It's like a shonen manga or a Saturday morning cartoon for kiddies. No lessons ever learned, not character development, nothing.

Yes! That's a perfect summary, I guess.

I learned plenty of lesson from shonen manga! (well the anime aniway) here are twelve of them :

1. Don't slap vegeta's wife.
2. Even if you are the god of destruction, and you have just one-shotted supersayian lvl 4 Goku with one finger, don't slap Bulma! Vegeta no like dat.
3. If your name is Toriko you can eat king kong sized monsters without indigestion.
4. OCD is serious buisness even (especially!) if you are the son of the grim reaper.
5. Death scythes are cool. I wanna be a death scythe.
6. If you are a damphir it is possible to "talk to hand!"
7. Mio chan from Needless is awesome! Mio-chan punch is best attack ever!
8. Cooking master boy Mao is yu-gi-oh, but with cooking. Dafuq?
9. Ore no twintail ni narimasu is the best genderswapping/fighting series since Ranma 1/2.
10. Don't mess with a policewoman, especially if she's a vampire and carries an anti-tank rifle.
11. Don't look Lelouch in the eye.
12. Dr. Slump is one of the weirdest and funniest anime I've seen in a while.

I never truly liked the wolves or the dark angels, well I did like them back in the days when they had that native american look going on. Once they went all monastic and secretive i got bored with them. Ultras were a tadd to vanilla, I like the Iron hands and Raven guard a bit more except my home brew chapter the Champions of the Emperor really don't get along with them and The Ravens being space ninjas in power armor at worst isn't to my liking. (How do you stealth in power armor? It generates background noise! Ok ok they probably have stealth version but still...ninja marines are silly, black ops marines works better) Then we get the salamanders who I find a bit boring to but atleast have cooler armor and collor sheme. Leves the white stripes..err white scars and the fists and while they are masochist good counterparts to the iron warriors, they were my fave squad in Star quest (Space crusade) so that gives them a point. Leaving with the blood angels on the nr spot.

Of the later foundenings here are some faves : Space sharks, Scythes of the Emperor, All Blood angel succesor chapters, Soul drinkers, any chapter involved in the Badab war, Fire Hawks/ legion of the Damned, Celestial Lions, Red Scorpions, The Invaders, Exorsists, Relictors, Hawk lords (only for their color sheme really ) Tarantulas (Just for the name) Rainbow warriors and the X-mass marines.

and The Ravens being space ninjas in power armor at worst isn't to my liking. (How do you stealth in power armor? It generates background noise! Ok ok they probably have stealth version but still...ninja marines are silly, black ops marines works better)

Another example of the fanbase apparently running with some crazy interpretation rather than what the original sources actually stated, as the Raven Guard are recon experts, not spies. More Delta Force than ninjas. And even then, that's only the Scouts, not the guys in PA.

"The Raven Guard depends heavily on Scout forces able to act alone for extended periods of time and rapid reaction forces such as Assault Troops equipped with jump packs. Commonly, the Raven Guard will deploy Tactical squads in drop pods or Thunderhawks in response to intelligence gathered by their Scouts. The Chapter's excellence in covert operations makes engaging in a frontal battle seldom necessary. Where possible, the Raven Guard will use a precise application of force to cripple the enemy and avoid a protracted engagement."

-- WD #276, Index Astartes : The Raven Guard

So, kind of what you wanted!

This was also reflected in their tabletop rules, where their bonus was that any non-vehicle unit could Deepstrike and the player was allowed to re-roll the scatter die. Also, they'd get a +1 bonus to the Reserves roll if they have Scouts on the table.

Celestial Lions

Good man! My favourite Chapter, though I think I've said so before. My DW character was a Lion, too .. possibly even the last of his kind. Lots of RP potential, and something of a dark twist if you consider who he's working for, and who secretly engineered the destruction of his Chapter whilst he was already serving in the Deathwatch.

They are worse in some of the HH stuff. They do some "meld into the shadows" stuff in full power armor(! gaaah!) and the forgeworld books have pics of them looking like they are permanently in shadows. I can deal with Corax apearantly having obfuscate but with the marines that gets on my nerves just a bit.

See, and you wonder why some people don't like those novels.

True. But so far, to me atleast, the ups outnumber the downs (but not in Nothingham...)

In response to the original Boarding Shield question, my game went with them being adamantine/ceramite shields with no field generator, (so basically the Storm Shield without the protection field), to allow starting characters to pick up a shield if they really wanted to.

But the thing is it would also probably cover the legs as well, not just the arm it's equipped to and the body. So +4 AP to legs, an arm, and the torso is really good, as well as having a force field for that zone. Really, you'd be giving up an arm for twice the coverage.

I never truly liked the wolves or the dark angels, well I did like them back in the days when they had that native american look going on. Once they went all monastic and secretive i got bored with them. Ultras were a tadd to vanilla, I like the Iron hands and Raven guard a bit more except my home brew chapter the Champions of the Emperor really don't get along with them and The Ravens being space ninjas in power armor at worst isn't to my liking. (How do you stealth in power armor? It generates background noise! Ok ok they probably have stealth version but still...ninja marines are silly, black ops marines works better) Then we get the salamanders who I find a bit boring to but atleast have cooler armor and collor sheme. Leves the white stripes..err white scars and the fists and while they are masochist good counterparts to the iron warriors, they were my fave squad in Star quest (Space crusade) so that gives them a point. Leaving with the blood angels on the nr spot.

I've always hated the DA because of their selfish pursuit of the fallen. I mean they put that above everything. They've abandoned missions to pursue the fallen, they've effectively committed desertion and treason because they want to round up all the fallen. "Sure, that hive we were ordered to protect that was producing vital supplies for the war was destroyed after we took off after a rumor there were fallen in the next star system, but so what? We were chasing the fallen, that's more important than our orders, duty, the lives of billions of citizens and the good of the sector."

I actually respect the spacewolves personally due to the fact they do not put their own petty agenda above the good of the imperium. I was pretty favorably impressed when logan grimnar openly rebuked the HLoT for their treatment of the population of Armageddon after their horrible treatment after the first war of armageddon, which disgraced the entire imperium. No DA would have bothered to do that. And I hope he fed the assassin they sent after him to his wolves.

I've always hated the DA because of their selfish pursuit of the fallen. I mean they put that above everything.

And this make them more humane than any other Chapter except, maybe, Wolves. Because this is how humans live - they make mistakes, their minds can be clouded by fanatical ideas etc, etc...