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Lieutenant ????!?!?!? We have sergeants but... Lieutenants? DId I miss something? ugh... And the new jump packs. Way to ruin my army again GW.

I must be getting old man.

A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

 Galas wrote:
A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

How does that fit into the lore? Did they just scrap the Codex?

 ForceChoke wrote:
Lieutenant ????!?!?!? We have sergeants but... Lieutenants? DId I miss something? ugh... And the new jump packs. Way to ruin my army again GW.

I must be getting old man.

Lieutenants are old fluff from back in the day when marine command structure was a lot more drawn out (and they still used campaign camo!). Basically they were company sub-commanders that outranked sergeants but sat under the Captain in the command chain. They could lead small strike teams and basically answered directly to the company captain. Not near my books right now, so I can't quite remember how many there were per company.

Since this is RT era fluff, GW tends to translate that to "stuff wot happened during the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy", so considering that the primaris are using some pretty legion-esque squad compositions, my guess is the return of lieutenants is a nod to this as well.

So they aren't new, but rather something very old that I'm glad to see back again.

This might be completely unrelated to the current Primaris Lieutenants or the RT era lieutenants, but wasn't there some "junior officer" sort of HQ choice for Space Marines in 3rd edition? It might have been in the BRB and not the Codex, but my memory is kind of fuzzy. It might have been "Force Commander" or something like that.

Something tells me that after Guilliman saw how the rest of the imperium couldn't give a grot's arse about the codex he decided to do the same. Good on him if you ask me.

They aren't ruining your army. Nothing is forcing you to buy primaris marines. I don't hate the primaris marines but my space wolves wont be having any because they don't fit in with the theme of my army. Its really not that hard.

People need to learn that not everything is for them. 'I hate how gundam the tau look!' then don't play tau. 'I hate how goofy the orks are!' then don't play orks. etc etc etc etc.

 ForceChoke wrote:

 Galas wrote:
A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

How does that fit into the lore? Did they just scrap the Codex?

the man who wrote the codex just returned after a ten thousand year old nap, and has had a chance to peruse Imperial databanks to see how the codex has been working.

Kind of related question: Saw this 'Lieutenant' listed as a separate value on one of the leaked army list info sheets for the new box (I think the one listing points). Are Lieutenants, Sargeants and the like considered characters now, or does that only refer to what used to be IC's?

Given that pretty much all of the detachments require at least one or more HQ choice, I think there will be a greater amount of secondary or support characters, just like in AOS.
It's not just the big captains, chaos lords, or sorcerers, I assume it's now also support characters like banner bearers, commissars, apothecaries, or anything that has a bubble ability. Instead of having 1 or 2 HQs in army, you'll now have 4 or more, they just wont all be big bosses.
Squad leaders of the same unit type like marine sergeants are just part of the unit, as has already been shown. They usually just have more wargear options and some extra stats (LD, A)

My guess is that lieutenants are 3 or 4 wound minor characters with a moral buff bubble or something, and some nice combat abilities (just taking a powersword is nice).

 Aetare wrote:
Kind of related question: Saw this 'Lieutenant' listed as a separate value on one of the leaked army list info sheets for the new box (I think the one listing points). Are Lieutenants, Sargeants and the like considered characters now, or does that only refer to what used to be IC's?

The Captain datasheet lists "Character" as a keyword. The squad datasheets do not have that keyword on them.

If there's a Lieutenant datasheet out there, I haven't seen it yet.

That could very well be the case; could make them a bit more survivable but also detracts from the whole machismo idea of leading the charge for any given squad. But yeah, that makes sense

Having squad leaders be separate units would sort of defeat the purpose of being... squad leaders. That stick with their squads.

A sergeant with a powersword can still totally lead the charge and mess stuff up. Even more so than in 7th, because he can actually stand at the front and not have to worry about getting shot like a chump, or cowering from an unwinnable challenge.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
This might be completely unrelated to the current Primaris Lieutenants or the RT era lieutenants, but wasn't there some "junior officer" sort of HQ choice for Space Marines in 3rd edition? It might have been in the BRB and not the Codex, but my memory is kind of fuzzy. It might have been "Force Commander" or something like that.

My memory is fuzzy on this too but I d remember something like this... Might have been called lieutenant commanders or just commanders?

ITs a smart idea really to have more structure they might have expanded the codex to be far more flexible for all we know. He could have always added addendums

 ForceChoke wrote:

 Galas wrote:
A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

How does that fit into the lore? Did they just scrap the Codex?

Bobby G was really in stasis cause he keeps releasing remakes of the codex with slight edits rather than working on new movies books.

 n0t_u wrote:

 ForceChoke wrote:

 Galas wrote:
A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

How does that fit into the lore? Did they just scrap the Codex?

Bobby G was really in stasis cause he keeps releasing remakes of the codex with slight edits rather than working on new movies books.

he never did complete "A song of Ice and Marines"

 jeff white wrote:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
This might be completely unrelated to the current Primaris Lieutenants or the RT era lieutenants, but wasn't there some "junior officer" sort of HQ choice for Space Marines in 3rd edition? It might have been in the BRB and not the Codex, but my memory is kind of fuzzy. It might have been "Force Commander" or something like that.

My memory is fuzzy on this too but I d remember something like this... Might have been called lieutenant commanders or just commanders?

The 3rd ed codex had "SM Heroes" in 3 levels. Leader, Commander, and Force Commander. The “Leader” was basically a vet sarge IC for 30 points, were the other two were more expensive with beefier stat lines.

The RT command structure was basically:

Commander (would now be Chapter Master)
Lt. Commander (second in command, no modern equivalent, except maybe the 1st company captain, but the LT. Commander isn’t part of a company)
Captains (one per company, as we have now)
Luitenant. (second in command to the Captain, no modern equivalent, if you wanted to include one, I might put rank markings on one of the guys in the command squad)
Sergents (as today)
Battle Brothers (same)

Support staff etc was organized a bit different as well, but those are the mainline command ranks.

I believe that there was an equivalent in 30k too.

Lieutenants fill the gap between a full Captain, of which there are ten of per Chapter, and the regular rank and file. They are most likely a Veteran Sergeant given field command of the mission, like a Wolf Guard Battle Leader.

In a non-canon note, in the Charadon Crusade in my sig, a character featured is an Acting-Captain. They're just a Vet Sergeant who leads the army - however, I can see GW actually making a rank for that now - the Lieutenant.

@Nevelon: Love the old school dude! I fondly remember mine.

Now to the real question...in England this word is pronounced 'lefttenant'* will that be the official pronunciation?



*Because whoever wrote the English dictionary clearly did it by committee, after a well lubricated lunch.

 Souleater wrote:
@Nevelon: Love the old school dude! I fondly remember mine.

Now to the real question...in England this word is pronounced 'lefttenant'* will that be the official pronunciation?


*Because whoever wrote the English dictionary clearly did it by committee, after a well lubricated lunch.

Let’s not go too deep into the American/English divide. I’m still fighting to keep the “u” out of my Honour Honor Guard.

I’m glad that the fluff is coming around full circle. My old RT officers are looking forward to resuming their old ranks. Right now they are all acting captains.

One of the new sheets released says there are 2 Primaris Lieutenants per Company, so I'm guessing each commands a Demi-Company/ Personally I like seeing a few extra ranks thrown in there, it gives it a bit more military vibe.

BrianDavion wrote:

 ForceChoke wrote:

 Galas wrote:
A primaris with a rank between Captain and Sergeant?

How does that fit into the lore? Did they just scrap the Codex?

the man who wrote the codex just returned after a ten thousand year old nap, and has had a chance to peruse Imperial databanks to see how the codex has been working.

Then he saw that Xenos guns were blasting away his marines, so he decided to make them bigger targets.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Souleater wrote:
@Nevelon: Love the old school dude! I fondly remember mine.

Now to the real question...in England this word is pronounced 'lefttenant'* will that be the official pronunciation?


*Because whoever wrote the English dictionary clearly did it by committee, after a well lubricated lunch.

Let’s not go too deep into the American/English divide. I’m still fighting to keep the “u” out of my Honour Honor Guard.

I’m glad that the fluff is coming around full circle. My old RT officers are looking forward to resuming their old ranks. Right now they are all acting captains.

Both stole the word from the French, but the US kept the French pronunciation.
The English changed it because a "Loo-tenant" is someone who rents out a toilet not one who commands respect.