I mean, out of universe, blue is the single most common favorite color, by an overwhelming margin. So GW chose blue as the color for their biggest product line. Which means they commission Black Library contractors to write books about the blue faction. And since books generally make the protagonist look good, that means lots of characters look good.
Especially historically, when a lot of the lore came out of Codexes.
In universe, they are the faction that survived the Heresy in the best shape. And their strength is logistics and organization, which means they recover numbers best and have the deepest bench, resource wise.
But complaining about Ultramarine strength is, pardon for saying this, so 2012. The Custodians are very much the Mary Sues of the franchise now - they are very high margin models and are getting an absurd push. Ultramarines are old cheddar.
Id argue the Ultramarines are just also the easiest faction to get into, in the most common faction in 40k.
They're Roman and competent administrators. I can hand Space Marine 2011 to anyone and they'd get the premise - "Big dude with power armor kills bastards, kill all the bastards." From there you understand the Imperial Guard are foot soldiers, the Inquisition is a bunch of lunatics with Executive powers, and so on.
The Imperial Fists are yellow, the Iron Hands have a cavalcade of lore relating to social darwinism and clan laws, the Dark Angels Dark Angel, and so on.
I think every Xenos player has a backup Ultramarine army. Or if you're a rebel like me, Crimson Fists - blue and silver is as easy as blue and gold. They are a perfectly cromulent second army.
And "not yellow" is the right reason not to play Imperial Fists. Or "not white" for the Scars. That's even more of a pain.
IC: Better training, mental stability and knowledge transfer. They pass on how to do stuff in repeatable ways before mutating/dying in some Krieger way etc.
OOC: Because at some point people made the Ultras the poster boys despite the Imperial Fists fitting it far better as far as exemplifying the "generic" CHAAARGEEE BROTHERS Astartes goes.
Those feats are pretty similar to those accomplished by significant named characters in other legions.
Hyperion of the Grey Knights *caught and shattered the blade of demon-prince Angron with telekinesis*.
Mephiston *can fly* and summon storms of psychic lightning strong enough and dense enough to protect a thunderhawk gunship flying *through* a swarm of aerial Tyranid bioforms.
Dante is arguably at or above Cato's level as a swordsman and a warrior.
Ragnar Blackmane defeated Gasgkhull Mag Uruk Thraka in single combat.
Ranulf The Strong pushed a disabled Land Raider through flowing lava and killed so many Orks in his final battle that the greenskins erected a shrine around his and his packmates' bodies with huge piles of weapons as offerings to honor their martial prowess.
Those are just off the top of my head.
Also of note, Dante is over a thousand years old in a profession in which being in absolute mortal peril is a very regular part of the job, and he's the leader of Imperium Nihilis. The man is both a remarkably competent soldier in his own right and a leader on a level surpassed only by primarchs and the Emperor himself.
Beating an Avatar is not a great feat by lore standards. It took like 20 years for the Avatar to be a good unit on the tabletop, and it's been treated like absolute garbage in the fluff for about as long.
Let me put it this way. They're the best equipped, best trained and best led Chapter in the Imperium *on standard*. Sure, the Dark Angels have their Dark Age tech caches, but they're also paranoid nutjobs, and the Blood Angels have the inspiration of Dante and the Sanguinor but they're also secret vampires. Every Ultramarine comes from ten thousand years of martial tradition, with locally sourced and maintained wargear from stable, well-liked Mechanicus allies, guided by the living word of the Primarch and generation upon generation of the recorded wisdom of their battle-brothers. Some Chapters can't remember what they were doing a thousand years ago - the Ultramarines can tell you what Brother-Sergeant Ipsofactos was doing three thousand eight hundred and sixty two years ago, who he was fighting and the exact length of time it'd been since he last clipped his toenails (and what insight this gave the Chapter into their tactics and organisation).
Simply put, the Ultramarines breed success. Their way of doing things is *statistically more likely* to produce storied champions - just as the Primarch intended.
Think of how much time the ultramarines save to be productive by virtue of not setting aside a significant chunk of every day to Bizarre Shit like the pain glove, the fallen, motorbikes, being possessed and exorcised, duing and comimg back, drinking blood, etc, etc, etc.
As said by many: Cado is the protagonist of a first person shooter, his deeds are somewhat necessary or his game would be boring.
For Ventris it is similar (but nuanced) since he is the main protagonist of a well regarded book series. But even then he struggles most of the time so I don't know why he is considered OP. I mean he was banished from the chapter at one point... And for a long time he even had no rules/models OR was listed as captain of the 4th in the codex ( even the codex of 4th edition, which had a book excerpt from his second book inside, listed his predecessor/mentor in the chapter organisation scheme ).
As long as Sicarius had rules he was a slightly better captain and maybe destined to be chapter master one day, if the internal politics would allow it. And even then he had his fair share of losses. And even in the much sited Matt ward codex there were other Captain level characters from other chapters which had a similar impressive vita. (I mean it is really surprising that for all the hate ward gets for his ultramarines are the best, his codex has a lot of non ultramarines characters...)
Calgar is the chapter master he should be as powerful as the other chapter master, which he is.
Well yes Tigurius faced down the nids and is powerful but nit as powerful as mister "I can call down storms" Niall or Mephiston, who beat the black rage.
It is sad you forgot High Chaplain Cassius, for his near death brought us the veterans of the tyranic wars. And the only deviation from the codex in the ultramarines.
It is also funny that you don't list the real OP and flattest ultra characters: Chronos and Telion, which are so good at their job they get lent out to other chapters 😂 (and definitely the brain child of ward and unnecessary).
Firstly malum is a video game protagonist, it's flat out stupid to use that as an example, as for the rest, this is pretty normal for named charactersÂ
Caedo is probably being empowered by khorne like the protagonist in fire warrior. None of the enemies in the game are khornate. Bro is a great game chess piece
Well the precedent is that 40K games, and their gameplay, have canon implications. One ultramarime solos a planet? Power scale is definitely a factor, sorry dude
They are relevant in the sense that the story may be connected to lore or the character, but the gameplay simply isn't trying to be lore accurate, just like tabletop 40k
Yep, the alternative to that is accepting that one Fire Warrior slew half a guard regiment, a company of marines, the majority of a chaos warband, and a lord of change, all within his first day on the job. Sure, you can theorise he was buffed by Khorne, but that's still insane for one newbie Fire Warrior.
They are more or less the main characters of the main character faction, so naturally they always get their way, save the day, etc. Also favoritism and self inserting on writer's part.
Caedo is game protagonist, that alone exlude him from that list. Never take action of player controlled character as canon until it specifically said that this action is canon.
Malum Caedo is a none-canonical video game protagonist. Nothing he does should count.
Cato has ptsd ultra-depression.
Calgar was a middle level challenge for Abaddon, who put him down fairly simply.
The Ultramarines are one of the Big 4 chapters. Their lore and legendary characters are bound to be impressive.
My personal head canon (not really, it more of a joke but its fun so hey) is that it's because they had Guilliman with them. For moral and as a reference to keep their genetics from drifting too much.
We see in Valdors book that >!Astarte wanted to destroy the whole space marine project because without the primarchs they would degrade.!< we also see a lot of the legions going ferral or being self destructive or having genetic issues until they're reunited with their primarch.
You're right. Silly codex lore is on the same level a battle where over a million people died. Thank you for correcting me.
Enjoy your meme stealers and your rowboat girlymans.
Millions of people died in Matt Wards codex lore what are you talking about?
I just find it hilarious that someone with an ultrasmurf flair defends Ward.
Guillimans super power are Excel skills.
Organization and logistics are therefore at the highest level in his region.
This is also one of the reasons why the Ultramar region is the largest sub-faction.
With the largest area and extremely well-organized training program, you get a lot of very well-trained Space Marines.
Others have said its because of equipment, training, command structure etc, but it’s kind of hard to visualize how *good* it actually is. Guilliman is not just superhuman in combat or strategy, he is one of if not the greatest logical mind in the current day Imperium. When fighting within Ultramar, its nearly impossible to beat them due to their established supply lines, reinforcements and pdfs.
Plot armor
I mean, out of universe, blue is the single most common favorite color, by an overwhelming margin. So GW chose blue as the color for their biggest product line. Which means they commission Black Library contractors to write books about the blue faction. And since books generally make the protagonist look good, that means lots of characters look good. Especially historically, when a lot of the lore came out of Codexes. In universe, they are the faction that survived the Heresy in the best shape. And their strength is logistics and organization, which means they recover numbers best and have the deepest bench, resource wise. But complaining about Ultramarine strength is, pardon for saying this, so 2012. The Custodians are very much the Mary Sues of the franchise now - they are very high margin models and are getting an absurd push. Ultramarines are old cheddar.
Id argue the Ultramarines are just also the easiest faction to get into, in the most common faction in 40k. They're Roman and competent administrators. I can hand Space Marine 2011 to anyone and they'd get the premise - "Big dude with power armor kills bastards, kill all the bastards." From there you understand the Imperial Guard are foot soldiers, the Inquisition is a bunch of lunatics with Executive powers, and so on. The Imperial Fists are yellow, the Iron Hands have a cavalcade of lore relating to social darwinism and clan laws, the Dark Angels Dark Angel, and so on.
I think every Xenos player has a backup Ultramarine army. Or if you're a rebel like me, Crimson Fists - blue and silver is as easy as blue and gold. They are a perfectly cromulent second army. And "not yellow" is the right reason not to play Imperial Fists. Or "not white" for the Scars. That's even more of a pain.
upvote for using "cromulent"
>out of universe, blue is the single most common favorite color, by an overwhelming margin Wait, really? TIL.
IC: Better training, mental stability and knowledge transfer. They pass on how to do stuff in repeatable ways before mutating/dying in some Krieger way etc. OOC: Because at some point people made the Ultras the poster boys despite the Imperial Fists fitting it far better as far as exemplifying the "generic" CHAAARGEEE BROTHERS Astartes goes.
(blue is easier to paint than yellow)
Imp Fists are boring. I say this as a big Imp Fist fan.
Easily the best looking chapter though. The yellow and black scheme especially looks brilliant. I say this as a big space marine hater
DA & BA?
Those feats are pretty similar to those accomplished by significant named characters in other legions. Hyperion of the Grey Knights *caught and shattered the blade of demon-prince Angron with telekinesis*. Mephiston *can fly* and summon storms of psychic lightning strong enough and dense enough to protect a thunderhawk gunship flying *through* a swarm of aerial Tyranid bioforms. Dante is arguably at or above Cato's level as a swordsman and a warrior. Ragnar Blackmane defeated Gasgkhull Mag Uruk Thraka in single combat. Ranulf The Strong pushed a disabled Land Raider through flowing lava and killed so many Orks in his final battle that the greenskins erected a shrine around his and his packmates' bodies with huge piles of weapons as offerings to honor their martial prowess. Those are just off the top of my head.
Also of note, Dante is over a thousand years old in a profession in which being in absolute mortal peril is a very regular part of the job, and he's the leader of Imperium Nihilis. The man is both a remarkably competent soldier in his own right and a leader on a level surpassed only by primarchs and the Emperor himself.
Beating an Avatar is not a great feat by lore standards. It took like 20 years for the Avatar to be a good unit on the tabletop, and it's been treated like absolute garbage in the fluff for about as long.
They’ve read the Codex Astartes, easy one
Let me put it this way. They're the best equipped, best trained and best led Chapter in the Imperium *on standard*. Sure, the Dark Angels have their Dark Age tech caches, but they're also paranoid nutjobs, and the Blood Angels have the inspiration of Dante and the Sanguinor but they're also secret vampires. Every Ultramarine comes from ten thousand years of martial tradition, with locally sourced and maintained wargear from stable, well-liked Mechanicus allies, guided by the living word of the Primarch and generation upon generation of the recorded wisdom of their battle-brothers. Some Chapters can't remember what they were doing a thousand years ago - the Ultramarines can tell you what Brother-Sergeant Ipsofactos was doing three thousand eight hundred and sixty two years ago, who he was fighting and the exact length of time it'd been since he last clipped his toenails (and what insight this gave the Chapter into their tactics and organisation). Simply put, the Ultramarines breed success. Their way of doing things is *statistically more likely* to produce storied champions - just as the Primarch intended.
This is me, officially, calling for a ruleset for Sgt Ispsofactos
Think of how much time the ultramarines save to be productive by virtue of not setting aside a significant chunk of every day to Bizarre Shit like the pain glove, the fallen, motorbikes, being possessed and exorcised, duing and comimg back, drinking blood, etc, etc, etc.
Plot armor.
They aren't more op than the others, really
As said by many: Cado is the protagonist of a first person shooter, his deeds are somewhat necessary or his game would be boring. For Ventris it is similar (but nuanced) since he is the main protagonist of a well regarded book series. But even then he struggles most of the time so I don't know why he is considered OP. I mean he was banished from the chapter at one point... And for a long time he even had no rules/models OR was listed as captain of the 4th in the codex ( even the codex of 4th edition, which had a book excerpt from his second book inside, listed his predecessor/mentor in the chapter organisation scheme ). As long as Sicarius had rules he was a slightly better captain and maybe destined to be chapter master one day, if the internal politics would allow it. And even then he had his fair share of losses. And even in the much sited Matt ward codex there were other Captain level characters from other chapters which had a similar impressive vita. (I mean it is really surprising that for all the hate ward gets for his ultramarines are the best, his codex has a lot of non ultramarines characters...) Calgar is the chapter master he should be as powerful as the other chapter master, which he is. Well yes Tigurius faced down the nids and is powerful but nit as powerful as mister "I can call down storms" Niall or Mephiston, who beat the black rage. It is sad you forgot High Chaplain Cassius, for his near death brought us the veterans of the tyranic wars. And the only deviation from the codex in the ultramarines. It is also funny that you don't list the real OP and flattest ultra characters: Chronos and Telion, which are so good at their job they get lent out to other chapters 😂 (and definitely the brain child of ward and unnecessary).
Firstly malum is a video game protagonist, it's flat out stupid to use that as an example, as for the rest, this is pretty normal for named charactersÂ
Caedo is probably being empowered by khorne like the protagonist in fire warrior. None of the enemies in the game are khornate. Bro is a great game chess piece
Sure, you can rationalize it however you want, but at the end of the day, it's a game, and power scale simply isn't a factorÂ
Well the precedent is that 40K games, and their gameplay, have canon implications. One ultramarime solos a planet? Power scale is definitely a factor, sorry dude
They are relevant in the sense that the story may be connected to lore or the character, but the gameplay simply isn't trying to be lore accurate, just like tabletop 40k
Yep, the alternative to that is accepting that one Fire Warrior slew half a guard regiment, a company of marines, the majority of a chaos warband, and a lord of change, all within his first day on the job. Sure, you can theorise he was buffed by Khorne, but that's still insane for one newbie Fire Warrior.
It’s not a theory my guy. It’s a pretty big part of the novelisation
^ This.
They are more or less the main characters of the main character faction, so naturally they always get their way, save the day, etc. Also favoritism and self inserting on writer's part.
The vast majority of the fandom likes ultramarines. (At least sales wise)
Caedo is game protagonist, that alone exlude him from that list. Never take action of player controlled character as canon until it specifically said that this action is canon.
Malum Caedo is a none-canonical video game protagonist. Nothing he does should count. Cato has ptsd ultra-depression. Calgar was a middle level challenge for Abaddon, who put him down fairly simply. The Ultramarines are one of the Big 4 chapters. Their lore and legendary characters are bound to be impressive.
My personal head canon (not really, it more of a joke but its fun so hey) is that it's because they had Guilliman with them. For moral and as a reference to keep their genetics from drifting too much. We see in Valdors book that >!Astarte wanted to destroy the whole space marine project because without the primarchs they would degrade.!< we also see a lot of the legions going ferral or being self destructive or having genetic issues until they're reunited with their primarch.
Why is no one mentioning Matt Ward?
We do not dare name the ancient evil that lurks around our posts.
Because it's not 2007 anymore
Flair checks out, Matt. 17 years is nothing. Who has forgotten the Somme or An Gorta Mór?
You're right. Silly codex lore is on the same level a battle where over a million people died. Thank you for correcting me. Enjoy your meme stealers and your rowboat girlymans.
Millions of people died in Matt Wards codex lore what are you talking about? I just find it hilarious that someone with an ultrasmurf flair defends Ward.
Guillimans super power are Excel skills. Organization and logistics are therefore at the highest level in his region. This is also one of the reasons why the Ultramar region is the largest sub-faction. With the largest area and extremely well-organized training program, you get a lot of very well-trained Space Marines.
Others have said its because of equipment, training, command structure etc, but it’s kind of hard to visualize how *good* it actually is. Guilliman is not just superhuman in combat or strategy, he is one of if not the greatest logical mind in the current day Imperium. When fighting within Ultramar, its nearly impossible to beat them due to their established supply lines, reinforcements and pdfs.
Blue ones are the good guys. Good guys op
They ate their wheaties.
Once upon a time, Matt Ward was given writing duties at Games Workshop. This made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Matt Ward