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I dont mean the army I mean the 30 year old iconic humble space marine. I mean I go on a lot of meme sites and such and 99% of all memes show old space marines. Space marine are the only thing people recognise of 40k and yet a couple of years ago gw just decided to completely kill off their model line and the ten thousand years of lore in favour of the primaris?? Why? Why didnt they just make new marine models but properly sized? Why did the primaris have to exist? Does anyone actually have an answer for this or are they just universally accepted as an ill thought out marketing and profit ploy to trick the masses. I mean they are awful? Their lore makes no sense? Theyve got the wrong helmets on and all the old cool characters now look like midgets? It's just abysmal.

Too big secondary market, too many companies making classic marines and parts for them. It makes sense from GW point of view. If they could they would make models the same way other companies make their product, with a build in self destruct mechanism.

It would even sound nice, as a PR move too. A enviroment friendly model that bio degrades after lets say 3-4 years.

Profit driven cynicism and lack of integrity.

How do you sell Marines to people who already have every marine?

You make 'better' Marines and sell those to them instead.

Icegoat wrote:
I dont mean the army I mean the 30 year old iconic humble space marine. I mean I go on a lot of meme sites and such and 99% of all memes show old space marines. Space marine are the only thing people recognise of 40k and yet a couple of years ago gw just decided to completely kill off their model line and the ten thousand years of lore in favour of the primaris?? Why? Why didnt they just make new marine models but properly sized? Why did the primaris have to exist? Does anyone actually have an answer for this or are they just universally accepted as an ill thought out marketing and profit ploy to trick the masses. I mean they are awful? Their lore makes no sense? Theyve got the wrong helmets on and all the old cool characters now look like midgets? It's just abysmal.

Removed - Rule #1 please

WAAAAH WE WANT NEW THINGS
-new things come out
WAAAAAAAAAH WE DIDN'T WANT THAT

Their lore makes sense, you just don't like it.
Their models are fine, you just don't like them.
People like them, you don't.

In conclusion: get over it.

The good old Tactical Marine were the jack of all trades but master of none.
Primaris Marines are the shiny new kids on the block.
They open a new market for playing Space Marines.

I think they learned the wrong lessons from the Age of Sigmar launch. With Sigmar they released minis that replaced all the old armies and dropped support for all the old armies immediately, which pissed a lot of people off when they'd been told "yeah, you can totally use all your old models in our new game!" beforehand. With the Primaris they figured they can totally just replace all the old-Marines but from Sigmar they learned they can't drop support immediately, they have to keep pretending they're going to support the old stuff, so they're keeping all the old-Marines in the Codex but not releasing any new material for them until the Primaris have completely subsumed them in power creep, and then they can move all the old-Marines to Legends or 30k or whatever and nobody will notice.

Lets be honest. Mini marines always looks bad and realistically always played bad too. The army needed a new identity and instead of undersized and gimmicky they went for large and in charge. Never had as much fun with marines as I am having now.

The shot themselves in the foot when they made necrons. Then repeated the error with Custodes. There’s no room on the D6 to make marines better. And now the most popular collected armies have new stuff for people to buy. Before Primaris, I wasn’t buying much but books. Between boxed sets and years of collecting I have at least two of everything. And a lot of people wouldn’t buy upsized regular Marines, they’ll keep using the old ones would would have stayed legal. Making them Primaris with a new model and new stats etc means the old marine models can’t be used as new marine stat lines.

Rebuilding the same thing that they always had gave them no real way to change how the army fights. Since Primaris have launched, armies of marines are more Legion-style single purpose units rather than the more esoteric builds available to the firstborn.

Units like Intercessors have strayed a bit from that concept, sure. They now have expanded to allow a certain amount of Sergeant flexibility in wargear that helps them emulate certain firstborn units that like hiding a strong weapon within a unit of weaker soldiers.

Furthermore, almost every single new weapon added with Primaris is unique to them in the game, and at times unique to the unit itself. Nobody else outside Primaris is carrying around a bolt rifle, for example. They have their own special plasma, melta, and even high-end las. They rarely include weapons from the firstborn. It's also important to note that those firstborn weapons are widely available across the entire Imperial universe. A heavy bolter is the same weapon as those wielded by the Sisters of Battle and the Astra Militarum, for example.

So Primaris seem to me to be as if they decided two things. 1) They decided to change the way marines fight. Legion tactics and specialized units equipped for a single job. And 2) they would no longer be using universally available weapons. From a lore perspective, they are the angels of death - there's the argument that they should be carrying special tools unique to them that nobody else has access to. Primaris and their boatload of new weapon and unit rules achieve that. It also helps to allow more granular balance flexibility. For example, auto bolt rifles being buffed to 3 shots affected a grand total of 1 unit, and when GW has such trouble keeping the unintended consequences of change from spilling over onto everyone's lap, I think that's overall a better situation.

Icegoat wrote:I mean I go on a lot of meme sites and such and 99% of all memes show old space marines.

Look at when a lot of those memes where created. Look at what a lot of the art throughout the history of GW is of - classic Marines.

The majority of modern 40k memes I see are of the more modern stuff - Primaris, or using something like Astartes as a meme template.

Space marine are the only thing people recognise of 40k

Citation needed. One of the most iconic? Without doubt. But 40k's Orks and guardsmen are pretty iconic too. And, more importantly, most outsiders will recognise a Primaris Marine as another Space Marine, or at the very least, affiliated with 40k. They're not THAT different.

and yet a couple of years ago gw just decided to completely kill off their model line

I'm interested as to your definition of "killed the model line". The old sculpts still exist. They still have rules, modern, in-codex rules at that. You can very easily go out and buy a whole new army of Mark VII Marines.

So, what do you mean by "killed", exactly? Not renewed? Does that make the DE a dead army? Grey Knights? Eldar?

and the ten thousand years of lore in favour of the primaris??

You know the old lore is still around, right? You don't have to play games set beyond the Great Rift. Like, there's 10,000 years of history you can play with. Don't like the new stuff? Set your games in 9999999.M41. Nothing's been removed.

Why didnt they just make new marine models but properly sized?

Because they wanted to make Primaris? Can you imagine the uproar from you, if they'd resized Marines? We already have one thread from you ranting about "scale increases". Sounds like you wouldn't have liked that either.

Why did the primaris have to exist?

Why does anything have to exist?

Does anyone actually have an answer for this or are they just universally accepted as an ill thought out marketing and profit ploy to trick the masses.

I think Primaris are cool. That's all the answer I need.

I mean they are awful?

In your opinion. Which you're entitled to. Same as I'm entitled to mine.

Their lore makes no sense?

Have you read Primaris lore? And no, I don't mean the 1d4chan version, I mean the *actual* lore?

Theyve got the wrong helmets on

Sorry, "wrong helmets"? By that metric, all Mark VII Marines have the wrong helmet, as they're not wearing the ORIGINAL beakies.

Primaris helms are a callback to Mark IV plate. Hell, I've USED Mark IV helmets on some of my Primaris, and they barely look different.

and all the old cool characters now look like midgets?

If you don't take any Primaris, then the old characters don't look any smaller. Plus, there's nothing stopping people from converting and kitbashing their "cool old characters" to look in scale with the Primaris, if you really wanted to. The shoulder pads are the same size, the arms are scarcely much different, and the helmet sockets are the same.

It's just abysmal.

Aaaaaand breathe.

Was there anything constructive in this thread, or is this another rant/venting thread?



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Kanluwen wrote:WAAAAH WE WANT NEW THINGS
-new things come out
WAAAAAAAAAH WE DIDN'T WANT THAT

Their lore makes sense, you just don't like it.
Their models are fine, you just don't like them.
People like them, you don't.

In conclusion: get over it.

Yeah, can't really argue with that.

There's nothing wrong with not liking things. That's only human. But just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that it's inherently bad, or that other people can't enjoy it.

Let people enjoy things.

There's nothing wrong with not liking things. That's only human. But just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that it's inherently bad, or that other people can't enjoy it.

Let people enjoy things.

That is how we people that were old socialists got convinced to join the party with new comming communists from Soviet Union. They were told to let it go too, and that some people like the new system too. Bad ideas are bad ideas, and just because some people like them, it does not make them acceptable or good. Otherwise we could okey more or less everything, because you can always find a group of humans that like something. Even the worse of the worse things.

Karol wrote:

There's nothing wrong with not liking things. That's only human. But just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that it's inherently bad, or that other people can't enjoy it.

Let people enjoy things.

That is how we people that were old socialists got convinced to join the party with new comming communists from Soviet Union.

What on earth has this got to do with the discussion?

Bad ideas are bad ideas

Just to confirm - this is a discussion board about toy plastic soldiers, right? Not socio-political theory and very real issues?

So, to be more specific - does it REALLY affect you if I like a certain group of little plastic soldiers and you don't?

Just to confirm - this is a discussion board about toy plastic soldiers, right? Not socio-political theory and very real issues?

There is no difference. A bad idea is a bad one. Doesn't matter where or why it is done. Also the soft squating of a 700-1000$ collection of models sounds super real to me. Can't get any more real, unless your collection costs even more.

What on earth has this got to do with the discussion?

Because the argument that stuff should be viewed as good and okey, because you can find a group of people that like it is a stupid one. You can pick any thing to do, and you will always find a group of people that will say it is good and okey. Does not make the thing acceptable or good in general. It is a rather simple concept.

Nothing of significance was squatted, get over yourself. Not even "soft squatted".

Also:
The argument isn't "stuff should be viewed as good and okay because you can find a group of people that like it". It's "you have no business telling other people what to like".

Karol, have you ever heard of Godwin's Law?

apparently....yes, it it does!

Ok ignore the great primaris lore cause apparently its superb top notch makes complete sense. How would people react if two wound 10 foot tall new elder came along? An ancient race happily living for millions of years oh wait cawl invented space elf steroids buy these new super elder. Primaris have killed any Hope's of 40k moving into other media. Just like aos did with fantasy. So far there has not been a single video game released set in age of sigmar or with primaris. It think that tells you enough. They killed their golden goose.

Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you while being wrong and all.

Video games aren't an overnight thing for actual quality to happen. Doesn't help that if you really want to actually get more prevalence, you're looking at going for consoles not PCs...oh and what's that?

Warhammer 40k Darktide in 2021? Set during the time after the fall of Cadia...meaning there's possibly going to be Primaris showing up as playable?
Hrmmmmmmmmmmh....

The lore is obvious hand-waving nonsense to justify replacing the entire line of the most popular army with new models and units just different enough to make it impossible to keep using the old models to represent them, so every space marine player has to buy an entire new army.

That's just reality. It was a business decision. Everyone knows it was a business decision.

Now could they have done a better job with the hand-waving lore? Sure, of course. Was it lazy? Sure, of course. But it doesn't really matter. The Primaris Replacement Project has been overwhelmingly successful for GW. Almost nobody has refused to buy into it. By boiling the frog slowly they are now at a place where ~75% of the Space Marine line is replaced with more competitive Primaris options, and by the end of 9th it will be 100%.

Was it clumsy? A bit. But obviously not clumsy enough to matter.

Pft. The lore's perfectly fine, assuming someone actually bothers to read it rather than relying on 4chan and memes.

I think it has been commonly explained as: what room for growth was left in the old marine ranks? Hundreds of units all did varying things, and each unit had decent flexibility as a whole. So much to balance, no room left to give them something that fit with the rest of the army yet provided something new and exciting... you'd just find units bumping heads for the same spot and it would be a matter of "which is better priced currently vs each other" not "which provides the tactical advantage I am looking for".

Marine players wanted to be involved in the parade of new models and new, fun units? Design wanted to design more Space Marine stuff since it is "iconic" and exciting for them? Well... you end up with Primaris. Unfortunately, it has turned into a 3 year roll out of WAY too much stuff and pretty much total abandonment of all the other factions in favor of the smurfs.

Finally: Primaris scary, that is all.

It's total junk. The idea itself is not necessarily total junk, but the way they implemented it is total junk.

Primaris actually could have been interesting without the economic imperative to hand-wave every chapter into immediate compliance. If they had had certain chapters embrace Primaris while others rejected it, based on each chapters' individual character, you could have ended up with an interesting situation that further explored the fundamental themes of the lore - old vs new, technology vs faith, tradition vs innovation. They could even have worked it up into something that threatened to produce a second schism, with traditionalist chapters considering Cawl and Girlyman to be dangerous heretics bent on a coup.

But because that wouldn't have sold as many models, they brute forced everyone (except GKs, which have their own model lines) into immediate compliance so they could sell the models to everybody, even if it meant ignoring and undermining all the fundamental themes of the game lore up to that point.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Pft. The lore's perfectly fine, assuming someone actually bothers to read it rather than relying on 4chan and memes.

dingdingdingding and we have a winner!

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's total junk. The idea itself is not necessarily total junk, but the way they implemented it is total junk.

Primaris actually could have been interesting without the economic imperative to hand-wave every chapter into immediate compliance. If they had had certain chapters embrace Primaris while others rejected it, based on each chapters' individual character, you could have ended up with an interesting situation that further explored the fundamental themes of the lore - old vs new, technology vs faith, tradition vs innovation. They could even have worked it up into something that threatened to produce a second schism, with traditionalist chapters considering Cawl and Girlyman to be dangerous heretics bent on a coup.

But because that wouldn't have sold as many models, they brute forced everyone (except GKs, which have their own model lines) into immediate compliance so they could sell the models to everybody, even if it meant ignoring and undermining all the fundamental themes of the game lore up to that point.

GO. READ. THE. FLUFF.

The simple presence of them there doesn't mean they're accepted. Christ, the Raven Guard's 9th Company Captain treats the Primaris like they're simpletons and keeps a personal eye on them while refusing to take the Primaris treatments himself.


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Racerguy180 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Pft. The lore's perfectly fine, assuming someone actually bothers to read it rather than relying on 4chan and memes.

dingdingdingding and we have a winner!

The worst part is that it's not even like all of it is in novels or something of that nature. The codices have outright talked about this stuff. The supplements expanded it.

I've read the fluff. None of it is anything but window dressing. There is some talking of the talk, but zero walking of the walk. GW wasn't brave enough to have even one major chapter refuse to accept Primaris, much less to let it develop into a major schism within the Astartes system. Instead they forced everyone to immediately comply for economic reasons, with only some token grumbling here and there. It's a classic example of results-oriented justification.

The idea that these hide-bound traditionalists who have behaved the same way for 10,000 years would suddenly accept newly created supermen that obsolete the way they have done business for the last ten millenia, presented to them by a deeply suspicious figure like Cawl, beggars belief. No amount of hand-waving with Girlyman's plan-500-generations-in-the-making can justify that.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Pft. The lore's perfectly fine, assuming someone actually bothers to read it rather than relying on 4chan and memes.

Exactly. 1d4chan is one of the worst things to happen with fluff explanation.

Karol wrote:

Just to confirm - this is a discussion board about toy plastic soldiers, right? Not socio-political theory and very real issues?

There is no difference. A bad idea is a bad one. Doesn't matter where or why it is done.

Well, firstly, you'll need to prove it's "bad".
Things that lead to the death of REAL people? Definitely. Anything to do with little toy soliders? You'll have a hard time proving "bad" beyond your own opinion on the matter.

Also the soft squating of a 700-1000$ collection of models sounds super real to me. Can't get any more real, unless your collection costs even more.

I'm well aware my own collection of old Marines probably is more than that.

And you know what? I can still play older editions. I can still proxy. I can still make up rules and houserule.
But right now, I don't even have to do that, because we all still have rules for those models.

So, yeah, I take issue with the idea that "the end is nigh, all your models are worthless", because they only need be worthless if you believe they are.

What on earth has this got to do with the discussion?

Because the argument that stuff should be viewed as good and okey, because you can find a group of people that like it is a stupid one.

Why? If it's good enough for me and doesn't infringe on your interaction with the hobby, why does anyone feel the need to say I'm enjoying it wrong?

You can pick any thing to do, and you will always find a group of people that will say it is good and okey. Does not make the thing acceptable or good in general. It is a rather simple concept.

Sounds like a terrible concept, which not everyone agrees with, so I suggest we let people enjoy what they want, especially if it *only affects them*.

Icegoat wrote:How would people react if two wound 10 foot tall new elder came along?

If executed well, and the models look cool? I'm down for that.

An ancient race happily living for millions of years oh wait cawl invented space elf steroids buy these new super elder.

Sorry, "happily"? You know that the Eldar race is dying out, and are so desperate for a chance of survival that many turned to some of the most brutal acts imaginable to survive, and there's currently a major push within Eldar society to summon/birth/resurrect Ynnead to save their species?

If the Ynnari got some kind of 'Primaris-eque' unit makeover, and gave us loads of cool looking Eldar models, I wouldn't complain.

Primaris have killed any Hope's of 40k moving into other media.

That's why 40k has a larger media presence than ever, complete with BL's own Storyforge, an Eisenhorn show in the works (could be some time), and the new 40k Vermintide-like video game (can't remember the name, my apologies), and a Marvel Comics story about PRIMARIS Calgar aren't all happening, right?

40k's doing just fine, Primaris or no Primaris. And, frankly, I don't really think the general folks who have a more casual interest in 40k will really know, or care, too much about the difference between a Primaris and Firstborn Marine.

I must have missed where Space Marine Detachments require all Primaris units to be picked before you can take anything else.

It's funny how you lot keep harping on about GW not being "brave enough" to have a major Chapter refuse to accept Primaris...

Why would they? They have a fricking Primarch for the first time on their side since a time of legend and myth.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Pft. The lore's perfectly fine, assuming someone actually bothers to read it rather than relying on 4chan and memes.

Exactly. 1d4chan is one of the worst things to happen with fluff explanation.

There's another big offender, but I'm not going to bother explaining that one given all the other baggage associated.

Primaris are modern resculpts of the space marine line. Any lore or rules nonsense to the contrary is just so they can make the transition gradually until they've resculpted enough of the line they they don't need any of the old kits.

Primaris ARE space marines. They're just the modern sculpts.