Ideas to improve upon Primaris Marines lore

[DukeLeto69]

Yep the Rubicon Primaris kind of makes sense and would get around the new improve Space Marines also being experienced warriors. It works "in universe / lorewise" and on the tabletop.

 

On the tabletop it better explains the gradual replacement of old marines with Primaris (because soon Primaris will be the only kits available). It also better explains fielding mixed chapters/forces as a player could add a squad(s) of veteran volunteers who are now Primaris (so definitely the elite force).

 

Lore wise it creates an interesting tension for Chapter Masters to decide how many / what proportion of their forces they should "allow" to volunteer for transformation into Primaris. Knowing the failure rate is 67% they risk depleting their Chapter in return for possibly bolstering their strength. Many could justifiably resist creating potential civil war scenarios that (for me) are more plausible then just refusing to accept new Primaris recruits into the Chapter (who are stronger faster etc but have no battle experience). Also interesting internal struggles for the Space Marines themselves "should I volunteer to be transformed to a Primaris? Will I survive? If I die the Chapter is weaker (rather than I am not brave enough to do it)" etc

 

Just seems that GW had a pretty solid lore explanation for introducing bigger miniatures to the tabletop but, IMO, then went too far and drifted into bad fanfic territory that opens up more questions/issues than it solves.

 

Cawl could have been a new character (not someone around for 10k years but operating in secret) who was a genius. Guilliman meeting Dad/Emp was perfect opportunity for Emp to give him the missing key to the next stage of Space Marine evolution.

 

Like Phoebus says, it would be lovely and grim dark for Cawl to have 000s of vat grown clones stored purely as organ factories - meat sacks! Heck they could even have been failed aspirants or something.

 

Heck, the Rubicon Primaris also provides the perfect explanation for the future transformation of Chaos Marines (if indeed the gifts of chaos are not explanation enough) as they can steal the secrets/techniques.

[DukeLeto69]

Actually just to add more...

 

I know the whole "imperial calendar is wrong" shenanigans was really just designed to put to rest the whole 41st millennium vs 42nd millennium argument (ie. We don't really know anymore). But it was also to enable the indomitus crusade to have raged for 100 years so that by the "present time" in the game the Primaris would be classed as veterans and experienced in war.

 

So we got the first proper advancement in the timeline/lore in 20 odd years and bang, it jumped another 100 years because...reasons. It didn't need to. If the Primaris were already transformed veterans then the Indomitus Crusade could be the present time. That could be the war being fought everywhere including on the tabletop.

[Kelborn]

Isn't the Indomitus supposed to ne a sandbox for the community? With only a handful of known stuff as examples via codices and some stories in order to implement their respective Primaris force?

[DukeLeto69]

Isn't the Indomitus supposed to ne a sandbox for the community? With only a handful of known stuff as examples via codices and some stories in order to implement their respective Primaris force?

IMO it should be exactly that (a sandbox with the outcome unknown) except we have BL novels set AFTER the Indomitus Crusade has finished* and the implication in fluff that it is over. It really is only a mechanism to give Primaris equal footing on the tabletop in prep for stopping making old marine figures and only making Primaris figures. I get that from a business POV but the lore could have handled the switch better IMO.

 

*The Dark Imperium novels by Guy Haley for example.

[Toxichobbit]

Every space marine player, including myself,  would have crapped their pants with joy.

No, they wouldn't. You don't speak for all Marine players, so please don't claim that you do.

 

On top of that, their arrival is yet another Ultra marine move, with Ultra Marines at the front of the charge. Again.

 

I'd like UM a lot better if they were made less amazing and more tactical, and if there was more tension between them and the other chapters, due to them constantly trying to force them into line. Make them the effective but annoyingly aragant brothers that the others have to put up with, superior in their role as creater of the codex. Then give other chapters chances to defy that and be amazing.

 

Now that Primaris are here, every space marine chapter is going to slowly be replaced by them, and it'll be another amazing move by the UM, proving once again how they can do everything themselves, blind folded and upside down. Every time GW make the decision to push UM, they kill Space Marine lore a little more. Non marine players see the marines getting special treatment. Players of other chapters see their chapter being passed over yet again. Obviously as a BT player this stings for me, but my faction doesn't even have it the worst. Iron Hands, Ravenguard, and White Scars really need some love. We all do.

Ultramarines are a marketing tool, nothing more. They're so prevelant because GW is a business and like any business, they recognise that consistency in their flagship product is important to keep growing and attracting new customers. UM have always been the face of Marines, since 2nd edition, because it's good business practice. Furthermore, Primaris are not Ultramarines. This isn't some conspiracy by GW to get everyone to play UM, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing releases like the Imperial Fist upgrade sprue, or the Crimson Fist Index Astartes. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because RG was behind the Primaris and they're painted blue on box art, that this is all an UM release. It isn't.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

While I do agree that GW pushes UM due to marketing reasons, I disagree that it is the strongest/only business practice. If more armies were pushed and given interesting marketing, there is a very high chance more people would grow interested in alternative SM armies. For example, the only CSM I typically enjoy playing are World Eaters. But with the recent Night Haunt sculpts, I am now very interested in playing those. And I don't think it takes custom sculpts to spark that interest. It just takes exposure. I say this as someone who has worked in advertising. The UM strategy is A strategy, not The strategy. Giving exposure to other chapters increases the odds those chapters will be played, and thus increases the odds that a new army will be built from the ground up, rather than added to.

 

 

Secondly. Don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I didn't say that all Primaris are UM. I said that the UM being behind the creation and dissimilation of Primaris, and other chapters being forced by this crude lore shift to accept them, has once more painted the UM as the attempted saviors of all humanity. That can only happen so many times before it gets old. Giving them such a prominent place in this new lore shift is one of many reasons that I'm rolling my eyes at it, rather than embracing it for the forward progress it is. I recognize that the story is moving forward. But I also recognize that it wasn't done gracefully.

 

 

Finally, it is pretty goofy to me that any Space Marine player would contest the idea of old marines getting truescale miniatures, as that is one of the most requested SM things I know of. But eh, we all have to choose a hill sooner or later.

[Panzer]

People ARE interested in other SM chapters. The UM subforum isn't the only active one here and to be honest I see more non-UM painted Marines than I see UM painted Marines when I look on the internet and various FLGS.

While having always UM at the center of things is tedious for us who already are in the hobby it's a good thing for people who aren't yet as it gives them a starting point instead of getting overwhelmed by a full rainbow of Marines in addition to the already big range of various factions to chose from. Not every marketing decision is aimed at you and you should realise that.

 

However all that has nothing to do with Primaris. Yes, Guilliman told an AdMech guy to make improvements to Marines and when he returned he told him to finally release them. That's literally all the connection they have to the Ultramarines. Primaris existing is not the Ultramarines' credit. It's what their Primarch did and that's how GW advertises it as well. It's always Guilliman (and Cawl) who did this great thing to save the Imperium of Man, not the Ultramarines. They're just yet another chapter having a hard time to adjust to the new situation.
Now there's the first huge multi-faction meta event after Cadia and look, it's not just Ultramarines again. There are tons of other chapters as well. In fact there are too many for my taste even. Sure they are in a prominent position again with Calgar becoming a Primaris and they almost broke their neck explaining how the Ultramarines got to Vigilus from half a galaxy away but it definitely isn't just Ultramarines there to save the day. They don't even are the most numerous on Vigilus. Maybe with all the successor chapters, however successor chapters are entirely independant of the parent chapter and see themselves often as equals (which they really should be anyway). Hell vven on the cover we don't see just Ultramarines.

 

Look, I don't like the Ultramarines as chapter either. I learned to like Guilliman with the Dark Imperium novels, but I still don't like his chapter. However sometimes the anti-UM complaining really gets out of hand. Could GW balance their attention between UM and other big chapters better? Sure. Does it really hurt if they don't? Nah not really as other chapters still get lots of attention if you don't just look at the boxes GW is releasing. There are tons of novels for non-UM chapters, GW releases boxes for other chapters as well (just 'recently' Space Wolves vs GSC) and for specialist games like Space Hulk it was always Blood Angels or Dark Angels or such and never Ultramarines too.

[Cryptix]

Also, the Rubicon Primaris is EXTREMELY difficult for the Marine involved. They die multiple times on the operating table and have a low chance of surviving, and even after they go through the process they're in for weeks to months of constant pain, clumsiness, and weakness. Doing it on whole chapters at a time is incredibly unfeasible.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

I'm not going to continue belaboring the points on UM. There is a good bit being skirted around here, but it isn't important.

 

The Rubicon process is indeed a dangerous undertaking. However, the lore surrounding Space Marines already suggests a very low recruitment to marine ratio. They start with a large pool of potentials, lose some in fitness training, lose more to genetic screening, lose more if the original SM implants don't take, then lose more if they die while serving as scouts. Now, with the ability to create Primaris from new recruits, I imagine that in a very short amount of time they will be doing that instead of creating new old marines. As those old marines die, they will have less of a presence. In addition to that, as many will pass the transformation process from old marine to Primaris as is plot dependent. Everything in the grimdark world of 40k is dangerous. I dont' see this as being much of a speed bump. The real questions are as follows:

 

Does GW plan on phasing out old marines entirely?

If yes, how sooN?

If not, what will the story justification be to keep them around?

 

As obvious as the answers to the above questions seem, those are the questions around which the lore is being forged. The story follows the business plot.

 

I'd bet a substantial portion of money that the danger of the Rubicon process will be a limiting factor for just long enough to get a full line of models completed. Then we'll be playing Primaris armies. or in my case, Chaos and Orks. I don't really hold any sort of grudge against GW for creating Primaris. It makes sense why they'd introduce the models. However, the aggressive marketting and disrespectful lore has turned me off to buying them. I love Warhammer, and it'll continue to get my money. But I support the projects I like. Vote with your dollars and such.

[Panzer]

I'm not going to continue belaboring the points on UM. There is a good bit being skirted around here, but it isn't important.

 

The Rubicon process is indeed a dangerous undertaking. However, the lore surrounding Space Marines already suggests a very low recruitment to marine ratio. They start with a large pool of potentials, lose some in fitness training, lose more to genetic screening, lose more if the original SM implants don't take, then lose more if they die while serving as scouts. Now, with the ability to create Primaris from new recruits, I imagine that in a very short amount of time they will be doing that instead of creating new old marines. As those old marines die, they will have less of a presence. In addition to that, as many will pass the transformation process from old marine to Primaris as is plot dependent. Everything in the grimdark world of 40k is dangerous. I dont' see this as being much of a speed bump. The real questions are as follows:

 

Does GW plan on phasing out old marines entirely?

If yes, how sooN?

If not, what will the story justification be to keep them around?

 

As obvious as the answers to the above questions seem, those are the questions around which the lore is being forged. The story follows the business plot.

 

I'd bet a substantial portion of money that the danger of the Rubicon process will be a limiting factor for just long enough to get a full line of models completed. Then we'll be playing Primaris armies. or in my case, Chaos and Orks. I don't really hold any sort of grudge against GW for creating Primaris. It makes sense why they'd introduce the models. However, the aggressive marketting and disrespectful lore has turned me off to buying them. I love Warhammer, and it'll continue to get my money. But I support the projects I like. Vote with your dollars and such.

 

Actually the pool got bigger with Primaris as they now can also turn non-ideal recruits into Marines. Even cripples can become Primaris Marines. It's much more about whether they fit mentaly rather than physically. Many chapter probably still won't abaddon their recruitment rituals, but something like what happened in the Devastation of Baal novel (one promising recruit not being able to become a Marine because he got hit too hard on the head during the recruitment rituals) won't be an issue anymore.

 

Also it's safe to assume that the Rubicon will be limited to important leader type characters. A means to keep existing characters relevant and sometimes interesting plot device. The huge majority of regular Marines will stay regular Marines as they are still effective warriors the way they are and there's no need to risk losing them i there's no really good reason to.

 

To your questions:

- Unknown but likely for the most part imo.

- Could be anything between next year to 20 years in the future, really.

- Chapters sticking to tradition, not trusting Cawl, renegades, being cut off from the rest of the imperium so they never got the means to produce primaris, not getting the process down to do it properly (it involved lots of experimentation for the Spears), mutated geneseed incompatible with the process and not bothering getting new geneseed from the AdMech for various reasons (including not wanting to draw suspicion for having potentially warp tainted geneseed). It's a big galaxy and there are hundreds of potential explanations for why a chapter might have no Primaris.

 

Whether it's aggressive marketing and disrespectful to the lore is subjective I guess. I for one don't think it's disrespectful and feel the aggressive marketing is well within what can be expected for the faction they chose to represent the game.

[Robbienw]

GW have already come out with story justification to keep normal marines around.  From the 500th store opening article on the Warhammer Community they stated:

 

"Most Chapters now have the means and technology to create Primaris Space Marines of their own (drawn from their usual recruitment worlds), though many still choose to create standard Space Marines as well for their more flexible and readily available equipment and combat doctrines"

 

Normal marines are still being made in universe up to the current point.

[Toxichobbit]

I'm not going to add anymore to the UM discussion, it comes up often enough that there's no need to do it here as well. Suffice to say, I'm completely and utterly sick of the whining that's been going on for years about them that happens every time there's anything even remotely UM mentioned. Or even in threads where UM haven't been mentioned at all.

 

Finally, it is pretty goofy to me that any Space Marine player would contest the idea of old marines getting truescale miniatures, as that is one of the most requested SM things I know of. But eh, we all have to choose a hill sooner or later.

 

People having different tastes than you is not them choosing a hill to die on. That description is used for describing a flawed argument which someone refuses to let go of, that's not what this is

 

I very much doubt that every Marine player who has 5k+ of current Marines wants GW to suddenly switch scales. The choice then is either stop buying new Marines, have two different sets of Marines (who lore and rulewise are identical yet obviously different model scales), or go back and re-do the entire army, including custom conversions that may have history and sentimental value, in the new scale. That is not "goofy", it's a perfectly understandable view point. I'd love the entire Marine range to be a more realistic scale, akin to the SM Heroes Tactical and Terminator models, or the Deathwatch, but then I don't have 5k+ of painted Marines. I could easily see someone who's spent years or even decades building up a Marine force in the current scale feeling betrayed and perhaps even that their models are invalidated by a complete re-scale of the existing Marine range.

 

Regardless of personal opinions on Primaris, it's undenaible that they sidestep this problem by providing an alternative range of Marines. It's far from ideal, but there is no ideal solution to this issue. Change the scale of current Marines and you risk alienating dedicated Marine players. Add Primaris and you risk Marine players not liking the new "replacements" and a culture of "fear of squatting" developing. Do nothing and your cash cow stagnates.

 

There is no right answer and what's "best" for the development of Marines in 8th is purely subjective.

[Kallas]

GW have already come out with story justification to keep normal marines around.  From the 500th store opening article on the Warhammer Community they stated:

 

"Most Chapters now have the means and technology to create Primaris Space Marines of their own (drawn from their usual recruitment worlds), though many still choose to create standard Space Marines as well for their more flexible and readily available equipment and combat doctrines"

 

Normal marines are still being made in universe up to the current point.

 

That is the weakest possible lip service. GW isn't repeating their mistake of the initial Age of Sigmar launch, but they're doing the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale (ie, it's mostly just Marines -> Primaris at the moment), but while Marines are still being made in the lore, that simply won't last; Marines will die out more quickly than Primaris and will be replaced with Primaris - their own lore makes this apparent from a logical point of view: Primaris are tougher and will eventually rise to higher ranks in Chapters through basic attrition, when this happens they'll begin to recruit less and less Marines as they will see little need for them especially as stockpiles of old equipment dwindle and less of their troops can use them.

 

In that way they'll phase out Marines without doing a smash cut to Primaris being the only Marines. If Primaris are so superior to Marines, which GW has stated in every instance of Primaris lore, then there's not reason to have Marines - it really is as simple as that. They're just :cussfooting around the issue because they want to avoid the backlash of a quick change, even though the end result will be the same.

[Robbienw]

Maybe.  Maybe not.

 

I guess it depends on how well Primaris do for GW.

 

It could change at some point in the future.  Or Primaris fluff could be changed.  Guess we will have to wait and see.

[Subtleknife]

Well I for one really like the primaris story. I prefer it over the op's idea. It adds a new dynamic between the old and new marines. As for ultramarines leading the charge...it is their primarch that has come back. I am sure when the next loyalist primarch returns another first founding will get some spotlight.

[DukeLeto69]

I very much doubt that every Marine player who has 5k+ of current Marines wants GW to suddenly switch scales. The choice then is either stop buying new Marines, have two different sets of Marines (who lore and rulewise are identical yet obviously different model scales), or go back and re-do the entire army, including custom conversions that may have history and sentimental value, in the new scale. That is not "goofy", it's a perfectly understandable view point. I'd love the entire Marine range to be a more realistic scale, akin to the SM Heroes Tactical and Terminator models, or the Deathwatch, but then I don't have 5k+ of painted Marines. I could easily see someone who's spent years or even decades building up a Marine force in the current scale feeling betrayed and perhaps even that their models are invalidated by a complete re-scale of the existing Marine range.

 

Regardless of personal opinions on Primaris, it's undenaible that they sidestep this problem by providing an alternative range of Marines. It's far from ideal, but there is no ideal solution to this issue. Change the scale of current Marines and you risk alienating dedicated Marine players. Add Primaris and you risk Marine players not liking the new "replacements" and a culture of "fear of squatting" developing. Do nothing and your cash cow stagnates.

 

There is no right answer and what's "best" for the development of Marines in 8th is purely subjective.

 

I agree but back to my original point...

 

For me the LORE is flawed and could have been better and more logical if they had ONLY used the Rubicon Primaris (ie transform existing Marines with potential high failure rates rather than conveniently having several hundred thousand new recruits on ice).

 

The real world business logic is actually pretty sound:

 

1. For year people complained about the wrong scale of Space Marines compared to other GW miniatures.

2. For years third party companies have been making money off providing accessories or alternative miniatures.

3. GW therefore need to change the scale to address both of these points.

4. But they also want to avoid the huge storm this might cause with existing SM players so..

5. They come up with some lore changes to explain away the new marines vs old marines.

 

So far so good except the lore went too far (IMO) and descended into a huge Deus Ex Machina of fanfic proportions.

 

Just going down the "we can transform/convert existing marines but it is very dangerous" would have been plenty good enough of an explanation and introduced significant drama into the lore. It would explain the very gradual shift (on the tabletop and in the lore/fiction) towards more Primaris being present AND does away with the problem that the Primaris have no battle experience thus requiring a 100 year crusade to bring them up to parity on the tabletop.

 

The only real world reason the Primaris won't be here to stay is if nobody buys them. If sales are good then wave bye bye to old marines over the next couple of years because of reasons 1 & 2 above.

[DukeLeto69]

Well I for one really like the primaris story. I prefer it over the op's idea. It adds a new dynamic between the old and new marines. As for ultramarines leading the charge...it is their primarch that has come back. I am sure when the next loyalist primarch returns another first founding will get some spotlight.

 

Totally respect your preference, if you like the story then that's cool. It is of course subjective.

 

As I said in previous post, I don't. I simply do not like the whole Cawl secretly working for 10,000 years and "oh look I just happen to have hundreds of thousands of new troops on ice/in statsis waiting to be deployed - what oh yeah don't worry they have no battle experience, but they'll learn and eventually be better than existing marines - just fast forward 100 years and hey presto problem solved!"

[Robbienw]

A vocal group of people on the internet complaining doesn't necessarily mean everyone who collects SM is concerned about scale. 

[Panzer]

A vocal group of people on the internet complaining doesn't necessarily mean everyone who collects SM is concerned about scale. 

 

A vocal group of people on the internet complaining doesn't necessarily mean everyone who collects SM is concerned about Primaris either. ;)

[Robbienw]

Never said everyone was!

[DukeLeto69]

A vocal group of people on the internet complaining doesn't necessarily mean everyone who collects SM is concerned about scale. 

 

True! I suspect the real world reason for changing scale has more to do with my point 2 than point 1 ;-)

[Subtleknife]

 

 

Well I for one really like the primaris story. I prefer it over the op's idea. It adds a new dynamic between the old and new marines. As for ultramarines leading the charge...it is their primarch that has come back. I am sure when the next loyalist primarch returns another first founding will get some spotlight.

Totally respect your preference, if you like the story then that's cool. It is of course subjective.

 

As I said in previous post, I don't. I simply do not like the whole Cawl secretly working for 10,000 years and "oh look I just happen to have hundreds of thousands of new troops on ice/in statsis waiting to be deployed - what oh yeah don't worry they have no battle experience, but they'll learn and eventually be better than existing marines - just fast forward 100 years and hey presto problem solved!"

And that is fine too. However, I tend to think the vocal minority turn this sort of thing into an echo chamber. I am just voicing my opinion so that hopefully doesnt happen :)

[FlamingDeth]

So far so good except the lore went too far (IMO) and descended into a huge Deus Ex Machina of fanfic proportions.

That's the crux of the issue I think. I'm sure there's lots of people who don't have an issue with the "old marines vs new marines" dynamic but do have an issue with how hamfisted the implementation was. I think that had they built up Cawl as a character for a while beforehand it would have helped quite a bit.

[TheTrans]

My issue with Primaris is the ham-fisted fluff-tification of them.

I believe I just read in one of the above comments that you can turn a cripple into a primaris? Awesome... so instead of "we take the best of the best", who can survive a rigourous training regime to turn 1 in 1000 into a marine. But now we have... "yeah we'll take anyone and she'll be right". Awesome.

But then for a marine who is the pinnacle of bio-engineering, super tough and resilient etc... him turning into a primaris is some super dangerous task, even thought he has significantly better coping mechanisms than poor little Timmy who was crippled by space-polio... Right. 

Then we touch on the huge death rates and difficulty of turning a super warrior into a super-duper warrior. Surely the chapter bean counters would be like....

Primarisisation Guy: "So we have Brother John who wants to be upgraded into a Primaris Marine. We have sunk millions of space dollars into John to make him the best of the best. But he wants to be bester! So we'll allow him to take a super dangerous operation to make him bester than ever right?"

Bean Counter: "But sir, the primarising of a normal human is much easier than turning them into a normal space marine.. why don't we just go down to the local children's home, round up the cripples and push them through the grinder. That way if they die, we don't lose a million space-dollar super weapon and just some poor urchin. That way there is no risk to Brother John and he can keep fighting and making his money back!"

Primarisisation Guy: " Nope... we're going to risk Johns decades of experience and wads of space-dollars already spent because he wants to be betterer and thats the end of that"..

So I know this is a rebounding echo chamber of "Primaris Suck" or "Primaris are the best ever".... but I honestly can't get my head around how the pro-primaris party are lapping up the drivel...

Also as an aside I would of been one of the 'yay true-scale' marine crowd... 

[Bryan Blaire]

If folks don't like the Primaris fluff, why not just ignore it and replace it with your personal flavor of "equipment makes them better" or something and their training doctrine simply observes methods used in the Legions, then just enjoy true-scale Marines? I mean you really don't have to partake in the fluff you don't want to - it may just take more on your part to do so, but typically at your table, it's not going to be an issue.