM and maybe want to go with an established chapter then consider this. There is absolutely nothing wrong at all with painting your army as UM (for example) and using IF chapter tactics if you feel like it one day. Just you will have to use IF SC instead of UM SC and make sure you make this very clear to your opponent.

Look good man ! I like the LED Rhino interior

I am absolute sure about the C:SM , primarily because I have a full army, otherwise I'd have to sell off things like centurions and buy Sang guard etc.

Hmm I see what you are saying definitely, but I wouldn't feel right fielding established chapters as something else, but that is entirely a personal preference thing

SickSix wrote:I picked Silver Skulls years ago for a few reasons:

4. Rarity- goolge Silver Skull armies and your bound to see pictures of my army and maybe 3-4 others.

The codex has a lot of successors that are rarely ever seen on the table. Go for one of those. Look in the 5th and 6th edition SM Codexes if you can. I think 5th had more successors listed than current.

I will admit, I know absolutely nothing about Silver Skulls however there is another player at my local GW who is very much into them. I don't have access to those dex's however I have browsed the marine picture encyclopedia I found online that had hundreds of them before and some were cool but none jumped out

Elbows wrote:If you do go custom, please do halved or quartered paint scheme...there aren't nearly enough of them around. They're exceptionally cool looking.

Well funny you say that, I have come up with another custom chapter design that is actually quartered and I am considering doing up a test marine later today ( maybe ) and I agree they are rare.

SickSix wrote:
And very laborious to paint. Which is probably why you don't see them. I always laugh when I see comments like that. If you think it's so cool then you do it! (That's a generic 'you')

Haha fair point man. That is how I feel about those guys at the stores I've been to who always say " Man Sisters / Dark Eldar / List under-used army in that chapter here - are so awesome someone should do them " .

Those look a little bit like the Eagle Warriors and Novamarines. I don't know if that is what you were going for.

I myself struggled to find a marine chapter I would be happy with. I started with Blood Angels and never finished. Then I picked up Dark Angels and never finished. I sold both of those armies and thought about my next move.

I knew I wanted to be flexible; I absolutely do not want to be stuck in a boring codex cycle if I could help it. I also could not make up my mind which suited me best. I thought about a homegrown chapter, but I was never as satisfied with that. Nothing I could write would be as good as the stuff GW creates, at least on a good day. I like reading about my chapter, not writing about it.

My solution; Alpha Legion. Ever since the book Legion, I love the story behind the chapter. I like that you don't really know if they are traitor or loyalist to humanity. They have a cool as hell look. And, they are the ultimate chameleons, so I can play them however I want.

I do have some rules though; all the models are 30k variants when I can help it, and no aquillas or purity seals or any other decorative elements. The goal is to be the ultimate generic chapter, but that is how they are written.

casvalremdeikun wrote:Those look a little bit like the Eagle Warriors and Novamarines. I don't know if that is what you were going for.

I have never seen the Eagle Warriors however the nova marines are only similar in the quartered schemes style. It could be that with the marine painter there is no metallic silver so it looks just grey and dark blue rather than rich blue and white I started a new thread with a completed model of this scheme in it I am about to upload, just called " Custom Space Marine Chapter! " have a look if you like I got the idea for the scheme from the Storm Wardens which are a more richer blue and silver and in a different scheme ( lower legs , helmet and hands are silver, rest blue ) .

Vashones wrote:I myself struggled to find a marine chapter I would be happy with. I started with Blood Angels and never finished. Then I picked up Dark Angels and never finished. I sold both of those armies and thought about my next move.

I knew I wanted to be flexible; I absolutely do not want to be stuck in a boring codex cycle if I could help it. I also could not make up my mind which suited me best. I thought about a homegrown chapter, but I was never as satisfied with that. Nothing I could write would be as good as the stuff GW creates, at least on a good day. I like reading about my chapter, not writing about it.

My solution; Alpha Legion. Ever since the book Legion, I love the story behind the chapter. I like that you don't really know if they are traitor or loyalist to humanity. They have a cool as hell look. And, they are the ultimate chameleons, so I can play them however I want.

I do have some rules though; all the models are 30k variants when I can help it, and no aquillas or purity seals or any other decorative elements. The goal is to be the ultimate generic chapter, but that is how they are written.

Mate your story is so similar to mine. Start an army and it just dies in inspiration, to be sold and fund a new venture.

I am very much like you in the sense of wanting to read about my chapter. This is why some of my previous armies failed, I started Red Scorpions which have no actual fiction books bar the lore that's in some of the FW IA books, then did Salamanders but found whilst reading the first book in the Tome Of Fire series ( " Salamander" ) I found they were a little too soft for my touch , and the one character Tsu'gan kept throwing tantrums like a child and that really was unbecoming of a spehss mahreen..

I have decided to go with a custom chapter, it is located in the thread " Custom Space marine Chapter ! " Have a look if you like As for the Alpha Legion, awesome choice. Personally I have not read about them bar some background lore in the Wiki however the scheme and style of the army has always gripped me. This is why if I ever do start a 30k army ( and I am extremely tempted ) It would be a close call between Sons of Horus and Alpha Legion, though Alpha most likely winning out

The most important thing by far is the look. Most of your hobby time will be spent painting the colour scheme you have picked, and most of the remaining time will be spent looking at it. Therefore how much you like the colour scheme is directly linked to how much you will like the hobby and your army.

Second is the fluff. 40k is all about narrative and cool stories, so you really need something that inspires you.

How competitive the Chapter is (most vanilla SM Chapters are reasonably competitive so you dont need to worry much) is not really all that important unless your local meta is hypercompetitive.


Also, be happy your indecisiveness does not extend to army choice. For me it does, and I have now spent huge amounts of money only to have tiny armies of pretty much every faction in 40k (no SoB or Tau... yet) but only very little that is actually playable. On the plus side, I am finally happy with my choice of Marine Chapter. I went through like 4-5 different ones before finally being happy with a Chapter that I made up myself. Maybe you should take a look at making a custom Chapter too.
I now love writing fluff about my Chapter and their homeworld, and am also getting quite decent at it. It is great fun to see your ideas and writing skills develop and evolve over the years.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The most important thing by far is the look. Most of your hobby time will be spent painting the colour scheme you have picked, and most of the remaining time will be spent looking at it. Therefore how much you like the colour scheme is directly linked to how much you will like the hobby and your army.

Second is the fluff. 40k is all about narrative and cool stories, so you really need something that inspires you.

How competitive the Chapter is (most vanilla SM Chapters are reasonably competitive so you dont need to worry much) is not really all that important unless your local meta is hypercompetitive.


Also, be happy your indecisiveness does not extend to army choice. For me it does, and I have now spent huge amounts of money only to have tiny armies of pretty much every faction in 40k (no SoB or Tau... yet) but only very little that is actually playable. On the plus side, I am finally happy with my choice of Marine Chapter. I went through like 4-5 different ones before finally being happy with a Chapter that I made up myself. Maybe you should take a look at making a custom Chapter too.
I now love writing fluff about my Chapter and their homeworld, and am also getting quite decent at it. It is great fun to see your ideas and writing skills develop and evolve over the years.

Those first two points - Truer words have never been spoken. It explains directly why I am can be attracted to a certain army (aka Alpha Legion ) despite knowing not much at all about them, they just look so badass and like a nice challenge to paint.
To further expand on this, I've had Space Wolves since I was a teenager and despite the earlier books ( with lack of models to represent some of the better but expensive units ) being a little hard to use for a newbie, I always stuck with them and enjoyed getting my ass handed to me because of how cinematic and brutal the fight was with my favourite Vikings. Though nowdays they have been stripped and sit patiently in my case, unloved and shelved for some reason

On the note of competitiveness , you are correct. The Vanilla dex is pretty decent and ive run a few different lists from it since the newest release I don't play many games at all any more due to lack of opponents at my local store , but the guys I would bother playing against are pretty decent lads and I steer clear of the competitive ones, it just ruins the fun...especially since the last one I played was all nice and happy until I started killing his units and he rolled badly, then he was a very serious, short and sharp until his army started winning again. Just stupid.

I can sympathize with you on the Indecisiveness of an army..... The ONLY reason I don't own more than 4 armies currently ? Is because at one point or another I have owned every single one except Sisters of battle. Literally every single 40k army bar the Sisters. Due to financial constraints progressively getting worse over the years, I've just sold them and reinvested the money into the next army I thought was 'The one'

As for the custom chapter, after 2 failed attempts I too think I have found the one I've uploaded some pics into my new thread " Custom Space Marine Chapter! " in this forum . Super fun to paint and despite not being fully confident enough yet to write accurate fluff for them, I am certainly looking forward to it one day.

Words of wisdom in your post mate, nail on the head.

Nice paint job. Should be a good looking Army


About custom fluff, visit Bolter & Chainswords 'Liber' forum. They have great guides/advice on how to write good SM chapter backgrounds. Also you need to have a thick skin when opening your custom fluff to public scrutiny.

 SickSix wrote:
Nice paint job. Should be a good looking Army


About custom fluff, visit Bolter & Chainswords 'Liber' forum. They have great guides/advice on how to write good SM chapter backgrounds. Also you need to have a thick skin when opening your custom fluff to public scrutiny.

Thanks man ! I will look into that when I decide to write, thanks for the tip

Oh I can only imagine... people get fierce over 40k lore accuracy