My fellow Citizens,
I come to you tonight in the midst of a truly historic moment. By now it is all too clear that we are in the grip of an unimaginable cataclysm that shows no sign of stopping. Indeed, all signs suggest that things will only get worse before they get better. Make no mistake, the storm we currently find ourselves in is here to stay, and we will not find reprieve any time soon.
In such unprecedented times as these, we must be flexible and dynamic. If we are to have any chance of progress, we must adapt to the new changes and the new opportunities that present themselves. We must be prepared to adjust to a new situation, and sometimes we must be prepared to reevaluate our oldest and most foundational traditions.
For over two-score millennia we have prided ourselves on defying the Space Marine hegemony compeleld on us by Games Workshop, and taken great satisfaction from our identity of independence that grew from it. We have long been a bastion against the hegemonic constructs of Games Workshop's marketing, and the crown jewel of that rebellion has been our fervent denial to ever host Space Marine models within our borders.
But the Space Marines too have suffered under these arduous times just as we have, and now at last they too have found themselves betrayed by GW. They are no longer the face of GW's hegemonic power structure, and they are no longer the 40k player base's boot upon our throat. Yet even as they have found themselves cast out from power, usurped by unfathomable products of GW's CAD complex, we have stubbornly upheld our long-standing prejudices against them.
Until now.
My fellow Citizens, as of midnight tonight, at long last, the Non-Space Marine Player Charter of 2002 and the Space Marine Act of 2004 are to hereby be officially revoked. From this day forward, the Kakapo Empire will officially grant political asylum to any Space Marine refugees from 1998 to 2004 that seek it, and we will officially recognise their right to sanctuary and to apply for full Citizenship within the Kakapo Empire.
For too long we have considered the Space Marines our adversaries. Make no mistake, we are now trapped in the same storm together, and only by putting aside our long-standing differences and uniting our efforts together can we weather this onslaught.
Already the first groups of Space Marine refugees are making their way to our territory even now. I implore you, my fellow Citzens, one and all, to strive to ensure they are welcomed warmly as new friends, and made to feel comfortable in their new home.
Well, there it is. It's happened. After 20 years, it's finally happened. Hell has frozen over, pigs have taken flight, cats and dogs are living together in mass hysteria.
I'm starting a Space Marine army.
Of course I'm also starting a Dark Eldar army too, for much the same reasons, but I've never had an official militant policy of prohibition against the Dark Eldar, and have seriously entertained the idea of a Dark Eldar army for a while now. So that's not really too earthshaking. Not like the Space Marines, that I promised I would never collect, ever.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
It was always foreshadowed I suppose. The first Warhammer 40,000 model I ever saw was a Space Marine Landspeeder. When I first happened upon the big store display of Warhammer 40,000 stuff in the local Toyworld one fateful afternoon, there were no Tau boxes on display, so my attention instead wandered to the strange mysterious yellow flying APC I could see on one of the boxes. It wasn't until over a decade later that I was able to put two and two together and figured out that the mysterious flying APC I had spotted as a 7 year old was, in fact, a Landspeeder that my memory had warped - in particular, I had got it into my head that it was a hovering troop transport because I had mistaken the very conspicuous maintenance hatches on the side for doors to a troop compartment and my developing myopia had fused the entire cockpit and two crewmen together into a single enclosed bridge.
And then of course later on there was the Blood Angels army I happened upon one night when my parents decided to take a shortcut to the Chinese restaurant were going out to which happened to bring us past the local Games Workshop store.
But despite all that I have, for pretty much my entire hobby life, been legendary for my loathing of Space Marines and my fanatical refusal to ever start a Space Marine army. For decades I resented the publicity and central framing the Space Marines got, and the fact that the entire 40k player base seemed to lean into it, with the fury of a thousand suns, and swore I would be the only 40k player in history to never start a Space Marine army or even own a single Space Marine model, and make my name that way. As the years went on I took enormous, fierce pride in being the cool rebellious non-conformist doggedly sticking to an exclusive hobby diet of alien factions while all the sheeple around me mindlessly consumed their bland Ultramarines or whatever.
Of course, deep down the truth was that as a Tau player I was being relentlessly marginalised by the wider 40k fanbase, and when you're on the fringes of the group often what you desperately want most of all is to be in the centre. Natalie Wynn is definitely onto something with her Envy-Contempt Sublimation thinking.
I probably would have kept up this anti-Space Marine policy forever if it were not for GW. It is the one of the world's greatest ironies that the release of 8th edition and the NuMarines ultimately convinced me to start a Space Marine army. See, when GW released the NuMarines and re-framed them to be the stars of the spotlight, it meant that the Space Marines were no longer the golden poster boys they had always been. And that made them cool. That made it OK for me to like them, because now I could hypothetically collect a Space Marine army and still maintain my anti-establishment non-conformist street cred. It was the loophole I needed to reconcile the two impulses. I could collect some Space Marines, and I would be just preserving another part of Warhammer 40,000 for posterity and providing another opposing force for my Tau and Witch Hunters.. so long as I never, ever touched any of those filthy NuMarines.
With my Envy-Contempt Sublimation re-targeted, I was then able to consider two factors. The first was a shocking realisation of just how little of the Space Marine range actually remains in circulation. While I had been aware for years about just how many GW model lines had been discontinued, I never really gave much thought to how that had impacted the Space Marine range, because they're the poster boys. The star prodigies. GW's flagship product. GW might discontinue other model ranges, but surely they would never shut down model lines for their flagship product. It was only as I sat down, looked through an archived copy of the Citadel Miniatures Catalogues and compared them to the GW website that I finally had the genuinely sobering revelation of just how much the Space Marine range had suffered - pretty much none of it remains available any more. And with that, I then realised just how important it was to preserve the classic Oldhammer Space Marine range from 2003 for posterity, just like all the others.
The other was seeing an opportunity to do just this. See, I love Jungle Trees. Like, a lot. They are easily my favourite Warhammer 40,000 terrain kit of all time, and easily one of my top 3 GW terrain pieces of all time, and I desperately wish I had gotten more of them when they were still available from GW. In truth, a lot of my quest to collect classic Warhammer 40,000 Battleforce and army boxes is motivated entirely by the drive to acquire the Jungle Tree sprues they contain. Rick Sanchez has his Szechuan McNugget sauce, I have my Jungle Trees. And I've noticed that one of the best remaining sources of Jungle Trees (and their cousins the Ruined Buildings and Battlefield Accessories that I also crave) is in rescuing 3rd edition Warhammer 40,000 starter box sets off Ebay. And those starter box sets also happen to feature a bunch of Space Marine models in them. So if I'm going to be rescuing a bunch of Warhammer 40,000 starter boxes from Ebay, then I might as well put those Space Marine freebies to good use.
This was all starting to coalesce together into a solid action plan right around December last year, when something truly crazy happened. Games Workshop re-released the starter box for Warhammer 40,000. Now, it was only the army component of the starter box, there were none of the terrain kits and no rulebook or whippy sticks, but on close inspection it appeared that the model sprues for the Space Marine and Dark Eldar sculpts featured a copyright date of 1998 on them, which meant that they were very likely complete recreations of the original sculpts, painstakingly close if not identical. This in turn meant that GW had made a conscious step towards meeting my demands of it, so I removed some of my economic trade sanctions on it and ordered a set for Boxing Day of last year as a show of good faith.
Supply chain issues due to the general apocalypse going on in the world at the moment meant that it then took almost a year for the box to get shipped to me, and now here we are, with the start of a brand new Space Marine army. Of course it probably won't actually get painted any time soon, not only because there are more pressing things I'm prioritising but also because before I can paint it I have to settle on which Chapter I want to paint them as.
See, for those of you not in the know, the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 are organised into a bunch of different groups called Chapters. Each one has a very, very, VERY distinct colour scheme, lore and identity, though most Chapters can be grouped together as 'Codex' chapters, which means they're normal Space Marine Chapters that don't really do anything unusual. Chapters are a very big deal for a Space Marine army, and there are several ones I like the colour scheme and/or concept of, which makes figuring out which one I want to do a massive headache.
Right now, here is the current short-list:
FLAME FALCONS
Pros:
- The COOLEST Space Marine Chapter ever.
- No, seriously.
- They're Space Marines that fight ON FIRE. It doesn't get any cooler than that (for Space Marines anyway)
- The Cursed Founding is easily the best part of Space Marine lore, ever.
- Major mystique and non-conformist points for playing a Cursed Founding Chapter.
- The Cursed Founding rules for Flame Falcons in Chapter Approved are pretty neat.
- Can have fun expanding on the Chapter's recent history.
- An excellent outlet for all my fire-related puns, leaving my Witch Hunters free to focus on in-character roleplay.
- No official paint scheme means I can have fun with colours.
Cons:
- Models would require extensive greenstuff work, since they're all on fire.
- Sculpting greenstuff fire is a pain in the ass.
- I kind of want to preserve the 2003 Space Marine model range as it was, and covering all the Space Marines in greenstuff fire defeats that purpose.
- No official paint scheme means I run the risk of getting constantly harassed for not painting them right.
- The Cursed Founding rules restrict some of the unit options I can use, and I want to feature as many Space Marine units as possible for maximum diversity and to preserve the entire range for posterity.
- I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with covering precious irreplaceable 1998 - 2003 models with greenstuff fire.
- "You're using the normal Space Marine codex for a Cursed Founding Chapter? You have no respect for the lore or the unique character of the army! WAAC! WAAAAAAAC!!"
- No official paint scheme means I actually have to plan one myself, and still avoid it being too similar to all the other Chapter paint schemes.
- OH DEAR SWEET GOD NO IT'S THE EMPIRE PROBLEM ALL OVER AGAIN!
LAMENTERS
Pros:
- The second coolest Space Marine Chapter ever.
- The most relatable Space Marine Chapter ever.
- Really, if I were a Space Marine I 100% would be a Lamenter given the way my life has gone.
- "Blood Angels but without the Blood Angel problems except they get horrific bad luck instead" is just a really neat concept.
- The Cursed Founding is easily the best part of Space Marine lore, ever.
- Major mystique and non-conformist points for playing a Cursed Founding Chapter.
- The Cursed Founding rules for Lamenters are pretty neat.
- All the Natural 1s and appalling game losses I ever have with the army would be completely 100% in character.
- No, really, I relate to the Lamenters on a cellular level.
Cons:
- Paint Scheme isn't the prettiest.
- Chapter Logo has no transfer decals.
- Chapter Logo incorporates a checkered background, which is a PAIN IN THE ASS to paint.
- Chapter Logo incorporates a black and white checkered background, which is even more of a PAIN IN THE ASS to paint.
- The fucking 2010s retcon.
- The fucking 2010s retcon took away what made them actually interesting and just made them Blood Angels but shitty.
- Fuck do I really have to engage with the fucking 2010s retcon.
- Fuck it's going to get brought up even if I refuse to engage with it isn't it.
- "Ughuuh, you know that Ackchually they have Death Company all along right? Your army isn't legal and is wrong for a Lamenters army!"
- "Ughuuh, you know there's this little thing called KANOHN that doesn't care about your feelings right? Dumb baby casual git gud"
- "You're using the normal Space Marine codex for a Cursed Founding Chapter? You have no respect for the lore or the unique character of the army! WAAC! WAAAAAAAC!!"
- "You're not using the Blood Angels codex for Lamenters? You have no respect for the lore or the unique character of the army! WAAC! WAAAAAAAC!!"
BLOOD ANGELS
Pros:
- I have an AWESOME concept for a Blood Angels army
- Spoiler Alert: 90s Comic Book Blood Angels
- Think About it: Blood Angels themed around the 90s era of Comic Books
- It'd be so cool and so meta!
- And they could be led by Rob Liefeld as a Space Marine!
- This concept is everything my brain has ever wanted to think about
- I'm actually pretty confident about painting red.
- Baal Predator goes BPPPPPPPT!
Cons:
- Models would require massive amounts of additional pouches to really sell the joke home
- Space Marine model sprues contain insufficient amounts of pouches for this. More would need to be sourced.
- I kind of want to preserve the 2003 Space Marine model range as it was, and covering all the Space Marines in pouches defeats that purpose.
- The Blood Angels army is not a Codex Chapter and is has a very distinct array of unit options and fighting style.
- I kind of want to showcase a normal Codex: Space Marines army for posterity.
- Baal Predator is a Unicorn online
- I don't know I really want to lean into the whole Jump Pack thing. I'd kind of like a shootier, more footslogging Space Marien army.
- Would have to source a bunch of extra models for Death Company.
- "You're using a Blood Angels army with no Honour Guard or Veteran Assault Squads? Or Furioso Dreadnoughts? You have no respect for the lore or the unique character of the army! WAAC! WAAAAAAAC!!"
ULTRAMARINES
Pros:
- THE archetypal Space Marine army, which would be a plus given the goal is to showcase the classic Space Marine army for posterity.
- Has all the unit options I'd like to try.
- Has all the thematic justification for fighting my Tau and Witch Hunters a lot.
- Captain Motherfucking Ardias
- Captain Ardias is a stone-cold badass and the single coolest Space Marine character GW ever created.
- No seriously forget all the ninnies from Dawn of War. They only wish thy could be as awesome as Captain Ardias.
- Holy shit I could kitbash a model for Captain Ardias.
- Holy shit I could use that model of Captain Ardias alongside the models of Ui'Kais I'm going to make.
- I HOLD YOUR DEATH IN MY HANDS!!
- Let your DARK SOUL feel the LIGHT OF THE EMPEROR!!
- FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL THE IMPERIUM'S MIGHT!!
- THE EMPEROR ORDERS YOU TO DIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Cons:
- The most boring of Space Marine Chapters
- Not the biggest fan of the colour blue
- Forever Tainted by Matt Ward
- Will attract ALL the stupid memes
- Will attract ALL the mean comments
- "Urrhurrhurrr Rawbutt Gurllymann!"
- "uLtRaSmUrRfS!"
- "OMG r u in love with Matt Ward?"
- Really need a 1990s Ultramarine army to really hammer home the Chaos Gate memes
IMPERIAL FISTS
Pros:
- Always liked the colour scheme
- Yellow and red is a winning combination
- Was the first Space Marine colour scheme I ever saw
- The other archetypal Space Marine chapter, which helps with the posterity mission
- Also have all the unit options I'd like to try
- Kind of like the defensive specialists/siege veteran angle
- Have a special character named Lysander, which pleases my inner Thespian
Cons:
- Yellow is a pain in the ass to paint
- Especially bright yellow
- Also a lightning rod for memes
- "Oh my god the pain glove amiright"
- Fuck I'll have to deal with all the Black Library Horus Heresy stuff won't I. Fuck.
- Fuck I'll get an earful of all the 30k stuff too.
- Starting to realise I don't really have a compelling hook for the backstory.
- Aren't they missing that gland implant that lets them spit acid venom? That sucks and is totally lame.
BLACK TEMPLARS
Pros:
- The iconic 3rd edition Space Marines
- Completely native to 3rd edition, no roots in 80shammer or 90shammer
- The mixed model squads are kind of cool
- The poster boys for the starter box AND rulebook, which is a case for the posterity mission
- Could possibly dabble in Sword Brethren with the 4th edition codex
- Land Raider Crusader goes BPPPPPPPT!
Cons:
- Colour scheme is black and white, which is a pain to paint
- The Black Templars army is not a Codex Chapter and is has a very distinct array of unit options and fighting style.
- I kind of want to showcase a normal Codex: Space Marines army for posterity.
- Land Raider Crusaders also seem to be a Unicorn online.
- Forever tainted by Flashgitz.
- Oh god I have to choose between assault weapons and specialist close combat options for the infantry squads? But there's only six of them!
MY OWN CHAPTER
Pros:
- Sidesteps a lot of canon bullshit
- Can work out my own colour scheme
- Already have a few Chapters of my own invention that could work
- Can even make them a 21st Founding Chapter if I want
Cons:
- Would have to decide which of the Chapters I've invented to do.
- Oh sweet god this is torture. It's Sophie's Choice I tell you!
- I kind of want to preserve the 2003 Space Marine model range as it was, and giving all the Space Marines a wild new colour scheme defeats that purpose.
- "Oh so your guys are [GW Chapter that has similar colours to mine]?"
So as you can see, it's a tough call. Fortunately for me I've got time for now.
So, to recap, there isn't a single option for collecting and painting Space Marines that doesn't make you end up shrieking "oh god [something]" – and far too many of your options are forever tainted by post-2010 material you reject.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to bequeath you my own Lightbringers Chapter and let you get on with it. (I mean, I'm not going to build them, am I? I'm the bleedin' Dark Lord of Sector Maledicta, me! I have the glorious burden of being the only Chaos player in my posse, and that gives me at least three army lists to cover any way you slice it… but I digress.)
More helpful response to follow: I need to break this one down as APPARENTLY it's too long for Blogspot's delicate sensibilities. This is why I switched to WordPress, you know. That and image hosting.
In more helpful observations:
DeleteFLAME FALCONS - let's rule these out straight away, you're not only nervous about sculpting the fire but it runs counter to your archivist's impulse AND you have the Empire Problem again. This way lies madness.
LAMENTERS - it's true, you do Lament and are Lamentable, I've often thought this about you. Checks are easier than sculpting fire (I can paint checks, and I'm appallingly lazy and hate painting, so I suspect you, the Space Station Greeble Highlighter, will be fine) but I do sympathise with regards to an ugly chapter emblem that you are kind of stuck with if you wish to retain the narrative beats you want from the Chapter. Regarding the post-2010 canon - this is SUCH a Classichammer project, does anyone you're likely to engage with really care about any of this? Does anyone worth your time use the word "canon" without a sneer? Is anyone, and I do mean anyone, going to talk to you for five minutes and have the slightest sense that you are here to Win At All Costs? I am going to admit something to you now, and I do this in the spirit of friendship and guidance - a lot of my worries about which list I'm using are entirely mine, products of my own rancid thoughts, and have not been borne out in conversation with any opponent, potential or actual. I suspect yours are much the same.
BLOOD ANGELS - I think you're letting the pouches do a lot of your heavy lifting for you here. This is like me and my occasional impulse to paint up a platoon or three of ushanka-wearing Imperial Guard - I love the Vostroyan models but only aesthetically, I have no interest in what the Guard are about as an army or really in painting baseline humans at all. Also, the Death Company and Black Rage rules have always seemed like a bit of a faff to me. And can you really let these go unpunished for the sins of their Ward Codex (cf. Magna Grapple, Librarian Dreadnought, Friendly Local Necron Overlord) when you revile a later entry in this compendium so?
ULTRAMARINES - I concur that the period of Ultramarine that holds your heart in its hands is the Second Edition period and thus discount them from consideration here.
IMPERIAL FISTS - Here we see the counter-move to your Flame Falcons predicament. There, the project leaned too far away from your archivist's instinct. Here, the project is defined by it. You're considering Fists purely because Fists are iconic and you saw them first: not because you have any real personal investment in them as fictive entities. If you were just doing a "paint it, store it" project that was all about the figures then maybe, but I know you well enough (I think) to know you're here to Forge the Narrative and you're trying to do it with bent twigs and soggy chip wrappers here. Lacking a stake you lack a reason to pursue these. Also, it's taken all my maturity to not replace many of the verbs in this paragraph with "Fist" and I don't know how long I can keep that going.
DeleteBLACK TEMPLARS - It's a shame, in some ways, that the fourth edition Codex happened, because I agree that third edition Black Templars would be the ideal solution to your quandry here. Sadly I think you're going to have to rule these out on non-Codex grounds. I will observe in passing, though, that I painted a squad of these once following the dictat that "there are no true blacks in nature" and as such they were actually a very very very deep brown and a very very very pale ivory and you know, they looked OK. Certainly different from the edge-highlighted-to-oblivion house style. (I don't mean to set myself up as a better technical painter than anyone who's been allowed in the door of 'Eavy Metal, ever, but great technique can be set to the pursuit of a flawed vision and often is).
YOUR OWN CHAPTER - Some of these claims don't entirely hold water. In particular, I don't think painting your Space Marines a given colour renders them utterly ahistorical and worthless as a preservation project - surely "preserving the range" is about minimal conversions (i.e. limiting yourself to the component swaps the plastic kits were designed to enable, and keeping metal miniatures as-supplied)? Also, I think you can (and will) seize control of the narrative (not the one you Forge in gaming, the conversational one) by telling people about your Marines early and not letting "oh so are they Blood Ravens or Blood Angels?" get a foot in the door. However, if you have too many Chapters thronging in your mind then picking one is likely to stall you out in decision paralysis indefinitely and defer the entire project, even to the doomsday.
My money is on the Lamenters, despite their unlovely heraldry. You strongly identify with them on a personal level. They have the Cursed Founding connection, a background element which clearly has a hold on you. They are a Codex Chapter (at least, in the form that you're prepared to countenance them) and as such fulfil the archival impulse behind the project. And, crucially, they allow you to hiss and spit at post-2010 Warhammer 40,000, which you're going to do anyway, so you might as well give yourself an excuse.
The real core of the problem is that I'm coming at this from the complete opposite trajectory that most Space Marine players do. Instead of starting out with Space Marines, falling in love with a Chapter that jumps out at me and adopting them like a football team, all of the energy and rent-free head space that would normally go towards that is occupied by Tau and Witchhunters, so I'm left in a place where I kind of like the look and/or concept of several Chapters, but am not really growing massively attached to any particular one, with the result being that I'm left stuck between a few options with the strongest pulls.
DeleteNormally this might be considered a bad omen, but these guys are also very much a B Cast army, there as a piece of history and to be loaned out to prospective opponents that might not have a 3/4 edition army of their own at hand ("Oh, you've only been building N-Primaris marines you say? Not to worry, I've got a Space Marine army you can use right here...") or used as an opposing force in the occasional solo game. So I'm being more conceptually lenient than normal.
I'm beginning to suspect that this might have been GW's insidious scheme the whole time, and a driving factor towards the phenomenon of Space Marine collections growing like gorse that I have observed.
(And surely you would want to build a Lightbringer army *because* you're the Dark Lord of Maledictia? What is a good villain without a consistent reliable hero to match wits with and maintain continuity between guest spots?)
I will note when it comes to Ultramarines that Chaos Gate jokes are doing a lot of the heavy lifting for my fondness of the 2nd Edition range. If you take that video game aside, and really zero down on tabletop model range, imagery and overall Brand, I am much more rooted in the 3rd edition range. The big double-page spread of the Studio Ultramarine army in the 4th edition rulebook is a favourite of mine for a reason. Similarly, as much as I might quote the particularly cheesy lines of Chaos Gate, it needs be reminded that my heart will always belong first and foremost to FireWarrior, with its gritty 2002 Ultramarines and Peter Serafinowicz's phenomenal voice acting as Ardias.
DeleteOf course, my fascination with Chaos Gate also raises another big mark in favour of the Blood Angels - they have access to the Quickening psychic power, which is a Chaos Gate meme vehicle in its own right. Related to this, I'm fairly certain I want a Librarian or two somewhere in this army, because between 20 years and counting of Tau and an indefinite era of psyker-free Witch Hunters, I would like to own at least one 40k army with some sort of psyker in it. I feel I've earned the right to have some fun with psychic powers, and it would be nice to get some regular use out of all the anti-psyker kit my Inquisitor Lord is getting loaded up with.
This is also another mark against the Black Templars. Not only are they psyker-free, but they're also a militantly anti-psyker religious army and, well, I already have one of those (and one which also hits a lot of the Religious Horror beats better and isn't associated with any youtube creators I don't much care for, to boot).
Finally, there's also a new curve-ball to complicate things further, because it occurs to me that Cursed Founding Chapters can also be taken as Allied units. And while I am firmly dedicated to avoiding Marine Cancer consuming my entire model inventory, a smallish 'Combat Patrol' of Lamenters alongside a force from another Chapter is not totally unreasonable; it would result in a total force about the same size as my Tau, if a little smaller, and it would be no less visually coherent than a Tau army with a few Kroot kindreds mixed in, or a Witch Hunters army with a good chunk of non-Sorroritas units mixed in with the Sisters of Battle.
DeleteWhich means I could potentially have my Lamenters Lamington and eat another Chapter cake too, and get the best of both worlds. But that still raises the question of what Chapter the Lamenters are going to be rescuing from trouble.
On the one hand I keep coming back to the Blood Angels, because it lets me salvage my 90s Comic Book spoof concept, because a Librarian with Quickening gives me my Chaos Gate cheesiness fix, and because I kind of like the idea of some mutual envy between these two bands of Astartes over having escaped each other's respective curses - the Lamenters yearning for the stable fortunes and prestige of their Blood Angel cousins, and the Blood Angels in turn coveting the mental and genetic stability of their Lamenter brothers.
But on the other hand, I *also* keep coming back to the Blood Angels helmet colours, and how I'm not particularly enamoured with the blue Devastator helmets and only lukewarm on the yellow Veteran markings, and I'm still not sure my heart is really in their special jump pack troops or Furioso Dreadnoughts (the Ball Predator is pretty ace though).
And *then* I come back to the idea of grappling with the challenge of "Make Ultramarines Great Again" and adding an Ardias connection to my array of love letters to FireWarrior. But then on the other other hand I'm still not totally enamoured with a predominantly blue army, and I'm not sure how many Matt Ward or Robute Guilliman memes I could take, and I fear they may crop up more than I like.
Still, there's definite progress being made on who will be Millitant's Next Top Space Marine Chapter...
We're doing this, then? So be it.
DeleteI empathise with your predicament as, for reasons, it's not dissimilar to my own. There are certainly Space Marine Chapters that I find more interesting than others. My starter box Tacticals were painted as Dark Angels because they had the best metal Captain model (that one with the cloak and greatsword and enormous feathered crest) and Aly Morrison's Predator had been in White Dwarf when I started and I'm pretty impressionable; Dark Angels successors are still my template for the Lightbringers, should they ever come to pass.
Space Wolves have always had a lot going for them, although they've lost some of their charm in the Primaris age. What I liked about them most was the different progression through the ranks: a pack of rambunctious Blood Claws is whittled down to seasoned Grey Hunters to veteran Long Fangs, non-team-players are split off into Scouts or Lone Wolves from there. There's none of that "putting your unfinished recruits in lesser-grade armour and throwing them out ahead of the army to get shot at first" malarkey that the Codex mob engage in. I also have an admiration for divination by runes, the semi-fictitious Jomsvikings, and painting things in cold colourschemes on icy bases, so they were always in with a good thing. Sadly, anything tinted Viking is also tainted by association with the same people who ruin the Black Templars (and, of course, I painted a squad of Black Templars once, and wrote scads of juvenile fanfiction about them too, which has been retooled into Lightbringer backstory in an effort to wash my sins away). But someone needed to play the Bad Guys, and Goff Orks were cool as shit and still are, and no attempt at Space Marineing on my part has ever gone beyond a couple of squads, so mostly I just hover and go "yeah, I know what I'd do if I did this" - Space Wolf or Dark Angel successors of some ilk, I think.
Fortunately, I have no need to collect an Imperial Space Marine army, as there are two fellows named Ben of my acquaintance who have done that work on my behalf and are quite willing to throw them into the jaws of Chaos for our mutual amusement.
Your point about the Ultramarines is taken on board - I never played Fire Warrior, so the character name whooshed for me I'm afraid. Although that reminds me - if I ever did a Black Legion army, the leader would be the anonymous Force Commander (known to those who know him as Jimotheus, Commander of Force, hero of my abortive attempt at a Let's Play series some years ago) from Dawn of War: Chaos Rising.
DeleteI recognise the craving for psychic powers, too: years of playing Necrons and sadly Weirdboy-deprived latter-day Orks have robbed me of my best years, and I never did get around to doing that Thousand Sons army for seventh edition/30K. I will say that I've been somewhat underwhelmed by psychic powers in Classichammer and I don't honestly think you've missed much; the editions with a dedicated Psychic Phase tend to get it right, in my experience at least. (It should be noted that as a Chaos player I'm stuck with a lot of "gun you take a Ld test to fire" powers that lack a certain... joie de vivre, and I recall Eldar and Tyranids having more fun with theirs.)
I'm starting to feel that you have a strong case for the Blood Angels. You actually want to paint red; you have a narrative resonance between them and the Lamenters that I think it would be good to explore; Baal Predator do indeed go brrrrrrr; and the Quickening is both cool and good as far as exciting combat characters go. As far as the helmet thing goes, can you not work around that by conveniently assigning your Devastator squad at least to the Lamenters contingent? I'm not sure where the boundaries are in this endeavour, but that seems like a credible way around the problem to me. I can't however endorse the Liefield bit. If nothing else, you'd have to chop all their feet off.
(No interest in Word Bearers with Eliphas the Inheritor?)
DeleteDark Angels actually very nearly made this list. Their main colour scheme happens to be my favourite colour, dark green with red boltguns and tactical markings looks rad, and they do have the whole space gothic thing going on along with one of the best pieces of Space Marine codex cover art (and one of the best pieces of Space Marine model box art for that matter). In the end they just missed the cut by a whisker because I'd be mostly interested in just painting a bunch of green guys and don't really have much desire to faff around with the Deathwing/Ravenwing business, and I'm not that fond of the robed power armour look. The odd tabard on a character? Fine. A tabard and cape combo for one unit? I can live with it. But something about the full robe hoodie on power armour getup just doesn't click with me, and it's a little too ubiquitous among the Dark Angels for my tastes.
Space Wolves were easier to rule out, but I do agree about the Scouts thing. Fun story, when I was actually first reading about Space Marine scouts as a 9 year old I got it in my head that the Space Wolf model was actually the normal Codex standard, and all the Scouts were experienced Astartes that deliberately eschewed power armour for better stealth and mobility and had extra training and experience in stealth and reconnaissance and covert actions. I was very let down to learn later on that they were actually the trainees. While I'm at it, I've also never much cared for the Wardian system of Devastator - Assault - Tactical rank progression either, and never understood what was wrong about having all the Battle Brothers start out in ubiquitous Tactical Squads and then shuffle out into less numerous specialist units as their proficiency dictated (not entirely unlike how most people do it in Chaos Gate, funnily enough).
DeleteI actually *like* the Classichammer model for psychic powers, and the inclusion of a psychic phase is one of my bigger gripes with 6th edition. Part of it is because it introduces a whole entire part of the turn where Tau, Necrons and a lot of Witch Hunters have nothing at all to do (at least my Tau get to move again with their jetpacks in the assault phase), and because I admire the elegant simplicity of the move - shoot - duke it out hand to hand turn structure.
But it's also a matter of framing. I like the magic phase in Warhammer because as a fantasy setting, it makes sense for magic to be a big part of the action, but for a science fiction game like 40k I prefer the focus to be on the guns and machines and explosions first and the mind powers as a side piece (certainly not *gone*, but a bit of sauce on the side rather than squirted over everything). It's probably no coincidence that in System Shock 2 I invariably neglect the psionic powers in favour of loading up on hacking and gunnery skills.
I do sympathise with the 'gun that needs a Ld test to shoot' problem though, those particular kinds of psychic powers are my least favourite, and one of my few problems with the 1999 Chaos book is the conspicuous lack of alternatives an Undivided Sorceror has to Doombolt, which isn't even a very exciting gun you need a LD test to fire. At least Smite has fun with templates going for it. I am much more interested in the supportive psychic powers like Quickening, and the psychological warfare ones I would be stacking on my Hereticus Inquisitors if I weren't so wedded to the 'badass normal psyker hating bigots' angle.
Giving the Lamenters Devastator duty is indeed the most logical solution to my helmet problem, and would conveniently free up Heavy Support lots for regular Dreadnoughts since the Blood Angels ones never moved to Elites and I do try to at least pretend I build armies to the Force Organisation charts (the normal method, for reference, is to start off trying to build a complete Standard Force Org, realise that's not enough slots for all the cool toys I want, include all of them in the shopping list anyway, and then tack on some extra Troops so I can use them all in big games and still be rules-legal, and then figure out how many points all that is and go from there).
It does still leave me stuck with the yellow helmets for Veterans, but they're more palatable to my eyes than the blue helmets and I have time to figure out any workarounds for that.
(I Bore the Word back when Dawn of War I was new on shelves. Got that out of my system already.)
DeleteDark Angel successors who don't subscribe to the "alternate colours for the first and second Companies" thing or faff around with quite so many robes? This is another argument for handing over my Lightbringers! Although, in research and development, I noted with alarm that their ideology already exists in one successor chapter, and their colour scheme in another. Neither were particularly original ideas so I can totally claim parallel evolution, but it's a bit of a pisser nonetheless. This is where we came in, of course: the idea that there are a thousand Chapters and you can totally make up Your Dudes falls apart as more and more of those Chapters are presented as possibilities and now exist and aren't Your Dudes any more. Less is more, Sir James, less is more!
Tactical first just makes sense. Discover aptitudes, develop through specialisation. I gather this is how the Primaris do it (look, it's not my fault if the modern Chapter organisation is less stupid than the original flavour, in places - stop giving me that look...).
You do make a fair point about some armies just not getting to play in the psychic phase turn sequence, and that does cause some tactical problems (especially when, as in the madness of seventh edition, psychic powers are necessary in cranking units TO THE MAX in terms of battlefield effectiveness). The Dwarf player problem strikes again. I'm willing to compromise on having a full system and step of the game for MIND WIZARDRY, I suppose, as long as the MIND WIZARDRY does something interesting in the other phases of the game and isn't - as with Doombolt - a strictly inferior heavy bolter equivalent. At least Wind of Chaos bypasses saving throws.
In an ideal world there would be powers for movement, shooting and combat (either buffs or direct attacks) in each army, as well as force weapons or their analogues and "deny the witch" opportunities to curtail hostile psykers. Flavour, like the devil, would reside in the details of how each army did their thing - Ork movement powers could be very much of the "pick it up and Deep Strike it with all the hazards that implies" variety while Eldar ones would be more a more precise "just pick up and place six inches away" kind of deal, almost mirroring the things that Tau or Necrons achieve without recourse to MIND WIZARDRY.
Anyway. Blood Angels seeming like a more and more compelling choice out here, especially if you can accept the love of yellow helmets into your life. (I don't know why I'm out here advocating for that stuff, mind: the closest I come to yellow Space Marines is the odd Imperial Fist helmet under a Raptor's taloned boot, and even then I regret my choices after the second layer still comes out green.)
(Sorry about the double post. I boomered - clicked the wrong Reply option and went out of thread.)
A Dark Angels Successor solves the Deathwing/Ravenwing and Robe problems, but it also gets rid of that nice rich British Racing Green base colour I like so much, and if I try to backport that I have to do extra gymnastics to produce a compelling backstory out of "Look I just wanted Dark Angels without robes or Deathwing or Ravenwing OK".
DeleteThe Lightbringers will probably get some lore/writing shoutouts though.
I feel like the Minor Psychic powers are a nice compromise for MIND WIZARDRY. A selection of complementary subtle little boosts and support effects that can be taken by most space wizards in addition to their normal showstopper power(s), with a few extra Chaos God specific ones for Sorcerers to show off how special they are.
Granted some are still regular codex wargear items that need a Leadership Test to function, and they could have done without the "You get NOTHING! You LOSE! Good Day Sir!" results that most of the tables give out on a 1, but it is a step in the right direction all the same.
A Lamenter Blood Angel alliance is the current front-runner at the moment. It even turns out I was wrong about the yellow helmets too - they're for the Assault squads rather than the veterans, which makes them even easier to swallow (the gold helmets on the Honour Guard might take more getting used to though). And I can even use surplus Tactical Marines from my Starter Box purchases to make Death Company.
Though I still need to debate how many battle brothers - if any - will get a pile of stowed katanas stuck to their person...
... There are worse motives for creating your own Chapter than "I just wanted Dark Angels without the bits of Dark Angels I don't like," but I promise I'll disconnect from the Bit now.
DeleteI agree that the Minor Psychic Powers are a good step on the way to the Psychic Disciplines of sixth edition and beyond. They do the sort of things that I want psychic powers to do - but I will always resent "pay extra points to get something random and possibly nothing." I put up with it in WFB because it's the price of entry (and it should be noted that my various flavours of Undead are also frequently allocated every spell, or able to pick spells on some or all of their casters, mitigating the nonsense to an extent: being able to count on having the right tools to Forge your Narrative is cool and good, actually) but if it's not necessary I prefer to not, thank you. Just let me pick my goddamn MIND WIZARDRY SPELLS and while you're at it, let me have a force weapon on my Sorcerers.
I'm glad to have assisted - if I have assisted - in driving you toward a decision here. I endorse most of the route you're travelling here, except for the bits about Rob Liefield. I understand the appeal of outsider art in theory, but his has always left me wondering what the hell he sees through those eyes of his.
Oh, yes, like I say the minor psychic powers are far from flawless, and the 'You get NOTHING' on a one is definitely something that never should have made it to the Chapter Approved article (even Andy Chambers makes mistakes, from time to time). But as a compromise between the psychic phase wackiness of Editions 2 and 6+, and the psychic austerity of 1998hammer, they're not bad.
DeleteIt's probably worth noting that when I say Rob Liefeld I'm really using him more as a shorthand for 'the 1990s era of American comic books', of which he and his outsider art is simply the most public face. 1990s comic book schlock has always been a very prominent guilty pleasure of mine (in no small part because it's the era that I first became aware of comic books, and the first comic books I ever owned were a pile of Image and Valiant titles that the comic store was offloading in bulk), and a lot of the same sense of fondness that people seem to have for the more over the top elements of 40k I have for Xtreme 1990s American comics (I tend to laugh at Rob Liefeld's content in much the same way that a 90shammer grognard might laugh at Rogue Trader or 2nd Edition's satire elements, for instance).
Which is important here, because when you get right down to it, Space Marines are *VERY* Dark Age comic book. If you take GW's Space Marines, especially from 3rd edition, and put them on a Venn Diagram with edgy US comic books from the 90s, the circles would be barely distinguishable from each other.
When you play a Space Marine army, you're stepping into the tiny poorly drawn shoes of a comic book action anti-hero from the 1990s.
And this is doubly true for the Blood Angels, because... well just look at them. They have a mandatory special unit called the DEATH COMPANY. They have an army-wide special rule called the BLACK RAGE that is all about slaughtering the opposing force in the most gratuitously brutal ways possible. Their Chapter name is even BLOOD ANGELS. If GW hadn't invented them first, you can be certain that someone at Image Comics certainly would have (well, assuming the 1996 Comics Crash never happened at least).
The Blood Angels are peak Dark Age comic book excess, and I'm honestly pretty down for that, and riffing off that has been living rent-free in my head for a while now. And once you've already committed to the Dark Age comic book bit, then it's only natural to have the commander in charge of everything be a thinly-veiled shout-out to Rob Liefeld, the face of the Dark Age of American comic books.
Otherwise it'd be like making a lovingly faithful 5th edition Ultramarines army, with a diorama of an Ultramarine breaking an Eldar Avatar over his knee Bane style as the centrepiece, and not naming the Captain commanding it something like Mattias Wardus.
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ReplyDeleteI will always recommend that everyone who has the imagination to do so should do his Own Dudes. Especially if you are afraid of memes, who plagues dark, blood or ultramarians angels alike.
ReplyDeleteOne plus is you can play them as any chapter you like. Maybe even prepare some squads and vehicles from different chapter (Baal Predator go BRRR indeed) to play them as one or the other successor from one game to the other. You seem in the comments to talk more and more about blood angels, but your own successor could have the color of helmet you want and neatly dodge some of the cons listed (complains about furioso dreadnought absence for exemple, even if you should have a, some, or many furiosos dreadnoughts. dreadnoughts are cool, and blood angels dreadnoughts are massively cool.
Yes, Dreadnoughts are indeed cool. That's why I have the issues I do with the Furioso. I want to have some fun with the shootier, regular Dreadnoughts, I want to try the classic twin-linked lascannon/CCW, plasma cannon/CCW, assault cannon/CCW and lascannon/missile launcher setups out for size, and then play with the Furioso more, and I resent having to be stuck with the Furioso in the Elites category, because having the regular ones in Heavy Support leaves them competing for slots with the tanks that I ALSO want to have fun with.
DeleteIn the immortal words of Ruby Rhod, "I don't want one position I want All Positions!"
Just, y'know, within the one army book. I'm trying to keep the Marine codex hopping to the absolute barest minimum, since it tends to interfere with my suspension of disbelief. Two FOC Detachments from different Marine army rules is fine though.
Right now the biggest point against painting them as my own Chapter is, as Jonathan correctly identified above, there are about three different homebrew Chapter concepts I already have on hand, all of which have about an equal pull on me, and all of which very explicitly sprang into life for the sole purpose of providing throwaway gags and shout-outs in my other 40k stuff.
Now it is certainly true that that is also how, at a conservitive estimate, 90% of all the original GW Chapters started out, and I'm sure if given enough time I could produce something of the calibre of the Ultramarines, but at the same time I'm still not that deeply, lovingly passionate about Space Marines, and given that this army is expected to be loaned out to people wanting to try 2004hammer more often than not, it is very tempting to just take it easy and let Index Astartes take care of the heavy lifting while I sit back and sip on Otai.
Finally, it's worth noting that even if I decide to go for one of the big GW Chapters, it's still going to be very much MY take on them. They might be a Lamenters/Blood Angels tag team, but they will definitely be MY Lamenters and Blood Angels, with their own distinct character/unit identities (likely fueled by a steady diet of edgy US comic books from the 1990s).