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Hello Everyone,

I am new to Warhammer 40k, love watching the game and now cant wait to join in.

trying to decide whether to choose Iron hands or Deathwatch, love both fluff of each chapters, just trying to decide competitive wise and variety including play style, not sure the play style for either, if anyone can give me a brief description of the play style and maybe examples of additional support each comes with? also for both, do they have to be all black or metallic? can we change it to maybe blue metallic etc.?

I cannot really speak to play styles for either army, but Iron Hands got really good competitively with their new supplement. Then some nerfs just came which definitely hurt them. I would say they are still going to be pretty solid after the nerfs.

Deathwatch would not be as strong competitively, but they aren't going to be bottom of the barrel or anything. They do have some unique gear and units, though.

As far as painting goes you can paint them anyway you want. There are no rules that govern that. If you want to make them accurate to the fluff then both groups would be almost entirely black.

Historically speaking, iron hands have been the worst marine chapter for competitive play. All that changed last september, now they are almost the undisputed best faction in the game and will likely stay that way even after serious recent nerfs. Now before august, DW used to be the best marine chapter (note that marines as a whole were low tier at the time), now they are probably the second-wors of all the marine chapters. But in all this, remember the rules are temporary and plastic is forever.

I have a 1000pt DW army (that I mix with allies), but I have seriously considered playing IH in the past (like, until two months ago). DW are the most glass cannon of the marine armies, they excel in close range, anti-infantry firepower and aren't too shabby in melee. They move fast when you load them up in a flyer or use their excellent teleporter stratagem. Unfortunately, you are paying a high point cost for what is essentially a basic marine statline, T4 and a 3+ sv. The only saving grace is that 2W primaris marines do very well in the DW (bolt rifles benefit a lot from SIA), and your veterans can take a storm shield for a 3+ inv, but those will only get you so far. I find that they are a very good hammer when paired with an allied anvil, so to speak, but do struggle to operate as a complete army on their own. A lack of unit diversity or tactical flexibility (oddly enough) hurts them. Why is a 110 pt kill team guarding an objective when 35 points of skitarri can do the job just as well? It's why I almost always play them with allies and they aren't my first choice for a competitive army.

IH are basically tank marines. Their armies are built around fielding lots of armored vehicles (including dreadnoughts) and a few characters to support them. Every unit enjoys a 6+ FNP (20% more wounds), and their vehicles basically don't degrade. What infantry they do have will mostly just screen for the big guns, keeping away charging infantry, grabbing objectives, and the like [N.B. this is why I gave up on IH. What's the point of playing a marine army if your actual marines aren't the centerpiece?]. Still, they have a gun line that will make the tau blush a bright purple (I assume their blood is red, I don't know) and are very durable.

DW are a matte black with a bright silver left arm and a left shoulder pad painted in their parent chapter colors. IH are a glossy, metallic black with hints of blue (look at their HH color scheme) and they have white highlights. Obviously you can paint however you want (or however much your opponent will tolerate it), especially for the IH as they have a number of distinct clans within the chapter.

I play Deathwatch. It's a fun army to build and to play. It's not necessarily the best army for a beginner because it has some complicated rules. It's also not as powerful as iron hands, so you're not going to win as many games and the wins you come by will be a little harder to earn.

Deathwatch have high damage output against infantry. They have an ability to shoot more effective ammunition than other basic troops and they can reroll ones for wounds against specific unit types. But, you have to decide which ammo you shoot and what the unit type you can reroll against is. These decisions are harder than the non-choice you get with other armies, but you can learn it.

You can choose how to arm your Deathwatch squads and what types of units the squad can consist of. There are a ton of decisions and choices to make and different unit types give the squad different special abilities. Taking advantage of these abilities and unit compositions is what can make the army competetive. It's highly customizable.

Currently, Deathwatch units are pretty expensive, so it can be a lower model count army compared to other Marines. You pay a premium for their offensive power, but they die just as easily as their non-deathwatch counterparts. So they're not very forgiving if you make a mistake.

Iron hands are a better value for the points in terms of competetiveness. They're easier to win with and require less customization and decision making.

That said, if you like the fluff of Deathwatch, build, play, and learn with them! I also need to add that Deathwatch are very fun to build, customize, and paint.

Pepper your angus if you're looking into Iron Hands, you'll be painted with a broad brush given the current meta.