I have a problem with the Primaris Marines depiction.

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**Ishagu**

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
If you read the lore in black library books you'll see that Primaris are superior to standard Astartes, quite clearly.

Why wouldn't you want superior soldiers?

Because for the most part they have been written as incredibly boring. Marines +1 needs a lot to make them compelling.

You've not read the recent books. Some great characters are already amongst them.

**HoundsofDemos**

Ishagu wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
If you read the lore in black library books you'll see that Primaris are superior to standard Astartes, quite clearly.

Why wouldn't you want superior soldiers?

Because for the most part they have been written as incredibly boring. Marines +1 needs a lot to make them compelling.

You've not read the recent books. Some great characters are already amongst them.

Would you mind naming some novels that you think portray them well. Most of the 8th edition stuff I read didn't do it for me outside of me really liking how Bobby G is written and the eldar stuff.

**Arachnofiend**

Ishagu wrote:
If you read the lore in black library books you'll see that Primaris are superior to standard Astartes, quite clearly.

Why wouldn't you want superior soldiers?

When the baseline is already "the best of the best" trying to sell "the bester of the best" isn't terribly compelling.

**BrianDavion**

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
HoundsofDemos wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
If you read the lore in black library books you'll see that Primaris are superior to standard Astartes, quite clearly.

Why wouldn't you want superior soldiers?

Because for the most part they have been written as incredibly boring. Marines +1 needs a lot to make them compelling.

You've not read the recent books. Some great characters are already amongst them.

Would you mind naming some novels that you think portray them well. Most of the 8th edition stuff I read didn't do it for me outside of me really liking how Bobby G is written and the eldar stuff.

what books have you read?

that said of the ones I've read the best of the lot have been Honor and Iron.

**Crimson**

Marines are boring, Primaris or not. I wish they stopped writing books about them. They're fine as pieces in a wargame, boring as characters in a book.

**ClockworkZion**

Crimson wrote:
Marines are boring, Primaris or not. I wish they stopped writing books about them. They're fine as pieces in a wargame, boring as characters in a book.

Sadly the best depictions of them usually have someone else on the outside looking in at the Marine instead of us inside their head looking out.

I have found the biggest issue that the mindset of a Marine should be borderline alien to a regular person. Instead we find petty manchildren driven by their egos (which are incredibly easy to bruise) and walking around with enough firepower to wipe out a densely populated habblock without breaking a sweat.

Maybe we can blame the Big E for that. I mean the Primarchs had similar problems with their egos and look how that turned out.

**Arachnofiend**

There's an angle there with portraying a Space Marine as being more testosterone than person. Very difficult to place that character as the hero of your story, though. More suited to the "everyone is terrible, there are no good guys" type of 40k fiction.

**Rayvon**

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
If you read the lore in black library books you'll see that Primaris are superior to standard Astartes, quite clearly.

Why wouldn't you want superior soldiers?

Because for the most part they have been written as incredibly boring. Marines +1 needs a lot to make them compelling.

Yea this, its been terribly lazy writing as of late, super marines and the avenging son coming back from the dead to save the day, its more akin to movies scripts than the good interesting story lines that it used to be, seems to be doing well for GW though, for everyone one like me that stops reading 40k a few other younger people start up, I wish I could still enjoy it !!

**Wyzilla**

Arachnofiend wrote:
There's an angle there with portraying a Space Marine as being more testosterone than person. Very difficult to place that character as the hero of your story, though. More suited to the "everyone is terrible, there are no good guys" type of 40k fiction.

'Cept that wouldn't have much to do with an Astartes' psychological makeup. What sets apart an Astartes from normal humans is what would set apart a knight or mamluk from the normal human - the ability to engage and bridge the absurd gap between poet who crafts beautiful works of art and immediately snap into a violent warrior able to eviscerate a man without a single dredge of emotion welling up within their minds over the grotesqueness of their actions. A borderline inhuman complacency and acceptance of violence that even 40k humans would fine unnerving, coupled with a bloodlust for said violence that straddles the line of being sadists.

**Crimson**

ClockworkZion wrote:

Sadly the best depictions of them usually have someone else on the outside looking in at the Marine instead of us inside their head looking out.

I have found the biggest issue that the mindset of a Marine should be borderline alien to a regular person. Instead we find petty manchildren driven by their egos (which are incredibly easy to bruise) and walking around with enough firepower to wipe out a densely populated habblock without breaking a sweat.

Yep exactly.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Arachnofiend wrote:
There's an angle there with portraying a Space Marine as being more testosterone than person. Very difficult to place that character as the hero of your story, though. More suited to the "everyone is terrible, there are no good guys" type of 40k fiction.

Then don't. If you can't write Space Marines property then don't use them. Most of the people in the setting are not Space Marines (not that this is a conclusion you'd draw from 40K fiction.)

**queen_annes_revenge**

in my opinion its just a phase until the regular SM are phased out by primaris(in parallel with the production of SM minis.) they'll keep up the vague lore until that time.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crimson wrote:
Marines are boring, Primaris or not. I wish they stopped writing books about them. They're fine as pieces in a wargame, boring as characters in a book.

I'll admit i agree when it comes to loyalists, but I thoroughly enjoy the books about chaos marines. the night lords omnibus and the black legion novels by ADB are fantastic, he really explores all the different reasons for rebellion and gave some very fleshed out personalities with their own individual opinions and idiosyncrasies.

**BertBert**

queen_annes_revenge wrote:
in my opinion its just a phase until the regular SM are phased out by primaris(in parallel with the production of SM minis.) they'll keep up the vague lore until that time.

I suspect the same. Just like in the transition from 7th to 8th there suddenly were Primaris distributed throughout the galaxy, after the next big transition there will have been mostly (if not only) primaris for the past 1000 years.

Can't fault them either - they just look so much better in comparison. Hopefully they will just become Marines in the future with their new statline being a long overdue adjustment to their new (correct) scale.

**queen_annes_revenge**

Thats it. GW clearly wanted to cash in on the true scale scene, and theyve done it well. when I first joined dakka there were true scale articles all over the place. I made my fair share. now you dont see any, because you dont need to, bacause GW have made true scale marines. everything was starting to scale creep anyway, but i think it future it will be focused on 30k and primaris.

**Togusa**

bibotot wrote:
So apparently, EVERYONE wants them. Fabius Bile, Montarion (or Typhus), Magnus, the Haemonculi, the Tyranids, and now even the Orks according to Blood of Iax. Knowing the Tau, my money is also on them wanting to dissect some of these bad boys for science and stuff. This is both overused and contrived. I understand the Imperium captures all of its foe to interrogate and dissect them. Hell, the Imperium probably know much more about the Tyranids than any other race in the universe do, more than even the Tyranids know themselves.

My problem with the sudden infatuation with Primaris Marines everyone in the galaxy seems to be having right now is that GW is telling us instead of showing us. The Primaris Marines are the next generation of Mary-sue, that's fine. But seriously, what is it that makes them better than the regular marines? They don't perform that better on the tabletop. They have no named character that has achieved popularity like the old ones. They have some great feats, but nothing the old Space Marines couldn't replicate. There are tens of thousands of Primaris Marines out there, maybe even hundreds of thousands - the strength of Space Marine Legions of old. We learn they are badass because GW keeps telling us that, rather than actually giving a good reason to believe so. It's been more than a year and I still feel like the Primaris Marines are so underdeveloped.

Compared to the other Mary-sues which are the Custodes, the Primaris just fall short. The Custodes is much more fleshed out. They have awesome named characters and their feats are more spectacular. It makes no sense everyone in the universe is after Primaris Marines, at least from the fans' point of view.

Give me one event where the Stormsurge have been employed by someone else AGAINST the Tau. If the Stormsurge is so strong, why aren't the powers of the galaxy craving it as well? Tau technology is the easiest to use because it is completely non-sentient.

Slow down, GW. Anyone here wants more lore development on Primaris Marines before everyone and their mother want to suck on them?

See I would rather have the T'au more interested in dissections of Warp entities. Since they're now aware of them...So much potential in the T'au fluff for some awesome storytelling.

Well the Eldar have better stuff than a Stormsurge. The Orks likely loot them all the time. The Imperium is literally afraid of them and won't touch them because "xenotech." The necrons just laugh at them, and the Tyranids can't eat it, so they just waltz on by after consuming the pilots.

**ClockworkZion**

queen_annes_revenge wrote:
in my opinion its just a phase until the regular SM are phased out by primaris(in parallel with the production of SM minis.) they'll keep up the vague lore until that time.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crimson wrote:
Marines are boring, Primaris or not. I wish they stopped writing books about them. They're fine as pieces in a wargame, boring as characters in a book.

I'll admit i agree when it comes to loyalists, but I thoroughly enjoy the books about chaos marines. the night lords omnibus and the black legion novels by ADB are fantastic, he really explores all the different reasons for rebellion and gave some very fleshed out personalities with their own individual opinions and idiosyncrasies.

The Word Bearer's triology was quite good too for a bit of an older book series.

I think it's because Chaos Marines are supposed to be wrapped up in their petty emotions instead of being driven by duty and ideals greater than themselves that they work as better protagonists. I mean one of the few good loyalist Marine stories is Helsreach where Grimaldus struggles with the meaning of his duty and if he's even worthy of it (and a fatalist belief that he's going to die on Armagheddon while continuing to fight the Orks).

**queen_annes_revenge**

I'll have to check that one out. I'm looking forward to reading lords of silence (christmas gift) The horus heresy novels are good too.. lots of space for emotions and personalities and backstory. current era loyalist marines dont really have much about them as it seems any deviation from 'emperor=everything' is treated as heresy. The new carcharodons novel was quite good though i'll admit.

**ClockworkZion**

queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'll have to check that one out. I'm looking forward to reading lords of silence (christmas gift) The horus heresy novels are good too.. lots of space for emotions and personalities and backstory. current era loyalist marines dont really have much about them as it seems any deviation from 'emperor=everything' is treated as heresy. The new carcharodons novel was quite good though i'll admit.

Actually thinking of recommendations, Rynn's World is worth a read. I really feel like it took Pedro made him a generic Marine commander full of an ego and then grew him into something better than that.

There is an Iron Hands book I rather liked (but forget the name of) involving a Chaplain who ends up fighting Word Bearers that wasn't bad. It gives you a feeling for how the Iron Hands think and makes their though process just alien enough to feel appropriate for being a Marine.

But yeah, considering the amount of stories I've consumed the fact I have so few to recommend that show Marines as something different from thin-skinned manchildren and highlight how alien they are to us just goes to show how much the fiction for them is lacking in general. Weak fictionalizations of Marines is an ongoing issue, Primaris or not.

**Dakka Wolf**

Lukas the Trickster by Josh Reynolds.
Lukas easily shifts between snide charitable, funny and deadly in sentences.
Oh, and the loyalists don’t win.

**queen_annes_revenge**

i never got into the wolves as i didnt like their colour scheme or weird wolverine hair, but thinking about their lore, they probably could make interesting novel material. maybe i'll read that one at some point.

**Lord Clinto**

Personally I'm curious as to when the first "named" character converts to Primaris. Cawl supposedly gave each chapter the methods for creating new Primaris and upgrading existing Marines.

I was a tiny bit surprised that one of the SW characters didn't get a conversion...cough cough extremely old Ragnar Blackmane model...cough cough...

**robbienw**

No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.

**queen_annes_revenge**

It would be better if they just made primaris a new mark of upgraded armour. Transition, never mention small marines again. Sorted

**Sgt_Smudge**

robbienw wrote:
No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.

Actually, it was revealed on one of the Primaris reveal streams in the lead up to 8th that it was possible. Said by the designer and lead writer of the Primaris material I believe.

It's possible to do, it just hasn't been done yet in an official publication.

**Lord Clinto**

robbienw wrote:
No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.

I know I read it somewhere that regular Marines could be upgraded to Primaris. Either Rise of the Primarch or maybe Gathering Storm; I'll have to do more research after work.

I know there isn't any fluff examples of it yet; one reason I stated what I did.

**JohnnyHell**

Lord Clinto wrote:
robbienw wrote:
No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.

I know I read it somewhere that regular Marines could be upgraded to Primaris. Either Rise of the Primarch or maybe Gathering Storm; I'll have to do more research after work.

I know there isn't any fluff examples of it yet; one reason I stated what I did.

It was mentioned in early Twitch streams but not yet followed through on (see the whole other thread about it).

**robbienw**

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
robbienw wrote:
No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.
Actually, it was revealed on one of the Primaris reveal streams in the lead up to 8th that it was possible. Said by the designer and lead writer of the Primaris material I believe.

It's possible to do, it just hasn't been done yet in an official publication.

That’s great and everything, but until it actually happens in the fluff it is entirely meaningless what a designer may or may not have said on a twitch stream. He may have been mistaken, or they could have subsequently changed their minds, because there is not a single example of it in happening in the fluff currently, with Primaris having been around for over a century in universe.

**Andykp**

robbienw wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
robbienw wrote:
No he didn’t.

He distributed the ability to make Primaris, but there is nothing and no examples in the fluff of a normal marine being ‘upgraded’ to a Primaris. It doesn’t seem to be possible.
Actually, it was revealed on one of the Primaris reveal streams in the lead up to 8th that it was possible. Said by the designer and lead writer of the Primaris material I believe.

It's possible to do, it just hasn't been done yet in an official publication.

That’s great and everything, but until it actually happens in the fluff it is entirely meaningless what a designer may or may not have said on a twitch stream. He may have been mistaken, or they could have subsequently changed their minds, because there is not a single example of it in happening in the fluff currently, with Primaris having been around for over a century in universe.

They haven’t really moved the fluff forward yet in order to get the codexs all out. Soon the story will move and primaris will flourish. They’ll all be at it. Calgar, Dante, Grimaldus. It will be an upgrade fest.