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Spoilers for Devastation of Baal and some DA stuff as well.



In light of that development, do you think GW is truly moving to a homogenous SM army, leaving the different flavours behind, or is the "New GW" more clever that one could anticipate and bring those legacies back in their full glory?

I think (fear? Probably still the wrong word, but still) that GW is, together with the slow but inevitable phase-out of the old marine kits, marching towards a more homogenous Adeptus Astartes, especially since the options for single Primaris units and characters now are very limited, to say the least.

I myself may be a bit biased since I adore the old marines (both fluff as well as model-wise), but I always thought that the Primaris (right now) are... completely... bland and boring. Apart from no options, there are also some very iconic units missing, like bikes, or Landspeeder. Assault Marines as well (guess Interceptors could be an alternative, but still) and, of course, tanks.
I hope that if all marines are eventually replaced by Primaris, there will at least be Primaris bikes, Landspeeders as well as tanks. Veterans too.

If not, how will the different chapters look like? White Scars without bikes (or Revenwing for that matter)? Salamanders whose only flame-based weapons are Aggressors? Disciplined Wolves (shuddering)? It may balance-wise be favorable, but man, I think it would be boring as hell!
One thing aside: I hate that Cawl just managed to magically cure all geneseed-mutations such as the the Wulfen-stuff. Also, I always thought of the Red Thirst more of a psychic problem instead of a geneseed problem. It is just unneccesary... That is stuff that has been there for ages! Blood Angels without Death Company?

Edit: Typo

Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

I get that feeling as well, sadly. They seem to be so dead set to push Primaris that they're going to make all astartes be them, which in one way is good since Marines have way too many books, but it also removes the differences.

However mark my words you will never see another non-Primaris marine release from GW ever again. I am absolutely certain that Primaris are the replacement for the regular Marines (although it still won't happen for several years) and were going to be an "upscaled" replacement that they made an addition to avoid the massive backlash.

Wayniac wrote:
I get that feeling as well, sadly. They seem to be so dead set to push Primaris that they're going to make all astartes be them, which in one way is good since Marines have way too many books, but it also removes the differences.

However mark my words you will never see another non-Primaris marine release from GW ever again. I am absolutely certain that Primaris are the replacement for the regular Marines (although it still won't happen for several years) and were going to be an "upscaled" replacement that they made an addition to avoid the massive backlash.

Agreed. I like Primaris, mainly because they are what a Marine was supposed to be in size and stats. I also like the vanilla Marine. This was what drew me into 40k way back then. However, doing it at the expense of the fluff instead of building on it is wrong.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

^what he said.

The background for these chapters has gone increasingly from interesting flavor to hamfisted parody, turning theme into farce. If GW is toning these things down, that doesn't bother me terribly much, they've abused the fluff for these chapters and they really do need some fixing.

The homogenization of marine fluff is simply in character with about everything else GW creates boiled down in 5 easy steps:

Step 1) begin with good concept
Step 2) attempt to milk good concept
Step 3) add bloat and dreck to concept
Step 4) fail to realize what made original concept worthwhile
Step 5) change original concept in futile attempt to fix it

See Rules, version 26c, etc. ad nauseam.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

I feel the opposite. BA, SW and DA are very good looking armies that can also be customized, and IMHO are the only chapters that should exist. Maybe with black templars also but with grey knights, inquisition, SoB we've got too many crusaders and similar things.

Vanilla marines and all the other standard dull chapters should be phased out.

Since the release of the Primaris marines and their horribly devised story, I have been afraid that they would eventually become the stormcasts of 40k. If that happens I will probably just stop playing. And I agree with Wayniac that there will probably never be another regular marine model release. Very sad.

 Blackie wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

I feel the opposite. BA, SW and DA are very good looking armies that can also be customized, and IMHO are the only chapters that should exist. Maybe with black templars also but with grey knights, inquisition, SoB we've got too many crusaders and similar things.

Vanilla marines and all the other standard dull chapters should be phased out.

Apparently Horus Heresey has been pretty successful for GW, and it's basically vanilla marines vs more vanilla marines.

SW, BA and DA imo have too much "character" for their own good.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everything to such a massive degree.

This. The moronic gimicks attached to those chapters have made them impossible to take seriously, so I'm totally down with with them slowly being removed from history.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

I feel for marine chapters losing some of their uniqueness but this absolutely applies. It's gotten a bit out of hand just how far these chapters have gone with their gimmicks. It's getting to the point where you can't even hardly make successor chapters out of some of these chapters bits because they are so ridiculously over the top. And the names! Emprah I don't understand how people can read some of that without laughing. For example

Space Wolves have viking bits, odd priest and runes, maybe a pet wolf or two, cool, I can dig it

Space wolves riding wolves into battle, having santa's sleigh, and their naming convention as https://youtu.be/ihskUz0obzY?t=18m59s (warning language) is getting to the point where it's just a blatant parody of itself. It's not even like they had to make up names for that bit, they basically just picked up a codex and started rattling off unit names.

This goes for the other two chapters as well, but their naming conventions aren't as hilariously blatant as the Space Wolves are at least.


As for the whole Primaris meaning we'll never get another normal marine release again, I wouldn't be so sure. We never got a horus heresy Mark VI beaky box and let's be honest here, that's GW's "break glass in emergency" fallback plan. They know horus heresy is a cash cow with the grogs and they will continue to milk that for all it's worth, Mark VI being the obvious next step, possibly with a plastic old style rhino or something. But yeah we're probably not going to see any regular marine models getting released for 40k again unless GW decides to do something actually interesting and say have a rebellion between Primaris and original marine forces.

I prefer Dan Abnett interpretation of the Space Wolves where the Great Wolf Logan Grimmar is the High King, the Wolf Lords are referred as Jarls. Wolf Guards are the "Thanes" ,etc... and they don't even call themselves Space Wolves but Vlka Fenryka, that translates to something like "People of Fenris". Heck, even "The Fang" isn't called that way by the Space Wolves, is called the Aett, that means "Home of the Clan". Is the other people that aren't Space Wolves that call them "Wolf X" for everything.
I think thats cool. A little xenophobic, but it fits in the setting.

"Yeah, this is my ancient sword, Négling, a ancient relict of the chapter, forged in the time previous to the great heresy for the greatest artisans of our Great Company and..."
"Shut up about your ... Frost Blade, you Wolf Lord. When is gonna your Stormwolf come to pick us and your Thunder Wolves?"
"I hate you"

Gotta agree. The background is what makes most Chapters unique on top of a visual style. But the Blood, Wolf and Dark has definitely been taken too far with artificially enforced 'flaws' that really do not need to be taken to such an extreme. We humans are flawed enough as it is and those flaws are much more insidious than bit more hair or the occasional bloodlust.

Having said that, what I really enjoy about the different Chapters are the unique units. They add flavour and diversity to the table. I wouldn't be too sad to see the different SM codices go just to consolidate the power armoured mess we got here, as long as the background remains and maybe a few named characters and unique units. Roll BA, DA and SW into C:SM BT style.

Though since Primaris are the new thing, guess we will all be playing UM soon enough unless GW gets something done with the other Chapters outside of Stratagems and Psychic Powers.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

^what he said.

The background for these chapters has gone increasingly from interesting flavor to hamfisted parody, turning theme into farce. If GW is toning these things down, that doesn't bother me terribly much, they've abused the fluff for these chapters and they really do need some fixing.

I agree here, but I do lament the loss of the classic grimdarkness that gets washed out with the cringe-worthy flanderisation. But that's more of a 40k thing in general, and not just a space marine thing.

GW as of late has fallen into a classic literary trap, not realizing that it is the flaws they are rushing to eliminate that make those chapters (and marines in general) interesting.

Primaris are too perfect. Like a mathematically precise ice sculpture of a perfect sphere, accurate to 1/1000th of an inch. While it might catch the eye at first, it is soon ignored in favor of the less perfect handheld chainsaw hacked collection who's inherent flaws draw your eye to new facets of the design with every second.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its better than the increasingly awful parodies of themselves that many of the "special chapters" have become:

Wulfy Wulf Wulf Wolves on Wolves
Bloody Vampire Blod Angels with blood powers
Dark Angels with Dark vehcilces and Dark Secrets

Ughh

I hope that they keep the background flavour of the Chapters but no longer feel they have to flanderise everythign to such a massive degree.

I feel for marine chapters losing some of their uniqueness but this absolutely applies. It's gotten a bit out of hand just how far these chapters have gone with their gimmicks. It's getting to the point where you can't even hardly make successor chapters out of some of these chapters bits because they are so ridiculously over the top. And the names! Emprah I don't understand how people can read some of that without laughing. For example

Space Wolves have viking bits, odd priest and runes, maybe a pet wolf or two, cool, I can dig it

Space wolves riding wolves into battle, having santa's sleigh, and their naming convention as https://youtu.be/ihskUz0obzY?t=18m59s (warning language) is getting to the point where it's just a blatant parody of itself. It's not even like they had to make up names for that bit, they basically just picked up a codex and started rattling off unit names.

This goes for the other two chapters as well, but their naming conventions aren't as hilariously blatant as the Space Wolves are at least.


As for the whole Primaris meaning we'll never get another normal marine release again, I wouldn't be so sure. We never got a horus heresy Mark VI beaky box and let's be honest here, that's GW's "break glass in emergency" fallback plan. They know horus heresy is a cash cow with the grogs and they will continue to milk that for all it's worth, Mark VI being the obvious next step, possibly with a plastic old style rhino or something. But yeah we're probably not going to see any regular marine models getting released for 40k again unless GW decides to do something actually interesting and say have a rebellion between Primaris and original marine forces.

IIRC, the Max Wolfyness you could have on a Space Wolf character has actually been in decline since the first codex where thunderwolves were theoretically implemented (and didn't have models).

You used to be able to have a Wolf Lord of the wolf with two wolves on a wolf with two wolf claws and a wolfenstone with a wolftooth necklace.

In 7th, you could get a wolf lord with two wolves a wolf claw the fangsword of the deathwolf either on or in a (storm)wolf.

Now you're down to wolf lord on a wolf with wolf claws.

WE'RE LOSING WOLF FAST BOYS WE NEED OUR CHARACTER BACK STAT.

I NEED 20CC'S OF WOLF STAT. HE'S GOING INTO WOLF SHOCK!

I remember perusing some of the GW stuff some years back, after not having played for some time and finding those Wolfy Wolf Wolves. Cringed myself right away.

M.

Ok blood angels and space wolves i can understand? but what are the stupid gimicks of dark angels?

 Formosa wrote:
Ok blood angels and space wolves i can understand? but what are the stupid gimicks of dark angels?

They don't have one. Internet memes about Dark Angels being very very dark, edgy, emo and nearly traitorus. As much as the internet hyperbole try to put them in the same level as Blood Angels and Space Wolves they aren't in the same league.
Like Salamanders they have their own style and personality without that totally surpasing everything else. The Flanderisation isn't as heavy as with the other two big chapters.

Do you want Dark Angels Flanderised at Space Wolves levels? Guardians of the Covenant.

Personally, I like the overtop-ness of Blood Angels and Space Wolves and I'm a big fan of the Santa Grimnar Sleigh. Although, I do understand why people don't like it.

I think Primaris are absolutely destroying the image of Space Marines. The whole point was that they were flawed. The irony of needing a demi-god to create a breed of post-humans to defend humanity because they can't do it themselves. And yet being so flawed that they become the thing that eventually will destroy humanity itself.

Primaris are way too clean, and high tech for 40K. They don't belong. Just like Tau.

The Intercessor models themselves are fine, and if GW just said "hey, we're re-doing the SM line in true scale" I'd be fine with it. But they introduced all this new fluff, added all this technology that isn't supposed to exist anymore. It simply does not fit. This is 40K, it's Fantasy in space, not Sci-fi. Give them chainswords and power fists, get them dirty and grimdark.

Keep technology out of 40K! This is the Dark Millennium, not the Renaissance Millennium.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Personally, I like the overtop-ness of Blood Angels and Space Wolves and I'm a big fan of the Santa Grimnar Sleigh. Although, I do understand why people don't like it.

I think Primaris are absolutely destroying the image of Space Marines. The whole point was that they were flawed. The irony of needing a demi-god to create a breed of post-humans to defend humanity because they can't do it themselves. And yet being so flawed that they become the thing that eventually will destroy humanity itself.

Primaris are way too clean, and high tech for 40K. They don't belong. Just like Tau.

The Intercessor models themselves are fine, and if GW just said "hey, we're re-doing the SM line in true scale" I'd be fine with it. But they introduced all this new fluff, added all this technology that isn't supposed to exist anymore. It simply does not fit. This is 40K, it's Fantasy in space, not Sci-fi. Give them chainswords and power fists, get them dirty and grimdark.

Keep technology out of 40K! This is the Dark Millennium, not the Renaissance Millennium.

Yeah tbh the aspect of the marines I actually like is the techno-barbarian sort of Jack Vance/Yor The Hunter From The Future feel where they've got this technology and they just have no idea what it does or the way to use it but GOD DAMN are they going to smash something in the head with it.

Space Wolves are up in my top three chapters for exactly that reason. Complain about the wolf wolfyness all you like, there is something flatly glorious about a bunch of medieval space barbarians who think that the space marines are valkyries coming to take them to Valhalla. I also recently did a paint commission on some Dark Angels and loved the fact that behind all the statuary and gilding on the Darkshroud there's this little rusty beat-up broken space gizmo, and you know that's the only functional part of the whole damn thing.

Honestly, this is probably wishful thinking on my part, but I'm hoping all of this is going to build up to an internal conflict akin to the Horus Heresy. Not to create a new faction, mind you, but a way to create primaris chaos marines. In my heart of hearts, what I'm hoping is that resentment and distrust keeps building between primaris and vanilla, with primaris seeing vanilla as flawed and vanilla seeing primaris as too inflexible. How delicious would it be if the ultramarines of all people starting criticizing the primaris for being too by-the-book?

I highly doubt GW is going to phase out vanilla marines completely, and I especially doubt they're going to get rid of unique traits for marines. They're going to be extremely hesitant to mess with anything that affects marketability, and the fact that SM factions have unique traits makes them extremely markettable.

I hope not, because terminators are way more visually appealing than primaris gravis armor.

The name calling on SW's behalf is abit...meh.. I really like how they do it in Horus Heresy. Way more awsome and viking'esque. I love the Wulfen, but the name is... There is defenetly better options than wulfen wulfy.

Also Logan Grimnar on Sled is so stupid, i REALLY liked that lord, but now he is just feels like a joke (his rules are a joke but, but thats another story). I dont even know what to do with the sled, i cant see any possible way of using it, execpt if i made a giant mead hall scenery or something...but im not. Btw wolves are not sled dogs, it kills the whole "free spirited beats, doing their thing" turning them into "domesticated work breed". Same goes for TWC, never really liked them much either. Wanna be freind with a wolf, be the leader, thrive together (Leman Russ wolves are perfect), dont humiliate them into a donky.

It's still possible to condense all ten chapters into one book whilst retaining a slight level of individuality. A chapter tactic and warlord trait for each one, their own stratagems and relics...hell, you could probably still fit the more unique physic powers in as well. Like the Librarian could choose either Unleash Rage, Storm Caller or Mind Worm (chapter dependent) instead of one of the main table powers. It would be a shame to lose the individuality of the individual books but regardless of that I think that GW is aiming to bring them all under one banner with the Primaris marines being front and center. And once that begins there's no going back.

I just read what I think is a passage from Devastation of Baal where Dante and Seth are talking about the primaris, and Dante is basically completely cucked by Guilliman and saying they are our salvation because they aren't flawed, and Seth goes all meta and points out that without the flaws, they aren't of Sanguinius' lineage and will basically be Ultramarines wearing red armor, and that primaris aren't salvation but replacement.

Which is absolutely what GW seems to want to do. The primaris are perfect; they have no flaws of any kind that distinguish them from any other. They're scrubbing all the flaws that made the legions unique. They are literal mary sues.

Wayniac wrote:
I just read what I think is a passage from Devastation of Baal where Dante and Seth are talking about the primaris, and Dante is basically completely cucked by Guilliman and saying they are our salvation because they aren't flawed, and Seth goes all meta and points out that without the flaws, they aren't of Sanguinius' lineage and will basically be Ultramarines wearing red armor, and that primaris aren't salvation but replacement.

Which is absolutely what GW seems to want to do. The primaris are perfect; they have no flaws of any kind that distinguish them from any other. They're scrubbing all the flaws that made the legions unique. They are literal mary sues.

They appear to be knowledging that not everybody in the setting likes Primaris, at least in the novels. This new novel for Dark Angels works the same. They basically don't want Primaris near them or the secrets of the Inner Circle, and the new primaris Dark Angels are like "Dude wtf we are here to help".
I only hope that this is not the case of putting all the "Omg primaris suck" sentiment into a character to then reveal he is the bad one, and if you are a good servant of the emperor you'll accept Primaris with open arms.

 Galas wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I just read what I think is a passage from Devastation of Baal where Dante and Seth are talking about the primaris, and Dante is basically completely cucked by Guilliman and saying they are our salvation because they aren't flawed, and Seth goes all meta and points out that without the flaws, they aren't of Sanguinius' lineage and will basically be Ultramarines wearing red armor, and that primaris aren't salvation but replacement.

Which is absolutely what GW seems to want to do. The primaris are perfect; they have no flaws of any kind that distinguish them from any other. They're scrubbing all the flaws that made the legions unique. They are literal mary sues.

They appear to be knowledging that not everybody in the setting likes Primaris, at least in the novels. This new novel for Dark Angels works the same. They basically don't want Primaris near them or the secrets of the Inner Circle, and the new primaris Dark Angels are like "Dude wtf we are here to help".
I only hope that this is not the case of putting all the "Omg primaris suck" sentiment into a character to then reveal he is the bad one, and if you are a good servant of the emperor you'll accept Primaris with open arms.

That seems to be precisely what they're going to do.