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Hey,

I am new to this forum and just getting back into the game, trying to decide on a race to play. I don't know if this question is appropriate for this part of the forum but I figured it is rule related so here we go:

I am interested in playing space marines and I love to personalise and customise whatever I do so I want to make my own chapter. I have understood that there is one codex for the space marines, but also codexes for space wolves, dark angels and blood angels even though they also are space marines. I figured it is because they have special rules and units applying to them which differs a little from the other standard space marine Codex Astartes chapters like the ultramarines or imperial fists etc.

So what if I want to make my chapter a second founding chapter of the Space Wolves or the Blood Angels, so they also get the same rules and units? Is this ok by the rulebook, does it mess up the whole fluff of the game or do I have to make a "normal" space marine chapter?

Thanks for your time.

Hey Seb,

Playing Space Marines allows you lots and lots of options for creating your own chapter, you dont have to stick to any pre-written chapters.

First off you will need to have an idea what style you want for your army and this mainly comes from your choice of codex.
Space Marines - very customisable, good all round
Space Wolves - short range shooting and good assault
Blood Angels - assault specialists
Dark Angels - unique army styles (all bikes or all terminators or a mix), but old and generally weaker rules
Black Templars - assault infantry but again, older rules

Next up you'll need to choose a colour scheme. Again, you can choose something that suits you. The codex for your army will give you some suggestions but you are free to mix and match. I find that 1 or 2 colours for the army works best, lots of colours looks a bit odd. You can try different colours with this: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/smp.php?

After that you should pick a name for your chapter. Something cool and threatening sounds best e.g. Storm Lords, Warriors of Fate, Rampagers, Red Skulls, etc. are good choices. The Emperor's Ponies, Butterflies of Joy and Sweet Rangers are all poor choices.

Finally on to the fluff, choosing a background. If you're using the Blood Angels codex, then you're using a Blood Angels successor, if its the Dark Angels book then you're a Dark Angel successor. Fluff-wise, there are no Ultramarines successors who have access to Blood Angels wargear and style of combat, etc.

The usual styles for the original legions are:
Ultramarines – Combat tactics rule, very general style
Blood Angels – Assault specialists
Dark Angels – Fearless
Space Wolves – Counter Attack
Raven Guard – Fleet/stealthy
Iron Hands – Lots of dreadnoughts and vehicles,
Salamanders – Lots of melta guns and flamers
White Scars – Mobile/fast
Imperial Fists – Stubborn
*Black Templars – Zealous (the BT are the ONLY successor chapter with their own book, they’re Imperial Fists originally)

According to the fluff, the Space Wolves only had 1 successor chapter, the Wolf Brothers, which died a horrible and tragic death. After that they never had any more. No-one would really care if you did a Space Wolves successor chapter though.

So to sum it all up, make an army that you think looks cool. Have fun playing, don’t worry about what other players might think.

I guess the great thing about making up a marine chapter is you can reall write the full as you see fit.. you could be a chapter like the Space wolves or Blood Angels with a very different back story but with similar game rules... a friend of mine plays a Chapter that represented Space Wolves but then decided Blood Angels rules fit his fluff better... yet another person I know plays the Blood Ravens from Dawn of War and plays them as either Blood Angels Dark Angels or Codex Marines. i think that is the best way to go if you do not like the idea of having a different army for each codex... I for one like to Play my RedScorpions and Codex Marines and as Dark Angels... and perhaps some day as Black templars... so I say just have fun with it... no one really cares what they are as long as you tell them before hand.. Good luck and have fun...

good grief, badruck. I think in that entire post there was one full stop. Yeesh.

Ok, sorry about that, Seb. Badruck is a very nice guy, but his typing is...not so easy to read.

Anyway, back on topic: If you want to make a marine chapter, then I say go for it. Customising your army is a big part of 40k (in my opinion). As has been pointed out, you need to go through a few steps to make an army. (I did this for my eldar craftworld, so I'll use it as an example. Space Marines will have different details, of course, but the basic idea is the same.)

Step 1: Choose colours. You're going to paint a lot of these guys, so choose colours that work together. You'll need one main armour colour, one secondary armour colour, and one trim colour. The link that Prim posted to army painter is good. If you have Dawn Of War (and I believe you do) the army painter in that is fantastic for trying out new colour schemes. That's how I picked my Craftworld colours. Just bear in mind that its far better to use an out-of-the-pot colour for your army. You dont want to have to mix paints to get your basic army colours. Also avoid large areas of yellow, as its a bugger to paint.

Step 2: Decide what kind of play style or background story (fluff) your army has. This will be affected by two things - your personal play preference (see Prim's comments about what chapter is good at what kind of fighting) and also on your knowledge of the 40k fluff. Once you have chosen your style of play or fluff, then you should know which chapter's miniatures to use. It should be noted that almost all Space Marine plastic kits are interchangeable. i.e. if you had a good reason, you could put a space wolf head on a blood angel torso, and have ultramarine legs. You should check with Primarch about this though, as Im pretty sure he actually owns every space marine model produced in the past 20 years... This also touches upon stuff like conversions and sculpting with green stuff. I dont know how much of this youve done, but if you have any questions, just stick em up in the painting and modelling forum, and someone will help you out.

Step 3: by this point you should have pretty much worked out "the look" for your guys. Now you can get down to the details. What's the name of the chapter? What is their background, home planet, tactical style, favourite flavour of ice cream, do they prefer Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber, and so on...

Anyway, when designing and modelling a chapter (or craftworld, in my case) I tend to get as far as steps 1 and 2, and then get bored with step 3 and spend all my time modelling HQ unit conversions. If youre a modeller and painter, then I daresay youre the same. If youre more of a background guy, then by all means make up some funky stuff and post it here so's we can all get to know your lads a bit better (before we fly rings around them and shoot em in the 'ead with a shuriken catapult )

So aye, good luck, and by all means post any questions you have, or work-in-progress ideas, and folks will be quick to get back to you.

Good luck, and happy chaptering

good grief, MiJ. I think in that entire post there was too much information!!!!!!! yeesh...


ahem. sorry. I type too much. Heres the short version:

1) choose colours
2) choose fluff
3) work out the details

post your ideas, we'll comment on em.

good luck

Thanks for all the sweet information!

I really care about the fluff since that is one of the major reasons I got drawn back into 40k. The story is amazing and I would really like my chapter to be a part of it in correct ways, so I will probably not make a Space Wolves based chapter (even though I am a Swedish viking ) since there are not any surviving second founding chapters to build my chapter upon in the story.

I will be looking around for a good founding chapter to base mine upon, looks like it will be a vanilla space marine chapter or the blood angels at the moment.

@Primarch
Thanks for the link and the information! It is good to be able to get a good picture of what colors I am going to use.

@me_in_japan
Thank you for a very thorough explanation! I am probably more of a modeller because I am already thinking about my HQ model. I really wanna make the chapter master in a terminator metal model but it seems quite hard to be cutting and pinning all that metal. I will ask those questions in the appropriate forums.

I have a question about the HQ choices in the space marine codex and the blood angels codex.

In the Space marine codex there is an HQ unit called chapter master, but there is no equivalent choice in the blood angels codex. The closest is the company captain choice for the BA, so does this mean that there is no option for me to create a chapter master if I want to go with the BA codex for my chapter?

I have looked through all the HQ choices for BA and I dont want to use any of the other characters that it offers, what can I do?
Is going with the vanilla space marine codex perhaps the best thing to do?

Because the BA are an established chapter, the chapter master is an established character with his own stats and model.. This is the same for all the SM chapters with their own codex I believe.

Two possible solutions;

1. Use the space Marine codex and create your own Chapter Master

2. Use the BA codex (if you like it) and use the named Chapter Master (whoever he is) but use whichever model you like and just play it as a BA successor chapter.

option 3 is: (if you like the BA codex and want to use it) - Use the vanilla SM codex for your Chapter Master and use the BA codex for everything else. Sure, it wouldnt be tournament legal, but I dont see anybody around here complaining about it, as you're clearly doing it for fluff and modelling reasons.

me_in_japan wrote:option 3 is: (if you like the BA codex and want to use it) - Use the vanilla SM codex for your Chapter Master and use the BA codex for everything else. Sure, it wouldnt be tournament legal, but I dont see anybody around here complaining about it, as you're clearly doing it for fluff and modelling reasons.

I am in total agreement with M-I-J BUT others might not be. Some people can be quite sticklers when it comes to the rules.

It shouldn't be a problem as, if they complain, just use the relevant entry from the relevant codex.