An inevitable switch to Ultramarines?

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Hello my blue brothers, I'm here to seek some insight from you all as I feel like collecting and switching over to the Ultramarines may be inevitable for me. 

As far as my loyalist Armies goes I have a Space Wolves collection, which was my first Warhammer 40k Army and a decent amount of all flavors of Dark Angels. I hate to play into the argument that GW doesn't favor the non-compliants as much as the codex compliants but after starting Space Wolves at the beginning of 6th I haven't really felt great about the direction GW is taking them in.. rules or fluffwise. Also, lets be honest, Codex Space Marine Armies are never going to be bad for long and I think this edition is speaks for itself. 

So, I started with Space Wolves really wanting a "close combat" focused Space Marine Army and I also liked that they looked a bit different. However, I knew nothing about the game or the fluff and after picking up the 7th edition Dark Angels Codex I started to learn about compliant chapters and their organization and I really liked the structured design and approach from both a modelling/aesthetic and fluff stand point. 

 

Now, the big questions for you guys. As I said, I already have a Dark Angels collection going and they are way more compliant than the Space Wolves are.. As far as how the Army plays on the tabletop though would switching over to Dark Angels and making that my main Army be better than starting over with Ultramarines? Either way I'd be keeping my collections as they are now, I probably just wouldn't add any more to the collections. My assumption is the non-codex compliant chapters are never going to be as supported as the codex compliant chapters are (particular UMs because they are the poster boys) and that's a big pull for me in the Ultramarines direction.

 

Fluffwise, I'm not really all about the Ultramarines being the "golden boys" but the big draw for me is the Roman aesthetic and theme that the Ultramarines have. I lived in Italy for about 10 years and as a big history buff I think the Roman theme is very cool. All of my 40k Armies are fairly close combat focused and I think I want to have an Army that's more shooty than choppy so that I'm playing with something very different from the usual. I was very close to starting Ultramarines two times now as years ago I was between UMs and SWs and chose the Wolves and also for 30k.. but all of the talk about "vanilla" kind of turned me off. Knowing enough about the game now I think there is plenty of cool to the Ultramarines. 

Anyway, I appreciate any of the feedback I can get guys!

 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Welcome to this corner of Ultramar !

 

Ultramarines can do quite well in melee... not as good as puppies but excellent as a counter assault force. I think you’ll find Ultramarines are much more flexible than puppies too. Do you have any units you gravitate to for building your army ?

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Hey Black, thanks for the reply!

I normally gravitate to Drop Pod borne themes.. My Space Wolves are all Blackmanes. I think I'd like my Ultramarines Army to be very themed and would try to create an entire company so I'd have plenty of options. So considering the organization of most companies it would probably be a mechanized army. Rhinos, Razors, and Impulsors for the Intercessors. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I really like Impulsors with the long move, fly and 4++. I think they can work great with Intercessors and Hellblasters.

[Captain Idaho]

If you like Drop Pods then Ultramarines are your army. Devastator squads with Gravcannons are amazing and Tactical squads enjoy turn 2 onwards too. 2 5 man Tactical squads can go into a Drop Pod and bring 4 Plasma Guns to the party (for example) as well as filling out your Troops slots for Battalions or even Brigades.

 

Vanguard are powerful assault forces with Storm Shields to ensure you can actually get them into close combat. Jump Packs are a necessity.

 

It's an interesting idea - 2 full Vanguard squads start on the table, Chaplain with Jump Pack and plenty of Storm Shields to boost your survivability. Turn one you drop in 3 Drop Pods with Devastators and Tactical Marines and your Vanguard should be safe from focus fire.

 

Tigurius can assist in ensuring the Vanguard survive a turn as even with Storm Shields they aren't invincible.

 

If you want a Mechanised theme then yes it can be done. However, I find Primaris quite expensive so lots of Implusors with Intercessors will reduce your points for killy weapons.

 

If you don't mind mixing the sizes, the most powerful Ultramarines list is likely mixed between Primaris and Classic Marines, in my view. A pair of Intercessors alongside Tactical Marines is actually really effective, since the extra weapons and numbers from Classic Marines supplements the Intercessors nicely. Remember 2 5-man squads can take 4 special weapons with Sergeant Combos and fit into a single transport.

 

Likewise, a Rhino borne Gravcannon Devastator squad will greatly assist the army. Do you really want to kill their Rhino when the Impulsor and Rhino of your Tacticals are gunning towards you?

 

Vanguard boost the killing assault potential of an army and are most likely to be focused upon so Primaris troops can get into position a lot easier etc. Let's be honest, D2 weapons aren't hard to come by so having these firing at other targets (often they will be forced to target your Vanguard) can increase your survivability each game.

 

***

 

If you want an all Primaris army then other folks here often can give better advice from experience than myself since my experience is mostly fighting against them or Classic Marine focused.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

One thing to note regarding drop pods they should be strategically placed. You don’t want hard core enemy melee units in base contact so you can’t shoot them.

 

I agree the best army is a mix of old Marines and Primaris.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Captain Idaho, as far as my collection goes, I'm planning on basing it off of this image which I'm going to guess is from the codex:

 

This shows the 2nd Company's organization having 3x5 Intercessor squads with 4x10 tactical squads. I'll most likely follow suit and may end up just doing the whole second company myself. At any rate 2 Repulsors shouldn't be too bad points wise. 

 

I think I'm going to leave Drop Pods to my Space Wolves but we'll see. This edition I don't think it's feasible points wise to include any more than 3 in a list which leaves me with 3 others that aren't being used for anything. Here's a fluff question about Chapter Organization for you guys. Edit: Tried to post an image but it said I wasn't allowed to use it on this community. There is an image on the internet that shows the Ultramarines Chapter Organization and only the 3rd Company is pictured with Drop Pods, everyone else is shown to have Rhinos or Razors. Is the 3rd Company the only Company that utilizes Drop Pods, or do all Company's have individual assets and can choose to deploy by whatever needs the mission dictates? 

[Captain Idaho]

A Company Captain can generally utilise any resources available for the Company they lead. Many Companies have a preference for particular type of warfare, often reflected in the character of the Captain. If you want to make a particular Company use the theme you want, remember it is YOUR hobby ;)

 

I will go away and check my resources and get back to you.

[Ishagu]

Exactly what aspect of Ultramarines are you drawn to?

 

There are other vanilla chapters who are highly competent as well. You need to plan ahead for your army theme and strategy.

 

The Minotaurs have a similar theme, Greco-Roman inspired visually.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Ishagu

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Exactly what aspect of Ultramarines are you drawn to?

 

There are other vanilla chapters who are highly competent as well. You need to plan ahead for your army theme and strategy.

 

The Minotaurs have a similar theme, Greco-Roman inspired visually.

 

Right now it's just the aesthetic theme. As a Space Wolf player I also like all the different characters that Ultramarines have. I don't know a whole lot about UM's fluff to have a bunch of motivations. I will say I've always gravitated towards them. They catch my eye

[Seahawk]

If you really want to get the good Roman vibes fluff of the Ultramarines, I'd recommend getting your hands on Index Astartes III, or the White Dwarfs that first printed the Ultramarines articles. You can find out which ones on this page.

 

Some art from older books might also be appealing for conversion ideas. There are many in this old thread, and if you want to look up Mark Gibbons specifically his stuff is great. 

[Bloody Legionnaire]

fantastic resource recommendation Seahawk!

I think I may now be more settled on the Ultramarines. I painted a few Marines to try and see how I liked the paint scheme and after following the FW Ultramarines paint recipe I'm really liking the way my Ultramarines would look.

[Captain Idaho]

Cool! Keep us updated with your pics and battle experience.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Hope everyone is having a good start to their week!

 

Just picked up my first model for my Ultramarines Army today! A standard Repulsor. I think I'm going to have 3 total. One for transporting the commander and his accompanying body guards and two Executioners with Heavy Support units (most likely aggressors Hellblasters are maybe). 

I pre-ordered Indomitus with my FLGS and I'm pretty sure I'll be good to go forgetting them. Everything in the box will be going to my Ultramarines collection except the Assault Intercessors which Ragnar has already claimed for his Great Company. I'll replace them with standard Intercessors for the UMs.

What's the best way for me to upload pics these days? Imgur, or upload them here on B&C and then post? 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I like ImgBB for hosting my pix .

[Ishagu]

Hope everyone is having a good start to their week!

 

Just picked up my first model for my Ultramarines Army today! A standard Repulsor. I think I'm going to have 3 total. One for transporting the commander and his accompanying body guards and two Executioners with Heavy Support units (most likely aggressors Hellblasters are maybe).

 

I pre-ordered Indomitus with my FLGS and I'm pretty sure I'll be good to go forgetting them. Everything in the box will be going to my Ultramarines collection except the Assault Intercessors which Ragnar has already claimed for his Great Company. I'll replace them with standard Intercessors for the UMs.

 

What's the best way for me to upload pics these days? Imgur, or upload them here on B&C and then post?

Hey glad you're getting started. Post some pics when you've painted it up.

 

Let's not beat about the Bush - The Ultras have the best paint scheme! Lol

[Lemondish]

 

Hope everyone is having a good start to their week!

 

Just picked up my first model for my Ultramarines Army today! A standard Repulsor. I think I'm going to have 3 total. One for transporting the commander and his accompanying body guards and two Executioners with Heavy Support units (most likely aggressors Hellblasters are maybe).

 

I pre-ordered Indomitus with my FLGS and I'm pretty sure I'll be good to go forgetting them. Everything in the box will be going to my Ultramarines collection except the Assault Intercessors which Ragnar has already claimed for his Great Company. I'll replace them with standard Intercessors for the UMs.

 

What's the best way for me to upload pics these days? Imgur, or upload them here on B&C and then post?

Hey glad you're getting started. Post some pics when you've painted it up.

 

Let's not beat about the Bush - The Ultras have the best paint scheme! Lol

And even if you don't like the blue (I'm not a fan, personally), G-man is the Daddy for a vast majority of known Chapters out there if a successor is more your style.

 

Really can't go wrong.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Lemondish

[Bloody Legionnaire]

 

Hey glad you're getting started. Post some pics when you've painted it up.

 

Let's not beat about the Bush - The Ultras have the best paint scheme! Lol

 

 

I've actually always felt this way about them. When I first got into WH40k I saw some MWG batreps on youtube (how I generally learned the game was played) and saw Space Wolves vs. Blood Angels and thought I wanted a CC focused Space Marine Army. I was super close to going Ultramarines in 40k but a buddy of mine put the "vanilla" bug in my ear. Almost went with Ultramarines in 30k too but I liked the colors and models of the World Eaters (and back to the CC desire).

 

At any rate, glad to finally be doing Ultramarines! 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Bloody Legionnaire

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Glad to have you onboard !

[cravgar]

Hope everyone is having a good start to their week!

 

Just picked up my first model for my Ultramarines Army today! A standard Repulsor. I think I'm going to have 3 total. One for transporting the commander and his accompanying body guards and two Executioners with Heavy Support units (most likely aggressors Hellblasters are maybe). 

 

I pre-ordered Indomitus with my FLGS and I'm pretty sure I'll be good to go forgetting them. Everything in the box will be going to my Ultramarines collection except the Assault Intercessors which Ragnar has already claimed for his Great Company. I'll replace them with standard Intercessors for the UMs.

 

What's the best way for me to upload pics these days? Imgur, or upload them here on B&C and then post? 

 

Hey Bloody, I'm in a similar position to you: Long term SW fan, but with my limited play in 8th i just felt like it was a loosing battle with them, and no matter how much i love the lore of SW i just feel like I'm making things hard for myself playing them. I want to be in it to win it but its all a big unknown since Covid essentially limited how much we could learn from saga. 

 

The biggest thing over all of it the makes me want to come over to UM, which i kinda have is the fact you have to convert literally every model to make it a space wolf. I know you don't have to do alot but looking at the new blade guard, they just dont look like space wolves, and for a codex compliant army you can get away with them so im at a cross-roads now of do i leave ragnar on the shelf and go for the boys in blue or remain true to him :) 

 

I think since i'm not one for cutting up the mini's i've sent hard earned cash on and doing lots of conversion work perhaps a new army should be what i go for... dam this childhood memories :) 

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Disclaimer: So I know the typical response to these topics are "your hobby, your army, your fluff" kinda deal.

BLUF I'm considering molded some of my SWs into my new Ultramarines Army so that they are all one force and I'll use whatever rules I wish. I was never really fully into the viking aspect that SWs have in the fluff and like I've already stated I really like the roman aspect to the UMs. I'm not sure if any of you are up on your roman mythology, but the two brothers who founded rome were twins who were raised by a wolf. Most of the army will be typical UM but I think I'm going to paint up Ragnar Blackmane as an UM and convert him slightly (different shoulder pads, UM helmet) so that he fits along with the army a little better. 

Thoughts/feedback on any of that? 

[Charybdis]

Mate there's a ton of 'Wolf' iconography linked to ancient Roman history on top of Romulus and Remus.

 

There was an infantry unit called 'Velites', mainly used as frontline melee fighters that wore Wolf skins to stand out on the battlefield. I'm highlighting this because as Space Wolves I'm assuming your guys have plenty of melee options already equipped. 

 

For me aesthetics is entirely down to the individual, only thing that really matters is how you feel about your army after you've put all the money, time and work into them.

 

I do think your chapter sounds cool though chief.

 

Just out of interest, do you not fancy making them a custom successor chapter? 

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Thanks for the response Charybdis. 

I'm not really about the whole "making your custom successor chapter" thing. I don't want to put that much energy into thinking of fluff and I really like the first founding chapters.

I want this UM army to be entirely primaris unless nu-firstborn turn out to be auto-include for competitive lists. 

I was really just trying to think of a way for a model like Ragnar would fit in with the Ultramarines. I really don't want anymore SW aesthetics in my UMs army above and beyond Ragnar. I'm a military guy and I like the uniformity of codex compliant chapters. I'm the personality that would nerd out more on having a complete company with appropriate markings for squads and squad assigned vehicles for a complete company than I would nerd out doing something custom. The craziness of SWs and all of their colors and tribalism wasn't something I liked in the long run. 

[Charybdis]

Thanks for the response Charybdis. 

 

I'm not really about the whole "making your custom successor chapter" thing. I don't want to put that much energy into thinking of fluff and I really like the first founding chapters.

 

I want this UM army to be entirely primaris unless nu-firstborn turn out to be auto-include for competitive lists. 

 

I was really just trying to think of a way for a model like Ragnar would fit in with the Ultramarines. I really don't want anymore SW aesthetics in my UMs army above and beyond Ragnar. I'm a military guy and I like the uniformity of codex compliant chapters. I'm the personality that would nerd out more on having a complete company with appropriate markings for squads and squad assigned vehicles for a complete company than I would nerd out doing something custom. The craziness of SWs and all of their colors and tribalism wasn't something I liked in the long run. 

Sounds good mate.

 

Just an idea but I think Ragnar would make a very cool 'Chapter Champion' (especially good for Ultra's). 

[space wolf]

It's easy bro...just paint ragnar blue. The fact is, the roman empire didn't conquer every territory they had. Often they would make local allies that would intercede on their behalf. Just because ragnar looks a little "rougher" doesn't mean he isn't a "roman". Tho he would be considered a "bumpkin" back in "rome". Am I making sense?