Vanilla, Blood Angel, or Space Wolf?

[Bucky_24]

Hello, I'm just getting into Warhammer 40k, haven't purchased first army yet but am planning on it soon! Okay well here's the deal, my friends play Tau, Chaos Space Marines, and Orks. I was wondering what would the best group to specialize in be? I love the idea of an all Death Company army but is that reliable against these armies? also note that I'm thinking small scale now. I mean my friends Ork army consists of something like this: 1 Ork Warboss, 30 Boyz, 5 nobs, and 3 Deffkoptas. I know thats really small but that's really all we have right now since we just started. If you can give me a build that costs less than 87.50 USDs (It's part of the little tournement rules) I would really appricate it! Thanks in advance!

[Arlins]

as for which to choose , well everyone plays BA, Space wolf because theyre both good but so,s vanilla in theyre own right .
choose a faction that looks cool and you like the fluff ( back stories) its generally the best way

[daddy4count]

You're asking several very different and very difficult questions...

Just getting started can be tough.

They are marines, they will deal with whatever comes their way. Honestly you can build a fantastic list from any of those choices. But what do you like best?

Since they are all marines, that takes care of the hardest question... now: Which do you like best?

Vanilla marines give you access to thousands of chapters... want a yellow Imperial Fists army? Done. Ultramarines with Sicarius and Telion? Done. But you can mix and match them all from the one book. No specialization, very versatile, very structured.

Blood Angels have fast tanks, assault troops, death company, insane characters... you can assault-melta-razor-spam until the cows come home... Also access to Furioso Dreds, Stormraven, Deep Striking Land Raiders as dedicated transports.

Wolves (my personal fav) can do the melta+razorback spam thing just like the Angels, but their transpo's aren't fast. Their terminators don't deep strike, but you can unlock them as troops. Want to ride giant wolves as cavalry or have a 10k year old Drednaught in HQ? Boom! Got that.

I would say to choose the army that appeals to you the most... then go buy that Codex. From that point on helping you figure out a list will be fairly simple.

[computertrucker]

Dont forget. Black Templars also have a book coming soon as well. Grey Knights are insane too, and Dark Angels can actually still be competitive with their Deathwing All Terminator force...

Options options options. Space marines in general are great.

[Lelnar]

I am with d4c here as I am partial to the Space Wolves. Being as I love vikings they are my favorite, but I do play vanilla marines.
Any space marine model can be painted as any other space marine, just add a few bits from the army you want and there you go. For price, getting the Space Marine batttleforce, gets a nice chunk of army but you will need to get some sort of HQ unit. Also, the rhino can be turned into a razorback, just go on ebay and get whatever turret suits you, and don't glue any of the top hatches on. Another option for models is ebay, some times there are amazing prices for some second hand models. Strip them down or keep them as you get them.

[computertrucker]

And really you dont need bits... There were people playing Normal Space Marine Models for Space Puppies for years before the (official) models came out for them. I know eventually one day I might build me a Ultrawing 1st company Terminator force and pick up the DA codex to do it.

[pbagosy]

[Space Wolves] terminators don't deep strike, but you can unlock them as troops.

But you can put five of them in a Drop Pod!

-pb

[mephiston_2k]

Blood Angels.... Not that Im biased of course lmao

Note: You wont have much of an army if you want all death company... they're not the cheapest of units pointwise.
Best bet is to paint them that way but actually class them as tactical marines with the black/red paint job.

[SourImplant]

Note: You wont have much of an army if you want all death company... they're not the cheapest of units pointwise.

It can be done, but your bigger concern would be that you have no scoring units in the army at all. In objective games, you would have to wipe out every model in your opponent's army to win. Barring that, the best you could hope for is a tie in 2/3 of games.

[mephiston_2k]

It can be done, but your bigger concern would be that you have no scoring units in the army at all. In objective games, you would have to wipe out every model in your opponent's army to win. Barring that, the best you could hope for is a tie in 2/3 of games.

Sounds like a plan

[herplover]

Im having a similar dilemna myself.have a bonus coming up from work and thinking about SW or BA. Blood angels are the reason i got into 40k in the early 90s yet i have never had a blood angel army.I also like the background of the space wolves.If i do BA it will be a mostly jump pack army.SW will be a mix.I could also add on to my vanilla marine army and then of course i could make my chaos marine army even bigger.......Games workshop is an addiction

[daddy4count]

indeed!

I don't know if it's what you meant by mixed army... but don't go wolves if you want jump packs... go BA all the way. Not only are SW jump infantry not scoring troops, they are novitiates... lower statlines like your vanilla marine scouts.

Anything with "Claw" in the name is that way for SW... Blood Claws, Sky Claws, etc...

For wolves look at Grey Hunters for the backbone of your army, with some Wolf Guard and Long Fangs in the mix.

[herplover]

By mixed i meant grey hunters,bloodclaws,longfangs etc...basically a more balanced.Just toying with the idea but truthfully i may buy several more berserker boxes.Kharn goes through friends quickly and 100 or so berserkers running across the battle field with kharn in the lead appeals to me

[Bucky_24]

Thanks for all the tips but I'm thinking that in my club there's are Tau,Ork, and Chaos Players so I kinda want to be good at killing all them but we also may do doubles games so I want to be able to help in that way aswell (Prob paired up with Tau guy) So if you have any tips from this new information, FIRE AWAY! lol no but seriously any and all help will be appricated and if you can, PLEASE try to sway me from IG army. I want a gunline IG army but only the fact of being paired with the Tau guy is stopping me. HELP!

[mephiston_2k]

I've had better results with tactical marines than assault marines with jump packs so far with the Blood Angels. Their offensive capabilities are not that great. Best with Sanguinary Guard, Terminators or the Death Company I reckon. Even then the latter 2 are probably best given a Land Raider!

Benefit is that with the likes of Astorath, Sanguinary Priests and other certain characters you can gain some very useful abilities and rerolls.

[herplover]

IG could pair up with tau,especially if they were swayed to the idea of the greater good

[meatbyproducts]

OK Blood angels do great at in your face attacking. I play a two storm raven army with the Sangiunor and Mephiston, death company w/ lemartes and two DC dreads.
Space Marines are great at special lists. pick an HQ and tailor a list to him and there are a ton of great options but the book is getting a bit old.
Wolves. my largest MEQ army is made of wolves! I have a Logan Wing, I have 100 wulfen and buying some drop pods to do a pod army. do not listen to anyone saying Sky Claws are bad. they have +2 attacks on the charge and still hit on 4s in most cases. I have run a jump pack army with much success made of wolves. I take Logan and put him in a Long Fangs pack with 5 Multi Meltas and a drop pod (OH SO FUN!). and then I take a couple of small wolf guard jump pack squads and sky claws. Sky Claws are some of the best on the assault.


IG gun line is not cheap. I have over 40k points in IG and am tried of painting them. with that many points I am still shot heavy weapons for some lists I want to run. 50+ Las Cannons at 2000 points is nice but people will not like playing against an IG gun line and you may bore of packing and unpacking it. I love my gun lines and have to pull one out from time to time to show how awesome they are but most people hate playing them as they are one of the slowest armies to play. My standard 40k game is 45minutes to an hour but my gun line is one to two hours at 2000 points as there is so many more things to track.

[herplover]

I imagine a IG gun line vs a nid horde army would take forever to do a turn but would look good on the table top.

[SourImplant]

I imagine a fully painted IG gun line vs a nid horde army would take forever to do a turn but would look good on the table top.

FTFY.

[Bucky_24]

Okay, swaying to the Space Wolves, but how effective are they (the "Sky Claws" was it?) in melee vs Khorne Beserkers and Nobz? Maybe even Boyz but I assume I should be able to drop Boyz. And is that all is run? or do you have any other range capabilities for those Double matches? I have to be able to hold objectives with some range if I am to play with say Orks or Chaos right?