Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

==Why Play Space Marines==
Why AREN'T you playing them?

In all seriousness, Space Marines are perhaps the best army for beginners. Their units are fairly expensive points-wise, so they can't field as many units as most other armies. While you can't bog down your foes in waves of men, this makes army construction cheaper and painting faster. Additionally, Space Marines are dead 'ard; their basic troops have Toughness 4 and a 3+ armor save (except for the Scouts), giving them great staying power against most basic infantry of other armies. They're also very forgiving in whatever role they're put in; Marines are good shots, and they're not half bad in an assault, either. Just bear in mind that once the novelty of seeing your brilliantly painted chapter wears off there's little incentive to continue playing C:SM instead of Space Wolves, Blood/Dark Angels or Grey Knights, though the variety of Chapter Tactics and therefore ways of playing Space marines alleviates this to a good degree.

Space Marine tanks, on the other hand, while not as robust or as powerful as those of the Imperial Guard's, are dirt-cheap and reliable. Tanks aside, they have Dreadnoughts; while not quite as good at shooting as a tank, Dreadnoughts are cheaper and a smaller target than a tank and are far better in close combat (unless you are one of those idiots who has cheating good luck with tank shocking...), able to take on heroes, units and other tanks and come out on top.

Other benefits include:
* eBay-ability. Space marines are the most commonly auctioned off army. This makes starting out with them "second hand" cheap (by Warhammer standards...)
* Easy to paint. The broad, flat areas (legs, shoulders) and defined ridges make painting straight-forward and simple. [[Necrons | Little]] is easier to paint than a space marine. They even drybrush well for the "lazy painter" who just wants a force finished on the table ASAP. Conversely they also provide large amounts of open areas for more advanced painters to go ham with freehand and more detailed painting.
* Quick to build, easy to convert. Space marines have the greatest range of bitz available to any army in any game, and not just from Games Workshop. There are several companies out there that make GW-Marine conversion bitz. Almost everyone who plays 40k has some space marine bitz sitting around, and they're almost all plastic, so you can easily make a force that's really "you".
* Easy for beginners. Your basic troops can take a bit of abuse, and so the army is relatively forgiving of noob mistakes; you won't be horribly FUBAR because of a single poorly-thought out move. Very little in the codex is "dead weight" so almost any unit purchased will be a welcome addition to your growing force. 
* Rewarding for experts. Space marines are an army that you can really grow with. Once you learn how to shuffle your metal boxes around, and get the gist of the game, a closer examination of the space marine codex reveals a wealth and depth of available army builds and tactics unrivaled in the current 40k codices.
* '''Space Marines have a <s>very</s> sort of new codex''' New units are a large battle suit "Centurion" marine type available in Devastator or Assault Marine flavors and two AA vehicles (missile and dual tri-barrel cannon variants) ripped from Epic. Common consensus is that the Centurions are a result of a GW Marketing meeting where they decided to double their profits by putting their top selling model line inside itself like a Russian Doll, doubling its appeal and selling them for <s>twice</s> four times the price! The AA tanks look decent, but new plastic Sternguard and Vanguard vets look best!  Also, the [[Black Templars]] have been rolled into here, so they've lost several special tools, but gained all of the toys that almost every other chapter gets.
* Games Workshop has a long history of tilting things in the Marines' favor. The introduction of AP values to melee weapons was largely for the benefit of Marines and especially Terminators, and the grav gun has been introduced so you can kill heavily armored troops without burning your fingers. Other armies have weaknesses, but whenever a weakness is found for the Marines, GW just releases something to patch over it.