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The biggest appeal of Warhammer for me is that you are free to create your narrative and army. One question i have to ask is to players that play pre made chapters (iron hands, salamanders, etc.) Is what made you want to play a GW chapter and not create your own? Do you feel more immersed in the fluff by using Canon armies?

Just curious, because I want to make my own custom sm chapter but also would like to play Grey Knights.

I can't answer your question because I also prefer to come up with my own ideas. However, I would assume some people are drawn to a colour scheme. I had a really hard time coming up with something "different" that still looked good.

Also, there is a lot of good fluff out there to attract someone to an army. As I enjoy writing, coming up with my own stories is much more satisfying. But I can see how people get sucked into existing narratives!

I personally play custom chapters, but my impression from those who do play canon chapters is that they generally fall into one of two camps:

*They aren't actually all that into the fluff and just liked the color scheme and/or rules.
*Something in the chapter's fluff snagged at them and made them want to be able to lay claim to that aesthetic/history.

Note that Space Wolves are kind of a special case as according to (some) fluff, they don't really do successor chapters (though some sources disagree). So successor chapters aren't necessarily an option with them.

I think that Chaos Marines actually kind of have the best of both worlds on this point. A warband that splintered off of, let's say, the Emperor's Children legion can easily retain as much or as little Emperor's Children culture/aesthetic as you want, and you can still claim that your characters were buddies with Fulgrim or what have you. At the same time, it's completely reasonable for that warband to have developed its own quirks and departures from the norm. Want cyborg Emperor's Children that have begun seeking mechanical sensations in cyber space now that human sensations have grown stale? Go for it!

Edit: Also, why not play your own custom chapter of marines with Grey Knight allies? That's one of the things 7th edition actually does really well: facilitate crazy themed lists.

Oh yes i was planning on using grey knight allies but i just used that as an example how if you want to play grey knights there's really only one color scheme.

And yes i agree chaos armies actually look good with different colors in one force. Looks more...chaotic lol
I'm actually planning on having different colors in my sm army sort of like how the dark angels have the mix of black, green, and "white"

 Suspicious Pancake wrote:
Oh yes i was planning on using grey knight allies but i just used that as an example how if you want to play grey knights there's really only one color scheme.

Not really, you can do Silver, Gold, Bronze, Copper, even Metallic Blue or Green.

Just say it is a lost division that has been stranded on a strange planet and thought dead by the rest of the Grey Knights.

I love making my own army fluff with characters, color schemes, etc. Personally I would rather my characters and army to be unique instead of playing unique characters found in the codex (there is an awful lot of Draigos running around out there).

For me Grey Knights where hard to really make unique but I recently decided to make my Grey Knights part of a force known as "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor" which is heavily inspired by ASOIAF's "Fiery Heart of R'hllor" and Stannis's army.

I do make up fluff for non-canon Chapters and Regiments all the time, but I always keep returning to my Ultramarines. I like their whole history, the fact that they've been there since the Legions, their legacy, and the Greco-Roman vibe they have. The chapter logo is simple and recognisable, the naming conventions are easy, and I do like plain blue and gold.

The best part is that I can still have an element of "your dudes" to it, either setting my army pre-M41, or just by saying it's a splinter company. Much as I love homebrew guys, playing a well-established force provides support from GW, and a wealth of resources I can incorporate into my own fluff.

For me, I might just create another homebrew chapter once I round off my other armies, but my Ultramarines are staying as they are for now.

I started into Marines with a Canon chapter but a Successor chapter. It leaves you with a pre-made foundation but also room for customization. Now there is a little less room that there are stories and books about my chosen chapter but still some room to make them my own. (Silver Skulls) But there are still a lot of canon successor chapters with awesome color schemes and LOTS of room for fleshing out as there is little canon writing on them, often just a blurb in on the galaxy map or in the showcase section.

Creating a custom chapter is hard. Just finding a name that isn't taken or too cheesy is really hard. And making believable background is hard as well. (Just try to survive the gauntlet that is the B&C Liber Astartes forum!)

The first mainline chapter I will model is Salamanders and only because BaC finally made getting into 30k 'affordable'. I love the Salamander fluff and they aren't over represented (yet).

When I first started I started with Ultramarines because I liked their color scheme and it was what was on the box in the Battle for Macragge box. After that I learned more about the fluff and found it interesting. I never really had an interest in creating my own custom chapter.

I chose Crimson Fists because I liked their color scheme better than Ultramarines (the darker blue and no crazy helmet colors meant I could batch paint easier, which was great as a beginner). I got into their fluff afterward, and I have used it to make sense of how my army is coming together. Since the Crimson Fists are very low on manpower, the fact I don't have a whole Battle Company makes sense to me. Overall, yes, the color scheme drove me to Crimson Fists, but I stuck with them rather than stripped them and built Ultramarines or a White Scars Successor because I liked their fluff (which I got into after I had a large amount of them painted and built). If they had bad fluff, their red fist would have been changed to dark blue and their emblems would have been changed to something else (probably the white Salamander logo), and they would have been a White Scars successor.

My Blood Angels are much more eclectic, I have single items all over the place. If and when they get a new codex or a much-needed update, I will probably mold them into something more meaningful. But honestly, I got them for their fluff and their unique units. I am going to eventually get more once I finish up with my Crimson Fists. I may even cobble together my extra generic Tactical Squad (so I would only have a Battle Demi-Company of Crimson Fists rather than a BDC+1 Tactical Squad) with another Tactical Squad of Blood Angels to make a total of three Tactical Squads so I can have a Battle Demi-Company. But I am probably only going to do that if they get an update.