Melee/caster cleric

Hey

I'm plan on playing a cleric soon. Ive never played one. I'm wanting to be a melee/caster if possible and was wondering which subclass is good at being a tanky caster? I'm hoping to be a Van Helsing type of cleric

I suggest the War Domain from the Players Handbook. It gives you proficiency with martial weapons and all armour and several other appropriate features and spells.

Although for a less traditional route, you could use the Forge Domain from Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

And even besides those two, lots of other Divine Domains give access to medium or heavy armour or martial weapons, so you have a fair amount of choices. Just see if the Domain you're looking at has the Bonus Proficiencies feature at 1st level, and what that Domain's feature grants you.

War-Domain is the go to for sure as Boromir_The_Fair said.

I'd also add the "Tempest Domain"! 
Proficiency with martial weapons and heavy armor at Level 1 and then some awesome spells list :)

Arcana Clerics can also be good front-liners. They don't get heavy armor or martial weapons, but can add the Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade cantrips to buff up their melee attacks. 

The Twilight domain is fabulous for frontline clerics.  Heavy armor, martial weapons, initiative bonuses (for you or a party member) and Twilight Sanctuary gives those around the cleric quite a # of temporary hp.  

It's pretty hard to be good at melee as a cleric, due to different stat requirements (though a nature cleric can learn shillelagh, which helps), but lots of clerics are durable enough to stand on the front line. I'd agree that if you just want stupidly OP twilight is the way to go. Forge cleric is also extremely durable.

Decent melee cleric build per 2024 rules:

Invest your stat points into constitution and wisdom.

For lvl 1 divine order, Take Protector for martial weapons proficiency and Heavy armor proficiency.

Try to max out your AC with the best armor you can get. I recommend using a shield and not a 2-handed weapon for the +2 to AC, Use a Longsword or somthing.

For backround take sage for the magic initiate feat. Choose the cantrip True Strike, so you can use your wisdom modifier for attack and damage rolls.It also adds 1d6 radiant damage by level 7, when the whole build is online. For the prepared level one spell I would recommend Shield for +5 AC when you need it.

At level 3, prepare Hold person as one of your lvl 2 spells for immobilizing enemies.

At level 4, take the War caster feat. This gives you advantage on concentration checks. You can also cast a cantrip as a opportunity attack as long as it has a casting time of 1 action, meaning you can cast true strike as a opportunity attack.

At level 5, prepare the 3rd lvl spell Spirit Guardians for extra damage in an emanation around you. War caster plus high CON stat means that you have a very good chance to maintain concentration. Enemies within 5 feet of you that try to escape spirit guardians will trigger an opportunity attack with true strike.

At level 7, for your Blessed strikes, take Potent spell casting. The reason you shouldn't take divine strike is because potent spellcasting works with true strike, since true strike takes an action to cast and you deal 1d6 extra radiant damage with it a level 5 so it benefits from the additional damage equal to your wisdom modifier. Meaning that in addition to the weapon damage, you are dealing extra radiant damage equal to 1d6 plus Double your wisdom modifier. The damage that you would get from divine strikes is on average half a point less than the damage if you max out your wisdom to 20 (+5) for potent spell casting. This extra damage falls of a bit after level 14 improved blessed strikes, as it is dealing 4 less points of damage, but i think that the temporary hit points you can give (equal to double your wisdom modifier) are worth it.

Let's assume a wisdom of 20 for a +5 modifier. In an average round (assuming true strike doesn't miss or score a critical hit, and that the enemy(s) fails the save and doesn't trigger an opportunity attack) you can do 1d8 + 1d6 +10 +3d8 damage, for an average of 31.5 damage. This does have a lot of variables to take into account though.

The Peace Cleric has some nice abilities.

The ability to teleport upto 30 ft (2024) and take the hit for an ally is key.  Not only does it let you save your allies life but you moving that 30 ft as a reaction is incredibally helpful for a melee attacker.