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Let me answer a few questions that are bound to come up right away by saying: this is all conjecture and crystal ball interpretation.

40k is not going to have an 'End Times'.

Yes, much of the current ranges of every faction will eventually go out of production and be replaced by bigger, fancier models.

Woah, that's a couple of bold claims. Where is all this coming from? Well, a bit of it is spurred on by GMG's recent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA_GmcapAQY

What happens when a miniature game gets too big? It's pretty clear that 40k is there. Chaos Knights is the 23rd Codex to be released in 8th edition, and it'll be followed by more of them this year, at the very least with Sisters of Battle later on. Add to that two Chapter Approved, two Campaign books, and a year's worth of White Dwarf rules for 40k units. Then you've got Kill Team tacked onto that universe, and now Apocalypse as well, and that's not even mentioning the Indexes that are still valid, Forgeworld units in various books, and PDFs of a variety of things, including FAQs. The game is massive and only seems set to grow!

So much for that promise of not needing to lug around a ton of books to the game store, eh?

But, there's a rhyme and reason to a few of the recent actions that GW has released. First is the Primaris line of Space Marines. Second is the release of Apocalypse.

When the Primaris released, it was a death knell for the current range of space marines. Few people heard it, but those that did were seen originally as ravenous haters. Now, the bell tolls and it's hard to ignore as more and more Primaris marines are released, characters are converted to Primaris type marines, and the story marches ever forward, featuring more and more Primaris marines in new novels and campaigns. Whole chapters of Primaris marines are coming out, and the lore, which originally felt out of nowhere and shoehorned into the story, is becoming more and more fleshed out (funnily, just like in Age of Sigmar).

Currently, it doesn't mean much for the 'minimarine' line of models. Most of them are still for sale and there's a big fat Space Marine Codex where you can find all of their rules. The options that aren't for sale are still available in one of the Imperium Indexes, like Apothecaries on bikes and techmarines on bikes. Nobody's collection has been removed from the game.

Will there be a time when these units are not allowed to be brought into matched-play armies in 40k? Yes. Years from now. Maybe 5, maybe 20. This is the Long Plan for 40k, much as the Old Ones laid out millennia before. A big part of that plan was to place a stepping stone between the full support we have now for everyone's collection, and the slow culling of models that will happen in the future: Apocalypse.

Everything is available in Apocalypse. Everything. Even the aforementioned techmarines and apothecaries on bikes. Just looking through the Space Marine datasheets for Apoc we see the Imperial Space Marine, Damned Legionnaires, and Cenobyte Servitors, all resin, some unavailable, but if you have it, you will be able to play it in Apocalypse. Heck, they even have datasheets for Elysian Drop Troopers, models that Forgeworld put out of production almost a year ago!

And what kind of players would suffer the most from a culling of models from GW's stores and games? Those with big, old collections. Those players that have been collecting for 15+ years and still have some of the original Rogue Trader rhinos and predators. Good news to you fellas: you won't ever have to throw your collection in the trash, because it will forever have a home in games of Apocalypse that encourage you to dust off those models and put them on the table.

One of the points that Ash and Owen make in the GMG video above is when MWG Dave put out his massive Chaos army and recorded it in a video for posterity. That collection is impressive to behold, and contains some much older models. Now, those big collections have a purpose, and if you can get them to the game store (or invite a friend to your house with a similar sized collection and a big enough table), then you can still play a war game with them.

So, GW has laid out this stepping stone, this home for old models and new. On top of encouraging people to buy more and more models to fill out the collections of their dreams, they've also allowed themselves as a company to make the next big move: pushing the 40k story forward.

What does that mean for your army of choice? Well, let's take a look at the trends of some of the armies thus far...

Space Marines - Primaris, hover tanks - Gone are the toaster-shaped dreadnoughts and treaded tanks of the minimarines. Say hello to repulsor-style tanks that use their Fly keyword to get across the table.
Chaos Marines - Daemon engines, corrupted troops - Why copy everything that Space Marines have when you can have animal-shaped robots? The old chaos rhinos and predators are heading out in favor of Venomcrawlers.
Tau - Battlesuits and walkers - Longstrike is deadly as ever, but with the speed and style of battlesuits, it's clear that the devilfish chassis had served its purpose.
Eldar - wraith constructs and psykers - why update every single aspect warrior when you can instead create new wraith constructs to represent the Eldar as a dying race?

Are these trends set in stone? No, of course not. GW has lots to pull from the lore, and the next move for Eldar may be a big 'troop refresh' where they do indeed replace all of the aspect warriors with new plastic models... but what if they don't? What if they say 'nah' and leave the aspect warriors for Apocalypse while pushing the Eldar in a new direction?

But how could they do that and not leave fans scratching their heads? Well, that's where the new Campaigns come in. The story that marches ever forward. Abaddon bashed past Cadia and the Cicatrix Maledictum spread across the galaxy. He had a duel with Marneus Calgar on Vigilus while promising further war. For a solid decade the 13th black crusade was a point of contention for 40k fans. I heard many jokes about how GW wouldn't dare push the story any further than that, that 40k would be set in stone as this forever-almost-at-the-apocalypse setting. And then it happened, and GW have been pushing the setting in unexpected ways. Bringing back Primarchs, shattering Cadia, taking things that fans took for granted and changing them drastically.

We can see this trend in Age of Sigmar as well. Every new box set comes with a story, from the Soul Wars first coming out to herald 2.0, to now with Looncurse and the latest expansion of Forbidden Power. The story grows and expands, moving forward, never truly stagnating under one set war. And what will Age of Sigmar look like in 10 years? Who knows? But the idea is that those getting into Age of Sigmar *now* will be able to look back on a decade of advancing storyline. When fans getting into AoS talk about those stories of myth, the 'Soul Wars', older fans will be able to say 'I was there'. The same is happening in 40k.

That's GW's Long Plan. In order to grow as a miniatures game, they will need to leave old models behind while taking the current ranges in new and exciting directions. Remaking old kits can only go so far. The way they introduce the new kits will be in the story, the same way they introduced the Primaris Marines or the new Daemon Engines, or the way they introduced the returning Primarchs. In this way, they will avoid an 'End Times' situation for 40k completely by instead feeding us a steady trickle of story to go along with our shiny new models. They may change editions, shatter planets, and resolve wars, but only so they can start new ones, create new settings, and expand the lore to make room for stuff that will make old and new fans alike excited to be a part of the evolving setting.

In a way, this is a good thing, a very good thing. We can all take off our aluminum caps and relax. There won't be an End Times but 40k will steadily change. They will slowly phase out old product, but your collection will always have a home and a game to play. The story that is evolving now will be legend and myth 10 years from now, and you'll be glad to have been there, giving you plenty of bragging rights over the new players that will be introduced to the 40k universe.

Not everything is available in Apocalypse. DE still don't have anything that isn't in the 8th codex. No index only stuff out alone our older options

Drager wrote:
Not everything is available in Apocalypse. DE still don't have anything that isn't in the 8th codex. No index only stuff out alone our older options

to be honest, that doesn't surprise me, since GW never made models for those things. They have all of the datasheets that they made models for minus Vect and the ancient Archon on bike models, which you could just count as a Ravager and a bike leader respectively. So that kind of bites, but doesn't surprise me, nor does it invalidate most of my points :/

The plan forward is: sell as many models as possible. Rules/campaigns/expansions are the support structure that makes that happen. The game rules will suffer, but profits will not. GW has not been "rules first" since maybe 1994-1995.

I have a couple issues...

Eldar likely haven't gotten new Aspect Warriors because GW knows they won't sell any. Aspects for the Eldar line fill a very narrow niche in player's lists and that niche is often filled with fewer than 10 of those models. So old players are unlikely to ever actually purchase the new models as a whole, only those who like the new look. The only way GW sells 'new' models is by giving them new rules and options. Thus the Primaris situation. Do you think Primaris would sell well if they were simply upscaled versions of the old models? Only players who wanted the new models would ever buy them. But now they have found a way to make old and new players want to buy Primaris. Mark my words... 10 years from now we're going to see 'Assault Primaris Marines' and 'Primaris Teminators' and that will be the end of the Marine line.

Eldar are in a very similar boat. It has been what, a decade since they've gotten a new model? And those models were Wraithguard and bikers? GW knows that the only way they'll sell new Eldar models at this point is to replace them, thus Ynnead. We are almost certainly going to see no support for 'mini marines' within 10 years. I'd bet you $5 we will never see Eldar Aspects redone and instead GW will find some justification to introduce new aspects and 10 years from that point, we'll get a new Eldar codex with no old aspect warriors.

I simply disagree... I think we're living through the end-times and I honestly don't know how I feel about it. All I do know is I hope GW takes advantage of it for the good of the game and takes this oppurtunity to scale back the number of Imperium books to fewer than 5 instead of the what, 15 different ones currently?

I'll watch the video tonight when I have time.

In a nutshell GW is killing the setting to sell a narrative.

Aspect warriors will be sold as kill teams with 40k rules in the box and phoenix lords will be blackstone expansions, and they will both sell like hotcakes. 40k is not just 40k any more. You have to think in 4 different scales to make determinations on what will or won't sell. Dark Eldar will grow the same way.

Those lucky enough to have bought Gangs of Commorragh got a mad Wych core for cheap, but GW wasn't fully ready to support small scale until they finally got it right with kill team. They will not miss an opportunity to cross promote again.

Nvs wrote:
I have a couple issues...

Eldar likely haven't gotten new Aspect Warriors because GW knows they won't sell any. Aspects for the Eldar line fill a very narrow niche in player's lists and that niche is often filled with fewer than 10 of those models. So old players are unlikely to ever actually purchase the new models as a whole, only those who like the new look. The only way GW sells 'new' models is by giving them new rules and options. Thus the Primaris situation. Do you think Primaris would sell well if they were simply upscaled versions of the old models? Only players who wanted the new models would ever buy them. But now they have found a way to make old and new players want to buy Primaris. Mark my words... 10 years from now we're going to see 'Assault Primaris Marines' and 'Primaris Teminators' and that will be the end of the Marine line.

Eldar are in a very similar boat. It has been what, a decade since they've gotten a new model? And those models were Wraithguard and bikers? GW knows that the only way they'll sell new Eldar models at this point is to replace them, thus Ynnead. We are almost certainly going to see no support for 'mini marines' within 10 years. I'd bet you $5 we will never see Eldar Aspects redone and instead GW will find some justification to introduce new aspects and 10 years from that point, we'll get a new Eldar codex with no old aspect warriors.

I simply disagree... I think we're living through the end-times and I honestly don't know how I feel about it. All I do know is I hope GW takes advantage of it for the good of the game and takes this oppurtunity to scale back the number of Imperium books to fewer than 5 instead of the what, 15 different ones currently?

I'll watch the video tonight when I have time.

You say you disagree, but your points are my points just worded differently. I agree with you. Maybe I didn't word my points well enough. Yes, it's very likely that GW will never make plastic aspect warriors. They'd need to make 6+ different troop box sets and 6+ phoenix lord characters all in plastic and all of which most players will only need one of. It doesn't make sense for them to do when they can instead make a multi-kit that builds either Scorpion or Banshee Wraith Constructs that you can buy 6 of to fill out your army and that won't be super niche.

I think it’s not so much “we’re gonna Force the old models out with the new model lines”. One of the things I’ve seen echoed on the forum off and on for the last 7 or so years is that CSM and SM were too similar. People called Chaos “Spiky Marines” for a reason, there was not a huge difference between the two lines outside of a dozen or so models.

Now it seems that they chose 8th to be an opportunity to break the molds for these factions and make them have their own identities. Tau has always been Battlesuit reliant, so it’s no shock that GW is just doubling down on what sells. Eldar I have no clue. I’ve honestly seen 5 Eldar players since I started back in late 3rd early 4th, but I’ve seen a ton of Dark Eldar and Harlequin players locally. I’d be willing to bet that If plastic Aspect Warriors hit the shelves that would change locally because my area has a massive stigma against finecast even now almost a decade later, but it might not be worthwhile to make them in hopes that a bunch of dudes in NW Florida will buy them.

I tend to agree that GW is focusing on seperating the chaos and Imperium aestetics. put a old space marine beside a old chaos marine and yeah... chaos marines where just spiky space marines. they didn't look very differant at all. save spikes and horns. now however SMs and CSMs have a VERY VERY differant look, I abolustely adore the new Baroque looking CSMs.

I have to echo the sentiment with the Eldar Aspect Warriors. Would love to see them released in plastic and would probably slowly rebuy them if they came out, but overall selling would probably not be as high as GW wants it to be. Not unless they start adding new weapon options that are so good that you have to buy them.

Personally I think the Ynnari are a way to Primaris the Aeldari line in the long run. That we'll start seeing Aspects or something special just for that line.

BrianDavion wrote:I tend to agree that GW is focusing on seperating the chaos and Imperium aestetics. put a old space marine beside a old chaos marine and yeah... chaos marines where just spiky space marines. they didn't look very differant at all. save spikes and horns. now however SMs and CSMs have a VERY VERY differant look, I abolustely adore the new Baroque looking CSMs.

I haven't cared about any chaos stuff from RT up until the the new models. The new stuff looks great and made me want to buy them.

Eldarsif wrote:I have to echo the sentiment with the Eldar Aspect Warriors. Would love to see them released in plastic and would probably slowly rebuy them if they came out, but overall selling would probably not be as high as GW wants it to be. Not unless they start adding new weapon options that are so good that you have to buy them.

Personally I think the Ynnari are a way to Primaris the Aeldari line in the long run. That we'll start seeing Aspects or something special just for that line.

I hope so

BrianDavion wrote:
I tend to agree that GW is focusing on seperating the chaos and Imperium aestetics. put a old space marine beside a old chaos marine and yeah... chaos marines where just spiky space marines. they didn't look very differant at all. save spikes and horns. now however SMs and CSMs have a VERY VERY differant look, I abolustely adore the new Baroque looking CSMs.

And again people screamed for them not to make chaos marines just marines with spikes and now they complain that they genuinely different. Love the new chaos marine look but wished or hoped they had gone back the original rt style marines with Geiger like biomechanical look. Fully fused with their armour. Loved that look so much.

I still have the old OOP metal Geiger chaod dread. Love that model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I still have the old OOP metal Geiger chaos dread. Love that model.

Well GW is definitely regressing in certain aspects.

Virtually NO customization of models. No extra parts in boxes anymore. Fairly fixed posing.

Primaris marine armies are all going to look nearly the same. No more Death Company, no more Wulfen, no more Death Wing.

Not sure what will happen to xenos races but they don't have model line bloat like marines do anyways so maybe they will be fine.

 SickSix wrote:
Well GW is definitely regressing in certain aspects.

Virtually NO customization of models. No extra parts in boxes anymore. Fairly fixed posing.

Primaris marine armies are all going to look nearly the same. No more Death Company, no more Wulfen, no more Death Wing.

Not sure what will happen to xenos races but they don't have model line bloat like marines do anyways so maybe they will be fine.

I have been working on a Primaris only army for a bit, and I don't really see that as the case already. Or at least no more than any non-IoM faction. I never saw a whole lot of variation generated from the non-Primaris legs and body except for some grubbins which get lost in the crowd anyways. Which is the most static portion of the Primaris. I have 18 Intercessors, and I could easily build another 10 without them looking all that closely to each other. That's even before introducing older marine parts to further customize. The spoiler is an image of what I mostly have painted. I would have to take a bit and really look to see which legs and body are the repeated model on them.



They are rather uniform in appearance, but then again, most armies want their troops to be uniform. There gear is also pretty spartan, but I think that is the intention (for now at least). I am pretty okay with not having a bunch of extras on a sprue I am not going to use. I think they are still more than enough arm and head poses to create some 20-30 core infantry units without them looking any more similar at arm's length. They are also plastic, some customization is pretty darn easy. I am not much of a modeler, and even I managed some stuff here and there.

As for snowflake units for certain chapters, again; that isn't any different for nearly all non-IoM factions. I am not even all that convinced Death Company, Wulfen or Death Company are going away anyways. Games Workshop is still filling out the core elements of Primaris. It will probably be more than half-a-decade before non-Primaris marines are sunsetted if they ever are. More than enough time to develop some specialist Chapter only units if they want.

I also don't see how Primaris armies will all look the same in army compositon. Even now we have a couple of options of Primaris for nearly every slot. The line is only going to expand for the foreseeable future. You could say that competitive armies are all going to look the same, but really; how much variation is really in the competitive armies ever? In a game like 40K a good chunk of the definition of competitive is limited model selection as list building is a large portion of the game and the balance is only a handful of units are worthwhile at the high end. I don't see that ever changing. I do see Primaris armies easily being focused on Phobos, regular Mark X and Gravis giving marine players some light, medium, heavy or some combination play style choices.

You can knock the lack of weapon options, but it does appear that every Primaris unit is going to have a couple of weapon options even if they have to be applied over the entire unit. In most cases, it appears GW wanted the different load outs to affect their use on the tabletop. I don't think they really succeeded with that (looking at you Intercessors), but I do think that GW might keep giving it a go to get there. Maybe they will succeed...maybe.

I do agree that Primaris aren't going to be like non-Primaris but better. In some ways, I think their design principles are going (already have) to clash with some effective more tradition marine compositions. Such as weapon mixing within a squad. Overall, I am pretty okay with the direction of Primaris (obviously). I will also admit, I don't much care for the special snowflake chapters stuff as there are more than 1,000 space marine chapters out there. I am sure almost all of them have some thing special about them, but only about a dozen of them have Chapter Traits that rest have to make due with and only a few have special units to them. Plus, I can already hear the faint cries of full factions that have less.

I get that you think a part of 40k is going to be loss, and maybe you are right. However, that probably isn't for a long, long time if ever. I have been enjoying creating an Ultima Founding chapter which to me kinda does feel like old-school gaming with creating my own dudes.

I think with chaos, the issue was a few things for me. There kits where kinda meh.
And they chaos elements where not done as well as they could be.
I just buy normal marine kits, and used other bits for my entire chaos army.
Now we are getting more Chaos, but i think its still got a long way to go. a lot looks kinda samy and meh, seen it all before in other things.
They still have a bit of that Spiky marines. The other issues is they have not don enough for each of the gods in the chaos marine line. So i find starting from a normal marine base for 3 of the gods work better anyway.

Also if they Ynnari the eldar i am out Just nope, but then expecting GW to sell me something i want for my eldar army is rather low hope. I think if i had quit for 10 years entirely they would have only made 2 boxes to buy.

what gods haven't they done eneugh with?

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
Well GW is definitely regressing in certain aspects.

Virtually NO customization of models. No extra parts in boxes anymore. Fairly fixed posing.

Primaris marine armies are all going to look nearly the same. No more Death Company, no more Wulfen, no more Death Wing.

Not sure what will happen to xenos races but they don't have model line bloat like marines do anyways so maybe they will be fine.

I have been working on a Primaris only army for a bit, and I don't really see that as the case already. Or at least no more than any non-IoM faction. I never saw a whole lot of variation generated from the non-Primaris legs and body except for some grubbins which get lost in the crowd anyways. Which is the most static portion of the Primaris. I have 18 Intercessors, and I could easily build another 10 without them looking all that closely to each other. That's even before introducing older marine parts to further customize. The spoiler is an image of what I mostly have painted. I would have to take a bit and really look to see which legs and body are the repeated model on them.

Compared to previous Tac/Assault/Dev boxes with legs, torsos, arms all being separate, interchangable, and posable the new kits are pretty static. I think they're 4-2-2-1-1 with four of one build, 2 of another, 2 of a third, and 1 Veteran for Combat Squadding, and one Sergeant that will all have similar poses. Before you could offset the torsos on the legs, and the arms on the torsos and get far more variation.

Of course, I also liked the REALLY old press fit Tactical kits because they looked like they were at some sort of parade rest, so I'm not all that unhappy.

BrianDavion wrote:
what gods haven't they done eneugh with?

Well, Slaanesh and Khorne really. Death Guard and Thousand Sons both have new separate codexes and new models. Khorne are still using Berserkers from last century and Noise Marines don't even have dedicated models (aside from the one model that came out recently), just a conversion kit to go with the (old?) CSM kit.

Crispy78 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
what gods haven't they done eneugh with?

Well, Slaanesh and Khorne really. Death Guard and Thousand Sons both have new separate codexes and new models. Khorne are still using Berserkers from last century and Noise Marines don't even have dedicated models (aside from the one model that came out recently), just a conversion kit to go with the (old?) CSM kit.

yeah thats what I figured just he said "3 of the gods" so I was more wondering ".. is it khorne or slaanish you're somehow actually sastified with?!"

 SickSix wrote:
Well GW is definitely regressing in certain aspects.

Virtually NO customization of models. No extra parts in boxes anymore. Fairly fixed posing.

Primaris marine armies are all going to look nearly the same. No more Death Company, no more Wulfen, no more Death Wing.

Not sure what will happen to xenos races but they don't have model line bloat like marines do anyways so maybe they will be fine.

Having built a lot of these marines now there is a lot of customisations possible. Just because the instructions say use arms a with body a doesn’t mean you have to. Sometimes you have to use a bit more skill and imagination to convert them but it’s still pretty simple. They upside is the posing on them is so much more natural looking than old marines who never bent at the waist at all. It makes a huge difference. The fact that all the old marine arms and buts still fit them means there is a lot of options. I’ve just built a squad of deathwatch vets using primaris bodies. Wasn’t restricted at all in load out.

Nvs wrote:
Eldar are in a very similar boat. It has been what, a decade since they've gotten a new model?

A year, at most - the plastic Spiritseer was the last new Eldar model released, within Wake the Dead, and it is getting a rerelease as an individual character pack next week.

Apoc won't last, it's bad and they spent a whole week on it and moved right on to chaos knights.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Apoc won't last, it's bad and they spent a whole week on it and moved right on to chaos knights.

Why do you think Apocalypse is bad?

And if you mean WHC, they do need to hype the next release, so moving straight on to Chaos Knights isn't surprising.

The only thing I find surprising about the Apoc release so far is that there were no new SH units released to tie in with it (and, no, I'm not counting Chaos Knights as a tie-in )

 Dysartes wrote:

Why do you think Apocalypse is bad?

Because it's a card game.



The long plan is this: "these people will buy anything"

You might be the only person I've seen on these boards who is outright saying it is bad. Even the most critical naysayer (that I've seen) has been like: "It's alright, but the cards can get cheesed."

Here's me hoping cards figure less in the long plan and not more. Dare to dream I guess.

"I don't like some of the design decisions" /= "it's bad"

 Crablezworth wrote:
Here's me hoping cards figure less in the long plan and not more. Dare to dream I guess.

Just play the game without the cards, or have the cards only available to 're-roll a dice', if you don't like the effects so much. The only negative thing I saw was when playing a 40k sized game (2000 pt equivalent), the cards were the main unbalancing factor, but when played at the recommended 250-300 power level game, they worked just fine.

There's a lot to consider in the game, from activation order to 'how many blasts is enough blasts to remove that thing I want to kill', and using the strengths of your force as best as possible. It gets rid of some of the issues of old apoc by making sure that everything gets a chance to do SOMETHING, even if it's only for a turn, and the bigger the unit, the stompier it tends to be, which is great.

But then, if you don't like it, nobody is telling you that you can't play an 8000+ pt game with the current 40k rules.

As for the future of Apoc, there are certainly going to be new datasheets added as GW and FW release new models, and as they release new factions or update old factions, I'm sure new tactic card packs will be released in the future as well. It's called 'ongoing support', and it won't be very fast, but it'll keep things up to date for people that want to play the game.

As for Warhammer Community, they NEED to hype the next thing. GW is releasing things at such a fast pace that they can't focus on anything that's already released for too long. They build the hype and then when it's finally in the player's hands, they can move to the next thing to hype. It's how every company works. If they have to spend an extra week reminding you that the product exists, it means they've failed in their advertising.