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.

Alright, near the end of this year, I plan on finally starting up my Warhammer40k army, I've never played before so I'm completely greenhorn to this game (And all miniature tabletop games in general...besides Risk and Axis and Allies if you'd wish you count that as experience )
Anyway, I'm planning on starting a Space Marine army, though my main concern is the amount of Space marine players already out there (Which I've heard is a large amount). I want to play a very unique army (Or play style) and I think Space Marines would be a good idea. I want a small, elite force, everybody supports each other and specializes in very particular tasks. Any help would be greatly appreciated

No, it really isn't. Marines are hard to use properly in 7th ed, imo.

If you want to play something unique I suggest taking a look at what players near you use. Touching base also allows you to ascertain the level of power that local groups lean towards. Balance in Warhammer is fickle and play groups can vary wildly. From those that are extremely competitive, to those that disallow fliers and superheavies, and everything in between.

If you are new, space marines are the best army to begin with. Their rules are simple to follow, they have a decent presence in every phase, they are forgiving to learn with, and the models are easy to paint. As they are so popular, you can easily get started on a budget with ebay.

That's why every boxed game has had space marines in it. That and being the iconic 40k army.

I'd say Necrons are more the starter army. They're terribly easy to paint (spray paint silver and paint some green detailing), terribly easy to play (get X formation and point at Y enemy), and will certainly boost your morale with crushing enemies. The only difference is that playing space marines might teach you the game better, because you can't be lazy.

Do you want army to practice game rules and later sell it? Then Space Marines are good starter army (vanilla or others). You can get used SM models pretty cheap and they are easy to paint.

I would still recommend to take army you want to play and paint. Maybe Dark Eldar is hard to learn and with some armies is hard to win (Like CSM).

All Space Marines are elite armies, Grey Knight more than others.Eldars are very tough army and have very specialized units. Which faction interest you most?

Everyone has a Space Marines army, if only a few models from their starter box.
So, that makes it easy to get an army built up from spares people have, and cast-offs to tinker with.
Also, people to give advise (often out of date, though).

On the table, Marines have a few special rules, and ATSKNF can get forgotten or mis-read, but they are a fairly straightforward, resilient, army to begin with.

The most unique space marines are the Grey Knights I think.

From you're description i think Dark Angels might be the closest match.

However if you really want an army where everything has a unique role Space Marines in general may not be for you because generally other than whether they're on a bike or have a fancy gun they're all pretty much the same, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just may not be what you're looking for.

Generally each chapter is individual and the marines within it are all similar.

Can you provide any more information on what kind of theme or fighting style you might be looking for in a marine army?

Check out the Start Collecting boxes (with FLGS discount).

Then read up on the chapters and see what takes your fancy (or invent your own).

I'll agree with everyone that Space Marines are probably the best place to start for a beginner, but I'm not sure they'll match what you want.

Whether you find a unique play style or not is going to depend on your local meta, who plays what and how in your area, but from what you've said you'll have an easier time with Eldar creating a list of specialised units that support each other with their Aspect Warriors.

As long as you don't bring loads of jet bikes with Scatter Lasers or Wraithknights nobody will hate for playing Eldar either.

Welcome to Dakka and 40k.

One thing about marines, is that there are a lot of ways to play them. Some are more competitive, yes, but generally on the friendly local level, there is a lot of flex. And chapter tactics help make even the same units play a bit different.

If you want to play marines and be unique, you might want to look into some of the more obscure chapters. You can go from “yet another marine player” to “that Mantis Warrior guy” (or other rarely seen force). FW has some free ones in their downloads section Full disclosure: some people have issues with FW, but you can always play them with rules straight out of the codex if you run into problems. It just a paintjob most of the time.

Do take the time and find the army that you want to play. Don’t worry so much if there is already someone playing it. You are going to be spending far to much time and money on this game to choose something you are “meh” on. Find that thing that lights your fire, and ride it to victory!

There are a LOT of marine players. They are non-unique and very cookie cutter. They are very forgiveable army, not as point and click as necrons, but depending on the build they can be worse. If you want a small, elite force, check out the Grey Knights! Terminator units in small numbers.

Space Marines (at least the vanilla version) are a very good starter army. The reason is because their rules are very straightforward, they have many defenses against almost everything in the game (invul saves are plentiful, you have ATSKNF to prevent morale from breaking you, your range of guns can handle most things out there, your transports are cheap, and your tanks have very simple rules) and are not overly-costly for what they do, so even if you roll badly things won't go south for you fast.

The problem most people have with Space Marines is that they don't really excel at anything either, barring the odd fringe case in matchups. The closest to "broken" they have is Grav Weapons and that's because it counters what's popular in the meta right now, which are high-toughness, high armored targets (if Ork boyz suddenly became the next broken units in the game, Grav Weapons would be worthless).

If you want a unique army though, Space Marines are a mixed bag; they have enough rules that you can technically make something unique, but don't expect it to be totally unique either. Most people WILL have seen your idea in one form or another if you go with space marines (whereas a lot of people might know about an Eldar Aspect Host army, few have probably seen one, while everyone probably, at one point, owned a space marine armored division).Like others have said, if you want a truely elite force, go with Grey Knights. I would also recommend Tau Battlesuits as well, as they're a fairly elite force but also very competitive right now.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd say Necrons are more the starter army. They're terribly easy to paint (spray paint silver and paint some green detailing), terribly easy to play (get X formation and point at Y enemy), and will certainly boost your morale with crushing enemies. The only difference is that playing space marines might teach you the game better, because you can't be lazy.

I would agree. I went with Necrons as my first army. I went more complex than just using silver spray paint, but the metallic colors just seem to be easier to use in general. It's easy to paint a nice looking army.

Also rule wise they are easy to learn. Most of your units will be geared exactly the same which is easier to play than a unit with multiple weapon types. Also their extreme resilience makes then more forgiving to play.

I actually recommend Eldar Aspect warriors for that rather than marines.

Everyone seems to think marines are the specialist army but 9 times out of 10 they're just spamming melta guns and grav, and with the low armor of rhinos and suicideyness of drop pods they're more like a firecracker goon squad.

Eldar aspect warriors all use highly specialized weapons (you get a unit of all melta guns, or a unit of all anti infantry guns, or a unit of all rocket launchers, or a pure melee squad), they're elite, and they all need to be used against the correct targets to perform well.

Eldar get a lot of hate because their book is solid and contains one particularly overpowered build (wraithknights and Svatterbikes) but the aspects are both fun and tactical to play. They're all pretty solid (just avoid Shining Spears and don't take too too many Warp Spiders or your opponent will hate you)

the_scotsman wrote:
I actually recommend Eldar Aspect warriors for that rather than marines.

Everyone seems to think marines are the specialist army but 9 times out of 10 they're just spamming melta guns and grav, and with the low armor of rhinos and suicideyness of drop pods they're more like a firecracker goon squad.

Eldar aspect warriors all use highly specialized weapons (you get a unit of all melta guns, or a unit of all anti infantry guns, or a unit of all rocket launchers, or a pure melee squad), they're elite, and they all need to be used against the correct targets to perform well.

Eldar get a lot of hate because their book is solid and contains one particularly overpowered build (wraithknights and Svatterbikes) but the aspects are both fun and tactical to play. They're all pretty solid (just avoid Shining Spears and don't take too too many Warp Spiders or your opponent will hate you)

I think the OP would also rather not mortgage his house buying the incredibly small, expensive Aspect Warrior models.

I think I will try out a Space Marine Dark Angels army, perhaps Deathwing or go with regular codex marines and take the 1st Company task force and paint them up to look like Deathwatch. Eldar might have to wait, they are a bit too expensive for me at the moment.

I would say Eldar is not a good starting army, especially the aspect warrior heavy. Most aspect warriors are fine cast and resin is harder to work with/convert than plastic. Additionally they are more expensive, relatively harder to paint and eldar have a lot more special rules.