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The Primaris Space Marine templates/schematics/blueprints, considering Cawl has been been making them for the last 8000-9000 years. You'd think that the Alpha Legion or Fabius Bile would have caught on to it and have infiltrators penetrate the Adeptus Mechanicus labs and gotten the information. I know that lore-wise that would make sense if they had the info, but for 'X' reasons didn't have the resources to mass produce them and would only have a few scattered here and there, but for the purposes of model making, Games Workshop would have to redo their whole line of Chaos Space Marines, which isn't feasible. Thoughts? Should there be fluff that would confirm they have the info, regardless if created or not?

We've had an updated model of abbadon, kharn, ahriman.
It wouldn't surprise me to see "chaos primaris" or whatever you want to call them when and if they redo Fabulous Bill's model.

Making his newest "enhanced marines" based on captured/reverse engineered primaris implants might be a nice touch

Chaos primaris models would look crap. I've seen some decent conversions using them, but a lot of them look lame as is, chaos ones would look totally lame. The whole point of chaos is they have the cool old baroque style spiky armour.

The whole point of the Imperium was that they hate innovation and almost never do it, they're a decaying empire with it's greatest heroes long gone. Now one of those heroes is leading it and they have Cawl innovating left right and centre.

QAR has a point though, GW's FINALLY managed to really solidify a distinct differant visual apperance for CSMs, throwing it away to give them primaris with spikes would be a bad decision aesteticly. I'm not saying this because "LOL PRIMARIS SUK AND LOOK BAD" (I actually like Primaris, even gravis armor has grown on me. when you start looking at agressors as primaris centurions you realize they're a biiiig improvement ) but because CSMs for ages have suffered from struggling to find their own distinct style, and I think with the new CSM minis GW's finally done it

Oh I think CSMs look good as they are for the most part. I'm not saying that GW should change them. Just that if they wanted to they would just ignore any existing themes and do whatever they like.

No. Just. No.

Chaos doesn't need primaris. The legions should be just that. The remnants of the ancient legions that built the imperium and then rebelled against it. They should be depicted as ancient warriors not the overly modern sci fi looking primaris.

The problem is that chaos marines in fluff are outclassed by the superior primaris marines. If chaos marines had primaris marines but kept their regular armor it would make sense

Primaris in general don't make a lot of sense. A lot of problems would have been solved by just making them fancy newer armours.

123ply wrote:
The problem is that chaos marines in fluff are outclassed by the superior primaris marines. If chaos marines had primaris marines but kept their regular armor it would make sense

No. All csm should have veteran stats. They should be more skilled than primaris but have less raw power. They should be the old breed of warrior going against the new breed. Like Kurt Russell in Soldier.

Because they're 10000 fething years old.

There are already bigger, badder CSMs in the lore, they're called Chosen...

Chosen are just veterans, no? So they're still worse off than Primaris because they have vets too.

The whole "all csm should have veteran stats" thing is silly to me as well. Not every single csm is a veteran. They probably have more post heresy marines than heresy ones at this point.

pm713 wrote:
Chosen are just veterans, no? So they're still worse off than Primaris because they have vets too.

Rules-wise, yes, they're the direct equivalent to veterans - with added spikes. Lore-wise, which should feed into the stats, it feels like there's scope for more of a difference between a Space Marine veteran who has served for a couple of hundred years, and a CSM Chosen who has served for 10000+ years and has been bolstered in power by the chaos gods...

pm713 wrote:
Chosen are just veterans, no? So they're still worse off than Primaris because they have vets too.

The whole "all csm should have veteran stats" thing is silly to me as well. Not every single csm is a veteran. They probably have more post heresy marines than heresy ones at this point.

The majority of legion troops would be veterans. Renegades obviously wouldn't. This could be represented by allowing the legions to take chosen as troops. Giving the legions troops with veteran stats would represent their greater experience.

Narratively, GW going 'here's the new, revolutionary Primaris stuff. And, by the way, Fabius Bile and the science club have had something similar that we've never mentioned before' would have robbed the impact, I'd think.

On the other hand, they do sort of eventually have to have the 'Oh, no, Chaos has found something similar so they won't be bullied off the beach' moment eventually.

In a 3rd/4th edition era of fluff about the Cursed Foundings, Fabius Bile finds what could easily be retconned into a hidden Primaris lab. Inside were marine specimens of a much larger and stronger frame than normal Astartes.

Chaos should be different. If GW wants to create buffed-up CSM, I personally think that such buffs should come, fluff-wise, from Chaos origins like boons from the Dark Gods. Gene seed could play a part, but since CSM are often gifted with dangerous mutations, strange Chaos abilities, and can go further with things like possession, I think that Primaris might not be necessary.

If anyone deserved primaris marines it was Chaos. At least they had a lore going on about it. Next we will see Orks pulling out most advanced tech available in this universe...

 Ernestas wrote:
Next we will see Orks pulling out most advanced tech available in this universe...

They have a handheld/buggy-mounted warp-tunnel generating device. I think they already have the most advanced tech - it's just all bodged and cobbled together!


On topic:

Chaos should be distinct and I believe shouldn't have primaris, per se. I do think that they should have an equivalent "bigger marine", and that this should be the new way for chosen/possessed marines to go, so that they have grown and become powerful through chaos, not be stealing the space marines new formula.

I love the idea that chaos marines get improved stats like BS & WS, for a lack of gaining primaris (as people have said, they are 10,000 year old veterans, who have been resurrected by their god, allowing them to learn even from the mistakes that killed them!), then have chosen and possessed become big-marines but for different reasons, and with more of a raw-power vibe than a new-tech one. A Chosen might be the same size as a primaris, but would wield daemonic boltguns, be extremely skilled (what with being both an ancient veteran and chosen of the gods) and as such be more confined to ancient-style weapons, but be more skilled at using them.

I would like to see that distinction - imperials are developing/"finding" new/"lost" technology to combat their foes, and chaos is recycling ancient warriors with antiquated weaponry, who are so much more skilled at using them. Imagine a young person with a lightsabre fighting a fencing master with a rapier. could go either way - depends if the fencing master gets hit! I would even like to see plasma phased out in the imperium for a weaker, safer option, but chaos continue using it.

(now imagining khorne sat on his throne, and suddenly a chaos marine with a plasmagun appears in mid-air, falls to the ground, picks himself up and mutters "damn thing" and walks off toward the portal back out of the warp).

In a decade, we will have even better primaris marines. We will call them ultra marines. We will have Space marines. Primaris marines and then the best kind of marines: Ultra Marines!

No. Space Marines must be strictly better at everything than Chaos Space Marines lest they run the risk of upsetting Space Marine fanboys. The only things Chaos Space Marines are allowed to be better at are a) worshipping Chaos, b) being evil, c) stabbing each other in the back, d) twirling their evil moustaches, e) beating up defenseless civilians, and f) running away when they lose (Space Marines are actually better at running away but they never have to because they never lose).

AegisGrimm wrote:In a 3rd/4th edition era of fluff about the Cursed Foundings, Fabius Bile finds what could easily be retconned into a hidden Primaris lab. Inside were marine specimens of a much larger and stronger frame than normal Astartes.

Pretty sure they had a nod to something similar in more recent fluff. I definitely remember reading about Fabius getting his hands on primaris at some point. He really deserves to get to make whatever the chaos version of primaris marines end up being. I don't use him, but it feels like a slap in the face for Cawl to get written into existence and go, "Super marines? Oh yeah. I finished working them millenia ago. Lulz."

pm713 wrote:Primaris in general don't make a lot of sense. A lot of problems would have been solved by just making them fancy newer armours.

Agreed. I like that the fluff is progressing in general, but primaris fluff feels really awkward. Plus, they create a reason to squat minimarines at some point. If GW had released them as a new style of armor, we could all just pretend that our smaller marines warrant 2 wounds and 2 Attacks despite their short stature.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

123ply wrote:
The problem is that chaos marines in fluff are outclassed by the superior primaris marines. If chaos marines had primaris marines but kept their regular armor it would make sense

No. All csm should have veteran stats. They should be more skilled than primaris but have less raw power. They should be the old breed of warrior going against the new breed. Like Kurt Russell in Soldier.

Because they're 10000 fething years old.

Not all CSM are functionally 10,000 years old. Some CSM have been alive for 10k years from the perspective of the audience, but wibbly wobbly time stuff means that it might have only been a couple hundred years for them. Or even less. See: any fluff where CSM show up talking about how the Heresy was just last week. Plus, there are all those recently-fallen marines. Even a warband tied to a legion might be made up of newbies (see: the Redacted warband composed of former Mentors, Raven Guard, etc.)

That said, I do like the idea of CSM matching the tech and advanced physique of primaris with mutations, warp weirdness, daemon weapons, etc. It's true that primaris are canonically beefier than your average CSM. However, even a newly-fallen band of CSM might contain a few especially "blessed" individuals with enough gifts of chaos to even the odds. So if your army doesn't have rules representing every dude on the field being a 10,000 year old veteran, maybe you have rules where your normal CSM dudes are just mini marines, but your aspiring champions are like, lieutenant or even captain level. Having a high-quality center inside a mediocre shell of ablative wounds would contrast neatly with the more standardized profile of a primaris squad.

Counter argument: Primaris are the result of uninspired lore used to sell re-scaled models.

The lore of Chaos remains untainted. They may have better stats, but we rule the imagination.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Counter argument: Primaris are the result of uninspired lore used to sell re-scaled models.

The lore of Chaos remains untainted. They may have better stats, but we rule the imagination.

This. Keep your primaris out of my chaos.

I just pretend that they are space marines. All we got were new technology and it was solely, because Imperium got so fethed that Tech priests of Mars stopped stealing and hoarding all the knowledge and started sharing what they know. Suddenly all this "lost" tech suddenly was unlost when you squeeze those metal buckets hard enough. I bet that Imperium is actually more advanced technologically now than it was during height of Crusade years. It is just tech priests would rather hide, obscure and obfuscate information for their own paranoia and thirst for power. I mean, just look how bat they are living on Mars!


It is shame that we got to this. I would be very hyped for return of Thunder Warriors, but now we have meme coming alive. It is literally space marine inside of space marine meme which community had joked about so many years ago. Sadly, we could not had imagined that our jokes were actual visions brought us by Tzeentch. He had brought us the truth and our puny mortal minds could not had comprehend it.

https://youtu.be/_zSxQnZ3TM8

 some bloke wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:
Next we will see Orks pulling out most advanced tech available in this universe...

They have a handheld/buggy-mounted warp-tunnel generating device. I think they already have the most advanced tech - it's just all bodged and cobbled together!


On topic:

Chaos should be distinct and I believe shouldn't have primaris, per se. I do think that they should have an equivalent "bigger marine", and that this should be the new way for chosen/possessed marines to go, so that they have grown and become powerful through chaos, not be stealing the space marines new formula.

I love the idea that chaos marines get improved stats like BS & WS, for a lack of gaining primaris (as people have said, they are 10,000 year old veterans, who have been resurrected by their god, allowing them to learn even from the mistakes that killed them!), then have chosen and possessed become big-marines but for different reasons, and with more of a raw-power vibe than a new-tech one. A Chosen might be the same size as a primaris, but would wield daemonic boltguns, be extremely skilled (what with being both an ancient veteran and chosen of the gods) and as such be more confined to ancient-style weapons, but be more skilled at using them.

I would like to see that distinction - imperials are developing/"finding" new/"lost" technology to combat their foes, and chaos is recycling ancient warriors with antiquated weaponry, who are so much more skilled at using them. Imagine a young person with a lightsabre fighting a fencing master with a rapier. could go either way - depends if the fencing master gets hit! I would even like to see plasma phased out in the imperium for a weaker, safer option, but chaos continue using it.

(now imagining khorne sat on his throne, and suddenly a chaos marine with a plasmagun appears in mid-air, falls to the ground, picks himself up and mutters "damn thing" and walks off toward the portal back out of the warp).

Funny thing is that its supposed to be Chaos that innovates (heresy) while the Imperium stagnates

Having an innovative mindset doesn't count for much if you don't have any resources.

That's the thing... Imperium have tons of money and resources and tech, but are intellectually stagnant. Chaos is creative and able to innovate, but they're broke and just barely squeaking by on 10,000 year old equipment.

The Chaos equivalent seems to be "daemonkin"/possessed marines.

Isn't there actually a blurb somewhere in one of the most recent codexes about Fabius Bile getting his hands on some fallen primaris and experimenting on them?

There's also the whole Deliverance Lost debacle with the Alpha Legion fething over the Raven Guard with regards to geneseed manipulation. So potentially Alpha Legion could have access to those kinds of technologies.

The problem is that Fabius Bile existed in a lore since forever. He had done plenty of stuff like for example New Men who are like natural superhuman versions of simple humans. They look identical, can interbreed and transfer their genes to next generation. There was some lore how Chaos was spreading these New Men among Imperial worlds, but then...we got mary sue who was living in a basement for 10k years and managed to put Emperor's work to shame. The issue is how Primaris Marines were introduced, not that they exist. Why for example they can't be continuation of ancient Thunder Warrior's program? They were superior to space marines. They could sell just as well with all this new modern armor. It is just GW being gak at their jobs.


I'm thinking of getting Thunder Warrior miniature and using it as primaris marine just to dig that point to anyone in my hobby store!