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While I haven't made the transition yet to 8th eddition and haven't bought a single codex of the 8th eddition so far, I did got curious about the Primaris Marine fluff and read their entries on 40K popular online encyclopedia and frankly from their resumé, I don't get the hate their fluff got. It seems fairly good, it's not really exceptional, but it does remind me of the fluff of the Grey Knights. It seems to make sense within the setting which is already filled with secret armies, secret organisation and superhuman warriors. So where's all the beef comming from?

In all fairness as much as I wanted to see change n the stagnant 40k universe even I have to say that the primaris marines are a very kludgey and han fisted deus ex machina. The whole idea that somehow cawl lives 10,000 years with this armor that can revive robot Google man but does nothing really, and builds up all these new super marines but just keeps sticking them in the freezer, develops these new weapons and armor and grab vehicle and just keeps storing them and chaos never gets to them, the inquisition never catches on, etc.

Then the old guard marines just accept these big new mystery meat marines from planet x? OK, descendants of the ultra marines might accept it because rawbutt girly man decrees it to be so, but spafewolves? Blood angels? Imperial fists?

I mean I still don't even think I fully understand how it was supposed to have happened. Just suddenly there's a big flash of plot and POOF! this whole new gigantic super army is taken out of a fridge somewhere, defrosted and sent into action? I still don't really get it. Where we're all these thousands of marines stored for so long? Where was all this new technology being developed and stored? Where we're all these new vehicles and suits of armor being made? Why we're they never deployed during the 10,000 years of crisises and near destructions of the imperium?

I get the general idea that they we're commissioned like 10,000 years ago and such but I still don't understand how the army's we're built up and kept in secret along with all this technology and kept in secret so long.

I wouldn't use enthusiast forums as a gauge when it comes to getting a realistic assessment of how much something is liked or not.

That said, Primaris are about as blatant a marketing vehicle for getting crotchety old Marine players to re-buy an army as it gets.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
In all fairness as much as I wanted to see change n the stagnant 40k universe even I have to say that the primaris marines are a very kludgey and han fisted deus ex machina. The whole idea that somehow cawl lives 10,000 years with this armor that can revive robot Google man but does nothing really, and builds up all these new super marines but just keeps sticking them in the freezer, develops these new weapons and armor and grab vehicle and just keeps storing them and chaos never gets to them, the inquisition never catches on, etc.

Then the old guard marines just accept these big new mystery meat marines from planet x? OK, descendants of the ultra marines might accept it because rawbutt girly man decrees it to be so, but spafewolves? Blood angels? Imperial fists?

I mean I still don't even think I fully understand how it was supposed to have happened. Just suddenly there's a big flash of plot and POOF! this whole new gigantic super army is taken out of a fridge somewhere, defrosted and sent into action? I still don't really get it. Where we're all these thousands of marines stored for so long? Where was all this new technology being developed and stored? Where we're all these new vehicles and suits of armor being made? Why we're they never deployed during the 10,000 years of crisises and near destructions of the imperium?

I get the general idea that they we're commissioned like 10,000 years ago and such but I still don't understand how the army's we're built up and kept in secret along with all this technology and kept in secret so long.

If I have to believe Lexicanum, Primaris were produced and stored with their arsenal on the flagship of Cawl, some sort of Space Hulk transformed in a giant laboratory, factory and Skitarii. The fact that it's large, but mobile makes it ideal to produce a large quanity of experimental and highly sensitve equipment in secret. The Mechanicus has done something similar in the past with the two moons of Mars and plenty of other ships, outposts and isolated Forge World. The Imperium has already demonstrated its capacity to produce massive world-like mobile stations like the one of the Dark Angel or the Imperial Fist.

epronovost wrote:


If I have to believe Lexicanum, Primaris were produced and stored with their arsenal on the flagship of Cawl, some sort of Space Hulk transformed in a giant laboratory, factory and Skitarii. The fact that it's large, but mobile makes it ideal to produce a large quanity of experimental and highly sensitve equipment in secret. The Mechanicus has done something similar in the past with the two moons of Mars and plenty of other ships, outposts and isolated Forge World. The Imperium has already demonstrated its capacity to produce massive world-like mobile stations like the one of the Dark Angel or the Imperial Fist.

Space is big and there are plenty of places to hide things. Humanity has a million world scattered through the galaxy, that's a tiny fraction of the number of stars. The majority of the galaxy, everywhere, is devoid of occupation, even in the 40k universe.

Somebody hiding something for 10,000 years is basically a blip compared to how long the Necrons have been hiding themselves.

I think the idea that the imperium has kept the existence of chaos a secret shows they could hide a big ship. They moved a moon to Saturn to help the secret grey knights no one knows about. It’s not beyond the pail that call kept it under wraps. And as for the accepting primaris then roboute arriving at the same time kind helps that one. Even non ultramarines got to respect a primarch. They are god like legends in the 40k setting. It wasn’t handled perfectly but it was ok by me. Seen worse things. Introduction of the tau was pretty rubbish in my opinion and as obvious a marketing ploy.

In answer to the OPs question, I think people on the internet just live to hate

As to the question of OP: The Primaris represent a shift of tone in 40k. Both lore "history" wise and in the Imperiums dogma. The primaris are progression, where up untill now everything has been stagnation. From a history perspective the events of the HH was a mythological time in 40k, but with the primaris (and rowboat gillyman) you suddenly have a faction that's pretty much entirely 30k. That's 10.000 years of lore that becomes completly irrelevant. There was a single being in the Imperium that had facts about the 30k times and that was a space wolf dreadnought Bjorn the fell handed. Now out of nowhere Cawl comes along who hung out with the primarchs and has created an army who are to 40k what the original space marines where to 30k. The history change of tone, making 30k much more tanginable in 40k, is making many people uneasy. It makes everything else less important and diminishes pretty much all actions of the in lore 10.000 years, including the actions of peoples own favourite factions.

The second reason people hate them is because of the fear that old marine models will be phased out and entirely replaced by the primaris, and ALOT of people are scared that their collections will become unusable. We do have examples of it happening with AoS, several armies never got integrated in the new system so many collectors time and effort did at that point feel like a waste. Bretonia and empire for instance did lose alot of models in the AoS revamp. People are afraid of losing their space marines to this. In the words of a small green filthy psyker xeno: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate".

As to my own opinion of the lore I don't really buy it. If Cawl has been around for 10.000years only building dudes, why didn't he help the dudes that where already around? The imperium went through 2 civil wars, 13 black crusades, the necrons awakening, the tyranids appearing and several waaaghs (among numerous other things) in the timespan of 10.000 years and not once did Cawl step up to do anything. He would have been completly useless if Guilliman hadn't happened to wake up and give orders around. I personally feel the forced tie in with the 30k era is absolutely useless in 40k. It took the Emperor maybe 100 years or so to build the original marines, I doubt Cawl needed 100X that times to improve on the formula. He's basicly been twiddling his thumbs for the better part of the entire age of the imperium for the sake of drama.

EDIT: The models are pretty damn cool though. I like the scale of them compared to other minis (especially guardsmen).

Another point that I think hasn’t helped is the HH series of novels has turned the heresey times into a tangible event rather than one shrouded in mystery and legend. They have been breaking that down for some time now and primaris are another example of it.

 Nerak wrote:
As to the question of OP: The Primaris represent a shift of tone in 40k. Both lore "history" wise and in the Imperiums dogma. The primaris are progression, where up untill now everything has been stagnation. From a history perspective the events of the HH was a mythological time in 40k, but with the primaris (and rowboat gillyman) you suddenly have a faction that's pretty much entirely 30k. That's 10.000 years of lore that becomes completly irrelevant. There was a single being in the Imperium that had facts about the 30k times and that was a space wolf dreadnought Bjorn the fell handed. Now out of nowhere Cawl comes along who hung out with the primarchs and has created an army who are to 40k what the original space marines where to 30k. The history change of tone, making 30k much more tanginable in 40k, is making many people uneasy. It makes everything else less important and diminishes pretty much all actions of the in lore 10.000 years, including the actions of peoples own favourite factions.

I personnaly think that 40K, or more accuratly 41K, lore is going to put an end to the decaying/stagnating Imperium. If 40K used to be the Middle-Ages of space, we are entering the Renaissance. A Primarch has returned; a treasure vault of technology from the birth of the Imperium has been openned; dogma is falling out of fashion; the territory of the Imperium is breaking appart, but the power its components is simultanously growing; wars are deadlier and more numerous than ever. I would even suspect that the upcomming Sister of Battle Codex will mention a later day schism between the old clerics in power within the Ecclesiarchy and reformists energised by the return of Guilliman and the rebrith of Celestine.

The second reason people hate them is because of the fear that old marine models will be phased out and entirely replaced by the primaris, and ALOT of people are scared that their collections will become unusable. We do have examples of it happening with AoS, several armies never got integrated in the new system so many collectors time and effort did at that point feel like a waste. Bretonia and empire for instance did lose alot of models in the AoS revamp. People are afraid of losing their space marines to this. In the words of a small green filthy psyker xeno: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate".

I totally get why people would be angry at the idea that Primaris Marines will phase out the older ones. While there is a possibility that both could co-exist within the lore and the tabletop, I do believe Space Marines are going the way of the dodos. I don't expect it to be anywhere as drastic as the Bretonnian's demise. Since this is perfectly understandable, I was mostly focused on why their lore is hated so much while their models aren't.

As to my own opinion of the lore I don't really buy it. If Cawl has been around for 10.000years only building dudes, why didn't he help the dudes that where already around? The imperium went through 2 civil wars, 13 black crusades, the necrons awakening, the tyranids appearing and several waaaghs (among numerous other things) in the timespan of 10.000 years and not once did Cawl step up to do anything. He would have been completly useless if Guilliman hadn't happened to wake up and give orders around. I personally feel the forced tie in with the 30k era is absolutely useless in 40k. It took the Emperor maybe 100 years or so to build the original marines, I doubt Cawl needed 100X that times to improve on the formula. He's basicly been twiddling his thumbs for the better part of the entire age of the imperium for the sake of drama.

I don't think Cawl has done nothing else, but build Primaris Marine and their equipment during 10K years. I would suppose he did a lot of ''mundane'' high ranking member of the Mechanicus stuff, like exercised a high political influence within the Church of Mars or lead a Skitarii and Legio Cybernetica Legion against the enemies of mankind once in a while or building weapons and armors for said Skitarii and war machine. Its just not the most important thing to mention and maybe, with time and new release, Cawl 10K long history will be more fleshed out. I mean, I don't even know the name of the leader of the Mechanicus let alone how he got the job and what he did and he or she must be a massively important character in the Imperium. He is certainly in the top 5 most powerful people within the Imperium if not the most powerful beside Guilliman and the Emperor himself. For all we know, maybe he's the guy who designed the SIsters armors and bolters.

Objectively, the primaris are the most obvious example of a change in tone in 40k lore. Moving away from stagnant, grim dark insanity into actual plot. That makes a lot of people uneasy, as before, 40k was, if not a blank canvas, than a sandbox with plenty place to write your own stories. As the plot progresses, it makes it easier to tell your stories, but harder to break away from the main thread.

Subjectively, there's tons of potential issues with their introduction. It's not quite as bad as if the two lost legions returned, but GW saying "surprise, there's a huge, secret, army!" strains the already threadbare logical framework of the 40k universe.

Finally, on a meta level, GW had clearly run out of marine kits to make, but marine kits are what sell. Instead of simply releasing new "true scale" kits (tactical, assault, devastator, terminator, scout) they created a new type of marine. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's a shame, because the models are great, and I have no real problems with them being shoehorned in.

I like to think of this like I like to think about Jurassic Park 3

You love the T-Rex. Its both a hero and a Villain in the first two movies. It is the "king" of dinosaurs. Its the best. You love your T-rex.

Then comes along the frakking Spinosaurus who kills the T-rex, and the movie says "LOVE THIS NOW! HE IS BETTER" But...in your heart, you love the T-rex, who shouldn't have lost to no stupid Spinosaurus. So you hate the movie. And refuse to love the Spinosaurus because it is a hamfisted attempt at taking what you loved, making it TREX +++ and trying to sell you it.

That being said, the models themselves are pretty dope. lol

I don't like it because it seems like a transparent attempt to justify in universe the update of the Space Marine model line, by splitting it into two parts with different rules and fluff, instead of just saying up front that all marine kits will be in a new scale from now on. It seems superfluous and unnecessary to me.

I love the new models but their wargear options are non existent and iGuy’s comparison to the Rex and Spinosaur is spot on regarding their fluff.

Its reviled because its boring.

I mean, come on. The best you can do GW is "Space Marines are awesome! So we made even more awesome Space Marines that are better than regular Space Marines!!!" Space Marines were already fairly hyperbolic and a little OTT anyway. But they doubled down on that and made even more hyperbolic and OTT Space Marines.

There is no depth to it. If they had had the new fluff be "Guilliman and Cawl had a secret project going on to repair many of the degredations in Space Marine geneseed that had occurred over the last 10k years. The result is that every chapter's genetic flaws in their geneseed are now fixed with a new batch of fixed geneseed. The resulting marines are superior to marines created with the older flawed geneseed!" and not had them be even huger it might have been acceptable. A Primarch could justify fixing some genetic flaws, but creating marines that are to Space Marines what Space Marines are to normal humans was just lazy writing.

Andykp wrote:
I think the idea that the imperium has kept the existence of chaos a secret shows they could hide a big ship. They moved a moon to Saturn to help the secret grey knights no one knows about. It’s not beyond the pail that call kept it under wraps. And as for the accepting primaris then roboute arriving at the same time kind helps that one. Even non ultramarines got to respect a primarch. They are god like legends in the 40k setting. It wasn’t handled perfectly but it was ok by me. Seen worse things. Introduction of the tau was pretty rubbish in my opinion and as obvious a marketing ploy.

In answer to the OPs question, I think people on the internet just live to hate

Sad but all too true...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
I think the idea that the imperium has kept the existence of chaos a secret shows they could hide a big ship. They moved a moon to Saturn to help the secret grey knights no one knows about. It’s not beyond the pail that call kept it under wraps. And as for the accepting primaris then roboute arriving at the same time kind helps that one. Even non ultramarines got to respect a primarch. They are god like legends in the 40k setting. It wasn’t handled perfectly but it was ok by me. Seen worse things. Introduction of the tau was pretty rubbish in my opinion and as obvious a marketing ploy.

In answer to the OPs question, I think people on the internet just live to hate

They kept chaos secret? I thought they used the fear of chaos and the chaos gods to teroroze the citizens into obeying the emperor.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
Objectively, the primaris are the most obvious example of a change in tone in 40k lore. Moving away from stagnant, grim dark insanity into actual plot. That makes a lot of people uneasy, as before, 40k was, if not a blank canvas, than a sandbox with plenty place to write your own stories. As the plot progresses, it makes it easier to tell your stories, but harder to break away from the main thread.

Subjectively, there's tons of potential issues with their introduction. It's not quite as bad as if the two lost legions returned, but GW saying "surprise, there's a huge, secret, army!" strains the already threadbare logical framework of the 40k universe.

Finally, on a meta level, GW had clearly run out of marine kits to make, but marine kits are what sell. Instead of simply releasing new "true scale" kits (tactical, assault, devastator, terminator, scout) they created a new type of marine. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's a shame, because the models are great, and I have no real problems with them being shoehorned in.

I doncct mind the change in the imperial lore and the changes to the imperium. I mean, for 10,000 years the imperium has stagnated and decayed. There are vast institutions that exist solely to stamp out any trace of innovation or improvement. Progress is considered a illness of the mind. Honestly at times I just want to scream at the imperium "OH XXXX YOU!!! GO AHEAD AND XXXXING DIE ALREADY!!! "

I really would rather die than live in the imperium as itcs been presented for so long, I can't even play any imperial forces to be honest. I just get so tired of it's tired old lore and refusal to advance because "UGH! CHANGE BAD! 'MAKE THINGS BETTER '? HERESY!! PROGRESS EVIL!!! " that honestly I think it might be better for humanity to be destroyed rather than go on like that forever.

So I don't mind the fact that peolle have realized they have to stop stagnating if they want to survive, it sure took 'em long enough! I just feel it was way to much deus ex machina all at once. Also there needs to to a clear timeline for it and an explanation for all the questionn about it.

I just feel it was way to much deus ex machina all at once.

This. Plus it throws up over too many bits of older fluff - including some of the really well written or iconic stuff.

~ If Cawl is doing super-secret project......fine. As noted, the Imperium - hell, even just Mars - is a big place. But he's not. When we first 'meet' him he's hanging around a dig playing archeologist - something nothing to do with the primaris - and is apparently the *only person* to figure out what the pylons do....which is basically throwing out the Eisenhorn/Qixos fluff from Malleus that's one of the best 40k novels going. This is doubly annoying because this causes the coincidence THAT HE'S AT CADIA AT ALL and otherwise the whole storyline falls over because Cadia dies and Gulliman dies and the primaris never get woken up.

~ The whole "oh, but I made primaris with no drawbacks at all!" is one thing, but the fact that no nod is made at all to the Cursed Founding is annoying and the fact that apparently all Fabius Bile can do is stand off to one side going "why didn't I think of that?" is kind of insulting.

~ The 10,000 year old techpriest basically contradicts anything written for the adeptus mechanicus - especially Priests of Mars - talking about their functional lifespan. Added to the fact that at the point of his introduction, it was "belisarius who?" - I could see Gulliman tasking Fabricator-General Kane with this task, or one of the Ultramar tech-priests from the horus heresy series, but not random-dude-from-nowhere-in-particular.

the long and short answer is "it's change and 40k players are suprisingly resistant to change within the lore" I started playing 40k in 5th edition and every new unit has been met with resistance when first introduced, Stormraven and Stormcrow gunships, centurions, thunderwolf cavalry etc. the only fandom more obsessed with declaring their hate for the new in an attempt to prove how genuine their fandom is then 40k fans are SW fans

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
In all fairness as much as I wanted to see change n the stagnant 40k universe even I have to say that the primaris marines are a very kludgey and han fisted deus ex machina. The whole idea that somehow cawl lives 10,000 years with this armor that can revive robot Google man but does nothing really, and builds up all these new super marines but just keeps sticking them in the freezer, develops these new weapons and armor and grab vehicle and just keeps storing them and chaos never gets to them, the inquisition never catches on, etc.

Then the old guard marines just accept these big new mystery meat marines from planet x? OK, descendants of the ultra marines might accept it because rawbutt girly man decrees it to be so, but spafewolves? Blood angels? Imperial fists?

I mean I still don't even think I fully understand how it was supposed to have happened. Just suddenly there's a big flash of plot and POOF! this whole new gigantic super army is taken out of a fridge somewhere, defrosted and sent into action? I still don't really get it. Where we're all these thousands of marines stored for so long? Where was all this new technology being developed and stored? Where we're all these new vehicles and suits of armor being made? Why we're they never deployed during the 10,000 years of crisises and near destructions of the imperium?

I get the general idea that they we're commissioned like 10,000 years ago and such but I still don't understand how the army's we're built up and kept in secret along with all this technology and kept in secret so long.

OP here is a prime example of why. It's because some people just love to complain to the rafters about made up stories about people living in a fictional horror story of a future. For some people, this hobby might be all they have. I'm not sure if you've ever noticed the massive attraction in the gaming hobby to people with shall we say, less than average social skills? So as a coping mechanism, people tend to find things, love them, and then castle up and defend those things from any perceived threats. Gatekeeping a hobby also shows up here as well.

Notice how this poster constantly misspells Roboute Guilliman. This is the posters attempt to "mock and deride" a fictional character who is doing things to the story that he so very much loves. The use of the term Deus ex Machina is also inserted, so that we all can see how wonderfully big someones brain and vocabulary is, which of courses reminds the rest of us peasants to keep our place. There will be no toleration of these "new marines" here. I've seen countless threads on forums, reddit and other parts of the internet beating this topic to death. It never goes anywhere, because as I said in another thread on DakkDakka, just today in fact, that some people will like it and some wont. Why we must continue to argue about the most senseless of senseless topics is really beyond me at this point. However, I notice these same kinds of conflicts in nearly all aspects of life anyways, so maybe it's just hard coded into nerds genes(Did Cawl do that?)?

P.S. Techpriest I'm not trying to pick on you, it's just that your post was the perfect example of what I want to get across here.

First off making jokes about guilleman's name is pretty much standard in 40k and doesn't mean you really hate him. Itcs a joke. Get the adeptus mechanics to install a sense of humor into you.

Secondly, the term "deus ex machina " is hardly high falutin' talk, it's become a pretty standard and well known issue in a lot of criticism of media and fiction.

Also I said I was tired of the old lore, not that I castles it up and defended it. I said I welcomed change to the stagnant imperium setting.

I don't/can't take the 40k setting too seriously, but I like the fiction set in it and admit some 40k booms are written by real masters. That doesn't mean I don't accept things changing.

But some things are jus too much radical change too fast and too out of sync with long established canon.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
First off making jokes about guilleman's name is pretty much standard in 40k and doesn't mean you really hate him. Itcs a joke. Get the adeptus mechanics to install a sense of humor into you.

Secondly, the term "deus ex machina " is hardly high falutin' talk, it's become a pretty standard and well known issue in a lot of criticism of media and fiction.

Also I said I was tired of the old lore, not that I castles it up and defended it. I said I welcomed change to the stagnant imperium setting.

I don't/can't take the 40k setting too seriously, but I like the fiction set in it and admit some 40k booms are written by real masters. That doesn't mean I don't accept things changing.

But some things are jus too much radical change too fast and too out of sync with long established canon.

All fair. I didn't mean to insinuate that YOU specifically were using dem fancy words, nor did I mean that you specifically casteling. I just wanted to use your post as an example, because a lot of your post structure shows up on the net, by people who are being serious about it rather than joking. But a lot of people do gatekeep the heck out of this hobby and it bugs me because we all know how those people drive away new fans, I've actually seen some gatekeepers harassing new players who have gone all in on the primaris line, almost to the point of becoming bullies.

For the record I don't do the gatekeeping stuff, we need more payers. The closest thing I get to the castle thing is occasionally telling someone, firmly, that I am sick and tired of the constant insults and jokes about gamers and to STFU.
.

epronovost wrote:
While I haven't made the transition yet to 8th eddition and haven't bought a single codex of the 8th eddition so far, I did got curious about the Primaris Marine fluff and read their entries on 40K popular online encyclopedia and frankly from their resumé, I don't get the hate their fluff got. It seems fairly good, it's not really exceptional, but it does remind me of the fluff of the Grey Knights. It seems to make sense within the setting which is already filled with secret armies, secret organisation and superhuman warriors. So where's all the beef comming from?

a) because it was unnecessary, they did it so they could bring out new marines but still sell the old ones. Why do you think they got so quite about marines being able to become Primaris when a lot of us started saying that, that would mean old marines were going to be replaced b) it was badly written and introduced c) it changes the lore, all our current army are going to be replaced lore wise, except for characters so far there hasn't been a single marine turned into a Primaris and its been 200-300 years since the Indomitus crusade so only veterans are going to survive, so basically our army has just been replaced.

My personal problem with the primaris lore is that they are just blantantly better and the introduction was JUST as the best time possible.

1. Primaris are bigger, stronger, better equipped and so on. I can live with that. But the thing I find stupid that they are incorruptable and ALL the geneseed flaws are... Gone, solved. Sure, Cawl had 10000 years, and fhe SW and BA had their research destroyed at some point, but these flaws made the chapters distinct and different. Plus incorrubtable is plain stupid and even the GK lore was in that regard a bit stretched.

2. Cawl had those tens of thousand marines ready to go for apparently quite some time. They were commisioned byGuilliman, bsck then Lord Commander. He was mortally wounded in M31and for all intents and purposes dead for 10000 years. Sure, the Imperium hates new tech, but Cawl sitting on these super warriors for all that time seems stupid. Other primarchs were around for quite some time, why not get them on board with the project? Let them help with the introduction to the wider Imperium (I am thinking of a giant billboard with, lets say Vulkan, giving a thumbs up. "Vulkan, son ofthe Emperor, approves of these chaps!).
Also, Cawl apparently had a lot of hidden vaults with deep frozen Primaris hidden all over the Imperium and nobody saw that? No inquisitor thinking: Hmm, that Cawl chap is awfully secretive. Better check out his huge vaults all over the place!
Granted, this is probably I can understand the most. Stagnancy is kind of the main theme, but still, feels a bit hamfisted.

3. Ok, it is the 41st millenium. Guilliman is back and all the tens of thousands of Primaris flood the Imperium. And everybody is ok with that.

What?
For 10000 of years, there was stagnancy. And then, a Primarch returns and thousands of new super warriors suddenly appear, better than all existing marines? And virtually every chapter welcomes them with open arms?
Sorry, that is, in my eyes, boring and lazy. Chapters like the SW, always fiercly loyal, not adhering to the codex, picking fights with the inquisition, is suddenly like: whoa, we better take them guys, Guilliman said so! Or the Dark Angels, I simply cant imagine them accepting the Primaris with open arms.

To clarify: I kind of like the Primaris. The models are nice, I lime the rules and use them (with a bit of head canon). But the lore seems... Stretched and just boring. They could have done so much more, but the existing lore is, in my eyes, quite lame.

Andykp wrote:
Another point that I think hasn’t helped is the HH series of novels has turned the heresey times into a tangible event rather than one shrouded in mystery and legend. They have been breaking that down for some time now and primaris are another example of it.

Which is kinda funny, because for all the complaints of no fore shadowing, man is there a lot of talk of mass production of better marines in some of those books. Primaris are nothing but a 10k year old stalled project based on the attempts to repopulate devastated loyalist legions. Working on technical projects I entirely believe that kind of delay if the main project driver disappeared.

But I'm sure what chaps a lot of people is how the primaris were intended to simplify marines again. Geneseed flaws minimized and such. People like their shiny cod piece of +1 slightly different statistic and weapon load out bloated rules quite a bit. Particularly when the other option is collecting an entirely new army.

 Lum wrote:
My personal problem with the primaris lore is that they are just blantantly better and the introduction was JUST as the best time possible.

1. Primaris are bigger, stronger, better equipped and so on. I can live with that. But the thing I find stupid that they are incorruptable and ALL the geneseed flaws are... Gone, solved. Sure, Cawl had 10000 years, and fhe SW and BA had their research destroyed at some point, but these flaws made the chapters distinct and different. Plus incorrubtable is plain stupid and even the GK lore was in that regard a bit stretched.

2. Cawl had those tens of thousand marines ready to go for apparently quite some time. They were commisioned byGuilliman, bsck then Lord Commander. He was mortally wounded in M31and for all intents and purposes dead for 10000 years. Sure, the Imperium hates new tech, but Cawl sitting on these super warriors for all that time seems stupid. Other primarchs were around for quite some time, why not get them on board with the project? Let them help with the introduction to the wider Imperium (I am thinking of a giant billboard with, lets say Vulkan, giving a thumbs up. "Vulkan, son ofthe Emperor, approves of these chaps!).
Also, Cawl apparently had a lot of hidden vaults with deep frozen Primaris hidden all over the Imperium and nobody saw that? No inquisitor thinking: Hmm, that Cawl chap is awfully secretive. Better check out his huge vaults all over the place!
Granted, this is probably I can understand the most. Stagnancy is kind of the main theme, but still, feels a bit hamfisted.

3. Ok, it is the 41st millenium. Guilliman is back and all the tens of thousands of Primaris flood the Imperium. And everybody is ok with that.

What?
For 10000 of years, there was stagnancy. And then, a Primarch returns and thousands of new super warriors suddenly appear, better than all existing marines? And virtually every chapter welcomes them with open arms?
Sorry, that is, in my eyes, boring and lazy. Chapters like the SW, always fiercly loyal, not adhering to the codex, picking fights with the inquisition, is suddenly like: whoa, we better take them guys, Guilliman said so! Or the Dark Angels, I simply cant imagine them accepting the Primaris with open arms.

To clarify: I kind of like the Primaris. The models are nice, I lime the rules and use them (with a bit of head canon). But the lore seems... Stretched and just boring. They could have done so much more, but the existing lore is, in my eyes, quite lame.

Have you read "legion", where it has alpharius being shown a prophecy that basically said humanity was doomed ed to extinction one of two ways? One would destroy humanity within 100 hears of the Horus heresy but spare other intelligent life in the galaxy. The other would result in humanity stagnating and rotting for millennia, then being consumed by chaos and the result being the end of humanity and all other life in the galaxy.

These prophecies seemed pretty certain to come to pass one way or another. Maybe the primaris project was created to allow a plan C by creating and hiding a super "ace in the hole" that was only to be deployed when it seemed that chaos was on the endfe of over running humanity.

So basicallymit explains how and why the imperium knew to create them, build them up, store them and hold them in secret until they we're needed to tank the prophecies of humanity being doomed in either event.

It cheapens the lore of the space marines.

The whole point of the space marines was that they were ascended beyond simple humanity to be it’s saviours, and invariably failed and brought humanity’s doom. The irony being that even the most powerful human/post human being in the galaxy could not save humanity from itself and in the end we are all doomed.

All the flaws and the history are what made you fall in love with the marines despite the fact that they are post human killing machines. That’s why we love blood angels, space wolves and dark angels, because we know deep down inside that they are fundamentally flawed just like us but they still rise to the occasion and defend the humanity they know cannot defend themselves.

Then along comes these “moar awesomer” marines to take the place of the ones we have known and loved for decades. They don’t have the flaws and are better in every way. How fething boring can you get? So where’s the tragedy? Where’s the plight? It makes everything that happened before inconsequential if they can just force these marines into existence to pick up the slack for the rest of the imperium.

This also flies in the face of the established lore of 40k. It’s the dark ages of the future. There is no room for advancement. There is only ignorance, religion and war. I want 40k to be doomed. I don’t want to see a renaissance. That’s not what I signed up for with 40k. I want the most grim dark, hopeless, horrific fantasy space opera ever devised.

Also, I’ve been around the block with this hobby and had Fantasy destroyed right before my eyes. To watch GW do the same with Fenris, Baal and Cadia breaks my heart. To see it replaced by garbage lore and garbage rules is painful.

Don’t pander to the lowest common denominator GW. Have some self respect. There are more important things in this world than money like art and pride in your work.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
It cheapens the lore of the space marines.

The whole point of the space marines was that they were ascended beyond simple humanity to be it’s saviours, and invariably failed and brought humanity’s doom. The irony being that even the most powerful human/post human being in the galaxy could not save humanity from itself and in the end we are all doomed.

All the flaws and the history are what made you fall in love with the marines despite the fact that they are post human killing machines. That’s why we love blood angels, space wolves and dark angels, because we know deep down inside that they are fundamentally flawed just like us but they still rise to the occasion and defend the humanity they know cannot defend themselves.

Then along comes these “moar awesomer” marines to take the place of the ones we have known and loved for decades. They don’t have the flaws and are better in every way. How fething boring can you get? So where’s the tragedy? Where’s the plight? It makes everything that happened before inconsequential if they can just force these marines into existence to pick up the slack for the rest of the imperium.

This also flies in the face of the established lore of 40k. It’s the dark ages of the future. There is no room for advancement. There is only ignorance, religion and war. I want 40k to be doomed. I don’t want to see a renaissance. That’s not what I signed up for with 40k. I want the most grim dark, hopeless, horrific fantasy space opera ever devised.

Also, I’ve been around the block with this hobby and had Fantasy destroyed right before my eyes. To watch GW do the same with Fenris, Baal and Cadia breaks my heart. To see it replaced by garbage lore and garbage rules is painful.

Don’t pander to the lowest common denominator GW. Have some self respect. There are more important things in this world than money like art and pride in your work.

It cheapens both:

-Regular marines are now second rate mass produced supersoldiers. It was fine for Custodes to be better at being an enhanced human because those can’t be mass produced, but now marines aren’t the shiny new double marines.

-Primaris are a gimmicky marketing driven double marine, which immediately comes across as tacky.

There’s about four or five ways they could have handled the lore side of this better with the same model release, just off the top of my head.

epronovost wrote:
I would even suspect that the upcomming Sister of Battle Codex will mention a later day schism between the old clerics in power within the Ecclesiarchy and reformists energised by the return of Guilliman and the rebrith of Celestine.

Yeah we really need YET ANOTHER take on the reformation. I mean, the one with Goge Vandire and Sebastian Thor is better than any recent fluff, and also part of the core, formative lore for Sisters of Battle, but we ned another one, right?

 Lum wrote:
My personal problem with the primaris lore is that they are just blantantly better and the introduction was JUST as the best time possible.

1. Primaris are bigger, stronger, better equipped and so on. I can live with that. But the thing I find stupid that they are incorruptable and ALL the geneseed flaws are... Gone, solved. Sure, Cawl had 10000 years, and fhe SW and BA had their research destroyed at some point, but these flaws made the chapters distinct and different. Plus incorrubtable is plain stupid and even the GK lore was in that regard a bit stretched.

2. Cawl had those tens of thousand marines ready to go for apparently quite some time. They were commisioned byGuilliman, bsck then Lord Commander. He was mortally wounded in M31and for all intents and purposes dead for 10000 years. Sure, the Imperium hates new tech, but Cawl sitting on these super warriors for all that time seems stupid. Other primarchs were around for quite some time, why not get them on board with the project? Let them help with the introduction to the wider Imperium (I am thinking of a giant billboard with, lets say Vulkan, giving a thumbs up. "Vulkan, son ofthe Emperor, approves of these chaps!).
Also, Cawl apparently had a lot of hidden vaults with deep frozen Primaris hidden all over the Imperium and nobody saw that? No inquisitor thinking: Hmm, that Cawl chap is awfully secretive. Better check out his huge vaults all over the place!
Granted, this is probably I can understand the most. Stagnancy is kind of the main theme, but still, feels a bit hamfisted.

3. Ok, it is the 41st millenium. Guilliman is back and all the tens of thousands of Primaris flood the Imperium. And everybody is ok with that.

What?
For 10000 of years, there was stagnancy. And then, a Primarch returns and thousands of new super warriors suddenly appear, better than all existing marines? And virtually every chapter welcomes them with open arms?
Sorry, that is, in my eyes, boring and lazy. Chapters like the SW, always fiercly loyal, not adhering to the codex, picking fights with the inquisition, is suddenly like: whoa, we better take them guys, Guilliman said so! Or the Dark Angels, I simply cant imagine them accepting the Primaris with open arms.

To clarify: I kind of like the Primaris. The models are nice, I lime the rules and use them (with a bit of head canon). But the lore seems... Stretched and just boring. They could have done so much more, but the existing lore is, in my eyes, quite lame.

So far there is no geneseed flaws but if they get rid of geneseed flaws and make marines more realistic and take away their flavour I'll stop collecting them.

So many reasons.

1. Blatant marketing ploy. I think many gamers felt their intelligence was being insulted with all the "check out these great new Marines" stuff GW was pumping out, especially when bigger, true-scale Marines is something players had been asking for for a while but these ones then turned out to be completely new and different. The fact the kind of suck in-game doesn't help.

2. The lore goes against a lot of the central themes of 40k and stretches credulity beyond its limit. Stagnation and near-regression is one of the defining features of the Imperium but suddenly up pops Cawl with not only a whole new army, but one that's also more advanced than anything seen in the last 10,000 years. The ties back to 30k also just seemed unnecessary. To use a different movie analogy to the Jurassic Park one, it feels a lot like the first scene with Vader in Rogue One: thrown in purely to give the fans some link to previous movies. All this new stuff being linked to 30k just feels like a marketing ploy where someone has sat down and said "people like 30k so let's link all this new stuff to 30k".

3. They missed a great chance to do something genuinely interesting with the lore. The return of a Primarch and the sudden appearance of a bunch of new Marines under his control, combined with a galaxy-spanning Warp rift, was the perfect opportunity to really progress the story in a meaningful way. Imagine not just an Imperial civil war, but an actual split, both physically thanks to the rift and ideologically as Guilliman attempts to restore the Emepror's vision of the Imperium in the face of all the various organisations opposed to that. Instead we get huge, momentous events that basically change nothing.