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How Do You Pick Your Army? Lore? Paint Scheme? Rules?


BloodWolves

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Just wondering how people pick their armys or space marine chapters?

 

For me, Lore wise, the Black Templars probably have the best story line and lineage.

 

Paint scheme wise, I like the Flesh Tearers (I also enjoy their lore and methods as it is quite similar to the Templars with the whole "Rip & Tear, til it's done" idea.

 

Rule wise, Blood Angels as they synergize quite well with say the Guard or even Knights.

 

Or if you like something of each, do you combine and make your own chapter?

I picked the Ultramarines because they were the first chapter I played as a kid when I played space crusade and it just went from there. Also they were on the box art for the epic game space marine. Had a sergeant with a red helmet facing the person picking the box up and I just thought it looked so cool and once delving into their backstory with the similarities with Roman and Greek culture it just clicked with me.

 

My first proper chapter I’m going to paint and eventually play is the White Consuls. I love what little history there is of them and that they’re successors to the Ultramarines and that they have 2 chapter masters. Oh and I really want to see if I can paint white

Look followed closely by lore, everytime. Rules and performance are irrelevant to me. 

 

In 3rd(.5) edition I ran a Saim Hann Wild Rider host out of the Craftworlds Codex. The rules set was rubbish and I lost 4/5 games I played, but the look and feel of the army as a whole was baller. I had a hell of a lot of fun whizzing around the table making pew-pew-pew-pew-pew noises.

 

-Ran

I found the Iron Hawks in the big list(s) of marine chapters you can find online. I had a general color scheme in mind (iron/silver with red accents) and the IHs fit it perfectly and had the bonus feature of white “beaks” on the helmet.

 

Lore was minimal, barely a paragraph in the 4th edition marine codex, so the door was wide open for me to pick my own path - Raven Guard successors yesterday, Crimson Fists tomorrow. My lists are always changing so that was an important factor in my decision.

Lore and look, and what personally appeals to me.

I second that.

Never tabletop performance. That changes over time, and if it's the main reason you'll find yourself in the shadow of a very unsatisfying financial and time commitment.

As someone with little gaming experience- I spend most of my money on tie-ins, e.g., novels and comic books- I sincerely thank you for the warning.

Lore and looks are the main drivers for me, although ease of painting is also a factor. For example I love the look and lore of White Scars but I’m neither skilful nor patient enough to paint white.

 

I have to admit that as I’ve got older and my hobby time has become more limited, the rules of an army are playing a bigger factor than they ever did before. I’m not saying they’ve got to be brilliant or top tier but I also won’t invest the time and money in an army that I won’t enjoy playing. For example, I started my Grey Knights in 7th edition but I would never start an army of them now because their codex is so bad I wouldn’t enjoy playing with them, even though they have some of the best models and lore in 40k.

Definetly lore and rule of cool. I do the same for my army compositions. I'm usually very underwhelming when playing with my mates because my armies are definetly not competitively built, I just get an idea into my head and go with it. That's especially true for the AoS part of the hobby where I try to emulate the good old armies of fantasy.

This is quite an interesting topic.

I like the look of the dark angels as well as their tactics both in fluff and game, BUT only that side of the greenwing as i really dislike the colors and lore of both the ravenwing and the deathwing.

So i based my primaris on them as i am expectant on finding out what will happen when they finally learn of the fallen and all the secrets of the chapter.

However, i've always had issues with collecting one chapter abd always end up stripping the paint of my marine armies.

The one i had the largest time was a loyalist alpha legion army (i know, i know) but i got so sick of them in the end that i can't even look at artworks or minis of them.

I guess im on the journey of finding a chapter for me.

I pick or created my custom Space Marine Chapter due to Paint Scheme.   I wanted a color that is not often seen in loyalist Space Marines and it turns out the only colors that are rare for Space Marines is Brown, Orange and Purple.    Brown doesn't come across as a very striking color and seems more suitable as a color used for bases or accessories carried by imperial soldiers.   Orange is too bright and can be harder to paint.  

 

I also liked Dark Angels paint scheme (non DW / RW), with majority of the model in a single color, Imperial Aquila in lighter color contrasting with the darker armor color - with the knee pads reflecting company designation.   So I copied the DA color scheme and swap green with purple and bone white with cool white.

 

 

 

As for the lore, I like most of it but prefer Salamanders humane treatment of other imperial citizens and also Raven Guard's method of conducting warfare.

 

Rules aren't really a priority for me... although I guess being a custom chapter, you aren't obligated to stick to one specific CT until the end of times...

Though I would think that even if your models are painted in UM colors, you aren't obligated to stick to UM CT for eternity....

Lore and look, and what personally appeals to me.

 

Never tabletop performance. That changes over time, and if it's the main reason you'll find yourself in the shadow of a very unsatisfying financial and time commitment.

QF my T

Im going to paint my Primaris up green run them as Deathwatch and run them with Astra Militarium because of this:

 

 

 

That scene of the Spartans dropping in and lighting the hingeheads up is awesome. Deathwatch allows me to do that, and mitigate some of the shortcomings of using all Primaris (better AP with special ammo and ability to mix in hellblasters with squads similar to how I do with chaos marines).

 

And the size difference between a Primaris marine and a guardsman model is like that of a Spartan 2 and a human marine.

A good tie-in can make me fall in love with a Chapter I wouldn't have given a second thought to- or improve my opinion on a Chapter I'd otherwise dismiss as "Mary Sue Marines." (If Graham McNeill and Aaron Dembski-Bowden hadn't written The Chapter's Due and The Emperor's Gift, respectively, my opinion on the Ultramarines and the Grey Knights would've been forever poisoned, thanks to the incompetence Matt Ward demonstrated while writing the 5th Edition Codices.)

A good tie-in can make me fall in love with a Chapter I wouldn't have given a second thought to- or improve my opinion on a Chapter I'd otherwise dismiss as "Mary Sue Marines." (If Graham McNeill and Aaron Dembski-Bowden hadn't written The Chapter's Due and The Emperor's Gift, respectively, my opinion on the Ultramarines and the Grey Knights would've been forever poisoned, thanks to the incompetence Matt Ward demonstrated while writing the 5th Edition Codices.)

I can't agree more to this, it was Angel's of Darkness that well and truly solidified my love for the DA, and is still one of my personal favorites to this day.

Lore's the main determining factor, but color scheme can tip the decision. I play Fists because I like the stated character of the Chapter, the playstyle their background implies (even if it doesn't necessarily work well in game, a fluffy army is always going to be more fun for me than cheese of the week), and because I think painting yellow well is fun.

I normally pick an army based on 1) models 2) lore 3) paint scheme. Rules do come into it of course, but most often for deciding which particular project to work on first.

 

It's why I love my Guard and Salamanders so much, and the "new" releases for Orks and Dark Eldar (going back a few years on the latter) got me into forces I previously didn't give much thought to. The lack of updated models is holding back my Iron Warriors and Sisters of Battle.

 

However, for my Primaris army I have gone with 1) rules - they *have* to be Ultramarines so that Guilliman's aura works on them (*grumble* rule called Master of the XIIIth doesn't work on successor chapters */grumble*) and because of the Calgar and Bodyguard models being faction-locked. I'm not fond of the paint scheme (it's the same as my Warmachine army and I like to keep my forces different to keep painting feeling fresh) and would prefer the lore of a successor chapter (Black Consuls to stay UM-related, Rift Stalkers otherwise) but the rules are straitjacketing me. Still, I'm looking to the FW Heresy books for colour and detail inspiration and so look forwards to the project nonetheless.

Why not use a scheme you like and run them as counts as Ultras?

 

Heck, you could use any of the FW Primarchs as counts as Guilliman if you really wanted to keep the army looking unique.

 

I thought the Codex specifically rules doing that out, what with its blurb about Successor Chapters explicitly being given a keyword then having to using the Chapter Tactic but not Warlord Traits of the Founder etc.?

That rule only applies for when you use a successor chapter character like Gabriel Seth. No rule for how you paint your boys unless you go to a big GW event.

 

If someone is a stickler for that rule and how you paint your minis, then you should probably avoid them. You paid a good sum for those models. Paint them your way.

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