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 Kanluwen wrote:

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

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

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

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

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

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

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

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

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

Okay, so that's two at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Blackie wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

 Mr Morden wrote:


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

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

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

 Blackie wrote:


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Blackie wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But thanks for the sarcasm...