Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

leopard wrote:
at least the gork terrible scouts are part of this

Crazy idea time.. You could retire a kit without retiring/downgrading rules..

The "NMNR-only whats in the box-no kit no codex" position doesn't have to be a thing, and digital only rules for old stuff would be perfectly easy to deliver (as in parity of rules legality, not just "sort of" matched play legal).

 Insularum wrote:

leopard wrote:
at least the gork terrible scouts are part of this

Crazy idea time.. You could retire a kit without retiring/downgrading rules..

The "NMNR-only whats in the box-no kit no codex" position doesn't have to be a thing, and digital only rules for old stuff would be perfectly easy to deliver (as in parity of rules legality, not just "sort of" matched play legal).

Having rules for units that didn't have available models is precisely what led to the current status quo

Youknow, I'm actually starting to think that we might see some sort of xenos addition to HH eventually after all? Killing off Firstborn will create a void for old players who only want to field them, but also want to fight some Orks and Eldar..

Dividing 40K into 40K (post rift BS times) and 30K (not only HH) might be something in the long term roadmap.. It will let the fans of the vintage stuff have the kind of toys they know and love, while also leaving the design space wide open for #nu40K..

A bit like AOS & Warhammer: The Old World, actually.. All speculation on my end but would make sense IMO

Maybe GW is realizing they can sell their legacy as well as innovate, as long as they branch out their two main game systems to "Newschool" and "oldschool" camps. The alternative, where they only sell uniquely new stuff, will leave money on the table for 3rd parties to exploit..

Of all these the loss of Assault Marines amazes me. Assault, Devastator, Tactical squads is the core of Space Marines. If they are getting rid of one, they should have dumped all three for pure primaries versions at the same time. I much prefer all their options to the single weapon primaries squads. It is really sad.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

Toofast wrote:
Why would they make rules for the index...just to squat the models a month later? Seems like it would have been a lot easier to start 10th with those models in legends. Oh it also prevents people from wasting time buying/building/painting/playtesting using models, expecting a 3 year shelf life, only for them to get removed from the army a month later.

I have a feeling they are trying to manage the community backlash, however not many players are still playing with firstborn now.

Additionally, it is GW, they want to shift their stock backlog.

Yep. This is the whole reason legends "rules" exist. Start by giving a unit bad rules in 40k so it fades out of regular use, then dump it into legends so you can say "but it still has rules!" to silence the complaints but the general typos/balance problems/etc of legends "rules" guarantee that nobody will ever use them, and once the unit has completely disappeared and hardly anyone remembers it it can be officially removed an edition or two later (preferably at an edition change so you just fail to give it new rules). I suspect stuff like the Razorback losing the ability to transport anything useful is a hint at what will be heading for the legends dumping ground soon, once GW has cleared out the warehouse.

I'd be outraged about the marine stuff disappearing but TBH it's what everyone else has been dealing with for years so welcome to the club I guess.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Charax wrote:
Having rules for units that didn't have available models is precisely what led to the current status quo

No, that was GW's greed and stupidity. Nobody forced them to take the dumbest possible response to losing the CHS case.

I think that it's highly probable that the stuff that is being retired is stuff that:

Doesn't sell very well at all anyway (like the Hunter)

Stuff that has a Primaris counterpart (many things, like the librarian, bike squad, etc)

or is going to be getting a new kit very soon (like the scouts, I suspect, and maybe even the assault squad?).

I also suspect there may be expanded kits/upgrade kits available for some of this stuff (maybe the outriders?) to cover some of the other options for the use of the kit in variant codexes, too.

I am just dismayed that they retired the kits before previewing their replacements--though I guess it is a smarter way to clear out the stock of them before getting in new stock of a new kit.

(to be clear, I am not saying this is a great thing. I am entirely dismayed that GW is moving away from what I thought was their absolutely greatest feature as a miniatures company--multipart kits that were widely, easily, cross-compatible. I also think that the classic scout/devastator/assault/tactical/terminator) progression was so thematic. And I still think that having multiple marks of armor in active use would be more fun and interesting that variations on Mark X armor).

Andykp wrote:
It’s about time, the kits are ancient and it must baffle newbies coming into the hobby, and we know GW is all all about newbies.

Lol no. There is nothing baffling about seeing multiple kits to choose from. Criticize the poor sculpting on the old kits all you like, but the idea that it was somehow confusing to newbies to have them is just laughable.

All the stuff will be available through 30k as others have said. I’ve built a very nice 2nd edition old marine army entirely from 30k plastics. Love it and it looks so much bette than those old models.

"It's ok, you can play a completely different game that hardly anyone else plays and only has one faction" is not much of a defense here.

Kinda wonder if they under-estimated the popularity as every kit in this are completely sold out on the web store.

I think everyone knew Primaris was a resculpt line. It was just a question of how long it would take to fill it out enough that they could start dropping the firstborn stuff.

Their fluff justification was always pretty dumb and I'll be very happy when its quietly forgotten.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Andykp wrote:
It’s about time, the kits are ancient and it must baffle newbies coming into the hobby, and we know GW is all all about newbies.

Lol no. There is nothing baffling about seeing multiple kits to choose from. Criticize the poor sculpting on the old kits all you like, but the idea that it was somehow confusing to newbies to have them is just laughable.

All the stuff will be available through 30k as others have said. I’ve built a very nice 2nd edition old marine army entirely from 30k plastics. Love it and it looks so much bette than those old models.

"It's ok, you can play a completely different game that hardly anyone else plays and only has one faction" is not much of a defense here.

Given the primaris cat is out the bag already, what exactly would you have them do? There are too many marines, they're old, they've been replaced in all but actuality. This is that actuality.

Can't expect them to simply resculpt the same units over and over forever, nor support a slew of units they don't sell.

The "first born counts as" list is almost certainly going to be a thing before long and the only reason it hasn't been more widespread so far imo, is that the special/heavy loadout of tacs and the mix of weapons in devs make those hard to place on a proxy list.

Dudeface wrote:
Given the primaris cat is out the bag already, what exactly would you have them do?

What they should've done is make primaris marines a new sculpt for the existing units like they did with the 30k marines, fixing the wonky proportions and giving new aesthetic options but not making any new units.

Now that they've done the stupid thing and made primaris marines their own faction they should've maintained some kind of print on demand system for the lower-selling products and real rules support, not the legends "rules" that are deliberately neglected and broken so nobody uses them. Marines could've been separated by era into two different sub-factions that can't be mixed, mitigating the rules bloat without making anyone's models unplayable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
Kinda wonder if they under-estimated the popularity as every kit in this are completely sold out on the web store.

Probably not. A lot of it is scalpers buying stuff to put up on ebay at a nice markup, most of the rest is probably panic buys by a few people who need one last kit for a project. And I doubt there was all that much inventory left when they made the announcement. The same thing has happened with every LCTB announcement over the past few years, every time all the stuff is gone almost immediately and you have no chance to get any of it.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Those bikes are some of the oldest models in the whole range aren’t they? Beaten by only a few remaining Phoenix lords?

Company Command box, sort of? The captain in it is 6th-5th ed era, but the rest of the box is 3rd ed. Even has the old "Snip off the handle, slide the gun on the hand" type system.

One of the few marine kits I never got haha.

Unpopular opinion: I think this is overdue. There are too many Marine kits. This is a problem of GWs own making, but it must be hard/impossible for the rules team to try and make the Marine codex balanced and cohesive while also satisfying marketing pressures from the bosses who want the new kits front and centre.

But really they should have just made Primaris true scale versions of the old kits. They’d have still sold like hot cakes.

 General Kroll wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Those bikes are some of the oldest models in the whole range aren’t they? Beaten by only a few remaining Phoenix lords?

Company Command box, sort of? The captain in it is 6th-5th ed era, but the rest of the box is 3rd ed. Even has the old "Snip off the handle, slide the gun on the hand" type system.

One of the few marine kits I never got haha.

Unpopular opinion: I think this is overdue. There are too many Marine kits. This is a problem of GWs own making, but it must be hard/impossible for the rules team to try and make the Marine codex balanced and cohesive while also satisfying marketing pressures from the bosses who want the new kits front and centre.

But really they should have just made Primaris true scale versions of the old kits. They’d have still sold like hot cakes.

The Marine Index showed the vast bloated mass that is the current range - plus they are already duplicating it and more with 30K. I don't like alot of the Primaris range but I get why they are doing it.

Honestly I'm convinced Primaris were just going to be the new Marine models and then someone in Head Office said "wait why don't we release them alongside".

So suddenly Marines wound up with 2 armies with the exact same design ethos right next to each other in the same army. It was indeed super messy


I can see the future of Marines being Primaris being the core of the force and "firstborn" being elite units.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I'm convinced Primaris were just going to be the new Marine models and then someone in Head Office said "wait why don't we release them alongside".

So suddenly Marines wound up with 2 armies with the exact same design ethos right next to each other in the same army. It was indeed super messy

From my understanding this was the plan until the rejection of Age of Sigmar convinced someone they needed to promote them in a way that emphasized that they weren't invalidating existing armies.

adios baby marines!

Looking forward to the reintroduction of them (tall tactical, assault, devastator, etc) in 3 or so years.

Wishing I had voted marines for the early reveal. Really curious what the marine drops are going to be with the codex now.

 Nevelon wrote:
Wishing I had voted marines for the early reveal. Really curious what the marine drops are going to be with the codex now.

LIkely Primaris versions of those going away, hopefully they donlt look to bad - shame they are not throwing away real junk like Centurions - I hate those models

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Wishing I had voted marines for the early reveal. Really curious what the marine drops are going to be with the codex now.

LIkely Primaris versions of those going away, hopefully they donlt look to bad - shame they are not throwing away real junk like Centurions - I hate those models

Most of this stuff has something similar already. Rumor a ways back was that we'd see Primaris Jump Packs, which seems incredibly likely, particularly since VanVets are the remaining option and are very weirdly devoid of options in 10th.

Honestly this seems tailor made for Horus Heresy replacements for all the models, except the Hunter.

Renders of a Mk VI assault squad have already been shown, and I know HH players want a plastic landspeeder

 LunarSol wrote:
I think everyone knew Primaris was a resculpt line. It was just a question of how long it would take to fill it out enough that they could start dropping the firstborn stuff.

Their fluff justification was always pretty dumb and I'll be very happy when its quietly forgotten.

Apparently a lot of people didn't know it...? I don't quite understand how they missed it, mind you.

Toofast wrote:
Why would they make rules for the index...just to squat the models a month later? Seems like it would have been a lot easier to start 10th with those models in legends. Oh it also prevents people from wasting time buying/building/painting/playtesting using models, expecting a 3 year shelf life, only for them to get removed from the army a month later.

Nope GW has got to teach folks a lesson. Don't buy old trash /s

 gorgon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I think everyone knew Primaris was a resculpt line. It was just a question of how long it would take to fill it out enough that they could start dropping the firstborn stuff.

Their fluff justification was always pretty dumb and I'll be very happy when its quietly forgotten.

Apparently a lot of people didn't know it...? I don't quite understand how they missed it, mind you.

They lived in a land of milk, honey and illusions, where having half a dozen landspeeder datasheets, a dozen grav tanks and everything besides in duplicate or triplicate was something that was supportable economically and made sense in-game. And a Codex you could swat a Hive Tyrant with, to boot. Everybody with half a brain could have looked at the 250+ pages of SM datasheets (and the other 250 of variant marines and marine sidegrades) and come to the realization that this can't go on forever.

Are some people seriously suggesting "just go play HH"? You are aware that most of these models are not "right" for HH without some conversion work, not even talking about existing armies?

This also completely ignores that... you know... people might want to play 40K, not HH.

Expecting GW to keep everything in production and supported with rules is obviously dumb. But so is to simply shrug off any complaints about it as "just play HH lol".

 General Kroll wrote:


Unpopular opinion: I think this is overdue. There are too many Marine kits. This is a problem of GWs own making, but it must be hard/impossible for the rules team to try and make the Marine codex balanced and cohesive while also satisfying marketing pressures from the bosses who want the new kits front and centre.

Honestly kind of glad that they finally did this even if it makes multiple units in my old armies unusable. The line wasn't sustainable with so many datasheets.

I am also curious how many kits they were selling. I imagine the turnover was not that really good, meaning that GW was excused in retiring them financially. I know I haven't bought one of those kits in ages and I honestly haven't seen many fielding them lately. Also, I know people talk about that they should have remade the models, but I wonder if that many people would have bought the remakes to begin with. I know that I didn't buy much of the Eldar remakes as I have ton of metal and resin that I need to work through before I ever buy one of those. Quite happy with "Necron" Maugan Ra even if the new one is super cool.

I always wondered if GW would do something like this. Seems like they're looking to further differentiate HH from 40K era's by having the Astartes actually look like they've changed a bit over the 10,000 years. Some new tech, and not just riding around in retrofitted Rhinos and Land Raiders. And now that firstborn isn't a thing, with only Primaris, the Marines themselves having changed and become more powerful.

MrHobbles wrote:
I always wondered if GW would do something like this. Seems like they're looking to further differentiate HH from 40K era's by having the Astartes actually look like they've changed a bit over the 10,000 years. Some new tech, and not just riding around in retrofitted Rhinos and Land Raiders. And now that firstborn isn't a thing, with only Primaris, the Marines themselves having changed and become more powerful.

That's supposed to be how the setting works. The imperium is stagnating and crumbling. Technology is lost. The whole Primaris story line never worked for me for that reason.

MrHobbles wrote:
Seems like they're looking to further differentiate HH from 40K era's...

I don't think they care about that. They just want to sell new models to people who already own everything.

 CaulynDarr wrote:
That's supposed to be how the setting works. The imperium is stagnating and crumbling. Technology is lost. The whole Primaris story line never worked for me for that reason.

I understand the intent, but conversely that's one of the reasons I struggled with the setting myself. I just find it hard to believe that in 10,000 years (which is a reaaaaally long time) they didn't make _any_ progress? Yes it stalled and stagnated, they're still riding along in 10,000 year old tanks...heck that metal would have crumbled to dust in that time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:

MrHobbles wrote:
Seems like they're looking to further differentiate HH from 40K era's...

I don't think they care about that. They just want to sell new models to people who already own everything.

Well yes...and they do that by having different miniatures between the two time periods. The business reason and the in-universe reason are not mutually exclusive.

MrHobbles wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:
That's supposed to be how the setting works. The imperium is stagnating and crumbling. Technology is lost. The whole Primaris story line never worked for me for that reason.

I understand the intent, but conversely that's one of the reasons I struggled with the setting myself. I just find it hard to believe that in 10,000 years (which is a reaaaaally long time) they didn't make _any_ progress? Yes it stalled and stagnated, they're still riding along in 10,000 year old tanks...heck that metal would have crumbled to dust in that time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:

MrHobbles wrote:
Seems like they're looking to further differentiate HH from 40K era's...

I don't think they care about that. They just want to sell new models to people who already own everything.

Well yes...and they do that by having different miniatures between the two time periods. The business reason and the in-universe reason are not mutually exclusive.

If you punish learning with death, its not impossible.

Of course, the constant threat of annihilation from outside forces has historically encouraged people to give light heresy a pass, so with that consideration I tend to agree with you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Darnok wrote:
Are some people seriously suggesting "just go play HH"? You are aware that most of these models are not "right" for HH without some conversion work, not even talking about existing armies?

This also completely ignores that... you know... people might want to play 40K, not HH.

Expecting GW to keep everything in production and supported with rules is obviously dumb. But so is to simply shrug off any complaints about it as "just play HH lol".

I think it makes way more sense to play Scouts as Phobos and similar counts as if you want to keep playing them.