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As the title asks, I'm curious, What is the strengths and advantages and weaknesses of the various space marine codexes? Why would you pick one over another? I'm primarily curious about Vanilla Marines, Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves.

The vanilla codex is probably the most flexible. There are a lot of different builds you can do out of it, at various levels of competitiveness. Overall a lot of toys in the box to play with.

The other books are generally worse then core marines at general play (although can do the basic marine thing OK in casual play) but they make up for it with special gimmick tricks and formations, sometimes units.

DA have death/raven wing. Terminators being sub-par basically leave them with bike tricks. Or falling back to being codex marines minus one. But they do have some nice tricks they can pull with their bikes.

BA have some formations that do some fancy things. Turn one assaults, shuffling their army 6” closer at the start of the game. But outside those, they are vanilla marines with fewer options. They do have some special units (sang guard, death co) but suffer from being an assault army in a shooty edition.

Space Wolves, as normal, are codex marines plus one. They have all the tools to make some very nasty death stars, have solid units to work with, and some nice options. Not a lot of drawback. Except the fleas. While they don’t have the same gimmicky shenanigans as the other chapters, they have their own, and they work quite well. The real powerhouse CC marines, with thunderwolf calvary and wulfen.

Ill contribute what I know and that's Space Wolves.

The Wolves are an army that shore up the relative weakness in CC that vanilla marines have in exchange for not being as effective with their shooting. Every space wolf unit is respectable in close combat and by the virtue of counter attack alone makes armies like Orks question if its a good idea to charge into close combat with them (which is usually a no brainer against vanilla marines). The actual dedicated melee units are far more cost effective, mobile, and harder hitting than their vanilla marine counterparts. They are an army that likes to get into the thick of it and are rarely out punched. Not quite as good at psychic powers and they struggle against MCs at range (at best they tend to have plasma guns but very little access to reroll to hit) but they make up for it with hard hitting units that can go toe to toe with some of the hardest hitting melee units in the game.
One comparison I would make with the Blood Angels is that Blood Angels on average hit harder on the charge but they are roughtly as weak as vanilla marines when charged. This means that the usual means to close the distance (Rhinos and Drop Pods) puts you in range to be assaulted and don't let you assault first. Space Wolves on the other hand have more mobile melee units (Thunder Wolves, Wulfen + the wulfen aura making infantry have greater mobility) so its easier for them to get into the thick of it while their shooty units have counter attack to keep them semi relevant in CC when charged.

A 3+ Armor Save and not much else.

It depends on what units you like; every Codex does a different subset of "Space Marines" slightly better or worse. Space Wolves do melee infantry better, Blood Angels do assault marines and Dreadnaughts better, Dark Angels do Bikes and Terminators better, and vanilla Marines do Bikes, ranged infantry, and armour better. You'd pick the one that's got more toys for the units you like.

(This is not an exhaustive summary and doesn't cover every upside/downside of all books)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
A 3+ Armor Save and not much else.

I don't think that's an advantage or disadvantage of one Marine book over another. Unless you don't like 3+ armour, at that point you might have to go look at 30k since I don't think there are any HQ choices in Scout armour in 40k.

Space Wolves don't get Grav weaponry. Dark Angels and Spice Maroons do. Not sure about Blood Angels.

BA do get grav, including grav-cannons now. However, they don't get Centurions and can't take grav-cannons on their Tacticals.

Vanilla Marines are the most well rounded and have a greater variety of units and tactics to choose from.

Dark Angels like to shoot and ride around on motorcycles.

Blood Angels have quicker vehicles and are in love with jump packs.

Space Wolves like to punch people at the expense of shooting prowess.

What you should do is paint all your guys in a non standard color and play them as a successor chapter to whichever Codex you want. I have an entire company of fully painted Dark Angels, but if I had to do it all over again I would've painted them purple, called them Emperor's Swords, and used whatever book I felt like.

Grey Knights are as close as you can get to playing Movie Marines, in that they are Astartes cranked to 11 with a poibts per model to match. At the moment they are niche and considered non-competitive due to Grav, yet are a Chapter of Librarians that can take Troop choice TDA with grenades and Force weapons as well as TDA Monstrous Creatures.

Deathwatch are also like playing Movie Marines, with mixed squads, mixed weapons, mixed tactics, mixed utility, mixed reviews, and lots of black paint.

Legion of the Damned are auto-lose unless taken as allies or with allies.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Grey Knights are as close as you can get to playing Movie Marines, in that they are Astartes cranked to 11 with a poibts per model to match. At the moment they are niche and considered non-competitive due to Grav, yet are a Chapter of Librarians that can take Troop choice TDA with grenades and Force weapons as well as TDA Monstrous Creatures.

Deathwatch are also like playing Movie Marines, with mixed squads, mixed weapons, mixed tactics, mixed utility, mixed reviews, and lots of black paint.

Legion of the Damned are auto-lose unless taken as allies or with allies.

SJ

Grey Knights are also the furthest from playing Movie Marines, in that they're fairly ineffectual for their price in a lot of situations. They're considered non-competitive due to the generalist problem, the fact that they're forced to pay for power weapons on every model despite being mediocre at best in most melee situations, and the fact that 20pts minimum doesn't buy any statline advantages or durability advantages over a 14pt Tactical Marine more so than the existence of grav.

Hmm... I do realy like dreadnoughts.. What Space Marine codex would be best for building a dreadnought heavy army?

Merellin wrote:
Hmm... I do realy like dreadnoughts.. What Space Marine codex would be best for building a dreadnought heavy army?

Blood Angels, probably. Space Wolves' Dreadnaughts have some extra toys other armies can't replicate and the Iron Hands enable tougher Dreadnaughts in more slots, but BA can use more Dreadaughts (via an all-Dreadnaught formation) and have fun and entertaining unique Dreadnaughts/Dreadnaught toys in the same army.

(Salamanders have the toughest Dreadnaught of them all (AV 14 front, 4 hull points, and immune to everything), but we're no good at having more Dreadnaughts than just him.)

(I checked the 30k all-Dreadnaught Rite and it may be too crippling to actually use, it lets you take Dreadnaughts in Troops but you automatically lose the roll to get first turn and your opponent gets a bonus Victory Point for each individual Dreadnaught he destroys.)

I dont know anything about the Blood Angels formations.. Are their formations in their codex, Or in that supplement (I think it was) that came out for them recently? Angel's Blade I think it was called.. I read somewhere that Space Wolves have a formation in Curse of the Wulfen that is 1 Iron Priest and 2-5 Dreadnoughts? Is that similar to the Blood Angels formation?

Merellin wrote:
I dont know anything about the Blood Angels formations.. Are their formations in their codex, Or in that supplement (I think it was) that came out for them recently? Angel's Blade I think it was called.. I read somewhere that Space Wolves have a formation in Curse of the Wulfen that is 1 Iron Priest and 2-5 Dreadnoughts? Is that similar to the Blood Angels formation?

There's an ebook version of the Codex entitled "Codex: Blood Angels - Red Thirst Edition" that should have the supplement content included, otherwise you'll need the Angels' Blade book for the formation.

Space Wolves Dreadnaughts are going to be a bit tougher since you've got the Blizzard Shield for a 3++ to the front, but I'm hesitant to recommend building an army around their Dreadnaught formation since it requires you to field a bunch of Dreadnaughts in a single vehicle squadron. Blood Angels Dreadnaughts are going to hit at least as hard (especially with the 1/game bonus shooting phase/melee phase from the formation), they'll be more mobile (with MTC from the magna-grapples), operate independently, you'll have AV 13 front on the Furioso chassis, and you've got a Dreadnaught that's also a strong support HQ (the Librarian Dreadnaught).

If I were doing a Dreadnaught army I'd definitely start with the Blood Angels.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Grey Knights are as close as you can get to playing Movie Marines, in that they are Astartes cranked to 11 with a poibts per model to match. At the moment they are niche and considered non-competitive due to Grav, yet are a Chapter of Librarians that can take Troop choice TDA with grenades and Force weapons as well as TDA Monstrous Creatures.

Deathwatch are also like playing Movie Marines, with mixed squads, mixed weapons, mixed tactics, mixed utility, mixed reviews, and lots of black paint.

Legion of the Damned are auto-lose unless taken as allies or with allies.

SJ

Grey Knights are also the furthest from playing Movie Marines, in that they're fairly ineffectual for their price in a lot of situations. They're considered non-competitive due to the generalist problem, the fact that they're forced to pay for power weapons on every model despite being mediocre at best in most melee situations, and the fact that 20pts minimum doesn't buy any statline advantages or durability advantages over a 14pt Tactical Marine more so than the existence of grav.

Personal negative bias. I already covered why they are like playing Movie Marines and why they don't work. Fleshing out the reasons why they don't work does not add any more to their strengths, nor reduce them further. The exact same issues apply to DW and LotD, if in each their own way. My post was for completeness, as those three Marine codexes were not mentioned by others.

SJ

Hmm... Is Champions of Fenris still legal?

Grey Knights have some quality mind bullets and can preform okay in most phases of the game if armed correctly. Their biggest weakness is that their price point cripples them. The codex only has 3 "reasonably" priced units, those being dreadknights, m3 librarians and terminators. Even then I'm a bit iffy on terminator prices.

Because of this they aren't really too competitive. They're already a small model count army on top of being over priced. Right now they're basically codex dreadknight and some tax used to field it. Think flyrant syndrome times ten.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
(Quote truncated for brevity)
Personal negative bias. I already covered why they are like playing Movie Marines and why they don't work. Fleshing out the reasons why they don't work does not add any more to their strengths, nor reduce them further. The exact same issues apply to DW and LotD, if in each their own way. My post was for completeness, as those three Marine codexes were not mentioned by others.

SJ

I will admit to grumpiness over my Codex not working. I will also admit to having started to rewrite it to try and make it work.

Deathwatch have the weapons to deal with a much wider variety of targets, Veteran statlines, a dramatic increase in offensive power over normal Space Marines with special ammunition, don't have to pay an extra 4ppm for two close combat weapons, Drop Pods, Bikes, and an excessive number of rerolls. They're Grey Knights +1 in a sense, both are elite MEQ armies but the Deathwatch have dramatically superior hitting power along with similar durability.

As of the draft FAQ GW recommends calling Aid From Beyond (all units in this detachment automatically arrive from Reserves on turn one) a rule built into the LotD detachment, the fact that you'd be stuck with a tiny range of ancient resin models with no vehicles is probably a better recommendation against trying to make them your army. For the curious they're a Tactical Squad that gets a 3+ Invulnerable save and a few extra keywords for 25ppm and you probably won't get much out of them anyway, if you like the lore the Deathwatch Codex lets you do pretty similar things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Merellin wrote:
Hmm... Is Champions of Fenris still legal?

Yes, but I wouldn't recommend using it to make a Dreadnaught army since all the supplement/detachment benefits are written to make Thunderwolves and Wolf Guard better.

Merellin wrote:
Hmm... I do realy like dreadnoughts.. What Space Marine codex would be best for building a dreadnought heavy army?

Iron Hands if you want a tech marine repairing them the entire time and It Will not Die

Rough, and i mean very rough over view of some chapters strength

Ultramarines: Very flexible, can do it all well, but not great.

White scares: Gotta go fast on bike!

Salamanders: (IMO) Vanguard forces, drop pods with sternguards armed with melta and flame cause a lot of damage

Imperial fists: Bolter shooty army.

Dark angels: currently, fast attack, and probably the best shooty space marines due to Lions blade.

Iron hards: If you never want to loose a model, and also you have access to SmashF*cker Prime the most powerful single infantry model in the game that stands toe to toe with the theoretical emperor model (10s across the board)

Space wolfs: Run fast, chop stuff up.

Blood angels: Dreads in drop pods and DS a land raider, thats about it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vash108 wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Hmm... I do realy like dreadnoughts.. What Space Marine codex would be best for building a dreadnought heavy army?

Iron Hands if you want a tech marine repairing them the entire time and It Will not Die

This and also iron hands make tanks and the like actually worth tanking, and well Smashf*cker prime is there so.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Grey Knights are as close as you can get to playing Movie Marines, in that they are Astartes cranked to 11 with a poibts per model to match. At the moment they are niche and considered non-competitive due to Grav, yet are a Chapter of Librarians that can take Troop choice TDA with grenades and Force weapons as well as TDA Monstrous Creatures.

Remember back before The Wardening, when PAGK were WS5, S6, Fearless, and had True Grit to get +1A from their Stormbolters? BBAP remembers. They weren't competitive back then either, but the extra points actually felt like they were buying you something over and above the basic Spice Maroon and you could almost justify wedging in an Allied squad or two.

I actually quite like the Deathwatch, though like the GK it's an "Allies" Codex rather than a main book. That Frag Launcher thing is brutal.