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I'm almost finished painting my first tactical squad of space marines.

However, I noticed that in the 10th Ed. box, there are zero regular marines. All Primaris.

My next squad was going to be veteran marines, kit-bashed using one of the 30K squad boxes so they look old skool cool.

But now I'm a bit worried that regular tactical & regular veterans just won't be a thing in 10th and I'm wasting my time.

I don’t think we have seen specific what they are doing with older marine units.

But I think they are probably safe another edition, but making them more similar to primaris marines.

I envision a soft removal over time. With both rules being slowly pulled out, and no new models. With an occasional primaris rules better, then regular marine rules. But with marines and rules writing GW the problem is that they over value certain stats (wounds for example) and under value other .

If there were primaris venguard in 9th, people would have been buying them a lot. Instead they bought recasts, did kit bashes and sang guard/wolf guard.

I don't think Firstborn will be dropped in 10th edition just yet. And even if/when they will be dropped, you will still be able to use your firstborn models as "counts as" Primaris. GW is already giving us signs that the distinction between Primaris and firstborn is getting more blurry (Primaris can even use Drop Pods in 10th ed). I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I'm not sure they'll ever fade away. The speeders and tanks are too different. I can see the infantry going that way once intercessors get a kit that allows special / heavy.

At Warhammer Fest there was a Q&A and people asked about phasing out First Born Marines.

The answer was that they would be over time, and generally based on sales. So things that continue to sell are unlikely to go away anytime soon. The Tactical Squad was called out as something that is still a high seller.

Thanks for the replies.

That is a bit annoying. I’m not a fan of gigantic models on 40mm bases making the majority of an army. Even 32mm is too big. And also the lore just seems too forced as an excuse to make big models.

Maybe I should have gone with guards. :S

Or Chaos Space marines. Even though they are pretty much Primaris-sized already, right? (Can someone confirm?) But they do have more units with smaller models like cultists…

Not too late I guess…

Asking this when inept group of monkeys writing SM rules spent last six years doing nothing but sabotaging primaris and handing out insane, unnecessary, and needless buffs to uglysquattus side of Codex (one of which, W2 gak, was so horribly ill-thought it shattered game balance into tiny pieces and forced GW to reboot it early in 10th) takes not just one, but the mountain of cakes

Yes, sure, old, ugly models will no longer be a thing, that rule sabotage thing was uh, just total accident, the mountain of bad-anatomy pointlessly duplicating existing SM range mound of models GW just released for HH is uh, a fata morgana, and the fact primaris, according to rule previews, are still being sabotaged and don't even have full frakking rules for the bits they do have on sprues to compete with old gak means the squats will be squatted. Howgh!

 Irbis wrote:
Asking this when inept group of monkeys writing SM rules spent last six years doing nothing but sabotaging primaris and handing out insane, unnecessary, and needless buffs to uglysquattus side of Codex (one of which, W2 gak, was so horribly ill-thought it shattered game balance into tiny pieces and forced GW to reboot it early in 10th) takes not just one, but the mountain of cakes

Yes, sure, old, ugly models will no longer be a thing, that rule sabotage thing was uh, just total accident, the mountain of bad-anatomy pointlessly duplicating existing SM range mound of models GW just released for HH is uh, a fata morgana, and the fact primaris, according to rule previews, are still being sabotaged and don't even have full frakking rules for the bits they do have on sprues to compete with old gak means the squats will be squatted. Howgh!

I could not quite understand that. Can you explain what you mean minus the (I assume) WH40K-lingo/slang. I'm a noob.

I don't think my space marines are ugly fwiw.

Huh. I'm still at work. I enjoyed that convulsion far, far too much.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I could not quite understand that. Can you explain what you mean minus the (I assume) WH40K-lingo/slang. I'm a noob.

I don't think my space marines are ugly fwiw.

Irbis is angry. There isn't much more to it.
Its perfectly normal to be unable to follow his rants.

The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

 Irbis wrote:
Asking this when inept group of monkeys writing SM rules spent last six years doing nothing but sabotaging primaris and handing out insane, unnecessary, and needless buffs to uglysquattus side of Codex (one of which, W2 gak, was so horribly ill-thought it shattered game balance into tiny pieces and forced GW to reboot it early in 10th) takes not just one, but the mountain of cakes

Yes, sure, old, ugly models will no longer be a thing, that rule sabotage thing was uh, just total accident, the mountain of bad-anatomy pointlessly duplicating existing SM range mound of models GW just released for HH is uh, a fata morgana, and the fact primaris, according to rule previews, are still being sabotaged and don't even have full frakking rules for the bits they do have on sprues to compete with old gak means the squats will be squatted. Howgh!

Cry me a river.

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

That's not so bad I guess. Although it does make me wonder, why all the far-fetched, silly and confusing lore to justify it? Why not just make the new models the bigger scale? That would have been perfect (on 32mm bases, not 40mm).

Anyway, I'm happy with that as long as they only look comparatively small compared to other space-marine models. I'm very much anti big-miniatures in games (kind of defeats the point for the sake of flashy box art), but truth-be told, the old space marine models are a little small compared to what they should be if they're all 7-feet tall and dressed in power-armour (which would make them closer to 7.5 feet tall). The Primaris marines are closer to that proportion compared to guards, for example.

I'm a little bit worried that somewhere down the track they'll be like, "hey, these Primaris are supposed to be 8-feet tall, so we're upsizing the models and putting them all on 50mm bases". That would suck giant balls. And I'd be extremely annoyed if they started making normal-human-sized models like guards on 32mm bases and jumbo-sized. Which could definitely happen considering they already did it with BloodBowl. Even the halflings are on 32mm bases.

Anyway ... question considering you are painting a Sons of Horus army: Are the latest Chaos Space Marine models primaris sized or regular-space-marine sized? I'm assuming Primaris-sized because from the pictures it looks like they're on 40mm bases, but it can be hard to tell.



...

(recent) Chaos Marines are a bit in between.
Not primaris sized, but bigger than the prior iteration of 40k marines.

(The 30k mk6 marines are a smidge shorter than chaos marines, I believe, but haven't directly tested that).

Though to give you some bad news, there are some IG characters on 32 mm bases. And primaris characters are largely on 40mm.

Probably the most egregious base is the Sisters of Battle Hospitaller, who's hogging a 50mm base for herself and a corpse.

Voss wrote:
(recent) Chaos Marines are a bit in between.
Not primaris sized, but bigger than the prior iteration of 40k marines.

Which, in my humble noob opinion, is exactly what they should have done with space marines. Just kept them on 32mm bases.

Voss wrote:
Though to give you some bad news, there are some IG characters on 32 mm bases.

I don't mind that if it's for some kind of game-mechanic reason. It's a powerful character that "takes up a lot of space" on the battlefield or whatever. Otherwise it's pointless.

Voss wrote:

And primaris characters are largely on 40mm.

Yeah, I know and I think it sucks. I've been shaking my fist at clouds about it for quite a while.

Voss wrote:

Probably the most egregious base is the Sisters of Battle Hospitaller, who's hogging a 50mm base for herself and a corpse.

That does seem a little ridiculous. Unless there's a gameplay reason.

Why on earth do they want to hog so much table-space in a miniature game where table space is at a premium? I don't get it. Maybe they want them to look more like "toys" to attract younger kids.

@ the pig faced orc I don't know why they didn't just say 'we can easily make marines to the scale that they are supposed to be, now, so that's what we are going to do.' Which imo is what they should have done. But they did, and the benefit I suppose is that they then didn't feel compelled to repeat the cycle of just updating old kits (as we are seeing now with the terminators and sternguard) but actually made whole new units. However people may feel about individual kits, breaking the stagnation was definitely a good thing.

The chaos space marines are interesting; the baseline csm are just a little shorter than a primaris marine. The khorne berzerkers are the same height, but their postures mask this as most of them are running, the ones that aren't are slouched, so they don't look it even though they are. I don't have any of the other new kits to be able to say- I'd be interested to see a havoc beside a primaris. The 'zerker kit is the most recent, though. So perhaps a sign that that will be the standard height for marines now.

Why on earth do they want to hog so much table-space in a miniature game where table space is at a premium? I don't get it. Maybe they want them to look more like "toys" to attract younger kids.

Because GW sells miniatures first. If the designers think that a bigger base is better because it allows them to give the model a cool pose, a tactical rock or to put a corpse on it, they do it. They absolutely do not care about the rules at all. We already had interviews from previous employees of GW in which they stated that GW knows that 90% of the miniatures sold will never see a single table.

Also, it is a well known fact that the rules and lore writers do not talk to the designers not because they don't want to, but because GW forbids it for security reason. They make up the rules and the lore when a new miniature is released.

Example : Skitariis have robotic legs. Lore reasons : Skitariis are marching a lot and they don't have transports (when Ad Mech was released they didn't have transports) and they need super strong legs. A couple of years later, GW releases several transports for the Ad Mech. The lore writers had absolutely no fething idea that GW was planning to release transports later. That was from an interview on Goonhammer.

That is why some units can have a bigger Engagement Range than normal. Because if the writers don't give the unit such a rule, the unit cannot properly function on the table because of it's unusual base size and number of models.

Selfcontrol wrote:

Why on earth do they want to hog so much table-space in a miniature game where table space is at a premium? I don't get it. Maybe they want them to look more like "toys" to attract younger kids.

Because GW sells miniatures first. If the designers think that a bigger base is better because it allows them to give the model a cool pose, a tactical rock or to put a corpse on it, they do it. They absolutely do not care about the rules at all. We already had interviews from previous employees of GW in which they stated that GW knows that 90% of the miniatures sold will never see a single table.

Also, it is a well known fact that the rules and lore writers do not talk to the designers not because they don't want to, but because GW forbids it for security reason. They make up the rules and the lore when a new miniature is released.

Example : Skitariis have robotic legs. Lore reasons : Skitariis are marching a lot and they don't have transports (when Ad Mech was released they didn't have transports) and they need super strong legs. A couple of years later, GW releases several transports for the Ad Mech. The lore writers had absolutely no fething idea that GW was planning to release transports later. That was from an interview on Goonhammer.

That is why some units can have a bigger Engagement Range than normal. Because if the writers don't give the unit such a rule, the unit cannot properly function on the table because of it's unusual base size and number of models.

... so, basically, they want them to look more like toys to attract, well, maybe not "younger kids", but "sales".

It's a sad state. I remember Games Workshop way back before it was even Games Workshop. When it was two dudes writing Fighting Fantasy game-books. And even after that, well into the 40K era, they were proper gamers, it was really all about making a fun, creative game. 2nd Edition BloodBowl nailed it (not the new "Second Season Edition"), the proper 2nd edition from 1989 or whenever it was released. Such a good miniature game. People wanted to play the game first - buying miniatures was a means to an end.

It's dissapointing that it's become all about hawking plastic.

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

One major difference is that the original RT kits still had rules. Even now the RT kits are still fieldable as what they were intended to be. Tactical Squads, Assault Squads, Devastators, Rhinos, Predators, Land Raiders never went away, they just got a new look.

Moving to Primaris threatens to erase many of those original units. That's very different than the move in the early 90s to update Marines to Mk.VII

Irbis wrote:Asking this when inept group of monkeys writing SM rules spent last six years doing nothing but sabotaging primaris and handing out insane, unnecessary, and needless buffs to uglysquattus side of Codex (one of which, W2 gak, was so horribly ill-thought it shattered game balance into tiny pieces and forced GW to reboot it early in 10th) takes not just one, but the mountain of cakes

Yes, sure, old, ugly models will no longer be a thing, that rule sabotage thing was uh, just total accident, the mountain of bad-anatomy pointlessly duplicating existing SM range mound of models GW just released for HH is uh, a fata morgana, and the fact primaris, according to rule previews, are still being sabotaged and don't even have full frakking rules for the bits they do have on sprues to compete with old gak means the squats will be squatted. Howgh!

Good lord, go outside.

The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:That's not so bad I guess. Although it does make me wonder, why all the far-fetched, silly and confusing lore to justify it? Why not just make the new models the bigger scale? That would have been perfect (on 32mm bases, not 40mm)....

It's a couple of things.

For one thing, there was a known problem that Firstborn with their flexibility could often be 'noob traps'. It wasn't uncommon to see a new player outfit their Tactical Squad with lascannon, meltagun, and power fist, and the result was a squad with all the shiny bells and whistles that was next to useless on the tabletop and presented a bunch of different wargear bits for the new player to keep track of. Space Marines are the intro to the game for most players; the designers had an opportunity to redesign how the Space Marine line functions with single-purpose, universally-equipped squads more akin to Aspect Warriors. It's simpler, and harder to accidentally screw up by not knowing how the game works.

Also, the Marine line was already huge. Adding on a whole new line of new choices would be rapidly getting unwieldy. Instead GW chose to segregate them into a new line. When you go into shops you'll generally see Primaris stuff now as a standalone army, theoretically compatible with Firstborn but with some weird interactions on the tabletop that work against it (like Primaris not being able to ride in Rhinos). There's a hard line between the old stuff and the new stuff.

And more cynically, by launching it as a new range rather than redesigns of old models, GW got a lot of players to start new armies or re-buy old ones. New and different is more exciting than resculpts, at least when the current sculpts aren't that old or outdated.

8th Ed was a re-launch of the game and an opportunity to start fresh. I've heard unconfirmed rumors that Marines in 8th were originally intended to be Primaris-only, actually, and that GW walked it back fairly late in development. As time goes on we're seeing Primaris gradually integrated with Firstborn in terms of rules, so I suspect what we're going to see in the future is less-played Firstborn units gradually shifted to Legends with each new book.

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

This is how it shoulda been handled

 catbarf wrote:

For one thing, there was a known problem that Firstborn with their flexibility could often be 'noob traps'. It wasn't uncommon to see a new player outfit their Tactical Squad with lascannon, meltagun, and power fist, and the result was a squad with all the shiny bells and whistles that was next to useless on the tabletop and presented a bunch of different wargear bits for the new player to keep track of. Space Marines are the intro to the game for most players; the designers had an opportunity to redesign how the Space Marine line functions with single-purpose, universally-equipped squads more akin to Aspect Warriors. It's simpler, and harder to accidentally screw up by not knowing how the game works.

Arguably the thing that f***ed up noobs the most was not specifically the mixed-weapon squad, but the fact that they couldn't split fire to make the best use of those weapons. This innately made the Tactical Squad one of the more difficult units to use. Ironically/amusingly, 8th edition fixed that problem. But the distaste for Tacticals had been long ingrained by that point.

I stand by my Tacticals though. The Tactical Squad is my spirit animal.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

Selfcontrol wrote:

Why on earth do they want to hog so much table-space in a miniature game where table space is at a premium? I don't get it. Maybe they want them to look more like "toys" to attract younger kids.

Because GW sells miniatures first. If the designers think that a bigger base is better because it allows them to give the model a cool pose, a tactical rock or to put a corpse on it, they do it. They absolutely do not care about the rules at all. We already had interviews from previous employees of GW in which they stated that GW knows that 90% of the miniatures sold will never see a single table.

Also, it is a well known fact that the rules and lore writers do not talk to the designers not because they don't want to, but because GW forbids it for security reason. They make up the rules and the lore when a new miniature is released.

Example : Skitariis have robotic legs. Lore reasons : Skitariis are marching a lot and they don't have transports (when Ad Mech was released they didn't have transports) and they need super strong legs. A couple of years later, GW releases several transports for the Ad Mech. The lore writers had absolutely no fething idea that GW was planning to release transports later. That was from an interview on Goonhammer.

That is why some units can have a bigger Engagement Range than normal. Because if the writers don't give the unit such a rule, the unit cannot properly function on the table because of it's unusual base size and number of models.

... so, basically, they want them to look more like toys to attract, well, maybe not "younger kids", but "sales".

It's a sad state. I remember Games Workshop way back before it was even Games Workshop. When it was two dudes writing Fighting Fantasy game-books. And even after that, well into the 40K era, they were proper gamers, it was really all about making a fun, creative game. 2nd Edition BloodBowl nailed it (not the new "Second Season Edition", the proper 2nd edition from 1989 or whenever it was released. Such a good miniature game. People wanted to play the game first - buying miniatures was a means to an end.

It's dissapointing that it's become all about hawking plastic.

People interested solely into the lore >>>>> people interested in painting ≥>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> people who actually plays the game >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> people who participates in the compétitive scene.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

One major difference is that the original RT kits still had rules. Even now the RT kits are still fieldable as what they were intended to be. Tactical Squads, Assault Squads, Devastators, Rhinos, Predators, Land Raiders never went away, they just got a new look.

Moving to Primaris threatens to erase many of those original units. That's very different than the move in the early 90s to update Marines to Mk.VII

There isn't a difference there at present, though. If they only write rules in the future for primaris units as they are now, then yes you are right. What will more likely happen though is that there are rules for say, tactical squads and intercessor squads, and one day the tactical squad gets a new box. Rules for tactical squads are still there, meaning that you can still use whatever tactical marine models you want, even though they are only selling primaris sized ones. Until you see rules for pre-primaris units dropped altogether, I would assume gradual assimilation rather than anything else, which the contents of the 10th ed box seems to support.

40k firstborn kits will be slowly phased out as sales go down and molds give out, but my bet is that the rules will remain, as long as Horus Heresy plastic kits are on the market to act as proxy.

If anything the Primaris sternguards are a very clear indication that GW will also primaris-replace every atypical firstborn kits.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

Voss wrote:

Probably the most egregious base is the Sisters of Battle Hospitaller, who's hogging a 50mm base for herself and a corpse.

That does seem a little ridiculous. Unless there's a gameplay reason.

There isn't a gameplay reason. They simply made a model that because of the scenic corpse part of the sculpt requires a larger than normal base.

 JamesY wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

One major difference is that the original RT kits still had rules. Even now the RT kits are still fieldable as what they were intended to be. Tactical Squads, Assault Squads, Devastators, Rhinos, Predators, Land Raiders never went away, they just got a new look.

Moving to Primaris threatens to erase many of those original units. That's very different than the move in the early 90s to update Marines to Mk.VII

There isn't a difference there at present, though. If they only write rules in the future for primaris units as they are now, then yes you are right. What will more likely happen though is that there are rules for say, tactical squads and intercessor squads, and one day the tactical squad gets a new box. Rules for tactical squads are still there, meaning that you can still use whatever tactical marine models you want, even though they are only selling primaris sized ones. Until you see rules for pre-primaris units dropped altogether, I would assume gradual assimilation rather than anything else, which the contents of the 10th ed box seems to support.

I did say "threatens".

But you can see from the question by the OP that it's a real sword of Damocles for some, and it has been since the introduction of Primaris *spits* back in 2017. It could even be a self-fulfilling prophesy, where people buy First/true/realMarines less because of the threat that they get replaced, which only makes it more likely that they get phased out because they're not selling as well.

Anecdotally though? My local GLGS tells me that First/True/RealMarines still make up about 50% of their Marine sales, which probably means they still outsell whole other factions.

It feels like the plan is folding the old line into the primaris line.

Terminators and Sternguard can now be primaris or old marines.
Have flamers/plasma guns from your 3rd/4th/5th tactical marines? Infernus/Hellblasters now. The bolter boys can just be intercessors. Missile launchers = Desolators. There's still some holes for grav and melta guns, and a bunch of the heavy weapons ATM though. Kind of expect a power armor primaris devastator squad with melta-rifles, grav weapons, las-talons...etc to replace the existing stuff.
Attack bikes = New primaris buggies. Bikes = Outriders, just need the outriders to have access to special weapons.
Apothecaries, Chaplains and Captains and Lieutenants are all replaced.

The real question is vehicle stuff, and Jump Pack marines. I can almost GUARENTEE there will be a primaris assualt marine variant in the next year or two (If not for the Vanilla book this fall, then Blood Angels codex for sure)

 catbarf wrote:

It's a couple of things.

For one thing, there was a known problem that Firstborn with their flexibility could often be 'noob traps'. It wasn't uncommon to see a new player outfit their Tactical Squad with lascannon, meltagun, and power fist, and the result was a squad with all the shiny bells and whistles that was next to useless on the tabletop and presented a bunch of different wargear bits for the new player to keep track of. Space Marines are the intro to the game for most players; the designers had an opportunity to redesign how the Space Marine line functions with single-purpose, universally-equipped squads more akin to Aspect Warriors. It's simpler, and harder to accidentally screw up by not knowing how the game works.

Also, the Marine line was already huge. Adding on a whole new line of new choices would be rapidly getting unwieldy. Instead GW chose to segregate them into a new line. When you go into shops you'll generally see Primaris stuff now as a standalone army, theoretically compatible with Firstborn but with some weird interactions on the tabletop that work against it (like Primaris not being able to ride in Rhinos). There's a hard line between the old stuff and the new stuff.

And more cynically, by launching it as a new range rather than redesigns of old models, GW got a lot of players to start new armies or re-buy old ones. New and different is more exciting than resculpts, at least when the current sculpts aren't that old or outdated.

8th Ed was a re-launch of the game and an opportunity to start fresh. I've heard unconfirmed rumors that Marines in 8th were originally intended to be Primaris-only, actually, and that GW walked it back fairly late in development. As time goes on we're seeing Primaris gradually integrated with Firstborn in terms of rules, so I suspect what we're going to see in the future is less-played Firstborn units gradually shifted to Legends with each new book.

That was interesting and informative; however ,they could have fixed all of that without having to add a new classification of Primaris models or using bigger bases. Even now it seems a lot of the Primaris models would fit on a 32mm base. And if they don't, the solution is just to tell the sculptors to make them so they do fit.

Base and miniature-sizes aside, pretty much all of the above could still have been fixed with just an update in rules for regular space marines.

Also - my guess is that the main reason noob players outfitted their tactical squad with a bit of everything, is because that's what comes in the box. I'm a noob myself and independently I figured I want the squad to have very similar weapons. The special troops having both melta-guns and the seargant having a melta-combi or whatever. Just because I didn't want to keep track of all the rules ... but I can't, because they only put one of each thing in the box. So I'm now searching websites for third-party bits just so I can outfit them similarly. This is entirely GW's fault, not the fault of the rules. I think it's very important that the rules offer the freedom to create an ineffective force by error (or intent if you want that for some reason). If that option doesn't exist, then you similarly don't have the option to create a really clever one. It's all just the same whatever - throw the army list and weapon rules out the window.

Okay - I get it - they want space marines to be noob-friendly. They could have done that without Primaris.

Sorry, it's a moot conversation I know. That cat's out of the bag. Just ranting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

Voss wrote:

Probably the most egregious base is the Sisters of Battle Hospitaller, who's hogging a 50mm base for herself and a corpse.

That does seem a little ridiculous. Unless there's a gameplay reason.

There isn't a gameplay reason. They simply made a model that because of the scenic corpse part of the sculpt requires a larger than normal base.

Well that is extremely dumb. In my opinion.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Spoiler:

 JamesY wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The distinction between primaris and firstborn will be dropped, new kits will be primaris sized, and over time the older kits will vanish. Playing with first born in the future will be no different from using RT era models now- they will just look comparatively small compared to other models on the table.

One major difference is that the original RT kits still had rules. Even now the RT kits are still fieldable as what they were intended to be. Tactical Squads, Assault Squads, Devastators, Rhinos, Predators, Land Raiders never went away, they just got a new look.

Moving to Primaris threatens to erase many of those original units. That's very different than the move in the early 90s to update Marines to Mk.VII

There isn't a difference there at present, though. If they only write rules in the future for primaris units as they are now, then yes you are right. What will more likely happen though is that there are rules for say, tactical squads and intercessor squads, and one day the tactical squad gets a new box. Rules for tactical squads are still there, meaning that you can still use whatever tactical marine models you want, even though they are only selling primaris sized ones. Until you see rules for pre-primaris units dropped altogether, I would assume gradual assimilation rather than anything else, which the contents of the 10th ed box seems to support.

I did say "threatens".

But you can see from the question by the OP that it's a real sword of Damocles for some, and it has been since the introduction of Primaris *spits* back in 2017. It could even be a self-fulfilling prophesy, where people buy First/true/realMarines less because of the threat that they get replaced, which only makes it more likely that they get phased out because they're not selling as well.

I agree with you, and I wasn't arguing with what you were saying. They could absolutely remove all none primaris units from 10th ed and leave a lot of people with essentially obsolete armies, so I completely understand the anxiety of the 'threat'. I don't think that that's what is going to happen, though. It'd be too big a push away for collectors of their biggest faction.