Salamanders have really cool overlooked themes because people paint them as the boyscout chapter. Not like the by-the-books Ultramarines but just as a 2D "good guy" chapter, they're far deeper than that. They have duality at their core; They're the largest space marines, they're primarch is a goliath and their geneseed makes them larger than average marines. They're the most intimidating and almost inhuman with black skin and red eyes. They use the most traditionally inhumane weapons, flamethrowers. They clad themselves in otherworldly scales and dragon's maw aesthetics. Despite all of their dark energy they have a heart of gold and show they care for humanity itself, not just the raw numbers game. They're the most scary faction at face value but they are the gentle giants. They'll thrown themselves to the wolves to save anyone and everyone. They answer all calls for aid and try to save as much life as possible. Then we have how deep the "salamander" iconography is; - It eludes both to their dragon and fire affinity, but gives them a down to earth animal to ground them as good hearted. They could have been something overly cool along the lines of the "Dragonhearth" chapter but GW leans into duality again with a derpy name. - Salamanders are known for regenerating. Which is fitting for them having extreme casuality rates because they risk themselves for others. When a marine falls they're the shedded tail so civilians/humanity can survive. Salamanders absolutely nail every single aspect of their icongography on multiple levels. This is why they are S-Tier for me. My favourite chapter.
Added point, they live on a nye inhospitable homeworld. Showing that humanity can flourish through the worst conditions and everyone/everything is always worth saving, no matter the circumstance. The world, Nocturne, is a volcanic planet, playing into them being forgemasters like fantasy dwarves are. They strive for perfection because they need to be perfect to survive on such a planet. Very strong themes, even down to their choice of home. Although a bit 2D it ties their ideals to what is needed on the homeworld. A hardy defender of humanity that strives for perfection and understands that their is value in everything.
James is the saving grace. Thank you for having read so much lore and understanding it. I was yelling at the smack talk of Salamanders and White Scars but James just "solid A tier" which made my heart so happy.
Raven Guard mix white arms with the black for the first company which adds some variety. I also think you can do a lot with silhouettes looking fairly distinctive with the themes (phobos or Mk6)
Black Templars should be S tier. Great books, lore, models, and coolest looking color scheme. Admittedly liked them even better when they didn’t believe the Emperor was God. Sword bretheren look way better than the new Deathwing Knights.
For me I dont know how Black Templar cant be S tier. 3rd Edition box set sold most of us the hobby and all these years later the very models on the box are being released. Black is both easy to paint and hard to master allowing all standards of models to look great. They are perfect for kitbashing, greenstuff and 3d printed bits. Emperors Champion is iconic and the new Helbrecht model completes the set. Not to mention some great unqiue units like crusaders, sword brethren and their affinity for the great landraider crusader.
Don't use corks, after a while they crumble after repeated glueing pins into it. Demijon rubber bungs are the way! Don't use paper clips, they are hardened for a reason! Eventually they will damage or even break your clippers! 1mm Florist Wire from Hobbycraft type places. They are strong enough to support a joint but soft enough to be cut with regular clippers, eg GW or Xuron,
Also rubber bungs don't need any glue to hold the pin, friction does the job and you can use the same hole many times before needing to move to a different spot on the bung
Happy with the White Scars position. I love painting them. Always start with a light grey to help paint White; I found that the best way. Keep it up folks.
I love the lord of the rings miniatures game and the magazines that came out with a mini every couple weeks back in the day really got me started on miniature gaming. If there was another franchise you could pick to get the same treatment from games workshop what would it be? Witcher or Doctor who for me. Damn I think Daleks fit quite well into 40k come to think of it
The snow/ice is so cool, it's like having the most hard environment, ppl die on Mount Everest, a lot of them died, it seams as it makes them more badass🥸
I would love to see a version of this with some successor chapters. Given how often you guys have custom sculpt commissions for them, would be amazing to see you rank some of them
There are hundreds of nods to Roman culture and history in the Ultramarines. Certainly some to Ancient Greece but Rome itself took a lot from Ancient Greece.
G'day guys. Love the show. I want to elaborate on George's "S Tier" hobby hack for corks and paper clip. I think this eclipses his version and I call it S Tier+. I prefer the cork that has a plastic base attached to it. These can be found on various bourbons but also scotch whiskeys and commonly Hendricks Gin (after your G&T Fridays).These corks have the dual benefit of the cork to spike a paperclip into, but the kicker is that the plastic base gives it a wide bottom, shorter than the corks you can buy in the store and all this helps to keep the cork from falling over when you have a mini attached. I work in a restaurant so I have these on tap, but many restaurants will give them to you if you ask as they throw them away. Maybe you can befriend a bartender and he or she will keep them aside before they end up in the bin. Keep up the amazing show and would love you to read this out.
Looking forwardbto hearing the thoughts on the new fanatic range of paints from TAP that you guys spoke about. I'm not sure if that's been done yet or not, but a link in the description if it has would be great!
They should make it so their guns are called boltwolves, and change their dreadnoughts to dreadwolves and their landraiders to wolfraiders and their rhinos to wolves. That'd add some much needed personality to the chapter, awoo!
Top tip, if you don’t think you can be careful enough with kolinsky brushes and contrast/inks/metallics, you might want to try Pro Arte renaissance sable rigger brushes. Rigger brush hairs are approx 1 inch long and you’ll have to dip them seriously deep to get to the ferrule. Rigger brushes are used for pin striping cars so they can hold their point and are stiff yet responsive. Bloody good for all miniature work!
My DIY paint holders are similar. Upsidedown vitamine bottle (choose one that fits your hands well), glued to a piece of cardboard or flat piece of cork so it doesn't fall over. Glue a cork on top of the bottle. Drill 1mm hole in the foot of the mini. Paperclip goes into the foot with superglue and the cork (no glue needed). This way you can get under the model very easily and get that sweet anti-zenithal going.
Brilliant show. I'm totally with George on the basing here. You too often see bases representing armies on their home world or specialist terrain, never taking the fight to the enemy. I think a warmer base would frame Space Wolves much better. Cheers for the heads up on the competition advice too.
Cool that you talk about the loyal space marine chapter, for me i am more of a mix between loyal and chaos so i have paintet a loyal space marine chapter but with the twist of they are all Alpha legionair. Love the youtube and all you do keep up the fantastic work :)
Snow and Ice bases are great and the background of the chapter easily inspires those bases. I did the same with my own chapter, the Howling Griffons, they have a mountain based fortress monastery called "The Eyre" and there was a GW release artwork of the Eyre that inspire both me to paint Howling Griffons and also to use the mountain/winter theme to base them.
I forgot to comment this last week. I also lose like 30-40% of my brush caps, however I save caps I don't lose from old brushes I throw out, so when I lose one, I have backup.
Great show fellas! Dark angels are cool but I'm afraid I'll have to side with the blood angels and lets not forget the Mephiston model, damn! If this is anything to go by the new Blood angel models will be so good.
Imo Iron Hands have such potential for some cool storytelling, it's a damn shame they've barely gotten any love the past few editions. Their unhealthy body dismorphia & self-hatred passed down from the way Ferrus died, masked under a pretext of 'weakness of the flesh' and how the more recent Iron Father Feirros tries to balance out the chapter dogma, has a lot of potential! Unfortunately, they don't even feature in any mainline novels from the primaris era!
Hey fellas love the podcast. Just caught up with the brushes episode and have some thoughts. One way to preserve brushes is to use an old brush to move paints from the pot to the palette and thin them with it. Also if you have a color mix, thin and mix with a shit brush. My other thought is that you spent 20 mins talking about brush size and how it varies. No argument here. Then later you arrived at each of your workhorses size wise, but never mentioned the brand. Maybe that was intentional but if l am curious about using a size 2 as my workhorse, whose size 2? With the variety in sizing I would have loved a few more brands to explore. I currently use a Rosemary size 2 as my go to. The cleaning comments were super helpful at the end however. Also for US listeners there is a ban on ordering certain types of brushes (because of the hair used) so you have to find alternatives. Keep up the good work. Also, as an Imperial Fists player, they look outrageously cool on the board and Tor Garadon is awful.
So much strange views but I like to hear them. (For example I hate the Red trim on the umperial fists). But its wrong that ferrus Was killed by his own weapon. It was a daemon sword that fulgrim used
Speaking on behalf of imperial fists fans, there's always a problem in your head of loving their lore and style and concept - and hating that they're in yellow.
How to prevent the contrast paint getting into the ferrule? It looks like even if you wash the brush between every new load some of the paint will still find its way there, runny sneaky contrast fiends.
As a psuedo-emo, I concur about the Raven Guard. I don't care for them. "Sneaky" has never been my play style and Batman can eat an entire Keg of Richards. But I love the DA so take my opinion as you will 😂
I was worried I would have to turn this off at the Space Wolves part but straight to S tier! Nice! Based Siege Studios team. Nevertheless, GW... PLEASE stop with the wolfy McWolfyson theme starting to encroach on space wolves. We want SPACE VIKINGS... not space furries.
I just rated this show 5 stars and left a review on Apple podcasts and then you flame the Imperial Fists. Outrageous. SIEGE studios? Iron warriors dog whistle perhaps? Im onto you...
Ultramarines are definitely Roman, and Minotaurs are Spartan. The Romans were heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture and loved being tutored by Greek slaves, hence the Greek alphabet. :) Also Salamanders should be in D with Raven Guard. 😎
Blood Angels? S-Tier??? They’re just Twilight vampires in power armour. Ultramarines however, definite S-Tier. Poster boys for a reason and that blue pops no matter what terrain base they’re on.
Regarding painting black...I feel like you guys being slaves to the gw style of painting are missing out A LOT regarding Black Templars/Ravenguard/Deathwatch. You can paint black in very fun ways if you stay away from the drab gw style.
Keep these episode weekly, and free, by leaving a 5 star review over at Apple Podcasts: shorturl.at/fCIT8
We'll read the best ones out on the show!
Literally sat here painting Raven Guard while listening to this episode, but at least I have an endless stream of tears to thin my paints with now
Salamanders have really cool overlooked themes because people paint them as the boyscout chapter. Not like the by-the-books Ultramarines but just as a 2D "good guy" chapter, they're far deeper than that.
They have duality at their core;
They're the largest space marines, they're primarch is a goliath and their geneseed makes them larger than average marines. They're the most intimidating and almost inhuman with black skin and red eyes. They use the most traditionally inhumane weapons, flamethrowers. They clad themselves in otherworldly scales and dragon's maw aesthetics.
Despite all of their dark energy they have a heart of gold and show they care for humanity itself, not just the raw numbers game. They're the most scary faction at face value but they are the gentle giants. They'll thrown themselves to the wolves to save anyone and everyone. They answer all calls for aid and try to save as much life as possible.
Then we have how deep the "salamander" iconography is;
- It eludes both to their dragon and fire affinity, but gives them a down to earth animal to ground them as good hearted. They could have been something overly cool along the lines of the "Dragonhearth" chapter but GW leans into duality again with a derpy name.
- Salamanders are known for regenerating. Which is fitting for them having extreme casuality rates because they risk themselves for others. When a marine falls they're the shedded tail so civilians/humanity can survive.
Salamanders absolutely nail every single aspect of their icongography on multiple levels.
This is why they are S-Tier for me. My favourite chapter.
Added point, they live on a nye inhospitable homeworld. Showing that humanity can flourish through the worst conditions and everyone/everything is always worth saving, no matter the circumstance.
The world, Nocturne, is a volcanic planet, playing into them being forgemasters like fantasy dwarves are. They strive for perfection because they need to be perfect to survive on such a planet.
Very strong themes, even down to their choice of home. Although a bit 2D it ties their ideals to what is needed on the homeworld. A hardy defender of humanity that strives for perfection and understands that their is value in everything.
James is the saving grace. Thank you for having read so much lore and understanding it. I was yelling at the smack talk of Salamanders and White Scars but James just "solid A tier" which made my heart so happy.
us raven guard fans will never forgive this slight, there are dozens of us, DOZENS I say/
Raven Guard mix white arms with the black for the first company which adds some variety. I also think you can do a lot with silhouettes looking fairly distinctive with the themes (phobos or Mk6)
Don't know much about Deathwatch, but James and Jo's explained simplified is.... The 'Work Experience' Chapter
The tabletop does not do deathwatch justice. Watch some lore on UA-cam they are rad
Cool lore
I don’t like their design even if I like the idea to have your origin chapter on your shoulder pas
The fact you put my boys (Salamanders) in A tier makes my day.. BUT.. space wolves should be C tier.. for cringe.
Cope 😂
For white scars, the fact GW refuses to make a Bike or speeder-mounted character is hilarious for a chapter that is prominently on bikes.
Black Templars should be S tier. Great books, lore, models, and coolest looking color scheme. Admittedly liked them even better when they didn’t believe the Emperor was God.
Sword bretheren look way better than the new Deathwing Knights.
Black and white is the best color scheme?
Edgy
For me I dont know how Black Templar cant be S tier. 3rd Edition box set sold most of us the hobby and all these years later the very models on the box are being released. Black is both easy to paint and hard to master allowing all standards of models to look great. They are perfect for kitbashing, greenstuff and 3d printed bits. Emperors Champion is iconic and the new Helbrecht model completes the set. Not to mention some great unqiue units like crusaders, sword brethren and their affinity for the great landraider crusader.
I think their range refresh looks way better than that of the Dark Angels with the exception of the Lion.
Don't use corks, after a while they crumble after repeated glueing pins into it. Demijon rubber bungs are the way! Don't use paper clips, they are hardened for a reason! Eventually they will damage or even break your clippers! 1mm Florist Wire from Hobbycraft type places. They are strong enough to support a joint but soft enough to be cut with regular clippers, eg GW or Xuron,
Good shout 👍
Also rubber bungs don't need any glue to hold the pin, friction does the job and you can use the same hole many times before needing to move to a different spot on the bung
Happy with the White Scars position. I love painting them. Always start with a light grey to help paint White; I found that the best way. Keep it up folks.
I love the lord of the rings miniatures game and the magazines that came out with a mini every couple weeks back in the day really got me started on miniature gaming. If there was another franchise you could pick to get the same treatment from games workshop what would it be? Witcher or Doctor who for me. Damn I think Daleks fit quite well into 40k come to think of it
Ferrus gets killed by daemon possessed Fulgrim: *everyone laughs*
Sanguinius gets killed by chaos enhanced Horus: *most epic tragedy in fiction*
The snow/ice is so cool, it's like having the most hard environment, ppl die on Mount Everest, a lot of them died, it seams as it makes them more badass🥸
I would love to see a version of this with some successor chapters. Given how often you guys have custom sculpt commissions for them, would be amazing to see you rank some of them
Space Wolves have amazing potential for a range refresh, and if that comes alongside a return of Leman Russ... mmmmmm.
They're coming.
You know Imperial fists are boring when it's two successor chapters are significantly cooler. I think Captain Iysander looks badass though
I need to stop making these comments as I listen because what I say always gets bought up later
There are hundreds of nods to Roman culture and history in the Ultramarines. Certainly some to Ancient Greece but Rome itself took a lot from Ancient Greece.
* goes immediately to comments section *
That comment about the little space marine in the cockpit with the buttons and levers had me ROFL 🤣
Blood Ravens though.
S tier.
Cus they're S-tealing your shit.
Wrong Salamaders are the good guys.
G'day guys. Love the show. I want to elaborate on George's "S Tier" hobby hack for corks and paper clip. I think this eclipses his version and I call it S Tier+. I prefer the cork that has a plastic base attached to it. These can be found on various bourbons but also scotch whiskeys and commonly Hendricks Gin (after your G&T Fridays).These corks have the dual benefit of the cork to spike a paperclip into, but the kicker is that the plastic base gives it a wide bottom, shorter than the corks you can buy in the store and all this helps to keep the cork from falling over when you have a mini attached. I work in a restaurant so I have these on tap, but many restaurants will give them to you if you ask as they throw them away. Maybe you can befriend a bartender and he or she will keep them aside before they end up in the bin. Keep up the amazing show and would love you to read this out.
Looking forwardbto hearing the thoughts on the new fanatic range of paints from TAP that you guys spoke about.
I'm not sure if that's been done yet or not, but a link in the description if it has would be great!
Episode 39 of the podcast on here on our channel is the fanatic review video! Enjoy!
Epic! Thanks guys. :)
Loving the show. Keep up the great work 👍
As a Raven Guard fanboy.
I agree with D
And I like it that way, sneaky boys should fly under the radar on lists like this
With how bad their lore is....Wolves do not belong in S tier.
They should make it so their guns are called boltwolves, and change their dreadnoughts to dreadwolves and their landraiders to wolfraiders and their rhinos to wolves. That'd add some much needed personality to the chapter, awoo!
Wolves is the chapter for 12 year olds. B tier.
Top tip, if you don’t think you can be careful enough with kolinsky brushes and contrast/inks/metallics, you might want to try Pro Arte renaissance sable rigger brushes. Rigger brush hairs are approx 1 inch long and you’ll have to dip them seriously deep to get to the ferrule. Rigger brushes are used for pin striping cars so they can hold their point and are stiff yet responsive. Bloody good for all miniature work!
Deathwatch and Salamanders are my favourite chapters. Both have cool armour and lore.
Not going to lie, the thumbnail made me laugh.....because it's true
Yes interrogator-chaplain, this comment right here..
My DIY paint holders are similar. Upsidedown vitamine bottle (choose one that fits your hands well), glued to a piece of cardboard or flat piece of cork so it doesn't fall over. Glue a cork on top of the bottle. Drill 1mm hole in the foot of the mini. Paperclip goes into the foot with superglue and the cork (no glue needed). This way you can get under the model very easily and get that sweet anti-zenithal going.
I OBJECT!!! Salamanders are quite clearly S tier, their name even starts with S!!!
Brilliant show. I'm totally with George on the basing here. You too often see bases representing armies on their home world or specialist terrain, never taking the fight to the enemy. I think a warmer base would frame Space Wolves much better.
Cheers for the heads up on the competition advice too.
Cool that you talk about the loyal space marine chapter, for me i am more of a mix between loyal and chaos so i have paintet a loyal space marine chapter but with the twist of they are all Alpha legionair. Love the youtube and all you do keep up the fantastic work :)
The dark vengeance models are absolutely superb also
My space wolves don't have snow bases. I did them to match my muddy green board. Haha
I've really enjoyed the conversations and banter on the last couple of episodes. also Blood Angels are S tier
Snow and Ice bases are great and the background of the chapter easily inspires those bases. I did the same with my own chapter, the Howling Griffons, they have a mountain based fortress monastery called "The Eyre" and there was a GW release artwork of the Eyre that inspire both me to paint Howling Griffons and also to use the mountain/winter theme to base them.
I think the word you were looking for, in regards to the ultramarines is "Graeco-Roman". Everyone is right!
Would really like to see other their lists, they are always fun. If not already planned, maybe do one on the traitor chapters?
the old Dark Angel terminator kits is superior to the new Deathwing Knights and upgrade sprue
I forgot to comment this last week. I also lose like 30-40% of my brush caps, however I save caps I don't lose from old brushes I throw out, so when I lose one, I have backup.
Raven guard s tier
Justice for the imperial fists
Great show fellas! Dark angels are cool but I'm afraid I'll have to side with the blood angels and lets not forget the Mephiston model, damn! If this is anything to go by the new Blood angel models will be so good.
Ultramarines !00% A+
I like thursdays at work. Have something interesting to listen to. Thanks and keep it up guys.
Imperial fists are A tier at least.
Imo Iron Hands have such potential for some cool storytelling, it's a damn shame they've barely gotten any love the past few editions. Their unhealthy body dismorphia & self-hatred passed down from the way Ferrus died, masked under a pretext of 'weakness of the flesh' and how the more recent Iron Father Feirros tries to balance out the chapter dogma, has a lot of potential!
Unfortunately, they don't even feature in any mainline novels from the primaris era!
Hey fellas love the podcast. Just caught up with the brushes episode and have some thoughts. One way to preserve brushes is to use an old brush to move paints from the pot to the palette and thin them with it. Also if you have a color mix, thin and mix with a shit brush.
My other thought is that you spent 20 mins talking about brush size and how it varies. No argument here. Then later you arrived at each of your workhorses size wise, but never mentioned the brand. Maybe that was intentional but if l am curious about using a size 2 as my workhorse, whose size 2? With the variety in sizing I would have loved a few more brands to explore. I currently use a Rosemary size 2 as my go to. The cleaning comments were super helpful at the end however.
Also for US listeners there is a ban on ordering certain types of brushes (because of the hair used) so you have to find alternatives.
Keep up the good work. Also, as an Imperial Fists player, they look outrageously cool on the board and Tor Garadon is awful.
I lose my caps too, they just disappear. I also blue tack my brushes to the shelf above my painting desk to dry. Always works and had no issues.
Thursday already?! Heck yeah gents!
Yes i also lose my brush caps. I don't have any idea where they go.
Space wolves
S teir...
Jeez guys, thanks!
🫡
They said there's no such thing as a perfect thumbnail.... and yet here we are
Do you and/or would you varnish gaming vs display models?
The holograph is actually of games workshops warhammer world buildings HQ
So much strange views but I like to hear them. (For example I hate the Red trim on the umperial fists). But its wrong that ferrus Was killed by his own weapon. It was a daemon sword that fulgrim used
Yeah I totally got confused, Ferrus made fireblade for Fulgrim was what I go muddled up with, I did rectify this in the episode haha! James / Siege
Swap Blood Angels with Raven Guard and we can agree
Sooooo any joy with that dropper bottle link? 😅
Added to the bio!
@@SiegeStudios thanks deary 😘
I painted my stormraven's cockpit windows for the same reason.
Speaking on behalf of imperial fists fans, there's always a problem in your head of loving their lore and style and concept - and hating that they're in yellow.
Siege Studios ranked the Space Marines? Bold move, considering the Emperor himself couldn't choose a favorite son
How to prevent the contrast paint getting into the ferrule? It looks like even if you wash the brush between every new load some of the paint will still find its way there, runny sneaky contrast fiends.
As a psuedo-emo, I concur about the Raven Guard. I don't care for them. "Sneaky" has never been my play style and Batman can eat an entire Keg of Richards. But I love the DA so take my opinion as you will 😂
So you are doing a Raven Guard paint project next, right?
Wow, AI Harold Ramis looks amazing!!
I was worried I would have to turn this off at the Space Wolves part but straight to S tier! Nice!
Based Siege Studios team.
Nevertheless, GW... PLEASE stop with the wolfy McWolfyson theme starting to encroach on space wolves. We want SPACE VIKINGS... not space furries.
My space wolves don't have snow on the base for what it's worth.
you didn't actually show the picture of James' hobby hack on how he holds his minis!
Raptors are the best part of the Raven Guard.
The imotekh head needed expression
I think the raven guard successors are all more interesting than the raven guard
Wait, no Jaghitai is a poor argument for any scale but it's worse that it's just a painting scale.
Gotta do the same for the traitor legions lads. Need to see what your rankings for them badboys
Where did you get the art on the walls 🤔
I just rated this show 5 stars and left a review on Apple podcasts and then you flame the Imperial Fists. Outrageous. SIEGE studios? Iron warriors dog whistle perhaps? Im onto you...
FENRIS ENDURES
Ultramarines are definitely Roman, and Minotaurs are Spartan. The Romans were heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture and loved being tutored by Greek slaves, hence the Greek alphabet. :)
Also Salamanders should be in D with Raven Guard. 😎
😂😂😂
You guys are great, but your take on the Raven Guard is off. VICTORUS AUT MORTIS
For the Dark Angels!
Do you need to remove the paint from the model where you need to assemble after painting the part
Painted parts will glue together ok but if you want a solid bond then it helps to have clean surfaces to glue together. Also raven guard are s tier 🤘
EYYYY 1ST LEGION BEST LEGION
Blood Angels? S-Tier??? They’re just Twilight vampires in power armour.
Ultramarines however, definite S-Tier. Poster boys for a reason and that blue pops no matter what terrain base they’re on.
I constantly lose my paint brush caps if that helps 😅
So you think space marines in cockpits looks goofy but space marines riding dogs and sleds look good?..
Raven guard just doesn’t receive enough love off GW…
I was worried there would be a furry joke and I would have to stop listening but spaces wolves straight to S!
S tiers for Dark Angels who are basically heretics? Yeah, right.
Dark angels ❤
You're just wrong for putting dark angels on bottom
I lose all of my brush caps. Always.
This is all well and good, but ORKS IS DE BEST
Put me down as someone that think the space wolves are lame, I think space vikings are pretty cool, but space werewolves are dumb AF
Why called big 4???
Black templars in there too
They used to have an own book in 3rd and 4th Edition
My chapter is in S tier and i still hate this list
Space wolves and Ultramarines, 2 of the most overrated chapters.
Blood angels and Dark angels are overrated. Ultramarines are the greatest chapter in Warhammer 40k,and the wolves are just there
How are they overrated? They’re two of the most decorated chapters.
Space wolves are my least favourite, only legion / chapter in my basement tier
Regarding painting black...I feel like you guys being slaves to the gw style of painting are missing out A LOT regarding Black Templars/Ravenguard/Deathwatch. You can paint black in very fun ways if you stay away from the drab gw style.
I can handle people not liking Raven Guard but don’t ever group them equal or lower to Dark Angels. DA are boring as all fuck