Primaris Marines are the new Marine & Meta standard!

[Raven1]

Reese over at FLG just released a video and a portion of the podcast addresses Primaris marines. It might worth while for those that have fears or dislike about them to watch it.

[deathspectersgt7]

I 'am on the fence on the new stuff . Model wise love them . Fluff wise Pffft !!!! go suck a lemon . Rule wise ehhh!!!  But have they release anything on the Regular Marines rule wise ? I have yet to see anything . Only that you can upgrade them to primmie status but what if you don't . 

 

And if people have concerns that is their right . They should have rescaled in 2013 when they released the Tactical Squad. That is my biggest  bitch about this . I have put together and painted 700 of them .  So now I have to rebase just to make them look the same scale. 

[Elzender]

Regarding the possibility of a regular marine becoming a primaris, did GW give any details? If so, could somebody put them here, please?

 

As a speculation, the regular-to-primaris transformation could be a extremely complex process, and thus not available to all marines, limiting the possibility of just upgrading a whole chapter. If it was a simple process, why not just upgrade your battle-hardened and veteran marines, instead of creating new ones?

Maybe even the production of new primaris marines is a complex process, and thus just replacing regular marines with them is not as easy, or they can only be created and/or equipped on Cawl's facilities, while each chapter can create regular marines in an autonomous manner. Cawl has had ten thousand years to create a huge number of primaris marines (the exact figure is still to be revealed), but how many space marines have been created during this time? More than twenty foundings, and each existing chapter replacing losses during hundreds or thousands of years mean lots and lots of marines.

[Radiation]

None of the lore reasons for keeping old marines matter. It is just MARKETING.  The thread title is correct. Primaris is the new standard. GW can change the "lore" at any moment to suit the needs of MARKETING. Every new edition that they release is marketed as having big changes. Change. Everyone wants change. Change sells. So they release the new Primaris range this edition with the crappy "lore." It allows them to keep the old line of marines around while they get the new Primaris line up and running. As the Primaris line establishes itself and the old kits stop selling they will decrease production of the old marines. People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways. Money in GWs pockets. Primaris Marketing objective complete. 

 

Once this objective is complete, if the "new" GW really wants to, they can change the "lore" at this point. More marketing. Web based, social media. They can address certain "lore" issues that may have come up during the introduction of 8th Edition using their facebook, youtube, and twitch formats. They can market some new books or campaigns or something, whatever they want. They can RETCON. They can do whatever they want to the "lore" to market whatever they want to sell. The "lore" is a marketing tool to sell YOU more product.

 

It will never end. 

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

I 'am on the fence on the new stuff . Model wise love them . Fluff wise Pffft !!!! go suck a lemon . Rule wise ehhh!!!  But have they release anything on the Regular Marines rule wise ? I have yet to see anything . Only that you can upgrade them to primmie status but what if you don't . 

 

And if people have concerns that is their right . They should have rescaled in 2013 when they released the Tactical Squad. That is my biggest  bitch about this . I have put together and painted 700 of them .  So now I have to rebase just to make them look the same scale. 

 

2013 really and truly was when this should have happened.

[OutlawSixActual]

None of the lore reasons for keeping old marines matter. It is just MARKETING. The thread title is correct. Primaris is the new standard. GW can change the "lore" at any moment to suit the needs of MARKETING. Every new edition that they release is marketed as having big changes. Change. Everyone wants change. Change sells. So they release the new Primaris range this edition with the crappy "lore." It allows them to keep the old line of marines around while they get the new Primaris line up and running. As the Primaris line establishes itself and the old kits stop selling they will decrease production of the old marines. People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways. Money in GWs pockets. Primaris Marketing objective complete.

 

Once this objective is complete, if the "new" GW really wants to, they can change the "lore" at this point. More marketing. Web based, social media. They can address certain "lore" issues that may have come up during the introduction of 8th Edition using their facebook, youtube, and twitch formats. They can market some new books or campaigns or something, whatever they want. They can RETCON. They can do whatever they want to the "lore" to market whatever they want to sell. The "lore" is a marketing tool to sell YOU more product.

 

It will never end.

Breaking news: Games Workshop is a company

[Master Commander Ajax]

 

 

Breaking news: Games Workshop is a company 

 

Bit unnecessary. 

 

Games Workshop can happily make a profit and not compromise on its IP. In fact it's traditionally been very protective of it (its one of the reasons why we never saw any 40k movies in the 90s and 00s). It was one of the companies strong points in my opinion.

[RandomMarine]

Yeah they used to be very protective of their IP but just look at shovelware mobile games they have been pumping out now

[VengefulJan]

Ok, since OP has decided to give reasons, speculation, and theory as to why Primaris Marines will be replacing Classic Marines as the "standard" (regardless if production stops or not), I feel the need to put forth a more optimistic view on the topic from a gameplay/marketing perspective. Granted, this is just MY theory to the topic and caries just as much validity as any body else's points stated in this thread; we wont know anything for certain until 8th drops, so anything is possible.

 

Mind you all, this is a repost from a prior thread a week back that got closed, but it's much too lengthy for my taste to be rewritten for this topic, so please excuse me if there are anything in it that seem off topic.

 

------

 

Alright, tin-foil hats guys, cause I have an arguably optimistic theory as to the business decision of these Primaris Space Marines.

 

So, after reading the stat line of the basic troop choice of these guys (Intercessors) and compared them with their brothers/cousins of traditional space marine forces (Tacticals), the basic jist of what I garnered from these guys is that they are theoretically the same (i.e. same wound count, attack count, movement, etc.) save for one difference that I was able to conjecture: While the Intercessors are more survivable and threatening (as in the range and AP on the Bolters), the Tacticals are more flexible and have more options to handle more situations. In other words, the Nu Marines Troop choice is a simplified version of the Space Marine Classic ™ Troop Choice.

 

Why am I focusing on that so much? Well, I consider that for almost every army, their Troop Choice, or choices (Orks, Tyranids, etc.) represent the basic methods and fundamentals of how an army will play. For example, Eldar Troops are highly specialized requiring good unit synergy and cooperation in order to be fully effective, which is a good summary of the whole army IMO. Orks, for another example, have their troops be just lots and LOTS of boys on the table, and thus, the army requires that to be mostly effective; it is required that you bring a lot of redundancies by bringing more dakka, more choppa, more tanks, and more waaaagh to win the day.

 

I'd also want to mention I'm not saying this is how all armies play in the table top, just that these are the ideas behind their purpose and play styles.

 

So, with this understanding, one can say that because Tacticals have options and flexibility, the rest of the space marine army will follow this ideology and have options and flexibility. I am also going to say that because Intercessors seem to be much tougher and simpler, the rest of their army will also reflect this methodology of being tougher and simpler as well.

 

Here's the part where my theory comes to play.

 

Harder to kill and much simpler to play, hmm.... I don't know about you guys, but I think that the Nu Marines Codex, is going to be the codex for all the NEW SPACE MARINE PLAYERS. Think about it, new edition, easier to pick up and play (simplified rules, simplified army building, etc.). New player decides they want to get into 40k, start with space marines, but they don't go to the standard space marines, they go to the Primaris Space Marines who are a) much tougher models to kill, b) have a larger threat range so its easier to hurt people, c) require less rules and options to consider when building an army, d) require less decision making WHEN OUTFITTING INDIVIDUAL SQUADS, e) have less models to build, and f) have easier models to paint.

 

I state again, I think the Primaris Marines are going to be the Noob Army of this hobby (and I don't mean noob in a derogatory way).

 

Now lets say this player gets, for example, 2 troops, 1 Elite, a Vehicle, and an HQ, but feels that everything is too simple or that their army is a bit constraining (for reasons I've stated above), but they don't want to shelve all these models they picked up and/or really like loyalist space marines. Well, they're in luck, cause those units are COMPLETELY COMPATIBLE with the Standard Space Marine Armies who DO offer more complexity, depth, and options in their army.

 

So now you have new player coming in, learning a much simpler, stream-lined game, with a small, simple, and forgiving army, and when they decide that they want to get more invested in how they play, they can "graduate" to having Classic Marines that not only give them a plethora of strategic and tactical options, but also incorporate their old army as well into their new forces.

 

Primaris Marines: the Starter Faction of the 41st Millennium

 

Also, on a side note, the Bolt Rifle better be a Special Weapons option for Tacticals; I want my Space Marine Sniper, damn it!

 

------

 

Pick away at this if you want, but I firmly believe that these new boys are Coke Zero instead of New Coke and will be living in parallel harmony with Coke Classic.

[Marshal Reinhard]

 

 

2013 really and truly was when this should have happened.

 

A thousand times this. The fact that the kit wasn't rescaled, and in fact initially came with 25 mm bases, betrays that the idea to finally make rescaled "true scale" marines is a fairly recent idea, at least in terms that it came after they had already comitted to make an expensive old marine kit renewal... which would mean they'd likely be against invalidating that kit so soon after making it, which makes for a likely explanation as for why we got new fluff to justify the existance of both kind of kits existing simultaneously. At least that's my take it on it.

 

If we're lucky, any renewal of the old marine kits in the far future will have them be at least of the rather sizable TS or upcome DG marines so as to look less out place with the Primarii, which I find more accurately fits what normal marines are supposed to look like. (I really need to see if a Primarii with the knee trims shaved off and with mk7 head) makes for a convincing mk8 look or not.....) But this all just my wishful thinking anyway.

[Joe]

Truescale isn't a thing. Stop pushing it.

 

I'm still undecided on Primaris. Love the models, not so keen on the fluff. Although we haven't seen the whole picture yet.

[Radiation]

I think part of the marketing change is that the "lore" or IP, even though it is a futuristic setting, it has always been treated as a historical future. GW the company sold models and developed new products that had a place in this historical setting from the far future. People may have complained about certain aspects about this but the historical setting was for the most part preserved. The emperor sat upon his golden throne and the primarchs were myths of a previous greater era. The Imperium of Man endured as it had for 10,000 years, always on the brink. It was a status quo.

 

But that's all completely changed with 8th Edition. GW is no longer marketing the setting as a historical place for their products to exist in. They are marketing the lore as current events within their futuristic timeline. And while they have always edged events along closer and closer to the final days of the setting the status quo remained because the products that they wanted to sell still fit within that IP framework. There are now three timelines or settings happening. The Horus Heresy as represented and marketed by forge world and the BL, 40k as we have known it up until 8th Edition, and now 8th Edition which is set not in a historical sense but at the very farthest point in the IP timeline. The future present. 

 

They are Marketing a new timeline. They can create new standards. And these new standards will be used to sell new products. They can do anything now. But its not about the story. Its just marketing cool MARINE models that they want YOU to buy.

[Sonoftherubric21]

Truescale isn't a thing. Stop pushing it.

 

I'm still undecided on Primaris. Love the models, not so keen on the fluff. Although we haven't seen the whole picture yet.

 

But it is....Primaris marines are obviously true-scale.  

 

I am in the same place as you with Primaris, rules are neat, models are fantastic, fluff isn't particularly good. 

[Joe]

But it is....Primaris marines are obviously true-scale.

Aye, I get where you're coming from; but, for the most part, scale issues on the tabletop relate to weaponry and the bizarre poses that some models have. Couple that with the misgiving that Space Marines are 10ft tall and it's easy to see why truescale is as common as it is.

That said, looking at the Primaris again, I feel as if that's the scale they should have angled for with the basic Space Marine kits a long time ago. Sure, it'd make vehicles larger, but like, Geedub can charge extra. And we all know they'd love that.

[Marshal Reinhard]

If you feel that's the scale marines should have been all along, that's all the more reason why they're "true scale"

 

that's the entire concept of true scale.

[Joe]

If you feel that's the scale marines should have been all along, that's all the more reason why they're "true scale"

 

that's the entire concept of true scale.

I should probably correct myself; it's the scale I think the system should have aimed for for all models. At least at 32mm plus, we wouldn't have the issues that we do with oversized weaponry to compensate for flimsiness/instability.

[tvih]

If Primaris outshines power armor marines too much... eh, I guess I'll just spam terminators in that case

[Doghouse]

But it is....Primaris marines are obviously true-scale.

Aye, I get where you're coming from; but, for the most part, scale issues on the tabletop relate to weaponry and the bizarre poses that some models have. Couple that with the misgiving that Space Marines are 10ft tall and it's easy to see why truescale is as common as it is.

That said, looking at the Primaris again, I feel as if that's the scale they should have angled for with the basic Space Marine kits a long time ago. Sure, it'd make vehicles larger, but like, Geedub can charge extra. And we all know they'd love that.

Truescaling is really based on marines being around 43mm (eye line to sole of the foot) models that are more credibly proportioned using the head as a scale indicator, truescale marines are scaled to be 7-7.5ft in 32mm scale. So if you took a space marine head and factored in the augmented physique this is how big he would have to be for his body to be scaled credibly (not going to say realistically because space marines are sci-fi fantasy creations). Traditional marine models were made to be heroic scale which I believe is a term coined by citadel, this normally results in oversized heads and hands with thinner elongated arms and thinner shorter legs and torso. It's basically a left over thing from the early days of hand sculpting where as these days it's easier to get precise proportions via CAD which is why you see a lot of kick starters with 3d CAD designed models that look fairly real.

These new guys technically won't be truescale as it is traditionally seen but will be bigger and better proportioned than what we have now. Our best guess at the moment is that the Primaris guys will be around 8.5-9.5ft tall but we won't know for sure until they release the new edition.

[m0nolith]

None of the lore reasons for keeping old marines matter. It is just MARKETING.  The thread title is correct. Primaris is the new standard. GW can change the "lore" at any moment to suit the needs of MARKETING. Every new edition that they release is marketed as having big changes. Change. Everyone wants change. Change sells. So they release the new Primaris range this edition with the crappy "lore." It allows them to keep the old line of marines around while they get the new Primaris line up and running. As the Primaris line establishes itself and the old kits stop selling they will decrease production of the old marines. People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways. Money in GWs pockets. Primaris Marketing objective complete. 

 

Once this objective is complete, if the "new" GW really wants to, they can change the "lore" at this point. More marketing. Web based, social media. They can address certain "lore" issues that may have come up during the introduction of 8th Edition using their facebook, youtube, and twitch formats. They can market some new books or campaigns or something, whatever they want. They can RETCON. They can do whatever they want to the "lore" to market whatever they want to sell. The "lore" is a marketing tool to sell YOU more product.

 

It will never end. 

 

"People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways."

 

Thats a contradiction. if everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies, then why are there people grumbling?

If there are people grumbling, one would assume that there would still be people out there that want new regular space marine models, and they would give GW money for those new models.

 

Why would GW not cater to that market if its available? Do they want to make less money?

Space marines are not getting phased out, they will always be around because the market for them will always be there.

The reality is that regular Space Marines are no longer going to be catered to like they used to be, they are going to get models with the rapidity that the BA, DA, and SW have gotten in the past compared to regular SM models. Once in a while, but not nearly as often as SM.

 

Old school Ultramarine players; Congratulations, for the first time since 2nd ed, you have officially joined the Big Four SM Chapters now in practice as well as in spirit.

 

In the end, its all about money, and if there's money to be made, GW will try and make it, and if you think that there wont always be a market for regular SM out there, you are delusional.

[Wispy]

People are always grumbling. When its the background radiation its hard to know what its indicative of.

[Lords of Preyspire]

Well if it is just the beginning of the rescale I hope they do go back and do all the marks of armour. The heresy argument is the only anti-true scale argument to counter it really.

[Antarius]

Well if it is just the beginning of the rescale I hope they do go back and do all the marks of armour. The heresy argument is the only anti-true scale argument to counter it really.

I still don't quite buy it as a rescale. The regular marines have had their kits updated far to recently for that (yes, the tacticals are four years ago already, but they've done devastators and assault marines since then). That's just my take on it, of course :)

 

But yeah, if was a rescale it would be a shame to miss out on the armour marks.

[Grimtooth]

 

 

None of the lore reasons for keeping old marines matter. It is just MARKETING. The thread title is correct. Primaris is the new standard. GW can change the "lore" at any moment to suit the needs of MARKETING. Every new edition that they release is marketed as having big changes. Change. Everyone wants change. Change sells. So they release the new Primaris range this edition with the crappy "lore." It allows them to keep the old line of marines around while they get the new Primaris line up and running. As the Primaris line establishes itself and the old kits stop selling they will decrease production of the old marines. People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways. Money in GWs pockets. Primaris Marketing objective complete.

 

Once this objective is complete, if the "new" GW really wants to, they can change the "lore" at this point. More marketing. Web based, social media. They can address certain "lore" issues that may have come up during the introduction of 8th Edition using their facebook, youtube, and twitch formats. They can market some new books or campaigns or something, whatever they want. They can RETCON. They can do whatever they want to the "lore" to market whatever they want to sell. The "lore" is a marketing tool to sell YOU more product.

 

It will never end.

"People will still grumble and complain about their old marines being obsolete in the "lore" but everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies anyways."

 

Thats a contradiction. if everyone will be on their way to having new Primaris armies, then why are there people grumbling?

If there are people grumbling, one would assume that there would still be people out there that want new regular space marine models, and they would give GW money for those new models.

 

Why would GW not cater to that market if its available? Do they want to make less money?

Space marines are not getting phased out, they will always be around because the market for them will always be there.

The reality is that regular Space Marines are no longer going to be catered to like they used to be, they are going to get models with the rapidity that the BA, DA, and SW have gotten in the past compared to regular SM models. Once in a while, but not nearly as often as SM.

 

Old school Ultramarine players; Congratulations, for the first time since 2nd ed, you have officially joined the Big Four SM Chapters now in practice as well as in spirit.

 

In the end, its all about money, and if there's money to be made, GW will try and make it, and if you think that there wont always be a market for regular SM out there, you are delusional.

I wish to the All-father that you don't ever try and run a business!

 

There is a point where the value of an item is no longer worth the effort to produce said item. With Primaris the new standard for 8th Edition and GW, it will not be long that GW find no economic reasoning to keep producing the old Marines. I can sure as hell guarantee you that they won't keep supporting something that is ultimately losing them money. How many full RT armies do you see being played out there? How about full SM armies using the plastics from 3rd? I bought THREE of the big old box armies back in the day and they are ALL gone. Why doesn't GW do those anymore? Because some number cruncher checked the bottom line and they were not making GW any money. The same will happen when people are buying Primaris box sets in bulk to create their new upscaled SW/BA/BT/etc army and letting their old ones go by the wayside; partly for the aesthetics, but mostly because the old SM will be obsolete on the table

[Old-Four-Arms]

Whilst I fully expect GW to switch part of its production capacity to the Primaris Marines, I cannot see them killing the HH cash cow.

 

IMHO, they could still bring out additional plastic HH kits in "oldscale" (the "nuscale" Primaris being a Guilliman/Cawl/40k thing).

 

Just my 5 cents though.

 

 

Regards,

 

Old-Four-Arms

[D3L]

 

 

In the end, its all about money, and if there's money to be made, GW will try and make it, and if you think that there wont always be a market for regular SM out there, you are delusional.

 

You're quite right, there will be a market, it just wont be provided for by GW, that's why they're bringing in trademarkable primaris-inventaname-ors to that end.

 

I mean, you've been told repeatedly by GW in their press releases and live casts many ways as to why in the nufluff (harder, bigger, faster, stronger) primaris are replacing normalstartes, how characters are beefuppable to primaris and how chapters are being supplanted, created and reinforced with primaris, to what end do you think that logic goes? They just replace squaddie bob from 2nd company and that's it? Come now, don't say that's what you believe?

 

To think that they're going to keep an old race/catalogue range just to please collectors, well... pray thee tell me where one can buy Zoats