Ideas to improve upon Primaris Marines lore

[Wargamer]

The lore isn't just expressed through stories. Models and rules can also put the lore across.

[Blindhamster]

The lore isn't just expressed through stories. Models and rules can also put the lore across.

 

a wolf lord having a different model has less to do with them being different and more to do with the fact space wolves have always had a much busier appearance due to all the pelts etc.

 

Much like blood angels at that time had the first examples of nipple armour, and dark angels had the huge head dress. (because even though they are "just" captains, they were just as unique as space wolf wolf lords)

[Subtleknife]

I'm hoping for codex Ultramarines, followed by expansions books for the main chapters featuring unique units, relics Warlord traits and strategems.

Same. That would be a dream come true. Could also have a special guard unit to represent the Ultramar PDF.

 

But i think the above wont happen. What i would like is a primaris codex like the legion dex. Each chapter gets a special unit and rule. So ultras can get suzerain squad. Raven guard coupd get a dark furries esque assault unit. Then slowly over time more unique units can be added to each chapter. Right now i dont lile how some vanilla marines have an expanded line and others dont.

[Ishagu]

Mcragge PDF would be fantastic.

 

They are some of the best mortal forces in the Imperium.

[Sete]

Join all Primaris Marines except DW and GK on the same codex. Give different chapters exclusive units HH style, and the rest is profit I reckon.

[Boldthreat]

Primaris Phalanx Warders... Yes please lol.

[Panzer]

Join all Primaris Marines except DW and GK on the same codex. Give different chapters exclusive units HH style, and the rest is profit I reckon.

 

Something like that is probably what will happen whenever GW decides to "open the next chamber" (to go with an AoS Stormcast Eternal reference because that's basically what's happening lol). Just not in a Codex but rather in a campaign related supplement or something like that.

[Deadman Wade]

What made Space Marines great for me is their flawed nature. On the one hand we have genetically engineered super soldier, jaded merciless killer, on the other hand there's a child who became a living weapon without proper upbringing. Stalwart heroes who can withstand terrible physical pain, but mentally unstable individuals who can fall much further than regular human, so they need chaplains, litanies and indoctrination to keep themselves together. Physically perfect warriors, but with hidden flaws and mutations that can lead to ruin.

Primaris are just perfect and flawless to the Mary-Sue levels. Bigger, better, faster, stronger, and also incorruptible. I have absolutely no desire or reason to read something that has quality of 7-years old kid fanfic.

Like one writer said - a hero in novel needs either to find his strength or find a way to bring back strength that he had before, otherwise novel isn't interesting. Currently Primaris are exactly that - they have all the strength you can imagine, no flaws or weaknesses, so they are impossible bland and boring.

As for "we'll get there eventually" argument, no, this kind of basic stuff should have been made with starter set release. Don't tell me that writers didn't have time. GW just don't care to make interesting lore (or any lore that is more than something like catalogue for their miniatures) anymore.

I really like the idea of short lifespan. It could lead to jealousy, bitterness, despair, anger from primaris towards immortal classic astartes ("We burn brighter, but too fast").

So until there is anything that can make primaris interesting, they'll remain the most boring part of 40k and the main reason not to collect Space Marine army.

[Panzer]

What made Space Marines great for me is their flawed nature. On the one hand we have genetically engineered super soldier, jaded merciless killer, on the other hand there's a child who became a living weapon without proper upbringing. Stalwart heroes who can withstand terrible physical pain, but mentally unstable individuals who can fall much further than regular human, so they need chaplains, litanies and indoctrination to keep themselves together. Physically perfect warriors, but with hidden flaws and mutations that can lead to ruin.

Primaris are just perfect and flawless to the Mary-Sue levels. Bigger, better, faster, stronger, and also incorruptible. I have absolutely no desire or reason to read something that has quality of 7-years old kid fanfic.

Like one writer said - a hero in novel needs either to find his strength or find a way to bring back strength that he had before, otherwise novel isn't interesting. Currently Primaris are exactly that - they have all the strength you can imagine, no flaws or weaknesses, so they are impossible bland and boring.

As for "we'll get there eventually" argument, no, this kind of basic stuff should have been made with starter set release. Don't tell me that writers didn't have time. GW just don't care to make interesting lore (or any lore that is more than something like catalogue for their miniatures) anymore.

I really like the idea of short lifespan. It could lead to jealousy, bitterness, despair, anger from primaris towards immortal classic astartes ("We burn brighter, but too fast").

So until there is anything that can make primaris interesting, they'll remain the most boring part of 40k and the main reason not to collect Space Marine army.

 

Uhm nothing about the mental flaws you mentioned changed with Primaris. They get "produced" the same way as any other Marine just that they get three additional organs implanted and the more severe mutations like the Wulfen thing and the Red Thirst are still there as well since those are flaws "by design".

Also nothing says they are incorruptible. If they were Guilliman wouldn't have forbidden Cawl to use the traitor legion geneseed. If it seems to you like 7-years old kid fanfic then it's probably because you only read very bad summaries about them so far as it seems.

 

As for your view on the "we'll get there eventually" argument. Well that's your opinion and I can't argue against that but it seems like you wanted from GW a completely worked out expansion of the setting while GW wants to expand the setting by telling a story so it's understandable why they didn't deliver what you wanted. Telling a story takes time and GW plans to do that over the next YEARS not within a few weeks.

 

 

EDIT: typos

[Blindhamster]

What made Space Marines great for me is their flawed nature. On the one hand we have genetically engineered super soldier, jaded merciless killer, on the other hand there's a child who became a living weapon without proper upbringing. Stalwart heroes who can withstand terrible physical pain, but mentally unstable individuals who can fall much further than regular human, so they need chaplains, litanies and indoctrination to keep themselves together. Physically perfect warriors, but with hidden flaws and mutations that can lead to ruin.

Primaris are just perfect and flawless to the Mary-Sue levels. Bigger, better, faster, stronger, and also incorruptible. I have absolutely no desire or reason to read something that has quality of 7-years old kid fanfic.

Like one writer said - a hero in novel needs either to find his strength or find a way to bring back strength that he had before, otherwise novel isn't interesting. Currently Primaris are exactly that - they have all the strength you can imagine, no flaws or weaknesses, so they are impossible bland and boring.

As for "we'll get there eventually" argument, no, this kind of basic stuff should have been made with starter set release. Don't tell me that writers didn't have time. GW just don't care to make interesting lore (or any lore that is more than something like catalogue for their miniatures) anymore.

I really like the idea of short lifespan. It could lead to jealousy, bitterness, despair, anger from primaris towards immortal classic astartes ("We burn brighter, but too fast").

So until there is anything that can make primaris interesting, they'll remain the most boring part of 40k and the main reason not to collect Space Marine army.

 

They havent been stated as incorruptible (infact we see the main primaris character in dark imperium nearly give in to temptation and only get saved by a classic astartes librarian), sure they're bigger, tougher and stronger. Being bigger has negatives (harder to hide, even more difficult to move through some locations etc), stronger and tougher is their only true advantage over classic marines. They aren't even necessarily any faster from whats been shown.

 

They're still engineered killing machines that were made from children, that hasn't changed at all either.

So they're physically a bit more advanced than other astartes, that doesn't make them any more mary sue than a regular astartes is compared to a human.

 

It just feels like your post projects a lot onto them probably based on first impressions.

[Deadman Wade]

The thing is that we don't see any of it in novels. Can we assume that they struggle with Red Thirst like Seth and Appolus do in Andy Smiley books? So far it's not likely. Everything about them is so clean and refined that it looks - I don't know - fake.

I've read Dark Imperium (that was the most painfully bad novel I've seen since LotR fan fiction, and primaris have nothing to do with how awful it is :D ), Shroud of Darkness, Devastation of Baal and now I'm trying to make myself read War of Secrets past first 50 pages.

I didn't want to have all setting expansion to be released at the same time, I get that some things should be kept for further campaigns and stories. I'm still waiting and hoping for Lion's return lol. But such basic things as new main heroes strengths and weaknesses, virtues and flaws should be the first theme in novels. So far we have "marines+1" with Cpt Fenix smiting plague marines left and right (yeah, smiting T5, 5+ FNP models with S4 power sword lol) and not giving a damn about anything, just like the rest of the Ultramarines. Other than that there's mediocre bolter porn.

I can assume that their poor lore comes from the fact that their novels are being written by terrible writers. Maybe ADB or Raynolds could write something good about primaris.

Other than that I'm really disappointed with intercessors box, fixed poses make it worse than regular tactical marines.

[Blindhamster]

On the topic of red thirst though, we havent actually had a book with any real primaris BA presence yet, so impossible to tell, what we have seen is the codex state that a bunch of intercessors went nuts and Corbulo is disturbed by it. Also the majority of blood angels successors (including the blood angels themselves) don't struggle to the level of the flesh tearers. But who knows what we'll see when we get a BA focused primaris book.

Dark Imperium wasn't the best book out there, but it's not fair to say Guy is a terrible author, "Dante" is very very good, "Devastation of Baal" was not quite as good but was still good, I don't think we can make many assumptions about primaris from that book as they're effectively a footnote at the end, and many of Dantes original hopes have already been proven to not be true by the current timeline (such as red thirst absolutely affecting primaris, despite the original hope that it didn't).

 

For me, I've enjoyed Haleys work far more than anything by Raynolds, I love ADB but much like not everything Guy has written was awesome to me, I haven't loved everything ADB did either (albeit there's only one story I didn't really care much for). Point being, taste in authors comes down to preference.

 

Felix has a Power Fist on his other hand and a Master Crafted Power sword in his main hand, he's also a book character and book characters typically far out perform their game comparisons (this is true across just about any medium where there are games that can represent book characters). But game wise, Felix would be attacking what? 5 times either hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 5s and forcing 2 of the 5+ saves per hit, or hitting on 3s rerolling 1s, wounding on 3s and forcing between 1 and 3 5+ saves per hit. Even game wise, he would be taking out a number of plague marines per turn. But again, its a story, where the heroes are always better than the villains, and also to restate, he almost succumbs to chaos influence there and then till a librarian (non primaris) saves him.

The primaris models aren't monopose, their bodies are more static in pose sure, but the arms can be swapped around and chosen however you desire, heads can go however you want too, when he was designing them he made the decision that it was more important to provide detail to the abdomen than to provide limited posability at the waist, and I personally agree, the existing marine torsos CAN in theory be twisted a bit, but by doing so, all you end up with is a weird pose because the belt shouldn't twist with the chest, it should stay pretty central to the groin. it also means the belt gets in the way of twisting particularly far without putting the torso on a weird angle. I'm a converter and sculpter and lover of customizing my models as much as anyone here, and I feel the huge benefit of separate torso and legs is a myth until you go across multiple kits (which you cant do with primaris really anyway as each type of primaris has had a unique take on the armour so far)
 

[Sete]

It's an Ultramarines book, don't expect much :p

I like guy Haley but he was writing an action shopping list.

[Boldthreat]

So who is ready for some Primaris characters?

 

That's one area where the lore and the table top have barely scratched. Yes we get a few bones in the black library stuff, but I was really surprised we didn't get any unique Primaris characters.

 

One would have assumed we would have at the very least gotten an Ultramarine Primaris hero in the latest codex.

 

Heck let's start killing off some characters and replacing them. Kill off Predro Kantor (Eldar prophecy and all that) and let's get a Crimson Fist Primaris Chapter Master.

 

Shove Lysander in a dreadnaught and let's get a new Primaris Imperial Fist character. He better have a handle bar mustache.

 

I really hope the next Codex goes all in on the Primaris both unit wise and in the lore. Let's give our legacy characters the send off they deserve... Death in Duty and let's replace them already. Quite some time has passed in this new setting. This is the main reason the Primaris lore seems so half baked. They supposedly saved the Space Marines from Extinction yet we have all the same old heroes and characters.

 

My point is we are now at a point in the lore that surprising things like character deaths can happen. Literally no one should be safe and I would love to see that explored in the codexes and black library.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

So who is ready for some Primaris characters?

 

That's one area where the lore and the table top have barely scratched. Yes we get a few bones in the black library stuff, but I was really surprised we didn't get any unique Primaris characters.

 

One would have assumed we would have at the very least gotten an Ultramarine Primaris hero in the latest codex.

I agree, the lack of Primaris special characters is a deficiency that Games Workshop should address in a Codex Supplement.

Heck let's start killing off some characters and replacing them. Kill off Predro Kantor (Eldar prophecy and all that) and let's get a Crimson Fist Primaris Chapter Master.

 

<Snip.>

 

My point is we are now at a point in the lore that surprising things like character deaths can happen. Literally no one should be safe and I would love to see that explored in the codexes and black library.

I disagree. As you can see with Marvel Comics' declining sales, replacing fan favorite characters is NOT something to be done lightly. If Games Workshop chooses to simply kill off classic characters so they can be replaced with Primaris characters, long-time fans (including myself) will likely react the same way Marvel Comics' long-time fans reacted to the publisher's decision to replace its classic characters with new ones that reuse the classic characters' codenames (what's referred to as "forced diversity," though the problem isn't a direct result of the new characters' ethnic/religious backgrounds, genders, or sexual orientations), and boycott the company's products.

[Robbienw]

Killing off established popular characters and replacing them with Primaris characters is probably the absoloute worst idea on this thread for improving Primaris lore :lol:

[Ishagu]

Is it?

I remember when Solar Macharius was killed off.

Also Tycho is dead, the chap from the BA codex.

 

You can kill of characters but still allow for their use on the tabletop, if players desire. The replacements could be suitably tasteful. In the case of Marvel comics, the replacements were not!

[Sete]

Great idea, let's start by killing Guilliman.

Instead of killing people off, since a dude can have thousands on super space marines on ice for 10k, how far fetched could it be to have Regular marines upgraded into Primaris? Are we really going to drawn the line here?

[Ishagu]

I'd be perfectly happy with some receiving a Primaris upgrade, but maybe not everyone. Perhaps if an Astartes is too old or not in peak condition it's no longer possible? I'd also be happy if perhaps existing leaders receive upgrades that, whilst not as elegant as a pure Primaris, put them up to par in terms of ability.

[Robbienw]

Is it?

 

Yes it is. Much better just to make Primaris characters if they want to anyway and not kill anybody else off for pointless reasons.

 

It would be much better if they did a Primaris character for say one of the new Primaris ultimate founding chapters, someone who has won fame and many battles in the idomitus crusade, and leave the famous chapters as they are.

[Sete]

I'd be perfectly happy with some receiving a Primaris upgrade, but maybe not everyone. Perhaps if an Astartes is too old or not in peak condition it's no longer possible? I'd also be happy if perhaps existing leaders receive upgrades that, whilst not as elegant as a pure Primaris, put them up to par in terms of ability.

And it would be less awkward to have on the table aswell

[Ishagu]

I totally agree we should have new characters, and I also agree with the idea of boosting existing heroes.

 

When I said some can be killed off I didn't mean all of them. As the story advances certain characters could die - Sicarius for example? The Emperor's champion could quite easily, and be replaced by a new Primaris version who wields the same sword.

[Robbienw]

One problem though, there is nothing to suggest a Primaris upgrade is possible. If it was we would have fluff examples by now.

 

The white dwarf article on Primaris creation showed that the 2 of the organs go in very early on in the process, so it’s very unlikely they could be retrofitted in to a fully grown marine. Particularly as they are involved with growing the marine to the bigger size, it’s unlikely it would work on a mature marine who has stopped growing.

 

There is also the fact the gene seed is new to activate the new organs. You would need to take the geneseed out of the classic marine and replace it with Primaris ones, is that even possible?

I totally agree we should have new characters, and I also agree with the idea of boosting existing heroes.

 

When I said some can be killed off I didn't mean all of them. As the story advances certain characters could die - Sicarius for example? The Emperor's champion could quite easily, and be replaced by a new Primaris version who wields the same sword.

Well I don’t mind sicarius dying, because he is a very irritating character :lol:

[Ishagu]

I don't think it would be, no. The lore could be altered however.

 

I think the idea of boosting the existing Astartes using other means might be better? Remember how Luther was upgraded with gene enhancement processes that weren't the same as making him an Astartes? Perhaps for heroes and leaders who can't be replaced they can be upgraded in other ways.

 

Or perhaps they simply receive new models and are wearing new patterns of power armour lol

[Sete]

EC is the easiest one to do lol