Primaris Marines - GW's end game?

[Morticon]

So......What gives?! 

I refuse to believe that a launch that has been so well planned, so well play-tested and has had as incredible a set of models designed, has launched with as shoddy rules and limited playability as the Primaris marine line. 

The lieutenant is, in my opinion, the only primaris unit worth a damn.   I just do not understand what the thinking is.  

Is there a long game? Is there a 5 year plan to phase out all the old marines? 

Reivers are so clearly scouts.  Intercessors, so clearly tactical marines.  Inceptors, new concept jump marines, maybe? 

I dont know. They offer no tactical flexibility - theyre a bunch of guys on foot. Ironically, i think the Intercessors are very well priced for their weapon and statline.  But, their options and gear just makes them naff as all hell.

Flip side of that coin are the Inceptors - priced into absolute oblivion.  Cool guns and rules- but squads of 3 and pricing off the chain? 

What is GW going to do with these? Because at present, all i want to do is hack them up, stick special weapons on them,  and replace all my regular marines with Primaris.

 

For the sake of the thread, I'm not particularly interested in discussing how to make a sub-par unit workable.  That doesn't interest me.  What interests me is some insight into where GW is taking these guys 5 years down the line. Because its a BIG, bold step.  This is not the end game -this is the start of them rebooting the model line. 

[Guest Triszin]

Its a combination of things.

 

1. the most important one

Unique IP names and ownership. Space marine is a generic term and cannot be trademarked, however Primaris Space marines can be.

thats why new names for things are coming, any generic name will get a new name.

 

2. Model update (scale). it seems that GW is attempting a sense of scale across the game only with the infantry models, marines are now the height they should be compared to gaurdsmen and such.

 

3. refreshing a line/s, and universe, that they painted themselves into a corner over the last 10+ years.

 

4. Change is scary, but necessary.

 

5. expect line refreshing for almost everyone in the next 6 years

[Morticon]

 

 

4. Change is scary, but necessary.

 

I dont mind this! Change is awesome.Part of the game. Part of any good game to keep relevant.  But, how? Just more units? Will they eventually take the place of tacticals? Tactical Primaris? What is the plan? 

[D3L]

Quite simply to make you buy more marines.

 

It's never been more nuanced than this.

[Morticon]

Quite simply to make you buy more marines.

 

It's never been more nuanced than this.

You may be right for the "collector" type hobbyists.   But what of the gamers?

 

The box set was of good value.  I got that.  If the rules continue to look like they do now, there is no way i'll spend another cent on Primaris. There's no need.  They know good rules shift models.  So, it has to be more than this. 

[Commander Dawnstar]

I'm not going to unequivocally state that future updates will radically revamp the Primaris to make them more playable, but their current state reminds me a great deal of the Stormcast in the wake of the AoS launch. The Stormcast Eternals were launched with units that had no weapons options beyond the baseline and had little in the way of flexibility or interesting aura buffs. They only really became something more than one-dimensional after the arrival of boxed sets that added weapons options to existing units, new unit releases and ultimately their own army book.

 

The Primaris feel like they're in the same sort of spot as the early Stormcast. Once GW gets more units out there, moves beyond the Easy to Build kits and releases the Primaris Codex you'll probably have far more options to draw from and hopefully a better faction as a whole on the tabletop.

[m_r_parker]

Personally, I would wager that GW are looking at the reaction of the new 8th Edition / Dark Imperium launch, and the release of individual Primaris kits, before they fully commit to one direction or the other.

 

From a purely lore perspective, there is no reason for 'regular' marines to exist much after the introduction of the Primaris. With them being bigger / faster / stronger than a regular Astartes there's little desirability in creating / training anything other than Primaris (from an assumption that there's little difference in the time and effort costs between the two Marine types), and with the ability to 'upgrade' existing Astartes to Primaris there isn't any clear reason why every chapter should be adopting them (even the likes of the Unforgiven, who are particularly shifty around others poking noses into their business). By the time 200 - 300 years into the 42nd Millennium the Primaris should be the dominant Astartes. But, that's not to say that they can't find a reason why regular Astartes are preferable to Primaris should the customers decide that they prefer the regular Astartes. 

 

From a business perspective, it's clear that Space Marines (of all sorts) are GW's primary cash cow. You only have to enter a store, or look on their web store, to see how much of it is dedicated to this range. Whether it's the introduction of Primaris, new Deathwatch plastics, HH era Mk III / IV, or the various chapter-specific models there's a great deal of profitability from them. The difficulty comes from finding new ways to get customers to continue to buy these products, in which they have two options:

• Introduce new units / vehicles / characters - such as Primaris, or the new Deathwatch marines in their Mk VIII
• Re-do existing / dated kits - such as the update to Tactical / Assault / Devastator sprues, and what I was hoping would happen to the vanilla Terminator and Scout sprues (they look so old in comparison to everything else out there)

Frankly updating existing kits doesn't have the same level of appeal as releasing some completely new. A lot of people who have the older units may simply choose to ignore the newer kits because they don't want the expense of replacing them with newer stuff (if it ain't broke, as it were) whereas the newer units have a broad appeal to everyone as there's nothing that it competes with.

 

If they see a massive uptake in the newer Primaris kits, and a hit in the regular Marine kits - then I can see them phasing out the majority of their regular Marine range to 'Webstore only' to give retail space to Primaris kits. The storyline will continue with Primaris in the driving seat (i.e. more Primaris focussed BL novels, and GW campaigns), but the ability to play regular marines will still be there. If the Primaris stuff doesn't go as well as expected, then I can see GW shifting the narrative away from the Primaris back to the 'reliable' regular marines, and maybe directing their effort into updating older kits and bringing new Marine kits out. Primaris are still there, but don't become the flagship product of the company nor the main driver in the narrative.

 

I'd say it a savvy business decision, and they'll move forward depending on what we, as customers, say we like based on our spending. Either way, both Primaris and regular Marines will be here to stay (they could never remove regular Marines, there would be literal outrage and be business suicide). If you want to see it go one way or another, vote with your wallets.

[Scammel]

The end game is the larger scale and post-Iron Man/Halo visuals. The scale is much better suited to the more easily digestible skirmish game 40k has reverted back to, on the back of AoS's apparent success.

[KBA]

It's always struck me as a little odd with how they've rolled these out in the 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of way -- introducing a scale change while keeping the smaller marines around at the same time in the fluff and game. I personally don't think there's room in the long term for both, especially once chapter specific Primaris kits are rolled out. I figure GW will address this issue going forward in the fluff as they've effectively put a ticking clock on the life of the old marines: smaller old marines aren't being produced any longer and the gene seed is instead spent on future Primaris. The tactical roles of the smaller marines eventually get filled by Primaris ie: Primaris Tacticals, Primaris Devestators etc.

 

I think that's the end game.

[Joe]

I think mr_r_parker has hit the nail on the head. Games Workshop has stated they are committed to carrying the regular Space Marine range forwards, and that they haven't stopped developing kits for them either. Whether or not that's the case shall be seen with time, however.

 

The last thing we need is any reactionary crap right now.

[Spinsanity]

Pretty sure the actual reason to change the scale of the marines is:

1. Try to disrupt Chapterhouse-like third party marine (like PuppetWars') sellers

2. Try to increase sales to players who already have a marine army (which is close to 100% of current 40k players)

3. Appeal to the increasingly present truescale crowd

[Gorthaur]

Its a combination of things.

 

1. the most important one

Unique IP names and ownership. Space marine is a generic term and cannot be trademarked, however Primaris Space marines can be.

thats why new names for things are coming, any generic name will get a new name.

 

2. Model update (scale). it seems that GW is attempting a sense of scale across the game only with the infantry models, marines are now the height they should be compared to gaurdsmen and such.

 

3. refreshing a line/s, and universe, that they painted themselves into a corner over the last 10+ years.

 

4. Change is scary, but necessary.

 

5. expect line refreshing for almost everyone in the next 6 years

This all seems likely. However when you see non marine armies get an updade and if they get upscaled...this will be a sign that something is very very wrong. I understand that marines didn't really feel right in scale and needed to be larger than eldar/tau/guardsmen by a good amount. But they also upscaled all of the new death guard models. I'm actually kind of worried we might see everything just get larger from now on.

[Blindhamster]

I think deathguard is the scale we can expect for anything marine related now. I imagine anything human will stay at its current scale and orks will get larger. Primaris will obviously be primaris size.

[sockwithaticket]

Pretty sure the actual reason to change the scale of the marines is:

1. Try to disrupt Chapterhouse-like third party marine (like PuppetWars') sellers

But they'll just adapt their stuff, so much of it is CAD sculpted. a size increase ought to be relatively straight forward. Plus the heads, pads and arms of Primaris are the same scale as regular marines, so an awful lot of conversion parts will still fit.

[Doghouse]

I'm trying to not come across as negative but I personally think we'll see Codex Primaris and regular marines will have to use Index Imperium 1. I don't think we will see a Codex Space Marines despite how much I want to be wrong here.

 

I think it's a rebrand and relaunch without stating the fact.

 

I so completely hope I am wrong but I think Primaris is the new brand name for Adeptus Astartes.

 

As for the release itself I think it has been poorly handled, it's been a frustrating drip fed talk of new models with no context or structure for the end army leaving us marine players scratching around of snippets of information and trying to piece it all together for ourselves which is bad business in my mind.

I can't think of a single army that has been released in this fashion in the past. I know GW has improved in a lot of ways but this was just badly handled. 

[Lay]

Looking at the Deatchwatch or the 3 Marines from the new paintset, which are bigger than the current Tactical Marines, it looks to me like GW was originally going to gradually upscale the regular Marine range, but then decided to make a quick jump with a new army. So maybe they thought a gradual transition would've taken too long.

I bet that once they've completed the Primaris and the CSM ranges they'll redo regular Marines to be as big as their Chaos counterparts.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Lay

[Doghouse]

I dont know. They offer no tactical flexibility - theyre a bunch of guys on foot. Ironically, i think the Intercessors are very well priced for their weapon and statline.  But, their options and gear just makes them naff as all hell.

 

What I think we are seeing is a case of the codex is not ready at release or scheduled to be a later release and GW have said to themselves ok so we added these new models to the game but we need a stop gap measure to let people use what they get in the starter set.

 

I think we are starting to see this with the release of the likes of the captain and librarian that are not covered in the first index. I personally think units will get more options.

[Black Cohort]

One of the weirdest things is how badly they implemented the Primaris Marines in the setting. In addition to all the weirdness of Cawl doing everything in secret for millennia, they seem to have killed all standard chapter organization abd possibly even chapter size. Why have Guilliman break the codex when you have plenty of other loyalist Primarch's who could come back and do it instead. True there is some irony in making him end the codex, but it seems like a better story would have been one of his brothers coming back and changing things. That way you can have Guilliman back and pissed that his precious book has been thrown out.

[Morticon]

One of the weirdest things is how badly they implemented the Primaris Marines in the setting. In addition to all the weirdness of Cawl doing everything in secret for millennia, they seem to have killed all standard chapter organization abd possibly even chapter size. Why have Guilliman break the codex when you have plenty of other loyalist Primarch's who could come back and do it instead. True there is some irony in making him end the codex, but it seems like a better story would have been one of his brothers coming back and changing things. That way you can have Guilliman back and pissed that his precious book has been thrown out.

 

Fair commentary- but all related to fluff and background rather than GWs plan for them in terms of implementation on the battlefield.  

[Doghouse]

I hope we can take ten man units of Intercessors, feels like all my eggs in one basket with the five man teams. I don't really want an army of 5 or 3 man units to be honest. :(

[Space Truckin]

 

Pretty sure the actual reason to change the scale of the marines is:

1. Try to disrupt Chapterhouse-like third party marine (like PuppetWars') sellers

But they'll just adapt their stuff, so much of it is CAD sculpted. a size increase ought to be relatively straight forward. Plus the heads, pads and arms of Primaris are the same scale as regular marines, so an awful lot of conversion parts will still fit.

 

 

This and  as soon as GW show any hint of not supporting the old' space marines  3rd party manufacturers and recasters will gladly step in and do it for them.

I think it has more to do with their answer to  "How do we get Space Marine players to buy a whole new Space Marine army?"

[Black Cohort]

 

One of the weirdest things is how badly they implemented the Primaris Marines in the setting. In addition to all the weirdness of Cawl doing everything in secret for millennia, they seem to have killed all standard chapter organization abd possibly even chapter size. Why have Guilliman break the codex when you have plenty of other loyalist Primarch's who could come back and do it instead. True there is some irony in making him end the codex, but it seems like a better story would have been one of his brothers coming back and changing things. That way you can have Guilliman back and pissed that his precious book has been thrown out.

 

Fair commentary- but all related to fluff and background rather than GWs plan for them in terms of implementation on the battlefield.  

 

 

I think it shows that this was less planned then some think. Well planned projects rarely run roughshod over 25+ years of company history.  The rollout seems badly organized in my view.  We have seen both the dreadnought and AFV for what, a month now?  With no release date yet.  The 8th ed launch was dragged out far longer than it needed to be and just generally seemed to be stalling for time.  I doubt GW actually knows where this Primaris thing is going because unless things have changed, model designers come up with random stuff then everyone else has to bend over backwards to fit the model into the game/ setting.

[Space Truckin]

Less planned or maybe just Poorly Planned.

Rumours about True Scale Marines were mentioned over 9 months before the launch.

[Scammel]

I'm really not sure that this is GW coming up with 'another crazy scheme to empty wallets with wacky new Space Marines' so much as a conscious effort to learn the lessons of AoS and shift the visual style of 40k permanently. I have little doubt that in 5 years' time (if not sooner) the Space Marine range as we know it will move to direct only. Larger models, friendlier starter sets, 3-man 'booster packs' ala Stormcasts and Khorne Warriors are now the norm for 40k.

 

This isn't a one-off wheeze in line with Tempestus Scions. This seems to be an irrevocable change, and one that I personally think signifies the strength of the new, much more reactive and competition-conscious GW.

[Kastor Krieg]

To me, it's pretty simple. While 40k is the mainstay income source and within it the "Space Marine of all flavours" line is the main seller, the "Space Marine owner club" is pretty much saturated at this point.

GW has apparently perceived a slowdown in SM sales and opted to counteract by expanding the range substantially - not just a new kit here or there, like they did with Wulfen, kSons or Deathwatch or they could have done by making new Sword Brethren or Scouts of both varieties, but by introducing a completely new product line, alongside the old.

They simply cannot afford dropping the Space Marine range, which still sells well, just a tad worse than in its heyday, so they gave the whole thing a boost with something new. In my opinion though, depending on how this works out for them, I would sooner expect them ditching Primaris as a temporary / failed experiment, cautionary tale mode again, than the whole "legacy" Space Marine line, the investments made in which have most likely still not returned in profit and the development of models for which still reportedly continues.

They have put "legacy Marines" on a backburner, because of the aforementioned item saturation, concentrating on the explosion of the Primaris support line and continued expansion all the other support lines, like CSM. After kSons, we got Death Guard and more kits are coming, terminators and Primarch at least. Even IF Death Guard remain just like the Chosen of Dark Vengeance, just a set of cool and complex monopose kits.