I agree, happy to see primarchs return if the loyalist return is in response to the traitor primarchs being revealed and the legions get their own supplement codexes.
And eldar, at the very least have had a full model revamp first as they are so neglected and I don’t want to be made to feel even more salty towards SM
I suppose the way I would see it priority wise:
1. Modernise craftwolrds
2. Fulgrim and EC Dec
3. Angrin and WE Dec
4. The lion
3. Leman Russ
5. Sanguinius or Khan, depending on if they will leave Sanguinius dead
I know there are other priorities like IG the above is just a lose structure please don’t jump on me
vict0988 wrote: Agree with mrFickle. Although 3 heretic Primarchs in a row might be a bit much.
I want at least one Loyalist first. There's already two Daemon Primarchs. Fluff, Logic, and Suspension of Disbelief thinks they should stay roughly even in numbers. Guilliman can't be everywhere at once, and Chapter Masters can only speedbump not out strategize a Primarch based on the fluff so far. So they need another Loyalist to offset Magnus (Russ is the traditional - but Lion or Corvus would be a cross tradition option which they seem to be doing - Guilliman was traditionally aimed at Lorgar, Angron, and/or Fulgrim) and then another for whichever Daemon Primarch is next. Otherwise it would be a simple thing for Mortarion and/or Magnus to lock Guilliman down, while the other can get away with murder.
But by introducing fulgrim or a grin you are creating 2 new armies where as a loyalist primarch is just another big buff to SM that have had a huge upgrade project.
But I do take your point and I would also ask should you count abbadon at primarch level. Not fluff wise but stat wise.
Also one of the new SOB models looks like it will have guilliman level stats
Would have preferred them to remain in the mists of time, but that ship has sailed. So why not.
The one who are firmly dead need to stay that way. Those like Dorn, where there is enough wiggle room with no body/confirmation they can do. Yes, this means not everyone will get one. That’s OK.
Traitors should get the 2 remaining god specific ones with corresponding codexs,
I’d probably want Russ and the Lion back first for the loyalists. With Vulcan also high on the list.
Noooo.
If only for the selfish reason that they tend to overly show up, often times are just unbalanced messes (as are any way to big / pts intensive units really).
Voted yes, but really I'm after the Legions that will inevitably come with them rather than the Primarchs themselves. Loyalists should largely stay missing.
I voted "maybe". Actually I don't think not having Primarch impact the play of army so much. As we can all see, Thousand Sons can do just fine without taking Magnus. Mortarion was once thought "Oh so OP" when Death Guard comes out, but it has been proved that although he is very very strong, he is not the unstoppable broken unit it was once thought, and DG can be just as Top Tier no matter you take him or not.
Same for the Loyalist side, you don't need Guilliman to make SM strong. The strong SM chapter like DA, WS are already among top dogs without Primarch anyway. And the only army you will include Guilliman is not the top choice in competitive manner anyway, and even you take the Primarch, you are NOT bringing Ultramarine to the top dog level anyway. So I don't really care if there would be more Primarch released.
By the way. I don't believe any other Primarch are coming soon, unless GW has got a really bad period in terms of Warhammer 40k model selling.
Having a primarch that is good but not mandatory is great. The can has been opened anyways, bring all of them back, no reason to leave any living primarch out.
I'd also love to read about the clusterfeth that would happen politically in the imperium when Russ, Lion and/or Dorn come back who might take a slightly less political correct approach than Gulliman to everyone worshipping the emperor as a god.
I'm 50/50. I'd love to see Vulkan back, cos Salamanders (I need no other reason), but at the same time HH loses it's unique appeal of 'Gods amongst Men' the more we bring them back.
I guess I'd be comfortable with them coming back en masse if the Traitor Primarchs were demonstrably more powerful. That would be needed because the Imperium has known for 10,000 years that the Traitor Primarchs are still out there, and occassionally make incursions. And yet for 10,000 years Vulkan, Russ and all the 'MIA' Primarchs haven't bothered to return. There needs to be sufficient reason for them to return other than just 'We heard Angron was knocking about on Armageddon'. So they could either invest the Traitor Primarchs with significantly more power (Which is hard to demonstrate considering they're already stronger than most Daemon Princes), or GW need to make steps to demonstrate that the Traitor Legions are a credible threat other than comical villains who get conveniently slapped down by RG.
At the moment, notwithstanding the recent retcon of the Indomitus Crusade, RG popped up and b****slapped his way across the galaxy to (basically) reunite it in 200 years. If that is the measure of his power, then there is no justification for the other Primarchs. They'll just be playing Hawkeye to his Captain America ( I loath Marvel, but it's a good comparison ). I mean, this train has no brakes - it is going to happen as soon as GW needs a new marketing angle or they wrap up FW releases entirely. It's just a question of execution.
vict0988 wrote: Agree with mrFickle. Although 3 heretic Primarchs in a row might be a bit much.
I want at least one Loyalist first. There's already two Daemon Primarchs. Fluff, Logic, and Suspension of Disbelief thinks they should stay roughly even in numbers.
Fluff, logic ans suspension of disbelief say that loyalist primarchs have been dead for thousands of yeas whilst the chaos ones have always existed.
Bringing back Guilliman is literally the singe biggest fluff mistake GW has eve made, and it has seriously damaged the tome of the setting.
For loyalists I think both the Lion and Russ are lazy and boring options. I say throw a curve ball like the Khan or Vulkan.
For Chaos I'd say of course Fulgrim and Angron, but. . .
Wouldn't it be cool to have Alpharius leading renegade marines? I still like the idea of renegade marines that aren't Chaos and the rules don't really me run that very well.
I wish they'd stop introducing big AOS-style centerpiece models period. Primarchs, High Lords etc were better left in the lore where they could retain some mystery and majesty instead of put into the game to promptly die every other game to somebody's melta squad.
But sadly that's a vote I clearly lost a long time ago.
vict0988 wrote: Agree with mrFickle. Although 3 heretic Primarchs in a row might be a bit much.
I want at least one Loyalist first. There's already two Daemon Primarchs. Fluff, Logic, and Suspension of Disbelief thinks they should stay roughly even in numbers.
Fluff, logic ans suspension of disbelief say that loyalist primarchs have been dead for thousands of yeas whilst the chaos ones have always existed.
Bringing back Guilliman is literally the singe biggest fluff mistake GW has eve made, and it has seriously damaged the tome of the setting.
Aren't Primarchs biologically immortal and some are even entirely immortal?
Aren't Primarchs biologically immortal and some are even entirely immortal?
At least in older publication it was especially said that they were long lived but not immortal. But that's all made up, so it of course can change. It just is comically stupid that they would vanish for thousands of years, an then all return in very short span of time. It also completely destroys the themes of the setting, but it seems most people (either fans or the studio) do not care any more and will rather have puerile superhero soap opera.
40k was better when it was about mortal, roughly human individuals struggling in a decaying, grimdark world, not effectively immortal superheroes punching each other. The legendary figures of past ages should have stayed in HH where they belong.
yukishiro1 wrote: 40k was better when it was about mortal, roughly human individuals struggling in a decaying, grimdark world, not effectively immortal superheroes punching each other. The legendary figures of past ages should have stayed in HH where they belong.
Breton wrote: Chapter Masters can only speedbump not out strategize a Primarch based on the fluff so far.
Kaldor Draigo was able to defeat Mortarion. Magnus has been defeated by Bjorn. Angron was taken down by (many) Grey Knights. But, especially in that last case, those were straight punching matches.
Before his ascension, Perty was out-strategised by an Imperial Fists Captain at Phall. Shadrak Meduson was evading capture from Horus' forces and causing significant damage to his forces in guerrilla warfare. It's perfectly possible for Chapter Masters to make strategic and tactical victories over Primarchs, especially considering not all Primarchs were strategic geniuses.
I voted "don't care", because though I don't like Hero-Hammer and think it should be about You're Dudes instead of THIS DUDE, I understand that some people like them. And I'm not going to tell anyone else that they're having fun wrong.
I voted yes, mainly for the loyalist ones (preferably Lion first) because Chaos ones are a given as there is no way GW will not release Angron or Fulgrim when we already have Magnus and Mortarion.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Kaldor Draigo was able to defeat Mortarion. Magnus has been defeated by Bjorn. Angron was taken down by (many) Grey Knights. But, especially in that last case, those were straight punching matches.
Before his ascension, Perty was out-strategised by an Imperial Fists Captain at Phall. Shadrak Meduson was evading capture from Horus' forces and causing significant damage to his forces in guerrilla warfare. It's perfectly possible for Chapter Masters to make strategic and tactical victories over Primarchs, especially considering not all Primarchs were strategic geniuses.
The Primarchs definitely suffer from having super-ego's.
Aren't Primarchs biologically immortal and some are even entirely immortal?
At least in older publication it was especially said that they were long lived but not immortal. But that's all made up, so it of course can change. It just is comically stupid that they would vanish for thousands of years, an then all return in very short span of time. It also completely destroys the themes of the setting, but it seems most people (either fans or the studio) do not care any more and will rather have puerile superhero soap opera.
Hey, it's prophesied that Russ will return. and some of his Company has.
Essentially GW told us long ago that one day they'd we'd get the model/rules. It's just a waiting game.....
yukishiro1 wrote: 40k was better when it was about mortal, roughly human individuals struggling in a decaying, grimdark world, not effectively immortal superheroes punching each other. The legendary figures of past ages should have stayed in HH where they belong.
Absolutely.
But too late, the SOB will be fielding a high lord of Terra. I expect all dexes will provide a god level hero. Not sure how they would do it for IG
Oh it's definitely too late. That ship sailed years and years ago. Both AOS and 40k (well ok, AOS has been a superhero game for years now) are turning into superhero games, and judging by the sales figures, it seems to be what the customer wants.
It’d be nice for every faction to have their equivalent centre piece models, with decent rules to match.
So far we have (model wise at least)...
UM - Bobby G
DG - Mortarian
TS - Magnus
BL - Abbaddon
Orks - Ghazkull
Ynnari - Avatar of Ynnead
Necrons - Silent King
Sisters - that new high lord model
That leaves potentially
Guard - ?
Grey Knights - ?
Deathwatch - ?
Eldar - New Avatar of Khaine
Drukhari - Vect
Nids - New bigger Swarm Lord
Wolves - Russ
Dark Angels - The Lion
White Scars - The Khan
EC - Fulgrim
WE - Angron
IW - Perturabo
RG - Corax
Sals - Vulkan
Blood Angels - Primaris Dante? Or a somehow resurrected Sanguinius?
Fists - Dorn
Tau - Farsight?
One of the biggest WTFs of coming back to 40K was seeing Guilliman back. I still haven’t gotten used to the idea, it seems utterly wrong based on the lore as I knew it. The Chaos ones should absolutely be around (and were all available for Epic so were around in some scale), maybe the Lion doing a breakout of his long nap but Guilliman? Guilliman!??
Oh and if Sanguinius comes back then we truly know GW will be only short of introducing actual Marvel characters next.
General Kroll wrote: It’d be nice for every faction to have their equivalent centre piece models, with decent rules to match.
So far we have (model wise at least)...
UM - Bobby G
DG - Mortarian
TS - Magnus
BL - Abbaddon
Orks - Ghazkull
Ynnari - Avatar of Ynnead
Necrons - Silent King
Sisters - that new high lord model
That leaves potentially
Guard - ?
Grey Knights - ?
Deathwatch - ?
Eldar - New Avatar of Khaine
Drukhari - Vect
Nids - New bigger Swarm Lord
Wolves - Russ
Dark Angels - The Lion
White Scars - The Khan
EC - Fulgrim
WE - Angron
IW - Perturabo
RG - Corax
Sals - Vulkan
Blood Angels - Primaris Dante? Or a somehow resurrected Sanguinius?
Fists - Dorn
Tau - Farsight?
The genie is out of the bottle already, so may as well.
That said, I'd prefer they steered clear of Loyalist Primarchs as much as possible - I'll admit to personal bias as I'm not at all a fan of Space Marines, but Guilliman and his ilk all feel very 'vanilla'. We really do see enough toys and units released for this faction.
I'd be far more interested in seeing factions without one, gain a Primarch equivalent unit such as we've seen with Necrons and the Silent King. In the interest of perceived 'fairness' if nothing else.
Breton wrote: Chapter Masters can only speedbump not out strategize a Primarch based on the fluff so far.
Kaldor Draigo was able to defeat Mortarion. Magnus has been defeated by Bjorn. Angron was taken down by (many) Grey Knights. But, especially in that last case, those were straight punching matches.
Before his ascension, Perty was out-strategised by an Imperial Fists Captain at Phall. Shadrak Meduson was evading capture from Horus' forces and causing significant damage to his forces in guerrilla warfare. It's perfectly possible for Chapter Masters to make strategic and tactical victories over Primarchs, especially considering not all Primarchs were strategic geniuses.
"just as some truly exceptional humans can rise above an Astartes, an exceptional Astartes can rise above even a Primarch, Alexus Polux is one such Astartes"
paraphrased from memory of Alexis polux unit entry.
It is perfectly acceptable for even a space marine to be able to compete on some level with a primarch, take a look at Kharn and Angron, Ahirman and Magnus, Corswain and the Lion, Sigismund and Dorn, ABBADON and Horus, I would argue all eventually outshone their fathers and their legacies.
I really dislike the herohammer that tends to arise out of this. I'm not a fan of super centre piece models that tend to warp the balance of the codex around them.
When knights were released it dramatically changed the power level of single model units that were in the game, and made it more reasonable to start seeing super powerful individual models in other factions.
The fruit from the tree has been tasted, and Pandora's box will not be closed- so we might as well drive forward with more high points cost powerful individual models.
Personally I think unique models should be for narrative play, (they once we're...) But that is not where we are not have been for many editions.
Auras buffs and re rolls need to be heavily scaled back. List build and game winning seems to be all about an algorithm that’s gets you the best auras buff and re rolls. Not being good at the game and the luck of the dice.
Having primarch level units should be one of the few ways to get a limited aura effect on the table.
I’d also say that they can only be played if both armies are fielding that type of unit and in each movement round they must be moving closer to each other as if trying desperately to engage in close combat
Horla wrote: One of the biggest WTFs of coming back to 40K was seeing Guilliman back. I still haven’t gotten used to the idea, it seems utterly wrong based on the lore as I knew it. The Chaos ones should absolutely be around (and were all available for Epic so were around in some scale), maybe the Lion doing a breakout of his long nap but Guilliman? Guilliman!??
Oh and if Sanguinius comes back then we truly know GW will be only short of introducing actual Marvel characters next.
There's not enough exalting I could possibly ever give this post.
I didn't really want primarchs in the first place, their return fundamentally changes 40k. It is too late for that however and the cat is out of the bag, so we might as well get more. I am interested to see what they would do with Perturabo and Jaghatai.
Because getting "moar primarchs" will also mean yet even MOAR MARINES
If loyalist primarch: Moar marines because the primarch obviously needs to bring at least 4-5 new SM units because reasons.
If demon primarch: It will mean moar marines because obviously marines will ned NEW** Units to counter the NEW threats of NEW chaos UNIT(s).
So no. Id much rather see other stuff literally just about anything else.
HH has primarchs. So you can already buy and play those if so inclined.
Oh? I wasn't aware that they had 40k data sheets.
Look, if I wanted to play a completely different game, I'd already be playing it. What I WANT is for Russ to finally get his ass out of the Eye of Terror/Warp/whatever & lead my force in stats as well as in miniature form. Preferably while I'm still alive (I figure I've got about 25-30 years left)....
Russ finally returning to real-space is the only progression of story I want in this game.
This is Leman Russ. I've been using this mini (and the wolves he came with) for nearly 30 years now. I'd like to eventually use it as the character GW cast & sold as, in the game they sold it for.
Primarchs ruin the feeling of space marines all standing resolute against the darkness, each one a hero of the imperium.
They lame, and would have been way cooler if they had been mostly the same power level as other marines with there myths and legends being mostly overblown and there chaos counterparts trading for power from the horrors of the universe.
It hits more at how these individuals had so much influence on the universe when they don’t get ramped up and written so often like children that need that power to extend there influence passed there fists.
The Primarchs we have now disappoint. Mortarion and Magnus are expensive bullet magnets. They got nerfed in each 8th edition FAQ. Guilliman rarely gets the job done. I don't want a Russ / Lion / Khan / version of the same.
GW does the best they can but the mechanics make it hard to properly represent a Primarch on the tabletop. I just don't like the feeling they are 'ablative HQs' there to soak up the weight of your opponent's shooting for a turn or two while the rest of your army grabs objectives unopposed.
Apple fox wrote: Primarchs ruin the feeling of space marines all standing resolute against the darkness, each one a hero of the imperium.
..Have I been playing a different game these last 25-30 odd years? The Space Marines are the closest thing I can imagine to literal space Nazi's, propping up the most repugnant regime conceivable. A good portion of that 'darkness' they're standing against appears amoral at worst in comparison. o.O
At the end of the day, the Primarchs have been around and part of the game in some form since it's inception. They're just a little more physically present in the last few editions. Can't see there being any going back now without major (and likely unpopular) shake ups to the fluff.
Apple fox wrote: Primarchs ruin the feeling of space marines all standing resolute against the darkness, each one a hero of the imperium.
..Have I been playing a different game these last 25-30 odd years? The Space Marines are the closest thing I can imagine to literal space Nazi's, propping up the most repugnant regime conceivable. A good portion of that 'darkness' they're standing against appears amoral at worst in comparison. o.O
At the end of the day, the Primarchs have been around and part of the game in some form since it's inception. They're just a little more physically present in the last few editions. Can't see there being any going back now without major (and likely unpopular) shake ups to the fluff.
hero of the imperium doesn’t mean they or the imperium are a good thing :0 just the way they pushed as the heroes and the avenging angels that come to save the day.
And they could be done well, without the meh power escalation and they just the best. They have though there pushed power fantasy made so much of the game that should be quite dangerous and a horror to meet on the battlefield so underwhelming.
Tone em down and make em cool for being cool rather than super badass plot armor peaces. Probably to late to save it.
Characters don’t need to be center peace models, and are often made less cool because of it.
Because getting "moar primarchs" will also mean yet even MOAR MARINES
If loyalist primarch: Moar marines because the primarch obviously needs to bring at least 4-5 new SM units because reasons.
If demon primarch: It will mean moar marines because obviously marines will ned NEW** Units to counter the NEW threats of NEW chaos UNIT(s).
So no. Id much rather see other stuff literally just about anything else.
HH has primarchs. So you can already buy and play those if so inclined.
Oh? I wasn't aware that they had 40k data sheets.
Look, if I wanted to play a completely different game, I'd already be playing it. What I WANT is for Russ to finally get his ass out of the Eye of Terror/Warp/whatever & lead my force in stats as well as in miniature form. Preferably while I'm still alive (I figure I've got about 25-30 years left)....
Russ finally returning to real-space is the only progression of story I want in this game.
This is Leman Russ. I've been using this mini (and the wolves he came with) for nearly 30 years now. I'd like to eventually use it as the character GW cast & sold as, in the game they sold it for.
At least you had a model for rus. And have current one from FW.
Meanwhile i have maguan ra from the same year probably. And never even had a phoenix lord for my warp spiders
Because getting "moar primarchs" will also mean yet even MOAR MARINES
If loyalist primarch: Moar marines because the primarch obviously needs to bring at least 4-5 new SM units because reasons.
If demon primarch: It will mean moar marines because obviously marines will ned NEW** Units to counter the NEW threats of NEW chaos UNIT(s).
So no. Id much rather see other stuff literally just about anything else.
HH has primarchs. So you can already buy and play those if so inclined.
Oh? I wasn't aware that they had 40k data sheets.
Look, if I wanted to play a completely different game, I'd already be playing it. What I WANT is for Russ to finally get his ass out of the Eye of Terror/Warp/whatever & lead my force in stats as well as in miniature form. Preferably while I'm still alive (I figure I've got about 25-30 years left)....
Russ finally returning to real-space is the only progression of story I want in this game.
This is Leman Russ. I've been using this mini (and the wolves he came with) for nearly 30 years now. I'd like to eventually use it as the character GW cast & sold as, in the game they sold it for.
At least you had a model for rus. And have current one from FW.
Meanwhile i have maguan ra from the same year probably. And never even had a phoenix lord for my warp spiders
Well, I could order the FW one. He'll never be the model that leads my army though.
No, Russ predates Maguan Ra, squeaking in during the closing days of RT. Ra came along in 2nd.
Apple fox wrote: Primarchs ruin the feeling of space marines all standing resolute against the darkness, each one a hero of the imperium.
..Have I been playing a different game these last 25-30 odd years? The Space Marines are the closest thing I can imagine to literal space Nazi's, propping up the most repugnant regime conceivable. A good portion of that 'darkness' they're standing against appears amoral at worst in comparison. o.O
Apple fox wrote: Primarchs ruin the feeling of space marines all standing resolute against the darkness, each one a hero of the imperium.
..Have I been playing a different game these last 25-30 odd years? The Space Marines are the closest thing I can imagine to literal space Nazi's, propping up the most repugnant regime conceivable. A good portion of that 'darkness' they're standing against appears amoral at worst in comparison. o.O
At the end of the day, the Primarchs have been around and part of the game in some form since it's inception. They're just a little more physically present in the last few editions. Can't see there being any going back now without major (and likely unpopular) shake ups to the fluff.
All imperial factions are painted as heroes on a superficial level by GW. Yeah you can read the lore and realise what sick sadistic dogmatic place the imperium is and that space marines are narcissist cult warriors who only ally with the imperiums because they have psychopathic motives towards all non human life but will gladly destroy human populations for their own benefit...... or you can watch the little movies GW makes where the space marines and sisters of battle heroically fight the revolution space robots.
There’s only so much you can capture in a short vignette but newbies to the game are definitely given the impression of goodies vs badies.
Personally I like the idea of the story of the primarchs coming back to be psychopathic leaders of warrior cults and have their hypocrisy rubbed in their face by the likes of fulgrim, but that was also the HH. And since guilliman came back he’s been a real Boy Scout as far as I am aware.
I mean if the lion comes back and DA don’t basically become a break away state doing nothing but chasing down Luther and the fallen and neglecting any of their duties to the imperium then what’s the point in bringing him back
mrFickle 798172 11119670 wrote:
All imperial factions are painted as heroes on a superficial level by GW. Yeah you can read the lore and realise what sick sadistic dogmatic place the imperium is and that space marines are narcissist cult warriors who only ally with the imperiums because they have psychopathic motives towards all non human life but will gladly destroy human populations for their own benefit...... or you can watch the little movies GW makes where the space marines and sisters of battle heroically fight the revolution space robots.
There’s only so much you can capture in a short vignette but newbies to the game are definitely given the impression of goodies vs badies.
they are team humans. that automaticaly makes them the good guys, when you fight not humans. It is like real world, given choice between a human life and anything else life you pick human, doing otherwise would mighty strange. Also psycho indoctrination or mind scrubing are not the same thing as having psychotic motives. In the same way autistic behaviour doesn't mean you are autistic. Plus are we kind of a forgetting what humanity is dealing in w40k? orks kill stuff, because they are created as a bio weapon. Tyranids are a similar. Eldar are willing to sacrifice the sectors of humans just to retrive a single soul stone. Tau sterilize humans and put them in re education camps, or this is what the good tau do. The red bad tau just kill humans, including those on the tau side. Necron are the anti life, and chaos why it has humans among its ranks want to destroy and warp the natural way of living humans have.
Thinking that humans are in any shape or form the bad ones in the w40k world, is like saying a bear has full rights to kill your grandfathers horses or a boars have full right to destroy fields your family have.
mrFickle wrote: But by introducing fulgrim or a grin you are creating 2 new armies where as a loyalist primarch is just another big buff to SM that have had a huge upgrade project.
But I do take your point and I would also ask should you count abbadon at primarch level. Not fluff wise but stat wise.
Also one of the new SOB models looks like it will have guilliman level stats
No, Abaddon should be between a Chapter Master and a Primarch but closer to a Chapter Master.
SamusDrake wrote: Voted nay for the obvious reason that if I mention will be frowned up for mentioning, so I won't mention it.
Thanks for the vague-posting - and your obvious reason doesn't seem to be that obvious.
Can we see the Khan released for 30k before we see any more Primarchs for 40k, at a minimum?
Well, obviously I'm going to get lynched for complaining about too many marine models when craftworlds are in dire...
...ah, dammit.
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
A lot of Eldar models are in pretty big need of updates-it's frustrating that so much attention is lavished upon Marines when other lines have much older models.
Yeah, it would have been fine to make most of them a head taller or whatever like they are "supposed" to be, but making them 1.5x-2x as tall is just dumb.
A lot of Eldar models are in pretty big need of updates-it's frustrating that so much attention is lavished upon Marines when other lines have much older models.
Silliness aside, yeah I agree.
Only kit that Marines could do with is a multi-option Chapter Master kit, for those who prefer to create their own chapters. On the Chaos Marine side you have the Chaos Terminator Lord kit, which puts most of the Marine HQ kits to shame.
So I don't understand the problem. Eldar players have all their FW and non FW models to play with, and marine players are , as it seems, still waiting for their primarchs.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote: Yeah, it would have been fine to make most of them a head taller or whatever like they are "supposed" to be, but making them 1.5x-2x as tall is just dumb.
I don't know what people are feed around your place, but here people generaly don't grow to be 4M tall like Vulkan or short of 4M like Magnus.
Why would anyone want to have a primarch in 40k is beyond me, but why not half the Imperium following a traitorous, let's say warm aster and waging war to Terra ?
Oh wait, like the primarch being alive, it's called The Horus Heresy...
The playable primarchs embody most of the worst elements of current 40k development:
-Big, bloated, "centerpiece" models that become impossible to balance as they careen between "so scary they must be nuked immediately turn 1" and "not worth their huge points cost when they'll be nuked turn 1"
-Near legendary leaders responsible for thousands of planets across the galaxy showing up for minor skirmishes with orks
-The shift in focus from the huge scale of far-future interstellar armies and navies, to WWE style slapfights between giant manbabies in armor
-Near legendary leaders responsible for thousands of planets across the galaxy showing up for minor skirmishes with orks and dying in said minor skirmishes more often than that
Completely agree with your post, but augmented to show just how absurd the situation truly is. If 40k lore reflected the game we have today, Guilliman would have died a month or two after being resurrected, probably by being shot down by some Iron Hands Aggressors.
I do not think 30k eldars, which are just post Fall, are or should be the same as 10,000 years later craftworlds elders, even if they are described as such in Fulgrim
JNAProductions wrote: ...A lot of Eldar models are in pretty big need of updates-it's frustrating that so much attention is lavished upon Marines when other lines have much older models.
No, for this reason (amongst others already discussed). GW have far more important things to do than worry about Primarchs.
Maybe this is the decrepitude of (middle) age robbing me of my memory, but I can't recall there being any real-world reason to have the Primarchs return. The fluff didn't feel like it was any less for these demigods being present only in myth and nightmare (slight exception for Daemon Primarchs returning during something climactic like the 13th Black Crusade to firmly bury the "how are we?" dial in the 11+ range), and I never felt like the game needed something akin to a Primarch, either. Sure, GW doesn't need explicit reason to do any given thing, but I'd expect at least some rationale behind so major a change.
I confess I'm often puzzled by the lines people draw for themselves in terms of what they want/don't want to see in 40K. Or maybe not the 'lines' themselves so much, but the force behind those opinions?
You see it a lot around the inclusion of Primarchs and LoW's especially, and as a Knight player, I completely get it - they're not for everyone and can cause a certain amount of disruption to some games. (Conversely, it does get a little bit tiresome feeling as though you have to apologise for enjoying a particular army at times).
40K though, is a framework of rules at the end of the day. Don't want to see Primarchs or other units on the table? Don't include them in your games right? Everyone can be happy here. Those who want infantry only experiences (and it is a little silly seeing G-man taking on 2 squads of Ork boyz... but it's probably silly seeing Space Marines in the same situation that said), can have that, those who enjoy the centrepiece models can do likewise. About the only place where you'll just have to put up with the status quo is the competitive arena, but Primarchs showing up are likely the least of your worries there.
Nothing stopping people running their own events with preset limitations also.
JNAProductions wrote: The Eldar Range is not nearly as fleshed out as the Marine one, Karol.
That kind of a depends where you buy him. Most polish and russian recasts are very good, no flash, crisp detail, often better then the ones sold by GW with their softish wierd resin.
StrayIight wrote: I confess I'm often puzzled by the lines people draw for themselves in terms of what they want/don't want to see in 40K. Or maybe not the 'lines' themselves so much, but the force behind those opinions?
You see it a lot around the inclusion of Primarchs and LoW's especially, and as a Knight player, I completely get it - they're not for everyone and can cause a certain amount of disruption to some games. (Conversely, it does get a little bit tiresome feeling as though you have to apologise for enjoying a particular army at times).
40K though, is a framework of rules at the end of the day. Don't want to see Primarchs or other units on the table? Don't include them in your games right? Everyone can be happy here. Those who want infantry only experiences (and it is a little silly seeing G-man taking on 2 squads of Ork boyz... but it's probably silly seeing Space Marines in the same situation that said), can have that, those who enjoy the centrepiece models can do likewise. About the only place where you'll just have to put up with the status quo is the competitive arena, but Primarchs showing up are likely the least of your worries there.
Nothing stopping people running their own events with preset limitations also.
At least to me this is a fluff issue, not a game issue. I don't want loyalist Primarchs returning in the lore.
At least to me this is a fluff issue, not a game issue. I don't want loyalist Primarchs returning in the lore.
Fair enough definitely. The return of RG, the Primaris arrival, and all the 'Deus ex Machina' surrounding the episode was accompanied with many an eye roll from a good number of us I suspect - myself included.
The fluff unfortunately is the one thing we have no real control over. Other than creating personal head canon.
mrFickle wrote: But by introducing fulgrim or a grin you are creating 2 new armies where as a loyalist primarch is just another big buff to SM that have had a huge upgrade project.
But I do take your point and I would also ask should you count abbadon at primarch level. Not fluff wise but stat wise.
Also one of the new SOB models looks like it will have guilliman level stats
The answer is to release 2 at the same time. For example Fulgrim and his children, but put Fulgrim in a box where he faces off against the Lion or Vulkan or something. Problem solved.
At least to me this is a fluff issue, not a game issue. I don't want loyalist Primarchs returning in the lore.
Fair enough definitely. The return of RG, the Primaris arrival, and all the 'Deus ex Machina' surrounding the episode was accompanied with many an eye roll from a good number of us I suspect - myself included.
The fluff unfortunately is the one thing we have no real control over. Other than creating personal head canon.
40K needs to be Sigmar'd so that we can bring an end to this "constrained by the lore" crap that keeps innovation down. If they did an End Times for 40K, and rebranded I'd be willing to consider coming back.
40K needs to be Sigmar'd so that we can bring an end to this "constrained by the lore" crap that keeps innovation down. If they did an End Times for 40K, and rebranded I'd be willing to consider coming back.
Sure, I could get onboard with that. I suggest that in the reboot we can just get rid of the concept of primarchs altogether and make marines again to be gritty penal legionaries like they were in the Rogue Trader.
If you cannot write good stories and characters within the setting and universe you have, then it’s not a issue of constrained by the lore, just bad writing.
40k has plenty of space to expand and delve into without having to resort to easy nostalgia grabs. Just GW being increasingly uncreative with 40k.
JNAProductions wrote: The Eldar Range is not nearly as fleshed out as the Marine one, Karol.
That kind of a depends where you buy him. Most polish and russian recasts are very good, no flash, crisp detail, often better then the ones sold by GW with their softish wierd resin.
The entire Corsair line.
The entire Exodite line.
Marines have enough units (models and rules) for several armies.
Sledgehammer wrote: All primarchs do is condense the vast universe of suffering and war down to a cast of comic book / soap opra characters. No thank you.
But his has been ongoing for a long time, every new release of rules for an SM chapter defines a growing list of a small number of players in a massive galaxy.
I’d rather have lots of lore and one SM codex so I can just paint my models the chapter of my choosing and play it out however I see fit.
It’s the argument against names characters across all armies. D&D is great because you create your own characters but GW doesn’t really have that kind of open play.
I’ve never quite understood the psychology of collection as a hobby but it is a huge factor in GW products and people prefer to collect “things” with names, personalities and stories. Probably because it more fun than coming up worth it your self
I think make sure all 4 Chaos Specific are back and bring back 1 more loyalist. Then that way it keeps the grim dark theme of 4 v 2. I'm not overly bothered though if they don't bring any more back as I don't think they benefit the game and would prefer the time put into being able to customise my own home-brewed characters again (a-la 3rd ed CSM).
TBF though, more Primarchs are WAY down on my list of wishes. I don't even play half the xeno factions but, by all means, give them some love first.
Despite that, I can see the hold up with the 9th CSM codex being that they're possibly prepping to split off EC and WE who I am guessing are going to come with Primarchs.
No. They are in HH for a reason. GW should be careful trying to cater to the general popular desires. People are dumb and if you blindly just give them what they think they want they tend to ruin the thing that made it good in the first place, then they turn on the developers for not being creative.
Hollow wrote: No. They are in HH for a reason. GW should be careful trying to cater to the general popular desires. People are dumb and if you blindly just give them what they think they want they tend to ruin the thing that made it good in the first place, then they turn on the developers for not being creative.
But GW already gave people their ghazhguls, ctans, great demons etc Why wouldn't marine players want their versions of such models?
I’ve never quite understood the psychology of collection as a hobby but it is a huge factor in GW products and people prefer to collect “things” with names, personalities and stories.
You mean like reconstruction guys obsessing over the right colour of a sleave or lenght of a lampas, or people memorising all the officer cadre line up of an army the play. People like structure and order. There are few people who like chaos of a free for all freedom.
Plus if setting stops to have rules and pillars that support it, and ends goes the way of ,everything can happen, it just dies.
I play 30k, and the Primarchs there feel like Primarchs. You have to adjust your battle plan around them, and each one's strengths and weaknesses are different. My Chaos Daemons win against them in tense duels with my Archdaemon (primarch-scale lord of war) or by avoiding them / tying them down.
In 40k, a regular daemon prince can bonk RG on the head to death. I have probably killed RG in 40k more than in 30k, because of how much more lethal 40k is. At some point it's just like:
"Before you stands Robot Guilliman, veteran of a thousand wars, tactician and strategist peerless. Here are some of his latest accomplishments:
*Beaten to death with 26 other marines on Table 5.
*Merc'd on Table 12 by Harlequin bikers after showing up with ten practically empty razorbacks.
*Sliced to death by 20 mortal wounds from getting slightly clipped by a Hellion during the great Battle of Probably-Sixty-Guys-Total
I voted yes, because I'm a follower of the Wolf King and want him to reappear.
Knowing that, I think the next Primarch to be released should be: Vulkan -> Unaligned/Chaos Undivided Primarch (Alpharius[Omegon], Lorgar or Perturabo) -> either Angron or Fulgrim
As people said before, an Imperial Primarch would only buff an already good codex but Vulkan being a perpetual means he is actually still "alive" and would balance out the current 2-1.
CSM needs a new codex as much as Grey KJnights and what better way to usher in a new foundational codex than with one of the Undivided champions.
Angron and/or Fulgrim are great choices but should accompany a legion/deity specific codex like Death Guard or Thousand Sons.
I play 30k, and the Primarchs there feel like Primarchs. You have to adjust your battle plan around them, and each one's strengths and weaknesses are different. My Chaos Daemons win against them in tense duels with my Archdaemon (primarch-scale lord of war) or by avoiding them / tying them down.
In 40k, a regular daemon prince can bonk RG on the head to death. I have probably killed RG in 40k more than in 30k, because of how much more lethal 40k is. At some point it's just like:
"Before you stands Robot Guilliman, veteran of a thousand wars, tactician and strategist peerless. Here are some of his latest accomplishments:
*Beaten to death with 26 other marines on Table 5.
*Merc'd on Table 12 by Harlequin bikers after showing up with ten practically empty razorbacks.
*Sliced to death by 20 mortal wounds from getting slightly clipped by a Hellion during the great Battle of Probably-Sixty-Guys-Total
Etc.
Agreed.
His genetics have been absorbed into the Tyranid horde a whole bunch of times at the hands of my Nids. In similarly inglorious ways too, like MWnded down by nameless Neurothrope number 16,846, or cut down by Tyranid Warrior number 24,867,246,863. . .
waefre_1 wrote: Sure, GW doesn't need explicit reason to do any given thing, but I'd expect at least some rationale behind so major a change.
$$$. 30k sold well, as do big centrepiece models, and people obsess over Primarchs. That's all there is to it
So I think the rationale you're looking for is the fall of Cadia, the galaxy being torn in two and a loss of function to the astronomicon that has left some sectors inaccessible?
I believe that the story GW is telling is one in which the Imperium would not have survived the fall if not for the return and intervention of Guilliman. He didn't do it alone, but he is the one who assembled and launched Indomitus. I haven't read any BL fiction set in the Indomitus era- BL stuff tends to demonstrate things that aren't possible on the table top, so I don't particular support its use for resolving game issues anyway.
You can argue that Primarchs showing up at skirmishes is crap- I'd tend to agree actually- but that's on players, not GW. They make the models. Players choose when and how to use them. For example, in order for ME to field my Triumph of Saint Katherine, I've got a crusade force for each of the six Orders, and each will be fighting a battle where their Triumph relic is an objective, and after capturing that relic, each of these forces must fight their way across the galaxy to gather the first Triumph. It will take a minimum of 25 games to make it happen, and fielding the Triumph is the culminating act of the campaign.
GW gave me a model that made this elaborate campaign possible; that was their job. Actually creating a suitable narrative to field the model? That's my job.
If some chump wants to include the Triumph in a Combat Patrol game against cultists on a backwater world, blame the chump, not the company. Many of us DO use the models in a fluffy way- a thing which we LOVE doing, but couldn't do if GW didn't make the models.
waefre_1 wrote: Sure, GW doesn't need explicit reason to do any given thing, but I'd expect at least some rationale behind so major a change.
$$$. 30k sold well, as do big centrepiece models, and people obsess over Primarchs. That's all there is to it
So I think the rationale you're looking for is the fall of Cadia, the galaxy being torn in two and a loss of function to the astronomicon that has left some sectors inaccessible?
OP was quite obviously referring to a real world rationale:
Maybe this is the decrepitude of (middle) age robbing me of my memory, but I can't recall there being any real-world reason to have the Primarchs return. The fluff didn't feel like it was any less for these demigods being present only in myth and nightmare (slight exception for Daemon Primarchs returning during something climactic like the 13th Black Crusade to firmly bury the "how are we?" dial in the 11+ range), and I never felt like the game needed something akin to a Primarch, either. Sure, GW doesn't need explicit reason to do any given thing, but I'd expect at least some rationale behind so major a change.
So no, that is not the rationale I am looking for. Read more closely.
No because I play iron hands and wouldn’t get one :(
For real though, I voted no because although it could be cool, I just kind of want them to take a bit of a break from the whole space marine vs chaos space marines thing. My pipe dream would be that for 10th edition, a new imperial guard commander like macharius would go on another massive reclamation crusade with the guard being the main good guys for the edition. This could be a good time to then update a bunch of the Xenos races as the guard attack them to seize their worlds. Idk what the endgame would be, but maybe they discover some sort of new super threatening race of xenos like the cythor fiends from the ghoul stars or something
PenitentJake wrote: You can argue that Primarchs showing up at skirmishes is crap- I'd tend to agree actually- but that's on players, not GW. They make the models. Players choose when and how to use them. For example, in order for ME to field my Triumph of Saint Katherine, I've got a crusade force for each of the six Orders, and each will be fighting a battle where their Triumph relic is an objective, and after capturing that relic, each of these forces must fight their way across the galaxy to gather the first Triumph. It will take a minimum of 25 games to make it happen, and fielding the Triumph is the culminating act of the campaign.
GW gave me a model that made this elaborate campaign possible; that was their job. Actually creating a suitable narrative to field the model? That's my job.
If some chump wants to include the Triumph in a Combat Patrol game against cultists on a backwater world, blame the chump, not the company. Many of us DO use the models in a fluffy way- a thing which we LOVE doing, but couldn't do if GW didn't make the models.
This is all well and good, but there are 2 problems with it:
1) If it is destroyed in melee, will you still field it in the future or put it on the shelf forever? My problem isn't seeing RG once. It's seeing RG every other game even after my KOS killed him with her sword and healed when she ate his soul. Like yeah, sure, his suit comes back from THAT but Horus couldn't when the emperor did it to him, nice. By the way, she's eaten his soul about eight times now. Even a cat would be afraid to confront her at this point.
2) You totally could do it if GW didn't make the model. There have been plenty of conversions of super rare things before such things were official models. Look up Capitol Imperialis conversions, for example. I guarantee you, had you wanted to, you could make a cool tomb procession complete with relic bearers.
I use that example to highlight a general problem in 40k. Removed from play may not equal dead, but in the case of a Primarch or a casket of a dead saint, I am definitely going to double-tap if I can - which is why I asked "died in melee". If they died to bullets, sure they could have gotten away, but it is a lot less plausible that they get away in melee, especially if they're completely overrun.
Furthermore, there are lots of "this character is really dead, HONEST" lore snippets and rules in 40k. Healing because you consumed their soul on the Keeper of Secrets is just one, there's also trapping characters in Tesseract Vaults (or there was, not sure if that is gone now), killing them with the equally soul-sucking Nightbringer/C'tan, using the Portal of Exile from a monolith...
...Yes I have Necrons on the brain, but point stands. I guarantee you there are at least 2 Guillimans worldwide stuck forevermore in their eternal pocket-dimension prisons from Portals of Exile. I also bet they showed up at their next games totally unhindered
PenitentJake wrote: You can argue that Primarchs showing up at skirmishes is crap- I'd tend to agree actually- but that's on players, not GW. They make the models. Players choose when and how to use them. For example, in order for ME to field my Triumph of Saint Katherine, I've got a crusade force for each of the six Orders, and each will be fighting a battle where their Triumph relic is an objective, and after capturing that relic, each of these forces must fight their way across the galaxy to gather the first Triumph. It will take a minimum of 25 games to make it happen, and fielding the Triumph is the culminating act of the campaign.
GW gave me a model that made this elaborate campaign possible; that was their job. Actually creating a suitable narrative to field the model? That's my job.
If some chump wants to include the Triumph in a Combat Patrol game against cultists on a backwater world, blame the chump, not the company. Many of us DO use the models in a fluffy way- a thing which we LOVE doing, but couldn't do if GW didn't make the models.
This is all well and good, but there are 2 problems with it:
1) If it is destroyed in melee, will you still field it in the future or put it on the shelf forever? My problem isn't seeing RG once. It's seeing RG every other game even after my KOS killed him with her sword and healed when she ate his soul. Like yeah, sure, his suit comes back from THAT but Horus couldn't when the emperor did it to him, nice. By the way, she's eaten his soul about eight times now. Even a cat would be afraid to confront her at this point.
2) You totally could do it if GW didn't make the model. There have been plenty of conversions of super rare things before such things were official models. Look up Capitol Imperialis conversions, for example. I guarantee you, had you wanted to, you could make a cool tomb procession complete with relic bearers.
I tend to go the route of removed from play =/= dead; there is a lot of precedence for this, and explicit reference to the concept in many, many rulebooks- I think it's mentioned somewhere in the rules for almost every game that has a campaign system.. Now granted, in the scenario you describe, yeah, that one can pretty much only be a deathblow, since the healing is a result of death in the fluff, not injury. And admittedly, that particular case is hard to wrap your head around; I haven't been in that situation yet... but you're right, it's hard to wiggle out of; the DE Soul Trap requisition is similarly sticky. In my case, I think I'd actually let the character die. I don't use a lot of named, because they don't grow in Crusade- so continuity would be preserved. Having said that, some of the BSF characters, Draxus, Greyfax and Karamazov are all set to have cameo appearances in the campaign, so if they're up against any "fluffy death" weapons, we may have some thinking to do before we play and mess up the universe.
As for point 2; I like conversions and converting, especially in the world of plastics. But conversions are freaking expensive and unpredictable in that you won't always be able to test the fit until the buying is done. If GW brings back a bits service, great! But I'm not sure I want to shell out the cash before I know it's going to work. And while I am fortunate enough to play with a crew that will entertain house rules, in many circles, the ability to convert a Triumph doesn't give me the opportunity to actually field it unless rules also exist. Right now, it is a combination of these two things that prevent me from kitbashing a pair of exorcist launchers onto a baneblade and an exorcist launcher onto a knight. That's $600 for the components to two models, and I can't be sure in advance either of them will turn out. AND even if I did spend the money and successfully build them, I still wouldn't have rules to field them.
A conversion I AM willing to try: I have the old circle fleur de lis doors from the previous immolator kit as well as other bits that might work. I'm dropping them on a valkyrie now that I know for sure there's no sisters aircraft in the new dex. I can do this because a) I already have the sister bits and b) my sisters valkyrie will have rules. Among friends, I'll give it the right keywords to make it function as a sisters vehicle; in a pickup game, I'll throw together a small guard detachment to make it legal.
Point of Fact RE: Triumph of Saint Kat and conversions:
I actually did convert a Cannoness bearing the Shield of Saint Katherine; it was legal using the Praesidium Protectiva from the Witch Hunter's dex and the lore to support it is from the 2nd ed sisters dex. I don't remember whether the other relics in the Triumph existed in the fluff before the model, or had rules, but the Shield of Saint Katherine did, which was why I have a conversion for it. The new model is far better than my conversion- I just used a metal Seraphim superior and a terminator's storm shield- didn't even have a fleur on it.
Incidentally, I'm magnetizing my Triumph so that each sister can be used as a canonness of the order whose matriarch she represents- each of the relics in the Triumph has rules to facilitate this. But I'm also looking for substitutes for the saint- I want to be able to choose to field a Triumph of Saint Dominica, or Saint Mina... Or any of the other matriarchs. If anyone has suggestions for saint substitutes, I'd love to hear them. There aren't as many options for corpses as their are for living soldiers.
In any case, that is awesome for the campaign, but watching characters like Guilliman or the Triumph or High Lord New Lady get gobbled up by "this guy is really dead honest" weapons and then come back next week to have it happen again is just REALLY jarring.
It's why I voted No here, because it's yet more characters who are absolutely critical to the setting who I can watch get Swallowed Whole by a Dimacheron or whatever and just show up again next week like a kid's cartoon.
Agreed. I chose my wording carefully - there are any number of lore reasons GW can and would use to resurrect a character (and I seem to recall more than one Loyalist Primarch who has an Arthurian "Dead until E̶n̶g̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ The Imperium's darkest hour" deal - come to think of it, why was the Sundering dire enough to call for Rowboat's resurrection but not dire enough for Leman Russ or Lion El'Jonson to come back?). I was specifically speaking of reason for the game to have Primarchs return.
No. Kind of a pain how Horus Heresy stuff leaking into 40k has increased the fixation on marines and specifically First Founding chapters. Personally I believe it's part of the reason why marine chapters all get a supplement. Outside of chapters with unique units (Space Wolves, Blood Angels) the marine subfactions shouldn't be a thing to the extent they are in the rules, and their character should be determined more by the player's army composition (e.g. giving Salamander tac squads meltaguns) than considerable rule differences for what is essentially the same faction.It's become obscene how much the game focusses on marines, and I say that as someone who collects 6 marine armies.
Also, I'm not a big fan of how focussed many armies have become on named characters. Perhaps if's just my meta but I find more characters are named on the tabletop than not and it quite frankly has turned 40k into a Marvel style w*nkfest or WWE kayfabe. Big hero showdowns have zero stakes, Ghaz gets his head chopped off and put back again. I don't doubt it could happen but what's the point then narratively.
And speaking of narrative, I find this constant push for progress in the setting bizarre. I'll never understand why people wanted a shift from the minute-to-midnight setting that gave players narrative freedom with it's vagueness, but here we are, and every primarch is another step away from that. Soon it will be the 51st millenium, and the Imperium that was supposed to have collapsed about 10000 years ago is doing just fine.
Honestly I detest primarchs, First Founding fixation and what the 40k fluff has become generally.
Honestly I'd like to see a return of more primarchs because it just ramps up the danger. More daemon primarchs means that there is super powerful beings running around trying to waste the Imperium. Conversely having some loyalists come back would also help counter that AND move the story line along. Old 40k was way too stagnant and it takes a few primarchs to really get things moving on a galactic scale. After the galaxy was split no one else but Guilliman could have saved the Imperium. In this next critical juncture, especially if lets say angron strides forth, he will need a counter for the Imperium to have a chance. A Russ or Lion would be perfect. Additionally those 2 do not like Guilliman at all and would be at odds with him becoming the leader of the Imperium and all that he has done with primaris marines, no matter how justified it is. That rift would in turn allow the Chaos primarchs to do their thing and really make a mess of the galaxy
generalchaos34 wrote: Honestly I'd like to see a return of more primarchs because it just ramps up the danger. More daemon primarchs means that there is super powerful beings running around trying to waste the Imperium. Conversely having some loyalists come back would also help counter that AND move the story line along. Old 40k was way too stagnant and it takes a few primarchs to really get things moving on a galactic scale. After the galaxy was split no one else but Guilliman could have saved the Imperium. In this next critical juncture, especially if lets say angron strides forth, he will need a counter for the Imperium to have a chance. A Russ or Lion would be perfect. Additionally those 2 do not like Guilliman at all and would be at odds with him becoming the leader of the Imperium and all that he has done with primaris marines, no matter how justified it is. That rift would in turn allow the Chaos primarchs to do their thing and really make a mess of the galaxy
I utterly despise this narrative. This is what Horus Heresy has done to people, they're literally unable to imagine events where there are people other than Primarchs who have agency. Everything revolves around these embarrassing oversized cartoon super babies.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I use that example to highlight a general problem in 40k. Removed from play may not equal dead, but in the case of a Primarch or a casket of a dead saint, I am definitely going to double-tap if I can - which is why I asked "died in melee". If they died to bullets, sure they could have gotten away, but it is a lot less plausible that they get away in melee, especially if they're completely overrun.
Furthermore, there are lots of "this character is really dead, HONEST" lore snippets and rules in 40k. Healing because you consumed their soul on the Keeper of Secrets is just one, there's also trapping characters in Tesseract Vaults (or there was, not sure if that is gone now), killing them with the equally soul-sucking Nightbringer/C'tan, using the Portal of Exile from a monolith...
...Yes I have Necrons on the brain, but point stands. I guarantee you there are at least 2 Guillimans worldwide stuck forevermore in their eternal pocket-dimension prisons from Portals of Exile. I also bet they showed up at their next games totally unhindered
Let's be honest. Plot armour is very much a thing and even the most grievous wounds can occasionally be magiked around. Marnius comes to mind, but then ghaz literally had his head cut off for an extended length of time and came back. Also got shot in the head with a bolt round, swallowed by a mawlock and impaled. 40K characters are gloriously stupid mate.
generalchaos34 wrote: Honestly I'd like to see a return of more primarchs because it just ramps up the danger. More daemon primarchs means that there is super powerful beings running around trying to waste the Imperium. Conversely having some loyalists come back would also help counter that AND move the story line along. Old 40k was way too stagnant and it takes a few primarchs to really get things moving on a galactic scale. After the galaxy was split no one else but Guilliman could have saved the Imperium. In this next critical juncture, especially if lets say angron strides forth, he will need a counter for the Imperium to have a chance. A Russ or Lion would be perfect. Additionally those 2 do not like Guilliman at all and would be at odds with him becoming the leader of the Imperium and all that he has done with primaris marines, no matter how justified it is. That rift would in turn allow the Chaos primarchs to do their thing and really make a mess of the galaxy
It's funny, because HH itself is less of a Marvel Superhero story than 40k has recently become, even though it's explicitly centered around named characters in a way that 40k nominally isn't. I think what saves HH from superhero syndrome is that we already know the outcome, so it takes on more of a Greek tragedy kind of feeling to it, theatrical rather than soap-opera like 40k has become.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apparently kids these days don't have enuff of an imagination to create their own narrative events(even if tangentially connected).
If they're not told what to do/how to do it, it might as well not exist.
This is a deliberate business strategy started back in Regan 80s with GI Joe and Transformers. Rather than just giving people toys to play with, you create an entire structure in which to play, ensuring they're more dependent on the company to enjoy the toys. It tells you there's a wrong way to play with your toys and only the company selling you the toys can provide you with the correct way. Hence a franchise of dozens of toys so you don't just use one of your other unrelated toys in play.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apparently kids these days don't have enuff of an imagination to create their own narrative events(even if tangentially connected).
If they're not told what to do/how to do it, it might as well not exist.
This is a deliberate business strategy started back in Regan 80s with GI Joe and Transformers. Rather than just giving people toys to play with, you create an entire structure in which to play, ensuring they're more dependent on the company to enjoy the toys. It tells you there's a wrong way to play with your toys and only the company selling you the toys can provide you with the correct way. Hence a franchise of dozens of toys so you don't just use one of your other unrelated toys in play.
I don't disagree that there's an upside for the evil toy corp, but I also don't think it's malicious to provide me with GI Joe toys to tell the most diversified stories in the Joe-verse; I for one was quite happy to not have to use my star wars toys to tell GI Joe stories and vice versa. Heck, they made two sets of A-Team toys- one in the Joe/ Star Wars scale and one in the He-man (Masters of the Universe) scale, and I still didn't particularly want them to interact with each other- though both A-Team ranges lacked antagonists, so you didn't really have a choice, unless every time you sat down to play A-Team you invented a scenario to trick BA Baracus onto a plane to create inter-team conflict.
I also used Moffet the cyberdog from Battlestar Galactica to represent Cujo...
Yes, companies like to make money. But that also means they like to make their customers happy, because you kinda have to do one in order to do the other. I really don't think they made as many transformer toys as they did to undercut shogun warriors, although I suppose you could make the argument that Go-Bots and Transformers may have been trying to nuke each other as much as they were trying to make the kids who played with their toys happy.
Banzaimash wrote: No. Kind of a pain how Horus Heresy stuff leaking into 40k has increased the fixation on marines and specifically First Founding chapters.
This, but also I personally dislike how Primarchs inevitably warp the story into professional wrestling-esque grudge matches with their larger-than-life one-dimensional personalities. Too much focus on the hulking macho dudebros and their eons-old feuds, not enough Your Dudes. The feel is less military and more superhero and that's not something I'm interested in at all- especially when none of the factions I play even have a Primarch-level character.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apparently kids these days don't have enuff of an imagination to create their own narrative events(even if tangentially connected).
If they're not told what to do/how to do it, it might as well not exist.
This is a deliberate business strategy started back in Regan 80s with GI Joe and Transformers. Rather than just giving people toys to play with, you create an entire structure in which to play, ensuring they're more dependent on the company to enjoy the toys. It tells you there's a wrong way to play with your toys and only the company selling you the toys can provide you with the correct way. Hence a franchise of dozens of toys so you don't just use one of your other unrelated toys in play.
Conveniently ignoring that this was going on in the 50s, 60s, & 70s....
And to degrees before that.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apparently kids these days don't have enuff of an imagination to create their own narrative events(even if tangentially connected).
If they're not told what to do/how to do it, it might as well not exist.
This is a deliberate business strategy started back in Regan 80s with GI Joe and Transformers. Rather than just giving people toys to play with, you create an entire structure in which to play, ensuring they're more dependent on the company to enjoy the toys. It tells you there's a wrong way to play with your toys and only the company selling you the toys can provide you with the correct way. Hence a franchise of dozens of toys so you don't just use one of your other unrelated toys in play.
I don't disagree that there's an upside for the evil toy corp, but I also don't think it's malicious to provide me with GI Joe toys to tell the most diversified stories in the Joe-verse; I for one was quite happy to not have to use my star wars toys to tell GI Joe stories and vice versa. Heck, they made two sets of A-Team toys- one in the Joe/ Star Wars scale and one in the He-man (Masters of the Universe) scale, and I still didn't particularly want them to interact with each other- though both A-Team ranges lacked antagonists, so you didn't really have a choice, unless every time you sat down to play A-Team you invented a scenario to trick BA Baracus onto a plane to create inter-team conflict.
I also used Moffet the cyberdog from Battlestar Galactica to represent Cujo...
Yes, companies like to make money. But that also means they like to make their customers happy, because you kinda have to do one in order to do the other. I really don't think they made as many transformer toys as they did to undercut shogun warriors, although I suppose you could make the argument that Go-Bots and Transformers may have been trying to nuke each other as much as they were trying to make the kids who played with their toys happy.
The concept of a joe-verse is part of the strategy.
Despite what CCS says above, toy makers in the 60s and 70s really didn't try particularly hard to create a verse for their toys to exist in. Kids naturally use whatever toys they have to play games - kermit and batman play tea time with power rangers and barbie. Because that's what the kid has. This is still normal kid behaviour, where the verse itself is part of the creativity and play. However they are quickly brought into discrete verses so they know that darth maul doesn't fight kermit, he fights Obi wan. So the kid needs an obi wan to do the star wars fight 'properly'. Rather than just enjoying smashing their kermit and darth maul together.
The concept of a joe-verse and the assigned VALUE of such a verse is entirely manufactured by the company - it becomes the 'correct' way to play with your toys. It reduces childhood creativity quite a lot by keeping the creativity within discreet verses rather than unfettered.
The Toy story films hark back to this pre 80s toy strategy, where kids just enjoyed using all their toys however they liked, with no arbiter of quality or correctness but themselves.
This is just a description of what toy companies began doing in the 80s and have refined to fine art today. It's an effective sales tactic that keeps consumer dollars coming to you rather than spread across all manufacturers.
GW are commodifying creativity just like every other toy manufacturer has for the last 40 years. All their campaign books, characters, novels etc are increasingly doing the creative work for you. That's good business to keep consumers completely consumed in the GW verse of products.
I was more ranting about the flat-out inability to take an existing universe and stage one's own story in the larger framework of the existing story.
Yes, the evil corporations are trying to limit your imagination to a sanitized and marketable listing of products. I'm trying to drive the point about those that don't give a flying feth about what's official are few and far between nowadays. sure wish I was more stalwart when my squats were, well...squatted. but I'm glad it jaded me and made me realize that I'm the arbiter of my own fun, Not GW.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apparently kids these days don't have enuff of an imagination to create their own narrative events(even if tangentially connected).
If they're not told what to do/how to do it, it might as well not exist.
This is a deliberate business strategy started back in Regan 80s with GI Joe and Transformers. Rather than just giving people toys to play with, you create an entire structure in which to play, ensuring they're more dependent on the company to enjoy the toys. It tells you there's a wrong way to play with your toys and only the company selling you the toys can provide you with the correct way. Hence a franchise of dozens of toys so you don't just use one of your other unrelated toys in play.
I don't disagree that there's an upside for the evil toy corp, but I also don't think it's malicious to provide me with GI Joe toys to tell the most diversified stories in the Joe-verse; I for one was quite happy to not have to use my star wars toys to tell GI Joe stories and vice versa. Heck, they made two sets of A-Team toys- one in the Joe/ Star Wars scale and one in the He-man (Masters of the Universe) scale, and I still didn't particularly want them to interact with each other- though both A-Team ranges lacked antagonists, so you didn't really have a choice, unless every time you sat down to play A-Team you invented a scenario to trick BA Baracus onto a plane to create inter-team conflict.
I also used Moffet the cyberdog from Battlestar Galactica to represent Cujo...
Yes, companies like to make money. But that also means they like to make their customers happy, because you kinda have to do one in order to do the other. I really don't think they made as many transformer toys as they did to undercut shogun warriors, although I suppose you could make the argument that Go-Bots and Transformers may have been trying to nuke each other as much as they were trying to make the kids who played with their toys happy.
The concept of a joe-verse is part of the strategy.
Despite what CCS says above, toy makers in the 60s and 70s really didn't try particularly hard to create a verse for their toys to exist in. Kids naturally use whatever toys they have to play games - kermit and batman play tea time with power rangers and barbie. Because that's what the kid has. This is still normal kid behaviour, where the verse itself is part of the creativity and play. However they are quickly brought into discrete verses so they know that darth maul doesn't fight kermit, he fights Obi wan. So the kid needs an obi wan to do the star wars fight 'properly'. Rather than just enjoying smashing their kermit and darth maul together.
The concept of a joe-verse and the assigned VALUE of such a verse is entirely manufactured by the company - it becomes the 'correct' way to play with your toys. It reduces childhood creativity quite a lot by keeping the creativity within discreet verses rather than unfettered.
The Toy story films hark back to this pre 80s toy strategy, where kids just enjoyed using all their toys however they liked, with no arbiter of quality or correctness but themselves.
This is just a description of what toy companies began doing in the 80s and have refined to fine art today. It's an effective sales tactic that keeps consumer dollars coming to you rather than spread across all manufacturers.
GW are commodifying creativity just like every other toy manufacturer has for the last 40 years. All their campaign books, characters, novels etc are increasingly doing the creative work for you. That's good business to keep consumers completely consumed in the GW verse of products.
"despite what CCS says...." (rolls eyes)
You DO realize that Star Wars toys were THE THING toy wise in '77+, right?
You do realize that in the 70's we had plenty of stuff besides Star Wars with it's own 'verse, right? The 6M$ Man, Micronaughts, Muppets, Godzilla, GIJoe (12' with Kung Fu grip etc + vehicles, continuing from the 60s), all the assorted Mego lines - Star Trek/Marvel/DC/Planet of the Apes, Space 1999, the Shogun warriors, Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, Seseme St., plenty of stuff based on WB/Hanna Barbara/etc cartoons, I could go on & on....
All of this stuff backed up by or coming from movies, TV, comics.... And a few like Micronoughts & GJoe originated with the toy companies.
And the average kid knew that Darth Vader, Kerrmit the Frog, etc all came from different stories/universes. It wasn't "Oh, look, some random thing Mom bought us."
The idea of toy lines with their own stories/universes did not spring into being with the 80's. Merchandising & cross-merchandising was alive and well prior to the '80s (getting a huge boost in '77 with Star Wars). It was greatly refined & perfected in the '80s though. And yes, here in the 21st century it a quite efficient & all encompassing concept.
Here in the states the 80's in particular brought about a deregulation of the ability to market toys in TV shows, generating a whole host of shows made explicitly to sell to kids. So while tie-ins existed and there was a definite desire by toy companies to do it, it was still kept somewhat in check.
It makes you wonder what the GW strategy is for releases and how they prioritise them. I think they could have made a killing with each primarch model in ltd edition box with a very special hard back book and some other ltd Ed chaff.
People have talked about limited production at their UK site, so they only release so much at a time, and I find this a funny one. As a Brit i think it’s great that they haven’t outsourced buuuuuutttt if it means they could get round to a full release for EC quicker...... then maybe one little production site in Korea wouldn’t harm anyone
I greatly dislike Primarchs but their presence on the battlefield, I believe, is greately overexageratted by most people.
Of course I know theres some of you that play in a group with 10 ultramarine fanatical players that field guillimand every single time but I have seen it on the table as many times as the Swarmlord, for example.
The greatest irony of this is that 30k, where primarch models originated, manages to keep them in the game whilst preserving a Your Dudes feel.
I think it achieves this through customization that is now lacking in GW's wheelhouse. When I say customization, I must caveat that if you're playing one of the "historically important" forces like Space Marines, you have to follow the formula (generally). E.G. Leman Russ won't join your Death Guard army.
But the other armies? Ordo Reductor, Taghmata Omnissiah, Legio Cybernetica, Imperial Militia, Chaos Cults, Daemons? My GODS are they customizable. The only one that really isn't is the Solar Auxilia, which makes sense as they're explicitly a standardized force.
Not only are the customizable in the rules, but they're customizable with models too. My Chaos Cult uses a mix of AOS and Necromunda models for the actual cult squads, whilst my PDF uses Void 1.1 miniatures for a higher-tech, more organized but still grungy/dieselpunk feel. My Daemons can use any model on the planet so long as they stay within base sizes (clearly outlined in the rules) and my Ordo Reductor have artillery tanks converted out of all sorts of vehicles (they're like cleaner orks ).
EDIT: Also, plot armor? Really? This is kayfabe/kid's cartoon stuff.
That would be hilarious, but if Manus ever comes back, it'll be as a clone or warp entity (there was a little scene in Master of Mankind that hinted at the possibilty, I think).
The concept of a joe-verse is part of the strategy.
Despite what CCS says above, toy makers in the 60s and 70s really didn't try particularly hard to create a verse for their toys to exist in. Kids naturally use whatever toys they have to play games - kermit and batman play tea time with power rangers and barbie. Because that's what the kid has. This is still normal kid behaviour, where the verse itself is part of the creativity and play. However they are quickly brought into discrete verses so they know that darth maul doesn't fight kermit, he fights Obi wan. So the kid needs an obi wan to do the star wars fight 'properly'. Rather than just enjoying smashing their kermit and darth maul together.
The concept of a joe-verse and the assigned VALUE of such a verse is entirely manufactured by the company - it becomes the 'correct' way to play with your toys. It reduces childhood creativity quite a lot by keeping the creativity within discreet verses rather than unfettered.
The Toy story films hark back to this pre 80s toy strategy, where kids just enjoyed using all their toys however they liked, with no arbiter of quality or correctness but themselves.
This is just a description of what toy companies began doing in the 80s and have refined to fine art today. It's an effective sales tactic that keeps consumer dollars coming to you rather than spread across all manufacturers.
GW are commodifying creativity just like every other toy manufacturer has for the last 40 years. All their campaign books, characters, novels etc are increasingly doing the creative work for you. That's good business to keep consumers completely consumed in the GW verse of products.
Oversimplification for the sake of supporting a particular point of view.
Please note the semantics: Saying you are oversimplifying in no way means that what you are saying is untrue; it's saying that there's other stuff which is equally true which would muddy the conclusion you draw.
Yeah, Darth Maul could fight Kermit... But the story would suck. If kids have no other choice, they'll do it, but don't fool yourself into believing that this is any better for the development of creativity than giving someone a full toolbox to tell stories that have internal consistency. I can't speak for all kids, only the kid I was once upon a time; but having ranges with enough breadth to tell more diverse stories was always preferable than shoe-horning in something that didn't belong. Having internal consistency actually helped me develop my writing skills far more than making due with the tools at hand.
It's why Tom Clancy books don't contain aliens- the stories would suck and readers wouldn't buy them, and if they did, they'd be disappointed.
You could also argue that a wood worker doesn't need a shop full of dozens of unique tools, because a relatively smaller number of tools could achieve similar effects; you could then further conclude that creating as many woodworking tools as we have was all an evil corporate conspiracy to make us buy tools we don't need. But I don't think you'll find many wood workers who would be willing to sacrifice their drill press because "technically" they could do the same job with a normal old drill, and YOU think that would make them better wood workers and that the corporations that invented drill presses were doing so for no other reason than separating them from their cash or limiting their creativity.
The concept of a joe-verse is part of the strategy.
Despite what CCS says above, toy makers in the 60s and 70s really didn't try particularly hard to create a verse for their toys to exist in. Kids naturally use whatever toys they have to play games - kermit and batman play tea time with power rangers and barbie. Because that's what the kid has. This is still normal kid behaviour, where the verse itself is part of the creativity and play. However they are quickly brought into discrete verses so they know that darth maul doesn't fight kermit, he fights Obi wan. So the kid needs an obi wan to do the star wars fight 'properly'. Rather than just enjoying smashing their kermit and darth maul together.
The concept of a joe-verse and the assigned VALUE of such a verse is entirely manufactured by the company - it becomes the 'correct' way to play with your toys. It reduces childhood creativity quite a lot by keeping the creativity within discreet verses rather than unfettered.
The Toy story films hark back to this pre 80s toy strategy, where kids just enjoyed using all their toys however they liked, with no arbiter of quality or correctness but themselves.
This is just a description of what toy companies began doing in the 80s and have refined to fine art today. It's an effective sales tactic that keeps consumer dollars coming to you rather than spread across all manufacturers.
GW are commodifying creativity just like every other toy manufacturer has for the last 40 years. All their campaign books, characters, novels etc are increasingly doing the creative work for you. That's good business to keep consumers completely consumed in the GW verse of products.
Oversimplification for the sake of supporting a particular point of view.
Please note the semantics: Saying you are oversimplifying in no way means that what you are saying is untrue; it's saying that there's other stuff which is equally true which would muddy the conclusion you draw.
Yeah, Darth Maul could fight Kermit... But the story would suck. If kids have no other choice, they'll do it, but don't fool yourself into believing that this is any better for the development of creativity than giving someone a full toolbox to tell stories that have internal consistency. I can't speak for all kids, only the kid I was once upon a time; but having ranges with enough breadth to tell more diverse stories was always preferable than shoe-horning in something that didn't belong. Having internal consistency actually helped me develop my writing skills far more than making due with the tools at hand.
It's why Tom Clancy books don't contain aliens- the stories would suck and readers wouldn't buy them, and if they did, they'd be disappointed.
You could also argue that a wood worker doesn't need a shop full of dozens of unique tools, because a relatively smaller number of tools could achieve similar effects; you could then further conclude that creating as many woodworking tools as we have was all an evil corporate conspiracy to make us buy tools we don't need. But I don't think you'll find many wood workers who would be willing to sacrifice their drill press because "technically" they could do the same job with a normal old drill, and YOU think that would make them better wood workers and that the corporations that invented drill presses were doing so for no other reason than separating them from their cash or limiting their creativity.
The argument I was making is that the perceived value of suck also comes from the company - it is not an objective truth that kermit vs maul is 'bad'. Consistency is not high on young kids' list of enjoyable things. They get it reinforced. Culturally we've accepted this for kids so there's not really any counter viewpoint from kids' role models.
The point being that modern sales techniques and corporatised play not only create a set of toys and discreet verses to sell, they also sell the value proposition of becoming immersed in it. It's a bit self fulfilling. If instead kids were raised to believe that smashing any toys together is the least sucky way to play, then we'd all feel that kenobi vs maul is a terrible way to play.
This also touches on the difference between creating stories and retelling stories. With an existing verse and storyline (and the attendant playsets) the toys encourage kids to step through an existing story someone else created as the least sucky way to play. Anything else is non canon and doesn't count. Maul doesn't chop kenobi in half in the story, so it's 'wrong' that your toys do that.
One of the advantages of early 40k was that it had very few canon events with known outcomes and they were almost all in the past, while the game was in the 'present', thus making your games independent from the verse they happen in. As they've top-ended the game with more and more canon stories in the 'present' they've fallen more into this prescriptive style of play. And they've now filled out the HH to such an extent that it's topped and tailed 40k in terms of prescriptive story telling for players.
There is still space to play the games you want, but the average player may find the difficulty of slotting between the existing canon harder than it used to be. This makes play by numbers 40k the default and most played, reinforcing in the community this as the right way of playing until in terms of player generations you end up with generations who rely on GW's content to keep playing.
There is still space to play the games you want, but the average player may find the difficulty of slotting between the existing canon harder than it used to be. This makes play by numbers 40k the default and most played, reinforcing in the community this as the right way of playing until in terms of player generations you end up with generations who rely on GW's content to keep playing.
It is harder and harder to work together towards a shared gaming experience where both sides jointly have fun(casual or not, competitive or not).
This is due to two factors.
#1 GW purposefully manipulating those seeking power.
#2 the portion of the community that has the largest net effect on perceived localized meta, focusing and gobbling everything up that #1 does.
Which feeds #1 and so on...into a vicious cycle that leads to terrible lore and seasonal ebbs & tides of FOTM/FOMO.
Sounds terrible to me.
The concept of a joe-verse is part of the strategy.
Despite what CCS says above, toy makers in the 60s and 70s really didn't try particularly hard to create a verse for their toys to exist in. Kids naturally use whatever toys they have to play games - kermit and batman play tea time with power rangers and barbie. Because that's what the kid has. This is still normal kid behaviour, where the verse itself is part of the creativity and play. However they are quickly brought into discrete verses so they know that darth maul doesn't fight kermit, he fights Obi wan. So the kid needs an obi wan to do the star wars fight 'properly'. Rather than just enjoying smashing their kermit and darth maul together.
The concept of a joe-verse and the assigned VALUE of such a verse is entirely manufactured by the company - it becomes the 'correct' way to play with your toys. It reduces childhood creativity quite a lot by keeping the creativity within discreet verses rather than unfettered.
The Toy story films hark back to this pre 80s toy strategy, where kids just enjoyed using all their toys however they liked, with no arbiter of quality or correctness but themselves.
This is just a description of what toy companies began doing in the 80s and have refined to fine art today. It's an effective sales tactic that keeps consumer dollars coming to you rather than spread across all manufacturers.
GW are commodifying creativity just like every other toy manufacturer has for the last 40 years. All their campaign books, characters, novels etc are increasingly doing the creative work for you. That's good business to keep consumers completely consumed in the GW verse of products.
Oversimplification for the sake of supporting a particular point of view.
Please note the semantics: Saying you are oversimplifying in no way means that what you are saying is untrue; it's saying that there's other stuff which is equally true which would muddy the conclusion you draw.
Yeah, Darth Maul could fight Kermit... But the story would suck. If kids have no other choice, they'll do it, but don't fool yourself into believing that this is any better for the development of creativity than giving someone a full toolbox to tell stories that have internal consistency. I can't speak for all kids, only the kid I was once upon a time; but having ranges with enough breadth to tell more diverse stories was always preferable than shoe-horning in something that didn't belong. Having internal consistency actually helped me develop my writing skills far more than making due with the tools at hand.
It's why Tom Clancy books don't contain aliens- the stories would suck and readers wouldn't buy them, and if they did, they'd be disappointed.
You could also argue that a wood worker doesn't need a shop full of dozens of unique tools, because a relatively smaller number of tools could achieve similar effects; you could then further conclude that creating as many woodworking tools as we have was all an evil corporate conspiracy to make us buy tools we don't need. But I don't think you'll find many wood workers who would be willing to sacrifice their drill press because "technically" they could do the same job with a normal old drill, and YOU think that would make them better wood workers and that the corporations that invented drill presses were doing so for no other reason than separating them from their cash or limiting their creativity.
The argument I was making is that the perceived value of suck also comes from the company - it is not an objective truth that kermit vs maul is 'bad'. Consistency is not high on young kids' list of enjoyable things. They get it reinforced. Culturally we've accepted this for kids so there's not really any counter viewpoint from kids' role models.
The point being that modern sales techniques and corporatised play not only create a set of toys and discreet verses to sell, they also sell the value proposition of becoming immersed in it. It's a bit self fulfilling. If instead kids were raised to believe that smashing any toys together is the least sucky way to play, then we'd all feel that kenobi vs maul is a terrible way to play.
This also touches on the difference between creating stories and retelling stories. With an existing verse and storyline (and the attendant playsets) the toys encourage kids to step through an existing story someone else created as the least sucky way to play. Anything else is non canon and doesn't count. Maul doesn't chop kenobi in half in the story, so it's 'wrong' that your toys do that.
One of the advantages of early 40k was that it had very few canon events with known outcomes and they were almost all in the past, while the game was in the 'present', thus making your games independent from the verse they happen in. As they've top-ended the game with more and more canon stories in the 'present' they've fallen more into this prescriptive style of play. And they've now filled out the HH to such an extent that it's topped and tailed 40k in terms of prescriptive story telling for players.
There is still space to play the games you want, but the average player may find the difficulty of slotting between the existing canon harder than it used to be. This makes play by numbers 40k the default and most played, reinforcing in the community this as the right way of playing until in terms of player generations you end up with generations who rely on GW's content to keep playing.
This is the primary reason I think 40K needs an End Times and an Age of Guilliman Reboot. I know I'll get hate to infinity from it, but I think it is the best option. Too much of the 40K legend is known, nothing they've given us since the fall of cadia has been interesting. Vigilus-whocares, Warzone Shark-Yawn, Necron Nexus-Boring. It's all been done. Time to blow it all up!
The problem you're running into, Togusa, is the pandering GW have done to those who want the game to have an ongoing story rather than being a setting.
As a setting, 40k is great. As somewhere with a moving storyline? Not so much.
And, no - an End Times is the last thing GW should be considering doing.
If there were an end of times, and age of primarchs this would be good, if, it did not replace the 40K game, which could remain a game in a setting not a story line.
Age of primarchs or whatever would be another game with a different play style that pitted small armies of highly elite warriors and a primarch level character against each other. It could be a game for people who like endless re rolls and buffs and auras and then they could take much of that out of 40k
And then it could be formalised into a moving story line that get me updated every year based on community game results.
Voted NO. My issue is primarchs' sizes as I despise huge models. If they were just heros with the size of Calgar or Ragnar I'd be excited about them, but I have zero interest in things like Magnus or Mortarion. 500pts models to me are boring to play with or against, awful looking, they're hard to carry and to move on the battlefield and typically their rules aren't balanced at all, either ways.
Besides I've never been willing to pay 100-150 for a single model and I'll never be.
I'd like a Loyalist Primarch to balance out RG, both in game and in story. Someone that would still be all pro-Imperium, but opposed dynamically to the way RG has set things up. Lionel Johnson would be perfect for that.
cuda1179 wrote: I'd like a Loyalist Primarch to balance out RG, both in game and in story. Someone that would still be all pro-Imperium, but opposed dynamically to the way RG has set things up. Lionel Johnson would be perfect for that.
Haha Lionel Johnson.
The problem with the 30k argument is that you can’t take a 30k primarch for a 40K argument. I mean angron and fulgrim are hardly the same 10k years later
cuda1179 wrote: I'd like a Loyalist Primarch to balance out RG, both in game and in story. Someone that would still be all pro-Imperium, but opposed dynamically to the way RG has set things up. Lionel Johnson would be perfect for that.
Haha Lionel Johnson.
The problem with the 30k argument is that you can’t take a 30k primarch for a 40K argument. I mean angron and fulgrim are hardly the same 10k years later
Well, yes and no. RG and Lionel ARE pretty much their 30K selves. After all both were in stasis for almost all that time, pretty much all of it in the case of the Lion. He's going to be pretty much the same guy as in 30k.
mrFickle wrote: If there were an end of times, and age of primarchs this would be good, if, it did not replace the 40K game, which could remain a game in a setting not a story line.
Age of primarchs or whatever would be another game with a different play style that pitted small armies of highly elite warriors and a primarch level character against each other. It could be a game for people who like endless re rolls and buffs and auras and then they could take much of that out of 40k
And then it could be formalised into a moving story line that get me updated every year based on community game results.
Nah, I mean literally do to it what they did to Fantasy. AoS is in a way stronger position today and a lot of it comes from the fact they do not have to pander to all these old stories from 1999. Bring on the End Times!
cuda1179 wrote: I'd like a Loyalist Primarch to balance out RG, both in game and in story. Someone that would still be all pro-Imperium, but opposed dynamically to the way RG has set things up. Lionel Johnson would be perfect for that.
Haha Lionel Johnson.
The problem with the 30k argument is that you can’t take a 30k primarch for a 40K argument. I mean angron and fulgrim are hardly the same 10k years later
Well, yes and no. RG and Lionel ARE pretty much their 30K selves. After all both were in stasis for almost all that time, pretty much all of it in the case of the Lion. He's going to be pretty much the same guy as in 30k.
Well you say that, but therefore saying that ignores the point about demon primarchs.
Also the 40K primarchs shouldn’t be the same as the were in 40K, they should be significantly different. The lion should tear the universe apart looking for the fallen and Luther totally ignoring orders from guilliman. After returning from the warp for 10k years Russ should be a mutant. Isn’t corax some sort of mist now? You know no one should be the same after 10k years of god knows what.
Gulliman well he’s just always been the most boring one so he probably will be the same as he ever was. I bet RG always orders vanilla when they go for ice cream
Before I get into it, I want to point out that I don't necessarily disagree... I'm an educator by trade, but my specialties are adolescent and adult learning, so I don't have formal training in primary/ junior cognitive development beyond what I got from overview psychology classes. I do have two decades of experience in child and youth recreation. None of this makes me automatically right or you automatically wrong- elitism needs to die a quick death; if adult learning has done anything for me, it's reinforced the concept of multiple intelligences.
The argument I was making is that the perceived value of suck also comes from the company - it is not an objective truth that kermit vs maul is 'bad'.
Certainly true in many cases, not necessarily true with the Kermit vs. Maul. I mentioned I didn't mix GI Joes and Star wars, but this isn't entirely true: Destro made a fantastic dark Jedi, and both the of the Cobra Commanders- hooded and masked- were decent officers to lead Stormtrooper/ Snow Trooper/ Speeder bike pilot squads. I also mixed in Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica toys. And I did do all of those things despite the attempt to manufacture specific universes where they were all separate.
But you can see based on my choices, that even as a child, I was looking for patterns and internal consistency to my play-space; I chose toys of the same scale, and looked for those who were closest to space fantasy in appearance. This is because the human brain is pattern recognition engine; it is literally the building block of cognition. Stories with internal consistency appeal to the pattern maker in us; this internal consistency makes it easier to express artistic concepts such as pathos, catharsis, theme, setting and atmosphere. When a play space is not internally consistent, to much mental energy is required to suspend disbelief.
Consistency is not high on young kids' list of enjoyable things. They get it reinforced.
Yes, you are correct. This is one definition of teaching/ learning. Since consistency is a skill required for adulthood, anything that helps reinforce it (like learning to play within the boundaries of an internally consistent world) is a net positive for kids, not something to be avoided. The caveat is that the sandbox needs to be big enough to tell a diversity of stories. The Clash of the Titans range from the original film was terrible for this because there were only four characters and two Monsters, and they were all the main heroes and villains of the stories. Star Wars and GI Joe, by contrast, had a wide range of lesser, minor characters to accommodate children who could build a character through speech and play, as well as the main characters for kids who needed to scaffold from an existing character to learn the elements of character creation. Both ranges were predominantly white male, but they did both include some examples of female and multi-cultural icons, and of course Star Wars teaches notions of "other" through species aliens, as well as cultural identification.
The point being that modern sales techniques and corporatised play not only create a set of toys and discreet verses to sell, they also sell the value proposition of becoming immersed in it. It's a bit self fulfilling.
Again, true, but also a net positive for cognitive development. Immersion, by its nature, helps children develop an attention span, since one is required in order to maintain immersion.
If instead kids were raised to believe that smashing any toys together is the least sucky way to play, then we'd all feel that kenobi vs maul is a terrible way to play.
An interesting theory. Pedagogical research never interested me as much as actually teaching, but I'm sure there are experiments that test this with clinical objectivity. I suspect, however, that this is untrue. If you give a child toys from multiple verses, I believe they will still tend to group like with like, due to the way internal consistency supports storytelling performed by pattern making minds.
This also touches on the difference between creating stories and retelling stories. With an existing verse and storyline (and the attendant playsets) the toys encourage kids to step through an existing story someone else created as the least sucky way to play. Anything else is non canon and doesn't count. Maul doesn't chop kenobi in half in the story, so it's 'wrong' that your toys do that.
This is another one of those that is going to be true for some kids and not others. As I mentioned above, we use examples of precreated characters in order to learn the elements of character building, which we then use to assign characteristics to the more general figures in the range. The degree to which a child retells vs. creates is a measure of a child's particular place on the spectrum of cognitive development. Many, many children will be stuck on imitation; these children may need a caring adult to enter into the play space, take up a generic character and role model the application of character traits in order to create a unique identity for an other wise generic character. Other children will develop this skill naturally if they persist in play beyond the point where they become board with retelling.
I was in the latter category; my favourite Star Wars character was Snaggletooth- a purple jumpsuited, grey-faced simian alien from the cantina scene in A New Hope. The character is so minor, that he has no spoken lines, less than 3 seconds of screen time, and his appearance is at the edge of the frame so that you only see him in the letterboxed versions of the film. I played through a story arc were Snaggletooth became a Jedi, another where he became a bounty hunter, another where he apprenticed to vader and another where he was an officer in the rebel alliance.
Some of the most popular Star Wars characters were minor- like Boba Fett or Aura Sing. And yes, toys and expanded universe material contributed to that popularity, but the interest had to be there to convince folks to explore that expanded universe. The 12" Boba Fett was the best character in the limited 12" range, which was released long before the expanded universe material came along. It was probably a kid who played with that 12" toy who wrote the expanded universe content based on his or her own childhood play.
One of the advantages of early 40k was that it had very few canon events with known outcomes and they were almost all in the past, while the game was in the 'present', thus making your games independent from the verse they happen in. As they've top-ended the game with more and more canon stories in the 'present' they've fallen more into this prescriptive style of play. And they've now filled out the HH to such an extent that it's topped and tailed 40k in terms of prescriptive story telling for players.
Again, a lot of truth here: those named characters teach players how to create their own characters, which happens in the space between. I disagree somewhat with your notion of past and present in old 40k; I think that from Rogue Trader until late 7th (Gathering Storm), 40k always played with asynchronous storytelling. I think that folks were always encouraged to play in different time frames- from the first Tyranid attack at McCragge to the Battles for Armageddon to the Slaughter at Sanctuary 101 to the near extinction of the Deathwing in Spacehulk. ANd we fought these battles, not in chronological order- hell no! We skipped forward and backward, and some of us continue to do that, even in the more plot driven Indomitus Era.
And anyone who knows me, knows that there's a Crusade plug in every post I drop, so here it comes. The Crusade system is a better tool than we've ever had for creating our own characters. And it's not just limited to characters! We have dozens of named characters to give us examples of what constitutes a character, but other than Yarrick's FW Fortress of Arrogance and the Hounds of Morkai, we have very few examples of named units and vehicles. And yet now, we have a whole suite of tools to create them.
If you play 40k with kids, please, please encourage Crusade. For starters, it's a cheaper buy-in to start with 25 PL Combat Patrols anyway, and the stories you can tell just with that are fabulous. You will be doing far more for cognitive development than playing matched. Once they've learned all of the storytelling and cooperative play/ sportsmanship elements, you might get them into the tournament scene in order to develop their math skills. But teaching them Math Hammer before Crusade will prevent them from internalizing storytelling/ cooperative play skills by getting them too hungry for competition too soon.
Winning is a quick fix for emotional gratification. Cooperative storytelling delays gratification and helps build an attention span.
There is still space to play the games you want, but the average player may find the difficulty of slotting between the existing canon harder than it used to be. This makes play by numbers 40k the default and most played, reinforcing in the community this as the right way of playing until in terms of player generations you end up with generations who rely on GW's content to keep playing.
Glad that you recognize that there is still space for creation, but I'm not sure if you recognize how much space there is, and how much of that is created by the number of tools at our disposable. A few weeks ago, I presented a theoretical Obolis Invasion campaign using all of the available resources at the time. It was pretty cool picking and choosing when to use Flashpoints, when to use the Missions from the BoR, when to use the missions from Plague Purge. It was surprisingly intricate, and as I was putting it together, I could see how many hundreds of different ways there were to build such a campaign. If you took 100 different gaming groups and asked them to come up with a campaign using the same pool of resources, I can almost guarantee you that no two campaigns would be the same, and the range of difference between them would be greater than the scope of some lesser gaming systems in their entirety.
If there's any shoe-horn right-way-to-play trap in 40k that inhibits creativity, it's the ultra competitive WAAC mindset that chooses models based solely on raw efficiency. And while GW does use ITC objectives that support this style of play, and they do promote meta-watch articles, and support tournaments and organized play, they've simultaneously pushed Crusade and campaign based play to cover both sides of the coin, so the fact that competitive play seems to dominate 40k is so far from being GW's fault that I'm really surprised it's not self evident to the Dakka general discussion forum.
And again, for the record, competetive play has its place- it is important to the survival of our hobby, it does promote and incentivize numeracy and data analysis skills, and the viewpoints expresed by our more competitive Dakkanaughts are often spot-on accurate and valuable. But if you want to use this game to develop a complete suite of cognitive skills in children and youth, you have to come at it from the campaign/ story-based/ cooperative angle first, because once you introduce the instant gratification of "winning," those other skills are less likely to develop on their own.
When we learn the competitive spirit BEFORE we learn sportsmanship, we often will not actually learn sportsmanship. If, for example, you read Karol's posts about his meta at the sports school, you begin to understand the peril of an early inculcation of the competitive spirit. Most of Karol's peers were likely enrolled in extra-curricular sport from a very, very young age, and the instant gratification of the win is a motivator for everything they do.
Sorry to rant- again, I see your perspective and I agree with much of what you have to say. Just presenting another side of the story.
PenitentJake wrote: Before I get into it, I want to point out that I don't necessarily disagree... I'm an educator by trade, but my specialties are adolescent and adult learning, so I don't have formal training in primary/ junior cognitive development beyond what I got from overview psychology classes. I do have two decades of experience in child and youth recreation. None of this makes me automatically right or you automatically wrong- elitism needs to die a quick death; if adult learning has done anything for me, it's reinforced the concept of multiple intelligences.
The argument I was making is that the perceived value of suck also comes from the company - it is not an objective truth that kermit vs maul is 'bad'.
Certainly true in many cases, not necessarily true with the Kermit vs. Maul. I mentioned I didn't mix GI Joes and Star wars, but this isn't entirely true: Destro made a fantastic dark Jedi, and both the of the Cobra Commanders- hooded and masked- were decent officers to lead Stormtrooper/ Snow Trooper/ Speeder bike pilot squads. I also mixed in Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica toys. And I did do all of those things despite the attempt to manufacture specific universes where they were all separate.
But you can see based on my choices, that even as a child, I was looking for patterns and internal consistency to my play-space; I chose toys of the same scale, and looked for those who were closest to space fantasy in appearance. This is because the human brain is pattern recognition engine; it is literally the building block of cognition. Stories with internal consistency appeal to the pattern maker in us; this internal consistency makes it easier to express artistic concepts such as pathos, catharsis, theme, setting and atmosphere. When a play space is not internally consistent, to much mental energy is required to suspend disbelief.
Consistency is not high on young kids' list of enjoyable things. They get it reinforced.
Yes, you are correct. This is one definition of teaching/ learning. Since consistency is a skill required for adulthood, anything that helps reinforce it (like learning to play within the boundaries of an internally consistent world) is a net positive for kids, not something to be avoided. The caveat is that the sandbox needs to be big enough to tell a diversity of stories. The Clash of the Titans range from the original film was terrible for this because there were only four characters and two Monsters, and they were all the main heroes and villains of the stories. Star Wars and GI Joe, by contrast, had a wide range of lesser, minor characters to accommodate children who could build a character through speech and play, as well as the main characters for kids who needed to scaffold from an existing character to learn the elements of character creation. Both ranges were predominantly white male, but they did both include some examples of female and multi-cultural icons, and of course Star Wars teaches notions of "other" through species aliens, as well as cultural identification.
The point being that modern sales techniques and corporatised play not only create a set of toys and discreet verses to sell, they also sell the value proposition of becoming immersed in it. It's a bit self fulfilling.
Again, true, but also a net positive for cognitive development. Immersion, by its nature, helps children develop an attention span, since one is required in order to maintain immersion.
If instead kids were raised to believe that smashing any toys together is the least sucky way to play, then we'd all feel that kenobi vs maul is a terrible way to play.
An interesting theory. Pedagogical research never interested me as much as actually teaching, but I'm sure there are experiments that test this with clinical objectivity. I suspect, however, that this is untrue. If you give a child toys from multiple verses, I believe they will still tend to group like with like, due to the way internal consistency supports storytelling performed by pattern making minds.
This also touches on the difference between creating stories and retelling stories. With an existing verse and storyline (and the attendant playsets) the toys encourage kids to step through an existing story someone else created as the least sucky way to play. Anything else is non canon and doesn't count. Maul doesn't chop kenobi in half in the story, so it's 'wrong' that your toys do that.
This is another one of those that is going to be true for some kids and not others. As I mentioned above, we use examples of precreated characters in order to learn the elements of character building, which we then use to assign characteristics to the more general figures in the range. The degree to which a child retells vs. creates is a measure of a child's particular place on the spectrum of cognitive development. Many, many children will be stuck on imitation; these children may need a caring adult to enter into the play space, take up a generic character and role model the application of character traits in order to create a unique identity for an other wise generic character. Other children will develop this skill naturally if they persist in play beyond the point where they become board with retelling.
I was in the latter category; my favourite Star Wars character was Snaggletooth- a purple jumpsuited, grey-faced simian alien from the cantina scene in A New Hope. The character is so minor, that he has no spoken lines, less than 3 seconds of screen time, and his appearance is at the edge of the frame so that you only see him in the letterboxed versions of the film. I played through a story arc were Snaggletooth became a Jedi, another where he became a bounty hunter, another where he apprenticed to vader and another where he was an officer in the rebel alliance.
Some of the most popular Star Wars characters were minor- like Boba Fett or Aura Sing. And yes, toys and expanded universe material contributed to that popularity, but the interest had to be there to convince folks to explore that expanded universe. The 12" Boba Fett was the best character in the limited 12" range, which was released long before the expanded universe material came along. It was probably a kid who played with that 12" toy who wrote the expanded universe content based on his or her own childhood play.
One of the advantages of early 40k was that it had very few canon events with known outcomes and they were almost all in the past, while the game was in the 'present', thus making your games independent from the verse they happen in. As they've top-ended the game with more and more canon stories in the 'present' they've fallen more into this prescriptive style of play. And they've now filled out the HH to such an extent that it's topped and tailed 40k in terms of prescriptive story telling for players.
Again, a lot of truth here: those named characters teach players how to create their own characters, which happens in the space between. I disagree somewhat with your notion of past and present in old 40k; I think that from Rogue Trader until late 7th (Gathering Storm), 40k always played with asynchronous storytelling. I think that folks were always encouraged to play in different time frames- from the first Tyranid attack at McCragge to the Battles for Armageddon to the Slaughter at Sanctuary 101 to the near extinction of the Deathwing in Spacehulk. ANd we fought these battles, not in chronological order- hell no! We skipped forward and backward, and some of us continue to do that, even in the more plot driven Indomitus Era.
And anyone who knows me, knows that there's a Crusade plug in every post I drop, so here it comes. The Crusade system is a better tool than we've ever had for creating our own characters. And it's not just limited to characters! We have dozens of named characters to give us examples of what constitutes a character, but other than Yarrick's FW Fortress of Arrogance and the Hounds of Morkai, we have very few examples of named units and vehicles. And yet now, we have a whole suite of tools to create them.
If you play 40k with kids, please, please encourage Crusade. For starters, it's a cheaper buy-in to start with 25 PL Combat Patrols anyway, and the stories you can tell just with that are fabulous. You will be doing far more for cognitive development than playing matched. Once they've learned all of the storytelling and cooperative play/ sportsmanship elements, you might get them into the tournament scene in order to develop their math skills. But teaching them Math Hammer before Crusade will prevent them from internalizing storytelling/ cooperative play skills by getting them too hungry for competition too soon.
Winning is a quick fix for emotional gratification. Cooperative storytelling delays gratification and helps build an attention span.
There is still space to play the games you want, but the average player may find the difficulty of slotting between the existing canon harder than it used to be. This makes play by numbers 40k the default and most played, reinforcing in the community this as the right way of playing until in terms of player generations you end up with generations who rely on GW's content to keep playing.
Glad that you recognize that there is still space for creation, but I'm not sure if you recognize how much space there is, and how much of that is created by the number of tools at our disposable. A few weeks ago, I presented a theoretical Obolis Invasion campaign using all of the available resources at the time. It was pretty cool picking and choosing when to use Flashpoints, when to use the Missions from the BoR, when to use the missions from Plague Purge. It was surprisingly intricate, and as I was putting it together, I could see how many hundreds of different ways there were to build such a campaign. If you took 100 different gaming groups and asked them to come up with a campaign using the same pool of resources, I can almost guarantee you that no two campaigns would be the same, and the range of difference between them would be greater than the scope of some lesser gaming systems in their entirety.
If there's any shoe-horn right-way-to-play trap in 40k that inhibits creativity, it's the ultra competitive WAAC mindset that chooses models based solely on raw efficiency. And while GW does use ITC objectives that support this style of play, and they do promote meta-watch articles, and support tournaments and organized play, they've simultaneously pushed Crusade and campaign based play to cover both sides of the coin, so the fact that competitive play seems to dominate 40k is so far from being GW's fault that I'm really surprised it's not self evident to the Dakka general discussion forum.
And again, for the record, competetive play has its place- it is important to the survival of our hobby, it does promote and incentivize numeracy and data analysis skills, and the viewpoints expresed by our more competitive Dakkanaughts are often spot-on accurate and valuable. But if you want to use this game to develop a complete suite of cognitive skills in children and youth, you have to come at it from the campaign/ story-based/ cooperative angle first, because once you introduce the instant gratification of "winning," those other skills are less likely to develop on their own.
When we learn the competitive spirit BEFORE we learn sportsmanship, we often will not actually learn sportsmanship. If, for example, you read Karol's posts about his meta at the sports school, you begin to understand the peril of an early inculcation of the competitive spirit. Most of Karol's peers were likely enrolled in extra-curricular sport from a very, very young age, and the instant gratification of the win is a motivator for everything they do.
Sorry to rant- again, I see your perspective and I agree with much of what you have to say. Just presenting another side of the story.
I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for you tho. Or sorry that happened.
As other people have said before in this thread, the genie is already out of the bottle and there ain't no way GW is gonna stop this money train now.
Fans and haters alike of the primarch models might as well just kick back and watch with morbid curiosity how far GW is willing to run this concept into the ground.
It somewhat bogs my mind that people actually play 40k.
When I used to be into 40k, I'd just read novels and fluff and read/participate in debates and occasionally would play a 40k video game.
As for primarch, I think return of one that would be most likely to create conflict with Guillimann regarding the direction of the imperium would be the best.
I would actually prefer solely traitor primarchs to appear throughout 9th edition. Make it really look like the Imperium is on their last legs narratively and on the tabletop.
Then in 10th edition start with bringing back El'Jonson. Maybe the Eldar assist Khan to escape out of the webway, seeing the Imperium in great need and that it's the best thing to do to preserve their own people.
Maybe to flip the setting on its head we could turn Leman Russ and Corvus onto the traitors side. Maybe they went crazy when the great rift appeared and the astronomican went silent. Though I doubt GW have the balls to do that.
The cloned non-Chaos Fulgrim on the Imperial side as a gift from Trazyn, as well as releasing Creed from stasis.
I was never a fan of having Primarchs in 40k...they were more interesting as shadowy, historical figures of legend.
But since they've opened that can, they might as well keep going. Seems hardly fair to only let Ultramarines have the shiny SuperduperCharacter. Bring them all back, and while they're at it have Cawl unlock the secret to craft them for every Chapter that wants one!
'Age of the Primarchs' already exists, though. It's called 'The Horus Heresy'...
I voted yes because I love all the big centerpiece models. They're great to put out on a table even if they don't have great rules. And they're fun to paint and convert.
I do agree with anyone that said they should wait for a bit so the rest of the game can catch up with rules/models though. Especially Eldar. But GW is really doing a great job with a lot of the new models they're putting out.
I was going to suggest that it could just be Manus' corpse, propped up Weekend at Bernies-style and paraded around as the Primarch returned... and then I remembered that they already used that plotline...
). I mean, this train has no brakes - it is going to happen as soon as 
are we?" dial in the 11+ range), and I never felt like the game needed something akin to a Primarch, either. Sure, 
