No loyalist Astartes codex until the end of the year?

[Captain Idaho]

Ha yes Bell of Lost Souls is opinion masquerading as fact most of the time, or reporting the news just after it's been released elsewhere.

[Toxichobbit]

Ha yes Bell of Lost Souls is opinion masquerading as fact most of the time, or reporting the news just after it's been released elsewhere.

 

Yup. If i could click my fingers and make them change into a legit news and rumours site I would. Unfortuantly lots of the community still trust them when all thy're doing is saying anything to get business. C'est la vie. Anyway, back on topic...

 

Sorry Cap for editing my post literally as you replied to it. I didn't intend to spend that long adding stuff, it just kinda happened :p.

[Captain Idaho]

I'm just being an optimist really. I get the frustration folk have but I'm impressed with the Chaos release and am happy for them.

 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm unhappy with MANY of the new things GW has done (Fantasy AoS fiasco and Primaris making my purchased Classic Marines an endangered etc) but I enjoy the hobby still and am trying to get the most out of it.

[Ciler]

As for a new SM codex? It is likely we will get one, but I am hoping, as many others are, that it comes late enough to be updated and not a simple re-print. My real worry is that when PSM are split from SM the latter will get dropped entirely. And if that happens this year, there's a very good chance we won't even get an old marine codex next edition. That would be unfortunate. primaris just dont' scratch the Space Marine itch for me. In fact, I'm one of the unhappy players hoping Primaris stay their own thing, and don't actually replace real marines. So, as crappy as our current codex is, it could be worse.

I don't believe regular marines will get dropped altogether in the near future. Perhaps when the primaris range is full, but certainly not before that. Furthermore, as I'm sure I've said before, there's a rather strong incentive for GW not to completely squat regular marines : the second they do this, my regular marine with a bolter becomes a short intercessor.

 

The most likely outcome, in my opinion anyway, is that once the primaris range is complete (e.g. some CC units, fliers, heavy tanks, more characters going through the primaris rubicon or new characters being created), regular marines will get a minimal (possibly index type) rule support with poor tabletop performance, so as to encourage people to move to primaris.

[Toxichobbit]

I'm just being an optimist really. I get the frustration folk have but I'm impressed with the Chaos release and am happy for them.

 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm unhappy with MANY of the new things GW has done (Fantasy AoS fiasco and Primaris making my purchased Classic Marines an endangered etc) but I enjoy the hobby still and am trying to get the most out of it.

 

Yeah, I totally get that. I like to think we're all coming from the same place, of enjoying and loving the hobby. Otherwise we're literally just here to moan for the sake of it. We all have different perspectives on that though. I really like the way GW is heading, I like a lot of their decisions and improvements over the last couple of years. I like 8th, as a whole. But there's some stuff where my patience is just frayed away completely from years of them getting it wrong. Marines are one of those places. They just always mess them up (I started seriously playing in 2nd and Marines were awful even back then) and coast through on model sales instead of making enough an effort to get it right. it's something that really annoys me, and is also why I haven't bought a Marine model in a couple of years now, even though I like some of the new ones.

[Ishagu]

I firmly believe that the Primaris redesign is the solution and there's the potential to make them great, but GW have been so utterly slow with new releases for them. I wonder if the vocal whingers, complainers and bile in the community have something to do with the snail's pace rollout.

[Captain Idaho]

You shouldn't be casting stones at community toxicity, there Ishagu...

 

Besides, I'm fairly sure if GW said they were releasing a wide range of non-Primaris Marines you'd be 100% supportive of them as well.

[Ciler]

Well yes, and then again no. Try and imagine anyone who's not playing marines being subjected to 12-18 month of primaris after primaris releases, while some armies (including chaos up until recently) were stuck with decade old models when Calgar gets it's 3rd incarnation ?

 

It makes sense to spread them out. The only potential criticism would be that they should have said outright "there will be more of these guys" for everyone who didn't think tht was obvious.

[jaxom]

 

I think it's safe to assume that GW sell most of their models based on their asethetic or world building, rather than their awesome rules or narrative.

 

No assumptions needed. A few of the design interviews do say the process for new things starts with concept design and miniatures before being handed off to the rules team. From VoxCast 7 w/Jes Goodwin:

 

Wade Price: "I know the guys writing the rules had to go back and forth a bit on the datasheet. 'Well, it's really fast, is it a fast attack unit? But they've all got heavy weapons, so it's a heavy support? It's fun, it's fun.'"

Jes Goodwin: "It's in my job description to give the [line] writers as many problems as possible. It made sense, it made sense from a visual point of view because that nice, slim, long gun looks great on a mount where you've got the guy [on the] front of it."

[Transcription may be a bit off, this portion starts at 38:20]

 

 

The Abaddon redux episode notes that the process hasn't changed much since the '80s. Some one up top says "We want X," where X is very basic like "Chaos Hero," the concept designers do the initial work ups of art (2D and 3D), a design space is approved with certain work ups marked for immediate development, and then the narrative and rules teams are left to fill in the spaces of who/what the thing is and does.

[Marshal Rohr]

The process of creating stuff and then filling in the lore afterwards is why none of the new stuff makes any sense. You don’t solve problems by starting from a solution and then filling in the problem. As a wargame everything should be built from the lore first, and then models made to fill the gaps.

[Blindhamster]

The process of creating stuff and then filling in the lore afterwards is why none of the new stuff makes any sense. You don’t solve problems by starting from a solution and then filling in the problem. As a wargame everything should be built from the lore first, and then models made to fill the gaps.

 

Trouble is, as they always say, they're a miniature company that makes a game to use those miniatures in, the lore is built to support the miniatures, not the other way around. It fits their business model, and regardless of what you or I or any other person might want to think, it does clearly work from them based on their movement from strength to strength over the last few years.

 

I for one would also prefer they wrote lore then made the models to fit it as well, but it is what it is.

[Toxichobbit]

The process of creating stuff and then filling in the lore afterwards is why none of the new stuff makes any sense. You don’t solve problems by starting from a solution and then filling in the problem. As a wargame everything should be built from the lore first, and then models made to fill the gaps.

 

Yup. And despite what modern GW says, this isn't how it used to be. It hasn't always been "models first". Some of us are old enough to remember lore and rules existing before models. It got less common over the years and eventually went away when Chapterhouse screwed it up. But yeah, way back in the day (90s, early 2000s) lore and rules were 100% written before models existed. Sometimes way before models existed.

 

So the Abaddon redux is straight up bull, or at least badly explained and leaving out a lot of details. Anyone who played during the 80s and 90s can remember having to source/convert for units that hadn't been released yet, sometimes for years at a time.

 

And like Marshal Rohr, I firmly believe that having the freedom to create the lore first allowed for better world building and story telling, which is why so much of the lore nowadays feels souless.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

The chaos release gives a clear path for how GW plans to update the codex. When you factor in the other chapters that will need an updated codex (BA, DA, and SW), and at some point DW it doesn't make sense for them to do a rewrite for just one of them. 

 

I think if marines are going to become more interesting its going to be through the new units and detachments, chaos proved that they aren't going to change lackluster detachment bonuses (look at word bearers for example). So hopefully the new units bring a lot to the table, or GW finally addresses detachments and CP in the April FAQ (not holding my breath). 

 

 

 

[Captain Idaho]

I'd love to know the truth of why GW makes some of the deicions they do. I mean, like a fly on the wall.

 

I just find it odd there's no one to say:

 

"Giant Space Marines, bigger than usual ones, don't need a covert ops release that is pretty mild on the table and thematically inconsistent as we can expand on Scouts with new models.

 

The Community are asking for a heavy assault unit, fast vehicle transport and some anti tank options for Primaris - maybe we should give them what they want."

[Toxichobbit]

I'd love to know the truth of why GW makes some of the deicions they do. I mean, like a fly on the wall.

 

I just find it odd there's no one to say:

 

"Giant Space Marines, bigger than usual ones, don't need a covert ops release that is pretty mild on the table and thematically inconsistent as we can expand on Scouts with new models.

 

The Community are asking for a heavy assault unit, fast vehicle transport and some anti tank options for Primaris - maybe we should give them what they want."

 

Maybe there was. But they were drowned out by all the CoD players at GW HQ shouting about "muh tacticool!" :p

 

Disclaimer: I have no idea if anyone at GW HQ is a CoD fan, the idea just amused me.

[Red_Shift]

The vanguard are a nice release but imo they should have been done after the other stuff the community was/is wanting had been done. I get that primaris models won't be ported straight over from their classic marine equivalents but surely there must be some around with meltaweapons, lascannons or even just plain old fashioned missile launchers? I'm still kind of hopeful for a re-imagining of the deodorant tank after that rumour engine image.

[Ciler]

I'd love to know the truth of why GW makes some of the deicions they do. I mean, like a fly on the wall.

 

I just find it odd there's no one to say:

 

"Giant Space Marines, bigger than usual ones, don't need a covert ops release that is pretty mild on the table and thematically inconsistent as we can expand on Scouts with new models.

 

The Community are asking for a heavy assault unit, fast vehicle transport and some anti tank options for Primaris - maybe we should give them what they want."

Keep in mind that the models released today were for some of them designed 18 to 24 months ago. There wasn't such a huge demand for those then.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

The process of creating stuff and then filling in the lore afterwards is why none of the new stuff makes any sense. You don’t solve problems by starting from a solution and then filling in the problem. As a wargame everything should be built from the lore first, and then models made to fill the gaps.

Trouble is, as they always say, they're a miniature company that makes a game to use those miniatures in, the lore is built to support the miniatures, not the other way around. It fits their business model, and regardless of what you or I or any other person might want to think, it does clearly work from them based on their movement from strength to strength over the last few years.

 

I for one would also prefer they wrote lore then made the models to fit it as well, but it is what it is.

I wouldn’t call the suppressors, reivers, or repulsor a strength no matter how many fifteen year olds like the idea of a fixed missile launcher on the side of a turret or skull masks and 3 foot long Bowie knives. Overwatch and Fortnite are popular, too. Doesn’t make the designs or aesthetics any less trashy.

 

For a really good comparison, one of Kim Kardashian’s sisters is a billionaire fashionista because people buy her products. Making money isn’t always a good indicator of things that are actually worth the time. I don’t need Games Workshop to make bajillions selling plastic versions of whatever latest aesthetic some marketing guru has decided the zoomers like. I need them to make just enough to not lose their soul, which they lost sometime around fifth edition. While a few brave souls have steered them back on course with AT, Kill Team, the Heresy, and Necromunda 40k at large is going out of its way to piss on what made space marines cool. Thankfully it’s only space marines that are being sacrificed on the alter of modern fads and the chaos, gsc, ad mech ranges expemlify what made this damn game so cool in the first place.

[chapter master 454]

Still annoyed but some glimmers of possible futures are there.

 

First, the new Reaper Chaingun for chaos shows they are open to making new things. However I will also point that unless it is somewhere about 3x the cost of a heavy boltgun then we will have some problems with power creep (somewhere above 20 points, I give it about 24-26 points as fair).

 

Old marines currently lord anti-tank over primaris along with close combat ability. Despite their superior attack count, primaris just seem to have an issue with hold power weapons that aren't power fists (some sergeants have managed to learn the fabled technique after 100 knife thrusts, 100 knife slashes, 100 ninja knife slashes and 10 hours of being crouched in a corner ambushing their fellow battle brothers can getting called camping failures!). Really, Old Astartes actually hold a lot of utility and power in their arsenal as while they may have weaker troop choices, even their fast attack options blow primaris out of the water (yes, even assault marines are better than interceptors and reavers, I said it!).

 

The big point for Primaris really is two units: Intercessors and Hellblasters and both are funnily similar reasons, their guns are good when massed and can be massed and thus do well while also having good durability.

Heck even redemptors are poor quality because of something I want to discuss separately which is "is being above 10 wounds worth it" (with units that sit at 10 wounds becoming stronger if you were to reduce their wound count by 1 because it would remove any tables or targeting waviers) but also because they really lack anything other than plasma for anti-tank (seriously, Cawl is mars right? With how he poops out plasma I swear he must of installed a Ryza holotape when he was arming primaris!)

 

Maybe...the way forward is for Primaris to be the jobber squads, the troops, rank and file space marines while the more specialised squads are left to the old form of marines? Maybe something in primaris makes them naturally "unadaptable" to different roles. After all, how do they train? Is it once you are a hellblaster you are always a hellblaster? If so then that leaves old marines to become the ones who can be a more versatile option.

The ultimate weakness of primaris: lack of flex. Would be fun to see Gulliman undone by his own attempts to re-write the codex and chapters effectively saying "no hold on, the old stuff work 10k years and this new stuff is only 100s of years old and falling apart...what the heck G-man?"

[Ishagu]

Um, there's nothing remotely specialised about the classic Astartes. Nothing about them holds up. Nothing is truly fit for purpose.

 

Inceptors, Hellblasters, Intercessors and the Repulsor are all far better than the closest classic equivalents, as an example. Reivers are comparative to an assault squad but are cheaper, have more attacks and more wounds but with less movement and are unfairly criticised because people judge everything by offensive capabilities.

The Primaris line has gaps but they will be filled over time. Infiltrators are already filling the niche that scouts provide, however they are priced uncompetitively at this point in time. We can see that the shortcomings are being addressed.

[bolvar]

I firmly believe that the Primaris redesign is the solution and there's the potential to make them great, but GW have been so utterly slow with new releases for them. I wonder if the vocal whingers, complainers and bile in the community have something to do with the snail's pace rollout.

 

 

 

Um, there's nothing remotely specialised about the classic Astartes. Nothing about them holds up. Nothing is truly fit for purpose.

 

Inceptors, Hellblasters, Intercessors and the Repulsor are all far better than the closest classic equivalents, as an example. Reivers are comparative to an assault squad but are cheaper, have more attacks and more wounds but with less movement and are unfairly criticised because people judge everything by offensive capabilities.

The Primaris line has gaps but they will be filled over time. Infiltrators are already filling the niche that scouts provide, however they are priced uncompetitively at this point in time. We can see that the shortcomings are being addressed.

 

 

And there is where opinions clashes:

 

For you, primaris are the solution to marine range, both for model aspect and the rules one, which are here to save us from everything including ourselves. In essence, the future of the SM range.

 

 

For me, they are a hateful intent to replace the classic marine range and cast them into oblivion/legacy standpoint where they will be ultimately discarded (in short, planned obsolescence).

 

Their lore for me is heresy-bording and their rules are stupid as hell. New releases that can't work with anything released before them? For Emperor's sake, that's a spit in our face and still some people think that we should be grateful for it.

 

For the sake of clarity in my statement, let's take a look at Calgar: He's primaris now, so you can't bring him in a LR, or stormraven, or anything that isn't a repulsor. The same applies to every primaris release before him. The only thing that work between primaris and classic units are characters auras. And of course, don't forget the intent of the primaris releases:

-Intercessors are made to replase tactical squads

-Aggresors are made to replace terminators

-Redemptor Dreadnoughts are made to replace classic dreadnoughts

-Primaris versions of characters, with the issues that I've mentioned with the Calgar example. If tomorrow they launch a primaris Emperor's Champion, tell me, how can I transport him? I'm bound to buy a Repulsor, because every single other transport I own CAN'T transport him, for example.

-Special mention at Vanguard primaris (the last release, with infiltrators and eliminators which are aimed to replace scouts) and the vanguard librarians, which their support powers being able only to affect vanguard primaris.

 

In short: Primaris, for me, is the biggest insult GeeDub could make to SM players. Because their intent is to replace our models, and every release only further cements that statement. What was the last release that wasn't primaris for us? Because I can't remember it. Every single SM release since 8th has been primaris for us.

 

And I can understand it: they are on the works of a new range. But that's costing us possible new releases for the classic range. So we have yet another new competitor for releases, and the worst of it: It's in our house now. When chaos players get new releases, they are made to expand their entire range, and the same goes for orks, t'au, eldar, IG, and every single army beside us, which are getting releases explicity made to be used only with primaris or even less, vanguard primaris being the target.

 

 

Take a look at CSM new releases: not a single one of them not only not invalidates older units and they can be used alongside the old range, and still bring something new. For example, the greater possesed who give a +1 strength aura. A new unit which can and will be used alongside everything that was released before.

 

 

If the schedule in the mid/long term run for space marines is to be replaced with the new, shiny primaris, schewing the classic range and condemning them to not getting never a new release, I'm sorry but I'll burn my miniatures and I'll take it like WHFantasy: they destroyed the game and replaced it with some aberration made from stiches of it's corpse. Simply because my models are bound to be legacy units, much like happened to Fantasy Empire. Or worse, get the Bretonnian treatment. And while in the short run that won't happen, it allows for the possibily of it in the long run, and I'm not going to accept it.

 

 

So yes, I truly hope that the "vocal whingers, complainers and bile in the community" as you call us, are resoundingly heard and took in consideration, because we too spend our money in their craft, and the least we're expecting is something called respect for the investment, both in money and time, that we've made all these past years. And we have ample reasons to think this, considering that they destroyed an entire product that was even older than 40K and the last releases not only contradict that statement, but further cements it.

[Captain Idaho]

 

I'd love to know the truth of why GW makes some of the deicions they do. I mean, like a fly on the wall.

I just find it odd there's no one to say:

"Giant Space Marines, bigger than usual ones, don't need a covert ops release that is pretty mild on the table and thematically inconsistent as we can expand on Scouts with new models.

The Community are asking for a heavy assault unit, fast vehicle transport and some anti tank options for Primaris - maybe we should give them what they want."

 

Keep in mind that the models released today were for some of them designed 18 to 24 months ago. There wasn't such a huge demand for those then.

It's about 6 months from concept to final product. I don't know where folk get this 2 year thing?

 

Remember when Custodes released and every said they wanted an HQ to take a Custodes army? We got a bunch of new units in response to that - GW own opinion.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Well this thread took a nosedive rather quick.

[Captain Idaho]

It started off as a negative view on the lack of a new Space Marines Codex...

[Marshal Reinhard]

Fair.