The Best Marine

What is the best marine faction? Do you think Vanilla marines are as competitive as their factions?

Personally I've studied their codexes but I haven't played as a marine for a long time so I was hoping to get y'alls input. I'm not asking what faction you play, but which one you think is the best and why you think it is the best.

i think vanilla marines are the best if used properly

As much as I like my Blood Angels, I'd have to agree with Marshall. Vanilla Marines, if played correctly, are a devastating force. One of the nicest things about them is their flexibility. The basic codex marines will let you field a large selection of unit types and even give you the option to voluntarily leave close combat if things are going poorly for you (see Combat Tactics rule). By the addition of any one of several characters, you can trade out that option for any of several other abilities, letting you specialize your army to your own play style.

Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars all have some fun, unique stuff going for them, and I'm personally happy with the flexibility the new Blood Angels codex gives me, but it's nothing compared to the flexibility of the basic Space Marine codex. Bike army, for example... how cool would that be?

definitely vanilla- its funny we call them vanilla when they can do so many different things.
like tyler, i like the blood angels codex- lots of flexibility, and fits my overall favored play style. but the vanillas can do everything, and more of it. its like buying a couple armies in one if you have enough models cause you can switch it up all the time.

they do what marines do best- everything. you pick a faction when you wan to pick an aspect for the marines and specialize. or just get space wolves and do everything best.

haha space wolves are the wolverines of 40k.

they're the best at what they do!
Jk lol Blood Angels > Wolves in CC

Space wolves have a cool codex, as do blood angels. Personally, fluff wise I like the BA codex the most, mostly because of their cool vehicles. SW by far have the best IC's (BA are close but a lot of their characters can't join a squad which hurts them).

However after reading the SM codex (which I haven't done in 4+ years) I have to agree the vanilla marines have the best codex. Everything is rounded, but depending on your IC you can custom it however you want. You can go slow but tough to kill, or you could outflank practically everything in your army.

And as much as people complain about all the marine players, we really don't have many people who play from the vanilla codex. Not in our regular player base, anyway. Dave plays Raven Guard (when he gets back to town), and I know some people who don't play at the store much who have armies, but Dave is our only regular player, and he's out of town for the summer. It's too bad, because I'd love to see more of the vanilla-only options, like the Thunderfire Cannon and the Ironclad Dreadnought (neither of which I expect to see Dave fielding anytime soon, but who knows...).

I'm seriously considering collecting the "Crusade" force I've mentioned in the past. Especially since the tactical marines in AoBR come with vanilla tactical markings. :/ My other option is to paint a Blood Angel Successor crusade force and paint them either Blood Ravens (suspected, not confirmed, successors) or Blood Drinkers (the only official successor chapter to use Adaptes Astartes heraldry on their shoulder pads).

On a side note, is it a bad thing that I don't need to refer to the codex for the prices of my dreadnoughts anymore? Well, most of them, anyway.

Well all of that being said, who do you think the best Hero is in the game right now? Santiago with claws excluded (because that was just mean). Lets stick to actual characters for now.

best hero in what exactly? a stand up fight? swarm killer? support buffer?

Doesn't matter because Blood Letters have power weapons.

ALSO in all reality i don't know, everyone is good in their own way...

Best hero is the Punisher, Scott will agree :]

Yeah I'm realizing that's an impossible question to answer, every hero can do something well but not everything well

bloodletters, powerweapons ok i am way behind. when did that happen?

hahahahahaha

which is sad cause CHAOS CAN'T WIN, so oh well....