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On face value? yes
But really it was the way they did it. If GW came out and just said, hey these are the new MKx marines that we made true scale or did not even say they were truth scale, and just launched them out, no one owuld have batted an eye.

I wish, for sake of marine players, that the updading didn't take 3 editions. Just give the intercessors their hellblasters, las talons, multi melta and te assault intercessorrs thier packs and upgrade the characters to have bikes like the chaplain or jet packs like Shrike.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Up-scaling marines was a good call.

A degree of the stream-lining they did was also a good call (this is a nu tactical squad, it only has "bolters", but these bolters can actually kill things so they're worth fielding).

The rules bloat was stupid (Intercessors, Incursers, and Infiltrators) with numerous units that fulfill the same role and do the same thing but ever-so-slightly different with no appreciable difference.

This is my biggest issue with them. There are multiple units with bolters, one of which has multiple variants. There's a single special weapon squad of only plasma guns, but there's three variants that are largely a solved equation (if you leave out chapter traits).
I still don't understand the rationale behind it. If they were intended for 28mm version of Inquisitor, then fine, you'll want weapon variants. But not at the 'more bigger armies' style of 40k

The lore is eh. The primaris lore itself is pretty lack-luster but advancing the timeline is good.

They could have soft-sold the lore change. 'Roboute wants to field squads equipped like old style legions' again- here's the option for that, and vaguely referred to a new implantation process that grows quicker and gets more marines on the field in this time of crisis. Done.

I'd say they were a great idea from a market perspective, a decent idea (at first) for game health, and a pretty weak idea in the story department.

I get the marketing. The game aspect was weird, because it took multiple revisions to make them even vaguely worthwhile.
The story area is baffling, simply because they'd bring things up (no chapter variations or curses, resistance to acceptance in some chapters) and then just drop it. They either didn't plan things out properly, didn't communicate internally properly, or someone came in and forcibly changed course on them.

Coming at this from a non-Marine angle, I doubt many Xeno players were overjoyed to see the best-supported and most bloated faction getting an entire new range of models, while some Xeno armies had been cut to the bone, and others had models old enough to drink.

Voss wrote:

They could have soft-sold the lore change. 'Roboute wants to field squads equipped like old style legions' again- here's the option for that, and vaguely referred to a new implantation process that grows quicker and gets more marines on the field in this time of crisis. Done.

^That would have been about a million times more palatteable.

I still find it very odd that Robute's refinement of his units from the Heresey was Tactical Squads, which are what I believe the UM Veteran squads in HH were. He puts that down in the Codex Astartes. And then he wakes up 10000 years later and is like "Nope! Retract all that back to single armament units!"

Voss wrote:

They could have soft-sold the lore change. 'Roboute wants to field squads equipped like old style legions' again- here's the option for that, and vaguely referred to a new implantation process that grows quicker and gets more marines on the field in this time of crisis. Done.

Yeah, that would have made way more sense in-setting too.

Primaris are aight, they give the marketing dept a more "up to date" aesthetic to try to sell to people into scifi. I think it was a good thing GW left them distinct from the Firstborn, doubly so now that they are rescaling the Firstborn because of Horus Heresy. I can still cling on to my beakies as a viable army in 40K, and Little Tim can enjoy his Phobosmarine army. win-win.

Primaris lore always seemed quite handwaivey but the lore can thankfully be ignored. Plenty of other lore on my personal ignore list, there's always room to leave more stuff out

 tauist wrote:
Primaris are aight, they give the marketing dept a more "up to date" aesthetic to try to sell to people into scifi. I think it was a good thing GW left them distinct from the Firstborn, doubly so now that they are rescaling the Firstborn because of Horus Heresy. I can still cling on to my beakies as a viable army in 40K, and Little Tim can enjoy his Phobosmarine army. win-win.

Do you think they would have squatted Firstborn marines by now if there wasn't an outcry?

Hecaton wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Primaris are aight, they give the marketing dept a more "up to date" aesthetic to try to sell to people into scifi. I think it was a good thing GW left them distinct from the Firstborn, doubly so now that they are rescaling the Firstborn because of Horus Heresy. I can still cling on to my beakies as a viable army in 40K, and Little Tim can enjoy his Phobosmarine army. win-win.

Do you think they would have squatted Firstborn marines by now if there wasn't an outcry?

I think somewhere in the depths of management or marketing team, that was the plan, centered around 'people will just buy new armies.' Which is mostly true, but...

the ill will of the AoS transition (several of the stores around me shrank their GW stock and were considering just bailing entirely as a consequence. It wasn't even a matter of game quality, it was just people not buying) and how much of 40k profits (which are the pillar of GW profits) are centered around space marines made them reconsider. It was too big a risk. GW could (and did) soak the anger over WFB->AoS, and eventually pulled back out, even if they permanently table flipped and replaced part of the player base in the process. Trying that with Space Marines could legitimately break the company's back.

Hopefully the success of the HH plastics will reinforce the message- 'old marines' aren't something they can walk away from.
Now we just need to convince them that we don't need 40-odd bolter profiles and grav-tanks in marine armies are dumb (and Deimos tank variants are awesome)

Model wise, the Primaris are a mixed bag with some good sculpts and some sculpts that don't quite gel with the imagery commonly associated with 40k.

Lore wise Primaris are a dumpster fire which completely undermines the themes and foundation of the setting.

And why did they have to base their helmets on Mk.IV helmets?

Yes, this complaint is 100% my own bias and just something that irks me, but I really dislike Mk.IV, so the Primaris helmets (and the Necromunda Enforcer helmets) really bother me.

It's why I've gone out of my way to get scores of Crusader Helms for my Primaris army.

Hecaton wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Primaris are aight, they give the marketing dept a more "up to date" aesthetic to try to sell to people into scifi. I think it was a good thing GW left them distinct from the Firstborn, doubly so now that they are rescaling the Firstborn because of Horus Heresy. I can still cling on to my beakies as a viable army in 40K, and Little Tim can enjoy his Phobosmarine army. win-win.

Do you think they would have squatted Firstborn marines by now if there wasn't an outcry?

In the lore, pre the time jump revert, the non primaris marines were more or less gone. Most marines don't live past 200 years, so even fresh full battlebrothers would be majority dead. Most heroes, who are human would be very old or dead, most marines , unless they were BA succesors or dread would be dead too. But then we got the time cut and were suddenly made to believe that since the scar blowing up only 13 years passed. Which made the speed and number of planets retaken superior many times, to even the Great Crusade.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And why did they have to base their helmets on Mk.IV helmets?

Yes, this complaint is 100% my own bias and just something that irks me, but I really dislike Mk.IV, so the Primaris helmets (and the Necromunda Enforcer helmets) really bother me.

It's why I've gone out of my way to get scores of Crusader Helms for my Primaris army.

I don't like this helmet either. People say the Darth Vader-esque grill looks antiquated, but at least it's cool. Better than the baboon face Mk IV helms.

 morganfreeman wrote:

A degree of the stream-lining they did was also a good call (this is a nu tactical squad, it only has "bolters", but these bolters can actually kill things so they're worth fielding).

God no. That's like the worst call about them. That's why people called them Eldar Marines. Just what we always wanted, Dire Avengers! Just nope.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Voss wrote:

They could have soft-sold the lore change. 'Roboute wants to field squads equipped like old style legions' again- here's the option for that, and vaguely referred to a new implantation process that grows quicker and gets more marines on the field in this time of crisis. Done.

^That would have been about a million times more palatteable.

I still find it very odd that Robute's refinement of his units from the Heresey was Tactical Squads, which are what I believe the UM Veteran squads in HH were. He puts that down in the Codex Astartes. And then he wakes up 10000 years later and is like "Nope! Retract all that back to single armament units!"

You mean you don't see how 10,000 years of field-testing could result in conclusive evidence that you got something wrong?

Or maybe squads with all the same weapon means no one needs to buy bits from evil third parties.

Does the king know what you've done to his English?

 alextroy wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Voss wrote:

They could have soft-sold the lore change. 'Roboute wants to field squads equipped like old style legions' again- here's the option for that, and vaguely referred to a new implantation process that grows quicker and gets more marines on the field in this time of crisis. Done.

^That would have been about a million times more palatteable.

I still find it very odd that Robute's refinement of his units from the Heresey was Tactical Squads, which are what I believe the UM Veteran squads in HH were. He puts that down in the Codex Astartes. And then he wakes up 10000 years later and is like "Nope! Retract all that back to single armament units!"

You mean you don't see how 10,000 years of field-testing could result in conclusive evidence that you got something wrong?

An interesting theory, but maybe you could explain why squads being less capable of acting independently is a good idea, or explain why mixed armament squads is "wrong".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Or maybe squads with all the same weapon means no one needs to buy bits from evil third parties.

If we were to go the cynical cooperate route, I'd say it's worse than that. With True/RealMarines, in order to swap mission specialty you just need to exchange a few models. The Primaris require swapping entire squads.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Or maybe squads with all the same weapon means no one needs to buy bits from evil third parties.

If we were to go the cynical cooperate route, I'd say it's worse than that. With True/RealMarines, in order to swap mission specialty you just need to exchange a few models. The Primaris require swapping entire squads.

This is actually a reasonable corporate boardroom decision.

Primaris were an interesting solution to a bizarre problem: GW makes it's nut selling Space Marines, but by 2015 that range was not just complete, but overstuffed. Everything was in plastic, and a lot of units were already on the second generation of plastic. GW makes good money on the back catalog, but even they have to make the most cash off new releases. So... what do you do when your biggest army is complete?

You reboot it, of course! I think the primaris, in execution, are a mixed bag, but they're such a clever solution that you really have to tip your hat. Obviously, they had to massage the fluff a bit, and it changes how Space marines play, but based on how many primaris armies I see, it's been a success.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
On face value? yes
But really it was the way they did it. If GW came out and just said, hey these are the new MKx marines that we made true scale or did not even say they were truth scale, and just launched them out, no one owuld have batted an eye.

You must not have been around for the outrage when GW moved from beakies to grill-mouth marines...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Or maybe squads with all the same weapon means no one needs to buy bits from evil third parties.

Oh I see you have forgotten what happened, when intercessor sgts at the end of 8th ed got the option to take melee weapons like fists and thunder hammers. And back then intercessors were a unit marine players actualy wanted to run. Right now the marine armies that work, practicaly don't run other primaris, then eliminators and incursors.

Also for all we know in 10th or 11th ed, they may get an option to take "heavy" weapons. BT already have their flamers, so it is not hard to imagine an intercessor with a las talon or a multi melta.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
On face value? yes
But really it was the way they did it. If GW came out and just said, hey these are the new MKx marines that we made true scale or did not even say they were truth scale, and just launched them out, no one owuld have batted an eye.

You must not have been around for the outrage when GW moved from beakies to grill-mouth marines...

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Ahh the good ol' days...

Personally yes I think they are a detrimental addition to the game.
I find the models and artwork uninspiring.
I think they damage the Space Marine lore and themes of the setting.

The good things is that they are set firmly in M42, so any campaign set before then doesn't need to concern themselves with Primaris!

 Stormonu wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
On face value? yes
But really it was the way they did it. If GW came out and just said, hey these are the new MKx marines that we made true scale or did not even say they were truth scale, and just launched them out, no one owuld have batted an eye.

You must not have been around for the outrage when GW moved from beakies to grill-mouth marines...

Fair But at least they didn't replace squad organizations, vehicles, crap on the lore etc. And I love that my beakies, (although currently unpainted) can be happily fielded today.

 Stormonu wrote:
You must not have been around for the outrage when GW moved from beakies to grill-mouth marines...

Places like Dakka were aflame when that happened in the early 90's.

Karol wrote:
Oh I see you have forgotten what happened, when intercessor sgts at the end of 8th ed got the option to take melee weapons like fists and thunder hammers.

A change was made later on. So?

Karol wrote:
And back then intercessors were a unit marine players actualy wanted to run. Right now the marine armies that work, practicaly don't run other primaris, then eliminators and incursors.

And this is relevant to the discussion because... ?

Karol wrote:
Also for all we know in 10th or 11th ed, they may get an option to take "heavy" weapons. BT already have their flamers, so it is not hard to imagine an intercessor with a las talon or a multi melta.

They'd need a whole new kit for that.

They could do it with just a weapons sprue.
Included or bought separately.

ccs wrote:
They could do it with just a weapons sprue.
Included or bought separately.

No,if GW finally decide give Primaris Marines Heavy Weapon and Special Weapon,they will never do it in this way.

GW will release a entire squad of PSM with SAME weapon-------------such as : whole squad equip with flamer and named them as "burner";whole squad equip with heavy flamer and named as "bigga burner",etc.

if you want primaris marines in oldmarine style or proxy,you must have buy a FULL SQUAD of those weapons you wanted.

never underestimated how shameless of GW will be.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
You must not have been around for the outrage when GW moved from beakies to grill-mouth marines...

Places like Dakka were aflame when that happened in the early 90's.

Haha - was Dakka even around back then? I know there a lot of hate about it in our local area, including the local Cons I went to at the time.

I don't even think the Internet was around back when that happened, let alone Dakka.