40K: Are Ultramarines the Best Army? YES!
What is the best army in all of 40k? Guard, Angels, or Wolves? None of them, its the Ultramarines, read on to find out why!
Today I continue on my quest to find what it is best. It’s a mission I have undertaken without permission. This time I tackle a slightly more serious subject then last week. While I am sure we can all agree that it is really impossible to find a “best” wargame, the same is not true for finding the best army in Warhammer 40k.
Anyone who pays attention to the internet knows for a fact 40k is not a balanced game. In this unbalanced system it is perfectly reasonable to attempt to find the best army, and its an undertaking that that we’ve all given some time to over the years. So what is the best army right now? Is it Chaos Space Marines as Bigred likes to argue? Imperial Guard as Darkwynn and his Leafblower like to think? Blood Angels as Goatboy and his Goat’s would argue? None of the above say I. Indeed I would argue, strongly, that the best army in 40k right now is the Ultramarines, not Codex Marines, but plain, straight up Ultramarines. Here are a few reasons why.
(Of course this is 40k so the girl is either a pysker or a demon)
1. Marneus Calgar.
Calgar is stright up one of if not the best character in the game. 5 attacks standing still, 4 wounds, eternal warrior, re-rolling wounds with his AP 2 storm bolter and his twin powerfists. On top of that hes got a 2+/4+ and counts as a teleport homer. Marnues Calgar is a killing machine that any army can envy, In the four games I played with him in the last week and half he killed, Mephiston, 2 Eldrads, an Avatar, a Wraithlord, 15-20 marines, a unit of Howling Banshees, a unit of Striking Scorpions, A Fire Prism, a Chimera, a Lord Commissar, Sgt. Bastone, and a large number of Guardsmen and Guardians, all with out dieing once. Add to his impressive killing power the ability for any unit in the army to pass or fail morale checks at will, and no one can argue that Calgar isn’t worth his points
2. Combat Tactics and ATSKNF.
Both of these abilities are amazing and overall underused. Tactics allows you to fall back when you need to, and with And They Shall Know No Fear, you can normally be sure you will rally. What this means is that units that want to assault your Marines have to be careful about shooting them first as this will give you a chance to fall back out of their charge range, rally and them shoot them. Another dirty and useful trick to use with combat tactics is to go to ground when tacking heavy fire and then chose to fall your morale check. Once you fall back you lose the gone to ground status and then once you rally you can act normally, all the benefits and no downsides!
Combat Squads on the other hand let a Marine list really adapt to deal with the different missions, staying in big squads for kill points, or spliting up to get more scoring units. One of my favorite tactics is to combat squad into a five man group with the sarge and all the heavy and special weapons and one with just 5 basic marines. This gives me a number of throwaway units that can move to the front to give the units behind them cover while still being a threat to some units. Overall these are probably the two best army wide special rules in the game, with the exception of ATSKNF, which they also get of course.
With an Ultramarine army its quite easy to fit 10-14 units into a 2000 pts army, and while each unit may not be large, they do almost always pack quite a punch. Good use of combat squading can also allow you to tailor your army to a certain mission better. On top of cheap Marines its important to keep to mind they they also have cheap transports – Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorback all have a major role to play in modern 40K and the Ultramarines can put a large number of any of them on the table.
Marneus Calgar, w/ Armor of Antilochus
