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I am getting back into 40k and about to upgrade my Dark Angels army from like 8 year ago (The Dark Vengeance box set is the last thing I got) and looking at GWs site, I see all these Primaris units.

I see my Ravenwing bikes are still here but now there is also these Outriders. Bladeguard to vets, Incursor's to Scouts, Eradicators to Devastators, etc.

It feels like the game is currently in a transition period switching from all the older models to newer, bigger ones.

Before I buy a couple of squads of Deathwing Termies (good god the Command squad of five got EXPENSIVE), is there any word on the street if Termies or any other "legacy" units are going to be kept along side this new Primaris "line" or should I just get Primaris Aggressors or whatever instead to help a little bit on future editions?

Thank you

ok, you're going to get some people rushing in here to tell you "YERS THE END TIMES ARE NIEGH" but they're leaping to conclusions. right now we dunno for sure but the indications are that the answer is "not anytime soon, if ever" the oldest SM units in the range are the vehicles, and those are shared by sisters of battle, grey knights, and chaos space marines, so far GW has shown no inclination to get rid of those models (the sisters of battle rhino is just the old rhino hull with an upgrade sprue) so I don't think "first born marines" are going anywhere anytime soon.

the general consensus is that GW was planning a far larger time jump then they actually did and their new CEO decided it was a HORRIABLE IDEA , and primaris marines are effectively a product of a plan to replace marines with a new line of them.

Nobody can really know. However, just recently there were some leaked images of new plastic models for the Horus Heresy series. They appeared to Tactical Squads (in OG Mk 6 "beakie" armor). That would seem to indicate a future that isn't exclusively Primaris.

Personally, I'll never collect Primaris. I'd sooner play an earlier edition again before giving up my Tacticals and Terminators.

Eventually yes. But this isn't something that can happen overnight. It's a majorly long-term project that would take several Codices of parallel running before the First Borns are shuffled off to Legends. I wouldn't even put it in the next Codex, but the one after that, couched in terms of "As there are now well over 100 separate Data Sheets for Space Marines, we felt that this was too overwhelming towards new players, especially with Warhammer 40,000's flagship faction! As such we have made the difficult decision to... etc. etc. etc.".

BrianDavion wrote:
ok, you're going to get some people rushing in here to tell you "YERS THE END TIMES ARE NIEGH" but they're leaping to conclusions.

And, apparently, you're going to get some people rushing in here to poison the well.

BrianDavion wrote:
... the oldest SM units in the range are the vehicles, and those are shared by sisters of battle, grey knights, and chaos space marines, so far GW has shown no inclination to get rid of those models (the sisters of battle rhino is just the old rhino hull with an upgrade sprue) so I don't think "first born marines" are going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think that matters. Consider that the Rhino kit is faction-agnostic. You need a completely separate frame to make it into a Marine vehicle. Ditto for Chaos, and again for Sisters.

Nothing about the Rhino requires it to remain an option available to Space Marines if other factions still have it. They could cut it tomorrow and it wouldn't change how Rhinos work with with Sisters or Chaos.

I think what's far more likely is that we may end up with Terminators and Centurions sticking around for Marines, along with Land Raiders and Drop Pods (that can suddenly carry Primaris Marines). Meanwhile the Rhino-based vehicles Marines have are phased out, which in turn does not impact Sisters or Chaos in any significant fashion.

Grey Knights are a more challenging prospect, but if the recent GK Codex has given us any indication, GW really doesn't know what round hole the square peg of the GK range will fit into.

Or, the Rhino stays around for the upcoming 30k release, extending the life of that mould a little bit longer.

I can see them splitting into 2 dexes, but the models themselves will not be phased out for at the very very least 8 years.

Wild prediction: we will see new Firstborn kits with upscaled Marines, about Primaris sized.

People used to wonder when, not if, firstborn would be retired.

The new Crowe model is just about Primaris sized. The new 30k models appear to be larger than previous ones.

In the lore the majority of chapters, and all the named and know ones, aside for GK, no longer produce non primaris marines. Before the lore change that shortend the Gulliman era from 200 to 12 years, this ment that with a regular marines life span being 200-300 years, most non primaris marines were dead by the time Indomitus was suppose to happen. Now it is change to 12 years, so all the marines that survived the post warp sundering, should be plenty.

In the end it comes down to GW decision that is not lore related. I do think we can say that if a moment comes that the majority, if not all the marine lines, can be represented with primaris, the chance of everything non primaris going in to legends is very high. What ever that happens in 10th or 11th ed, only GW knows.

nobody really knows. blood angel tacticals are gone, and i think they weren't that old. so take that as you will for dark angels' future.

There's some rumors of the Horus Heresy turning into a system to cover from m30-40.999; if I were to guess, this would be where they'd go if these rumors are true.

My take is that Firstborn are about to become the "new Primaris" within a few years. There's a new Horus Heresy box coming (rumoured to drop in Q4/2021) , which will reintroduce resculpted Mk VI beakies with new proportions, and rumours are saying that other marks of Firstbron armour will follow suit later. Somehow I'm not convinced that those marine models will only be limited to games of HH either, so GW will keep on publishing rules for them for regular 40K.

You'll might still need to buy new firstborn minis because the new resculpted proportions will make your old models look ridiculous

But don't jump too heavily into the Primaris bandwagon! That ship has sailed by now, GW has already moved on... They always have plans for the next few years ahead. I sometimes even think they are too focused on the future to realize the mistakes they make in the "now", but I digress..

What I have done personally is, I've only collected Gravis Armoured Primaris to use alonside my firstborn. So that leaves Inceptors, Heavy Interecessors, Aggressors and those Melta Rifle toting dudes (I never remember their names). That way, the scales seem less off, as Gravis Armour is supposed to be significantly bulkier than a basic firstborn Power Armour.

As for Terminator Armour, I'd say you're safe for now. There haven't been any rumours regarding their resculpting, and I don't really think GW can just drop such an iconic Armour Design from their lineup altogether.

I think they will be phased together eventually, instead of the firstborn marines being removed. They will get a tactical marine upgrade as marines just become marines again in the new size.
It’s probably the only way for GW to do it at this point.

Boring observation - but buy what you want *now* and enjoy painting and playing with them *now* rather than worrying about what the game may look like around 2030 when you may well not care about it at all.

Academically its hard to see GW re-releasing mini-marines so on paper their days should be numbered. But equally GW have been selling certain Eldar kits for decades - there's no reason they should stop printing tactical marines if they continue to sell, nor an obvious shortage of paper to justify "oh the SM Codex is just too big."

Tyel wrote:
Boring observation - but buy what you want *now* and enjoy painting and playing with them *now* rather than worrying about what the game may look like around 2030 when you may well not care about it at all.

Agreed on this. Buy what you enjoy now, because you can't see into the future. If there's a chance that it might become obsolete, and you would never find enjoyment from it again, even on an aesthetic level, don't get it. If you don't mind it potentially being unsupported by rules in the future, then go and get it, if you can justify it.

If you want to future proof your army, I wouldn't buy any non-primaris models at this point. It is likely that non-primaris marines will be phased out eventually, or alternatively will receive new, upscaled sculpts*. But current minimarines are outdated either way.

* We know that some are coming for HH, and they will be mostly usable for 40K too.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Boring observation - but buy what you want *now* and enjoy painting and playing with them *now* rather than worrying about what the game may look like around 2030 when you may well not care about it at all.

Agreed on this. Buy what you enjoy now, because you can't see into the future. If there's a chance that it might become obsolete, and you would never find enjoyment from it again, even on an aesthetic level, don't get it. If you don't mind it potentially being unsupported by rules in the future, then go and get it, if you can justify it.

Double agree on this, because we have the factor of this IRL century being a growing gakstorm the likes of which we've never seen. Firstborn aren't going anywhere for the next few years at least. As for planning longer than that... well, what were your plans for the future in 2015?

I think at some point but we're talking like at least 10 years or so. I don't see them making another 40k tactical squad kit, for instance.

I doubt the oldmarines will be disappearing en masse anytime soon. There have been very few new old-style Space Marine models released since the launch of 8th edition in 2017 (I think only the Japanese lucky dip collectables and possibly a Special Character or two?). Aside from these exceptions all the new Space Marine releases have been Primaris and I would expect that to continue going forward.

Also, be aware that GW have introduced a legacy system (Warhammer Legends) giving rules and points for discontinued/unsupported models, which includes a number of old-style space marines. They don't update the rules or points for these, and whether or not they are acceptable to be used would vary between player groups, but generally speaking they aren't allowed in competitions.

There is every chance that going forward more old-style marines could be moved to Warhammer Legends, but at present it seems unlikely this will happen soon. GW seem to be doing this mostly for units which have had rules in the past but no specific model, or where the model has been discontinued (eg. Primaris Marneus Calgar has been released, so rules for the older Marneus Calgar models are now in Warhammer Legends).

https://www.warhammer-community.com/legends/#warhammer-40000

As I am sure someone has already said, There is already precedent for it in the lore. The BA are basically full primaris now, as are two successor chapters, after the Sundering of Baal. The only ones who aren't are Dante (Too old) and Karlaen. Everyone else is basically Primaris, well except for the Sanguinary Guard, Because Cawl forgot to create "Jump pack primaris"

Fezz that's not even close to true. The BA and their successors were shattered by the Devastation but fully half the Blood Angels Chapter was with Karlaen, Lemartes and Astorath. Chapters can still make Firstborn, they don't have to make Primaris.

I'm sure their original intention was to phase out old marines for primaris and force people to rebuy their marine armies.

I'm also fairly sure they didn't sell anywhere near as well as they hoped which is why trueborn got 2 wounds and decent rules in 9th.

Primaris units are inflexible they do one thing well but only one, which is why people struggle to do pure primaris armies.

 Wuyley wrote:
I am getting back into 40k and about to upgrade my Dark Angels army from like 8 year ago (The Dark Vengeance box set is the last thing I got) and looking at GWs site, I see all these Primaris units.

I see my Ravenwing bikes are still here but now there is also these Outriders. Bladeguard to vets, Incursor's to Scouts, Eradicators to Devastators, etc.

It feels like the game is currently in a transition period switching from all the older models to newer, bigger ones.

Before I buy a couple of squads of Deathwing Termies (good god the Command squad of five got EXPENSIVE), is there any word on the street if Termies or any other "legacy" units are going to be kept along side this new Primaris "line" or should I just get Primaris Aggressors or whatever instead to help a little bit on future editions?

Thank you

I think the big question is, what will GW do with this primaris black templars release.

if gw releases primaris black templars with the black templars squad configuration such that you can use an existing BT squad as primaris, I think that's a pretty clear sign theyre moving towards phasing out firstborn.

If they don't, I dunno. maybe that means they're sticking around?

There are BT initates and neophytes on the cover of the up coming codex. So I think the chance of there not being any BT primaris crusader squads is zero. And the leaks about the BT patrol box say they have a 6 to 4 split sprue for a crusader squad in it. And the people that leaked this, got everything right in the prior releases, so there is an above 50% chance that it may be true.

I kind of expect some units to go away as and when production equipment starts to fail; various not-that-popular-units like scouts, hunters/stalkers etc may well go into legends in the not distant future.

For firstborn in general though, they are not getting phased out any time soon - by GW's own standards if they make plastic models then they make codex rules. New stuff like 30k first born marines in the new marine scale will ensure that some degree of firstborn marines will stick around, even if the codex entries get super streamlined into generic tactical/assault/devastator/terminator units.

 the_scotsman wrote:
I think the big question is, what will GW do with this primaris black templars release.

if gw releases primaris black templars with the black templars squad configuration such that you can use an existing BT squad as primaris, I think that's a pretty clear sign theyre moving towards phasing out firstborn.

If they don't, I dunno. maybe that means they're sticking around?

Some of the rumours say there's a First Born Crusade squad coming alongside the Primaris one. I find that doubtful, but the source is meant to be very reliable.

Karol wrote:
There are BT initates and neophytes on the cover of the up coming codex.

Non-Primaris ones?

sandor1988 wrote:nobody really knows. blood angel tacticals are gone, and i think they weren't that old. so take that as you will for dark angels' future.

Wasn't the BA tactical squad box just the normal tactical squad but included one or two of the BA upgrade sprue?

On topic... @OP... As you can see, no one really knows, but there is rampant speculation. I believe they will eventually be relegated to Legends, possibly within the next one or two codex updates because the quantity of SM datasheets is fethin' ridiculous.

No, that's the Blood Angels Vanguard Veterans.

But the Tactical Squad and Assault Terminators were a totally stand alone kit.

Personally I would prefer a split into Primaris and non Primaris chapters. Both for balance and looks. Hell I would love a civil War between notable examples of each.

Would be a neat Forgeworld campaign series book. Something like a noted chapter master, genius at logistics, essentially running multiple chapters in the side of the Imperium that has gone dark doesn't recognise the new ones for all the reasons we like to put forward and ends up fighting Primaris chapters sent to reinforce/replace his guys.

Chapter trait can be the excellent supplies allowing units to really hose targets which is shorthand for their weapons doing a minimum of 2 damage each.

And away you go...

I doubt GW will ever replace old marines knowing the pushback would be severe. I think over time they will thin the line though, your core units will likely always have rules. Tactical marines, terminators, rhinos, razerbacks, drop pods, land raiders, bikes, dreadnaughts, and assault marines. They may keep scouts, predators, devastators, speeders, and centurian varieties.

As time goes on my guess is all the main entries start to go away and it starts going down to one classic dreadnaught entry and everything else blended into just those few unit entries with more specialty models like old classic marine captains, apothocaries, techmarines etc moved to legend status or 30k status

 kirotheavenger wrote:
No, that's the Blood Angels Vanguard Veterans.

But the Tactical Squad and Assault Terminators were a totally stand alone kit.

The Assault Terminators are still available from GW. No idea why the BA tac squad got dropped though; maybe it wasn't selling enough and GW decided that the Death Company kit has enough custom BA bits for everyone.

The BA tactical squad is probably one of the best looking kits GW ever made though. Ton of parts and upgrades too. With the number of stuff in the box, it felt more like a veteran box then a regular troop options box.