The MkVII marine - living its last life?

[snakebyte]

With plastic Mk III and IV , (and forgeworld filling the void with II, V and VI), those who play Heresy are accounted for.

The primaris range is the new space marine uniform, that's fairly conclusive.

 

Mk VII doesn't fit well enough in either range. Too new for old, too old for new. 

But I would stake my mortgage on there being more MKVII marines out in the wild, so to speak, than all the rest combined.

 

But there's a plastic range for heresy now after all and now primaris is obviously the new norm.

 

So what do you guys think? Do you think MkVII will be squatted? 

[Doghouse]

For the immediate future no. I personally think it fits fine into modern 40k and although we do not know the fate of the original marines they will be around for a while yet.

 

Thing to remember about 40k is there are ten thousand years to game in, you can play pre-Indominus games just as much as you can play heresy or pre-heresy if you really wanted.

 

Nothing is too old for 40k. ;)

[Robbienw]

The mk 7 space marine look is too iconic to go away.

[Doghouse]

Yeah it'd be like throwing out beakies. You never know maybe we'll see a primaris helmet that is based on it like we did with the Mk6?

[N1SB]

I had the weirdest sense of, not deja vu, but finally understanding something from almost 30 years ago.

 

But to answer, no, I really don't think Mk VII is going away (if only because, even if GW decides to phase them out...FW will step in and say "we'll continue them.")

 

 

+++ almost 30 years ago +++

 

 

I was at my local GW store, 2nd edition had just come out, and people were having the same discussion.  The difference was, instead of Primaris phasing out Mk VII, it was Mk VII phasing out Mk VI "Beakies".  Mk VII was already overtaking Mk VI even in late 1st ed, but the 2nd ed boxset seemed to be the last nail in the coffin.

 

There was a guy who believed Mk VII was 100% The Future.  I myself thought, well, there WAS already a Mk VIII, mainly used by The Mentors (Legion), there was even a miniature or two of them and people usually painted them in their colours.  One older (at least taller) teen had the foresight to see beyond all of us (he was right).

 

This older kid foresaw, at that time, Mk VI would only be obsolete when Mk VII was as well, which sounds contradictory until he explained something completely NEW and different replaces Power Armour as we knew it entirely.  His thought at the time was some new type of mass-produced Terminator armour, just something biggerer.

 

Well, it wasn't some Terminator-equivalent, but he was right that Beakies Got Bigger, which we now call Primaris.  Moreover, I was looking at a leftover sprue of Tactical Marines...and it had 6 Mk VII armour, but 3 Mk VI armour and 1 Mk VIII armour.  Mk VI never got phased out, and Mk VIII never took over.

 

(XD just saw Doghouse describing the same thing, but I'll continue briefly.)

 

 

+++ when will GW phase out Mk VII +++

 

 

I think only when GW has an equivalent of every Firsborn/OldMarine unit type, like the Chapter-specific units such as Sanguinary Guard, will Mk VII will truly be phased out.  And they'll give them a dignified retirement, they'll say Mk VIIs will be "Legends" and post free rules on Warhammer Community or something.

 

When that happens, a few months will pass, and FW will announce something like The Scouring or the Age of Apostasy or The Badab War (they already did the last one once, I know.)  The precedent is, on the Fantasy range, it's now Age of Sigmar after the End Times, and FW recently announced The Old World Returns.

 

In short, Mk VII will be around, just as Beakies are, but maybe in a different format.  Brother Snakebyte already mentioned the Horus Heresy, and I remember at the end of 7th ed 40k, we were mainly playing that to the point where we said, if 8th ed 40k didn't take off (it did), we'd just get everyone into 30k.

[Robbienw]

Exactly that N1SB, this is surely what will happen if classic marines ever leave regular 40k.

 

GW always returns to their classic designs.

[Noserenda]

Ive been putting Mk7 lids on Primaris.

Much better :) 

[Lucerne]

I hope we eventually get a leg/body design analogue to classic Mk 7 in Primaris scale.

[Ishagu]

It won't be squatted, but I think a Primaris only codex is necessary now. If you keep both classic and Primaris the range and also the book is simply too big.

 

There were gaps in the capabilities of Primaris-only armies but they will probably be filled after the next release wave.

 

In the meantime the old range isn't going anywhere. The kits are fine and the models perfectly playable.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Ishagu

[MegaVolt87]

Prediction- Old marines will move to specialist games, there will be scouring to just as/before 13th black crusade finishes. This way we could get things like new Calgar sculpt in say custom tartaros plate for a tyranic wars campaign expansion etc. Thats my hope anyway and what I would do to keep making money off old fans + get the younger ones there too to double dip into primaris and old marine sales to them. Of course more plastics for HH stuff would be needed for that as well, especially for scouring etc. 

[MARK0SIAN]

I think the MKVII marine will be around for quite a while yet, especially as a lot of characters haven’t been primarised yet. Whilst chapters like Blood Angels and Black Templars Primaris units still have to rely on old marines for most of their buffs then they’ll still be around.

 

I do see them eventually moving a lot of the firstborn stuff to legends, particularly once there is a Primaris equivalent and I think a Primaris codex is only a matter of time.

 

However, I don’t think any of that will happen soon. It’s been 3 years since Primaris were introduced and we are only now getting units like bikes or proper melee units so the process is incredibly slow. Plus the firstborn kits still sell and still make money for GW so there’s no real reason to kill off that revenue stream.

 

I’m not sure whether it would be worth GW bothering to put them into specialist games though as others have suggested. Yes they could do the scouring or similar but if you look at all the other specialist games, the heresy and the upcoming old world stuff, they’re all used as an opportunity to push sales of new models.

 

Developing a specialist game where most people already own the models that would be used in it seems like it wouldn’t be attractive in terms of cost/benefit for GW.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Horus Heresy eventually goes lightly into the Scouring, covering some events post siege of terra - boom, Aquilla mk7 is now firmly entrenched in HH along with other historical patterns. That's really all it'd take to secure a place for the mk7. 

 

With regards to 40k, the writing's been on the wall that new mk7 things aren't really on the horizon, other than things like the space marine heroes or similiar projects.. Primaris is a complete range refresh, and Legends is way to enshrine all existing mk7's as well other classic marines, and keep the game legal while they're not likely getting focus as new kit releases. 

 

That said, we've had mk10 beakies made for the raven guard update kit. I wouldn't be too surprised if we perhaps saw some neo-mark7 units at some point, wether upscaled classic marines or ascended primaris veterans or something. The models themselves wont be as small and stumpy as the older ones in either case I suspect.

[sarabando]

if specialist games did a box for each armour mark id be happy as a pig in doodoo.

[Rik Lightstar]

I think there's a big difference between "no new kits" and "no longer playable".

 

Most of the ranges have had very few new kits for a long time, until recently all Eldar got was some Wraith Units, same with Imperial guard who only really got the Tempestus other than a few Characters.

 

The "Firstborn" Marine range is also pretty complete, so I can't see them going away for the next decade. Sure they'll probably be split into their own Codex, but that doesn't mean they'll stop being competitive either.

 

GW cares not from where the cash flows.

 

Rik

[WandererTheta]

The firstborn marines will probably stay until the molds break, after that GW will probably start moving them to legends as it probably makes more sense to make a new unit than new molds for an old model that has likely hit saturation from a financial perspective.

[Jings]

I wholeheartedly believe that we'll get Mark III-VIII in a Firstborn Primaris Veterans box at some point in the future. GW would be mental not to. 

[Evil Eye]

I highly doubt that Mark VII, and indeed Firstborns, are going away- I don't know if we'll see new kits for them for a while, but as has been said before, basically every Firstborn unit is accounted for with a modern, good looking kit. The only exceptions being characters (who will likely get Primaris'd), Terminators (who aren't awful and may still get a new kit; there's precedence given the ancient Chaos Terminator kit got a refresh) and bikes (and honestly the regular bikes are OK- the attack bikes look kinda terrible admittedly, but they're hardly the most iconic unit in the Codex).

 

After the disaster that was the AoS launch and seeing how GW has learned from it, I find it extremely unlikely that Firstborns will be Squatted or made unplayable or even relegated to Legends. At absolute worst they won't get any shiny new toys, which is hardly a crying shame as prior to Primaris being a thing, the Space Marines were still being showered with new units and models.

[Lord_Caerolion]

As N1SB said above, they'll just get moved to FW/Specialist Games. GW love their "historical" games, and I just can't see them ever going "Hey Astra Militarum players, want to play the Macharian Crusades? Sure thing, we recommend these rules to represent Macharius himself. Grey Knights against the World Eaters and Angron during the First War for Armageddon? Have at it! Wait, you Space Wolves want to play out your part in the First War? Sorry guys, but Primaris weren't around then. Earliest you can play is the Indomitus Crusade."

[Closet Skeleton]

Technically Mark VII marines were phased out decades ago at the start of 3rd edition when they released plastic marine bodies that were 50/50 on mark VII and mark VI legs. The push fit 2nd ed boxset marines were the only plastic Mark VII marines released and the only multipart one was the pewter bodied plastic arms one from the same era. When Forgeworld had all their resin armour marks on sale and the deathwatch box was out the hardest armour mark to make whole squads of was actually mark VII since the tactical squad box gives you the parts to make a whole guy in mark IV and another in mark VI but only enough mark VII parts to make like 4 guys.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Closet Skeleton

[Wakkomaster]

It won't be squatted, but I think a Primaris only codex is necessary now. If you keep both classic and Primaris the range and also the book is simply too big.

 

There were gaps in the capabilities of Primaris-only armies but they will probably be filled after the next release wave.

 

In the meantime the old range isn't going anywhere. The kits are fine and the models perfectly playable.

 

I agree on the need for a separate "Codex Primaris" as now the line is full-fledged and can stand on its own. It won't be easy though, as Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves have Primaris as well - unless it's a "one-size fits all" codex that any space marine chapter can adopt.

 

The phasing is going to take a while. A long while. The first step would be a dedicated primaris codex, as said above. Then there's the issue of DAs, BAs and SWs having special and unique "firstborn" units: if they're going to be replaced, well, first you'll need replacements. And that's a big "if". This phase could take one entire edition-cycle as new deathwing, Death company and wolf guard models get released (just to name a few).

Then we can expect both lines to co-exist for some time, maybe one edition, before the "firstborn" line being retired (or moved to another setting "Horus Heresy" style).

 

So yes, it can (and probably will) happen, but there's more to it than just releasing a new codex with a [insert your favourite 1st Founding Chapter] on the cover.

[HighMarshalAmp]

Look at the helmet of this official Sons of Horus FW artwork.
At the very least, you can use Mk VII it to kitbash guys like him...

 

And as others have said, the Primaris range isn't tailored to fit the aesthetics of non-codex chapters yet. Which is kinda half the point of playing non-codex chapters.

So at least those special units will stay around for a while (and there will be faction specific kits because going 'Hey DA, look, there's guys in robes for you now so you can buy them instead of keeping your Caliban Green Vanilla Intercessors! Kthxbye!' is something GW will have to do - imagine the quarterly figures ...

 

And can't you always proxy your Marines for Chaos Marines? any Mk IV marine is a paintjob away from being a Heretic so at least the rules don't keep you from fielding your models with updated point costs...

Edited June 15, 2020 by HighMarshalAmp

[Medjugorje]

Lets say the old range is fully replaced by Primaris. At the end they will bring a Primaris tactical squad which look like the old marines. And I am sure we would buy it. 

[Roland Durendal]

One idea I've been floating around that would keep the old models viable without needing to phase them out is to take a page from the Infinity game and allow for "factions" within the army This would also fit in well if they produced a Primaris only codex. So, for example, let's say you play Deathwatch or SW (or really any marine chapter), you would have 3 options when building a list:

 

1). "Combined' Faction: what we see now, basically allowing Primaris and First Born units to be mixed within the army (or detachment/battalion)

2). "First Born Only": Name says it all. Only old models allowed in the list/detachment/army. Could even give such builds a cool little benefit ( I personally like "First Born Fury" as a name for such a bonus)

3). "Primaris Only": Again name says it all.

 

 The benefit of this is that everyone can continue to use their armies and play competitively, while also opening up different builds and army styles for every marine army in the game. Moreover, GW wouldn't have to make new models for the First Born (or if they did they could do so on a much slower and sporadic schedule) and they could focus on expanding the Primaris line. This would also, as I said earlier, allow them to build a pure Primaris codex.

 

Just my crazy idea anyway.

[Slave to Darkness]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but by the end of the heresy Mk7 was being produced in limited numbers on terra (or used to, unsure in regards to new lore). So technicalllllly you could still get away with the mk7 being repackaged as a late heresy kit. 

[Master Sheol]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but by the end of the heresy Mk7 was being produced in limited numbers on terra (or used to, unsure in regards to new lore). So technicalllllly you could still get away with the mk7 being repackaged as a late heresy kit.

Or you can always play in older centuries after the heresy like The Scouring, The War of the Beast (with the birth of the Deathwatch), the wars for Armageddon, the Badab War, the Age of Apostasy and so on ;) Edited June 18, 2020 by Master Sheol