The problem with Daemon Primarchs

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

So there is some speculation for AngryRon and the Peacock making an appearance this edition... what I have found with Daemon Primarks in general is they die really quick since they has 10+ wounds. Now AngryRon he won’t get any psy powers but he would have some wings according to the lore. So I don’t see him being much of threat at all unless he gets some truly baller rules but how could he make Khorne any better?

 

Now let’s suppose the peacock comes out as well strutting his stuff... there will be lots of mirror matches and you can’t run Smash Broz no more now. It just seems so futile to me.

[MegaVolt87]

So there is some speculation for AngryRon and the Peacock making an appearance this edition... what I have found with Daemon Primarks in general is they die really quick since they has 10+ wounds. Now AngryRon he won’t get any psy powers but he would have some wings according to the lore. So I don’t see him being much of threat at all unless he gets some truly baller rules but how could he make Khorne any better?

 

Now let’s suppose the peacock comes out as well strutting his stuff... there will be lots of mirror matches and you can’t run Smash Broz no more now. It just seems so futile to me.

 

Demon primarchs aren't for players like you. CSM players put up with garbage rules, however we still buy the models because our players put out the most top tier armies for the hobby aspect. GW follows the money, I myself bought Perty for HH and will probably never use him. I would buy Fulgrim/Angorn as they would be more to my taste in 40k compared to Magnus + Morty. Plus GW can't squeeze out primaris sales out of a lot of CSM players (I am starting primaris myself, been over a decade since I had loyalists). Why are you worried? If they are actually good SM players will cry on socials to GW and they will get nerfed. Let us have models we will enjoy painting/ using in casual games. 

[Azekai]

Bringing back any of the Primarchs was a mistake, and not just from a fluff point of view. Their rules are hell to balance. You either bring one against an unprepared opponent (potentially in a smaller game) and you wreck their face, or you play one in competitive and the immortal son of the God Emperor gets deleted T1 by rerolling lascannons. I am a die hard Death Guard player and I still have not bothered to pick up Mortarion, mainly because I can't see myself using him and having fun either way.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Just because some might buy it isn’t what I’d consider a good reason to make it .

[MegaVolt87]

Just because some might buy it isn’t what I’d consider a good reason to make it .

 

Yes lets not make a product our customer base has indicated they are willing to purchase very publicly and vocally, we don't need extra free money as a publicly traded company with shareholders.   

[Gederas]

Just because some might buy it isn’t what I’d consider a good reason to make it .

And just because some people can't get out of the hyper competitive rocket tag gameplay that is tournaments, doesn't mean a model shouldn't be made.

 

But it's clear from your post here, and elsewhere, that you can't seem to wrap your brain around people -GASP- playing the game for casual fun. Such sacrilege, I know...

[Schurge]

If GW wanted Primaris to charge out of vehicles after moving they would just change the rules. If they wanted Daemon Primarchs to be tourney level competitive it really wouldn't be that hard to make them good either. Give Angron a point cost of a knight and then give him the rules complexity of a knight. Edited July 29, 2020 by Schurge

[Antarius]

Bringing back any of the Primarchs was a mistake, and not just from a fluff point of view. Their rules are hell to balance. You either bring one against an unprepared opponent (potentially in a smaller game) and you wreck their face, or you play one in competitive and the immortal son of the God Emperor gets deleted T1 by rerolling lascannons. I am a die hard Death Guard player and I still have not bothered to pick up Mortarion, mainly because I can't see myself using him and having fun either way.

Nitpick: the Daemon Primarchs were always "back" from a fluff perspective, way before they got models. Aside from that, I agree with a lot of what you said.

 

From my pov, the problem is mostly a fluff one (although it does relate to rules) and follows along the lines of your example; what rules CAN you give a Primarch (especially one imbued with daemonic power) that doesn't make the game weird? Either they die all the time (or are incapacitated and have to go home for more bandaids or whatever) or they make every game pointless - not to mention weird, from a fluff pov (Really? Mortarion shows up every time there are three or more Death Guard assembled in one place, etc., etc.).

[tychobi]

More the merrier! Better than more primaris models. They look awesome and are fun, why not primarchs/big baddies for all?

[Volt]

IMO would be better to give them a statline in lieu of Imperial Knights more than anything else. Incredibly expensive in points, but in turn for being incredibly tanky and also a serious threat to an enemy army depending a whallop of firepower to take them out. As-is they're just tankier Daemon Princes.... without the character targeting rules. As is the issue with HQ's in the new game, having more than 9 wounds makes your character weaker, not tougher, as having 3-7 more wounds doesn't really do much in regards to making sure a smash captain doesn't kill it, but does enable shooting to make swiss cheese of it come first turn it's exposed. Overall a Primarch should ideally be more like what they actually are in 30k/old 40k rules. 'Ard as nails to the point basically nobody actually kills one in the course of a game. But you can simply bog them down in bodies or throw something big at them to keep them busy for 5 rounds.

 

More the merrier! Better than more primaris models. They look awesome and are fun, why not primarchs/big baddies for all?

Because it utterly mauls the fluff and removes agency in the first place. Primarchs themselves were a mistake in the first place, them being dead/missing/playing the Great Game was good, instead of the circus/soap opera the fluff has degenerated into instead of the narrative of a thousand disconnected events in a galaxy that won't miss you of prior editions.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m generally in agreement with Megavolt in that I think Daemon Primarchs are cool and aimed more at casual gamers, people who want to field the model because they love it rather than because it’s necessarily a great choice.

 

I’m not generally a fan of Herohammer, I prefer games to be armies fighting each other rather than the battles being centred around a few major characters. That’s why I don’t want Primarchs (loyalist of daemon) given rules that make them so good you see them in loads and loads of games. At the start of 8th, as Antarius said, these big Primarch figures were showing up to every single battle in the galaxy, even ones that were just a handful of chaos cultists. It stretched the fluff too far and made seeing one a tedious affair.

 

The problem with them dying super quickly to firepower can only be solved if you make them less of a priority target. The problem with units like Magnus, Mortarion and the others if you bought them back is that they are so incredibly dangerous. You have to dump firepower into them because the consequences of not killing them off before they can do much will generally be a lost game. If they were made less of a threat (with a corresponding points decrease) then we might end up with a situation where they can contribute more to the battle.

 

The alternative would be to go with an approach more like what Volt suggested, drop all of them down to 9 wounds so they can’t be shot but make them weaker and have it so they can be bogged down or countered more readily.

 

I’d bring Angron and Fulgrim back with some good rules but deliberately not top tier so as to avoid them being an auto include. I’d also make it so that primarchs and their equivalents in other factions couldn’t be taken in games below a certain size too.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

With Primarchs effectively being forced into the new supreme command detachment and saddled with the warlord position, we can't really carry our opinions on them from 8th over to 9th. The game now rewards CP for tighter, less character spam armies, and is leaning in a generally more naratively appropriate direction in all aspects. In addition, we're starting to see splashes of Sigmar rules filter into 40K. I would be very surprised if GW hasn't put some mechanism in place to make big centerpiece models more impactful on the table, whether it be by giving them the limited wound cap treatment, allowing them to hide behind obscuring ruins, etc.

 

Let's wait and see where the next batch of codecies leave us. Any Sigmar player can tell you that the game will change drastically from one book to the next, and that's the sort of thing I'm expecting from 9th. Hard, distinct, flavorful armies that feel good on the tabletop.

[Volt]

I’m generally in agreement with Megavolt in that I think Daemon Primarchs are cool and aimed more at casual gamers, people who want to field the model because they love it rather than because it’s necessarily a great choice.

 

I’m not generally a fan of Herohammer, I prefer games to be armies fighting each other rather than the battles being centred around a few major characters. That’s why I don’t want Primarchs (loyalist of daemon) given rules that make them so good you see them in loads and loads of games. At the start of 8th, as Antarius said, these big Primarch figures were showing up to every single battle in the galaxy, even ones that were just a handful of chaos cultists. It stretched the fluff too far and made seeing one a tedious affair.

 

The problem with them dying super quickly to firepower can only be solved if you make them less of a priority target. The problem with units like Magnus, Mortarion and the others if you bought them back is that they are so incredibly dangerous. You have to dump firepower into them because the consequences of not killing them off before they can do much will generally be a lost game. If they were made less of a threat (with a corresponding points decrease) then we might end up with a situation where they can contribute more to the battle.

 

The alternative would be to go with an approach more like what Volt suggested, drop all of them down to 9 wounds so they can’t be shot but make them weaker and have it so they can be bogged down or countered more readily.

 

I’d bring Angron and Fulgrim back with some good rules but deliberately not top tier so as to avoid them being an auto include. I’d also make it so that primarchs and their equivalents in other factions couldn’t be taken in games below a certain size too.

I don't mean dropping them down in rules really, but making them sufficiently tanky they don't worry about getting shot to pieces. Primarchs in 30k are pretty damn powerful and able to sow damage across the battlefield, but are more of a missile that only goes down to titan grade firepower. Otherwise they bogged down in melee for multiple turns due to not having a lot of attacks most of the time (of course YMMV due to varying strength). The approach thus ideally should be that maybe Primarchs in general, not just Chaos, have like, 28-30 wounds in the modern game, but have maybe only 6 attacks that hit *really* hard. This means they can pretty easily smash something, but as a single model they can be held up by hordes as they'd lack the damage to incure enough morale losses to break out. If they must be in the game, they should be sufficiently potent, but as a single actor not be ideally suited to dealing with a horde of infantry.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

I’m generally in agreement with Megavolt in that I think Daemon Primarchs are cool and aimed more at casual gamers, people who want to field the model because they love it rather than because it’s necessarily a great choice.

 

I’m not generally a fan of Herohammer, I prefer games to be armies fighting each other rather than the battles being centred around a few major characters. That’s why I don’t want Primarchs (loyalist of daemon) given rules that make them so good you see them in loads and loads of games. At the start of 8th, as Antarius said, these big Primarch figures were showing up to every single battle in the galaxy, even ones that were just a handful of chaos cultists. It stretched the fluff too far and made seeing one a tedious affair.

 

The problem with them dying super quickly to firepower can only be solved if you make them less of a priority target. The problem with units like Magnus, Mortarion and the others if you bought them back is that they are so incredibly dangerous. You have to dump firepower into them because the consequences of not killing them off before they can do much will generally be a lost game. If they were made less of a threat (with a corresponding points decrease) then we might end up with a situation where they can contribute more to the battle.

 

The alternative would be to go with an approach more like what Volt suggested, drop all of them down to 9 wounds so they can’t be shot but make them weaker and have it so they can be bogged down or countered more readily.

 

I’d bring Angron and Fulgrim back with some good rules but deliberately not top tier so as to avoid them being an auto include. I’d also make it so that primarchs and their equivalents in other factions couldn’t be taken in games below a certain size too.

I don't mean dropping them down in rules really, but making them sufficiently tanky they don't worry about getting shot to pieces. Primarchs in 30k are pretty damn powerful and able to sow damage across the battlefield, but are more of a missile that only goes down to titan grade firepower. Otherwise they bogged down in melee for multiple turns due to not having a lot of attacks most of the time (of course YMMV due to varying strength). The approach thus ideally should be that maybe Primarchs in general, not just Chaos, have like, 28-30 wounds in the modern game, but have maybe only 6 attacks that hit *really* hard. This means they can pretty easily smash something, but as a single model they can be held up by hordes as they'd lack the damage to incure enough morale losses to break out. If they must be in the game, they should be sufficiently potent, but as a single actor not be ideally suited to dealing with a horde of infantry.

Whilst I think the 30k approach is good, I think it would fall down in this game. In 30K like you said, you can bog them down with hordes or the alternative is you send another primarch at them and they stalemate themselves for the rest of the game. In 40k though, I don’t think what you’re proposing would work that well.

 

Firstly, not every army has access to a horde unit or can make one that it can afford to sacrifice and obviously very few armies would have a Primarch equivalent to go toe to toe with them. Secondly, whilst the Primarch wouldn’t have enough attacks to clear the horde, clearing hordes in general in 40k is laughably easy. When armies can delete squads of 30 ork boys per turn without breaking a sweat then clearing the tarpits will be easy for the Primarchs side. Or just make sure someone like Angron is accompanied by some Berzerkers who’ll clear tarpits all day long. With how quickly everything dies, I don’t think bogging a key unit down is going to be a viable strategy.

 

That’s also my final issue. The level of tankiness you’d have to give the Primarch would be insane. 8th edition saw several armies that had no problem wiping a knight castellan in turn one. You’d have to foist so many defensive buffs onto the Primarchs that it’d be easier for GW to just write a rule saying Primarchs weren’t allowed to be killed before turn 5. Like the rule for Ghaz, I mean no offence to ork players when I say that I absolutely hate his lost wounds cap. I know why it’s there and I agree he needs it but the mere fact such a rule that bypasses the core rules of the game even exists is because everything just dies so easily.

 

Basically, I just don’t think the kind of counters that work against Primarchs in 30k will be as effective in 40k and tankiness is really hard to achieve with the amount of damage armies can throw out now.

[Karhedron]

I am wondering how the terrain changes for 9th will affect the viability of units like Primarchs. It seems like it will be a bit easier to keep them out of LOS of heavy weapons in the opening turns which means they will have more time to contribute and/or get their defensive buffs running (in the case of the Chaos Primarchs).

[Neowulf]

Well the thing I hate most about daemon Primarks is that you go in for cheap clothes and come out with a nasty mutation! 

 

But in all seriousness if they ever released a Russ model i'd snap it up, but i'd rarely play it; As others have pointed out it's either gonna be overpower or murdered to death, no real balance, good for narrative driven games. They are lovey models and nice to paint and just to have. From a lore point of view it was a mistake to bring the Primarch back as it takes away from for mysteriousness and grandeur of the Imperium's history, now you have these legends walking amongst us again and they don't seem so legendary

[MARK0SIAN]

I am wondering how the terrain changes for 9th will affect the viability of units like Primarchs. It seems like it will be a bit easier to keep them out of LOS of heavy weapons in the opening turns which means they will have more time to contribute and/or get their defensive buffs running (in the case of the Chaos Primarchs).

Magnus and Mortarion both have 18 wounds which exempts them from the most important terrain benefits of 9th, namely obscuring. For them, it’s exactly like 8th was in terms of line of sight.

[Brother Tyler]

I've cleaned up a string of replies that were going off on a tangent. There was some valid discussion hidden in them, but that needs to be addressed in an on topic manner.

[Ishagu]

They can start off the board now. Even 9 wound characters are a lot more vulnerable in 9th, the scales have been balanced better. Edited July 29, 2020 by Ishagu

[Irate Khornate]

The Primarch models sell, I've known several people that don't even play the game that went out of their way to buy Robute, Magnus, and Morty and proceeded to paint them gorgeously.

 

Angron I think is probably the easiest to design rules wise, but also the hardest to find a spot on the list as there are no shortages of really killy models for Khorne.

 

Fulgrim I have no doubt will be the fastest of the Daemon Primarchs, I could easily see him being a LOW equivalent Keeper of Secrets with access to Warptime. Rip and Tear.

[Khornestar]

I think something like a 4+ FNP would be an appropriate rule to give daemon Angron, to make up for the lack of psychic powers and strong likelihood that he’ll be shot to death before doing anything. Or similar rule to Ghaz that limits the amount of wounds lost in any given phase/turn.

 

Some have the idea that survivability is the purview of Nurgle, and I guess fair enough, but if a unit can’t survive to act for more than a single turn because it can’t hide and it’s easy to kill, it might as well not exist.

 

Outflanking is a thing now, however. 3d6” charge distance would seem like an appropriate rule for Angron, perhaps with additional bonuses like re-rolls or bonus inches.

 

Anyway, none of this really means all that much since he doesn’t exist in the game and GW is gonna write whatever rules they come up with. Fun to shoot the breeze about it, but it’s just for fun.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Juggernut

[Special Officer Doofy]

Just because some might buy it isn’t what I’d consider a good reason to make it .

Hahahaha. The entire Primaris range begs to differ.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I hope Magnus and Morty get a rule like Ghaz has... would really help .

[Indefragable]

Daemon Primarch Angron: for everyone wound he causes in melee, he gains a wound up to his max of x.

[Azekai]

Daemon Primarch Angron: for everyone wound he causes in melee, he gains a wound up to his max of x.

It's a cool idea, but considering that many competitive armies can reliably kill a knight each turn of shooting, it probably would just continue to make Daemon Primarchs noob-killing machines.

 

All the rules being proposed side-step how crazy deadly the game is.

 

The idea of Primarchs outlasting the foe is a nice one; rather than these godlike beings getting relegated to the role of guided-missile beatsticks. Unfortunately, this manner of play is largely a relic of older editions of 40k.  40k is *much* more dangerous now. Terrain is basically the only thing stopping this from being a game of rocket-tag. The proliferation of AP granted by traits and easy access to rerolls smooths the edges of the math and makes death via shooting all but a certainty, even for power-armored troops. Melee is dangerous too, of course, but you can always fail that pesky charge roll, even when popping up via outflank or deepstrike. And after your Primarch charges, he is typically going to get gunned down the turn after, unless he can reap such a devastating toll that the enemy can't recover (unlikely). 

 

Edit: but they are very cool models. There is no denying that. They just arrived on the scene at a weird time in the game's meta.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Azekai