Editing Ultramarines (section)

==Tabletop==
Throughout most of GW's history the Ultramarines have been portrayed on the tabletop as the "standard" space marine chapter, to the point where most other chapters are represented as "Ultramarines +,- variable X". [[Dark Angels|More]] [[Grey Knights|popular]] [[Space Wolves|chapters]] often get [[Blood Angels|their own]] codices, but less popular chapters get relegated to sets of advantages and disadvantages on top of the Ultramarine baseline. At certain points in GW's sordid tabletop history this has led to Ultramarines being literally vanilla marines with no bonuses whatsoever, where the '''only''' advantage to taking them is their wide selection of characters, and other times such as 7th edition where with the right builds and the right tactics, you could statistically beat out the Blood Angels and Space Wolves in assault, and Dark Angels and Imperial Fists in shooting.

8th Edition is probably the best they've ever been while not being quite as cheesy as they were in the past. Their strategies, characters, chapter tactics, and warlord trait all grant bonuses to command points, to the point where you can get the effective use of 20(!) command points on stratagems in a 2000 point game, leading to an army with massive tactical flexibility. Gone are the days were you can butcher melee dedicated forces in close combat, and out-shoot the gun-factories of the universe, a bunch of damn sues who win because they are - of course - the BEST EVAR. Now you get the Ultramarines as they should be: a versatile but non-specialized army with the tactical and strategic flexibility to make the most out of any situation.