Archmagos Veneratus Extremis
On the Internet
|
Disclaimer: I rather like the Primaris, so my opinion of them will likely not be as negative as some may like. That said, I'm going to go into this as with as neutral a mindset as possible. There is a fair bit of speculation based on reading Jes Goodwin talking about Space Marines during the Chapterhouse lawsuit, as well as listening to him on Voxcast as well. Just give me a fair chance to lay all the cards on the table before you start sharpening your pitchforks please.
So it's been two years since we were introduced to Primaris, but before we go into that, let's talk about how we got here.
In 2013 Games Workshop staggered away from the Chapterhouse lawsuit reeling like a prize fighter who took one too many to the jaw. They obviously survived, but behind the scenes things changed. Gone were anything that didn't have a model currently in the game, and as well as and piece of wargear not provided in a kit.
Soon after came the rebranding, pushing everything into new titles, some of which the community complained about. It was a frustrating time to play 40k as things we had for editions beforehand were stripped away. I'm not going to go into how the company shut itself off from the customer complaints, or killed Games Day, just know that if you weren't around back then we saw a lot of churn in the company, the model range and the community.
At the same time we got our first update to the core Marine line in years, with the introduction of Grav weapons, Centurions and aircraft. Most of the core Marine line stems from this update and saw the push into the most heavily decorated the models had been.
From what I saw in the community at the time, there wasn't a big push to get the new models despite their better poses, slightly taller stance and new equipment. A lot of people reached out to bits sites and third party sources for cheap ways to get the new grav weapons and while new players had picked up the army, it didn't really move like the company was likely expecting. The rules even made it pretty clear that they wanted to sell this new kit to everyone, but not everyone was buying.
I think these are contributing factors that lead to the idea of rebooting the line in 2014 (the dates we have on Jes Goodwin's sketches put it about this time). The current line had bloated to the point that they were running out of ways to add new units to the line while maintaining the same base look of the Astartes, and new kits weren't selling as well when players could just reach into their collections and find third party sources to provide just the things they needed and nothing more.
So the new line was created from the DNA of the old line. Everything from Mark III to Mark VIII was used to inform the core of the line, and the armour was given a more modular design to allow them more room to iterate over the past. Now each unit could be given new and varied looks while fitting into various roles.
Additionally, possibly to try and appeal to older players, the scale of the models was changed to be closer the a classic heroic scale used in art over the model heroic scale, allowing for a body that is more proportional, while keeping the head the same size as before to allow older players to dig into their bits boxes and swap heads and shoulder pads and use their favorites. The arms are basically the same allowing for easy weapon with older kit (though bolters can be finicky due to the larger torsos).
Furthermore the poses were changed to be more dynamic, and while that came at a cost of being less possible, the core of the body comes in enough poses to allow for a number of different poses without a need to convert the body.
All these positives came with some downsides though. The core of the range couldn't use the same wargear as the past units and still meet sales goals (a necessary evil every company that wants to stay open has to meet), so everything was changed.
With those changes came hybridizations of past units as well. Aggressors were Terminators blended with Centurions, and blending Terminators with Assault Marines lead to Inceptors. And Scouts crossed with Assault Marines gave us Reivers (who basically fight just as poorly as the units they were blended from).
In the recent release this has lead to new hybrids as well, leading to a wider array of Scout type units allowing Astartes to feel more tactically flexible (even if we're still waiting on the further gravis additions to the army as well as some kind of rapid assault element like bikes) as they were always shown in the lore.
The Primaris designs were likely also influenced by the even higher level of model making tooling GW invested in around this time, allowing for finer details, crisper lines and new ways to divide the models up.
With Jes at the helm the studio rolled out rather uncomplicated models, free of a lot of extra detail to allow for future iterations in the future, as well as to provide plenty of room for the player to add iconography or decals to the minis.
But with all these positive aspects built into the design there has been a dark cloud hanging over the range since day one: the idea that the old line of Marines will eventually go away.
Events like the recent culling of the Age of Sigmar line and statements that the company is looking to move away from metal and resin completely by the end of next year has only increased that concern, and I feel it's not only a valid concern, but likely true as well.
As previously mentioned, the original Marine line has hit tremendous bloat and Games Workshop can no longer expect that people will buy nearly identical kits with slightly different wargear. I believe this is why the Wraithguard unit is designed to make such divergent units out the same kit: to try and encourage players to buy the new kit over just running the old models. It's also probably why Ynarri are likely the way forward for Eldar and we'll see a drastic shift in their range as the story progresses (my money is on more stuff like the Visarch as the race moves to be more the Ancient Eldar).
In short, yes, the old Marines are likely going to go away. I originally projected sometime in whatever counts as 10th edition for the game, but since the introduction of the Rubricon this will likely be even sooner than that.
Chances are we won't be seeing the classic Marine line on the shelves in GW in the next couple years, and maybe even a move to Index only in the next edition change so they can move into remaining the old line into new kits.
That said I don't believe this is the death of anyone's army. You might need to shuffle things around and possibly put some weapon options on the shelf for a while, but I, and most other players, won't be telling you that you can't play classic Marines using new rules (I am willing to bet money that some of you are already doing this now).
We may even begin to see returns of more robes, tabards and even head options as time goes on to allow people to make their Primaris feel more like an update to their classic army. That likely won't happen overnight though and if you want it now you might have to get acquainted with a product many of us used to use for conversions: Green Stuff.
That said, I don't want to end this all doom and gloom, so I will say that I look forward to what the Primaris line does going forward and I look forward to playing your Marines, even if they're a little short.
EDIT: gave the title an update to better reflect everything here.
|
And I doubt we see anything special for 
