# Which Marine Codex is the most powerful?



## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

My personal vote is on the Space Wolves, due to their excellent close quaters, excellent range, and good close combat skills, all for cheaper than Codex Marines. I would like to hear your opinions though. This is NOT BASED ON FLUFF PREFERANCES - only gameplay.


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## OrdoMalleus (Apr 24, 2009)

Grey Knights are by far the most powerful (Individual forceweapons?!?!?) one on one, but are expensive as you would expect them to be. I vote space wolves also, grey hunters are far better than SM tactical squad, and long fangs are superior to SM devvies.

Blood Angels are also good, but only specalise in combat, wheras wolves are superb all round. IF were looking at SM , talking either vulkan, skrike or Khan also make powerful lists.

Just my 2cs....

just my 2C.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

I love the way you say that grey knights are only techincally space marines, but you also include chaos space marines in the list and they are even less space marines!


But I digress - I voted wolves. grey knights 1 v 1 are better, but they are so pricey.


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

As a mainly Tau and DE player, it's BA for me. SW are powerful, but not more than BA against my armies. SW should be more powerful overall as they're more well rounded though. Grey Knights are pushovers compared to them.


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## sybarite (Aug 10, 2009)

l have all these army's but BA and SW. To be honest my GK have had no issues with dealing with any MeQ. It has lost a few time to DE and Ninds. Still l voted for GK anyway.


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## Scathainn (Feb 21, 2010)

Wolves are top tier in the entire game alongside Guard.


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## Marneus Calgar (Dec 5, 2007)

Blood Angels, far too overpowered


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## gally912 (Jan 31, 2009)

Grey Knights are deffo space marines. By the "power armor" logic, why not include sisters?

But its wolves regardless.


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## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

Yeah, I kinda figured that Grey Knights are marines. It's because they have so many units that aren't SM in it, that I can't really call them a marine army...


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

SWs all the way followed by GKs, BAs, and Vulkan SM list. Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, Wolf Guard, Thunder Wolves, and 4 Rune Priest for the win!


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

its hard to choose which ones the 'most powerful' as some books shine better then others.

SW are the best all round though as they are good in assault, good at shooting and good for defense situations. Along with Long Fangs and Grey Hunters being the best bang for their buck in general situations.


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

Space Wolves: We are the future. If you don't believe me, just wait. We'll use your skull to hold our ale in.


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## GreatUncleanOne (Apr 25, 2011)

got to be SW! as others have said cheaper than SM but better plus their stupidly unfluff units.


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## Ashkore08 (Feb 12, 2011)

Meh BA. Why? We get the friggin thunder guppy . Beat that.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Ashkore08 said:


> Meh BA. Why? We get the friggin thunder guppy . Beat that.


Long Fangs.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

I personally think this is almost a silly question, although I admit it might change from region to region. HOWEVER. I believe that SW are the cream of the crop when it comes to power armor.


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## jaws900 (May 26, 2010)

Blood for the Blood God!!!
Having never read the Templar or Wolf codexs and not owning eaithe rof the 2 or Dark Angels (hte only 3 codex i don't own) i can in all right vote for them. So i had to chose from my armys i felt, Marines, Blood angles and Chaos. And chaos won (with a bribe). the main reason why is that i love them so much that i am having 2 chaos armys. 1 Death Guard and 1 Bleak Brotherhood.


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## Scathainn (Feb 21, 2010)

Although I gotta stick up for another of my armies...with the new FAQ there are some Templar foot lists that can really lay the hurt down.


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## Karak The Unfaithful (Feb 13, 2011)

Eternal glory to chaos!

I'm going for CSM because I'm chaos and we disagree with everybody, even if I actually think Grey knights are 'more powerful' in a sense.


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

CSM have buy far the best troops and arguably HS choices. but these alone dont make them the most powerful. id have to go with GKs or BAs


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

Fallen said:


> CSM have buy far the best troops and arguably HS choices. but these alone dont make them the most powerful. id have to go with GKs or BAs


Perhaps at the beginning of 5th edition they had the best troops, but now I would classify them as merely average. Between Warbands, Purifiers, Grey Hunters, BA assault squads, and the like they simply have fallen behind. As for HS, Long Fangs, psy dreads, and such make oblits good, but not the best. Plus the prevalence of str8 ap2 weaponry (cough* Dark Eldar) make them more vulnerable than they used to be.

Gotta give the top spot to Space Wolves, followed closely by BA and GK.


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## ohiocat110 (Sep 15, 2010)

BA can pull a few tricks with Razorspam and powerful characters, but Space Wolves are far and away the most overpowered. Put SW units up head to head against their Marine or Chapter equivalents and they're just better or cheaper...sometimes both. 

It's a cool codex in terms of customization and fluff, but Phil Kelly just plain forgot to give them any disadvantages.


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## Abomination (Jul 6, 2008)

On paper the Space Wolves probably edge it all-round but really the 'power' of a codex is irrelevant. It is easy to beat any of the marines with footslogging necrons for example.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Abomination said:


> On paper the Space Wolves probably edge it all-round but really the 'power' of a codex is irrelevant. It is easy to beat any of the marines with footslogging necrons for example.


...

---

In the end I think the Wolves of Fenris edge it out. While this isn't to say that the Space Wolves Codex is vastly superior to any of the other Space Marine ones or anything, I do think that they slightly edge out their competition mostly due to having excellent Troops, lots of strong units like Thunderwolf Cavalry, Wolf Guard, Long Fangs and so on. Space Wolves are in general very sturdy due to Counter-Attack and since Grey Hunters also pack close combat weaponry alongside their bolters they're extremely versatile. While a lot of people might think that Space Wolves can't shoot as well as some other Chapters, Long Fang squadrons plus all the vehicles that other Chapters can access (bar the Storm Raven) would disagree.

Blood Angels are great but suffer a bit from being pricier than their counterparts in other books and having slightly less excellent Troops than the Wolves.

Grey Knights are also excellent but are extremely expensive on a model-by-model basis and this shows in most of their lists. It's a bit too early to say for sure that the Knights don't have a greater potential than the Wolves (as we're still waiting on an official FAQ after all), but generally I think the pure reliability that the Space Wolves have is enough to make them number one.

Despite all this though, none of the Marine books are significantly bad to be unable to beat any of the others when played competently.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Abomination said:


> On paper the Space Wolves probably edge it all-round but really the 'power' of a codex is irrelevant. It is easy to beat any of the marines with footslogging necrons for example.


My Mind! It is a boggled.

Explain yourself!

The reason Space Wolves creep to the top is for the reason Katie talks about, they're sturdy in CC, only priests make BA better and even then any Grey Hunter units with it's obligatory attached Wolf Guard will take you down with them. So they're just flat better at CC than Marines but on top of that they have all the shooting power of Marines if not more. Units like Long Fangs are cheaper and better than Devastators can ever be. Those sturdy 5/6 man Grey Hunter units can all take Razorbacks etc etc. There's really nothing significant that you can do in the Marine codex that you cannot do in the Space Wolf one, and do it slightly better. So being slightly better at shooting and better at CC than normal Space Marines puts you at the top of the list.


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## The Sullen One (Nov 9, 2008)

Space Wolves easily. Their counter-charge rule makes assaulting them a tricky proposition, while Long Fangs seems to be every ones favourite Heavy support infantry. Oh, they can take terminators as troops as well.

Blood Angels are a nice army (once you get past the vain ponceboys fluff), but when ever I've played them I've found the players using them are too aggressive for their own good, often splitting their army or leaving units open to being counter-mobbed.

Dark Angels are certainly one of the more interesting Space Marine armies in terms of background, but Deathwing tend to be favoured too much over the other types of DA armies (notably Ravenwing), to ensure they're capable of handling all comers (try dealing with a Dreddrolla Ork army when you've got less than thirty models in a 1'500 point army).

Sadly I've never played Black Templars, nor have I seen many BT armies, which sadly says it all for me. Shame too, as out of all the SM codices they've got the best models and the best background.

Regular Space Marines are a good army with some really nasty combinations and lists, but their inability to take Terminators as troops (I wouldn't be surprised if this is rectified in the next codex. Lysanderwing anyone?) as well as their lack of either counterattack or furious charge means they aren't as good as Space Wolves.

Finally Grey Knights, yes they've got some nasty new toys and yes someone made a video where Hitler played them, but when you've got Wayland games bragging in their e-newsletter that Deathwing'll throttle them every time, it leads back to Terminators-as-troops armies and that leads onto... Space Wolves for a real 'surprise ending'.:laugh:



Hurricane said:


> Perhaps at the beginning of 5th edition they [CSM] had the best troops, but now I would classify them as merely average. Between Warbands, Purifiers, Grey Hunters, BA assault squads, and the like they simply have fallen behind.


CSM retain excellent troops, you just have to be a bit more careful how you use them. Berserkers should never be taken unless you're going to stick them in a Land Raider, whilst Plague Marines should avoid combat against high-strength multiple attack units, but otherwise remain excellent all-rounders. BA assault squads by contrast, are far too easy to take out unless adequately supported, which hasn't tended to be the case in the games I've had against BA players.


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## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

Who are the three mugs who voted for Chaos Space Marines?

That's either three idiots or three people who hit the wrong button.

Lol.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

D-A-C said:


> Who are the three mugs who voted for Chaos Space Marines?
> 
> That's either three idiots or three people who hit the wrong button.
> 
> Lol.


Its called tribalism - thats three people voting for their favourite as apposed to voting with their head.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

I'm more worried about the two who chose Dark Angels. Are they seriously better than Wolves? Seriously? And they're equal to vanilla Marines. Seriously? Worse Terminators, worse Special Characters (With the exception of perhaps Azriel, with his one-handed Master Crafted Relic Blade), no Combat Tactics, no Sternguard (They get Company Veterans, ha), only Tactical Squads as troops (And they're worse than Vanilla tacs), and worse bikes. I voted SW, but now I think about it I think they're equal to GK.

Midnight


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## Bane_of_Kings (Oct 28, 2009)

I'm going to go with the majority and say the Vlka Fenryka. It's not because I'm biased and all.... :wink:.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Bane_of_Kings said:


> I'm going to go with the majority and say the Vlka Fenryka. It's not because I'm biased and all.... :wink:.


Lol, same here. 

For Russ!


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## laviathan13089 (Apr 21, 2011)

grey knights it is, when your most basic space marine can strike before and/or instant kill any monstrous creature in the game... you've got OP troops. when your army is able to control and manipulate reserves and guide the teleporting troops with accuracy that makes blood angels cry, you're way to fast. when you can drop 3 different types of orbital bombardment every turn at targets you cant see, you've got OP artillery. terminators as troops is more than CSM and SM can ever ask for. storm ravens as fast attack, teleporting land raiders, force weapons everywhere. i don't care if they cost a lot, they have the tools necessary to rape just about everything out there. if points were irrelevant their units can individually destroy just about any other unit individually.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

laviathan13089 said:


> if points were irrelevant


Good thing they're not irrelevant then, isn't it?


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## Troublehalf (Aug 6, 2010)

Hmmm, I voted for GK. I'd also say SW or BA. All three are great, all have great advantages, GK pretty much rape anything but are so pricey. BA have insane HQ (Mephiston) and great CC units. But reading about SW, everything seems pretty awesome. As a game isn't based purely on one good advantage... say being awesome in CC or Shooting won't make you insta-win against anything. All-round strength is pretty much key to winning games, purely because you can respond to most threats.

If you go by stats and weapons alone, it'd be GK hands down. Insane force-weapons, insane customization choices and pretty nice HQ's. The thing is, the new codexs, for example the BA and GK, all have advantages and weaknesses. For example, GK are very pricey and can be over-whelmed by waves of lesser troops, where their awesome firepower and CC can't take them all down. BA have great mobility, insane HQ's and great CC units, but lack unique heavy weapons, which SW and GK and so on have. (Psilencer, Psycannon, Long Fangs heavy weapon point cost) and so on. But SW are pretty good all-round.


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## laviathan13089 (Apr 21, 2011)

Katie Drake said:


> Good thing they're not irrelevant then, isn't it?


im sorry, the title isnt which SM chapter is the most economic or competitive, the title is, which is the most powerful. which means to me which chapter can generate the most, raw, killing power. grey knights.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

laviathan13089 said:


> im sorry, the title isnt which SM chapter is the most economic or competitive, the title is, which is the most powerful. which means to me which chapter can generate the most, raw, killing power. grey knights.


Fair enough.


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## Troublehalf (Aug 6, 2010)

Can all Space Marine Chapters use Baneblades and so on? I swear I saw a picture of a SM army with a Baneblade/Swordstorm in the middle of the SM formation. If it is possible to use them, who can, and are they only usable in Apoc game? I love the model and I love the many different variations you can make. I just can't bring myself to choose IG and choose between Catachan and Cadian looking figures (Since I love them both). So, since I am working on a GK army, I was wondering if they could field a Baneblade outside of Apoc (Or indeed, in Apoc).


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

Troublehalf said:


> Can all Space Marine Chapters use Baneblades and so on? I swear I saw a picture of a SM army with a Baneblade/Swordstorm in the middle of the SM formation. If it is possible to use them, who can, and are they only usable in Apoc game? I love the model and I love the many different variations you can make. I just can't bring myself to choose IG and choose between Catachan and Cadian looking figures (Since I love them both). So, since I am working on a GK army, I was wondering if they could field a Baneblade outside of Apoc (Or indeed, in Apoc).


Noone can field super heavies outside of Apoc, well, at least not without asking their opponents.


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## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

> im sorry, the title isnt which SM chapter is the most economic or competitive, the title is, which is the most powerful. which means to me which chapter can generate the most, raw, killing power. grey knights.


No, the poll's about which Space Marine codex is the better of the seven. Points cost _are_ relevant, because the most powerful _army_ cannot rely on 30-point super-uber close combat guys that die from a single round of shooting .


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## HereticHammer01 (Apr 29, 2011)

Troublehalf said:


> Can all Space Marine Chapters use Baneblades and so on? I swear I saw a picture of a SM army with a Baneblade/Swordstorm in the middle of the SM formation. If it is possible to use them, who can, and are they only usable in Apoc game? I love the model and I love the many different variations you can make. I just can't bring myself to choose IG and choose between Catachan and Cadian looking figures (Since I love them both). So, since I am working on a GK army, I was wondering if they could field a Baneblade outside of Apoc (Or indeed, in Apoc).


Inquisitorial Baneblade? Sounds cool to me. But yeah have to agree with opponent I think.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

laviathan13089 said:


> im sorry, the title isnt which SM chapter is the most economic or competitive, the title is, which is the most powerful. which means to me which chapter can generate the most, raw, killing power. grey knights.


 
That actually doesnt make sense, and its not what the op is asking either.

The OP specifically says 'which codex' is the most powerful - not which army - the codex is all about points and army selection.


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