Warhammer 40K: Why Marines Are The Best Beginner Army
Space Marines are still the best Beginner army around. But why? That’s what we’re here to discuss today.
Getting into Warhammer 40,000 can be daunting. There are a lot of armies to choose from and no one wants to waste time or money on a “bad” army. And chasing the meta for the current hotness can end up being a trap all on it’s own. Is that the reason new players seem to gravitate towards Space Marines as their beginner army? It’s just one of many reasons why they are still the best option for beginning players.
There are a lot of advantages to starting with Space Marines. First and foremost is that they are relatively easy to learn. Stat-wise, they are very straight forward across many of their units. The major exception is vehicles but most of the time you’re hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s or 4s, and have a 3+ save. Obviously there’s a ton of modifiers and auras, but you get the basic rules down pretty fast with Marines.
They are also super easy to build. Assembly-wise, they aren’t the most complicated models out there and that’s a good thing for new players. There aren’t a ton of fiddly bits to deal with as the standard Marine is really “copy-paste” across the board for assembly. That also means that painting them is really easy, too. Once you figure out a scheme that you can easily repeat it’s just a matter of time when it comes to painting them.
Space Marine also have the biggest codex and the most options to build from. When you really break it down their codex feels like it’s 2 or 3 armies smooshed together in one book. That’s great for new players as they can always find either a new unit to check out or another unit to solve an issue they might have come across. Space Marines have answers in their codex for every situation. Sometimes that amount of choice can be overwhelming but it’s better than feeling like your book is too anemic in the options department.
Space Marines are also the army that is by far the easiest to get your hands on, too. Stores tend to stock them and GW tends to include something Space Marine related in most combos — not to mention the after-market scene. There’s always someone selling off Marine stuff and it’s typically at a discount.
In general Space Marines are easy to get, easy to build, easy to paint, easy to learn, and are a fairly forgiving army to play. There’s really not a lot of downsides for beginners to stumble into with them. Their only real issue is “choice” when it comes the army. And that’s not a bad problem to have!
Space Marines – Choose Your Flavor Of Power Armour
Space Marines also have another major advantage for new players: Space Marine Chapters. While you could just stick with “vanilla” Space Marines and use the core codex the entire time, there’s also ALL the different Space Marine Chapters to choose from. Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Deathwatch — and all the many, many other chapters to choose from. The only Chapter that fits outside that box is the Grey Knights.
But even a Grey Knight army still benefits from many of the pros that “generic” Space Marines have. So you really can’t go wrong with any of the Space Marine options.
Oh hey, did you want to play “the bad guys” instead? Turns out there’s almost as many choices for the Chaos Space Marines, too! The Chaos Space Marine codex is jam packed with options and, while there aren’t quite as many flavors, there’s still a TON of specialized Chaos Space Marines to choose from. Thousands Sons, Death Guard, and the upcoming World Eaters codexes all offer their own spin on Chaos Marines.
Space Marines are perfect for beginners because whatever play style you want to play they can support that. You can build into the army of your dreams with Space Marines because they are so broad. That’s why most players end up with a Space Marine army at some point in their 40k career. In fact, that’s one more benefit when learning to play them — everyone can help you with their rules!
When it comes to getting started Space Marines are cheap, easy, and effective — what more could you want in an army for a beginner?
There’s a good reason Marines are so prevalent on the tabletop. Is there a better beginner army? Let us know in the comments!
