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So I'm brand new to Warhammer 40k. Just joined up with local players to learn the rules and have been researching chapters to find out where I want to start. I have a decent amount of second hand figures starting out but have been completely overwhelmed with choices.

Unit wise I have:
1 librarian
1dreadnaught
1 speeder
3 bikes
2 captains
10 scouts
22 terminators
20 tactical
10 jump
5 dev

So how did everyone decide their first chapter?
Does anyone have any recommendations based off units I already have?

Any help would be appreciated. I've been reading fluff and tactics for several days and my head is spinning.

First, welcome to Dakka and the Space Marines.

I chose my first chapter because that’s what transfers came in the box. And my second army because I got tired of painting red (and had transfers for them at that point). Probably not very helpful, but that’s my history.

You have a very well balanced collection, and could do well with most any of the vanilla chapters. So I’d look to the fluff and see what calls to you. Or your favorite color.

From a competitive standpoint, some chapters are probably a bit better then others (White Scars, Iron Hands, Ultramarines) but none are unworkable. There is also the option of going with a homebrew chapter, so you can use whatever chapter tactics you want.

my suggestion would be to develop your own colour scheme. and invent your own chapter. this way you can experiment a bit with chapter tactics and see what works best for you without having a case of "... ya know I painted my chapter as ultramarines but damnit, I find I prefer Imperial fists"

Thanks for the responses!

Any suggestions on homebrewing? Everything is brand new to me and not having a specific lay out doesn't help with my being overwhelmed.

Possibly some reading material? I'll do some Google searches myself but any specific direction would be much appreciated.

Something I'd suggest would be to have a flick through online images of marines and see if there's a colour scheme that strikes you. You can always add you own twists and secondary colours once you've decided on a main colour. In terms of how your chapters history will lay out and how that and their mindset impacts on how they operate in the field can really help you identify and connect with your army. I tend to stick an audio book on while I paint (there areally quite a few in YouTube) so if you settle on a colour scheme and start painting away doing this might provide you with some inspiration for your marines back stories. There is also a homebrew template online I have seen before and had I not already settled on a Chapter I'd have been tempted to give it a try as it randomly generates characteristics for your army IIRC based off you rolling dice against tables, I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: found it much quicker than I thought i might. It's actually on 1d4chan which has a massive amount of information on the setting including a large number of the known marine chapters so that may also be worth a read to you.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Space_Marine_Chapter_Creation_Tables

Oh and welcome to 40k

Thanks for the link. I think I'll stay away from random generated but maybe I'll roll and see what I get before dismissing it. 1d4chan has been a great resource especially since it's kept up to date, a ton of information on chapters is pre 7th edition :/

jontrainer wrote:
Thanks for the link. I think I'll stay away from random generated but maybe I'll roll and see what I get before dismissing it. 1d4chan has been a great resource especially since it's kept up to date, a ton of information on chapters is pre 7th edition :/

at the very least you can open her up, and pick and choose the one you like best random rolling on bits where you "... have no idea"

It is my opinion that what you should focus on when starting your first army depends a lot on what you enjoy about the hobby and what to get out of said hobby. What draws you to 40k and to marines specifically? The fluff? The painting/models? The game play itself? What attracted you to marines?

If you're a fluff guy, then you should probably head over to lexicanum's website and read a wiki page worth of fluff on a few chapters (don't be afraid to look into successor chapters) until something really grabs your imagination and makes you want to go with a certain chapter or make up your own.

If you're more of a painter/modeler, I'd probably just peruse paint schemes and make it work from there. Unless you want to do something extremely specific (like an all biker army), your current collection is a good starting point for a lot of armies mechanically.

If you're in it for the gameplay itself, figure out what kind of gameplay you enjoy. Do you want to bring the cheesiest, strongest list to the game in an effort to win at tournaments? Cool. You won't have much fun against casual lists, but you can research competitive tournament lists to figure out what's strong right now. Note that we may be getting an edition change soon that will shake things up.

If you're in it for more casual games, then I'd suggest finding a mechanically-sound gimmick or theme. You could, for instance, build a powerful-but-friendly biker army or drop pod army that would be enjoyable to play against while also being reasonably easy to win with. On the other hand, you might be tempted to do an all jump pack army (like me) which, while cool, is going to be much harder to win games with even against casual opponents. Note that some "casual" lists, like the bike or droppod ones mentioned above, can be modified for competitive play with some minor tweaks pretty easily. Y'know. If you enjoy both friendly games and tournaments.

If you want your marines to "feel" a certain way when you play them, you should definitely figure out which playstyle scratches that itch. if you want a small, elite force, for instance, you might consider using Deathwatch rules or finding a Deathwing formation from the Dark Angels book that does what you want.

Marines can be built a lot of different ways, but you still have to have a sound overall plan for a given army for it to do well. Tossing a hodgepodge of units at your opponent won't necessarily do very well, but most units in the codex can be very effective when used in the right army.

Also, don't paint your stuff right away unless you're primarily a hobbyist (read painter/modeler). Try out different playstyles and proxy models a bit until you figure out which style of army you like. You may think, for instance, that a terminator-heavy list would be awesome, but then find yourself discouraged when you realize you're paying a ton of extra points for something that isn't as durable as it looked on paper. So rather than having already painted your guys in Dark Angels colors, you can decided to focus on some other unit that matches a different chapter's modus operandi instead.





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BrianDavion wrote:
my suggestion would be to develop your own colour scheme. and invent your own chapter. this way you can experiment a bit with chapter tactics and see what works best for you without having a case of "... ya know I painted my chapter as ultramarines but damnit, I find I prefer Imperial fists"

I'm a huge fan of coming up with my own fluff and paint schemes. More of my armies are homebrew factions than not. However, there is a lot to be said for going with an existing faction that speaks to you. You'll get to see your own guys show up in novels and codex fluff, you'll occassionally get special characters corresponding to your faction, and you can really dive deep into naming or painting or modeling your guys in a way that reflects the faction's fluff. I find that my factions that aren't homebrew tend to feel a bit more strongly tied to the setting. Plus, there are some really cool existing factions out there! Especially for marines. My goodness there are a lot of marine chapters out there...

First of Welcome to the gaming hobby and welcome to Dakka. Sorry I can't help you in what you already have to improve on it, but I might help you in how to make your army better.

First off what army to choose? Hard to say. Do you want to go by fluff or just rules when playing? For me, I choose Dark Angels in 4th edition. They sucked horrible. A lot of people went and used 5th edition Space Marine codex for their Dark Angels. I stuck with the 4th edition Dark Angels still. I just love their fluff. I love their minis. So I don't want to use another codex. I would never complain someone else doing so.

So after we figure if you want to play fluffy or not, what is your play style? Are you a shooty person? Maybe an assaulty person? How about a horde or many minis or a few elite minis? Maybe a combination of all of them?

This is important. No matter how good or awesome someone makes a list for you, if it's not your play style, you will not have fun.

One great thing about GW and 40K, is let's say you like the fluff or Dark Angles. Or Blood Angles or Space Wolves or what ever. You like the rules, you like the fluff, but you don't like the colour scheme. You can always change the colour scheme to your liking and you can't be wrong.

Lots of people like/love Dark Angels. They play successor chapters. By that if you don't know, they are like children chapters. The Dark Angels would be the "parent" chapter and then the Disciples of Caliban would be the successor chapter. Hope this makes sense.

While I go by rule of cool, there are some people who have issues with this. GW encourages "counts as", but there many people out there who do not like this and then will discourage you and you must play their way.

"Counts As" is saying this flamer is a plasma gun or these dinosaurs are going to be "counts as" bikes.

It's your time. It's your money. Do what you think is fun. Model and covert to what you think is cool. I always believe "Rule of Cool" overrides most things. So have fun and do your research. If you play and feel it's not for you, go onto something else.

There are many sites to go to do your research. I don't know what are the best ones to go to so I will let others put in links what would be good to go to for the research.

Hope this helped a bit.

Thanks for the great responses!

I've spent at least 8 hours of the last 24 reading fluff and chapter tactics online.

I think I'm going to start out focusing on Dark Angels because this gives me a few different tactics to mix and match while still being of the same chapter. The ravenwing and deathwing units really intrigue me because I can play fast bikes and terminators.

What drew me to the space marines was models. I love the battle scenes of marines laying down fire on hoards of beasts and looking so calm and focused.

Other chapters that interested me were : white scars (bike battalion? He'll yea!), raven guard (drop on your head from the shadows), salamanders (fire, fire, every where!). I just felt that DA gave me the flexibility to field different unit types and mix and match without having to switch chapters.

Who knows? I could be wrong, but I'm excited none the less.

It’s worth noting that other chapters can also field terminators, not just the DA. With formations, you can even do pure terminator armies.

Similarly, other chapters can do bikes.

DA get special terminator and bike units, but generally pay for it by having the rest of their forces a little sub-par to the vanilla chapters.

My first space marines were a chapter of my own creation, I wanted something I could ease into without having to commit to any of the existing fluff out there with a distinct colour scheme I could replicate across an army. I still really like the backstory I came up for them, but whatever... They were orange with silver boots.

These days I'm pretty skeptical of people's homebrew chapters. Call me jaded, but I feel like there are a lot of really cool chaptersout there with really compelling stories that nobody knows about because they're too busy trying to come up with the perfect special backstory for yet another chapter with black armour and red trim.

For me, it was the Celestial Lions, that's what I'm building to now. For you, it could be anything, even something you had to come up with yourself because none of the existing lore spoke to you, but just keep in mind that there is a lot of lore out there, and the exact chapter you didn't know you always wanted to play might be out there, waiting for you...

That said, hey, welcome to the forum and the hobby!

It's worth pointing out between the terminators (what's their loadout look like?) and the rest of them, you actually have enough models to run a Battle Demi-Company and a 1st Company task force from the main codex. This combination basically would allow you to run the Gladius Strike Force or any of the chapter specific formation detatchments from the Angels of Death supplement. That basically gives you free reign to experiment with every possible combination of chapter tactics and formation special rules for the models you have until you find one you prefer.

...People do seem to think a new edition is coming out soon, though...

As for colour scheme, you should do some research into how the space marine paint schemes work, there's a certain visual language to them. Not all of them follow all of these rules, but most do see the need to be able to convey the information with quick and easy visual cues like that, often with their own twists and variations.

My terminators are not anything special, mostly basic fist/storm bolted with a few power weapons or autocannon here and there.

I don't fully understand demi-companies and battle formations yet and putting them into play ( still learning the basic rules), but I like the idea of having a chapter set before I really learn the nuts and bolts. This way I can focus on using chapter tactics and learning them in and out instead of just switching around and never really getting to know the intimacies they may provide in battle.

After fielding a few battles I may decide I don't like a certain style of play and focus entirely on something else. Gonna start with some small games, my local shop suggested kill teams as a learning platform, then start fielding bigger battles from there.

For now I'm reading everything I can and hopefully will start playing this week...

Edit: terminators power fist/storm bolter x17, power sword/ storm bolter x3, chain fist/storm bolter x2, power fist/autocannon x1

There are a number of ways to build an army. The most basic is the traditional one, using the Combined Arms Detachment (CAD). It still used the battlefield role of units (HQ, elite, troop, fast attack, heavy support). The requirements at a HQ and two Troops, with options for another HQ and up to 4 more troops, and 0-3 of Elite, FA, HS. You can basically take whatever units you want, as long as you don’t take too many of any one unit.

Formations are a little more complicated, but not by much. Instead of whatever you want for units, they often have tighter restrictions. But by following their rules, you get some free bonuses. For example, the Battle Demi-Comapny that forms the core of a lot of marine lists needs

a Captain Or a Chaplain
3 Tactical squads
1 Fast attack squad (chosen from a list)
1 Devastator squad (chosen from a shorter list)

With the option (but not required) to take
a Command squad
a Dreadnought

You need to take all the requirements, similar to how we needed a HQ and 2 troops before. Things are just a little more restrictive. And you can’t take something like 3 assault squads, as the formation only specifies 1. Everything has a slot,nothing extra.

There are also the meta formations (often called Decurions after the first one that came out) which is a formation that contain other formations. The basic vanilla marine one is the Gladius, but there are a lot more these days. It contains one or two demi-cos, 1 or more auxiliary formations (things like the 1st company TF, stormwing, etc. There is a list of what qualifies; not just any formation) and optionally 0-3 command choices (another list of things). Again, like the normal formation, fill the slots you are required to, and then any options you want. These type of setups are the only time a unit can belong to more then one structure (detachment/formation) As it will belong to it’s own, and the overarching one.

Building an army is just a mater of taking a structure, filling the slots you need/want, and then adding another structure if you want until you run out of points.

Hope that helped.

Kill team seems a decent way to get into the game. The game play might be a little different then a full battle, but it should help a lot with getting the mechanics down.

Your terminators are all basic (sometimes referred to tactical, as opposed to assault) terminators. They get a bit of a bad rap these days. Mostly due the proliferation of things that cut through their expensive armor with ease these days. They can be fun to splash a squad into a more casual list though. Just go to be a bit careful with them. Keep them away from both nasty guns like plasma, or massed fire. A 2+ armor save sounds good, but toss enough dice and those 1s will show up.

The guys with the swords are the sergeants. The autocannon is probably an assault cannon. Unless it’s heresy era or a chaos terminator. 6 barrel rotary setup? That’s an assault cannon. 2 longer barrels? Autocannon.

My prefered load for tactical terminators is
5 man squad. Sarge w/sword, 1 guy with the Assault cannon, 1 guy with stormbolter/chainfist, and then 2 basic guys (SB/fist)

jontrainer wrote:
Thanks for the great responses!

I've spent at least 8 hours of the last 24 reading fluff and chapter tactics online.

I think I'm going to start out focusing on Dark Angels because this gives me a few different tactics to mix and match while still being of the same chapter. The ravenwing and deathwing units really intrigue me because I can play fast bikes and terminators.

What drew me to the space marines was models. I love the battle scenes of marines laying down fire on hoards of beasts and looking so calm and focused.

Other chapters that interested me were : white scars (bike battalion? He'll yea!), raven guard (drop on your head from the shadows), salamanders (fire, fire, every where!). I just felt that DA gave me the flexibility to field different unit types and mix and match without having to switch chapters.

Who knows? I could be wrong, but I'm excited none the less.

My ex (long story) played a Dark Angels Ravenwing force - freaking vicious, I recall her getting a victory on turn two one of the few armies that can make the classic bum rush work...

Also if you go homebrew with your painting and modeling you can use your army as a dark angels or conventional space marines. dark angels are nice however, because you can get a really good deal with the dark vengeance set - between the pocket copy of the main rulebook, and a really sweet selection of troops, elites and commanders, plus a whole new chaos army to sell or keep for a rainy day.

And right now you have a really versatile force that can go anyway you choose

Kill teams actually could be a great way to start a army - set up a kill team force, paint it 100%, learn about the core concepts of the game then move up. You could even do multiple kill team "armies" (a kill team is not going to have more than one squad with space marines) giving each squad in your army a turn, and splittingup the painting into manageable packages

I purchased kill team per recommendation of my local shop. It's a new shop and they have a ton of beginners so they have been using kill team as a learning platform.

I'm probably going to purchase some terminator bits and do some surgery to give my guys a boost. I just chopped up my jump squad and some of my devs to model them with better load outs and enjoyed it immensely.

Thanks for the advice! Eveything is greatly appreciated.

I was in same exact boat about 6 months ago, starting WH40k, and trying to choose a chapter.

I like unique personally, and made up my own color scheme unsure of what chapter tactics I wanted to play. Reading the lore is nice, and there are some great backgrounds, but again I like original stuff.

I spent many months painting a simple color scheme that still looks decent and finally when I got to play my first few games. I was able to try different ones (chapter rules). I used the tactics from about 4 different chapters, but really enjoyed the lore and tactics from the Iron Hands. Not as fleshed out as the more popular chapters like Dark Angels, Ultras, or White Scars, but the whole robotic, bionic, cold like feel to them really resonated with me.

The upside of a custom chapter is being able to use the rules of the chapter you like, while still able to paint the colors you like, and put your own personal spin on the army you make. I guess also being able to switch at a later date for something fresh, or just to try something new also helps.

Current roster

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