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Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

If wenare properly going back in time they were released because people loved fantasy chaos warrriors and they wanted a sci fi plate mail knight alternative. They did push space marines from 2nd onwards certainly and i believe that was genuinely about the demand. These days it has become ridiculous though

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

The one thing that could make Marines actually be cool is for them to stop being the bestest Mary Sues they are now. Make them actually struggle with their tiny numbers, make them aware of the absolute certainty of ultimate defeat to all those horrors of 41st millenium. As they are now, they are mindless, ignorant, trigger happy zealots in shiny armour. Especially since all this Primaris „imperium is no longer technologically stagnant” change of paradigm to tacticool, advanced tech.

As to the coolest human faction - the gradual loss of humanity of AdMech is a way, way better suited for a grimdark setting than indestructible zealots, that somehow can beat literal gods because they are 3m high and have two hearts. As far as zealots go, SoB are also way more interesting, if only for the caricatural scale of their devoted ways and the whole failure, punishment and repentance theme. They are actually the most human of all human factions. IG is not my cup of tea, but DKoK are a great idea of having I WW level of tech clash against all sorts of cosmic foes.

So no, SMs are not the coolest human faction, they are only the most shoved down the collective throat human faction.

Any details that create an opportunity for an interesting, impactful in-game decision are welcome.

Details that are there just as memory load and increase the game's already unacceptable upkeep, but do not affect outcomes and player decisions in any meaningful way are just fat to be removed with zero hesitation. Lean and elegant WH40K rules...one can only dream!

40k tries to group all its players into too small a box. A single set of rules shouldn't have to represent gretchin and warlord titans. It's butter scraped over too much bread.

If you want to use the same models for a company-level game as you do an army-level game, cool, but the rules shouldn't have to cover that spread.

So my answer to the original question is there should be different rulesets to cover the different levels of granularity. Kill Team (i.e., the patrol-level game) can have that design space for all the different CCWs, vastly expanded stat lines, and 40+ versions of the bolter (or not). But it shouldn't cover things like Leman Russes, Storm Ravens, or even high-level characters (except maybe in a very specific scenario). Here you get a vast difference between infantry characters. That Grot may be WS2 and 1 wound, but a Guardsman is WS4 with 6 wounds, and a Marine is WS6, but with 12 wounds and each attack causes 8 wounds. You ever see an Space Marine in the old Inquisitor game? He could throw a rock and do more damage than shooting his bolter. But you know what? In this level of game, you might only get 4 of him. But because you're not dealing with 6 squads of dudes, you can have that granularity for their weapons and stats without it turning into a bookkeeping mire. I think Kill Team has the basis of this. Instead of just playing a low point game of 40k, you're playing something else, with more detail per model. I've not played, so I don't know how much it does wrong.

The company-level game, which I think should be "normal" 40k, would drop some of that granularity, but in return have a wider spread of unit types, including vehicles, heroes, and the like. Nothing like flyers or titans or even super-heavies at this level, but you'd get most of the rest. The result would probably compress the stat lines for infantry, as if you're dealing with tanks, there's only so much that would differentiate a normal human from a Custode. This would also compress weapon stats, too. At this scale, there's not much difference between a hellstorm bolt rifle and a godwyn pattern bolter, and there shouldn't need to be. I think Kyoto's CCW reduction goes a little too far at this scale, but not drastically. Add modifiers to a base set of weapons and you get a wide variety of shooties and stabbies, suitable for a wide variety of armies. Restrict poison-types to the Dark Eldar and Nurgle. Let Ork guns shoot out a terrible amount of bullets since they're only hitting 1/3 of the time at best. Give all the Grey Knights insta-kill force weapons. Specialize.

Further up the chain you get Apocalypse-style army-level stuff, and you get to include all your wacky huge things. Stompas, Mantas, go nuts. But most infantry at this level is going to be basically the same. And probably die in droves. There wouldn't even really be space for different CCWs. Probably just basic weapons, heavy weapons, and choppy weapons. Knights don't care if you're hitting them with a plague sword or a chainsword. It would kind of be like the abstraction you get with Power Level in current 40k. It doesn't really matter what you arm your regular dudes with at this scale, they're worth the same amount. Also, why is your close combat squad attacking that Titan? They lose, and probably all die immediately. Also, you're going to need more space to play this game, but if you've got the armies to cover it, you've probably got access to a big enough space.

As for what we have, I'm okay with Marines having a lot of different versions of themselves because otherwise everyone would be playing against the same marine army in the same way. Would that force other players into other armies? Maybe, but Marines are overwhelmingly popular for a reason, and GW pushing them so hard is the result of them being popular, not the cause. The market can support 10+ Marine codices, so why try to force them into 1 book? It's similar to trying to force grots and titans into one ruleset. Aside, the devs might not be able to properly support that many Marine armies, but that's a different issue.

But if you shift the granularity level, different Marine chapters become really important at the patrol level, a little important at the company level, and almost identical at the army level. At that middle level, there is enough to distinguish different modes of warfare, but I don't think we need full books to describe them all. Slight modifications to a "standard" Marine layout should be enough, while also allowing for more radical disruptions for established armies (looking at you Wolves).

Also, don't make chaos marines follow the codex astartes. They should, at most, be organized like the legions were. But that's an argument for another thread.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

^This is the thing. Although I'd argue that the spits-acid and eating brains are some of the cool part. The part where they keep getting biggerer and tougher and blah blah blah is the garbage thing.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

This.

nou wrote:

The one thing that could make Marines actually be cool is for them to stop being the bestest Mary Sues they are now. Make them actually struggle with their tiny numbers, make them aware of the absolute certainty of ultimate defeat to all those horrors of 41st millenium. As they are now, they are mindless, ignorant, trigger happy zealots in shiny armour. Especially since all this Primaris „imperium is no longer technologically stagnant” change of paradigm to tacticool, advanced tech.

I think an interesting angle could be a contrast between the Imperial propaganda about Marines (where they're the most powerful soldiers in existence and are completely invincible, able to take down enemies of any size or number), and the reality - Marines are strong and skilled but are still outclassed by many of their foes. e.g. Tyranid Warriors can tear them apart, Necrons can atomise them from afar etc.. This isn't to say that Marines lose these fights - just that they cannot stroll invincibly into battle and must instead constantly search for every possible edge (be it strategic, tactical, using terrain/cover, using stealth, etc.) in order to emerge triumphant.

As it stands, I think there's a bit of an issue wherein reality and (what used to be) propaganda have effectively merged such that there's no difference between the hype about Marines and their true capabilities.

Looking back the other original question, I'm thinking the game could be better at half the level of current granularity. Not half of everything, but a lot less in some areas that would allow consolidation of a lot of rules to prevent overall confusion.

Wargear is a great area to reduce the level of granularity. As often pointed out, there are way too many variants of the same weapons that seem to exist only to justify different units. We do not need all the following weapons to exist in Codex Space Marines when they are all R24" S4 AP0 D1 with slight modifications along the way:

Bolt Carbine: Assault 2

Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1

Instigator Bolt Carbine: Assault 1, AP -1, D2, and Ignores Look Out, Sir

Marksman Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1 and Automatically Wounds on Hit Roll of unmodified 6

Master-crafted Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1, AP -1, D2

Master-crafted Instigator Bolt Carbine: Assault 1, AP -2, D3, and Ignores Look Out, Sir

Master-crafted Occulus Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1, D2, and Target does not receive the benefits of Cover

Occulus Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1 and Target does not receive the benefits of Cover

Special Issue Bolt Carbine: Assault 2, AP -2, D2

Special Issue Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1, AP -2

Would it kill us to have one Boltgun/Bolt Carbine stat line (Assault 2, 24", S4, AP-, D1) and include special rules on the units as needed to fill their special rule instead of a whole new gun? Incursers already have the Multi-Spectum Array ability, so put "Each time an attack is made with this weapon the target does not receive the benefits of cover against that attack" as part of that ability rather than on the Occulus bolt carbine (which is oddly Rapid Fire instead of Assault like the normal bolt carbine).
Would the game implode if we removed the special character weapons and instead let them make a number of shooting attacks equal to their Attacks Characteristic (i.e. Assault A)?

After dealing with weapon bloat, get rid of the unnecessary datasheets that represent simple weapon changes. We don't need Predator Destructor and Predator Annihilator datasheets when a single Predator datasheet will get the job done with the option to change the turret weapon. It's not like the Leman Russ doesn't have 7 different turret options on one datasheet.

Finally, work on the Stratagems to reduce them overall. Personally, I'd rather the vast majority of Stratagems became pre-game Stratagems with at just a handful still usable during the game (mostly the standard rulebook stratagems with maybe 1 faction stratagem and 1 sub-faction stratagem). That would speed up game play and be much easier to balance.