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Something I’ve been turning over in my head for the longest time. The Space Marines codex is a massive book. If you went to smash a spider with it, you’d probably break your hands. I, and most other people in my meta, have now switched completely to using Primaris units only. I have two squads of Firstborn left in my collection, and they’re only really sticking because Sanguinary Guard at least look cool. So the big question: Next time GW releases a Space Marines codex, should they offer up a version that just has the Primaris goodies? Interested to see what other people think.

I have no idea what they're going to do with Firstborn. Friend and I have speculated that they're, hopefully, going to find a way to consolidate the Primaris and Firstborn slates together... but I have doubts GW will ever find such an elegant solution. My biggest concern is they "out with the old" yeet firstborn into a garbage can. The game is clearly meant for Primaris now. I don't really think it does any favors for the old guard, though, and if they mishandle it going forward (even by doing nothing), they're going to turn off the people who got GW to where they are.

It is a pickle, isn't it?

This question seems to come up often and it's always a heated debate.

I do agree that the SM codex is too large, but should GW move all 'First Born' to a different codex... No, not at all.

I firmly believe that we will eventually see all of the 'First Born' move to Legends, but I predict that it will be a slow move over time (e.g. a handful of units at a time as each new codex comes). I believe as kits become dated and/or fall out of favor, those will be the first to make the move.

Not to hijack the intent of the thread, but if I had to predict which units would be the first to make the move, it would be...

1. Bikes
2. Scout bikes
3. Attack bike
4. Scouts
5. Land speeder storm

it would then continue codex to codex, moving a handful of units to Legends each time.

I'm getting my popcorn ready for this one.

"We didn't start the fire...."

Arcanis161 wrote:
I'm getting my popcorn ready for this one.

"We didn't start the fire...."

It certainly will. Between the people that have no memory and/or empathy to starting 40k, and their ideas to make the start of that journey as confusing as possible. To those that just hate space marines and want to tear them down at every opportunity. This should be quite entertaining.

Honestly I always see Primaris as a purely management choice to squeeze profits. They were clearly just going to be the new mark model release for the army, but someone had the idea to release them alongside. Perhaps as GW does digital sculpting now they also just upped the scaling a little as well.


The result is Marines are unique in that they've almost two entire army rosters, with many units and vehicles being similar or sharing the same role visually, if not also in stats.


It kind of works because marines sell REALLY well; but its also very strange when you consider that no other army (heck I don't think any other game range) ever did this before nor looks like they ever will.



The problem is by creating two separate forces instead of one moving into the other, GW has created a situation where they are tied. They can't remove Primaris nor standard marines because to do either means turning away a BIG chunk of their core customer and fanbase. Even those who have both (which is many) won't like half their army being "squatted".

Meanwhile splitting them into two separate armies could be done, but with each one also having model specific chapters it's basically creating a massive headache in terms of how much they have to support.









My gut feeling is that they will exist side by side for a long while, with perhaps a gradual and slow removal of regular marines and a slow replacement of Primaris. So in 20 years you'll have a whole Primaris design army and you won't "see" the loss of the Marines because you only lost a few models here and there each time.

A few very iconic things will likely get Primaris upgrades such as a tracked landraider and such. So, again, you technically lose the "marine" version but you won't likely notice it all that much compared to if it were removed entirely as a model concept.

Given how little GW seems to care about rules bloat. I fully expect them to keep the Firstborn around in the codex so people can still technically play then, while still designing the game around the Primaris. They don't really loose anything by doing this, but could stand to loose a whole lot in the backlash when all the veteran space marines players get pissed.

Also on the topic of Legends, I'm not sure that's going to stick around for long. Only one edition past their inception and the codex creep has left most of them well in the dust. It won't be long now until they just don't feel fun to play anymore, even in casual. They'll either get functionally abandoned, or revamped with a new edition.

 Tawnis wrote:

Also on the topic of Legends, I'm not sure that's going to stick around for long. Only one edition past their inception and the codex creep has left most of them well in the dust. It won't be long now until they just don't feel fun to play anymore, even in casual. They'll either get functionally abandoned, or revamped with a new edition.

I've always thought Legends should have been its own game system. Just some rules for everything that existed pre-8th, a balance tweak everything year or so, and a famous scenario (Vraks, Armageddon, Badab, etc) every few months.

No, they should not split the book into two volumes.

Although I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the book reorganized. 4 sections:
Lore/pictures/modeling etc
Faction rules
All the 1st born units
All the Primaris stuff

In answer to the poll? No, I would not buy it. I don't want my DA to require THREE books to play. If it came to that? I'd do one of the following: Pirate all 3 or just stop using the few Primaris units I've added.

'The Firstborn, seeing their younger brothers eclipsing them in all ways, took Chaos' offer and all became CSM.'

All Primaris units are legended tommorow, firstborn are kept, then secundus marines are released to squeeze more profits out of valraks wverywhere .

I don't think "firstborn" are going anywhere just yet although in a few years time I could see the Space Marine going pure Primaris. Right now the book is too clunky and I would not be surprised if the SM codex was split into two books. Partyl because of units and partly to generate more money since some players will play units from both books.

I think the solution to this is simply merging codex entries. There's far, far too many redundant units, most of which are using 'that other bolter that's randomly distinct from bolter bolters'

A simple upgrade kit with Bellisarus Cawl approved special and heavy weapons and all the duplicate I-word marines can just be 'Primaris/Tactical' squads.

At this point Primaris and Squat marines are basically an Attack characteristic away from each other, and wearing different armor marks. So.... whatever. We don't distinguish between mk6, mk3 or mk7 armor rules, so why do it with the new guys?

If you've got a bolter, you're a tactical. If you've got BP and sword, you're assault. Add some interchangeability for the weirder stuff (fire support jet packs can be one unit with weapon options), make some properly scaled jump packs for assault intercessors and call it done.


-----
Also, lets be honest, the HH box set is going to cannibalized by 40k players. GW would be profoundly stupid to 'legend' oldmarines right now.

Split them into separate books so I don't have to rebuy my codex just to keep up with the Primaris releases I don't care about.

But while we're at it re-combine Daemons and CSM into one book, they never should have split. Stick Renegades and Heretics in there too.

Also get better at writing unit entries. So much bloat is just datasheets for the sake of datasheets.

A Marine with a Bolter is a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Plasmagun is a Marine with a Plasmagun. You can keep differences between Intercessors and Tactical Marines or Devastators with Plasma/ Melta and Helblasters / Eradicators in a little fluff blurb but outside of loyalists noone will care, really. Combine profiles and the book becomes more reasonable. No other faction needed a new profile for upscaled models, neither do Marines.

Long term I think all the firstborn are going to end up primaris-ized. In time the firstborn kits will be rotated out of production and the rules will be legendsed, and then they'll just release "Primarish Tactical Squads" and "Primaris Devastator Squads", etc. that are functional equivalents but scaled up bigger.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
A Marine with a Bolter is a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Plasmagun is a Marine with a Plasmagun. You can keep differences between Intercessors and Tactical Marines or Devastators with Plasma/ Melta and Helblasters / Eradicators in a little fluff blurb but outside of loyalists noone will care, really. Combine profiles and the book becomes more reasonable. No other faction needed a new profile for upscaled models, neither do Marines.

Could you give me a sample of what marine model kits would be used to generate your idea of space marine Troop options? Don't worry about weapon loadout, just which model kits used for your idea of the Troops options. If you do leave of a kit such as Incursors/Infiltrators, could you inform me where you're going to place it? Also, you can leave out kits that can be used but would be intended primarily for another datasheet (i.e. Veteran Squads).

To help you out, the current space marine Troop model kits are:

Tactical Marines
Intercessors
Assault Intercessors
Heavy Intercessors
Incursors/Infiltrators


As a bonus, if you don't mind; I am curious about Hellblasters (potentially Eradicators too) under your regime. The best assumption I can make is the non-Heavy Plasma Incinerators got to Tacticals/Sternguard Vets as plasmaguns while the Heavy goes to Tacticals/Devastors (as Devastors don't take special weapons) as plasmacannons. Then again, you might just say there is no such thing as plasmacannons and everything is a plasmagun.

It's very hard to get a read on how you want to space hulk marine models and datasheets.

I think GW should do something to cut back. They kept acting like unit count was a case where more was always better. It isn't. Once a codex goes over 50 options or so, it is too much. Now the marine book could cut a TON of that back by consolidating the dozens of redundant dataslates that are really just alternate equipment options instead of insisting one diehard chapterhouseism but hey, GW doing something that hurts everyone for no gain is par for the course.

They just need to consolidate the profiles so everyone wins.

HOWEVER the neckbeards that constantly defend the Manlet Marines would be mad at a First Born elimination. Tough decision.

If Primaris had the decency to have ways to build them to be your dudes and have wargear then I’d maybe like them. As it is firstborns are just the better army for modeling and gaming.

Mechanically, if they did a decent job merging redundant units with loadouts that could represent both, I really wouldn't care.

Visually, if GW had just rebooted the line with pretty, larger marines, I also wouldn't care, and would probably have more than the few that I got in trades, heck, after these years I might mostly have Primaris dudes at this point since they do have nicer proportions and sharper detail. It would have taken nothing to say that their new armor is bigger blah blah blah and slap on a few new options that make the new versions more desireable to keep old collectors buying and just drop old redundant kits. But they made that artificial distinction for such a transparent attempt to render old models obsolete, and at this point I'd play an old edition over collecting a primaris army if that's the choice I was forced into making.

They will be legended slowly over a 12 years timeframe.

I'm going to say no as it wasn't really an option in the poll. Do we really need yet another Imperial codex. I don't care if first born are phased out or not at this point. I'm ready to phase out myself, unless the rules drastically improve and we get an injection of fun back into 40K.

All so true:

Insectum7 wrote:Split them into separate books so I don't have to rebuy my codex just to keep up with the Primaris releases I don't care about.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:A Marine with a Bolter is a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Plasmagun is a Marine with a Plasmagun. ... No other faction needed a new profile for upscaled models, neither do Marines.

Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:If Primaris had the decency to have ways to build them to be your dudes and have wargear then I’d maybe like them. As it is firstborns are just the better army for modeling and gaming.

spiralingcadaver wrote:Mechanically, if they did a decent job merging redundant units with loadouts that could represent both, I really wouldn't care.

I can't vote because I wouldn't buy the physical Codex regardless of what they did.

But, yeah, I think that GW will eventually realise that the flagship faction in their flagship game having a Codex with 120+ separate entries (more once Marines 2.0 hits) plus no less than 11 supplemental books (!) just isn't sustainable, especially as a barrier to entry to new players. That's when the First Borns will get shipped off to legends.

That's also when I see Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Blood Angels getting the Primaris Black Templar treatment - moving their signature units into full Primaris kits.

And we shall all lament (except Crimson), as we witness the demise of the mighty Angry Washing Machine-Pattern Dreadnought...

Washing Machine Dreadnought sucks. I will die on this hill. They look bad and impractical even by 40k standards. Contemptors and Redemptors look SO much better.

I will say I was initially turned off by the Redemptor but as I've actually seen it in person, they actually have a similar build to a strongman which helped me appreciate it more.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Washing Machine Dreadnought sucks. I will die on this hill. They look bad and impractical even by 40k standards. Contemptors and Redemptors look SO much better.

I couldn't disagree more

The Boxnaught is the model that brought me in to 40k in the first place. A design of divine inspiration!

Just make 2 codexes, Codex: First-born and Codex: Primaris. Then allow them to mix units from either.

Things it can do:
- Allow the creation of Primaris only chapters.
- Allow the creation of First-born only chapters.
- Allow the creation of mixed chapters.
- Less bloat per book.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

That's also when I see Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Blood Angels getting the Primaris Black Templar treatment - moving their signature units into full Primaris kits.

This is insightful.
And I guess it would be great to see new guard like the recent killteam kits.

I still cannot reason why they can't soft retcon the Cawlsian revolution to allow continued use of older kits that may be in some ways inferior to new kits. People will buy the new kits because the models are better and they want new kits, so GW satisfies the new player collector and they get the greybeard who is already invested enough to remain interested. Perhaps the story could be that Cawl has perfected his patented Rubicon Cross gene therapies without forcing an OG marine to grow ten inches requiring an armor refit and armament upgrade.

Likelwise, as for newly issued guard units, Cawl has recommended that all newly issued guard units receive two doses plus are administered tri-annual Cawl patented power level booster jabz.

New releases like these might get a "power level" upgrade as reflected in the current rules update, with upgrades included in base cost (so "free").

Across the range, new releases could use "power levels" in points-valued games as players sort out which are the best configurations, with points values assigned in a future points and rules update. This would also make sense of power levels, as in what is the purpose beside wysiwyg games without the paperwork.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Washing Machine Dreadnought sucks. I will die on this hill. They look bad and impractical even by 40k standards. Contemptors and Redemptors look SO much better.

I couldn't disagree more

The Boxnaught is the model that brought me in to 40k in the first place. A design of divine inspiration!

It is a should-be-dead dude in a walking tomb.

Jarms48 wrote:
Just make 2 codexes, Codex: First-born and Codex: Primaris. Then allow them to mix units from either.

Things it can do:
- Allow the creation of Primaris only chapters.
- Allow the creation of First-born only chapters.
- Allow the creation of mixed chapters.

I can already do all of this with the current setup.

Jarms48 wrote:
- Less bloat per book.

Really? You really think that's how it'd work out? How cute.
What'll happen is even more bloat, even more room for errors, etc.
And to run my Dark Angels as-is I'd need to then buy 3! books. No thanks.