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Basically after graduating, I've been thinking of starting 40k TT and need help in deciding which Chapter to go with.

So could people here be kind enough to give summaries of each chapter, what they're like to play with, what's good and bad with them, play style, etc...

I have been thinking of Dark Angels due to them having plasma weaponry and being quite diverse at having it all, librarians, terminators, etc...

Welcome to Dakka!
My pick would be Iron Hands or Ultramarines, while chapters like DA or BA are more specialized.
Hands off from GK as they are non-competitive atm.

I have returned to the game recently after 20 years away.

Having seaid that I kept a little in the 'know' about the universe etc.

Even with that, I found picking a chapter for my SM from the half of Dark Imperium that I bought impossible haha.

So many to choose from.

One thing I would say, play styles will change as rules and the game moves on. For me, I thought it best to know the colours/lore more and pick what I liked worked best.


I couldnt care what some said, I liked Ultramarines and Imperial fists for the colours/looks. I was going Fists until I realised I couldnt find a decent yellow spray for base coating, so ended with Ultra Marines.

Good luck choosing!

 wuestenfux wrote:
Welcome to Dakka!
My pick would be Iron Hands or Ultramarines, while chapters like DA or BA are more specialized.
Hands off from GK as they are non-competitive atm.

How are DA and BA more specialized?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Welcome to Dakka!
My pick would be Iron Hands or Ultramarines, while chapters like DA or BA are more specialized.
Hands off from GK as they are non-competitive atm.

How are DA and BA more specialized?

Dark Angels rely on either sitting still and Plasmaing things to death or using Land Speeders and Bikes both of which suck in 8th edition.

Blood Angels specialise in punching things, which sucks in 8th edition.

Also, neither of them have gotten an updated codex yet so Ultramarines and Iron Hands are stupid levels of OP right now.

>the most versatility-
build your own chapter with your own paint scheme, buy a bunch of the named characters from different chapters then paint them in your colors. then mix and match if you want to not be locked into a single style of play.

1.are you basing your choice on lore or performance?
2.if you are just going performance always go with the newest release-iron hands/blood angels.
3.if you are going for lore then base it on the look and feel of each chapter or their successors

some examples based in lore

.dark angels-monastic knights that are stubborn and use specialized bike/terminator formations
.salamanders-space blacksmiths-strong, slow, preferring close to medium range combat-fire/melta weapons, the nicest of all the chapters
.raven guard-mobility, stealth, infiltration, close combat
.iron hands-bionics, resilient, machine tech/mechanicus oriented
.ultra marines-generic roman themed boyscouts, not overly specialized but decent at everything
.imperial fists-fortress builders, cover what cover? you get none from them.
.white scares-the dedicated mobile army-bikes and transports-space mongols
.space wolves-Viking berserkers in space they love a good scrap
.black templar-angry imperial fists. they want to hit you in the face with something, psyker hating religious zealot crusading knights
.blood angels-space vampires-like to be fast, like to get into close combat, like to use psykers, like the color red, like to drink blood, like to be very pretty
.crimson fists-more imperial fist children, got nearly whipped out by orks...really hate orks, really hate running away, have a fun special character



here is a pictorial list of all official chapters some of them are just exact successors of the parent legion so follow most of the same rules-

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pictorial_List_of_Space_Marine_Chapters_A-L

You did not specify chaos so I didn't talk about any of those legions.

Here is another good picture showing all the canonical successors (it's huge, so no embed):
https://i.imgur.com/YyQSxbL.jpg

And the legions 30k schemes if you're interested https://i.pinimg.com/originals/65/8f/f0/658ff088584157978c35382ff573b42d.jpg

I really also don't want to go with Ultramarines because apparently they have a reputation for being way too overused and apparently in fan community their reputation is not the best and lore wise their writing has apparently been wonky in recent years.

Basically when choosing a Chapter, I want to go with gameplay-first at 65% decision based on it, giving lore a good 35% of decision power.

Then you want to go with either Iron Hands or Ultramarines if gameplay is your deciding factor. People always look at the Ultramarines tactic and think it's bad, but shooting after falling back is extremely powerful especially when all your Rapid Fire and Assault weapons are an additional AP-1

I love my Dark Angels but their rules are sub par just now.

If you want gaming power go homebrew Chapter, so you can change to whatever flavour of the month Marines are most powerful.

If you like fluff and minis collect whatever appeals to you. Rules come and go.

I'd recommend making your own chapter. You can use whatever rules you want, and can paint them in whatever colours you find most appealing.

 Crimson wrote:
I'd recommend making your own chapter. You can use whatever rules you want, and can paint them in whatever colours you find most appealing.

Normally I would agree with this, but the Ironfather is simply too good to pass up on, and that requires a full fat IRON HANDS army.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I'd recommend making your own chapter. You can use whatever rules you want, and can paint them in whatever colours you find most appealing.

Normally I would agree with this, but the Ironfather is simply too good to pass up on, and that requires a full fat IRON HANDS army.

Then you have an army with Iron Hands rules painted in whatever colours one likes.

Yes, but a fair amount of people cry shenanigans when you do this despite being completely legal, and ITC just recently forbade doing this.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Yes, but a fair amount of people cry shenanigans when you do this despite being completely legal,

I have never encountered it outside the internet.

and ITC just recently forbade doing this.

Really? FFS, that is so stupid.

How many TT figures are usually used in 40k battles? Chapter consists of a 1000 Astartes, but I doubt that one would actually use a 1000 Marines in a battle and instead a smaller number is used to represent a chapter in TT?

I chose Crimson Fists based on the cover art for the 2nd edition rulebook that I always thought looked great. I took a near 20 year break from 40k, so when I came back and inevitably ended up with some space marines to paint, that's how I decided.

 Crimson wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Yes, but a fair amount of people cry shenanigans when you do this despite being completely legal,

I have never encountered it outside the internet.

and ITC just recently forbade doing this.

Really? FFS, that is so stupid.

No, not really. The recent change was just saying you couldn't eBay a Blood Angels Dreadnought, an Ultramarines one and a Dark Angels one and throw them all into the same detachment and call it Iron Hands without doing a little repainting to make them look like they belong together.

You're still free to paint them whatever colour scheme you want and use whatever rules you want once you do. The only place that objects to that is Warhammer World.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
How many TT figures are usually used in 40k battles? Chapter consists of a 1000 Astartes, but I doubt that one would actually use a 1000 Marines in a battle and instead a smaller number is used to represent a chapter in TT?

depends on what style of play you like
you can do a horde style infantry army just as much as you can do a vehicle/flyer based army or a mix.

this is 2k points of infantry heavy black Templar+10 rievers and 3 inceptors coming in from reserve not pictured (58 minis or half a company with one being a vehicle)



this is a 2k hybrid deathwing/ravening mostly mechanized force-much smaller model count (21 minis 6 are vehicles)

 Asmodai wrote:

No, not really. The recent change was just saying you couldn't eBay a Blood Angels Dreadnought, an Ultramarines one and a Dark Angels one and throw them all into the same detachment and call it Iron Hands without doing a little repainting to make them look like they belong together.

You're still free to paint them whatever colour scheme you want and use whatever rules you want once you do. The only place that objects to that is Warhammer World.

Ok, that makes much more sense.

Thanks BCB for spreading misinformation!

If Dark Angles or Blood Angels (or Space Wolves) look interesting to you, I'd say go ahead and put them on the table for a while before you commit to painting. They all have potential, but it's a bit hard to switch gears if you change your mind.

If one of the "vanilla Marine" codex suppliments looks interesting to you, I'd strongly advise playing out of the base Marine Codex for a while first because Codex + Suppliment is a lot to wrap your head around all at once. I find that I get focused on the UM or White Scar abilities and forget about useful things that I could be doing that are in the main codex.

Most games currently are 2k points. Especially if you're looking to play in tournaments. But when starting out, just go for the bare bones army (3 troops, 2 HQs, and a couple filler units you like) - people will cut their army down to play you. That'll let you understand the game better for beefing up your collection.

By 65% gameplay, do you mean "How I like playing" or "How well I'll do on the tabletop"? The first will be up to you, although we can give guidance. The second is Iron Hands right now, but history shows that top dog changes in this game faster than most can build an army.

If you mean "How well I'll do on the tabletop", I first have to warn you to consider whether this is the hobby you want. A 2k points list isn't that cheap, but the dollar cost is nothing compared to the time and energy you'll be investing in building and painting the army. Then, once you've spent all that time and effort and money to get your 2k top-dog list, the meta will likely have changed and you'll get your butt kicked. At which point, you can try to pivot (spending a lot more time/effort/money) only to wind up in the same spot the next time the meta changes (likely before you've fully pivoted), try to persevere (you'll lose more than you'll win, and skill will struggle to change that), or really get into the army you've built and enjoy yourself anyways (at which point, you've chosen an army that wasn't necessarily what you'd enjoy, so you're worse off). This is a great hobby, but it's not "Chess 2.0". It's not a great technical competitive challenge.

If you mean "How it plays on the tabletop", things are changing, so how they play today won't necessarily be how they play tomorrow, but the themes tend to be more stable than the meta. Here's a breakdown of some of them:

UltraMarines: The most Marine of the Marines. They won't outlast Iron Hands, outchop Blood Angels, or outshoot Dark Angels. But they'll outchop/outshoot Iron Hands, outshoot/outlast Blood Angels, and outchop/outlast Dark Angels. They aren't the best Marines at any one thing, other than adaptability. They are the second best at everything, and are the best overall because of it. (Again, this is thematically, not necessarily competitively). This is the army for a diverse array of combined arms, with many different units complementing eachother. And Tac Marines (/Intercessors).

Iron Hands: More machine than man. Replace lost limbs with robotics - even when not necessary. They kinda wish they were robots. They can endure more than most. And they love vehicles and Dreadnoughts. Because they wish they were vehicles. If you think flesh is weak, and you will endure anything the enemy throws at you, you're an Iron Hands player.

Imperial Fists: Siege any fortress. Destroy any fortification. The enemy cannot hold out against your firepower. Think heavy weapons and static gunlines.

Blood Angels: By our righteous fury, we will kill you! The Black Rage drives these loyalists mad. Bloody berzerkers, but loyalists. They use a variety of tools to support their men getting into their enemies and tearing them apart. You'll probably have some JumpPack infantry, but you'll still have a broad array of mostly-aggressive tools.

Space Wolves: Space Vikings In Space. Get drunk. Fight things. You're better because you're vikings.

Dark Angels: If I told you about them, I'd have to kill you. It's a secret. We have a great deal of tech we hold on to, and keep safe from other factions, even imperial. Because we know how to keep secrets. Those who learn them don't survive. Those who learn of such killings don't survive. We're ostensibly broken into various 1000-man chapters like all the other Legions, but each Dark Angels successor chapter reports to the actual "Dark Angels" chapter. So we have a whole "chapter" of termies. A whole "chapter" of bikers. We have lots of specialization, lots of tech and plasma from our secrets to arm those specialized subfactions, and lots of psykers trained in the arts of secrets.

Traitor Marines: Don't forget that there are many factions of Traitor Marines as well. Overall, they tend to be more CC-focused and less disciplined. But they have cookies. And demons.

Grey Knights: As a starting play, just don't. If you're actually curious, we can detail why you shouldn't.

There are many more than just these, these

From the sound of post above, yep, going with Dark Angels

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
From the sound of post above, yep, going with Dark Angels

They are a pretty interesting chapter, if you want to get some lore about them I would recommend reading the legacy of caliban trilogy of books.

Perhaps we can get more Dark Angels players in here to further explain their chapter.

I'd love to, but if I learn any more about them, they'll kill me. And with them being closet-chaos and all, I don't want to support them.

You forgot they wear dresses (coming from a player who started with the unforgiven with 3 different armies)
but at least they are not as EMO as the raven guard.

Bharring wrote:
...There are many more than just these, these

Some more:

Deathwatch: Specialized anti-xeno light rapid-response Astartes. They focus more on stronger infantry and have some unique mixed-squad tricks (Intercessors + Hellblasters in the same squad, for instance) and rapid deployment stuff, but don't have all the heavy firepower of a more standard Chapter.

White Scars: Space Mongol raiders. Similarly to the Ultramarines they aren't the shootiest of the shooty or the choppiest of the choppy, they're built around the idea of being able to either reach melee with shooty armies or avoid melee with melee armies.

Salamanders: Tough and close-ranged. Chapter Tactics reward taking a bunch of small units over taking a few big units, and they get a lot more use out of non-plasma special weapons. They've never been a very in-focus Chapter so I can't point to older rules to gauge how they might develop in the future.

Raven Guard: Sneaky. Emphasis on forward deployment, ambush tactics, and popping up in unexpected places. Their units are harder to shoot at the further away you are, so they're fairly positioning-dependent.

Traitor Legions: They don't have anything like as much development as the loyalists; they don't tend to play like separate armies to the same degree. The major exceptions are the Death Guard (who mix well-armed tough elite infantry and strong character abilities with very tough screens in the form of Plaguebearers or Poxwalkers) and the Thousand Sons (who have very strong psykers, powerful shock melee beastmen instead of cultists, and tough but inflexible shooting units), who have their own Codexes and don't play as much like the others.

If one creates their own chapter, how much background lore one usually needs to create for it?

And also how can one make up rules for their own chapter? Doesn't that just end up with the possibility of people creating way overpowered Chapters when they cherry pick the rules?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
If one creates their own chapter, how much background lore one usually needs to create for it?

And also how can one make up rules for their own chapter? Doesn't that just end up with the possibility of people creating way overpowered Chapters when they cherry pick the rules?

You don’t need any background or lore for a custom chapter but the more you have the more interesting it is.

Usually for a custom chapter you either run it as counts as existing chapter or use the successor traits to build a fitting trait.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
If one creates their own chapter, how much background lore one usually needs to create for it?

Exactly as much as you want. No more, no less. The background of your chapter is yours to own.

If that excites you, you've definitely picked the right hobby.

And also how can one make up rules for their own chapter?

You can use any existing chapter, and there are a variety of "custom" chapter traits you can pick from if you want that instead.

Doesn't that just end up with the possibility of people creating way overpowered Chapters when they cherry pick the rules?

Yes.

Or rather, it would if Iron Hands weren't better than any of the "custom traits" options. CWE has the same kind of rules, and it does cause that problem. There's usually something OP in this game, though.