I am just so...conflicted...and...angry...about the new direction that the GW fluff is going. I've been a fan of the setting since 1992. My first 40K army was an Eldar Aspect Warrior army. I still have those miniatures, and have used them for decades now. Since that time, I have purchased almost every army that GW has ever released. I have read almost all of the Black Library books. I have played the video games. I even bought the movie.

Now, I'm an adult. I'm not against change. I know that GW is a company, and needs to make money. But, I can't help but feel like they are going in a direction that I simply cannot follow.

I love the fluff of the 40K universe. Every theme, even though taken from numerous sources, were blended into a world that moved me. I played every edition, despite the various problems, because I loved the fluff. I loved the story of the Astartes especially.

Now, at least to me, it's like GW is just throwing all of that away, so that they can sell big miniatures. And, it makes me so sad...

I get it. GW can make Primaris Marines for the same cost, but sell them for even more profit. You watch. 5 Primaris Marines will sell for $60 US. Versus 10 Astartes for $40. Similar cost to produce, but more profit for the company. I understand their reasoning. I just cannot stand the hamfisted fluff. It makes a mockery of everything that the Astartes have done for the last 10,000 years in the setting.

I just don't know what to do with my collection now...because, don't fool yourselves...the Astartes are gone. It will just take some time. Sure, GW said that they will not Squat any army, and that there will always be a place for the Astartes. But, this is nothing more than a hollow platitude. Don't believe me? Just look at Age of Sigmar. Sure, you can still play your Imperial army from years ago...but it is basically dead. Nothing new for it. Almost no mention of it in the fluff. It is all Stormcast, all the time. The same thing will happen with 40K. Even in the new book, Guilliman states that the "days of the Astartes are numbered".

So, what do I do now? Do I keep the 2,000 plus miniatures collection that I have amassed over almost 25 years of gaming, and only play games with my friends? Or, do I sell off my labor of love, and look for new inspiration?

If you've been playing as long as you say you have you've already gone through fluff changes for the Astartes once.

Stop worrying about it and look at it like this. Its your collection, you love it, even if this fluff change for what ever stupid reason makes you want to quit or look for inspiration for a new army, its not gonna make you stop loving the collection you have.

If you wanna keep with it, grow the collection, evolve it. Talk to people about how when you first started Space Marines were pretty much Space Convicts turned into slightly super soldiers, and now they are this.

Or, if you wanna quit, keep it as something to show off years of hard work and dedication. That's never gonna change.

More to the point, Have you read Dark Imperium?

Because if not, shut up and read that first, the people who panic the most are unceasingly people whom haven't read it, have instead read one or two bits of spoilers, and utterly misunderstood the situation.

standard Space Marines aren't going anywhere for at LEAST an edition (and I doubt they ever will for the reasons you're angry) will they take a back seat in the fluff? MAYBE, on the other hand, Dark Imperium showed us primaris and regular Marines fighting side by side. We can assume that to continue.
so sit back, calm down and, read the novel (it's actually, pretty good, well... for a 40k novel

I'm not terribly concerned with the way things are going unless I've overlooked something crucial.... The collection you have can represent whatever narrative you chose to stick to and no one can take that away from you anyway.

I feel your pain.
From what I understand, old marines can be upgraded to take advantage of new rules, made primaris after the fact.
As for the models I don't like the noselessness of the newbies too much.
Hopefully gw gets it together and realizes the true value of their properties and chooses to move responsibly in a dawning era of rapidly distributed production and design.
Without goodwill and community they will piddle away their depth and become just another brand in a sea of noise.
The new edition seems to have leveled some things and gw has seemed responsive to community concerns.
We will have to see how it plays out but if they try to squat things easily or keep writing rules and narratives to rectify marketing misestimations e.g. the taurox prime then the blowback maybe even more severe than they suffered from the mishandling of AoS.
Anyways state involved. Keep the faith. Girlman will get trapped or sold out if gw has any sense and they can use this to mirror the split in sentiment over the new marines - see the recent poll here on dakka pro or con on the new marines, votes are close to split.
Some of use will play old imperium and ignore or hunt primaries weenies. Some will move ahead and replace their armies. Some will start with astartes newcast. The they may see the virtue of opening design to all supportable factions and the continuity that facilitates the strong and loyal self promoting consumer and fan base that they started taking for granted.

 CaptainLoken wrote:


I just don't know what to do with my collection now...because, don't fool yourselves...the Astartes are gone. It will just take some time. Sure, GW said that they will not Squat any army, and that there will always be a place for the Astartes. But, this is nothing more than a hollow platitude. Don't believe me? Just look at Age of Sigmar. Sure, you can still play your Imperial army from years ago...but it is basically dead. Nothing new for it. Almost no mention of it in the fluff. It is all Stormcast, all the time. The same thing will happen with 40K. Even in the new book, Guilliman states that the "days of the Astartes are numbered".

So, what do I do now? Do I keep the 2,000 plus miniatures collection that I have amassed over almost 25 years of gaming, and only play games with my friends? Or, do I sell off my labor of love, and look for new inspiration?

A few years ago, GW released the Militarum Tempestus. Militarum Tempestus were Imperial Guard+1. Yet the Imperial Guard was not squatted. Now they release the Primaris, who are Space Marines+1. Why should this mean the Space Marines are going to get squatted?
Why would GW take the risk of destroying the miniature range that singlehandedly makes them the vast majority of their profit? To put it quite simply, GW can not mess with the Space Marine range, let alone remove it. They simply can not afford it money-wise, they would be gambling with the existence of their company. GW is not stupid, they are not doing that. Primaris and regular Astartes are going to be living side by side for a very long time to come.
Don't get hysterical, take a deep breath and think clearly. Do you really want to destroy 25 years of work just because of the introduction of a new faction you don't like in the fluff? This doesn't remove anything that you like about 40k, all of that is still there. Hell, even if GW were to squat the entire 40k universe like they did with Fantasy, it won't stop you from enjoying that world. All the awesome books, miniatures and video games are still there, there just isn't any new being added.
You should keep your stuff, because if you sell it you are very likely to be going to regret it later.

As a sidenote, I really, really hate the new fluff as well...

I stopped caring about the direction GW took their fluff back in 3rd ed.

The game just became more fun that way. Less angst, sturm und drang (and other KMFDM albums).

I'm with you on this one. Yes people can say 'it's your collection, they can represent whatever it is you like', but when you really get down to it...the official fluff genuinely matters.

To be blunt about it, the new Primaris fluff just isn't as nuanced, well crafted, inspiring or interesting as the Astartes fluff. It just isn't. It's Wardian Ultramarines, but applied to the whole Imperium. An excuse to give Marines upgrades to make them top-dogs with no downsides just doesn't gel with the rest of 40k to me.

I will say that Dark Imperium is really well crafted, and I strongly encourage you to read it. It puts a lot of it in perspective and sort of dims down the noblebright quite a lot. There's also tons and tons and tons of really cool stuff they could do with Primaris Marines fluff. Whether they will or not I don't know.

I've had two similar peaks of the very same feeling. First was during the Ward era of 5th ed. Second was during the release of the Imperial knights. The feeling never really went away in either case tbh. I still hate knights. Mostly for their fluff not making any sense. I also deny the 5th ed fluff that marines go through scout-->devastator-->assults-->tactical and that all chapters aspire to be Ultramarines. I despise that the C'tan are infact the slaves of the Necrons.

I was also quite bothered when the Inquisition was changed and, in my eyes, ruined. GK, DW and SoB used to be the Inquisitions military. Now they're just kind of friends, and GK will even hapily fight alongside deamons. Many things like this Inquisition change, the Necron rework, the deamon losing the instability rule, demonic possesion being removed, kill team being removed (recently brought back with much less intresting rules) and the ally chart being made up of about 50% diffrent Space marine chapters (lore wise comparivly insignificant forces) has made me angry at the game. The two things mentioned above though are the only ones that got me close to quitting.

However the game didn't really change much and I kept my own lore for my armies. I kept on reading 40k books and pick up various ones when I feel like it. 40k as a whole is changing and I'm embracing the change so far. Lore wise I don't think they've gone as bad as they could have, though they certainly didn't take the best route IMO. Basicly what I'm saying is this'll probably burn for a long time and might never go away, but 40k will remain. Your dudes can happily rebel against the Imperium and Guillimans new toy soldiers. Don't buy the propaganda of the gw because nothing sits well with everyone in 40k. If there is but one truth in 40k it is that, no matter what happens, no matter what achievements are made, there is only war. There can be no peace among the stars. Only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I'm with you on this one. Yes people can say 'it's your collection, they can represent whatever it is you like', but when you really get down to it...the official fluff genuinely matters.

To be blunt about it, the new Primaris fluff just isn't as nuanced, well crafted, inspiring or interesting as the Astartes fluff. It just isn't. It's Wardian Ultramarines, but applied to the whole Imperium. An excuse to give Marines upgrades to make them top-dogs with no downsides just doesn't gel with the rest of 40k to me.

I will say that Dark Imperium is really well crafted, and I strongly encourage you to read it. It puts a lot of it in perspective and sort of dims down the noblebright quite a lot. There's also tons and tons and tons of really cool stuff they could do with Primaris Marines fluff. Whether they will or not I don't know.

How nuanced was space Marine fluff back at the dawn of 40K?

I'm a bit on the positive side with it, as a mostly BFG player, it's fun watching my fellow players writhe now that Bakka's famed 'Big Gun Lobby' that forces IN carriers suck are now entertaining arena goers in Commorragh.

 Nerak wrote:
Second was during the release of the Imperial knights. The feeling never really went away in either case tbh. I still hate knights. Mostly for their fluff not making any sense.

What is your issue with Knights fluff?

do note.. Imperial Knights have been around since Epic, they only recently made an appearance in 40k

BrianDavion wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I'm with you on this one. Yes people can say 'it's your collection, they can represent whatever it is you like', but when you really get down to it...the official fluff genuinely matters.

To be blunt about it, the new Primaris fluff just isn't as nuanced, well crafted, inspiring or interesting as the Astartes fluff. It just isn't. It's Wardian Ultramarines, but applied to the whole Imperium. An excuse to give Marines upgrades to make them top-dogs with no downsides just doesn't gel with the rest of 40k to me.

I will say that Dark Imperium is really well crafted, and I strongly encourage you to read it. It puts a lot of it in perspective and sort of dims down the noblebright quite a lot. There's also tons and tons and tons of really cool stuff they could do with Primaris Marines fluff. Whether they will or not I don't know.

How nuanced was space Marine fluff back at the dawn of 40K?

Hah good point

I'd wager more nuanced than Primaris though. They were mind-wiped convicts pushed through a genetic engineering process and unleashed upon the galaxy, rather than just Marines +1 with no drawbacks.

There's a fantastic amount of potential for nuanced Primaris fluff. I like what they're doing with Cawl being a bit of an insidious character, and the fact that we probably can't trust any of his claims about lack of susceptibility to Chaos, lack of gene-seed flaws, and what his true aims are (all from Dark Imperium). I also like what they've started doing with Guilliman. He's starting to show doubt, which is really nice to see in someone they could have painted as utterly Mary Sue.

There are narrative options for Primaris tying them to Thunder Warriors, producing conflict between some Astartes who go off the deep end thinking they're going to get purged and replaced (with the slightest of hints that they might be right), some really nice options for exploring what meddling with genetic engineering can result in considering even the Emperor screwed up, and some excellent options for Traitor/Purged/Lost geneseed.

Back when we thought they were vat-grown, there was an utterly fantastic narrative option for exploring what it means to actually be human in the context of the 40k universe. The Emperor was absolutely dead certain to make his warriors begin their life as normal humans to try and keep them grounded and have a dog in the fight they're fighting (which has worked to varying degrees). If the Primaris were vat-grown, they could do some absolutely phenomenal things exploring what it would be like for a warrior with no connection to humanity beyond what they've been indoctrinated to believe. They're not even genetically human, they're engineered tools. How do you think some of them are going to react when they come to the realisation that they have no connection to the people they're fighting and dying for beyond indoctrination?

Unfortunately, that particular narrative option is sort of closed off now. Turns out they're not vat-grown, the vats depicted in the fluff were stasis chambers, and Primaris Marines appear to be made in a similar way to normal Marines (but probably faster, because Mary Sue). Shame, because it was really damn cool.

Now, I would be absolutely ecstatic if they pursued any of these narrative options with any sort of conviction, but I'm slightly skeptical if they will. Mainly due to target market. There are a whole lot of people out there who just want the bestest strongest purest peeps out there. People who will say things like 'yeah, well, my guys are stronger and more resistant to Chaos than your dudes'. These people have money. They will also get pretty butthurt if it turns out that their dudes aren't actually stronger and faster and don't afraid of anything. I'm wondering if there are more potential sales within the Wardian brigade than within the nuance brigade, and how much they're willing to drift away from what makes 40k feel different to other IPs chasing after mainstream appeal...

Edit: I just want to say that this is in no way a criticism of the writers. I think they tend to get a lot of flak for new fluff developments when they're probably beholden to a number of things, one of which is market forces. They've got to appeal to a ton of different potential customers, which inevitably means disappointing some people because it's fantastically difficult to write something that appeals to both the noblebright and grimdark brigade. As a staunch member of the grimdark brigade, I just hope they make something bad happen with the Primaris dudes. I'll feel a lot better if that happened oh, and make the Eldar stab the Imperium in the back while we're at it. They're malicious manipulative xenos and people might be mistaken for thinking they're allies...

BrianDavion wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I'm with you on this one. Yes people can say 'it's your collection, they can represent whatever it is you like', but when you really get down to it...the official fluff genuinely matters.

To be blunt about it, the new Primaris fluff just isn't as nuanced, well crafted, inspiring or interesting as the Astartes fluff. It just isn't. It's Wardian Ultramarines, but applied to the whole Imperium. An excuse to give Marines upgrades to make them top-dogs with no downsides just doesn't gel with the rest of 40k to me.

I will say that Dark Imperium is really well crafted, and I strongly encourage you to read it. It puts a lot of it in perspective and sort of dims down the noblebright quite a lot. There's also tons and tons and tons of really cool stuff they could do with Primaris Marines fluff. Whether they will or not I don't know.

How nuanced was space Marine fluff back at the dawn of 40K?

While you do have a point, we need to remember that the dawn of 40k was over two decades ago, at the very birth of 40k while the Primaris didn't.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
A few years ago, GW released the Militarum Tempestus. Militarum Tempestus were Imperial Guard+1. Yet the Imperial Guard was not squatted. Now they release the Primaris, who are Space Marines+1. Why should this mean the Space Marines are going to get squatted?

Militarum Tempestus were just renamed Storm Troopers in the same vain as Imperial Guard were changed to Astra Militarum, they'd always been there.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Why would GW take the risk of destroying the miniature range that singlehandedly makes them the vast majority of their profit? To put it quite simply, GW can not mess with the Space Marine range, let alone remove it. They simply can not afford it money-wise, they would be gambling with the existence of their company. GW is not stupid, they are not doing that. Primaris and regular Astartes are going to be living side by side for a very long time to come.
Don't get hysterical, take a deep breath and think clearly. Do you really want to destroy 25 years of work just because of the introduction of a new faction you don't like in the fluff? This doesn't remove anything that you like about 40k, all of that is still there. Hell, even if GW were to squat the entire 40k universe like they did with Fantasy, it won't stop you from enjoying that world. All the awesome books, miniatures and video games are still there, there just isn't any new being added.
You should keep your stuff, because if you sell it you are very likely to be going to regret it later

Fantasy.

They were willing to destroy an entire mainline game which included phasing out almost the entire model range if it meant they could get an excuse to make the kids buy into the Sigmarines. For all people go "b-b-but this is different!" the fact remains that Games Workshop have ABSOLUTELY shown their willingness to eliminate great swathes of their product if they believe it will produce more profit. And what would produce more profit than making everybody rebuy their Space Marines? We had this exact discussion when the first AoS rumours started appearing. So many people - probably the vast majority - both cynics and optimists alike were sure they wouldn't cull Fantasy and yet here we are.

Now unlike Fantasy I don't think this will happen overnight, but it will happen gradually. As more and more Primaris kits are produced, people start adding these parts to their existing SM armies over time. A vehicle here, a squad there, another character. Before too long they've got a healthy amount of Primaris 'added' to their collection. Whilst this is happening the releases for Manlet marines will steadily decrease, overtaken by Primaris releases. This will happen so gradually that by the time they just stop support for Manlet Marines altogether so many people will have points enough of Primaris that dissenting voices will be drowned out under, "Well I've got 2000+ points of Primaris bro so this doesn't affect me! The game's gotta continue to grow bro, sorry you gotta be left behind!" and other such statements.

As for the narrative and its awful fluff, if there is one thing I've learnt from popular products with awful writing (World of Warcraft, 40k, Age of Sigmar, Final Fantasy) is that controversial changes in plot have time on there side. Stuff that was considered absurd and dreadful years later will be staunchly defended as "just the way it is!" as the people who criticise it get tired of explaining why it's so crap.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


Now, I would be absolutely ecstatic if they pursued any of these narrative options with any sort of conviction, but I'm slightly skeptical if they will. Mainly due to target market. There are a whole lot of people out there who just want the bestest strongest purest peeps out there. People who will say things like 'yeah, well, my guys are stronger and more resistant to Chaos than your dudes'. These people have money. They will also get pretty butthurt if it turns out that their dudes aren't actually stronger and faster and don't afraid of anything. I'm wondering if there are more potential sales within the Wardian brigade than within the nuance brigade, and how much they're willing to drift away from what makes 40k feel different to other IPs chasing after mainstream appeal...

So because I happen to like the Primaris Marines, I'm automatically thrown in with the Wardian Brigade? That's not how things work. Secondly I don't think there is a much of a nuance to the original Astartes as you seem to think there is.

Edit: I just want to say that this is in no way a criticism of the writers. I think they tend to get a lot of flak for new fluff developments when they're probably beholden to a number of things, one of which is market forces. They've got to appeal to a ton of different potential customers, which inevitably means disappointing some people because it's fantastically difficult to write something that appeals to both the noblebright and grimdark brigade. As a staunch member of the grimdark brigade, I just hope they make something bad happen with the Primaris dudes. I'll feel a lot better if that happened oh, and make the Eldar stab the Imperium in the back while we're at it. They're malicious manipulative xenos and people might be mistaken for thinking they're allies...

People that have read the Dark Imperium book have been repeatedly saying that the Primaris showing up isn't a sudden Noblebright change to 40k, I would argue that the appearance of Primaris Marines never equated to that in the first place. It's always seemed like one last attempt to hold back the dark rather than a sudden "We're winning at everything, nothing more to worry about ever."

 Arbitrator wrote:
They were willing to destroy an entire mainline game which included phasing out almost the entire model range if it meant they could get an excuse to make the kids buy into the Sigmarines. For all people go "b-b-but this is different!" the fact remains that Games Workshop have ABSOLUTELY shown their willingness to eliminate great swathes of their product if they believe it will produce more profit. And what would produce more profit than making everybody rebuy their Space Marines? We had this exact discussion when the first AoS rumours started appearing. So many people - probably the vast majority - both cynics and optimists alike were sure they wouldn't cull Fantasy and yet here we are.

Now unlike Fantasy I don't think this will happen overnight, but it will happen gradually. As more and more Primaris kits are produced, people start adding these parts to their existing SM armies over time. A vehicle here, a squad there, another character. Before too long they've got a healthy amount of Primaris 'added' to their collection. Whilst this is happening the releases for Manlet marines will steadily decrease, overtaken by Primaris releases. This will happen so gradually that by the time they just stop support for Manlet Marines altogether so many people will have points enough of Primaris that dissenting voices will be drowned out under, "Well I've got 2000+ points of Primaris bro so this doesn't affect me! The game's gotta continue to grow bro, sorry you gotta be left behind!" and other such statements.

A large part of the reason that Warhammer Fantasy got "squatted" is because of copyright issues. The only plastic kits that GW has removed from production are the generic fantasy genre units. Sure, some stayed, but GW has been competing with other companies for standard Human, Elf, and Dwarf kits for a while. They do not want to produce a product that can be confused with another company's line of models, hence why so many Warhammer Fantasy armies got split into so many new Factions so as to come up with different armies with different names that can be copyrighted. Now, we have the Aelf Swordmasters of the Eldritch Council, not just High Elf Swordmasters. They have been doing it in 40K for several years, what with the Imperial Guard becoming the Astra Militarum, and now the Eldar and Dark Eldar becoming the Aeldari and Drukhari, respectively.

Plus, I had read/heard somewhere (anecdotally as well) about British copyright laws not protecting an "image" after 30 years, which is how old Space Marines are as an aesthetic at that scale. So it might be possible that the Primaris Marines are just different enough in shape/style/image to renew that copyright protection. If that is the case, then these massive aesthetic shakeups make perfect sense from a business perspective - you can't have other people copying and selling your product.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
To be blunt about it, the new Primaris fluff just isn't as nuanced, well crafted, inspiring or interesting as the Astartes fluff.

Much as I like 40k, I would never make this statement about 40k fluff. 40k is over the top cheese. Everything is dialed up to 11 and the words 'nuanced, well crafted and inspiring' are nowhere to be found. I'd rather use 'exaggerated, rough-hewn and melodramatic', because that fits 40k so much better. 40k is a space fantasy soap opera about people shooting other people in the face while literal deus ex machinas pop out of the woodwork to close plot holes and rip open entirely new plot holes, on the new ones have spikes and teeth and extra long gun barrels this time so you know it's serious.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
A few years ago, GW released the Militarum Tempestus. Militarum Tempestus were Imperial Guard+1. Yet the Imperial Guard was not squatted. Now they release the Primaris, who are Space Marines+1. Why should this mean the Space Marines are going to get squatted?

Militarum Tempestus were just renamed Storm Troopers in the same vain as Imperial Guard were changed to Astra Militarum, they'd always been there.

Not entirely. There had been a unit in the IG codex called Storm Troopers. They never before existed as an entirely seperate army and organisation.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Why would GW take the risk of destroying the miniature range that singlehandedly makes them the vast majority of their profit? To put it quite simply, GW can not mess with the Space Marine range, let alone remove it. They simply can not afford it money-wise, they would be gambling with the existence of their company. GW is not stupid, they are not doing that. Primaris and regular Astartes are going to be living side by side for a very long time to come.
Don't get hysterical, take a deep breath and think clearly. Do you really want to destroy 25 years of work just because of the introduction of a new faction you don't like in the fluff? This doesn't remove anything that you like about 40k, all of that is still there. Hell, even if GW were to squat the entire 40k universe like they did with Fantasy, it won't stop you from enjoying that world. All the awesome books, miniatures and video games are still there, there just isn't any new being added.
You should keep your stuff, because if you sell it you are very likely to be going to regret it later

Fantasy.

Fantasy barely made any profit anymore for GW, which is what prompted GW to develop AoS. Space Marine Tacticals made GW more money than the entire Fantasy range.

 Arbitrator wrote:
They were willing to destroy an entire mainline game which included phasing out almost the entire model range if it meant they could get an excuse to make the kids buy into the Sigmarines.

Most of the model range is still there, actually. Though certainly a lot did get removed (including stuff I wanted )

 Arbitrator wrote:
For all people go "b-b-but this is different!" the fact remains that Games Workshop have ABSOLUTELY shown their willingness to eliminate great swathes of their product if they believe it will produce more profit.

They have been shown to be willing to remove unprofitable products. Not their most profitable line that is almost making them more money than everything else put together.

 Arbitrator wrote:
And what would produce more profit than making everybody rebuy their Space Marines?

That is not the way it works. People that already have Marine armies won't be buying a Primaris army just because they already have Marines. They will be buying a Primaris army because they like the new army, same with every other new army release by GW. And since the Space Marine ranges are the most profitable, what is going to make GW more profitss than having even more Space Marine armies?
Primaris are just going to be yet another Space Marine variety so that GW can sell even more stuff to the people that love Space Marines (99% of 40k fans )

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not entirely. There had been a unit in the IG codex called Storm Troopers. They never before existed as an entirely seperate army and organisation.

Wrong. They just switched books from Codex: Inquisition to Codex: Imperial Guard (I will not use GWs new BS name for them)

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


Now, I would be absolutely ecstatic if they pursued any of these narrative options with any sort of conviction, but I'm slightly skeptical if they will. Mainly due to target market. There are a whole lot of people out there who just want the bestest strongest purest peeps out there. People who will say things like 'yeah, well, my guys are stronger and more resistant to Chaos than your dudes'. These people have money. They will also get pretty butthurt if it turns out that their dudes aren't actually stronger and faster and don't afraid of anything. I'm wondering if there are more potential sales within the Wardian brigade than within the nuance brigade, and how much they're willing to drift away from what makes 40k feel different to other IPs chasing after mainstream appeal...

So because I happen to like the Primaris Marines, I'm automatically thrown in with the Wardian Brigade? That's not how things work. Secondly I don't think there is a much of a nuance to the original Astartes as you seem to think there is.

Of course that's not what I meant, and I don't believe I suggested that was the case.

My point is that the Primaris Marines appear to be marketed specifically towards the Wardian brigade. Just because you like them too doesn't tar you with the same childish brush. Actually, my specific point is that I don't believe they will give the Primaris Marines any form of narrative edge or nuance to them at all for fear of upsetting the Wardian brigade. That in itself is a bit of

I am curious as to what you like about them though. I don't specifically want to dislike them, I've just yet to find anything about their actual fluff compelling. I'm more than open to having my mind changed. Just a preface to that if you fancy helping me out with that, I've already had a discussion with another dakkanaut of the 'you need a bit of noblebright to contrast the grimdark' disposition, which I personally believe is bunk.

Edit: I just want to say that this is in no way a criticism of the writers. I think they tend to get a lot of flak for new fluff developments when they're probably beholden to a number of things, one of which is market forces. They've got to appeal to a ton of different potential customers, which inevitably means disappointing some people because it's fantastically difficult to write something that appeals to both the noblebright and grimdark brigade. As a staunch member of the grimdark brigade, I just hope they make something bad happen with the Primaris dudes. I'll feel a lot better if that happened oh, and make the Eldar stab the Imperium in the back while we're at it. They're malicious manipulative xenos and people might be mistaken for thinking they're allies...

People that have read the Dark Imperium book have been repeatedly saying that the Primaris showing up isn't a sudden Noblebright change to 40k, I would argue that the appearance of Primaris Marines never equated to that in the first place. It's always seemed like one last attempt to hold back the dark rather than a sudden "We're winning at everything, nothing more to worry about ever."

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not entirely. There had been a unit in the IG codex called Storm Troopers. They never before existed as an entirely seperate army and organisation.

Wrong. They just switched books from Codex: Inquisition to Codex: Imperial Guard (I will not use GWs new BS name for them)

Additionally, the split-off of Militarum Tempestus (the Latin-nized version of the old storm troopers) was just a gimmick to produce a new army without adding additional kits. It was the predecessor to the Skitarii/Ad Mech books, where GW realized they could continue to fracture armies and people would still buy the books (or at least they've come to the realization that doing this was alienating a lot of customers).

GodDamUser wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
Second was during the release of the Imperial knights. The feeling never really went away in either case tbh. I still hate knights. Mostly for their fluff not making any sense.

What is your issue with Knights fluff?

do note.. Imperial Knights have been around since Epic, they only recently made an appearance in 40k

Yeah I know. Back then I assumed they where part of the Titan legions. Turns out they weren't so I assumed it was just nobility mucking about (like the old Necromunda spire gangs). Turns out it's not but a sort of sovereign state that's been around in the Imperium since the Heresy. Not a part of any of the adeptus and not part of any Imperial organisations other then lose ties with the mechanicus and navy, operating on a kind of honor code. With a war machine that probably wouldn't be difficult to replicate, given that it's been found seperatly on hundreds of unrelated worlds. A machine that was originally a labour tool refitted as a war machine with the single quirk of having an insane pilot. Why would you not mass produce said machine and give it to the guards? Or to, you know, Space marines? The one organisation that has a machine for the exact purpose of putting a single individual into a war machine (the dreadnought). Re-fitt the sarcophogus to an Imperial knight couldn't possibly be an impossible task. There's no reason the lose ties to the mechanicus should make such a wide spread STC design monopolised by various noble families. Hell, they're even an exluscion from Imperial law, much like Space marines are. They just do less. With regular humans.

Sorry about the off topic rant. Knights just simply do not make sense to me. Given that they've been around approximately 15.000 years, are widespread around the Imperium and that there's virtually no reason not to use them (given their obvious effectivness) I just simply see them as a warmachine inspired poorly thought through model cash in.

Edit: why would you not give the original astartes legions knights? They are much older then the crusades and would have been usefull. Not that they needed it.

I just want to comment on the OP's take on AoS fluff; it is far from what you suggest. Stormcast are front and center, but then in 40k Marines are front and center so that wouldn't be a change. The old Empire (human) army is still around and very prominent in the fluff; they are as important as guard are in 40k. The writing quality recovered from it's initial one-dimension quickly and the current story has the level of nuance & interaction one would expect. In particular, the Stormcast don't always win. The last campaign book included three major Stormcast campaigns of which they lost two, and has sidenotes of others that they also lost.

 Nerak wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
Second was during the release of the Imperial knights. The feeling never really went away in either case tbh. I still hate knights. Mostly for their fluff not making any sense.

What is your issue with Knights fluff?

do note.. Imperial Knights have been around since Epic, they only recently made an appearance in 40k

Yeah I know. Back then I assumed they where part of the Titan legions. Turns out they weren't so I assumed it was just nobility mucking about (like the old Necromunda spire gangs). Turns out it's not but a sort of sovereign state that's been around in the Imperium since the Heresy. Not a part of any of the adeptus and not part of any Imperial organisations other then lose ties with the mechanicus and navy, operating on a kind of honor code. With a war machine that probably wouldn't be difficult to replicate, given that it's been found seperatly on hundreds of unrelated worlds. A machine that was originally a labour tool refitted as a war machine with the single quirk of having an insane pilot. Why would you not mass produce said machine and give it to the guards? Or to, you know, Space marines? The one organisation that has a machine for the exact purpose of putting a single individual into a war machine (the dreadnought). Re-fitt the sarcophogus to an Imperial knight couldn't possibly be an impossible task. There's no reason the lose ties to the mechanicus should make such a wide spread STC design monopolised by various noble families. Hell, they're even an exluscion from Imperial law, much like Space marines are. They just do less. With regular humans.

Sorry about the off topic rant. Knights just simply do not make sense to me. Given that they've been around approximately 15.000 years, are widespread around the Imperium and that there's virtually no reason not to use them (given their obvious effectivness) I just simply see them as a warmachine inspired poorly thought through model cash in.

Edit: why would you not give the original astartes legions knights? They are much older then the crusades and would have been usefull. Not that they needed it.

The same reason the Imperial Guard don't get Rhinos. The same reason only a few planets are permitted to build Baneblades despite it being an STC construct which could be produced by the entire Imperium if the AM would get their mechandrites out of their collective asses.

Because the Imperium of Man (and its subsidiary organizations) is a bureaucratic and feudal theocracy of fanatical luddites.

 argonak wrote:
Because the Imperium of Man (and its subsidiary organizations) is a bureaucratic and feudal theocracy of fanatical luddites.

pretty much that.

But the Knight households originated on Mars and many did colonise the stars as with much of humanity in the Period before the Dark Age of Technology

The Knights have always had close ties with the mechanicum, as they were originally the protectors of the Forges

 Nerak wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
Second was during the release of the Imperial knights. The feeling never really went away in either case tbh. I still hate knights. Mostly for their fluff not making any sense.

What is your issue with Knights fluff?

do note.. Imperial Knights have been around since Epic, they only recently made an appearance in 40k

Yeah I know. Back then I assumed they where part of the Titan legions. Turns out they weren't so I assumed it was just nobility mucking about (like the old Necromunda spire gangs). Turns out it's not but a sort of sovereign state that's been around in the Imperium since the Heresy. Not a part of any of the adeptus and not part of any Imperial organisations other then lose ties with the mechanicus and navy, operating on a kind of honor code. With a war machine that probably wouldn't be difficult to replicate, given that it's been found seperatly on hundreds of unrelated worlds. A machine that was originally a labour tool refitted as a war machine with the single quirk of having an insane pilot. Why would you not mass produce said machine and give it to the guards? Or to, you know, Space marines? The one organisation that has a machine for the exact purpose of putting a single individual into a war machine (the dreadnought). Re-fitt the sarcophogus to an Imperial knight couldn't possibly be an impossible task. There's no reason the lose ties to the mechanicus should make such a wide spread STC design monopolised by various noble families. Hell, they're even an exluscion from Imperial law, much like Space marines are. They just do less. With regular humans.

Sorry about the off topic rant. Knights just simply do not make sense to me. Given that they've been around approximately 15.000 years, are widespread around the Imperium and that there's virtually no reason not to use them (given their obvious effectivness) I just simply see them as a warmachine inspired poorly thought through model cash in.

Edit: why would you not give the original astartes legions knights? They are much older then the crusades and would have been usefull. Not that they needed it.

Same reason marines don't get their own titans... compartmentalization of power. The imperium is always afraid of giving any one armed force too much autonomy or ability to do multiple things, they rely on a checks and balance type system to prevent the HH from happening again. Same reason IG don't get interstellar space ships, or the Imlerial Navy don't get ground troops. It's so if any one group rebels they can only really do one thing well, and the combined other forces can destroy them.

This all just reminds me very much of the switchover from the beaky marines to ventilator grille (stormtrooper? Mk VII?) helmet way back in the day, along with the swap out of the old Land Raider and Rhino frame.

I just have the strong feeling that a year or two down the road, as GW introduces new Primaris kits we'll hit a point where the "regular" marine line will just be discontinued and the new Primaris will be the default standard marine from there on out.

I mean, it's not like the boxed set came with a mix of regular marine and Primaris marine. I see that as the beginnings of the standard marines on the way out.

I just hope they take the Centurions with them when they leave. (It's not the models themselves I have issues with, it that's they are essentially a replacement for Terminators, instead of fixing the issues with Terminators, at a ridiculous $$$ cost).

well at least 8th edition finally made terminators "not complete crap"

The reason no force isn't given more warmachines, like Space ships for instance, is because of what Horus did with it during the Heresy. During 30k ships, titans and so on where straight up part of the SM legions. Look at Pertubraro and the Iron warriors, he's frequently mentioned as being in direct command of Titans. This was bannad after the Heresy to ensure that no single Imperial organisation body would be able to wreck the havoc Horus did if they where to turn traitor. This does not explain however why there where seemingly no knights part of the original crusades.

What makes the knights unique is that they're crewed by a single individual. Like the dreadnoughts, but bigger, stronger and more versitile. I can see it not being given to the IG, since they're supposed to be kept as reasource effecient as possible, but surely the Astartes, Inquisition or deathwatch should have them available? Or the SoB, the one organisation with the reasources to field vast ammounts of power armoured Troops. Titans and super heavy veichles have big crews in them, which is a limiting factor for the Astartes, but the knights do not have that limitation.

Also if beuarocracy is what's holding it back then why wouldn't the Imperial knight nobles that do service in the Inquisition or the Imperial Guard have brought knights to theese organisations? I realise it's similar to "why doesn't the Imperial Guard use power armour" but that one I can understand. This one I can't.

Edit: Oh and the reason the IG doesn't get the rhino is because it's more expensive and more difficult to keep running. The Chimera and Russ (upon which chassis most tanks are based on) are both very easy to keep running through bad terrain and malfunctions with minimum knowledge of it's workings. How did the saying go... "A Leman russ can run on shoes and bad language" I think.

I thought Knights were irreplacable archaeotech. They can be fixed for the most part if they're wrecked in battle, but humanity doesn't have the capability to produce new ones.

May well be talking out of my backside with that one as I'm not overly familiar with the fluff, but even if it's headcanon that would sort out the issues with why they're not attached as support to other factions.

Either that, the Horus Heresy thing with the splitting of the armed forces, or perhaps they just don't suit the Astartes' method of combat.

As far as I can tell, the Astartes aren't for conventional warfare. They're shock troops that primarily assault via orbital drop in sudden, unexpected strikes at priority targets. Dreads work nicely as heavy support for this as you can fit one in a Drop Pod, and presumably smaller vehicles like the Rhino and Whirlwind are able to be airdropped too.

Now, again I'm unfamiliar with just how Knights get onto the battlefield, but I'm imagining they'll have to be dropped in a designated landing zone and then walk/be transported to the front. That's pretty much entirely at odds with the Astartes' role on the battlefield.

Why they're not suited to Astartes, they are probably well suited to the Guard. However, I doubt the Guard would get them for the same reason they don't get Bolters or even Carapace Armour for the most part. If a Lasgun and Flak Armour is already valued higher than the dude who's using them, you're not going to give him a 50ft tall mech suit.

Well first thing is that similarly to Titans knight pilots have to have a certaint degree of mental fortitude to control the machine spirits within their knights. That's something that the average guardsmen isn't up too.
Similarly The whole argument of wouldn't it be great for them to be given to marines or sisters is moot precisely because of what I mentioned before, separation of power and compartmentalization. Most of these Knight houses are not direct vassals like most humans but operate via an agreement like Marines or Mechanicum. Their power comes from a monopoly on Knights so why would they give that power away? Similarly, what would the Imperium want to give knight type systems to the guard regiments, or sisters, or marines vastly expanding their capabilities on the ground? If any of those units went rogue then the Loyalist would have to deal with those knights as well, butt he rebel knights will have infantry support as wel!

Better to keep the organizations safely separate so rebellious elements either don't have super heavy Support or don't have infantry support. Besides it's not like knights are as easy to make as a rhino, they are on par with baneblades in size and complexity and upkeep, which means they are already limited in production scope. Over all the feudal system of military support with which the knights operate is enough to provide the imperium with enough knight chassis for their military needs as is, and it's a system that has existed for more than 10,000 years, it's certainly not something that would change overnight.

Also the knights did exist in the HH time period, they have been seen in black library novels and also extensively in the HH series from FW.

agurus1 wrote:
Well first thing is that similarly to Titans knight pilots have to have a certaint degree of mental fortitude to control the machine spirits within their knights. That's something that the average guardsmen isn't up too.
Similarly The whole argument of wouldn't it be great for them to be given to marines or sisters is moot precisely because of what I mentioned before, separation of power and compartmentalization. Most of these Knight houses are not direct vassals like most humans but operate via an agreement like Marines or Mechanicum. Their power comes from a monopoly on Knights so why would they give that power away? Similarly, what would the Imperium want to give knight type systems to the guard regiments, or sisters, or marines vastly expanding their capabilities on the ground? If any of those units went rogue then the Loyalist would have to deal with those knights as well, butt he rebel knights will have infantry support as wel!

Better to keep the organizations safely separate so rebellious elements either don't have super heavy Support or don't have infantry support. Besides it's not like knights are as easy to make as a rhino, they are on par with baneblades in size and complexity and upkeep, which means they are already limited in production scope. Over all the feudal system of military support with which the knights operate is enough to provide the imperium with enough knight chassis for their military needs as is, and it's a system that has existed for more than 10,000 years, it's certainly not something that would change overnight.

Also the knights did exist in the HH time period, they have been seen in black library novels and also extensively in the HH series from FW.

All of those are solid points.

The only one i would query is the 'mental fortitude' thing. If the Knight Worlds with their comparatively small populations can produce enough pilots then the millions upon millions of worlds of the Guard can certainly produce enough.

Everything else still stands as good points though

Well I think the mental fortitude thing is possibly explained in the fluff as a genetic trait at this point as a by product of generations of the same family's operating those machines but I could be wrong. It could even be related to the machine spirit recognizing the distinct mental quirks of a particular family but that more head fluff for me lol

Edit: also as far as the millions and millions of worlds, even with all that only an iota of people are strong enough to control a battle Titan of the Mechanicum, maybe that iota plus another iota could man knight Titans then since they are smaller? But even then half of those are taken to titan training grounds to prove their metal, and the other half likely wallows in obscurity without being found lol.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

agurus1 wrote:
Well first thing is that similarly to Titans knight pilots have to have a certaint degree of mental fortitude to control the machine spirits within their knights. That's something that the average guardsmen isn't up too.
Similarly The whole argument of wouldn't it be great for them to be given to marines or sisters is moot precisely because of what I mentioned before, separation of power and compartmentalization. Most of these Knight houses are not direct vassals like most humans but operate via an agreement like Marines or Mechanicum. Their power comes from a monopoly on Knights so why would they give that power away? Similarly, what would the Imperium want to give knight type systems to the guard regiments, or sisters, or marines vastly expanding their capabilities on the ground? If any of those units went rogue then the Loyalist would have to deal with those knights as well, butt he rebel knights will have infantry support as wel!

Better to keep the organizations safely separate so rebellious elements either don't have super heavy Support or don't have infantry support. Besides it's not like knights are as easy to make as a rhino, they are on par with baneblades in size and complexity and upkeep, which means they are already limited in production scope. Over all the feudal system of military support with which the knights operate is enough to provide the imperium with enough knight chassis for their military needs as is, and it's a system that has existed for more than 10,000 years, it's certainly not something that would change overnight.

Also the knights did exist in the HH time period, they have been seen in black library novels and also extensively in the HH series from FW.

All of those are solid points.

The only one i would query is the 'mental fortitude' thing. If the Knight Worlds with their comparatively small populations can produce enough pilots then the millions upon millions of worlds of the Guard can certainly produce enough.

Everything else still stands as good points though

keep in mind given what we know about knights they seem to shape those whom pilot them into more their liking. hand a guard regiment a dozen knights and before you know it you'd likely have a new knightly order indistingiushable from the rest

GodDamUser wrote:

 argonak wrote:
Because the Imperium of Man (and its subsidiary organizations) is a bureaucratic and feudal theocracy of fanatical luddites.

pretty much that.

But the Knight households originated on Mars and many did colonise the stars as with much of humanity in the Period before the Dark Age of Technology

The Knights have always had close ties with the mechanicum, as they were originally the protectors of the Forges

Unless fluff has changed, the Knights were dark age colonies using a colony defense STC system that had a weird bug in the software that made the drivers act like protective feudal lords. These colonies were contacted by Mars during the pre-imperium days when they were sending out their colony ships. In exchange for assistance in repairing their Knights, the knight world's swore loyalty to Mars, and when Mars swore loyalty to the Emperor, became subsidiaries. Its why they were always in the Titan Legions.

edit: Just read the lexicanum, and it looks like it was retconned at some point. The Adeptus gave the knight world's the Knights. That's an odd retcon to make in my opinion, but ok.

edit2: Ok I actually find this annoying. If the mechanicum gave them the knights, why the hell isn't the mechanicum giving them to anyone else, or using them themselves? The luddite theocracy argument doesn't work since these things are literally coming from the forgeworlds right now.

 argonak wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 argonak wrote:
Because the Imperium of Man (and its subsidiary organizations) is a bureaucratic and feudal theocracy of fanatical luddites.

pretty much that.

But the Knight households originated on Mars and many did colonise the stars as with much of humanity in the Period before the Dark Age of Technology

The Knights have always had close ties with the mechanicum, as they were originally the protectors of the Forges

Unless fluff has changed, the Knights were dark age colonies using a colony defense STC system that had a weird bug in the software that made the drivers act like protective feudal lords. These colonies were contacted by Mars during the pre-imperium days when they were sending out their colony ships. In exchange for assistance in repairing their Knights, the knight world's swore loyalty to Mars, and when Mars swore loyalty to the Emperor, became subsidiaries. Its why they were always in the Titan Legions.

edit: Just read the lexicanum, and it looks like it was retconned at some point. The Adeptus gave the knight world's the Knights. That's an odd retcon to make in my opinion, but ok.

edit2: Ok I actually find this annoying. If the mechanicum gave them the knights, why the hell isn't the mechanicum giving them to anyone else, or using them themselves? The luddite theocracy argument doesn't work since these things are literally coming from the forgeworlds right now.

Oh man that is a stupid retcon. I'm with you now on the stupidness of Knight fluff. That makes no sense.

I'm just going to headcanon away the stupid and have them back to being DAoT fringe colonies using colony defence STCs. Not only does it just make more sense, but it's a more novel idea too and has more narrative potential.

I thought that the Knights were heavy civilian STC machinery for like clearing trees and stuff? Over time after Old Nignt fell, they had to fit them with offensive weaponry to protect their colonies and after that kinda evolved the feudal system we recognize today. Where's the fluff that the Mech gave them the knights?

agurus1 wrote:
I thought that the Knights were heavy civilian STC machinery for like clearing trees and stuff? Over time after Old Nignt fell, they had to fit them with offensive weaponry to protect their colonies and after that kinda evolved the feudal system we recognize today. Where's the fluff that the Mech gave them the knights?

It's on the lexicanum. It has an oblique mention of the retcon itself.

The most important innovation that the Tech-priests brought to the Knight Worlds were the fighting machines called Knights. These machines were one-man versions of a Titan, much smaller and less powerful than a real Titan, but far better suited to the mobile style of warfare prevalent amongst the nobility of the Knight Worlds.[Needs Citation]

When Knights were introduced in White Dwarf 126, they originated during the Dark Age of Technology from agricultural worlds whose human inhabitants had copied farming techniques learned from Eldar Exodites already present on them. The humans began utilising combat walkers invented by the Eldar and referred to them as "Knights". In a period referred to by the Exodites as The Coming of Men, the xenos and the human colonists clashed in a number of bloody conflicts as the Eldar Knights sought to protect their homes from the colonists.[3]

When these planets were cut off in the Age of Strife a warrior aristocracy rose to prominence amongst its human populations, mimicking the lifestyle of the Eldar Clans. These planets were rediscovered by Rogue Trader Jeffers and brought into the newborn Imperium of Man. Most often Knight Worlds became affiliated with a particular Titan Forge World, supplying it with food and raw materials, whilst its Sacristans would fall under the control of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Other Knight Worlds were left with a large degree of autonomy, required only to produce food and obey the call to arms when it was given.[3]

You're right about the agriculture thing, although i feel like there was an intermediate retcon somewhere too, because I swear there was something about a software bug making them act like feudal lords.

Oh well. I still love silly battlemechs so I can get over it.

the 7th edition IK codex states that Knight world had knights already. the Lexnicum bit of fluff might be old and out of date lore.

BrianDavion wrote:
the 7th edition IK codex states that Knight world had knights already. the Lexnicum bit of fluff might be old and out of date lore.

This. The 7th ed codex lines up with:

 argonak wrote:
the Knights were dark age colonies using a colony defense STC system that had a weird bug in the software that made the drivers act like protective feudal lords.

Then when the Emperor did his grand crusade whatnot to reunite humanity the Knight worlds were incorporated into the fold. Some of them ended up swearing fealty to Mars in exchange for tech assistance. Though I will say it is stated that the behavior-altering properties of the Knight technology may be a bug or may be an intentional inclusion to predispose them against being corrupted or turning renegade.

Thanks guys, I just dug up my copy and you are right on. It's on page 10. That must have been where I was initially remembering. Nice since that's the fluff I prefer anyway.

this is the problem with some of the various 40k wikis out there. there's a lot of old retconned material that they sometimes try to kludge in anyway

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
the 7th edition IK codex states that Knight world had knights already. the Lexnicum bit of fluff might be old and out of date lore.

This. The 7th ed codex lines up with:

 argonak wrote:
the Knights were dark age colonies using a colony defense STC system that had a weird bug in the software that made the drivers act like protective feudal lords.

Then when the Emperor did his grand crusade whatnot to reunite humanity the Knight worlds were incorporated into the fold. Some of them ended up swearing fealty to Mars in exchange for tech assistance. Though I will say it is stated that the behavior-altering properties of the Knight technology may be a bug or may be an intentional inclusion to predispose them against being corrupted or turning renegade.

Ah good. That's much more believable to me

Also, great job on the software glitch anti-chaos predisposition. Whoever did that piece of work (in-universe) deserves a pat on the back. Worked like a charm...

The sole reason the new fluff was written was to sell new models to players. Was this the new "faction" they teased? I don't think I'll ever truly accept Primaris marines in the lore because it shatters the immersion for me. I know that they've only been added in the lore to sell a new product in the real world. They could have "advanced the story" in such better ways but didn't solely because they want to sell the Primaris models. Don't get me wrong, the models look fething amazing. I'm just getting back into the hobby and I'll be using them as Crimson Fists sternguard, heavily converted of course. But never as Primaris, even tho the CF could use reinforcements. They didn't pass the initiation trials of the chapter, they weren't bleeding in New Rynn City, and the fact that the fething Ultramarines (who were in closest proximity during the WAAGH) are shipping them over when they themselves didn't come to the CF's aid makes me not want to use these new models as "Primaris", at all.

They should have just told the truth.
"We've made better looking Space Marine models, and won't be making any more of the old ones, ever. We know you can't un-see the size difference and will, eventually, revamp your entire army."
No need to make a mockery of the lore.

Does anyone else feel like Crawl is hugely over performing, similar to Horus during the Crusade?

I can't be the only one who sees this? He is achieving the impossible. Is this due to bad writing, or is he being set up for a fall?

nareik wrote:
Does anyone else feel like Crawl is hugely over performing, similar to Horus during the Crusade?

I can't be the only one who sees this? He is achieving the impossible. Is this due to bad writing, or is he being set up for a fall?

He'll turn to Chaos, and the new army faction they teased will be Dark Mechanicus (unless they meant "Primaris" was the new faction, in which case DERP.) GW will then make primaris-size Chaos kits, plus create new rules for Dark Mechanicus (which will simply use Cult/Skitarii models with different paint schemes, ala Renegades.)

Calling it now.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
Plus, I had read/heard somewhere (anecdotally as well) about British copyright laws not protecting an "image" after 30 years, which is how old Space Marines are as an aesthetic at that scale. So it might be possible that the Primaris Marines are just different enough in shape/style/image to renew that copyright protection. If that is the case, then these massive aesthetic shakeups make perfect sense from a business perspective - you can't have other people copying and selling your product.

Just because I don't want to see false information take hold, this is unambiguously not true. Whatever you read was completely wrong.

Copyright protection in the UK lasts for fifty or seventy (depending on the type of work) years after the end of the year in which the author dies (and in a joint work, the last living author). It's questionable if a general artistic "idea" of space marines is copyrightable at all under UK law, but any individual instances of a work involving Space Marines which are will not have any risk to their copyright expiring for many, many decades yet.

Design rights cover a shorter period, and might be relevant, but they only last ten years from the first sale (or fifteen years from creation, whichever is shortest) so they're not relevant either.

Well, the storm cast eternals have been pretty successful from the looks of it (from a profit standpoint). So, I guess they wanted to introduce a whole range of new "must have" models for the SM players. Considering the sure amount of SM players out there, if all of them even replaces half of their army with the new models, it would be a huge win for GW.

I think what bugs me about new fluff is it's not terribly origional, even by GW standards.

"We'll move the story along by having Chaos win, right, and it'll all 'Noooo, this is terrible!' and we'll be all, 'but hold on, there's still hope, that guy whose in the backstory prepared for this and he's got these new guys in even cooler armour who you can buy for £40 for five come in and save the day!'

They basically just did age of Sigmar again, and I was annoyed enough about that the first time. Grimgor Ironhide headbutter Archaon until his face imploded and we all know it, GW. Just because you sued someone who was ready for you...

I think what bugs me most, though, is that after 10,000 years of tinkering with the Gene Seed they apparently didn't take out the 'Ewww, girls are icky' gene. I mean, seriously, you'd think that would be a priority more than 'Make them a little taller, it'll really scare those Traitor marines'. I know the Primaris have a few other advantages...but you'd think being able to create twice as many Marines would be more of one.

 Jon Garrett wrote:
I think what bugs me about new fluff is it's not terribly origional, even by GW standards.

"We'll move the story along by having Chaos win, right, and it'll all 'Noooo, this is terrible!' and we'll be all, 'but hold on, there's still hope, that guy whose in the backstory prepared for this and he's got these new guys in even cooler armour who you can buy for £40 for five come in and save the day!'

They basically just did age of Sigmar again, and I was annoyed enough about that the first time. Grimgor Ironhide headbutter Archaon until his face imploded and we all know it, GW. Just because you sued someone who was ready for you...

I think what bugs me most, though, is that after 10,000 years of tinkering with the Gene Seed they apparently didn't take out the 'Ewww, girls are icky' gene. I mean, seriously, you'd think that would be a priority more than 'Make them a little taller, it'll really scare those Traitor marines'. I know the Primaris have a few other advantages...but you'd think being able to create twice as many Marines would be more of one.

Marine creation isn't limited by candidates, its limited by geneseed. There's more than enough candidates in the Imperium. Opening it up to females would give no benefit. Not that I would have anything against it if they did. It is science fiction after all.

I feel your pain man. But I say keep your collection, and use them to relive the days of your childhood. I'm collecting various retro armies specifically for that purpose.

 argonak wrote:


Marine creation isn't limited by candidates, its limited by geneseed. There's more than enough candidates in the Imperium. Opening it up to females would give no benefit. Not that I would have anything against it if they did. It is science fiction after all.

I know that was true of the old Marines - although obviously with more potential candidates, even more rigorous standards could be held, limiting the number of failures and turned to Chaos further - but I'm not as familiar with the fluff about the new ones. I know canidates were important - Chapters get really shirty about loosing the worlds they recruit from for a reason - but Gene Seed issues were the bigger problem. However, I was under the impression that they were able to make more Primaris Gene-Seed far faster than the old Marine ones. I could be wrong about that, though.

Still, it feels like a missed opportunity to modernize the game and start making it so those pictures of Hobby stores don't include eight smiling dudes. Since the old excuse for no female marines was 'Oh, we can't tinker with the Gene-Seed or alter it and, shucks, it only works on guys right now...' that excuse is gone. We know it's been tinkered with again. There's a whole model line dedicated to it.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 argonak wrote:


Marine creation isn't limited by candidates, its limited by geneseed. There's more than enough candidates in the Imperium. Opening it up to females would give no benefit. Not that I would have anything against it if they did. It is science fiction after all.

I know that was true of the old Marines - although obviously with more potential candidates, even more rigorous standards could be held, limiting the number of failures and turned to Chaos further - but I'm not as familiar with the fluff about the new ones. I know canidates were important - Chapters get really shirty about loosing the worlds they recruit from for a reason - but Gene Seed issues were the bigger problem. However, I was under the impression that they were able to make more Primaris Gene-Seed far faster than the old Marine ones. I could be wrong about that, though.

Still, it feels like a missed opportunity to modernize the game and start making it so those pictures of Hobby stores don't include eight smiling dudes. Since the old excuse for no female marines was 'Oh, we can't tinker with the Gene-Seed or alter it and, shucks, it only works on guys right now...' that excuse is gone. We know it's been tinkered with again. There's a whole model line dedicated to it.

the most recent pictures are useally a guy and a girl playing, the gender of the little plastic soldiers is pretty meaningless.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 argonak wrote:


Marine creation isn't limited by candidates, its limited by geneseed. There's more than enough candidates in the Imperium. Opening it up to females would give no benefit. Not that I would have anything against it if they did. It is science fiction after all.

I know that was true of the old Marines - although obviously with more potential candidates, even more rigorous standards could be held, limiting the number of failures and turned to Chaos further - but I'm not as familiar with the fluff about the new ones. I know canidates were important - Chapters get really shirty about loosing the worlds they recruit from for a reason - but Gene Seed issues were the bigger problem. However, I was under the impression that they were able to make more Primaris Gene-Seed far faster than the old Marine ones. I could be wrong about that, though.

Still, it feels like a missed opportunity to modernize the game and start making it so those pictures of Hobby stores don't include eight smiling dudes. Since the old excuse for no female marines was 'Oh, we can't tinker with the Gene-Seed or alter it and, shucks, it only works on guys right now...' that excuse is gone. We know it's been tinkered with again. There's a whole model line dedicated to it.

the most recent pictures are useally a guy and a girl playing, the gender of the little plastic soldiers is pretty meaningless.

llloooooooll false equivalency much?

 44Ronin wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 argonak wrote:


Marine creation isn't limited by candidates, its limited by geneseed. There's more than enough candidates in the Imperium. Opening it up to females would give no benefit. Not that I would have anything against it if they did. It is science fiction after all.

I know that was true of the old Marines - although obviously with more potential candidates, even more rigorous standards could be held, limiting the number of failures and turned to Chaos further - but I'm not as familiar with the fluff about the new ones. I know canidates were important - Chapters get really shirty about loosing the worlds they recruit from for a reason - but Gene Seed issues were the bigger problem. However, I was under the impression that they were able to make more Primaris Gene-Seed far faster than the old Marine ones. I could be wrong about that, though.

Still, it feels like a missed opportunity to modernize the game and start making it so those pictures of Hobby stores don't include eight smiling dudes. Since the old excuse for no female marines was 'Oh, we can't tinker with the Gene-Seed or alter it and, shucks, it only works on guys right now...' that excuse is gone. We know it's been tinkered with again. There's a whole model line dedicated to it.

the most recent pictures are useally a guy and a girl playing, the gender of the little plastic soldiers is pretty meaningless.

llloooooooll false equivalency much?

I was refering specificly to your "pictures of hobby stores" bit.

Identity politics can GTFO

Retcon years of fluff for what>? Shallow gender representation?

 44Ronin wrote:
Identity politics can GTFO

Retcon years of fluff for what>? Shallow gender representation?

As opposed to the noble reasoning of simply selling more models?

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

I'm not suggesting regular Marines can be girls. It has been well established that regular Marines implode from lethal cooties, and cannot be given shots for it. But the Primaris...well, they're bigger, better, improved. They've been modified from those Marines that start melting when you say 'menstruation'.

If nothing else it would be nice to make them distinct, instead of 'Space Marine Xtreme - So 90's Vanilla Ice Sued Us!' which seems to have been the main design document for their creation.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Identity politics can GTFO

Retcon years of fluff for what>? Shallow gender representation?

As opposed to the noble reasoning of simply selling more models?

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

I'm not suggesting regular Marines can be girls. It has been well established that regular Marines implode from lethal cooties, and cannot be given shots for it. But the Primaris...well, they're bigger, better, improved. They've been modified from those Marines that start melting when you say 'menstruation'.

If nothing else it would be nice to make them distinct, instead of 'Space Marine Xtreme - So 90's Vanilla Ice Sued Us!' which seems to have been the main design document for their creation.

except part of the faction feel is they they're all men, and that it's a brotherhood etc. adding females to it would dillute it, do I think 40K needs increased female representation? yes, but making space marines eqla gender "CAUSE IT'S 2015!"isn't the answer, the ANSWER IMHO is to give sisters of battle near equal billing.

 Nerak wrote:
The reason no force isn't given more warmachines, like Space ships for instance, is because of what Horus did with it during the Heresy. During 30k ships, titans and so on where straight up part of the SM legions. Look at Pertubraro and the Iron warriors, he's frequently mentioned as being in direct command of Titans. This was bannad after the Heresy to ensure that no single Imperial organisation body would be able to wreck the havoc Horus did if they where to turn traitor. This does not explain however why there where seemingly no knights part of the original crusades.

What makes the knights unique is that they're crewed by a single individual. Like the dreadnoughts, but bigger, stronger and more versitile. I can see it not being given to the IG, since they're supposed to be kept as reasource effecient as possible, but surely the Astartes, Inquisition or deathwatch should have them available? Or the SoB, the one organisation with the reasources to field vast ammounts of power armoured Troops. Titans and super heavy veichles have big crews in them, which is a limiting factor for the Astartes, but the knights do not have that limitation.

Also if beuarocracy is what's holding it back then why wouldn't the Imperial knight nobles that do service in the Inquisition or the Imperial Guard have brought knights to theese organisations? I realise it's similar to "why doesn't the Imperial Guard use power armour" but that one I can understand. This one I can't.

Edit: Oh and the reason the IG doesn't get the rhino is because it's more expensive and more difficult to keep running. The Chimera and Russ (upon which chassis most tanks are based on) are both very easy to keep running through bad terrain and malfunctions with minimum knowledge of it's workings. How did the saying go... "A Leman russ can run on shoes and bad language" I think.

Actually, the Rhino is a very simple vehicle, capable of being built and maintained by any planet with a half-assed amount of industrial capability if they have the STC. Like the Leman Russ, the Rhino can be made out of commonly available materials and run on any combustible fuel. The only thing that is arguably more advanced than common Guard vehicle kit is the powerplant, and even the Guard has vehicles powered by adaptive thermic combustion reactors.


Rhinos are said to be even easier to maintain and repair than most Imperial Guard vehicles, such as the Chimera, which is tactically superior to the Rhino (Infantry fighting vehicle with better armor and firepower, over a simple, bog-standard "battle taxi" APC).


The only reason for the "exclusivity" fluff is because GW wanted to sell more high-priced models. The Rhino would make sense for the Guard. Hell, they would make sense for local PDFs, since they offer more mileage for the buck (so to speak). The change to exclusivity by GW with the Land Raider was for the same reasons. It's just the fluff reasoning made a bit more sense.

I'm in the same boat OP. Its not just the Primaris marines, its the writing.

I can overlook small details & mistakes but when the new writing is so unbelievably ridiculous at times, it makes it very difficult to immerse myself in the setting & I find myself reverting back to the setting when all the silliness wasn't present. Yeah, there have been trainwreck additions to the lore for many years (example Tau lore) but some of the new writing just makes me facepalm.

Take the Fall of Cadia for example. We are to believe the 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had less than a billion defenders. Let that sink in. The 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had 1/7th the defending population as present day Earth in a setting where human body count is measured in trillions if not exceeding trillions. How about Guilliman being present in almost every single conflict currently going on in the galaxy atm. Logistically, its impossible. Unless he is using the webway to travel, its impossible. He is one man (Primarch). He cannot & should not be in every conflict. This is like Marvel comics level of stupid.

How about the focus on astartes at the expense of the entire setting? The 40k universe is massive. Composed of infinite life, endless conflict, numerous armies, political infighting etc. Almost all of which is never discussed outside of the novels. Why are space marines amazing? They are genetically enhanced super mutants that surpass human potential. Ok. That has absolutely no significance when the human experience is never written about. Again, another Fall of Cadia example. What should have been Cadian's finest hour turned into d*ck measuring contest. Every time Cadians did something significant, it was one upped by a space marine chapter. Whenever the SoB did something significant, it was one upped by another space marine chapter.

How did Dante & the Blood Angels survive the Tyranid fleet? Ka'Bandha came & saved the day? That is some Saturday morning cartoon level of stupid.

I just want GW to slow down & start taking the lore seriously. Put the spotlight on some of the other armies. What are the orks up to? What is it like to live in a hive city plagued by genestealers? Talk about supply lines, ration planning, contagion prevention, docking disputes, manufacturing processes, exports/imports, tariffs, tithes etc. These were things that used to be discussed on occasion & now they are seemingly absent entirely. The setting is slowing moving away from a grim dark sci-fi setting to a sci-fi drama of personalities. The whole "Saint Celestine sheds a tear for Guilliman" garbage needs to stop.

keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Identity politics can GTFO

Retcon years of fluff for what>? Shallow gender representation?

As opposed to the noble reasoning of simply selling more models?

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

I'm not suggesting regular Marines can be girls. It has been well established that regular Marines implode from lethal cooties, and cannot be given shots for it. But the Primaris...well, they're bigger, better, improved. They've been modified from those Marines that start melting when you say 'menstruation'.

If nothing else it would be nice to make them distinct, instead of 'Space Marine Xtreme - So 90's Vanilla Ice Sued Us!' which seems to have been the main design document for their creation.

Personally I hope that problem will be solved once they release plastic SoB that actually are Female Space Marines. No women in Space Marines is one of the dumbest parts of 40K fluff for me, but oh well, the roots of the game lie in the British 80's, so it's no surprise. Also, if they'd taken the opportunity to allow "Primaris Women" that'd have been the one good aspect of Primaris. Right now I'm not really seeing what they're getting at. I had hoped the rift actually splits the imperium also concerning dogma, so you have one side following the fanatical regime of terra and another more reasonable side following Guilliman. That obviousely didn't happen, everybody seemingly accepted Guilliman and heretical Cawl right away throwing out 8000year old Dogmas. It's as if Breshnev would rule over a capitalist-reformed USSR. I really hope for a coup attempt against Guilliman, led by some SoB, council of Terra and the Inquisition.
What I like about the new fluff is that Chaos has actually won. Abbis crusade was successful. Unfortunately we don't get to know the details, but maybe Black Library will expand on it. I hope we'll see renegade primaris in the future (in the fluff) and Fabious Biles super-Chaos Marines on the tabletop (he had that idea first after all).

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

I still pretend that fluff wise, it is still 3rd edition. Pretty much ignored the fluff from then on since what bits of it I read is generally nonsensical bolter porn garbage, with a splash of "other than Space Marine". For how few Marines there is in comparison to everything else in the 40k universe, it gets tiring only ever hearing about them.

 Commissar Benny wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

many of those questions where addressed in a varity of codices etcwe've basicly spent the last 15 years with the battle of cadia being "on going"

 Commissar Benny wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

I believe that the Blood Angels one is actually been answered already.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

given we don't know why standard space marines are "males only" we can't suply a reason on why Primaris ones could or couldn't break that rule. the info is incomplete

BrianDavion wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

given we don't know why standard space marines are "males only" we can't suply a reason on why Primaris ones could or couldn't break that rule. the info is incomplete

The reason is pretty damn clear in the fluff if you ever bothered to read it

Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

 nerdfest09 wrote:
Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

This. Although, they have given us GS Cults and Ad Mech which are both pretty much pitch-perfect.

I'm happy with the release of asinine models/fluff for a younger audience, so long as they throw out some kickass grimdark gribblies as well.

 nerdfest09 wrote:
Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

This which is really funny because i was reading and article from a guy who was making some very good points about how this is an awful awful marketing strategy. Some of his points were, younger kids want to play video games, parents dont want kids to have messy toys, the price vs entertainment time for a kid (under 18) is not worth it generally. The guy basically made points that the only people that really buy GW are the older generation who grew up as modelers and hobbyists, and thats who it should be marketed toward since they are the ones spending the money.

On the subject of OP, im really not a fan of the new fluff in any fashion, the whole aesthetics of 8th is really off putting. Nu-marines are the biggest shark jump in the lore i have seen in a while, the amount of tech and super secret squirrel research that cawl managed to do with out no one noticing is ridiculous. The ultramarines got even MORE marry sue, idk how. The entire dark imperium thing is super forced, anyone with half a brain can see that old space marines are going to be getting phased out and their story is effectively done. Meaning anyone who had/has or does not like the primaras marines is about to know what it feels like to be an empire player with AoS launched. So far the only thing out of this edition that looks good thus far are the new bolter primaras marines, their armor is pretty damn nice, and i like the true scale.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

Perhaps while we're at it we can get rid of the God Emperor, and have a secular elected president of the Imperium, I mean, after all a divine god emperor is hardly in keeping with modern sensabilities too! sure it'd absolutely, and arbitrarily change the setting, but so would female space marines. Space Marines core concept is a monastic warrior brotherhood. female space marines would dillute that concept. I'm not arguing against greater gender representation in 40k, If they brought out a new guard pack that included female guardsman minis I'd buy a pack just to show my support. if Sisters ever get a plastic line, I'm getting a new army. BUT, I don't think there is much to be gained by suddenly saying "female space marines are a thing now" and a LOT that would actually be LOST. 40ks a pretty gak universe to live in, if you try to push modern sensabilities into it you lose the point. As I said, do that and suddenly you have the "perfectly secular republic of mankind"

I'm not the one whose made the arbitrary change - Games Workshop is. I'm simply pointing out an option that makes sense. It's not like the idea of female Space Marines hasn't been floating around for nearly as long...and I'm not putting in modern day ideology into the 40k world. There are plenty of female fighters in the fluff. Just not on the table top.

Now, if Games Workshop were to actually support Sisters and include female models for other forces, it might be a little different. But they don't, and apparently won't.

I won't bother getting into the importance of diverse representation in media and such because frankly I doubt anyone here would care.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

It would be more in line with how 40k has always been to say that they take those top ten Female Candidates and have them breed with the top ten Male Candidates prior to undergoing or completing the implantation, for futher Aspirants and genetic materials. Then continuing to harvest the top 10 of both sexes from the homeworld or recruiting world and breeding them to keep the lines fresh. Any offspring (of both sexes) that dont hold up to the standard are killed or put through some sort of Storm Trooper training to serve as an Auxiliary Force.

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

I don't know, the part of the text you've quoted is a solid in-universe reason to include women in the pool for Marines (and especially Primaris) recruitment. Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it? It's certainly not about any notion of 'protecting your womenfolk' seeing as in terms of gender and race the Imperium's actually somewhat of a utopia (although twisted to the point that every human life is equally worthless, because grimdark).

Also, the genetics thing flat-out doesn't stand up when you're talking about a society and process that specifically involves rewriting genetic code in order to produce their soldiers (or, at the very least, implanting biologically engineered organs which provide a similar effect).

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

Simply put, Jon Garrett's entirely sensible in-universe explanation of why it would be beneficial to increase the recruiting pool for Primaris Marines effectively says no to you non-argument based on present-day genetics when we know that genetic engineering is pretty commonplace in the 41st millennium.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it?.

Going back to what 44Ronin said, because there is effectively no limitation to the pool of potential recruits.

The number of chapters is limited to how many there are and how many more the High Lords are willing to found. So around 1000 at the end of the 41st millennium.

The number of Marines per chapter is limited, to around 1000.

The number of geneseed that can be harvested is limited, and in a healthy chapter exceeds demand because of the limit to how many Marines a chapter may have.

The number of potential candidates is, given the human population of the Imperium, effectively infinite compared to demand. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by expanding that pool.

 Geifer wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it?.

Going back to what 44Ronin said, because there is effectively no limitation to the pool of potential recruits.

The number of chapters is limited to how many there are and how many more the High Lords are willing to found. So around 1000 at the end of the 41st millennium.

The number of Marines per chapter is limited, to around 1000.

The number of geneseed that can be harvested is limited, and in a healthy chapter exceeds demand because of the limit to how many Marines a chapter may have.

The number of potential candidates is, given the human population of the Imperium, effectively infinite compared to demand. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by expanding that pool.

If you take the official figures for the quantity of Marines to be accurate then I get your argument. Each Hive has a population of billions. The potential recruiting pool is not an issue.

However, simply because the population of each hive is 10-100 billion, having 1000 chapters of 1000 Marines would be utterly inconsequential on even a planetary scale no matter how post-human Marines are. It's really difficult to conceptualise properly big numbers, but if each hive has at minimum 10,000,000,000 people, 1000 supersoldiers would be killed even if the population was armed with nothing but rubber ducks and attitude, simply by weighing 900 times the weight of the great pyramids at Giza (based on 60k for an average weight of a person).

If most worlds have more than one hive, and the Imperium has well in excess of a million worlds (a significant proportion of which are Hive Worlds which are basically one single planet-scale hive), you can begin to understand why 1,000,000 Marines is just a stupid number.

That, however, is a different issue entirely. 'Sci-fi writers don't understand scale'. I suppose it's about looking at things critically, and deciding on a more realistic number given that we're given the freedom to dismiss official fluff as 'propaganda and/or ignorance' as we see fit.

Now, by that same token, I suppose I'm not quite grasping the scale difference between Marines and the rest of humanity even when accounting for a vastly increased number of Marines. Perhaps even with that it's still not really an issue. Could be an issue locally though, if Marines are trapped somewhere with a limited population. Happens quite frequently when they're cut off by warp storms and what have you.

Yeah, but what can you do? You can take the numbers at face value and have something concrete to work with, or apply critical thinking (which I don't dismiss, mind - even if it may seem so) and take everything as narrated with limited perspective, possibly including faction agenda. Where do realistic, corrected numbers stop and simple speculation start?

While "sci-fi writers not grasping numbers" is a thing, I don't think Marines are a problematic example of this, if it's an example at all. The idea behind 40k was a slow decline of the Imperium over an immense time span. 10,000 years is a really long time. Historically we haven't waged constant total war for more than a couple of years. The idea that there are so few Marines, the dedicated super badasses of the setting. that they are only able to slow the Imperiums demise is, as far as I'm concerned, a pretty clever device. You get these wonderful super soldiers that can do basically anything they set out to do, but there simply aren't enough of them to turn the tide. And the best part of it? It's not because of technical limitations but simply stupid doctrine.

Which, if you'll allow a jab at modern 40k background, is a massive contributor to why I the 40k background is dead to me. It's completely shifted to super hero comic fiction. Ro'bout'é pops up, reorganizes the Imperium, tells Cawl to pull new armies out of his ass, and off we go on a second Great Crusade. Nobody bats an eye. Nobody has their own agenda. Nobody suffers from ego or inefficiency. Characteristic behavior of an Imperial faction getting in the way? Welcome to Retconville where there is only happiness and compliance! Alright, I'm going to stop now.

Anyway, the only way that the Imperium can be realistically portrayed as losing the fight is if for all its might, it cannot spare the manpower or strategic vision to go on the offense and its super elite Marines get relegated to the role of fire fighters that put out the biggest fires before moving on to the next war zone without ever resolving anything.

I think it's a good contrast to have, the impossibly large number of humans versus the clearly inferior number of Marines. Even if you question the exact numbers, you can see the idea behind it.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

I don't know, the part of the text you've quoted is a solid in-universe reason to include women in the pool for Marines (and especially Primaris) recruitment. Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it? It's certainly not about any notion of 'protecting your womenfolk' seeing as in terms of gender and race the Imperium's actually somewhat of a utopia (although twisted to the point that every human life is equally worthless, because grimdark).

Also, the genetics thing flat-out doesn't stand up when you're talking about a society and process that specifically involves rewriting genetic code in order to produce their soldiers (or, at the very least, implanting biologically engineered organs which provide a similar effect).

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

Simply put, Jon Garrett's entirely sensible in-universe explanation of why it would be beneficial to increase the recruiting pool for Primaris Marines effectively says no to you non-argument based on present-day genetics when we know that genetic engineering is pretty commonplace in the 41st millennium.

You have a very low grasp of the fluff.
Space marines aren't made into superhumans overnight.It takes years, and most die along the way.

The 'pool' is irrelevant, the resources put into their creation are more costly and finite than the human stock 'pools'.

And when you have limited resources (time, gene-seed) why would you logically attempt to create space marines from a gender that has an even lower chance of surviving to become a fully fledged space marine? It just makes ZERO sense to use a pool that will end up with a higher number of failures. That is just poor, pointless unjustifiable economics of production.

Even then we are ignoring the underlying issue that the gene-seed is incompatible with females, and also ignoring that the guy who created the space marines is a living corpse who can't explain to people how to make a female version..

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

WRONG! the fluff is littered with examples of selective choices in aspirants leading to preferred outcomes within the final output of space marines. That's why barbaric worlds, hive worlds and thus are ideal choices for recruitment.

You need to be tough to SURVIVE to finish your transformation.

Anyway, there's no need to insert the SJW agenda into the game. The space marines are a greco-roman influence

Yeah I'm with you on the shoddyness of the change in narrative from 'death by a thousand cuts' to 'superhero action funtime'. That was hamfisted and a little jarring. I'd have liked to see a similar thing to how they handled the Ynnari thing. I definitely feared that we'd end up with one big eldar superfriends faction, but they actually ended up being more fractured than they were before.

This should have happened to the Imperium. It should have caused massive schisms all across the whole thing as all of the various different powers that be started to swing their weight around. Instead, everything seems to have gone swimmingly. That's alleviated somewhat in 'Dark Imperium', but it still feels like they've got away scott-free,

I definitely like the idea that Marines would be enough to halt the decline of the Imperium, but there's just too few of them. However, 1,000,000 Marines (maximum, mind you) is still too little for that to be the case. I get that there's a point where we leave critical thinking behind in a science fantasy setting (although I'm of the opinion that the more the better), but a million Marines is so far behind that line as to not even be worth considering.

To attempt to put it into perspective, during the pre-battle bombardment of the Battle of the Somme the allies fired 1,700,000 shells. That's the opening bombardment of one battle, between a handful of nations, on one planet, with a population at the time of less than a single hive in the Imperium. The battle itself resulted in 623,907 allied casualties.

The point being that in a total-war situation between two equivalent-technology forces (which is the case of Allies vs Axis, or Marines vs Chaos/Eldar/Necrons/Tau/'nids) between a handful of nations, on a puny world with a population that didn't even rival a single Imperial Hive, well over half of the entire galactic population of Space Marines were casualties.

One battle. In one war. On one planet.

The Imperium has millions of planets, a significant proportion of which are in a total-war situation against which both world wars combined would pale.

If there were two battles of similar intensity, the entire galactic population of Space Marines would be extinct. So, either the sum total of warfare in the entirely of the 41st century Imperium is less than 2x the intensity of the Battle of the Somme, or there are many, many, many, many more Marines than are officially reported. Of those two options, I feel that 'the Imperial bureaucracy has no idea how many Marines it has' is the more believable situation.

Sorry if I went a bit strong with that :S I just find it's a little tricky to get the point across about 1,000,000 Marines being insignificant to the point of not even being worth mentioning in a galactic war situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 44Ronin wrote:


You have a very low grasp of the fluff.
Space marines aren't made into superhumans overnight.It takes years, and most die along the way.

The 'pool' is irrelevant, the resources put into their creation are more costly and finite than the human stock 'pools'.

And when you have limited resources (time, gene-seed) why would you logically attempt to create space marines from a gender that has an even lower chance of surviving to become a fully fledged space marine? It just makes ZERO sense to use a pool that will end up with a higher number of failures. That is just poor, pointless unjustifiable economics of production.

Even then we are ignoring the underlying issue that the gene-seed is incompatible with females, and also ignoring that the guy who created the space marines is a living corpse who can't explain to people how to make a female version..

Although I do agree with your argument that quantity of applicants isn't really an issue that required fixing, I'd like you to read some of my other ~2600 posts on here before you go making baseless accusations regarding my knowledge of the fluff. Not to say that quantity of posts is the quantum by which that's measured, but it might provide some understanding of how baseless that statement is.

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

WRONG! the fluff is littered with examples of selective choices in aspirants leading to preferred outcomes within the final output of space marines. That's why barbaric worlds, hive worlds and thus are ideal choices for recruitment.

You need to be tough to SURVIVE to finish your transformation.

Anyway, there's no need to insert the SJW agenda into the game. The space marines are a greco-roman influence

That's not the same thing, is it?

You need to be tough to survive the process =/= your previous strength is directly related to your biologically modified strength.

Find me an example where it suggests bigger stronger people become bigger stronger marines.

Also, what you point out here specifically counteracts your argument that 'the pool is irrelevant'. If Marines search high and lo for worlds with populations who are capable of surviving implantation, the potential 'pool' of applicants is a lot smaller than you suggest. If that is the case (and it is), there is definite economic and logistical benefit to increasing the potential pool of recruits.

Ignoring all political arguments, this is not a possibility with Astartes as the fluff states (why this one bit of fluff is sacrosant while others are freely bent or broken is another argument). However, it is specifically not an issue with Primaris. Cawl has demonstrated the ability and knowhow to alter geneseed. There is precisely zero reason why it wouldn't be possible for him to alter it so that it works on both sexes. Furthermore, there is positive incentive to do just this due to the aforementioned paucity of worlds that are capable of producing people suitable for implantation.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I definitely like the idea that Marines would be enough to halt the decline of the Imperium, but there's just too few of them. However, 1,000,000 Marines (maximum, mind you) is still too little for that to be the case. I get that there's a point where we leave critical thinking behind in a science fantasy setting (although I'm of the opinion that the more the better), but a million Marines is so far behind that line as to not even be worth considering.

To attempt to put it into perspective, during the pre-battle bombardment of the Battle of the Somme the allies fired 1,700,000 shells. That's the opening bombardment of one battle, between a handful of nations, on one planet, with a population at the time of less than a single hive in the Imperium. The battle itself resulted in 623,907 allied casualties.

I'm going to narrow the quote down to this to save space. You're not wrong, but those are Guard numbers. Not Marine numbers. I'll get back to that a bit further down.

I think the old writers (Rick Priestly, Andy Chambers and such) that formed the basis for 40k during 2nd ed out of the wild assembly of stuff from Rogue Trader actually had a pretty good grasp of historical battles. I'm going to have to do it again, but if I read anything from the current writers, all I get is comic fans writing about super heroes. Previously, the logistics of getting armies somewhere and maintaining them were considered. They couldn't just teleport around on a whim but had to get around the old-fashioned way. Where it really hit me is when I finally got around to reading Farsight Enclaves. The established early battles read like a serious military campaign conducted by a competent officer with limited resources. What was added to bring the background beyond, I think, the second sphere of expansion, read like super hero fanfic. Farsight literally flying around like Superman and channeling the four elements on four world to single handedly, literally without any Tau forces doing anything, exterminating the Tyranid or Ork (I don't even remember anymore...) forces.

If I had to go historical, I'd equate Marines more to SS divisions on the eastern front. Intended as the speartip of an invasion, they were relegated to putting out the fires the regular troops couldn't handle. Those guys did a pretty good job of it, too, and prolonged the war accordingly. The downside to that is what I think gets us into sci-fi territory. SS were still normal guys and got depleted through constant fighting. Marines as the super awesome guys that they are, don't have attrition rates that are comparable to, let's just say it, mortal troops. They are meant to be, and portrayed as, demi gods.

That's why before the slow change to the current background, Marines were actually pretty restricted in how they were deployed. They got to be the surgical scalpel they were meant to be most of the time. They get inserted on their terms, take the fight to a target of their choosing, engage in environments that benefit them and pull out are the job is done before the enemy can bring its superior numbers to bear. It's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, since back then they also had hero stories of a squad of Marines going in, killing the enemy head honcho and saving the planet single handedly. But the tendency was there in the portrayal that their deployment served a tactical purpose in the overall war fought not just by them but the Imperial Guard that could exploit the opening provided by the Marines.

As such I wouldn't look at it like "what are ten guys going to do against a million troops" and instead a million heretics versus a million Guardsmen with ten Marines in the right place at the right time. Look at D-Day. What difference are a couple of paratroopers and some misinformation going to do? Right? All it takes for those ten Marines to make a difference is to walk into a place, disrupt communication and the Guard can overrun an enemy sector because they have no means of calling in reserves. And if there is anything to be learned from WW2, it's that once you gain the initiative and can establish tactical superiority over your opponent, it turns into a rock slide that cannot be stopped. You just need the right pebble in the right place to start it.

That's how I look at it. If you go the super hero route and always talk about how Marines are in the thickest fight, you make it appear as though that's their job and because we know Marines aren't that tough, yeah, you end up needing bigger numbers. But in the role of classic special forces with the bonus of being super soldiers that you expect to take down their objective, they work even in the smallest numbers.

It's why people are rightfully upset that Marines take such a focus and the Imperial Guard is luck to take the backseat, if they get to play any role at all. Marines are not line infantry. Marines don't fight wars of attrition. They shouldn't even fight on equal terms but instead exploit weak spots that cannot put up enough resistance to cause them serious casualties. Even the glorious an undoubtedly awesome Imperial Fists don't dig trenches to sit in them alone. The grinder is the province of the Imperial Guard.

I feel Marines' numbers were sufficiently accounted for in their role in the past. One Marine for each planet in the Imperium seems like very little, but I never got the impression it's too little.

I think you've hit the nail on the head for how I feel about the gradual change in how fluff is depicted Geifer. It appears to have moved from a situation where individual 'heroes' do heroic things in the midst of colossal planetary-scale wars that might perhaps just tip the scales in favour of their army. Modern fluff feels like one dude(tte) basically doing absolutely everything on one massive improbable cross-galactic tour.

Your depiction of Farsight 'flying around like Superman to single handedly, literally without any Tau forces doing anything, exterminating the Tyranid or Ork forces' could be placed into the story of Guilliman, the story of Yvraine, the story of pretty much all of the latest wave of Herohammer dude(ttes). Completely breaks my suspension of disbelief.

In that context, I can see 1,000,000 Marines being useful. Using them as line-soldiers wouldn't make much sense, which is alas what they've been depicted as.

The one thing I'd question is this: 'The downside to that is what I think gets us into sci-fi territory. SS were still normal guys and got depleted through constant fighting. Marines as the super awesome guys that they are, don't have attrition rates that are comparable to, let's just say it, mortal troops. They are meant to be, and portrayed as, demi gods. '

Compared to Guardsmen (i.e. our military forces) they're demigods. Compared to the horrors that the 41st millennium throws at them they're par for the course. The Imperium send in Space Marines when they want to fight on equal footing with the jacked up/daemonically possessed/biologically and genetically engineered/superhumanly fast/psychically powerful/technologically advanced forces that the galaxy holds. There's a great quote I like to use from a guy over on Ammobunker to describe this which is:

'While I love marines they're kinda puny when compared to other things, which is one of the reasons i like them, It's like you had to do THAT much to a human being AND THEN stick him in power armour just to give them a chance and even then your average Ork is still equipped with the upper body strength to rip an Astartes limb from limb.'

They're demigods...on a battlefield populated primarily with other enemy demigods, and a few literal gods thrown in there for good measure it's only in the vein of the whole 'herohammer' guff that they're depicted as being nigh-invulnerable, which is frankly a little bit boring.

Ok hold on work with me, how about, it's just written into fluff that way, so why bother messing with it or arguing it because at the end of the day it does not matter.

I mean arguing over female space marines here is a thread that never ends I just autistic shrieking.

The hero focus has irked me for a while, and while I personally did not read the Gathering Storm, I read a couple of synopses with... disaffection. It's not new, but very much the culmination of a trend I would have never seen going as far as it does. The first time I noticed was in the 4th ed Ork codex where the special characters were written to pop up everywhere across the galaxy in spite of the established about 30-year lifespan an Ork was supposed to have. It just seemed wrong, but I dismissed it at the time.Talk about discontent ten years in the making!

I like that quote and it sums up my feelings about Marines. I like Marines. Always have. These days, yes, it's the memory of Marines that I like much more than the actual thing.

In my perception it doesn't even contradict what I said before about Marines having to pick their fights very carefully. When you say:

"The Imperium send in Space Marines when they want to fight on equal footing with the jacked up/daemonically possessed/biologically and genetically engineered/superhumanly fast/psychically powerful/technologically advanced forces that the galaxy holds"

I mean, that's pretty much where I'm coming from. This is not my interpretation of how the Imperium works. It's not how it can work, simply because it does not have the manpower to send Marines to fight an enemy on equal footing. That's the core of the idea of its slow decline. It send whoever it can. Imperial Guard, Battle Sisters, Arbites, the janitor and his pals because the Ministorum preacher convinced them it's their turn to die for the Emperor. They send whoever they can because it's all they can do, and then the Marines arrive and hopefully enough to tip the scales.

No argument about the power of Marines. They are great by human standards and they are humanity's greatest warriors (that can be fielded in effective numbers anyway). I personally wouldn't put many enemy line troops on their level, to be honest. Because on the flipside there also needs to be a reason why the appearance of Chaos Marines spells doom on Imperial worlds - Chaos armies are made up of dregs about as much as Imperial armies. Orks, too. Sure, they're strong, but badly armored with varying morale and combat experience (specifically against Marines anyway), so while an Ork could kill a Marine one on one, the Marine has a massive technological and tactical advantage. Tyranids are chaff, too. Spiky chaff that can penetrate power armor and impale Marines, but still little guys that are not particularly resilient to gunfire. And so on. Daemons and Necrons are honestly the only things I would consider as powerful and terrifying as Marines in their own, special way.

But mostly, it's pretty much a scenario that Marines are not basic troops and they are frequently portrayed as being superior to the enemy's basic troops. This works the opposite way, too. Because it doesn't matter how super jacked the enemy elites are because the Imperium can drown them in the blood of its Guardsmen.

Eh, I think I'm ranting now. My point really is that the important thing is not to rank things by their individual power. That's kind of how you get to the current super hero situation by constantly having to one-up the last thing. Super awesome Marines too awesome? Here, have a super villainous monster guy. But worry not! This here hero that you have never seen before is even super awesomer and beats up the super villainous monster guy after all.

Now this is personal preference, but I would much prefer if the setting was grounded again and that it's acknowledged that most of the fighting and dying and, importantly, winning is done by the grunts and all the special forces get to contribute to their side's eventual victory by playing a small but crucial part. Yeah, the special guys are super cool and crazy good at what they do, but they don't win wars on their own. And any one of them, without exception, can just get gunned down by enough of the little guys. At any time. Not just when it's convenient for Celestine to die again so that she can pop back up later at the crucial time to save the day.

Got to add that it may occasionally come across as if I'm knocking the new background for making overly large heroes out of Marines when before they were not. I mean, they were always intended to serve as the super heroes that could fix things no one else could so as to attract impressionable kids like me. Very much playing the super hero part, functionally. It's just now they're literal super heroes when before they were more the kind of hero you would see in Seals or SAS or what have you.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


That's not the same thing, is it?

You need to be tough to survive the process =/= your previous strength is directly related to your biologically modified strength.

It's relevant to the reason why females would be a lesser stock as a basis for space marines.

Find me an example where it suggests bigger stronger people become bigger stronger marines.

Find a strawman argument, oh wait you have

Also, what you point out here specifically counteracts your argument that 'the pool is irrelevant'. If Marines search high and lo for worlds with populations who are capable of surviving implantation, the potential 'pool' of applicants is a lot smaller than you suggest. If that is the case (and it is), there is definite economic and logistical benefit to increasing the potential pool of recruits.

Poor Strategy.
Instead of looking for needles in a male haystack, you are saying it is a good idea split your efforts into two, looking for needles in a male and female haystack when the female haystack has less needles in it AND the aspirants are more likely to die along the way....?

The hyperbole levels in this thread are literally dangerous...

But seriously, OP. If you're not enjoying yourself, just quit. The whole point of having a hobby is to have fun, right?

If you do hang on to the army and come back years down the line, you can be that cool old guy with the really old models from back in the day though.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
I'm in the same boat OP. Its not just the Primaris marines, its the writing.

I can overlook small details & mistakes but when the new writing is so unbelievably ridiculous at times, it makes it very difficult to immerse myself in the setting & I find myself reverting back to the setting when all the silliness wasn't present. Yeah, there have been trainwreck additions to the lore for many years (example Tau lore) but some of the new writing just makes me facepalm.

Take the Fall of Cadia for example. We are to believe the 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had less than a billion defenders. Let that sink in. The 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had 1/7th the defending population as present day Earth in a setting where human body count is measured in trillions if not exceeding trillions. How about Guilliman being present in almost every single conflict currently going on in the galaxy atm. Logistically, its impossible. Unless he is using the webway to travel, its impossible. He is one man (Primarch). He cannot & should not be in every conflict. This is like Marvel comics level of stupid.

Just out of curiosity, have you read the books this lore is in? And not just heard about it second-hand on the internet?

I ask because I've never played guard and aren't really that invested in them beyond the occasional novel and the background benchmark for what the human military is in this setting, but reading Fall of Cadia left me continuously impressed with them. They weren't humbling space marines with their dicipline and tactical acumen, or killing daemon princes in single combat (now, that would have been bad writing!) but they held the line and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with giants. It occasionally veered off to the one thing this company of space wolves does, or the heroic collapse of yet another sister of battle defense position, but it always came back to the guard, it was very much their book.

And Bobby G's been the focus of this recent updates because the setting has jumped ahead a hundred years and he's the focal point around which the setting's changes are moving. We're not hearing about how he intervened in every battle that's going on right now, but the battles he has taken part in over the course of a century-long crusade.

One more thing about the Knight Worlds....read some Exodite fluff.

There were some extensive interworkings there as the exodites of the Maiden worlds and the Knight worlds were in constant conflict.

War Walkers, Scout Walkers, Webway portal strikes, and the 3 Eldar Knight Titans were common combatants on the Knight Worlds.

I cant remember now, but either the elder knight titans inspired the govenors of the the Knight Worlds to make Knight Titans or it was the reverse.

Destroyer Knight titan, bright stallion titan, andFire Gale titan

I belive thats been retconned but yes Imperial Knights (and wraith knights) have been a part of 40k since Epic

To be a little silly in relation to all of the gene-seed and men topic.

Think about it this way. Usually women get the 'gene-seed' inserted in them. In WH40k, it's the dudes who take in the seed XD

 44Ronin wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


That's not the same thing, is it?

You need to be tough to survive the process =/= your previous strength is directly related to your biologically modified strength.

It's relevant to the reason why females would be a lesser stock as a basis for space marines.

Because...

Because you're making the assumption that women of the 41st millennium, where gene-editing is commonplace and likely has been commonplace for tens of thousands of years, are comparable to the women of today. It's a flawed assumption.

 44Ronin wrote:

Poor Strategy.
Instead of looking for needles in a male haystack, you are saying it is a good idea split your efforts into two, looking for needles in a male and female haystack when the female haystack has less needles in it AND the aspirants are more likely to die along the way....?

While I do understand the logic of 'too much hay', I don't necessarily agree with it. You're also making the same assumption I pointed out in the point above, which I haven't really seen any evidence supporting.

 Geifer wrote:
The hero focus has irked me for a while, and while I personally did not read the Gathering Storm, I read a couple of synopses with... disaffection. It's not new, but very much the culmination of a trend I would have never seen going as far as it does. The first time I noticed was in the 4th ed Ork codex where the special characters were written to pop up everywhere across the galaxy in spite of the established about 30-year lifespan an Ork was supposed to have. It just seemed wrong, but I dismissed it at the time.Talk about discontent ten years in the making!

I like that quote and it sums up my feelings about Marines. I like Marines. Always have. These days, yes, it's the memory of Marines that I like much more than the actual thing.

In my perception it doesn't even contradict what I said before about Marines having to pick their fights very carefully. When you say:

"The Imperium send in Space Marines when they want to fight on equal footing with the jacked up/daemonically possessed/biologically and genetically engineered/superhumanly fast/psychically powerful/technologically advanced forces that the galaxy holds"

I mean, that's pretty much where I'm coming from. This is not my interpretation of how the Imperium works. It's not how it can work, simply because it does not have the manpower to send Marines to fight an enemy on equal footing. That's the core of the idea of its slow decline. It send whoever it can. Imperial Guard, Battle Sisters, Arbites, the janitor and his pals because the Ministorum preacher convinced them it's their turn to die for the Emperor. They send whoever they can because it's all they can do, and then the Marines arrive and hopefully enough to tip the scales.

No argument about the power of Marines. They are great by human standards and they are humanity's greatest warriors (that can be fielded in effective numbers anyway). I personally wouldn't put many enemy line troops on their level, to be honest. Because on the flipside there also needs to be a reason why the appearance of Chaos Marines spells doom on Imperial worlds - Chaos armies are made up of dregs about as much as Imperial armies. Orks, too. Sure, they're strong, but badly armored with varying morale and combat experience (specifically against Marines anyway), so while an Ork could kill a Marine one on one, the Marine has a massive technological and tactical advantage. Tyranids are chaff, too. Spiky chaff that can penetrate power armor and impale Marines, but still little guys that are not particularly resilient to gunfire. And so on. Daemons and Necrons are honestly the only things I would consider as powerful and terrifying as Marines in their own, special way.

But mostly, it's pretty much a scenario that Marines are not basic troops and they are frequently portrayed as being superior to the enemy's basic troops. This works the opposite way, too. Because it doesn't matter how super jacked the enemy elites are because the Imperium can drown them in the blood of its Guardsmen.

Eh, I think I'm ranting now. My point really is that the important thing is not to rank things by their individual power. That's kind of how you get to the current super hero situation by constantly having to one-up the last thing. Super awesome Marines too awesome? Here, have a super villainous monster guy. But worry not! This here hero that you have never seen before is even super awesomer and beats up the super villainous monster guy after all.

Now this is personal preference, but I would much prefer if the setting was grounded again and that it's acknowledged that most of the fighting and dying and, importantly, winning is done by the grunts and all the special forces get to contribute to their side's eventual victory by playing a small but crucial part. Yeah, the special guys are super cool and crazy good at what they do, but they don't win wars on their own. And any one of them, without exception, can just get gunned down by enough of the little guys. At any time. Not just when it's convenient for Celestine to die again so that she can pop back up later at the crucial time to save the day.

Got to add that it may occasionally come across as if I'm knocking the new background for making overly large heroes out of Marines when before they were not. I mean, they were always intended to serve as the super heroes that could fix things no one else could so as to attract impressionable kids like me. Very much playing the super hero part, functionally. It's just now they're literal super heroes when before they were more the kind of hero you would see in Seals or SAS or what have you.

Agreed, and as an attempt to get slightly back on topic (and prove that I'm not just here to complain), there are some neat ideas that have come out of the idea that Space Marines are more often than not line troops. It does have to go hand in hand with Chapters being larger (say 100,000 at least) and fighting mostly as one force, but there's some really neat fluffy conversion opportunities.

Basically, the idea is that there are different types of Marines forces. At one end of the scale you have your Raven Guards and your Alpha Legions which operate much as you've described, like an SAS unit. On the other end of the scale you have your Imperial Fists and your Iron Warriors, which basically fight as line troops at the spearpoint of far larger forces.

The key change, and the thing that opens up fluffy conversion opportunities, is to assume that every Marine action we're told about is recorded much like the Battle of Thermopylae. Everyone remembers the 300 Spartans. No-one remembers the 700-1000 Helots that accompanied them. Or the 700 Thebans. Or the 1000 Arcadians. Or the other Greeks that made up the 7000-11,000 strong fighting force. So, basically, whenever I read about Marines fighting in isolation if they're not on a covert operation, I always assume that they basically go anywhere with relatively sizeable armies of Chapter Serfs. Any time you read about the Imperial Fists single-handedly beating back a xenos invasion, what you should actually read is 'the Imperial Fists and thousands upon thousands of their associated unnamed mooks beat back a xenos invasion'. These are also included whenever you hear them fighting alongside Guard regiments.

I can't seem to find it now, but it's supported by a piece of SM codex artwork where I think it's Imperial Fists filling most of the frame (not the one where there's ranks upon ranks of them). However, if you look closer there's dozens and dozens of weird-looking hangers-on around the periphery, suggesting that they're just one point in a vast militia army.

The thing that brings it into the realms of 'hell yeah this is an awesome idea' is when people go and model Chapter Serfs, like these two 'Expectanten' for the Black Templars:

I always post my reasoning for Space marines being a boys only club.

1)The gene seed was desired from the emperors sons, meaning men, so not sure what would happen if you started mucking about with that.

2) I think of making a space marine like making a tuner car. Sure you can put in enough after market parts to make a Toyota Carolla just as fast and perform just as well as a tricked out Subaru WRX, but you are gonna need to put a lot more money and time into it. The WRX is a better starting ground.

3)(The most interesting one) Women were purposefully excluded from the gene seed as there ran the possibility of them being able to naturally reproduce space marine level humans, meaning space marines could be born rather then grown. This could possibly lead to the space marines realizing they can replace humanity as the superior strain of humanity. This how ever is not their goal, they are there to protect humanity, not replace it.

My two cents, like to get it out there before the thread turns into shrieking.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I always post my reasoning for Space marines being a boys only club.

1)The gene seed was desired from the emperors sons, meaning men, so not sure what would happen if you started mucking about with that.

2) I think of making a space marine like making a tuner car. Sure you can put in enough after market parts to make a Toyota Carolla just as fast and perform just as well as a tricked out Subaru WRX, but you are gonna need to put a lot more money and time into it. The WRX is a better starting ground.

3)(The most interesting one) Women were purposefully excluded from the gene seed as there ran the possibility of them being able to naturally reproduce space marine level humans, meaning space marines could be born rather then grown. This could possibly lead to the space marines realizing they can replace humanity as the superior strain of humanity. This how ever is not their goal, they are there to protect humanity, not replace it.

My two cents, like to get it out there before the thread turns into shrieking.

You know, of all of those things the last one is the only thing that actually makes a modicum of sense from an in-universe perspective. I can absolutely see that being a solid motivation for not having female Space Marines (and also feels nicely grimdark)

One problem.

Space Marines are genetically human. If they could reproduce, you'd just get a boggo-standard human at the other end. The implants they receive are themselves genetically modified, but the actual genetics of the Marine themselves is 100% human. That's part of the way that they skirt around the whole dogma of 'the Holy Human Form'.

Shame, otherwise that would be a solid reason. Nice thinking.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I always post my reasoning for Space marines being a boys only club.

1)The gene seed was desired from the emperors sons, meaning men, so not sure what would happen if you started mucking about with that.

2) I think of making a space marine like making a tuner car. Sure you can put in enough after market parts to make a Toyota Carolla just as fast and perform just as well as a tricked out Subaru WRX, but you are gonna need to put a lot more money and time into it. The WRX is a better starting ground.

3)(The most interesting one) Women were purposefully excluded from the gene seed as there ran the possibility of them being able to naturally reproduce space marine level humans, meaning space marines could be born rather then grown. This could possibly lead to the space marines realizing they can replace humanity as the superior strain of humanity. This how ever is not their goal, they are there to protect humanity, not replace it.

My two cents, like to get it out there before the thread turns into shrieking.

Ok, now to tear this down:

1)Primaris Marines, anyone? Because there is an epic fuckton more mucking about to get the results they did then just playing with gender. Also, Cursed Founding.

2)This is debatable, as, admittedly adjusting pure physical strength can best be done by altering the way the body handles the proteins Myostatin and Follistatin. Instead of using steroids, these can stimulate muscle growth directly. This alteration would produce similar results regardless of gender.

3) I have to file this one right up with someone being born with leeches stuck to them because their mother and father had leeches stuck to them. Many Space Marines go through a process where artificial organs are added to them during development (will cover this a bit more in a min) these organs are artificial tissues grown in hosts and then implanted into the developing Space Marine. While their may be some genetic modification (and most certainly is in the case of certain alternative methods of space marine production) what there is not is anything that would result in a new 'brand' of human (we'll get into the tar coated flaming moshpit that is Imperial genetics programs in a sec). It's about equivalent to having extensive bioware in Shadowrun.

Ok, now to go some dark places in 40k: human gene engineering and space marine production by alternate means.

As at least a few of you may know, not all Space Marines are produced by way of the 'standard' method: Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Black Templars all seem to deviate from the norm, with Wolves and Templars inducting people far past puberty into their organizations (Looking hard at you Lukas) And we all know that Blood Angels sparkle in the sunlight.

It's well known at this point that Emps & Co also had alternative ways to raise up a human to functionally Space Marine levels (Luther, etc etc). It's likely that some chapters do retain knowledge of this, which would explain certain characters having oddities in their backstory.

Further, biologically enhanced humans are a thing in 40k, citing the Rogue Trader RPG, the SoB story from BL where the admech has genetic supermen who can take on power armored battle sisters with their bare hands, and for those annoying posters who DEMAND IT MUST BE IN A CODEX FOR IT TO BE CANON: Afriel Strain and Gland Warriors

That's not even getting into Chaos, Honsu you sick, sick fether.

Primaris Marines didn't rapidly change things, they added 3 new organs, all of the emperor's design, one was vvery specificly based off BASICLY a primarch pituitary gland.
this goes back to the note of them being based on the Primarchs, the Ossmodula, Biscepotia, and Magnificant may (weather all of them or some of them) simply work poorly, if at all, on a female. in fact on a female character the "Growth" instructions could have negitive effects producing some freak results.

BrianDavion wrote:
Primaris Marines didn't rapidly change things, they added 3 new organs, all of the emperor's design, one was vvery specificly based off BASICLY a primarch pituitary gland.
this goes back to the note of them being based on the Primarchs, the Ossmodula, Biscepotia, and Magnificant may (weather all of them or some of them) simply work poorly, if at all, on a female. in fact on a female character the "Growth" instructions could have negitive effects producing some freak results.

Let's look at that supposition:

The organs (in most circumstances) seem to require pre-pubescent children for successful implantation. This might be for a variety of reasons, but it also means that it works on girls, as girls and boys in this time frame in development have fairly similar testosterone and estrogen levels.(about 30 nanograms per decaliter). At this stage, if it has negative effects on females, it would have negative effects on males too. The organs can't be that specialized, genetically or hormonally or the human body rejects them and then dies. In order for it to be successful, and pretty much ANY chapters rites of passage have any relevance AT ALL to the process is if the organs' tissues are sufficiently similar to the hosts own tissues that it would not matter what gender they were, just that the individual organ either be so general and non reactive that anyone could be implanted, or so specific that they can only be implanted in that SPECIFIC person.

GW and biology do not mix. See reference in Rise of the Primarch to "jugular arteries" (hint: there is no such thing. There are jugular veins and carotid arteries but no jugular arteries).

 BaronIveagh wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Primaris Marines didn't rapidly change things, they added 3 new organs, all of the emperor's design, one was vvery specificly based off BASICLY a primarch pituitary gland.
this goes back to the note of them being based on the Primarchs, the Ossmodula, Biscepotia, and Magnificant may (weather all of them or some of them) simply work poorly, if at all, on a female. in fact on a female character the "Growth" instructions could have negitive effects producing some freak results.

Let's look at that supposition:

The organs (in most circumstances) seem to require pre-pubescent children for successful implantation. This might be for a variety of reasons, but it also means that it works on girls, as girls and boys in this time frame in development have fairly similar testosterone and estrogen levels.(about 30 nanograms per decaliter). At this stage, if it has negative effects on females, it would have negative effects on males too. The organs can't be that specialized, genetically or hormonally or the human body rejects them and then dies. In order for it to be successful, and pretty much ANY chapters rites of passage have any relevance AT ALL to the process is if the organs' tissues are sufficiently similar to the hosts own tissues that it would not matter what gender they were, just that the individual organ either be so general and non reactive that anyone could be implanted, or so specific that they can only be implanted in that SPECIFIC person.

Two ways you can go with this;

Either the implantation at this stage is taking advantage of the hormonally driven metamorphosis that is happening when a child reach pubescence to limit the impact of the implanted organs and as a natural change that can be enhanced. In which case it makes sense that they just picked young males for the process, the marine process is designed as an ultra-puberty in which you end up as a Marine rather than a mere-man and to add in women is going to be so much more complicated (first in man trials for pharmaceuticals are even just that, because it's easier to limit to variables rather than deal with a population with cyclical levels of hormones). I've not read enough of the Heresy books to know where the adult stage marines fall with regard to the powerlevel of more 'traditionally' recruited candidates - maybe they have a lot more surgery and augmentation in order to preserve experience and you've got skill, resources and knowledge to do this. Maybe the Emperor just sorts this out as a Gene-wizard. But if this is the case, picking girls as candidates isn't going to happen. Those that fake it and make it through to selection get picked up by the Inquisition as being persons of note or end up as Chapter Serfs (maybe even the Castellen if they're particularly good). Given that in terms of raw physical prowess and fighting, women's bodies have to make a lot of compromises for the sake of fertility (less space for lungs being the biggest and likely what has driven evolution to specialisation of other minor elements of the human form to having one version being better at fighting and the other surviving) if your transformation process is a a hijacking and enhancement of an existing one, you're going to pick males.

Alternatively, the massive hormone therapy, surgery and psycho indoctrination replaces normal human puberty. You take raw, immature, human flesh, ensure it's spirit is pure and then soak it in it's own stress chemicals, geneseed and pain until a marine is produced. Who you were before you became Telesandrus LXII of the Lions Argent is irrelevant, even to you. Your old life seems distant and somewhat irrelevant ever since you took the vows and became a defender of humanity on the galactic scale. Maybe you killed Grothaur the Mighty and took his head to the top of Mt Ascendancy to present to the Sky Warriors to prove yourself to your father, knowing that as long as you failed valiantly you'd be welcomed as a hero and the new chief on your return, or maybe you killed him because you'd been promised as his fourth wife and were having none of it,climbing the mountain to scream your defiance against this backward world to the universe's celestial champions themselves. You aren't who you were then and nor are any of your brothers, you are Telesandrus, sixty third of that name, of the Lions Argent chapter. And that's all that matters, not some trifling quirk of genetics. Who cares if you started XX or XY when you're now X*YGTLI. Come to think of it, Artemis is a girl's name, the Greek version of the Roman Goddess Dianna...and I can assure you that the greatest warriors of Mankind can't be taken out with a swift kick to the crotch.

FYI:

IF this is becoming a 'female space marines thread' it will also become a 'locked thread'.

[delete, didn't see alph's post]

Tastyfish wrote:Come to think of it, Artemis is a girl's name

o rly?

Alpharius wrote:FYI:

IF this is becoming a 'female space marines thread' it will also become a 'locked thread'.

We banning female space marine discussion now? Would seem to be relevant at this point, being that we're discussing the changes to fluff and it's further ranging impact as to what is and is not possible in 40k.

I have to ask this re female marines- marine models wear power armour and helmets. If you want to imagine them as female under the armour, and your opponent wants to imagine them as male, surely there's room to do that?

Again, given the title/intent of this thread, the fact that GW has not in fact said that, in the 'new GW fluff', there are female space marines OR even hinted that it is possible and soon to be upon us AND the fact that the "Female Space Marine" topic is almost impossible to do here (and maybe anywhere) successfully in terms of staying on topic and polite that yes, that it is off topic here and it will get the next person to post about it a warning/suspension and probably get this thread locked as well.

the data on the Primaris project in codex space marines suggests Cawl wasn't really improving things hgimself, but rather simply was working on the empeor's notes and sliding a few bits of reverse engineered Primarch parts into space Marines. with this information it really brings what Cawl did down to earth there's no "super genius whom improved on the emperor's original design" here. just someone who sifted through the wreckage of the emperor's Laboratory to make anb upgrade. as people ntoed, this really wasn't much differant from what Corax did during the Heresy

BrianDavion wrote:
the data on the Primaris project in codex space marines suggests Cawl wasn't really improving things hgimself, but rather simply was working on the empeor's notes and sliding a few bits of reverse engineered Primarch parts into space Marines. with this information it really brings what Cawl did down to earth there's no "super genius whom improved on the emperor's original design" here. just someone who sifted through the wreckage of the emperor's Laboratory to make anb upgrade. as people ntoed, this really wasn't much differant from what Corax did during the Heresy

I quite like this interpretation. It really fits with the Mechanicum's MO which is less 'experiment -> improve' and more 'sift through the detritus of their destroyed civilisation -> parrot anything that appears to be working'.

Thanks for this little piece of headcanon it's little things like this that make the new fluff more palatable.

The other potential is that he found the recipe for Thunder Warriors somewhere in the depths of Terra and is churning them out under the guise of 'Primaris Marines', which basically means that we should be getting Primaris having full-blown psychotic breaks soon which is not what you want in a post-human supersoldier it'd take two Astartes to down.

well, the thunder warrior bit seems unlikely as we know what the Primaris new organs are. one is basicly coils of metal wrapped around the muscles greatly enhancing strength and giving additional protection. one is part of a organ unique to Primarchs (it notes it's only from half of it the data on the other half have been lsot "Weather by some misfortune or the design of the emperor no one can say") that increases speed and bone density growth. and the other is basicly something that links the two hearts that when the body is placed udner strain floods it with basicly an improved adrenaline and increases healing.

apparently though all these new organs are based on the Primarchs. (hence where the name Primaris likely comes from, closer to the Primarchs)


of intreast to those whom do not have codex space marines I'll list each of the new organs here

-Sinew Coils (The Steel Within) - The Primaris Space Marine's sinews are reinforced with durametallic coil-cables that can contract with incredible force, magnifying his strength as well as giving his body another layer of defence. A Primaris Space Marine can crush a man's skull in his hand, break Flak Armour to flinders, or even bite through a metal cable should the need arise.

-Magnificat (The Amplifier) - A small, thumbnail-sized lobe that is inserted into the brain's cortex. The Magnificat secretes hormones that increase the body's growth functions whilst also intensifying the function of its other transhuman implants, especially those of the Biscopea and the Ossmodula. In truth, the Magnificat is but half of the true, dual-valve Immortis Gland (the so-called God-Maker) that the Emperor created for His Primarchs. However, Archmagos Cawl could only find materials and genetic blueprints to build the Dextrophic Lobe (the right half of the Immortis Gland), while plans for the Sintarius (the left half) that would complete the original super-organ had been wholly eradicated from Imperial records of the Primarch Project. Whether this was done by the Emperor's own hand or by some nefarious source, Cawl could not tell.

-Belisarian Furnace (The Revitaliser) - This is a dormant organ that connects to both Astartes hearts. In times of extreme stress, or should the warrior's body undergo violent, damaging trauma, it expels great blurts of self-synthesized chemicals -- a hyper-cocktail that simulates the biological action of combat stimms while also aiding in the rapid regrowth of tissue, bone and muscle. The gland then falls dormant again, and takes some time to metabolically build itself up once more for the next usage.

Been out of the loop for a while so I was very suprised to see said Supermarines and the Primarch back around.

Question regarding if the Primaris Marines end up replacing the SMs entirely and a reason I think it might not happen - what happens to Chaos Marines?

Or in fluff has Fabius Bile nicked the blueprints? Even then you're dealing with a lot of fluff bashing. I mean really if the Primaris become the SM's regulars suddenly the CSM look pretty puny.

Also from being out of the loop, I partly wanted to ease back in with the new edition, the easy way to do that is buy some cheap SMs off eBay but is that wise?

 Jape wrote:
Been out of the loop for a while so I was very suprised to see said Supermarines and the Primarch back around.

Question regarding if the Primaris Marines end up replacing the SMs entirely and a reason I think it might not happen - what happens to Chaos Marines?

Or in fluff has Fabius Bile nicked the blueprints? Even then you're dealing with a lot of fluff bashing. I mean really if the Primaris become the SM's regulars suddenly the CSM look pretty puny.

Also from being out of the loop, I partly wanted to ease back in with the new edition, the easy way to do that is buy some cheap SMs off eBay but is that wise?

Well Primaris are already set up lore wise to have chaos counter parts, Cawl was wanting to use traitor legion gene seed to make primaris as well, so its not a short step to having them turn as well. Im betting by 2 years time regular space marines will be what empire is in AoS. Sure they still make models and acknowledge their existence in the lore, but you will never see a new release for them ever again.

As for the easiest way to get back in, if your not really to worried about the cash, Knights. 4 knights comes out to about 2k points and they are pretty damn reliable now so.

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well Primaris are already set up lore wise to have chaos counter parts, Cawl was wanting to use traitor legion gene seed to make primaris as well, so its not a short step to having them turn as well. Im betting by 2 years time regular space marines will be what empire is in AoS. Sure they still make models and acknowledge their existence in the lore, but you will never see a new release for them ever again.

As for the easiest way to get back in, if your not really to worried about the cash, Knights. 4 knights comes out to about 2k points and they are pretty damn reliable now so.

Oh... so Cawl did make Traitor-gene Primari?

That actually seems the biggest loss to fluff you could have is the swap shop scenario you suggest (and makes sense), these new Traitor Primari would not have 10 millennia of backstory. New types of SMs fine, there's new foundings all the time (in the grand scheme of things) but the CSM are what they are because of their ancient lineage. And it would be pretty idiotic for them to be created in the first place, certainly by the Imperium but that's never stopped the writers before. Just reading the overview of the Beast novels made my head hurt.

But whatever yeah taking AoS into account yeah that makes sense and once they push through some clunky fluff by 2020 both will be biggun'

Also I've just remembered a friend who moved to work at GW HQ mentioned casually some time ago they planned on making SMs more to scale.

He also mentioned Nottingham cabbies refer to GW HQ as "the Fuhrerbunker"
______________________

EDIT: and thanks for the advice on Knights but no I'm not a fan of armies just made up of a few giants.

Lol I could see that haha honestly three whole primaris marine launch was very clunky and forced. All they really had to do was say we brought thunder warriors back and no one would have said a word. Or say these are true scale with new war gear. Igor no problem with true scale like the size of thousand sons which are true scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
He has not made them yet but he wants to

I'm in the same boat- I've been playing since the early '90s, and the primaris fluff feels wrong to me.

Astartes are supposed to be super amazing- and they're supposed to live exceptionally long lives (Dante is hundreds of years old, and I'm not sure how old Logan Grimnar is).

It feels wrong to me for them to be completely surpassed by the new marines on the block.

And what is the trouble with the traitor legions becoming more Primaris? Well, the chaos characters that we know and love/hate/seek to destroy are all 10k years old. If traitor Primaris marines take over chaos, I think it would undermine Ahriman, Typhus, Abbadon etc. I mean, traitor Primaris marines are the ones without a ten-thousand year old grudge.



Now, on the other hand, I do love the new minis. I especially love the way that the new Marine proportions are more human (less 'heroic) than previous marines. That's something that I've been wanting (and honestly never suspected that GW would do).

Oh yeah models are great, that said I really dislike the gravis armor looks....off and the balloon marines again gravis. But mk 10 armor is on point

 odinsgrandson wrote:


And what is the trouble with the traitor legions becoming more Primaris? Well, the chaos characters that we know and love/hate/seek to destroy are all 10k years old. If traitor Primaris marines take over chaos, I think it would undermine Ahriman, Typhus, Abbadon etc. I mean, traitor Primaris marines are the ones without a ten-thousand year old grudge.

My thoughts exactly. TBH I'm expecting some Chaos magic handwavium with the souls of the old CSM going into their bodies of the new, or at least the big boys dunno - maybe.

Feels like they could have just introduced the models and said 'hey these are proper scale keep using your old minis if you want but they'll look dumb next to these new shiny cool ones"

That's what I have been saying

I would be interested to see if IG/AM new models come out and they become smaller and more realistic to better contrast primaris.

I am thinking due to so many good looking competitor models with nice proportions that GW may be moving away from the heroic thick models.

i think the Chaos Primaris-equivalent will be Marines that have been possessed or gifted by Chaos or some such rather than just traitor Primaris. I get the feeling they're going to try and differentiate them.

 Talizvar wrote:
I would be interested to see if IG/AM new models come out and they become smaller and more realistic to better contrast primaris.

I am thinking due to so many good looking competitor models with nice proportions that GW may be moving away from the heroic thick models.

I wouldn't bet on it. AoS is definitely not moving in that direction.

And I'm sure that new human minis won't be any smaller. Scale creep is a one way road.

Also see: Scions, I am pretty sure they're GW latest release of humans not in PA, and they're larger than Cadians.

 Jape wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:


Well Primaris are already set up lore wise to have chaos counter parts, Cawl was wanting to use traitor legion gene seed to make primaris as well, so its not a short step to having them turn as well. Im betting by 2 years time regular space marines will be what empire is in AoS. Sure they still make models and acknowledge their existence in the lore, but you will never see a new release for them ever again.

As for the easiest way to get back in, if your not really to worried about the cash, Knights. 4 knights comes out to about 2k points and they are pretty damn reliable now so.

Oh... so Cawl did make Traitor-gene Primari?

That actually seems the biggest loss to fluff you could have is the swap shop scenario you suggest (and makes sense), these new Traitor Primari would not have 10 millennia of backstory. New types of SMs fine, there's new foundings all the time (in the grand scheme of things) but the CSM are what they are because of their ancient lineage. And it would be pretty idiotic for them to be created in the first place, certainly by the Imperium but that's never stopped the writers before. Just reading the overview of the Beast novels made my head hurt.

But whatever yeah taking AoS into account yeah that makes sense and once they push through some clunky fluff by 2020 both will be biggun'

Also I've just remembered a friend who moved to work at GW HQ mentioned casually some time ago they planned on making SMs more to scale.

He also mentioned Nottingham cabbies refer to GW HQ as "the Fuhrerbunker"
______________________

EDIT: and thanks for the advice on Knights but no I'm not a fan of armies just made up of a few giants.

*sighs* Cawl experimented with tratiro geneseed yes. but he may not have produced it. it's lost up in the air. I take that as more a throw away line that "if your custom chapter that is secretly "loyalist word eaters wants Primarsi Marines, we have you covered" then any grand statement of intent to give us chaos primaris Marines.