I'm working on a guard army and was thinking of adding some space marines to break up the painting. At first I was looking at adding some vanguard or sternguard veterans but then I started to wonder if these will be irrelevant in a few years. I love that primaris are way more inscale to what normal marines ought to be but crunchwise they are super limited. The height is right, the look is right, I like that their bolters seem to reflect the fluff better. but their transport is crazy expensive and even with the points reduction I think they still don't have a very defined role or don't fill a role that isn't better served by something else.

Honestly I would be fine in GW phased out the old marine style but I also have nothing to lose since I don't own any marine models yet. However it seems unlikely that they will replace them completely any time soon because the marine line has sooooo many models. It would be nice if GW was a little more clear on the future of this or maybe i'm missing something. Is this just a fling like centurions or is this the future?

What are your thoughts?

Whilst there probably will be a focus going forwards on Primaris there is not a snowball in Hells chance that regular Astartes will be phased out like a Necron.

The backlash alone from the HH crowd and long time Astartes collectors, being GWs most popular lines, would have a massive impact on their share price.

GW may do dumb things at times but even they aren't that stupid!

This? Again?

No. Of course they won't. Barring the Dreadnought, Primaris offer no units which directly replicate Astartes units.

Plus, from a purely financial point of view - the main Marine range needs precious little work. The sole kit I can think of truly in need of updating is the Bike.

Pretty sure all those units have now paid for themselves. Why would you ditch those?

Most likely not. Old scale marines seem to continue to sell well and they have good rules support. Primaris also seem to take different roles tactically speaking.

I really hope not. Big marines and the new superheroes are IMHO the worst looking models released in ages.

Maybe standard marines can be a bit dull but dark angels, space wolves and blood angels troops are amazing models that can be customized in several ways. Primaris are monopose models, all identical.

 Blackie wrote:
I really hope not. Big marines and the new superheroes are IMHO the worst looking models released in ages.

It's funny that seems to be a common sentiment, at least here on dakka. I have to disagree though, I think the larger scale makes them look much better and more realistic. If you took those same stylish models from those chapters and made them bigger they would look even better IMO.

Yeah the new primaris models all look amazing. Only salties an nostalgia warriors can possibly say otherwise.


But no, they wont phase out regular marines. Far more likely to phase out SoB or inquisition.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
This? Again?

No. Of course they won't. Barring the Dreadnought, Primaris offer no units which directly replicate Astartes units.

Plus, from a purely financial point of view - the main Marine range needs precious little work. The sole kit I can think of truly in need of updating is the Bike.

Pretty sure all those units have now paid for themselves. Why would you ditch those?

Maybe they don't EXACTLY replace them but it seems pretty clear that they are meant to be updated tacs, devs, assaults. or at the very least analogues to them. I'm not saying they would replace them all at once, just slowly over time.

I very very selfishly and spitefully hope they will. So SM players can share the pain too. Schadenfreude.
But then again I'm playing Sisters of Bitter, so you can discard what I say.

brettdavis1991 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
This? Again?

No. Of course they won't. Barring the Dreadnought, Primaris offer no units which directly replicate Astartes units.

Plus, from a purely financial point of view - the main Marine range needs precious little work. The sole kit I can think of truly in need of updating is the Bike.

Pretty sure all those units have now paid for themselves. Why would you ditch those?

Maybe they don't EXACTLY replace them but it seems pretty clear that they are meant to be updated tacs, devs, assaults. or at the very least analogues to them. I'm not saying they would replace them all at once, just slowly over time.

Marines are noted for the flexibility of their units, at the price of specialisation.

Primaris are oddly specialised - after all, no Special or Heavy weapon mixing in squads.

Yes, absolutely. However it won't be for a few years.

Yes of course they will squat old marines... eventually. GW is not gong to continue to support to parralel model lines forever. The clues are there in the rules! Old marines can't ride in primaris tanks? LOL WUT? Land Raiders cant carry Primaris? LOL WUT?

My original prediction on the time table to phase out was too short bit it will happen.

Nearly all finecast models staying in Indexes, Primaris and Marines can't share vehicles, all signs point to an enventual replacement.

Seeing they are 10£ more expensive I sure hope so. Not to mention that would kill HH which is the vastly superior game. But let's say they go for super odd system of new marines replacing HH marines. I have like 150 PA guys. That would be 150£ more. Bah not worth it.

How would killing old marines in 40k kill the HH? Thats about the most ridiculous thing I have heard since Primaris came out.

HH has their own plastic sets. And FW can keep doing what they doing regardless of Primaris.

Yes, I am pretty sure we will never again see a new model for the old marines. Except maybe from forgeworld.

I dont mind the new scale but I hate the Primaris models themselves. The torso is attached to the hips so they are all in the same basic poses and you cant change that.

Also, even in the old tac squad box there was a mix of armor so they all looked different. Different legs and torso designs. The Primaris marines all have the exact same armor.

Primaris models are the most boring thing GW produces.

For the 40K universe? Yes, absolutely. However, we're talking a seriously slow fade. Like a 5-10 year kind of fade. The process is simple.

1) Produce more Primaris kits.

2) Do not produce new marine kits.

3) Allow sales to slip, slowly eliminating fringe kits as they're replaced with Primaris equivalents.

4) By the time a new Primaris codex is released and basic marine kits are selling less and less = kill it off.

 SickSix wrote:
How would killing old marines in 40k kill the HH? Thats about the most ridiculous thing I have heard since Primaris came out.

HH has their own plastic sets. And FW can keep doing what they doing regardless of Primaris.

Well killing old marines kinda means not selling kits anymore...No models on sale, not much of a game left.

Yes. It'll be several years from now, but eventually old marines will just be treated like "Out of print primaris marines."

Until they surprise us by actually releasing any new old-marine model, this is the obvious writing on the wall.

tneva82 wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
How would killing old marines in 40k kill the HH? Thats about the most ridiculous thing I have heard since Primaris came out.

HH has their own plastic sets. And FW can keep doing what they doing regardless of Primaris.

Well killing old marines kinda means not selling kits anymore...No models on sale, not much of a game left.

Do you not understand that 40k is completely separate from 30k? Primaris will replace marines in 40k. This has zero bearing on 30k.

Horus Heresy also gives GW the "out". They can produce Forge World 30K marines, and even new plastic Horus Heresy marines and satisfy old gamers who are desperate to keep normal marines on the table.

They simply keep the basic rules in an old codex and tada.

I hope that when there will be a kit for every role, they just retcon out this primaris nonsense.
My hope is based on the size of the Plague Marines.

Note that this is (surprisingly for me) not a criticism toward GW. This is the only sensible way to handle the size gak, adjusting for the fandom.

EDIT: I hope for the sake of their players/collector, that they will diversify poses and details.

 Elbows wrote:
Horus Heresy also gives GW the "out". They can produce Forge World 30K marines, and even new plastic Horus Heresy marines and satisfy old gamers who are desperate to keep normal marines on the table.

They simply keep the basic rules in an old codex and tada.

It will set up perfectly. Guess whats after the Heresy? The scouring and then the Second Founding. FW can create settings for most marine players to keep them engaged.

32k will be the new Heresy . And 42k (Primaris era) will be the new 40k.

They need.

Having two complete ranges of Marines would make the current release (*) ) and stock - the stores only have so much room for stock.

The only 8th Ed non marine new release that's even been announced is Marbo and a Custodian, neither of which are in stores this year.

Otherwise we might as well just call it Marine Wars and be done with the other factions.

There was enough carrying on about the SM base size change.

My "gut" tells me that Primaris will be the "new" marines.
From what I have seen GW really looks like they want to re-package the look of 40k.
It looks like they want to kick the "scale creep" can down the road a bit longer.

Mixing my old Plague marines (metal) looks a tiny bit strange next to the new PM "monsters" for instance.

The thoughts on 30k being for the "old" models sounds like a good possibility.

As a company looking to make money, I think they will continue for a few years to flog both old and new since the molds paid for themselves long ago.

Yes, they will phase out old marines completely over the next few years.

We will never see another new squat marine again

This has completely killed any and all interest I have in marines, and I was a huge fan.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Yes, they will phase out old marines completely over the next few years.

We will never see another new squat marine again

This has completely killed any and all interest I have in marines, and I was a huge fan.

Isn't this inevitable? I mean, if GW never changed the models, we would have now beakies of the size of a guardsman or something.

If you're planning to start a new marine force, at this point you should definitely get Primaris.

30k, 40k, forge world, computer games, comics, novels....

Nope not a chance, will primarysues be in the lime light a lot more as time goes on, sure, but they will never get rid of old marines, they have too much tied up in them.

I haven't really scrutinized the models but I think they look pretty good. They are more proportional and it's probably easier to scale up marines than scale down things like guardsmen at this point. The long bolt rifle is also pretty sweet looking.

I don't think they have much of anything tied in which can't be swept aside in 5 years time. The only major hurtle, and one they run into frequently with all new generations of the games - old characters.

Admittedly our storyline has plunged ahead a bunch in the latest Dark Imperium setting - how are Imperial Guard characters still around? Even with age-treatments...it's just become a bit of willing suspension of disbelief.

At some point, GW will need to either cull the existing special characters which have been around for 10-25 years...or they need to find a way to Primarize them. Imagine the outrage if Mephiston disappeared from the Blood Angels codex, etc.

"If" you see new "basic" marines, I suspect they will be characters only. It's very possible the characters will live on, or we'll see a slow creep at assassinating them in various campaign books moving forward. Admittedly your games can take place anywhere on the GW timeline so it'd be fine to justify keeping the codex entries around for a while.

 Infantryman wrote:
I haven't really scrutinized the models but I think they look pretty good. They are more proportional and it's probably easier to scale up marines than scale down things like guardsmen at this point. The long bolt rifle is also pretty sweet looking.

I would be curious to see assault marines, devastators etc in primaris size. Can the FW shoulders be fit on the models? Are the heads too small? I think they need more legion specific stuff.

I just hope that the Gravis is not the only heavy armor. Terminators are too iconic. On this note, how big are the Blightlords for the Death Guard compared to the loyalist termies, especially the later models? This could be possibly an indication of things to come (better to do not take the Deathshrouds in account, they are awesome but purportedly bloated).

I am not a huge fan of the most "modern" almost "tau-like" stuff like inceptors, but as an example, the Aggressors are what centurions should have been.
But still, overall "too clean". But can be improved.

They had got to a point where they were apparently unwilling to make non snowflake Chapter marines.

So no new Raven Guard or White Scar or Salamanders models, we just got more and more flanderised Angels and Wolves. Without Primaris and the inevitable versions of these for the special needs chapters it would only have got worse.

Forgeworld will keep on going with the HH models and likely some of the basic marines will drift into their sphere.

I think the actual models are not bad - they are defiantly better than abominations like the Centurions. The vehicle issue is annoying - the repulsor is fine as a concept but is just too many guns for me - same as recent Tau machines.

Hopefully they will come out with the Speeder, Rhino and Land Raider Primaris upgrade as it would be a shame to loose such iconic models fro Marines - although I guess these could just end up being the vehicles that Sisters (both types), Custodes, Arbites, Mechanicus etc use rather than Small Marines.

To be honest, the Primaris are "Too clean" because GW wanted to make the first kits "vanilla".

And I agree with them. Imagine that the first Primaris kits where already as blinged as the last kits for Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves. If your basic Primaris Blood Angel has already nipple armour... how are gonna be the "elite" and latter parimaris units? Thats how we end with Wulfen and Sanguinary guard.
GW has showed some restrain with Primaris, after years of people complaining that the latest releases where too "excesive". That gives them room to create more decorated primaris kits in the future.
Primaris Intercessors don't look more clean that basic Tactical Squads.

Instead of calling them True Scale marines and just saying "hey this is the new design proportions for space marines going forward but there is nothing wrong with using the smaller marines" they came up with some gak filled BS about Cawl "improving" upon Big E's design and all that other heretical noise. Now instead of letting them scale up in size like they did with Terminators, they split the model line in two and took a dump all over the fluff. GW will try to phase out the smaller marines but just like 8th edition they are going to find out the hard way that the foundation for this change was poorly thought out and will start to crumble when they try to build upon it.

I’m in the camp that I believe we’ll see Primaris replace the old marine models completely.

We have seen range changes before, from the restyled Tyranids, redone Land Riaders, Land Speeders, Dreadnoughts and Rhinos to the shift from beakies to Mark VII marines.

Even being in video games won’t save the imagery - go back and look at how Necrons were depicted in Dawn of War, or even the likes of the terminators from the original Space Hulk. The asthetics haven’t been and won’t be locked and would just change with the next game release whenever GW wants to push the new look and discard the old.

The new Blood Angels Codex is definitely trying hard to push the Primaris marines, with them being front-and-centre in the images and unit descriptions. All signs are pointing towards GW wanting to make Primaris the main units for Space Marines.

The problem they may have is that Primaris armies just aren't that great. In the current meta having 2W isn't much of an advantage given how prevalent plasma is. The models are OK but, IMO and in the opinion of a lot of the players in my group, they're a bit boring on the table. Combined with the sheer inertia that regular marines have by virtue of being the most popular models in 40k by far, I'm not sure how successful GW will be with their attempts to replace them.

Ultimatly, I think its the plan. They will slowly erase the Space Marines until there is only Primaris Marines, but it will take years. In the same vein, I think Eldars and Dark Eldars will be merged into a single force.

Space Marines and Primaris Marines are basically redundant. They were created to give to Marines fan the true scale Space Marines they were widely asking for, but GW needed an explanation for the size difference which is a bit too large and widespayed to be handwaved away. Marine players were also complaining that Space Marines weren't powerful enough. The new models gave them an excuse to boost their bolters and give them more durability in with one extra life. It's possible that with time, the Primaris fluff will change to make them feel more like just a new founding with better equipment than an entirely new breed of Space Marines as a way to make the shift more seemless, but that will be in almost 10 years I would say.

epronovost wrote:
Ultimatly, I think its the plan. They will slowly erase the Space Marines until there is only Primaris Marines, but it will take years. In the same vein, I think Eldars and Dark Eldars will be merged into a single force.

I think that that is just Kelly furiously spanking to that new Ynead insanity, where he can put his Super Special Sue Princess on top.
The Eldar armies will stay continuous but separated. I am positive about that.

I think they will eventually release Primaris versions of tactical and assault marines. Then they'll start phasing out those models. For all the talk of a riot, most SM players will be ok with it so long as they can still field their tacticals as Primaris in the future. They really only care if they can still field their old models.

Not sure why they'd phase out old marines. Primaris ones aren't very flexible, and the second wound is nice but not all that. Also given that there aren't any good transport options for less than 300pts that limits them quite a bit too. Also, you can't take flamers, plasma guns, hvy weapons, or even better CCW for them so that also reduces their utility. If you want a pile of guys to soak up hits you're better off with Scouts for the points, who can then customize a bit and set up where they need to be. Also, given the prevalence of weapons that inflict 2+ damage on a hit, cheaper single wound models are obviously far better for bullet catchers. They seem to have distilled the idea that Marines are all around units in general, which is already a bit of a handicap, and simply made the Primaris more so. I haven't seen too many armies that went heavy on Primaris that did all that well, so I don't think regular Marines are going anywhere anytime soon.

I want a codex Primaris with more units, reasonably priced transports etc. That said I do not think they will ever replace normal marines. the backlash would be to big. I do think the space marines have too many units already though so trimming some back or combining platforms and just having wargear options like the 3 landraiders combined like in CA should really be how they are done. Same for demolishers/predators. make one kit include both weapons options and one entry, this would make room for said primaris units without having even more entries than now.

Slipspace wrote:
The new Blood Angels Codex is definitely trying hard to push the Primaris marines, with them being front-and-centre in the images and unit descriptions. All signs are pointing towards GW wanting to make Primaris the main units for Space Marines.

The guy on the cover of the regular marine codex looks awfully big too...

I think it will be a "soft" replacement. I expect more primaris releases over the course of the edition, filling obvious gaps in their line. This will be accompanied in the fluff with chapters slowly going full primaris (with the occasional bout of drama).

When that is done (or done enough) and 9th or 10th comes around I expect them to basically say: "Look guys, the oldmarines are practically all primaris now. You can use your old marine models as primaris (like a 2nd edition carnifex is still a legal carnifex). From this point on oldmarines will not have separate rules.". If they do this gradually no one will really object; primaris marines will then be "the" marines, like the oldmarines currently are.

It won't happen, but I liked the idea of proper Space Marines becoming outlaws, and increasingly rare...scattered across the galaxy, etc. I was hoping the Imperium would become more of a bad thing, with fringe and rogue Space Marine elements protecting human outposts etc. Lots of fluffy room for that future, but I suspect it'll be far less dramatic.

I think the OP is confused.

Necrons phase out... Primaris Marines can't.

Will GW Phase out old Marines?

They are already doing it. They are doing it gradually, but the phase-out has already begun. I don't think we will ever see newly sculpted old-marine models.

From a balance perspective it seems apt. Tacticals really don't work well at 13 points per model, and if you lower their cost to 10-11 points per model then they are not all that super-soldiery anymore. A reasonable way to buff tacticals would be to give them +1W, +1A, and AP-1. And then you have intercessors.

So why didn't they just up the stats of all marines, and announce a new line of SM models with bigger proportions and a fresher look? Why did they butcher the fluff with Guillimans new super-duper soldiers alongside the old merely-super soldiers?

Time, is probably the answer. It will take them many years to update every power-armour clad model to the new proportions, and no one will buy an iPhone 10 once the iPhone 11 has been announced.

I think it's fairly obvious that primaris will replace normal marines eventually. It won't happen for a while though, and I'm sure by the time it does, primaris will be so widespread and with so many more options that it won't be as big of a deal as it seems now.

I think the only reason they did it this way (with the whole primaris fluff) was simple logistics. They wanted to update the marine line, but there are so many marine kits out there, and they couldn't recreate all of them at once. Instead, they just created two distinct forces until more kits can be made. I don't think we'll see any more vanilla marine kits - they've done pretty much all they can with the line (the size of the codex is proof enough).

They also took the opportunity to look at marines balance wise. The way vanilla marine squads are built, it's awkward to price them. 4 marines with bolters are actually 4 additional wounds for the lascannon in the squad. So you have to bake that into their cost. Then wouldn't they be underpowered for squads that don't have those weapons? This is why vanilla marines are so fragile - so much value in the squad is contained in the special weapons, and making the base troop efficiently costed would make the army overpowered.

Primaris don't have this problem, so they can afford to make the basic troop more durable. When you shoot at hellblasters, you know that you'll kill a hellblaster. You don't have 4-9 intercessors to chew through first before you get to the model wrecking you. I also think it was a calculated decision not to give them cheap transports. When you think marines fluffwise, you think beefy elite infantry, not glass cannons riding in metal boxes. This was their chance to make marines into what new players think they should be (rather than Bobby G's parking lot). Obviously they're trying to push this playstyle with chapter approved - everything primaris got buffed.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: Looks like someone beat me to my point!

Once the molds for the old marines reach the end of their life, they're probably toast.

Gwarok wrote:
Primaris ones aren't very flexible

This is the entire reason I think GW is moving to Primaris. Less moving parts, less SKU’s and molds for all those options that have to balanced and statted out. Look at how most other armies have, at most, two options for wargear for their troops. I think GW wants to greatly simplify the options available to a model to streamline the game side of the equasion. Perhaps it is because they want to remove decision paralysis, make the game easier to balance or they are simply lazy, but it is apparent that Primaris were chosen deliberately to be inflexible with their weapon options.

 Elbows wrote:
It won't happen, but I liked the idea of proper Space Marines becoming outlaws, and increasingly rare...scattered across the galaxy, etc. I was hoping the Imperium would become more of a bad thing, with fringe and rogue Space Marine elements protecting human outposts etc. Lots of fluffy room for that future, but I suspect it'll be far less dramatic.

I really love this idea and would be stoked if GW did implement it.

9th edition you could run your "traditional" marines as renegades/heratics with the new primaris loyalists hunting them down led by the newly found primarchs.

Give the primaris their own codex(s?) and then lump all the surviving mini-marines into another codex (who cares about chapters, they're trying to kill all of us!). Some fluff about the gene-seed going bad or something and poof. New line for GW (primaris) reduced whining from existing customers (you can keep playing with your boys, and now their cool because we don't make them anymore).

Hell I'd love it if GW just came out and did that now. I'd even buy the book!

 Talizvar wrote:
There was enough carrying on about the SM base size change.

My "gut" tells me that Primaris will be the "new" marines.
From what I have seen GW really looks like they want to re-package the look of 40k.
It looks like they want to kick the "scale creep" can down the road a bit longer.

Mixing my old Plague marines (metal) looks a tiny bit strange next to the new PM "monsters" for instance.

The thoughts on 30k being for the "old" models sounds like a good possibility.

As a company looking to make money, I think they will continue for a few years to flog both old and new since the molds paid for themselves long ago.

Rubric marines and custodes are also around that primaris size. It definitely seems like GW wants to fix the size issue. I mean i have some guardsmen that are taller than CSM.

They still have models from gorkamorka for sale. The poster child Space monkeys are not going away any time soon.

As has already been said, this seems like a planned phase out of the regular marines for the new "bigger and better" style and it needs to be done gradually to prevent people from feeling their nice armies are suddenly outdated.

But just you wait until you see the faction specific Primaris kits with all the bling and symbols attached

 SickSix wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
How would killing old marines in 40k kill the HH? Thats about the most ridiculous thing I have heard since Primaris came out.

HH has their own plastic sets. And FW can keep doing what they doing regardless of Primaris.

Well killing old marines kinda means not selling kits anymore...No models on sale, not much of a game left.

Do you not understand that 40k is completely separate from 30k? Primaris will replace marines in 40k. This has zero bearing on 30k.

Except you know killing off selling of those models will affect HH. Or you think they will keep kits on sale but not provide rules for 40k? That makes sense! NOT! They are not going to not provide rules for kits that used to be usable in 40k if they keep selling them. GW has been all about removing any restrictions whatsoever on using models removing restrictions on having multiple factions, moving super heavies to normal games to ensure players have reason to buy them apart from rare apoc games etc. Now you think they would add NEW restriction by removing models from 40k rules but keeping models? As if. If they keep selling plastic models they want them to sell rather than sit at warehouse because players can't use it in games. They aren't going to remove MKVII marines, rhino's, predators etc from 40k rules yet keep them on sale.

I'm sure they will have some sort of legacy rules, just no support. SOB situation basically.

Also, I really don't think 30K playerbase is particularly significant compared to 40K playerbase, so I don't think how things would affect HH is a high priority consideration to GW.

True that. Maybe FW is significant enough GW can just afford to let it go as without HH there's no FW left to run. Which just reinforces my point. Hopefully not! HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Isn't this inevitable? I mean, if GW never changed the models, we would have now beakies of the size of a guardsman or something.

It's not the proportions of the models that concerns me. I like the way intercessors look. They are nice sculpts.

My issues are thus:

-They are attempting to removed the flaws in Space Marine genes. Everything in this universe is flawed. It's supposed to be, the whole reason half of them turned traitor is because they are flawed. Thats the reason Space Marines are interesting. What are the Space Wolves and Blood Angels without their flaws? Boring. There's a reason people hate on Superman and Ultramarines. Whats the point if you are perfect? It makes the story meaningless if there are no consequences or stakes.

-They are too clean. All this new tech that they are pumping out is abhorrent to me as a 40K player. Keep things medieval. Swords and Sorcery!

-They are releasing a bunch of units that I don't care about and never asked for. What the hell are Aggressors, Rievers and Inceptors anyway? I don't want these. Just make some fething Assault Marines and Terminators. If they are going to re-scale the whole army, give me the classics. I don't care about this new garbage. All those units look bad too.

tneva82 wrote:
HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Is it very different? I took a look at a few models (the Guard equiv is awful looking...) and had assumed it was some earlier edition fork just running off of those rules (with profiles for that era's troops).

Personally, I do not think they will be removed. I think they are going to do the same thing to them they did to the Sisters of Battle. The current models will stay in production and they will continue to receive rules support. They are just never going to see any releases anymore. All new releases will probably be Primaris. FW will continue to use the old scale for HH releases though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
True that. Maybe FW is significant enough GW can just afford to let it go as without HH there's no FW left to run. Which just reinforces my point. Hopefully not! HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Plenty of stuff FW does and has done that does not relate to the HH. Also, you clearly never played LotR. Best rules ever. Current AoS rules are also somewhat decent.

They kind of already have. Although they also phased out numarines as well. Both suck.

IMO, if GW is going to phase out old marines it will likely also mean they're going to phase out support of the various founding chapters as well. I really doubt the players are going to tolerate release after release being nothing but a Primaris Marine in a robe, then a Primaris Marine in a pelt, then a Primaris Marine with a jet packs and melee weapons.

I think it's more likely we're going to see an end to Primaris Marines. They'll likely get a codex of their own along the same lines of Deathwatch and maybe another unit and vehicle but that's it.

Nvs wrote:
IMO, if GW is going to phase out old marines it will likely also mean they're going to phase out support of the various founding chapters as well. I really doubt the players are going to tolerate release after release being nothing but a Primaris Marine in a robe, then a Primaris Marine in a pelt, then a Primaris Marine with a jet packs and melee weapons.

I think it's more likely we're going to see an end to Primaris Marines. They'll likely get a codex of their own along the same lines of Deathwatch and maybe another unit and vehicle but that's it.

The last thing this game needs is more codexes. If an army isn't going to be able to stand 100% on its own, it doesn't deserve its own codex.

And even then, there's a solid argument to combine codexes. Do we really need a chaos space marines codex AND a codex for each god + space marines? Do we really need Grey Knights as a codex separate from ministorum, OA, and inquisition?

Eventually in the same way much of the Old World units/races are slowly falling behind in synergistic strength/production.

It really doesn't matter to me whether my Blood Angels are current or just short primaris marines. I'll continue to use them as long as I see fit. GW dosesn't control my hobby, I do.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Yes, they will phase out old marines completely over the next few years.

We will never see another new squat marine again

This has completely killed any and all interest I have in marines, and I was a huge fan.

Isn't this inevitable? I mean, if GW never changed the models, we would have now beakies of the size of a guardsman or something.

New models are ok, a new army that deletes the older one isn't. The current tactical marines box replaced the older one, it was something new but basically with just more options and better poses. Same guys with an update look. Primaris are a completely different thing.

I would hate new kabalite warriors with the size of grotesques or new ork boyz with the size of nobz.

This obsession in making everything bigger is killing 40k IMHO.

I am sure they will, that way they can make money on marine players buying their army basically from scratch again. I personally cant stand the look of the primaris and think they are garbage, from their kneepads to their ridiculous round helmets (and they remind me too much of the new york giants for some weird reason) I also hate the size creep.

I think eventually Chaos Space Marines and 30k will end up getting models with primaris-like statlines, primaris-like proportions and weird names that are easier to trademark. Any inconsistencies in the fluff they can just retcon away.

On the one hand, I think no.

On the other hand...

Look how much you're all calling them Primaris Marines. Every post I read, you [Dakka] all call them Primaris Marines. Not Primaris Space Marines, not Space Marines [For they are in fact still just Space Marines], you call them Primaris Marines.

What term did GW lose an attempt to copywrite? Space Marines.
What term _can_ GW Copywrite? Primaris Marines.

This could easily be the long planned AMing of the Space Marines and from that basis, it seems pretty inevitable.
If for one will continue to vote with my wallet, purchasing Space Marine kits, and refusing to purchase Primaris Kits, that's really all anyone can do.

 Blackie wrote:

I would hate new kabalite warriors with the size of grotesques or new ork boyz with the size of nobz.

They will probably be called Primariz Orruks

But Ork proportions only has to be internally consistent. Marines on the other hand needs to have proportions that are comparable to Chaos marines, Guardsmen and so on, or everything will look like a stylistic hodgepodge.

Of course they will.
As many have said GW will most likely never produce new mini-marines kits, and the primaris is the new standard.
Primaris also look a lot better, and are properly sized for what a marine should be.

Plus GW wants to sell models to the gamers that have everything (SM), which is why Primaris is a way for them to sell you a new SM army all over again.

It's going to be a long sunset so the more change-resistant gamers don't get too much of a shock, though.

 Vankraken wrote:
Instead of calling them True Scale marines and just saying "hey this is the new design proportions for space marines going forward but there is nothing wrong with using the smaller marines" they came up with some gak filled BS about Cawl "improving" upon Big E's design and all that other heretical noise. Now instead of letting them scale up in size like they did with Terminators, they split the model line in two and took a dump all over the fluff. GW will try to phase out the smaller marines but just like 8th edition they are going to find out the hard way that the foundation for this change was poorly thought out and will start to crumble when they try to build upon it.

So much this. I despise the term "true scale", most of the ones done looked like gak and the problem was never the SMs. It was normal humans. Compare a plastic Cadian to literally any other metal Guardsman from 2nd ed (or the DKOK from FW), hell; any regular human model from any other 28mm range. They're fething huge. They grow em big on Cadia apparently.

I would be really interested in knowing what has happened to the sales of the old marine kits since the introduction of the primaris. Personally I can no longer take the old marines seriously and I really cannot see many new players being interested in them when they can get primaris instead.

GW will phase them out, if they end up selling significantly less of the old school Marines than the worst-selling product line they currently have that is not being phased out (thus isn't selling quite badly enough yet).

So they'd pretty much have to (significantly) underperform ... metal Sisters? Bottom-tier WFB holdover that haven't been removed from AoS? The Hobbit range (if FW were to phase them out too)?

Sunny Side Up wrote:
GW will phase them out, if they end up selling significantly less of the old school Marines than the worst-selling product line they currently have that is not being phased out (thus isn't selling quite badly enough yet).

So they'd pretty much have to (significantly) underperform ... metal Sisters? Bottom-tier WFB holdover that haven't been removed from AoS? The Hobbit range (if FW were to phase them out too)?

Big difference is that Sisters other than the Saint Box don't take up any shelf space in individual stores - the truly vast "small" marine range does. Trying to have both the full range of these and an further expanded Primaris range in store is not really possible without making it just a Marine shop.

Its likely the more snowflake "small" marine boxes will go to direct order only.

For me, no I don't think they will ever phase out the regular marines.

I'm not much of a marine player, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Primaris armour technically MK 10 and there isn't a specified MK 9 armour?

If this is the case, I'd say this strongly suggests that we might see MK 9 armour tacs, devs, assault that will be 'true scale' and they can re-release special characters and models slowely in MK 9 armour alongside new primaries releases. I'd expect MK 9 will just be very slightly smaller version of Primaris marine.

In this vain, it will mean that people can choose to run any combination of normal marines (including true scale MK 9) and primaris.

They absolutely will, no doubt about it.

But it will be a gradual thing. From now on we'll ONLY get Primaris releases over time, meaning the only new kits existing players pick up for their SM will be Primaris.

Eventually, this will reach the point where the vast majority have 'replaced' much of their 2000ish collection with Primaris models. People who would initially hate on the idea (rightfully so) suddenly don't have as much of a problem with Old!Marines fading away and will actually defend them being removed.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
I think it will be a "soft" replacement. I expect more primaris releases over the course of the edition, filling obvious gaps in their line. This will be accompanied in the fluff with chapters slowly going full primaris (with the occasional bout of drama).

 Arbitrator wrote:
They absolutely will, no doubt about it.

But it will be a gradual thing. From now on we'll ONLY get Primaris releases over time, meaning the only new kits existing players pick up for their SM will be Primaris.

Eventually, this will reach the point where the vast majority have 'replaced' much of their 2000ish collection with Primaris models. People who would initially hate on the idea (rightfully so) suddenly don't have as much of a problem with Old!Marines fading away and will actually defend them being removed.

the removal if it's coming is a long aways off, GW has purposefully avoided obseleting many if any old SM units.

 Crimson wrote:
I would be really interested in knowing what has happened to the sales of the old marine kits since the introduction of the primaris. Personally I can no longer take the old marines seriously and I really cannot see many new players being interested in them when they can get primaris instead.

I don't see the old marine kits doing anything but fine in the wake of primaris. The primaris marines simply don't have the game capabilities old marines do, and in most cases the primaris option has been a consistently worse choice than anything else in slot.

The current points value for intercessors (from CA17) finally puts them at a point where they're slightly more effective against marines but slightly less effective against guard (which is a reasonable place to be), but they still lack basic tactical options and transports, and are ridiculously vulnerable to the mass of multi-damage fire available to most armies, making them still probably not worth their cost.

Hellblasters are probably in the best place (because hello plasma & reroll edition), but most of the rest are largely poor options.

The new kits have a more "knightly" look with their helmets, I say. Sort of like the Scions, come to think, with their armor.

Anyways I just saw this unit for the first time:



That's...pretty bad looking.

Voss wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I would be really interested in knowing what has happened to the sales of the old marine kits since the introduction of the primaris. Personally I can no longer take the old marines seriously and I really cannot see many new players being interested in them when they can get primaris instead.

I don't see the old marine kits doing anything but fine in the wake of primaris. The primaris marines simply don't have the game capabilities old marines do, and in most cases the primaris option has been a consistently worse choice than anything else in slot.

The current points value for intercessors (from CA17) finally puts them at a point where they're slightly more effective against marines but slightly less effective against guard (which is a reasonable place to be), but they still lack basic tactical options and transports, and are ridiculously vulnerable to the mass of multi-damage fire available to most armies, making them still probably not worth their cost.

Hellblasters are probably in the best place (because hello plasma & reroll edition), but most of the rest are largely poor options.

Perhaps. Then again, you're basically arguing that tactical marines are good, which really is not the case. Besides you forget one massively important thing. The old marines look like crap compared to the primaris. I really don't think most players, especially new players, read this sort of forums seeking optimal army builds; they just choose the units that they think look cool.

 Crimson wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I would be really interested in knowing what has happened to the sales of the old marine kits since the introduction of the primaris. Personally I can no longer take the old marines seriously and I really cannot see many new players being interested in them when they can get primaris instead.

I don't see the old marine kits doing anything but fine in the wake of primaris. The primaris marines simply don't have the game capabilities old marines do, and in most cases the primaris option has been a consistently worse choice than anything else in slot.

The current points value for intercessors (from CA17) finally puts them at a point where they're slightly more effective against marines but slightly less effective against guard (which is a reasonable place to be), but they still lack basic tactical options and transports, and are ridiculously vulnerable to the mass of multi-damage fire available to most armies, making them still probably not worth their cost.

Hellblasters are probably in the best place (because hello plasma & reroll edition), but most of the rest are largely poor options.

Perhaps. Then again, you're basically arguing that tactical marines are good, which really is not the case. Besides you forget one massively important thing. The old marines look like crap compared to the primaris. I really don't think most players, especially new players, read this sort of forums seeking optimal army builds; they just choose the units that they think look cool.

Ah, well, I actually do think most players choose things that do well. 'Coolness' isn't a quality that speaks to me, partly because it is entirely subjective, and often because when people use it, 'cool' seems to translate almost unerringly to 'stupid.' Like smoking or driving motorcycles at ridiculous speeds without a helmet.

Arguing that tactical marines are good? Not particularly- just that intercessors have been worse than tacticals, and still are when it comes to their supposed advantage at soaking damage, or dealing with non-MEQs. Beyond that, primaris as a whole largely fail against anything that isn't infantry.


As for old marines looking crap compared to primaris, I don't really agree. Primaris just look like more marines to me- not better or worse, but more of the same (except inceptors, which are awful looking, and the helmets for whatever-the-CC-unit-is called, which look ridiculous). Just in a different scale so they both look absurd side by side.

 Crimson wrote:

Perhaps. Then again, you're basically arguing that tactical marines are good, which really is not the case. Besides you forget one massively important thing. The old marines look like crap compared to the primaris. I really don't think most players, especially new players, read this sort of forums seeking optimal army builds; they just choose the units that they think look cool.

Tacticals still out-damage and out-specialize Intercessors by a long shot, making them better at killing Primaris than Intercessors are, too.

Intercessors look great, but their scale still makes them look out of place, imo.

Primaris can only use one vehicle.

Overall they can look neat as an army, but they're still very lacking in the options department, making them not very interesting to play in comparisson, imo. I get that newer players won't mind, but it is what it is.

 Crimson wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I would be really interested in knowing what has happened to the sales of the old marine kits since the introduction of the primaris. Personally I can no longer take the old marines seriously and I really cannot see many new players being interested in them when they can get primaris instead.

I don't see the old marine kits doing anything but fine in the wake of primaris. The primaris marines simply don't have the game capabilities old marines do, and in most cases the primaris option has been a consistently worse choice than anything else in slot.

The current points value for intercessors (from CA17) finally puts them at a point where they're slightly more effective against marines but slightly less effective against guard (which is a reasonable place to be), but they still lack basic tactical options and transports, and are ridiculously vulnerable to the mass of multi-damage fire available to most armies, making them still probably not worth their cost.

Hellblasters are probably in the best place (because hello plasma & reroll edition), but most of the rest are largely poor options.

Perhaps. Then again, you're basically arguing that tactical marines are good, which really is not the case. Besides you forget one massively important thing. The old marines look like crap compared to the primaris. I really don't think most players, especially new players, read this sort of forums seeking optimal army builds; they just choose the units that they think look cool.

Have to completely disagree, I think the primaris look like total garbage (especially the lt whos helmet job makes me think of the new york giants whom i also despise)

Another point to consider; if GW does not make new Space Marine models, they'll continue to use the old molds until they wear out. Very likely, when the old molds wear out, that line/model will be discontinued - why make new molds for a line you're no longer supporting and likely want to get everyone off anyways?

Still, considering the age of some of the models in their line (such as the metal Sisters), those molds could be around for some time.

 Stormonu wrote:
Another point to consider; if GW does not make new Space Marine models, they'll continue to use the old molds until they wear out. Very likely, when the old molds wear out, that line/model will be discontinued - why make new molds for a line you're no longer supporting and likely want to get everyone off anyways?

Still, considering the age of some of the models in their line (such as the metal Sisters), those molds could be around for some time.

Even if the current moulds do wear out, most of the current Marine line was desinged with 3D sculpting. Replacing those moulds are far easier than anything that was originally sculpted by hand.

I will quit 40k if they completely phase out old Marines. I hate Primaris Space Marines, their fluff is trash, the models look good from a technical perspective... But I don't like them.

I can see the Primarius being more of a slow replacement of the old range rather then a Old marines Vs New Marines. When it comes time for a new Intercessor kit I wouldn't be surprised with we start to see something like the Assault Plasma Incinerator moving out of the Helblaster kit. Given time it won't be any different seeing someone using a current tactical squad in the same way you see the odd Rogue Trade squad still turn up. Tactical squads as we know them now might be gone, but all those older Marines will just end up being short Primarius Marines in the future.

The other way to look at it though is that GW have already built in a back door option. Yes the flaws aren't in the Primarius Marines yet, but the Blood Angels have already notices some worrying things. Even Guilliman sees them as a necessary evil rather then a replacement. That way once the ranges have been fully swapped they can recon the Primarius out as a failed experiment and we now "true scale" marines. Just in time to redo all the Chaos kits too.

Honestly for the tabletop I suspect eventually it’ll happen. It’ll be a slow transition that funnily enough will match their new fluff, with Old Space Marines slowly being phased out by New Space Marines until either no Old Marines are left, or we get a new plot twist that saves them in some capacity. Over time when Fabius (or someone else but let’s face it it’ll be Fabius) figures out how to copy them then I suspect the same for chaos too.

Generally I’m fine with this as it is plot progression, a bit out of no-where but with Corax’s work in the heresy it does have precedent and they may even tie it in one of the last Horus Heresy books. Aesthetically Intercessors are cool, personally I would have made the armor much more mk VIII like though, but I don’t like the other infantry personally. More importantly a landraider can transport terminators but not Primaris Marines? And vice versa for other stuff? Really? It’s kinda dumb when their are rules preventing the same astartes from the same chapter from hoping into the same transport. Guess you must be this [ high to ride the new imperial stuff. I also hope they stop this mono-pose nonsense but that’s just me haha, I would love New Astartes that all weren’t pointing their bolters in the exact same position or standing dynamically the exact same way. Honestly that is the main reason I only have the Dark Imperium box and no other Primaris.

What I don’t want them to do is to retcon everything from before Primaris Marines, I’m from after rogue trader so I have no idea how that change happened, but generally I want the past 10k years of imperial history to be the same. In this regard the “Original but not quite THE Original” Space Marines will stay, because every time you want to do late Unification, Great Crusade, Horus Heresy, the Scouring, the Great Beast, the False Primarch, Nova Terra, etc. We will have the good old Adeptus Astartes to answer call.

edit- changed before to after, derp XD

I expect to see the old marines phased out. I agree with most everyone else that I prefer the simplicity of tactical marines, assault marines, and terminators to silly things like a unit of skull-faced marines (that's somehow supposed to be more terrifying than, for example, daemons) or those fat marines that look like they're flying around in invisible recliners. Still, I don't mind the Primaris too much.

I'm much more concerned about the vehicles. What's going to happen to the land raider, the rhino, the razorback, or land speeders? I don't want to lose the iconic space marine vehicles in the transition to "true scale" marines.

Really, IMO the smartest move long-term would have been to release the primaris guys as the new marine models with the standard marine options, rather than creating new marine units. Then players who felt the urge could replace their models with the truescale marines. They'd play the same, so people's gaming wouldn't have to change but it would be a way to update an otherwise un-updateable range. Instead, they created a fluff abomination and yet another SM unit that really isn't necessary for the army to function.

 Infantryman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Is it very different? I took a look at a few models (the Guard equiv is awful looking...) and had assumed it was some earlier edition fork just running off of those rules (with profiles for that era's troops).

It's locked into 7th edition. Weirdly, all the 40k guys state that 7th was the worse of the editions, while the HH guys state it was the best.

Personally, I'm avoiding HH until it gets a more modern ruleset but at least it's given a place for the older gamers to retire to instead of spamming the boards.

9th edition will remove old marine models and rules. It will be stated that all old marines have died, all the special dudes converted and that all marines are now made with Chad Tekyology. GW will make an official statement to use your old tactical marines as counts-as primaris until you can buy new models.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Is it very different? I took a look at a few models (the Guard equiv is awful looking...) and had assumed it was some earlier edition fork just running off of those rules (with profiles for that era's troops).

It's locked into 7th edition. Weirdly, all the 40k guys state that 7th was the worse of the editions, while the HH guys state it was the best.

Personally, I'm avoiding HH until it gets a more modern ruleset but at least it's given a place for the older gamers to retire to instead of spamming the boards.

There is already an 8th edition conversion on Dakka.

HH is almost completely about Space Marines. Of course it is much more balanced, regardless of the exact rule set, when everyone is using basically the same army.

Nvs wrote:
IMO, if GW is going to phase out old marines it will likely also mean they're going to phase out support of the various founding chapters as well. I really doubt the players are going to tolerate release after release being nothing but a Primaris Marine in a robe, then a Primaris Marine in a pelt, then a Primaris Marine with a jet packs and melee weapons.

I think it's more likely we're going to see an end to Primaris Marines. They'll likely get a codex of their own along the same lines of Deathwatch and maybe another unit and vehicle but that's it.

Wut.

All of this is the literal opposite of what's going to happen! Blows my mind that people might think this is true.

There isn't even any doubt that Primaris Marines are the new space marine. There will never be a new standard SM kit released again, outside Forge World and Heresy-focused releases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


It's locked into 7th edition. Weirdly, all the 40k guys state that 7th was the worse of the editions, while the HH guys state it was the best.

Not by design, but by circumstance. The main 30k designer had a strong plan to move HH to 8th, but sadly died - and the move to 8th did too.

Quote from the Reddit AMA in case you haven't seen it:

Alan had some big ideas for moving Age of Darkness into 8th edition, but sadly, he passed away earlier this year. Really sorry if this is the first you've heard of it. It hit us all rather hard, as you can imagine. He went off sick while the team was rushing to get all the Index books done for Forge World stuff in 40k, and it was already an ungodly quantity of work while he was there; the deadlines were just unrealistic, but there were demands from on high that all 40k FW stuff should have rules available for the day of release. Alan was an absolute writing machine, easily capable of doing the work of two or three regular humans, but with him not around things got very difficult indeed. The decision was made to focus on getting the Index books done, keep Age of Darkness as it was, and maybe revisit the idea later.

brettdavis1991 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I really hope not. Big marines and the new superheroes are IMHO the worst looking models released in ages.

It's funny that seems to be a common sentiment, at least here on dakka. I have to disagree though, I think the larger scale makes them look much better and more realistic. If you took those same stylish models from those chapters and made them bigger they would look even better IMO.

Agreed. I prefer the look of the Primaris. Their weapons actually look frighting and their imposing stature on the table makes them a very, very nice looking army. They also happen to be some of the most fun kits I've ever built! Reivers are sick!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Silentz wrote:

Nvs wrote:
IMO, if GW is going to phase out old marines it will likely also mean they're going to phase out support of the various founding chapters as well. I really doubt the players are going to tolerate release after release being nothing but a Primaris Marine in a robe, then a Primaris Marine in a pelt, then a Primaris Marine with a jet packs and melee weapons.

I think it's more likely we're going to see an end to Primaris Marines. They'll likely get a codex of their own along the same lines of Deathwatch and maybe another unit and vehicle but that's it.

Wut.

All of this is the literal opposite of what's going to happen! Blows my mind that people might think this is true.

There isn't even any doubt that Primaris Marines are the new space marine. There will never be a new standard SM kit released again, outside Forge World and Heresy-focused releases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


It's locked into 7th edition. Weirdly, all the 40k guys state that 7th was the worse of the editions, while the HH guys state it was the best.

Not by design, but by circumstance. The main 30k designer had a strong plan to move HH to 8th, but sadly died - and the move to 8th did too.

Quote from the Reddit AMA in case you haven't seen it:

Alan had some big ideas for moving Age of Darkness into 8th edition, but sadly, he passed away earlier this year. Really sorry if this is the first you've heard of it. It hit us all rather hard, as you can imagine. He went off sick while the team was rushing to get all the Index books done for Forge World stuff in 40k, and it was already an ungodly quantity of work while he was there; the deadlines were just unrealistic, but there were demands from on high that all 40k FW stuff should have rules available for the day of release. Alan was an absolute writing machine, easily capable of doing the work of two or three regular humans, but with him not around things got very difficult indeed. The decision was made to focus on getting the Index books done, keep Age of Darkness as it was, and maybe revisit the idea later.

Do you have a link to that AMA?

Of course: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/7k1tp0/im_james_m_hewitt_freelance_tabletop_games/

 Silentz wrote:


There isn't even any doubt that Primaris Marines are the new space marine. There will never be a new standard SM kit released again, outside Forge World and Heresy-focused releases.

I'm ok with that, but I hope GW still includes them in the future editions.

Ork buggies have more than 20 years and they're still on the webstore and the codex, sisters didn't received updates since decades and they still have a codex with units represented by metal models.

I don't even want new SM kits, just let players that have the models use them.

I think it's got to be GW long game plan to ultimately replace mini-marines with Primaris marines. Every single bit of artwork in ALL the new marine codex's so far is only Primaris, as well as new releases.

Well, the tiny marines were phased out.

You know, those before the current plastics, which were uglier and smaller.

A bit like the current marines are uglier and smaller than the new marines, which should be every "true scale" fan's wet dreams.

I'm guessing small marines will be phased out just like tiny marines, when proper scale marines become the main source of revenue.

I suspect the MkIV "Betrayal at Calth" 30k marines will stay in production, but that the common and older line of MkVII power armour marines eventually will go out of production.

The MkIV line is only about 2 years old, the proportions are nearly flawless and it's the most elaborate and finely detailed plastic kit I've ever purchased from GW.

In terms of design, there's a strong resemblance between the MkIV and the Primaris armour, which should make them easy to combine.

One outcome might be that GW phases out the "contemporary" MkVII armour SMs, in favour of MkIV, which is then left in production, replacing MkVII tactical SMs.

I wouldn't be suprised in the slightest, they're much better looking model, if anything.

If we ever see an actual Primaris Terminator (not Aggressors, models that use the aesthetic of Terminators), then we will know for sure that old scale's days are numbered.

I can't see them ditching the iconic Terminator look, but they'll need to upscale them if they ever plan to make Primaris the only Marines.

I really want Primaris Terminators.

morgoth wrote:
Well, the tiny marines were phased out.

You know, those before the current plastics, which were uglier and smaller.

A bit like the current marines are uglier and smaller than the new marines, which should be every "true scale" fan's wet dreams.

I'm guessing small marines will be phased out just like tiny marines, when proper scale marines become the main source of revenue.

But the current marines replacing tiny ones is a different thing. Those tiny models were the ancient version, the new one is the same unit with more modern miniatures. Primaris stuff are other units and other characters, they're different stuff. That's why I think it will be absurd to delete the old stuff, primaris are the newest version of older miniatures, they're a new thing.

True scale fans are just a small part of the SM fan, I've never even met one in my life.

 Blackie wrote:
But the current marines replacing tiny ones is a different thing. Those tiny models were the ancient version, the new one is the same unit with more modern miniatures. Primaris stuff are other units and other characters, they're different stuff. That's why I think it will be absurd to delete the old stuff, primaris are the newest version of older miniatures, they're a new thing.

True scale fans are just a small part of the SM fan, I've never even met one in my life.

Well, kinda. They chose to handle the fluff and rules awkwardly this time, but ultimately a marine with a bolter and a slightly bigger marine with bolt rifle are basically the same thing.

Besides, even from the fluff stand point it will not make sense for the old marines to stay. People wanted the timeline to progress (I always thought it was a bad idea) and now that's happening. Even if the stuff about being able to upgrade old marines to primaris was not true, the chapters have had the ability to make primaris marines for over a century now. And just like GW, they won't make inferior product any more when a superior replacement is available. When the timeline moves further, the old marines will literally die out.

I agree... if we see primaris azrael, primaris dante, primaris logan, and primaris terminators, an abaddon that isn't a dwarf, well then I'll concede that the old kits are being phased out.

They have too much stock in the small kits, across many lines, da, ba, sw, gk, sm, dw, chaos, etc... Not to mention primaris armies are not competative, and at large tournaments the competative lists run mainly small marines with one or two specialized units of primaris (reavers, plasma dudes, etc).

I doubt our marines are going anywhere anytime soon. It took 30 years for our marines to evolve slightly larger (grey knights, deathwatch) and on 32mm bases for goodness sake

I would have to say they'll quit selling original marines when they aren't being bought. I don't see them hard cutting off a line that's profitable. I've still seen people buying original marines. It might be they like the mixed squads or the general weapon styles, they want to play any era before the 42nd, or just prefer the looks of the oldschool marines.

If we ever get to the point they're selling like old fantasy did, then we'll see them killed off.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
HH is only game GW has left that has rules of any value.

Is it very different? I took a look at a few models (the Guard equiv is awful looking...) and had assumed it was some earlier edition fork just running off of those rules (with profiles for that era's troops).

It's locked into 7th edition. Weirdly, all the 40k guys state that 7th was the worse of the editions, while the HH guys state it was the best.

Personally, I'm avoiding HH until it gets a more modern ruleset but at least it's given a place for the older gamers to retire to instead of spamming the boards.

I've honestly never seen anybody playing HH say 7th was the best, only that it's better FOR HH than 8th is.

7th was a mess, everybody I think accepts that, but when you only have to balance Legions and some far less popular off-shoots (Army, Mechanicum, Knights) as well as cutting out Formations, it does work a lot better when it comes to depth. I think 8th's strength comes from it's diversity of armies, each having their individual special rules and such, so there's always a twist or several there to keep you on edge.

If you bring the Legions over to 8th however, it's simplicity really starts to show and in a detrimental way rather than the 'simpler and quicker' way it does with 40k's vast swathe of armies. Legions aren't SO different they can sustain a game as simple as 8th being anything more exciting than 'ram my dudes into the middle of the board and chuck dice'. 7th isn't exactly an exercise in West Point tactics and strategy either, but it facilitates 30k better in that way.

GW's Modus Operandi for the last twenty years at LEAST has been all about trying to get you to buy your army all over again, so phasing out Marines for Primaris only makes sense.

Production capacity issues might force their hand earlier than intended. Make some more Baneblades and Exocrines and make fewer Tactical Squads and Devastators. That could sort the OOS woes and obsolete the Marine in one!

"But the Marines have all sold out!"
<store employee pops up>
"Have your tried new biggerer PRIMARIS MARINES?!? They're NEW, biggerer, and (crucially) in stock!"
"Ummm..."

 Infantryman wrote:

That's...pretty bad looking.

Yeah, the Inceptors is perhaps the stupidest looking kit GW has released in last 10 years (and there's competition), particularly the Heavy Bolter version. I mean, those stupid little shields..were they thinking ANYTHING? At all?
Primaris Aggressors are nearly as awful.

Basic Primaris Marines don't look bad, but nearly all their other models of their range do, including their flying tank.

Backfire wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:

That's...pretty bad looking.

Yeah, the Inceptors is perhaps the stupidest looking kit GW has released in last 10 years (and there's competition), particularly the Heavy Bolter version. I mean, those stupid little shields..were they thinking ANYTHING? At all?
Primaris Aggressors are nearly as awful.

Basic Primaris Marines don't look bad, but nearly all their other models of their range do, including their flying tank.

Is the classic marine range really better?

At least Primaris have the right size on the tabletop, and many of their miniatures are arguably badass-looking, if sometimes comically so.

The Inceptors are a good example - they're largely turned to eleven, but at least they're flying (with a horrible system though) and they're big and strong.

Backfire wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:

That's...pretty bad looking.

Yeah, the Inceptors is perhaps the stupidest looking kit GW has released in last 10 years (and there's competition), particularly the Heavy Bolter version. I mean, those stupid little shields..were they thinking ANYTHING? At all?
Primaris Aggressors are nearly as awful.

Basic Primaris Marines don't look bad, but nearly all their other models of their range do, including their flying tank.

I still think this is pretty subjective, you have to be careful of whether you've been in a bit of an echo chamber.

I really like Inceptors especially Heavy Bolters, though the poses from the Dark Imperium set are significantly better than the poses in the full kit. And when I saw Aggressors I knew I needed them on launch.

If you don't like them that's cool, I respect that they aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. But let's not be hyperbolic here, they are not objectively bad models.

morgoth wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:

That's...pretty bad looking.

Yeah, the Inceptors is perhaps the stupidest looking kit GW has released in last 10 years (and there's competition), particularly the Heavy Bolter version. I mean, those stupid little shields..were they thinking ANYTHING? At all?
Primaris Aggressors are nearly as awful.

Basic Primaris Marines don't look bad, but nearly all their other models of their range do, including their flying tank.

Is the classic marine range really better?

At least Primaris have the right size on the tabletop, and many of their miniatures are arguably badass-looking, if sometimes comically so.

The Inceptors are a good example - they're largely turned to eleven, but at least they're flying (with a horrible system though) and they're big and strong.

I'd argue the "right size on the tabletop" thing. I still think they look comically huge compared to other troop size models. Even if they are realistically scaled, it's a different aesthetic choice, putting them at odds with many other models.

Is GW pushing to a new proportional standard, away from "heroic scale"? I don't think it's a bad move, but the mix of models is wierd.

 455_PWR wrote:
I agree... if we see primaris azrael, primaris dante, primaris logan, and primaris terminators, an abaddon that isn't a dwarf, well then I'll concede that the old kits are being phased out.

They made a whole new line of Chaos Marines (that so far have no reasons to be bigger) primaris-sized.

What else do you need? A signed letter with sealing wax from Mr. Rountree?

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Production capacity issues might force their hand earlier than intended. Make some more Baneblades and Exocrines and make fewer Tactical Squads and Devastators. That could sort the OOS woes and obsolete the Marine in one!

"But the Marines have all sold out!"
<store employee pops up>
"Have your tried new biggerer PRIMARIS MARINES?!? They're NEW, biggerer, and (crucially) in stock!"
"Ummm..."

That's what GW has been doing with Sisters since the dawn of time!

All the fluff written for every SM Chapter has been: nearly wiped out, Guilliman saves the day, the depleted chapter is now reinforced by Primaris. Every one of them.

So much fear mongering goes on in these type of threads

No one knows for sure what GW going to do with short marines. But what we do know is they want you to re-buy your army as often as they canget away with it and they also want to change every name to something they can copy right. So yes old marines days are probably numbered but I don’t think they are dumb enough to do it anytime soon the backlash would be huge. Not everyone including myself going to trash their old models that they have spent thousands of dollars on and many hours painting just to re-buy The army. It will be many years down the road after most people have had time to collect the new models I can see them saying the old marines that have matching war gear count as primaris.

But like I said no one knows for sure all this is my expert opinion like all the others before me in this post but GW stand to lose a lot of customers if they just try to scrap the old line(and some of it not that old) and I think they are aware of this.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
All the fluff written for every SM Chapter has been: nearly wiped out, Guilliman saves the day, the depleted chapter is now reinforced by Primaris. Every one of them.

Ultramarines--Still good.
Raven Guard--Still good.
Dark Angels--Still good.
Blood Angels--This is true.
Space Wolves--We have to wait and see precisely how this works.
Iron Hands--Still good.
Salamanders--Still good.
White Scars--Still good.
Imperial Fists--Seemingly still good.
Crimson Fists--Not so great. But they weren't doing so well even before now.
Black Templars--Seem to be getting reinforced by Primaris but not replaced.

So what if they're being "reinforced by Primaris"? There's whole Primaris Chapters being added as well. Rift Stalkers, Hammers of Dorn, etc. Be concerned when those guys get into the forefront.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
All the fluff written for every SM Chapter has been: nearly wiped out, Guilliman saves the day, the depleted chapter is now reinforced by Primaris. Every one of them.

Ultramarines--Still good.
Raven Guard--Still good.
Dark Angels--Still good.
Blood Angels--This is true.
Space Wolves--We have to wait and see precisely how this works.
Iron Hands--Still good.
Salamanders--Still good.
White Scars--Still good.
Imperial Fists--Seemingly still good.
Crimson Fists--Not so great. But they weren't doing so well even before now.
Black Templars--Seem to be getting reinforced by Primaris but not replaced.

So what if they're being "reinforced by Primaris"? There's whole Primaris Chapters being added as well. Rift Stalkers, Hammers of Dorn, etc. Be concerned when those guys get into the forefront.

Dark Angels were almost wiped out per the new Codex. Apparently they were about the lose the Rock after the raid that freed Luther.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
All the fluff written for every SM Chapter has been: nearly wiped out, Guilliman saves the day, the depleted chapter is now reinforced by Primaris. Every one of them.

Ultramarines--Still good.
Raven Guard--Still good.
Dark Angels--Still good.
Blood Angels--This is true.
Space Wolves--We have to wait and see precisely how this works.
Iron Hands--Still good.
Salamanders--Still good.
White Scars--Still good.
Imperial Fists--Seemingly still good.
Crimson Fists--Not so great. But they weren't doing so well even before now.
Black Templars--Seem to be getting reinforced by Primaris but not replaced.

So what if they're being "reinforced by Primaris"? There's whole Primaris Chapters being added as well. Rift Stalkers, Hammers of Dorn, etc. Be concerned when those guys get into the forefront.

Dark Angels were almost wiped out per the new Codex. Apparently they were about the lose the Rock after the raid that freed Luther.

Okay, so that's two at least.

Did the Dark Angels do the whole "recall the Successors" thing?

If space marines are squatted it will gut the community and kill the hobby in most clubs.

There just isn't any interest in Primaris where I play, though I'm sure they sell well with the 14 year olds in the GW store, but GW know's it's not the 14 year olds that keep the community going and people buying kits.

There are many who play the space marines they have collected over years and would not or simply are not in the position to drop 100s on a whole new force.

It would be a very poor business decision, just as when GW have shot themselves in the foot in the past, it has hurt sales as people move on to other systems.

There won't be any backlash of merit if slowly done. I remember hearing the same things when the much bigger Rhino and Terminators came out.

There was plenty of complaints and proclamations that "I'll never switch to 32s for marines" Now it's almost universally accepted.

The real kicker will be when Primaris begin outperforming the Oldstartes. One constant in this hobby is how much people come around to or "always liked those minis" when they get powerful rules.

 Eldarain wrote:
There won't be any backlash of merit if slowly done. I remember hearing the same things when the much bigger Rhino and Terminators came out.

There was plenty of complaints and proclamations that "I'll never switch to 32s for marines" Now it's almost universally accepted.

The real kicker will be when Primaris begin outperforming the Oldstartes. One constant in this hobby is how much people come around to or "always liked those minis" when they get powerful rules.

Haha, I still have all muy models on 28mm or whatever. I definitely don't remember anyone complaining about the new Rhino 8n 3rd edition.

And despite Centurions being all tbe rage, I never got into those either. If you're into this hobby long enough, I think you learn not to chase the fads.

Mike712 wrote:
If space marines are squatted it will gut the community and kill the hobby in most clubs.

There just isn't any interest in Primaris where I play, though I'm sure they sell well with the 14 year olds in the GW store, but GW know's it's not the 14 year olds that keep the community going and people buying kits.

There are many who play the space marines they have collected over years and would not or simply are not in the position to drop 100s on a whole new force.

It would be a very poor business decision, just as when GW have shot themselves in the foot in the past, it has hurt sales as people move on to other systems.

As for every time old miniatures have been replaced by better shinier ones, you will be allowed to play count-as with your outdated miniatures.

Just like Chaos players are free to play microscopic sized lords of change if they don't want to buy the massively better new ones.

(or if they're so WAAC they want their Fatey to be tiney and easy to hide...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarain wrote:
There won't be any backlash of merit if slowly done. I remember hearing the same things when the much bigger Rhino and Terminators came out.

There was plenty of complaints and proclamations that "I'll never switch to 32s for marines" Now it's almost universally accepted.

The real kicker will be when Primaris begin outperforming the Oldstartes. One constant in this hobby is how much people come around to or "always liked those minis" when they get powerful rules.

Honestly, I wouldn't even have a single Revenant Titan if they had been worthless rules-wise, because I couldn't come to terms with their roman helmet heads.
I then started liking them during and after building them.

On the other hand, I bought the Cobras, Serpents and Lynxes even though they had been solidly nerfed.

But I think it's fair that you wouldn't like a miniature at first sight (the WK), then see it as a staple of competitive play, use it, and then it would grow on you.

 Eldarain wrote:
There won't be any backlash of merit if slowly done. I remember hearing the same things when the much bigger Rhino and Terminators came out.

There was plenty of complaints and proclamations that "I'll never switch to 32s for marines" Now it's almost universally accepted.

The real kicker will be when Primaris begin outperforming the Oldstartes. One constant in this hobby is how much people come around to or "always liked those minis" when they get powerful rules.

But the bigger rhino and terminators were only the updated miniatures of models that already existed. Intercessors are not the new tac marines, hellblasters aren't the new devastators, etc...

The comparison between SM and primaris IMHO is same one between sisters and grey knights. And sisters still exist in the rules, even if GW hasn't released new models since 20+ years, with the exception of the new celestine. I can't understand why SM should be phased out from the store and the codexes even if they won't have new kits. Especially if regular marines continue to sell well.

Hatachi wrote:I would have to say they'll quit selling original marines when they aren't being bought. I don't see them hard cutting off a line that's profitable. I've still seen people buying original marines. It might be they like the mixed squads or the general weapon styles, they want to play any era before the 42nd, or just prefer the looks of the oldschool marines.

If we ever get to the point they're selling like old fantasy did, then we'll see them killed off.

The difference is that the replacements are already here, it's just the process of phasing out the old. Kind of like EVERY army that had pewter replaced by plastics. The only difference is this is the flagship faction and it'll be a more noticeable shift.

 Blackie wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
There won't be any backlash of merit if slowly done. I remember hearing the same things when the much bigger Rhino and Terminators came out.

There was plenty of complaints and proclamations that "I'll never switch to 32s for marines" Now it's almost universally accepted.

The real kicker will be when Primaris begin outperforming the Oldstartes. One constant in this hobby is how much people come around to or "always liked those minis" when they get powerful rules.

But the bigger rhino and terminators were only the updated miniatures of models that already existed. Intercessors are not the new tac marines, hellblasters aren't the new devastators, etc...

The comparison between SM and primaris IMHO is same one between sisters and grey knights. And sisters still exist in the rules, even if GW hasn't released new models since 20+ years, with the exception of the new celestine. I can't understand why SM should be phased out from the store and the codexes even if they won't have new kits. Especially if regular marines continue to sell well.

for one thing shelf space and inventory - a full range of Small marines and a full range of Primaris will mean even less spaxce for anything that is not a Marine.

 Mr Morden wrote:
for one thing shelf space and inventory - a full range of Small marines and a full range of Primaris will mean even less spaxce for anything that is not a Marine.

And shelf/warehouse space costs money. The more stuff they have waiting to be sold the more it costs them.

And AOS is already proof GW won't be hesitant of killing off SKU's even for old plastics that have paid for themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
HH is almost completely about Space Marines. Of course it is much more balanced, regardless of the exact rule set, when everyone is using basically the same army.

Plus ad mech, cults(which can be anything from low ragged cultists to squat equilavents), hard core IG, knights, daemons.

 Mr Morden wrote:


for one thing shelf space and inventory - a full range of Small marines and a full range of Primaris will mean even less spaxce for anything that is not a Marine.

And what's the problem? 90% of the new GW releases have usually been SM dedicated.

Half the factions of 40k are SM or their allies. GW will release way more stuff for the imperium than all the other factions combined.

 Blackie wrote:


But the bigger rhino and terminators were only the updated miniatures of models that already existed. Intercessors are not the new tac marines, hellblasters aren't the new devastators, etc...

They kinda are. They chose to write a fluff and rule separation for this edition, but that doesn't mean that such thing will remain in perpetuity. As I said earlier, a marine with a bolter and a slightly bigger marine with a slightly bigger bolter are basically the same thing.

And why has no one addressed the fluff side? In universe, no one will be making new old marines any more (I mean there could be some silly holdouts, I guess.) All chapters have an ability to make primaris now, there will be no old marines produced. All new recruits will be primaris, and this has been going on for a while now. And of course, then there is Pete Foley explicitly saying that old marines can be upgraded into primaris. This has not appeared in any publication yet, but it seems weird he would make an mistake like that. I suspect it is something that will be revealed later, and will be GW's explanation when they get around primarising the old beloved characters. And of course at that point there will be zero fluff reasons for any non-primaris marines to remain, as logically all would be upgraded.

I've been thinking about this one since the OP posed the question. It doesn't seem likely to me that GW will keep producing parallel lines of Marines into perpetuity. They've advanced the timeline so Primaris are the new standard, and they've been wanting to make Marines more true-scale for a while now.

Also, people have long complained about the generalist nature of SM units. Primaris units are all very specialized. Intercessors are meant to sit on objectives and be hard to shift. Hellblasters - the name kind of speaks for itself. Reivers are the assault unit. I forget the name of the jump pack unit, but it's a high-mobility firepower unit. None of the units have chaff members, except Intercessors, who are basically all chaff. Essentially, each unit has a clear-cut role, and there's not a lot of fiddling about with upgrades.

The line is kind of incomplete though. One thing it needs is tanks that are less expensive than the Repulsor. That thing is the Primaris Land Raider equivalent. The line need equivalents to the Rhino and Predator, costed appropriately.

From a fluff perspective, it is a bit strange though. Guilliman is supposed to have basically written the Codex: Astartes, dictating Space Marine combat doctrine. It may be 10,000 years old, but to him he basically wrote it yesterday. It's odd that the new Primaris units don't conform to the vision he laid out for Marines. I suppose the justification can be that he's so tactically and strategically brilliant, he recognized the need for new doctrine based on current conditions in the Imperium, plus the availability of all of Cawl's new toys.

 Blackie wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:


for one thing shelf space and inventory - a full range of Small marines and a full range of Primaris will mean even less spaxce for anything that is not a Marine.

And what's the problem? 90% of the new GW releases have usually been SM dedicated.

Half the factions of 40k are SM or their allies. GW will release way more stuff for the imperium than all the other factions combined.

You have just highlighted the problem - 100% of the releases for 8th Edition in 2017 were related to Marines.

If you want it to get worse then yeah having two complete ranges of marines - both of whom not only have to cover all the Options (cos marines) but laos have to haev all the subfaction snowlfake marines covered as well (cos Marines)

Gw may or may not see that as a problem. Also most of us long time players alreay have huge collections of marines and as GW only focuss on a few specific Chapters the pruchase from us is likely to be limited, sure some of us won't buy new Primaris but we probably were not buying new marines stuff either as we had it already.

They will slowly tweak primaris point values to the point where they outperform the old marines. That's it.

Martel732 wrote:
They will slowly tweak primaris point values to the point where they outperform the old marines. That's it.

In all fairness, I was amazed that they did not debut as crazy-effing strong.

Proof that GW will not do "anything" to sell models.

GW doesn't know what's strong and what's not strong. But they are using crowd-sourcing to figure it out.

I think the Primaris plotline is still ongoing. Primarchs are being brought back, and you can bet each new one will shift and change the story substantially. There are now "current" events in 40k, which is not something we're used to.

Ultimately, how this story develops, will dictate the fate of the marines with three extra organs from those with three less. And, if GW drags it out, and it takes ten years for this story to develop (and it easily could) you might wind up with different people at GW - new authors and developers - who will change the story radically from what the creators of Primaris marines intended.

Save to say, the "regular" marine line is vast, and the Primaris line is small. They may always occupy a quiet corner of the Space Marine list, and remain as they are unchanged, while normal marine kits continue on.

Or, they may throw a "primaris heresy" in a few years, and we'll be told that loyalist chapters keep their Primaris numbers low and have trouble trusting them, for fear of another rebellion.

Or, six years from now, they might decide that a newly resurrected Leman Russ has ordered his reformed legion to ignore the Codex Astartes and give melta guns and missle launchers to primaris marines. Then, GW will see how excited everyone is to field Primaris that work like old marines, and they decide the next edition to just make Primaris-sized versions of regular marines.

Until it comes to pass, we just don't know.

Kaiyanwang "What else do you need? A signed letter with sealing wax from Mr. Rountree"

Read my post bud. Pretty simple, I posted what evidence I need, and I think my post was pretty fair (terminators and characters change to primaris or primaris scale, that signals death of small marines).

But thanks for the sarcasm...