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Hey dakka, I've been tossing between so many armies and space marines chapters over the last few weeks and have come to the conclusion that:

A) I'm indecisive as f**
And B) I can't seem to find an army that holds my attention for more than a day...

I have looked between Blood Angels, Flesh Tearers, Salamanders, Orks, Imperial Guard and now a DIY chapter, but just can't decide!
I know for sure that I love close combat and smashing into my enemy fast; that's what drew me to BAngels/Tearers/Orks. My DIY chapter is a full elite army made up of Assault terminators, vanguard with jump packs and sternguard in drop pods, but I'm not sure...

What army best suits a player who loves chopping away at close combat with lots of epic weapons and cool looking figures?

Cheers all

SW wolves look really cool, and are really good in cc, Same with KDK.

That's why it is best to create an aesthetic and color scheme YOU like, and choose Chapters as you please. Also lets you create several different HQ's if you like the modeling aspect.

The most important thing to do is sit down with the huge version of the rulebook( or flip through warhammer wiki or the Lexicanum and the GW and FW sites) and find what army most appeals to you.

Odds are you'll be painting and modeling FAR more than playing, so you want an army you like the look of more than anything else.

If you want an army of Elites (Vanguard, Termies, Sternguard, just start buying those models and build from there.

Thunderwolves-heavy Space Wolves seems to be what you are looking for.

The wolf in me wants you to start with Space Wolves.

You can, using the right detachment, have a Bike only/Jump Pack only army, with most of your units receiving a WS boost.

Orks can be great too, just load 'em on Trukks and gogogo!

I don't have much experience with Blood Angels, so I can't comment on them.

You can play White Scars, and have Bikers only?

Tyranids are pretty fun in close combat and when well painted can look pretty awesome! They can be a bit tricky to play strategically at a distance but wreck when you get close to the enemy, as most have a pretty good number of attacks at high initiative. Also easy to paint but still very detailed.

you could do a black knight spam Dark Angels Ravenwing army. those bastards have high mobility, high durability (especially with a darkshroud) and can shred most things in melee. throw sammael and an interrogator chaplian on a bike with a 10 man squad, or just a command squad and you can eat almost anything, along with some good shooting if you want that

also, if you want a mobile melee army that will shred most things, the Harlequins are a good bet also

If you want to be reAly free with paint scheme and modeling then I suggest orks. While they are not high competitive (they're mid tear by my rekoning), they're fun to play and fun for your opponent to play against. While epic weapons are mainly classified in ork power klaws and shock attack guns, where orks reAly get epic is the numbers they can field and the crazy vehicles they can bolt together.

Make your own color scheme. Go with marines.

As others have said, this lets you switch between books with a few minor changes. While all marine armies are still marines, they do play slightly differently. Think of Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter.

If you go with marines as your base, you can also eventually ally in IG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

geargutz wrote:
If you want to be reAly free with paint scheme and modeling then I suggest orks. While they are not high competitive (they're mid tear by my rekoning).

Orks are loads of fun. I think they are on the lower end of the competitive circle. If you look through 40k history, they have been on the low end more than the high end.

Thanks for all the replies guys I'm thinking of going Space Wolves or a DIY chapter using their rules. And also a force of Militarum Tempestus, cos I love their figures

Might even try allying them together, see what sort of cool lists I can make up.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions

Thought about grey knights, psychic melee and decent shooting . Look cool you don't have to paint 3000 models as with orks or nids. I also love sw

white scar gladius...

I had another thought for you.

Pick what you think looks coolest. You will probably spend countless hours painting these models. If they don't look cool, you won't feel inspired.

well space wolves are the superior army of course hahaha, but they do have that cc vibe with being able to be playable still. Plus theres the new paint scheme which is way better than the old gross baby blue. Could even paint them like a preheresy throwback and do gunmetal grey. Or go with a 13th company feel and use a bunch of chaos bits to make them stand out.

I suggest asking to play a few friends or locals armies. You never know what is fun till you play it. I wish I had done that. Also watch a few battle reports. You'll see paintings and how armies play. It's a huge investment so don't want to lose your money on stuff won't play.

I played two armies almost exclusively for the last 2.5 years (my entire 40k career, if you will).

I have a 5 Flyrant list, that you never mentioned any inkling of interest in, and a very large Salamanders army, Large is relevant, it's only 4000 points or so.

I absolutely love my salamanders for a few reasons:

I LOVE the melta special rule. The gun's strength, AP value, the double pen rolls, everything. From the time I started 40k, it was the only thing holding my attention long enough for me to build an army. That being said, I focused my army composition around it, and of course, I needed Vulcan.

I tried multiple (hundreds of lists): I used Stormravens, all pods, mix of pods and shooting, sternguards, all tacticals, all rhinos, AA vehicles, I ran the gambit. Currently, my Salamander's attention is looking at the Gladius. It's simply too good to look past atm.

Gladius army lists is something like: Vulcan, Chaplain, 8 Pods: 6 Tacs, 2 Dev (with 1 Grav each), 2 Attack Bikes with MM, and 25 Sternguard for my Auxillary. It's fantastic. No complaints.

Well, except one, when it comes to h2h, it falls short. It's essentially all WS4, S4, 1-2 Attacks each, with AP- weapons. I win games with it, it's just not very exciting unless I'm playing against a Tank heavy army

Which leads me to my next army that I'm currently building. To fill my void, I'll be running The Company of the Great Wolf detachment with 1 Wolf Lord and 5 Iron Priests with Super Friends attached.

As many of the people here pointed out, you might be interested in it if you are looking for h2h marines.

KDK is a really exciting army to play as well. If I didn't commit to the Space Wolf army I'd be on the fence between those two (if I specifically wanted a CC army).

TLR - I love my salamanders, but as with a lot of space marine armies, they aren't very CC friendly. I leaned towards SW for some h2h action. Any imperium army can be made competitive, I wouldn't over think which army as much as when you do pick 1 (or 2 with allies) army(s), look to see what works and what is competitive - if that's your angle.