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Hi all thanks for your time I need help I never thought I would be makeing a SM army. But Here we are lol but I don't know much about all the diffrent chapters. So let's jump into it then lol tell me about your fav chapter and y.

Capslock is bad.

CAPSLOCK IS BAD.

Also do you mean fluff or codex rules wise?

Caps lock = screaming at people, FYI.

Elsewise, I run a homebrew Chapter. I'm a fluff nerd, so I wanted to use my imagination to make my own stuff.

I'd tell you about my chapter, but judging by your grammar and caps lock tendencies, you are looking for an ultramarines army.


OH SNAP

Do you mean seperate codex chapters ala BT or BA or just general 'nilla SM codex chapters?

First of all its not Space Marines, its SPEHSS MEHREENS

As for guidance on Chapters, here's all the info you need to know:

-Only emo cutters play Dark Angels.

-Now you can mess around with those other fairly cool chapters, or move right to the most badass, diesel chapter there is: Raven Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SERIOUS ANSWER (well, I meant what i said, but this is the MORE SERIOUS answer):

If you want Background, check out these links:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Raven_Guard
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Blood_angels
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Black_Templars
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Salamanders
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Wolves
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/White_Scars
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ultramarines
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dark_Angels

-Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars have their own codeces. Blood Angels have a very old codex and very old models, but will be getting a new codex in 2010. In the meantime they have small "get you by" codex that you can download from the FAQ section of GW's website.

-Raven Guard, Ultramarines, White Scars, Crimson Fists, Imperial Fists, and Salamanders are made using the standard Space Marine codex. You can of course use the large variety of choices to make any chapter you want (or make up your own), it's just that those chapters happen to have special characters in the codex that add special rules to their respective armies when taken.

-If you're looking for general Pros/Cons in gameplay, I recommend The Bolter and Chainsword as an easy resource to get up to speed. They have a seperate board for each major chapter, each of which has stickies which are good to read as a jump-off point.

Sry about the caps didn't know they were on I was talking about the chapter approved chapters

Only 2 words White scars.

As it been mentioned, only 4 chapters have their own codex.

The Lexicanum articles linked to are good references, definitely, but for the sake of my postcount, I'll give some brief descriptions. The ones that have their own codexes have plenty written up on what makes them unique, so I'm going to focus on the Vanilla codex. As there are no official rules for these armies, its mostly about setting self imposed limits on what you take in your army lists, to fit with the fluff of the chapter.

Raven Guard:
Ninjas in power armor. Use lots of scouts, and drop pods, fewer Dreadnoughts and armored vehicles.

Salamanders:
Pyromaniacs. Use as many flame-based weapons as possible.

White Scars:
Biker-mongolians. Use as many bikes as possible. Some Land Speeders. Limit heavy armor. Exclude Dreadnoughts.

Ultramarines:
Most balanced chapter. Use balanced amounts of everything though.

Imperial Fists:
Siege masters. I'd say use lots of weapons with blast or large blast weapons, limit fast attack units. Definitely include a pimped Vindicator, maybe a Whirlwind.

Then of course there are Space Vikings (more IC's then you can shack a stick at), Space Emos (Ravenwing/Deathwing), Space Vampires (CC maniacs), and Space Knights (no scouts I think?) all of which have many other subtle differences.

Then there are some chapters from subsequent founding that could be interesting.

Aurora Chapter:
Tankers. Take as many tanks as possible, and put all your tac squads in Rhinos and Razorbacks.

Iron Hands:
Cyborgs. Use a MotF and tons of techmarines with servitors. GW even makes models of these guys.

Thanks all that helps alot i see a lot of emo coments lol i am going to download some of thous codex and take a read. I'll let you know what i decide guy's thanks again.

Salamanders:
Hitech heavy with lots of better then above flamers, meltas and thunderhammers, the perfect drop pod army. Vehicles, hitech, lascannons, techmarines and lots of wargear upgrades is also fluffy, windicators are also fluffy to take as are more veteran marines.
Powerful close firefighting fluff with lots of toughness and staying power. This is the most "quality-over-quantity" themed army of all SM!

Black templars (not a first founding chapter but I´ll still include them):
Foot slugging with heavy landraider support, no librarians. They lean to melee but not as much as the BA and SW, can be equally shooty as well.

Space wolfs:
Footslogging, massed infantry that is hands down best of all SM foot infantries but their elites cost tons. Perfect foot heavy armies but costly if elite heavy. Have dirt cheap infantry heavy support but pays the price with no staying power. Think of orks in power armour, those guys can be massed if you want to. Better librarians then regular SM but with mostly anti low toughness and no power armour opponents.
At first glance this is a wtf army seemingly being able to do everything normal SM can but better and cheaper but only if you deck it out based on its advantages, if made balanced gets equally pricy as normal SM and if made elite heavy gets worse for the point cost.

Dark angels:
Plasma weapons themed but with the crappiest codexes of all SM. If you dont play them as GW intended you will loose out. Boring as hell to play around with and still be effective since all this-is-how-the-army-is-supposed-to-be-like deviations from GWs mold are less effective. Have cool rules for all bike/speeder and all terminator armies though.

Blood angels:
Look above. But will soon receive a new codex. Assault specialists, heavy on assault squads. Have awesome melee dreadnoughts and their own good anti infantry predators.

Iron hands:
Boring, cant be played according to fluff due to codex rule limitations. Perfect for the fluff nut though as in granting the player lots of conversion possibilities. Heavy on techmarines, dreadnoughts and bionics.

Imperial fists:
Siege specialists (in fluff, no rules to highlite this though) but stubborn to the point of "stupidness".
Lots of long ranged heavy weapons and short ranged heavy ordnance.

White scars:
Mobility! Bikes and rhinos. The perfect mechanised army. Flanking can be fun but unpredictable.
Dont usually take heavy static units, a less shooty but more moving army with fewer models in it.

Crimson fists: (not a FF chapter but what the heck)
Few model count with lots of elite infantry in the form of sternguards and vanguards. Scout heavy is also fluffy since they try to replenish their losses as well as they can.
Can be made good in melee as well as good in infantry shooting. Can be the perfect strong opening army but if that doesnt suceed with a very weak ending.

Grey knights: (not a normal SM chapter at all)
So outdated its not even funny.
Supposedly anti daemons but rules dont work other then one and that is so abusable they cant loose vs daemons due to loopholes.
The hands down most overpriced and weakest for their insane cost marine minis in all SM and chaos armies. Its like playing an army of legion of the damned marines. You pay through the nose for a few minis and the heavy slot is a must to deck out due to the infantry weakness and the weakness vs armour. Best looking minis in the whole range though and with a new rule set coming up somewhere after you turn into a senior citizen, they will probably be awesome by then. Just hope you are still alive by then.


...did I miss anything?



If you are very artistic of you and go for the coolest looking army then:
For epileptically inducing batshitcrazy coloured armies take the imperial fists, blood angels (easy to paint, just spray them in alarm-red) or ultramarines. Nothing else screams "we are here" like bright neon signs.

If you like sombre and/or booring /easy to paint) armies go for black templars, dark angels, iron hands, crimson fists (although migraines have occured due to their colour combination).

If you like nice colour combinations and not so standing out craziness (pleasant for your eyes) go with space wolfes, salamanders, white scars, DA deathwind or grey knights. Those have a nice basic palette that you can go back and forth with making them everything from plain and boring to outstanding and detailed.

Angry Marines- Always Angry! All the time! And that's all you need to know.

They have their own codex, although it is a little too aggressive for GW. If you've ever felt the need to cover your bright yellow army men with expletives and suggestions of where to stick various objects, then this is the chapter for you.

Other than that, basically just choose a color scheme you like.

Blood Angels are red, Dark Angels are green, Black Templars are Black-and-White, White Scars are white, Salamanders are green, Ultramarines are blue, Iron hands are black, and the lexicanum website will show you the rest.

My fav loyalist SM.

Dark Angels! why? the robed warrior monk theme looks cool. And would be easy as hell to make into gothic marines.

If you like skulls, you could play Mortifactors:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mortifactors
Best looking SM army I ever saw was a Mortifactors army.

Related to this, I wanted to ask a question about chapters named in the Codex but not given any other fluff/history/info. Specifically I'm working on establishing the Star Dragons (going to run them as a no-Scouts, Assault-heavy army). Given that there's very little info about them in canon, how much could I get away with in terms of establishing history, significant battles, etc.?

well, their homeworld is located in segmentum obscurus, which also has the eye of terror... so you'd have to make up some history for them of course, but it would be more legitimate sounding if they were fighting chaos mostly

In that case there are three chapters that spring to mind:
Rainbow Warriors (if you are "gayally" inclined)
and
Star Foxes (they look really cool).
Void Dragons (look even cooler).

Black Dragons are also interesting but there is some fluff on then though.