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Still a newb. Will be a newb for quite awhile I'm sure.

So, I got the Dark Imperium set. How do you decide which space marines chapter to go for? Being a newb, I think about it as which looks coolest. I'm looking at (now) 3 metallic chapters: silver skulls, silver templars, and executioners. First two are successors to the ultramarines, second to the imperial fists. So I'm reading a lot, and having so many codexes (space marines, ultramarine supplement, imperial fists supplement) makes it a little tough from an information overload perspective. Looking at the actual chapters that get a supplement, from a *visual* (and very subjective) POV, most of them don't have a lot of appeal. I kind of like the yellow for the Imperial Fists but pulling off yellow from a painting perspective can be tricky.

So, for experienced space marine players, how did you decide which chapter to pursue? If you had it to do over, how would you decide?

Regards,
bleak

My answer (from before Marine Codex 2.0 and Friends was released) was to pick a set of color I liked that no existing chapter was using so I could call them a successor to whichever chapter caught my fancy once I had a better handle on the then-current rules.

Seeing that there are literally dozens of existing canonical chapters picking a unique scheme can be challenging, but you don't really have to worry so much about that if you're not playing with donkey-caves. Marines that are, say, blue with yellow trim and a lightning bolt for the chapter symbol could be a successor to literally any chapter you like, including Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Deathwatch so long as you pay attention to which units they can't legally field.

Edit: To answer the second part of your question I eventually settled on Raven Guard because the -1 to be hit seemed to be the only trait that let my Marines make it past turn two without getting tabled. Even with all the recent buffs Marines still have practically no durability at all.

I'd second the suggestion to make your own chapter. then you can do what you want

Literally the only in-game advantage to choosing an established main chapter is that you can use one of their special relics without paying a CP for the privilege. Some of those relics are worth the CP but a lot of them aren't even as good as the generic ones.

That's always subject to change without notice of course, but then again that's true of all the rules. GW could decide to announce 40k 9th edition tomorrow with a completely different set of mechanics and plans to discontinue every existing army. It would be a fatally stupid decision, but nothing besides common sense is stopping them.

Devise your own paint scheme, it's the best long term investment. Not only do you get to experiment freely with different chapter rules, but it's also easier to integrate character models, etc. that you might like for the lulz as counts-as models or whatever. More freedom and less judgement if you do your own thing.

Yep, do your own chapter. Do something similar, and bold. Use a colour combination which is attractive (in case you ever sell them on, don't do purple with green and yellow or something awful).

If you're new to the actual hobby of wargaming (i.e. clipping out, assembling and painting miniatures) keep the scheme very simple. Keep the marines one colour with maybe the shoulder pads or helmet a different colour, etc. Don't make it too hard on yourself unless you've plenty of modeling or painting experience.

Me, I like dragging out canonical chapters that you don't see much on the table. Unless it's one of the founding chapters or one of their well known successors (Crimson Fists, Black Templars), nobody really cares which rules you're using.

It'd be a combination of picking wich rules I liked & picking a paint scheme I liked.
Maybe that'd be one of the established chapters/their successors, maybe a custom scheme. Probably wouldn't be anything black as I hate painting models black.

Being the experienced rule lawyer that I am.... If I were to do a custom scheme I'd go to the expense (mostly in time) of painting up & magnetizing a set of shoulder pads for each model from every chapter that had unique rules.
So lets say I decided that my custom scheme was going to be Trollslayer orange with gold trim.
1st squad would have a complete set of orange pads with the UM markings, and a set with IH markings, and the Salamander markings, etc etc etc.
2nd squad would have....
You get the picture.
That way if I liked the rules for _____ better at the moment I could just swap out the pads for the correct parent Co. & voila! Orange Ironhands or whatever that game & my foe could never claim they didn't realize that the army was ____ chapter that day..

@ OP:

Paint scheme is the most important thing. You don´t like to paint yellow? Well, then you shouldn´t do the IF. Also remember that people who don´t paint their models end up in hobby hell where they are teased eternally by Daemonettes with the promise of future releases which will evidently never come to pass.

From a hobby perspective I would pick an existing chapter as exploring them will help you get invested in the setting. Look at artwork and pick one that appeals to you.

From a gaming perspective, gw has painted themselves into a corner and you will be forced to play with a certain set of rules or be frowned upon when you have selected an existing chapter. So if you care about that then you have to invent your own paint scheme.

What I did was go through the various Space Marines chapters online and picked one with a color scheme I liked. Before doing any Space Marines I had done a lot of Ad Mech with a blue and Gold color scheme that was fairly complex so I wanted do to something different and simple and settled on the Doom Legion. First you need to decide if looks or rules are more important; if looks do what I did and look through the books and online to see what you like, if rules are more important do what others have done and create your own chapter that can be a successor to any chapter.

- Pick a color scheme that you like
- Mix it with the chapter symbol that you like for the shoulder pad
- Play with the Space Marine rules that appeal the most to you
- Don't play with people who tell you that you can't use rule X because your plastic toy soldier got painted like army Y

a_typical_hero wrote:
- Pick a color scheme that you like
- Mix it with the chapter symbol that you like for the shoulder pad
- Play with the Space Marine rules that appeal the most to you
- Don't play with people who tell you that you can't use rule X because your plastic toy soldier got painted like army Y

While I don't agree with this person, the post it makes brings up a good point; you and your local gaming opponents will determine "how" you play 40K. Some people do view 40K as simple "toy soldiers", others view it as a "tournament/competition" game, and others still view it as a rich lore/fluff/background that they enjoy partaking in.

Gamers who do not share the same approach will seldom have a good game. It's not all one big community as people like to suggest. Some people will insist that their way is the only way or the best way. You can get a bit of that from the quoted post above. See the snark in the last line? That kind of thing.

You'll more or less find out what kind of gaming group your local one is as you play. You may know ahead of time why you want to play 40K so that'll push you in the direction you want to go. You'll find the handful of people you really enjoy playing with and just go from there.

I actually painted my marines in the colors that i liked,
before I ever paid attention to the different chapters and so on.

and, if I played them, I would just use the tactics or codex for the chapter(s) that best matched these colors.

maybe not a popular answer, but it is the way that I have done it.

 Elbows wrote:
While I don't agree with this person, the post it makes brings up a good point; you and your local gaming opponents will determine "how" you play 40K. Some people do view 40K as simple "toy soldiers", others view it as a "tournament/competition" game, and others still view it as a rich lore/fluff/background that they enjoy partaking in.

Gamers who do not share the same approach will seldom have a good game. It's not all one big community as people like to suggest. Some people will insist that their way is the only way or the best way. You can get a bit of that from the quoted post above. See the snark in the last line? That kind of thing.

You'll more or less find out what kind of gaming group your local one is as you play. You may know ahead of time why you want to play 40K so that'll push you in the direction you want to go. You'll find the handful of people you really enjoy playing with and just go from there.

It is clear from this post alone that you prefer to play an army that is laid out in the background in detail with squad markings and such and that is absolutely fine. Do what you want with your toy soldiers (No honestly, I mean it)

But if you want to tell @OP that he can't play with Black Templar rules in a random pick up game because he painted his models like Silver Skulls, then you have silly attitude in my opinion. I would bet most of the players cannot even name three different sub-factions for each race based on paint scheme pictures presented to them. So why should we be more strict about it when it comes to Space Marines? I don't want to start that discussion here again, so if you want to argue about it, please PM me!

You are a fan of WW2 games and historical army lists. I get it that you felt attacked by my last line of advice given. Sorry

Gitdakka wrote:
From a hobby perspective I would pick an existing chapter as exploring them will help you get invested in the setting. Look at artwork and pick one that appeals to you.

From a gaming perspective, gw has painted themselves into a corner and you will be forced to play with a certain set of rules or be frowned upon when you have selected an existing chapter. So if you care about that then you have to invent your own paint scheme.

I think that from hobby perspective creating your own chapter is the best answer too. Coming up with the history, organisation, paintshceme and the markings system is really rewarding. And doing it properly takes a good deal of research too.

 Crimson wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
From a hobby perspective I would pick an existing chapter as exploring them will help you get invested in the setting. Look at artwork and pick one that appeals to you.

From a gaming perspective, gw has painted themselves into a corner and you will be forced to play with a certain set of rules or be frowned upon when you have selected an existing chapter. So if you care about that then you have to invent your own paint scheme.

I think that from hobby perspective creating your own chapter is the best answer too. Coming up with the history, organisation, paintshceme and the markings system is really rewarding. And doing it properly takes a good deal of research too.

eh I dunno, the info about codex orginization is pretty easy to find so unless you wanna do a special snowflake it's easy to do the bare bones basics, but when you' get into the nitty gritty it gets intreasting

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
While I don't agree with this person, the post it makes brings up a good point; you and your local gaming opponents will determine "how" you play 40K. Some people do view 40K as simple "toy soldiers", others view it as a "tournament/competition" game, and others still view it as a rich lore/fluff/background that they enjoy partaking in.

Gamers who do not share the same approach will seldom have a good game. It's not all one big community as people like to suggest. Some people will insist that their way is the only way or the best way. You can get a bit of that from the quoted post above. See the snark in the last line? That kind of thing.

You'll more or less find out what kind of gaming group your local one is as you play. You may know ahead of time why you want to play 40K so that'll push you in the direction you want to go. You'll find the handful of people you really enjoy playing with and just go from there.

It is clear from this post alone that you prefer to play an army that is laid out in the background in detail with squad markings and such and that is absolutely fine. Do what you want with your toy soldiers (No honestly, I mean it)

But if you want to tell @OP that he can't play with Black Templar rules in a random pick up game because he painted his models like Silver Skulls, then you have silly attitude in my opinion. I would bet most of the players cannot even name three different sub-factions for each race based on paint scheme pictures presented to them. So why should we be more strict about it when it comes to Space Marines? I don't want to start that discussion here again, so if you want to argue about it, please PM me!

You are a fan of WW2 games and historical army lists. I get it that you felt attacked by my last line of advice given. Sorry

You miss the point. Despite the common phrase "it's your hobby", the reality is that wargaming in any genre is a group activity and when you put your miniatures on the table it becomes "our hobby". Sitting and building/painting your miniatures is absolutely "your hobby", but gaming with other strangers or friends is not. This is why I said he'll learn what is acceptable/frowned upon in his local group/gaming area.

Being 40K it's entirely likely that his local gaming group will consist of 60% unpainted grey plastic, etc. and no one will care what/how he paints his minis. However, if his local gaming area is filled with dedicated lore-fans with a higher level of hobby expectation, they might frown on pink marines with Ultramarines symbols being run as Salamanders. That's not wrong of them, nor wrong of him, but it will put the initial relationship off a bit. Same goes for a local gaming group which prides itself on painted armies and narrative tables...and then you show up with grey plastic.

Likewise if he becomes tournament savvy and wants to attend GW events at Warhammer World, etc...they require you to play as its painted, etc. I don't think many events outside of that do so, but there's more to be thought of than "Do whatever the heck you want, no one cares". It's very possible in some instances people will care.

Thanks for all the input folks. Seriously, it's all really helpful.

For me, there is no way I show up to a game with unpainted figs. And the visuals are kind of everything. I've known about 40k forever, seen some games played, but never got interested. I stumbled onto some videos about people painting figs for it and that's what captured my imagination.

It sounds like a good strategy for me, for now, is to start developing my own chapter, come up with some colors and some heraldry, do some painting experiments, and start to fill out their history as i play. I might end up as a successor chapter for some known faction but won't have to decide for awhile. Looking at what people are saying about space marines, it seems very possible in the current set up to develop a chapter with some character in a number of different ways that push commitment out. That suits me fine.

First step is to get enough stuff to show up at a local shop and find someone who will play me with what i've got and go from there.

i'm sure i'll come back with additional questions....

when I finally startred my own chapter I developed some ideas for colours on paper, and then bought a ETB pack of Marines and tried 3 of the potential ideas I had.