2 wound marines: musings on reasoning

[Polythemus]

Hey all,

There have a few threads on whether is change is good or bad empirically for the game but not many on why it was made. I think that there are many people myself included who felt primaris were being made to replace first born range. With the only change in statline being attacks and weapon options, this opinion is thrown into question. What do you perceive as being the reasons for this change. Trying to sell more firstborn kits? Massively buffing chaos? Considering meta balance being tailored to 2w models and seeing the dearth of other possibilities? Curious on others takes here...

[CCE1981]

I have pushed for years that all Marine infantry and bikes, with the exception of Characters and Scouts should be 2-wounds. Just so that they would feel as durable as in the fluff. Dieing to being hit by a single lasgun makes marines feel more like elite Imperial guardsman rather than massively enhanced super soldiers. The lore has marines taking lasgun shuts un-armored and within their armor shrugging hits left and right. I think it is needed to make t3 one wound feel average and Marines being better than that.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

If I had to guess, this change came about for 2 reasons:

 

1) As others have stated on the forum, CSM were really starting to lag behind. With all this new Primaris stuff, GW had reached the point where they either had to double down and force CSM into becoming a hoard army, or give in and double their wounds to be roughly on par with new marines. But if CSM can have 2 wounds, why not Firstborn? It could have been explained away as super chaos energy or what not, but in the lore they've always been roughly equal, and even GW has to understand that a betrayal that large would go down even worse than Primaris did.

 

2) Playtesters. This edition really feels like the devs have their finger on the pulse of the community, and I personally think that has a lot to do with their new batches of public playtesters. A wide range of people who themselves are hooked into the community in one way or another, playing games of various levels, reading comments and feedback from fans that GW wouldn't have time to sift through or consider. All of that testing and exploring is gathered up, filtered, and sent back to GW with what appears to be notable results. 

[Scribe]

Play testing, and that dissonance between the fluff and table top expectation/results. I would say.

[Lucerne]

I imagine half the Ultramarines chapter going extinct every battle was a bit much. :p

[Marshal Reinhard]

Primarily and foremost a gesture towards Chaos as well as grey knights and other classic specialist marines.

[War Angel]

Points increase to get Space Marines away from horde numbers, which in turn requires a huff to survivability.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Points increase to get Space Marines away from horde numbers, which in turn requires a huff to survivability.

I think the way game designers articulate this is "not enough design space".

[Disruptor_fe404]

Bringing Chaos (and GKs) into closer parity and reflecting the fluff better, while also getting the last remaining production runs out of the oldmarine moulds before they're retired.

[dogfender]

If all good marines are base two wounds, golly gee was the point of Primaris other than a money grab for selling basically the same thing? If they can’t use the same vehicles their new creation has already become obsolete.

I certainly hope they start unloading more of the rules before the actual codex drops in 2.5 months..

[ThatOneMarshal]

If all good marines are base two wounds, golly gee was the point of Primaris other than a money grab for selling basically the same thing? If they can’t use the same vehicles their new creation has already become obsolete.

I certainly hope they start unloading more of the rules before the actual codex drops in 2.5 months..

I mean there's a lot more to primaris than just the two wounds. Primaris units are basically specialists with everyone with the same gun and have an overall better kit considering that the rules tend to value specialists rather than generalist units. Also I'm guessing that this was more a recent change than anything.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

If all good marines are base two wounds, golly gee was the point of Primaris other than a money grab for selling basically the same thing? If they can’t use the same vehicles their new creation has already become obsolete.

I certainly hope they start unloading more of the rules before the actual codex drops in 2.5 months..

Criticizing GW for maximizing profits is like screaming at the weather.  Besides... primaris models are really good.  I'm sure the vast majority of people buying them are quite happy with them.

[Sete]

Buff chaos, sell a few more og marine boxes to people that will now be saying this is a new fresh breath of life into a line that is not getting any new model support.

[N1SB]

Hi guys, what a great question.  And I'm equal parts delighted YET confused by this change.
 
Well, here's what we know.  From Games Workshop annual reports, they do mention their product mix of new (it should mean products released THAT year) vs. existing products.  The trend is the product mix is shifting gradually towards the new away from the old.  It used to be closer to 30% new vs. 70% existing, like here's a quote from 2017:
 

Gross margin improved in the year (2017: 72.4%; 2016: 68.3%), benefitting from sales volume growth and, as always, it is affected by the sales mix of new and existing product: (34% of sales from new releases and 66% of sales from existing product).

 
Now, here's quotes from 2020, i.e. just last month tbh:
 

Gross margin declined in the year (2020: 67.0%; 2019: 67.5%). This was a combination of the disruption of production in April 2020 due to COVID-19, as well as the impact of sales mix of new and existing product (38% of sales from new releases and 62% of sales from existing product), and channel mix changes.

 
Actually, that's been the trend since GW's 2nd renaissance since 2016, and there are many reasons for it, but you guys noticed how fast GW has been pumping out new editions (Blood Bowl in late 2016, then Necromunda, then Kill Team, then Warcry to say nothing of all the Primaris and new AoS stuff).  That definitely changes the mix.
 
And keep in mind the HUGE range of "existing product", like all the existing factions.  For example, when they released the new Genestealer Codex and a few new character models, those are new products, but people would buy the existing Troops and Vehicles and stuff to make use of them.  So GW does not deliberately ignore their old stuff, as it's still the lion's share of their sales.  But the trend was towards new stuff, and there's a good reason for that...many players already own the old stuff, they'll just re-use it and not buy anything.
 
So there's a few reasons I could think of from just that perspective, it's not the complete one, if anything I'm just really excited as a player tbh:

• GW's got a glut of old Firstborn inventory they want to clear - that's the obvious one that I think Brother Polythemus is suggesting, and I agree.  There's also possibly a weird caveat where, due to changes to accounting practices, there's more weight to inventory costs that directly affect how they calculate their stated profits.  But the goal is to clear old inventory possibly.
   
• Some funky gross margin fiddling - this is the LEAST LIKELY thing just imho, gross margin is kinda mathhammery and it's just a benchmark for efficiency, the real goal is sales.  But it's possible, but again, super academic.
   
• GW's already anticipating another pandemic-related lockdown - if they have to shut down or limit their production facility, they won't be able to make new product.  Although kinda simple & straight-forward, this is a real concern.  It's like GW's hedging their bets, but if this big a change suggests they're already anticipating it.

But the weird thing is, this following thing might be the biggest issue.  And the best way I can explain is via a personal story:

• It's seeding time, not harvest time - A decade+ ago I had a Really Bad Year due to many factors but not my fault (that's very important), as it was a global downturn.  My immediate boss was freaking out, but my Big Boss, the general manager, took me aside, not for a verbal beatdown, but to lay down some wisdom, "This is going to be a bad year for everyone, no matter what, so don't worry about it.  Focus on customer readiness for next year.  It's seeding time, not harvest time."  His point was, don't piss off customers by hard selling especially at the worst time...wait until a better time.  Until then, improve customer support, establish customer readiness for the next product, build goodwill.  None of it will pay off now because no one wants to pay now, but it'll pay off in the future.  And he was right.

Why isn't this harvest time for GW?  Because it's not harvest time for anyone, any business, any customer.  Forget GW's production facilities and Warhammer Stores, everyone's going through tough times and they know their players are, too.  The Codex is coming out in October, but they'd have been working on it during the lockdown and it must've been on GW's minds.  So yeah, I'm guessing they got some feedback from players and they said, yeah, this is a good chance to win some goodwill.  It's seeding time.

 

But TL;DR - man oh man, I'm really chuffed because I've been talking about making my own custom Successors based around classic (Indomitus Pattern) TacDreads.  I got all sorts of hilarious ideas for the Indomitus Crusade era, too, after reading Frater ADB's Spears of the Emperor.

Edited August 14, 2020 by N1SB

[Marshal Reinhard]

Hi guys, what a great question.  And I'm equal parts delighted YET confused by this change.

 

Well, here's what we know.  From Games Workshop annual reports, they do mention their product mix of new (it should mean products released THAT year) vs. existing products.  The trend is the product mix is shifting gradually towards the new away from the old.  It used to be closer to 30% new vs. 70% existing, like here's a quote from 2017:

 

Gross margin improved in the year (2017: 72.4%; 2016: 68.3%), benefitting from sales volume growth and, as always, it is affected by the sales mix of new and existing product: (34% of sales from new releases and 66% of sales from existing product).

 

Now, here's quotes from 2020, i.e. just last month tbh:

 

Gross margin declined in the year (2020: 67.0%; 2019: 67.5%). This was a combination of the disruption of production in April 2020 due to COVID-19, as well as the impact of sales mix of new and existing product (38% of sales from new releases and 62% of sales from existing product), and channel mix changes.

Interesting. Also, I feel one should keep in mind, that "new releases" ought to refer releases for that year only. So models that were new last year, would be lumped in under existing product this year.

[Mandragola]

I think it’s giving marines the stat line they always should have had. They messed up by not just giving all marines two wounds at the start of 8th, which was a particular problem for armies like chaos and GKs.

 

This fixes that problem instantly. I’m glad they’re finally doing what they always should have done.

[Charlo]

ADB had a great thread on twitter talking about how, yeah, Primaris are just the new embiggend marines but obviously they can't release all the models at once to replace an entire range.

 

The Fluff was put in place to ensure they're a bit better than firstborn, but really it's just a more stable and relable way to make marines and an excuse to make the models better.

[Doghouse]

Personally I think it's because they seem to be pushing for more narrative and lore and making the games smaller to speed things up.

 

Beyond that I think it's pure speculation, maybe to bring them in line with Primaris for a later merger of the two? I'm still processing it to be honest.

 

One thing I do believe though is that with this edition more than any other we won't see the full picture till all or most of the Codexes have been released.

[apologist]

I don't think there's a simple answer; this is something that's got lots of different aspects: commercial, historical and in terms of gameplay.

 

+++

 

+ Commercial reasons +

I'm neither a cynic nor an apologist* for GW's commercial side. While I find N1SB's analyses really interesting reading (thanks fella!) I just don't know enough about is to comment beyond anecdote. My impression is that Space Marines historically sold very well, and that created a virtuous circle of releases for them. In turn, that helped to fund other, more creative avenues. GW have thus – up until relatively recently – played very conservatively with them. 

 

My impression is that this revenue stream started to thin around the time releases like the Centurions came out, with the community receiving them (and similar kits) fairly lukewarmly. There was a general feeling of stagnation amongst customers, which impacted the bottom line. In turn, I suspect this led to GW management requesting the design team look at how to effectively revitalise the Space Marine range. In short, GW corporate decided to play less conservatively, and let the designers have their head.

 

I imagine there were lots of different ideas and approaches, and the result was Primaris being released. For good or ill, that directly coincided with GW's fortunes leaping up. Anecdotally, that suppressed sales of many of the older marine kits.

 

Given N1SB's analysis of 'stock churn', I think the successive waves of the Primaris range have probably reached a sweet spot where they've stabilised in terms of sales, getting into the 'steady seller' area. Finding a way to increase demand for the older kits now makes sense in purely commercial terms. 

 

In short, giving the 'new Marines' a real selling point in game terms (an advantage of a wound) during 8th ed. gave them the best chance of success. Now their sales have levelled off, in commercial terms it's sensible to try to revitalise some stock that has languished.

 

There are also the very practical commercial reasons not to attempt to replace multiple successful SKU in one fell swoop – it would have been impractical and very risky to remove all the old kits; but equally awkward commercially to have tried to introduce a simple rescaled Tactical Squad, to be followed by replacements for all the old kits. Primaris were a good hybrid of familiar and new; and I reckon that thread ran through everything about them – from planning to release to follow-up. The 2W adjustment for the older range is simply the end of that plan.

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: Purely on this commercial basis, I suspect we'll see the limitations on which types of marines can ride in which vehicles being relaxed.

 

* Heh.

 

+++

 

+ Historical and gameplay reasons +

From what we know of GW's way of working, the order of work is: commercial–models–rules–background. However, I do think the games designers (indeed, most of GW corporate) have a genuine love of the game and the background. The order above is not an immutable conveyor belt; I suspect that things feed back, too. GW corporate definitely recognise the value of customer loyalty and satisfaction (even if they may not weight it as heavily as we, the customers, do!), and see that the IP has value as it relates to model sales. Now, I'm sure it's not a driving influence, but it is, I suspect, an influence of sorts.

 

The corporate team likewise almost certainly recognise the value of experience. The peculiar mix of company history and customer knowledge that designers (particularly senior designers like Jes Goodwin) have means I think it's likely that they have some 'swing' in what they can do. As a result, they'll be given a broad brief – 'revitalise Space Marines', rather than specifics like 'revitalise Tactical Squads'.

 

I'm speculating here, but given the brief of 'New Space Marines', I suspect that there were lots of different ideas and approaches, including going back to the model design and game design drawing boards entirely, and asking 'What would Space Marines look like if they had not been part of the 40k game until today?'

 

The result: the stripped-back aesthetics and clean lines of the Primaris marines, the high-tech grav-vehicles (to contrast with – and avoid competing with – the tracked Imperial Guard), and in-game stats that made them exceptional, rather than the baseline. In divorcing Primaris from the historical statline of Space Marines – in particular the single wound that characterised the vast majoirty of 'basic troops' across the game – they were able to establish some new design space.

 

As 9th edition rolls around, and that decision has been accompanied by huge profits and (general) acceptance of the Primaris, that design space has demonstrated its value. There is the opportunity to avoid the cautious halfway house of having 'Elite Space Marines' (Primaris) and 'Not quite-so-Elite Space Marines', by bringing the older kits in line in terms of gameplay. Ergo, the 2W upgrade across the board.

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the classic 'Tactical/Assault/Devastator' trio receiving updated kits in the future; the classic aesthetic rescaled to match the new Chaos Space Marines. If that is the plan, we'll see some additional minor distinction between Tactical and Intercessor squads in the upcoming Codex.

 

 

+++

+ Narrative reasons +

In game and lore terms, the disjunct between Primaris and 'first born' marines, has been uncomfortable. It doesn't quite seem to fit; and given the reasons outlined above, I think we'll see the narrative further glossing over the difference. The inimitable A-DB has made it fairly clear that he sees no real distinction in capabilities between the two groups, and I suspect that's likely true across the narrative arm of the games design and Fiction teams.

 

The new 9th edition book does mention Primaris, but their creation is quite surprisingly small, and very much couched in the familiar descriptions of Astartes. The ongoing narrative has stepped over the Primaris' introduction to the various Chapters. In practical in-universe terms, after a couple of hundred years, all Space Marines have either crossed the Rubicon, died, or have been created with the Primaris organs. In short, all marines are de facto Primaris. As another poster succinctly put it, 'when all marines are Primaris, no marines are Primaris'.

 

40k has been on a trajectory to more closely marry the lore with how the game plays, and that flows both ways. As Space Marines have been increasingly reimagined from the fairly stock-trope armoured space knights* of Rogue Trader into the archetypal Astartes of today, so their individual puissance and concomitant rarity will be reflected on the game board: hence the melding together of normal and Primaris marine statlines.

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: The distinction between Primaris and 'normal' Space Marines will continue to be glossed over. The term Primaris will remain in the background, but in a similar way to different armour marks and space marine organs, increasingly rarely being relevant in game terms. 

 

* To be clear, that's no bad thing: I like both the modern Space Marines and the rougher-round-the-edge 2000AD-influenced marines of earlier editions.

 

+++

 

 

+ Other thoughts +

In short, there are lots of intertwined reasons for 'first born' marines (including Chaos Space Marines) to move to 2W now, so I don't think there'll ever be a definitive answer. On a personal note, I'm very happy about the change for the following reasons. 

• It opens up design space and character for other factions. Ork, Guard and Tyranid forces can better reflect their numerical superiority. Eldar, Dark Eldar and Necrons will look relatively fragile next to marines – but I bet their tech makes up for that. That's healthy for the game as a whole.
• It moves Space Marines from being a baseline statline, which allows for better reflection of all the factions.
• It defuses the awkward background one-upmanship of 'Space Marines are the elite of the elite – except for these guys, who are better.' Space Marines as a whole can be summarised as 'Elite, superhuman soldiers', rather than warranting exceptions and addenda.
• It symbolises a willingness of GW to be more creative and less risk-averse with their flagship range; to move the game on from the statlines set back in the 90s.

Edited August 14, 2020 by apologist

[N1SB]

Brother, I think you're spot on here, closer to the truth than what I was getting at:

 

 

+ Commercial reasons +

I'm neither a cynic nor an apologist* for GW's commercial side. While I find N1SB's analyses really interesting reading (thanks fella!) I just don't know enough about is to comment beyond anecdote. My impression is that Space Marines historically sold very well, and that created a virtuous circle of releases for them. In turn, that helped to fund other, more creative avenues. GW have thus – up until relatively recently – played very conservatively with them. 

 

My impression is that this revenue stream started to thin around the time releases like the Centurions came out, with the community receiving them (and similar kits) fairly lukewarmly. There was a general feeling of stagnation amongst customers, which impacted the bottom line. In turn, I suspect this led to GW management requesting the design team look at how to effectively revitalise the Space Marine range. In short, GW corporate decided to play less conservatively, and let the designers have their head.

 

I imagine there were lots of different ideas and approaches, and the result was Primaris being released. For good or ill, that directly coincided with GW's fortunes leaping up. Anecdotally, that suppressed sales of many of the older marine kits.

 

Given N1SB's analysis of 'stock churn', I think the successive waves of the Primaris range have probably reached a sweet spot where they've stabilised in terms of sales, getting into the 'steady seller' area. Finding a way to increase demand for the older kits now makes sense in purely commercial terms. 

 

In short, giving the 'new Marines' a real selling point in game terms (an advantage of a wound) during 8th ed. gave them the best chance of success. Now their sales have levelled off, in commercial terms it's sensible to try to revitalise some stock that has languished.

 

There are also the very practical commercial reasons not to attempt to replace multiple successful SKU in one fell swoop – it would have been impractical and very risky to remove all the old kits; but equally awkward commercially to have tried to introduce a simple rescaled Tactical Squad, to be followed by replacements for all the old kits. Primaris were a good hybrid of familiar and new; and I reckon that thread ran through everything about them – from planning to release to follow-up. The 2W adjustment for the older range is simply the end of that plan.

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: Purely on this commercial basis, I suspect we'll see the limitations on which types of marines can ride in which vehicles being relaxed.

 

* Heh.

 

+++

 

I've un/fortunately never worked Retail or Operations (I say that as someone who respects Retail, you Retail guys are the REAL frontline), but Inventory Turnover is a real and true thing.  And it was a Frater here who was consulted/pre-sell new CEO Kevin Rountree on a ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, precisely for things like this!  Able to manage, forecast, supply all the different SKUs 40k has is absolutely the key metric, which is actually the key thing that determines the things I mentioned.  So I'm guessing:

 

• Inventory Turnover by SKU - it's not just inventory, like GW has all these boxes of Tac Squads that need selling.  It's a rate, it's like X boxes per month by products.  GW would be like "Primaris are moving faster than we can keep up with, but Firstborn are slower than expected, let's balance that out."

 

It's actually great to talk to other Warhammer players about things like this, because Mathhammer is a great analogy.  It's the difference between asking "did the unit earn its points back in the game" vs. "did the unit have the best MEQ killing weapon per turn?"  Just as we spend a lot of time Mathhammering how many Wounds a unit with a certain weapon would deal to a MEQ, GW would look revisit and adjust this for a more optimal list, just like we would switch out units every time a Chapter Approved hikes up the units I happen to be using, every goddamn time.

 

Actually, on this detail, I'd ask any Frater that works in Retail or Inventory Mgmt for advice.  But I do think that it's important enough to GW that, even though someone like Jervis Johnson won't ever look at Inventory Turnover line-by-line, I reckon someone's job in GW is to be the one to nudge him, "Yeah, if you could tell your team writing the new Space Marine Codex to make Firstborn more attractive, that'd be great, m'kay, thanks."

 

Just 1 final thing, it's a caveat: just as Mathhammer might not match tabletop performance, the same thing with GW here.  They might've underestimated the impact of this, or not, we'll see.  But I do think of things of how I think they underestimated how fast the Indomitus set was going to shift, so this'll be an interesting time.

Edited August 15, 2020 by N1SB

[WrathOfTheLion]

They had to for Chaos, this was completely necessary. Primaris being so much better than CSM was completely unhealthy for the game. This was not even healthy in the short run, definitely long term this was going to cause issues.

 

GW needs people to also purchase other armies besides Primaris, they cannot just keep releasing and releasing new primaris units ad infinitum, it's bound to implode hard. Again, see Chaos here. I would not be surprised if the recent CSM releases underperformed comparatively due to the disparity there.

 

From a balance perspective, the firstborn and primaris are part of the same army. If they have similar statlines, it becomes much easier to balance them, making it basically on wargear. Lots of weird interactions can come from having more elite primaris units while still being able to get 'bargain bin' troops, etc. when they need it.

 

I think as well they will begin to merge the lines. Everyone that was going to jump to Primaris has already done so I think, so they don't need to sell them based on their rules anymore. They also do not want to lose customers, see as well that they are rebooting Fantasy and kept HH on the old ruleset.

Edited August 14, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Doghouse]

With the drip feed of 9th being what it has been I think that we're only seeing a handful of pieces of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle that will be 9th edition. While I can't see into the future I think this will be the first of many revelations that will make more sense once the big picture is in focus.

 

The impression I get with this edition is that it's heavily focused on MSU and smaller model counts which at this point in the game feels odd for a company that makes models. It could just be a case of marines getting two wounds to make them more of an elite force with a lower body count but it's a weird move given the push for Primaris support.

[WrathOfTheLion]

The more viable a unit might be, the more likely someone will purchase it. So if more things are viable, then I might want a greater breadth to the army and make choices on what I field from that more varied roster.

So even if I field less models overall on the table, if through my Crusade for instance I want a large and varied amount to choose from, then I might purchase more. So the new Crusade system essentially encourages you to have more models than you actually field.

Edited August 14, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

With the drip feed of 9th being what it has been I think that we're only seeing a handful of pieces of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle that will be 9th edition. While I can't see into the future I think this will be the first of many revelations that will make more sense once the big picture is in focus.

This is definitely the case; GW always takes this sort of "sugar to make the medicine go down" approach to how the release information about their games.  The biggest example of that I can remember is when as they were teasing 8th edition they were talking up how tactical squads could now have multiple targets, which was such a big deal when they teased it. 

 

And then the next week they revealed Primaris, totally eclipsing tactical squads.  lol. 

[jaxom]

 

There are also the very practical commercial reasons not to attempt to replace multiple successful SKU in one fell swoop – it would have been impractical and very risky to remove all the old kits; but equally awkward commercially to have tried to introduce a simple rescaled Tactical Squad, to be followed by replacements for all the old kits.

 

*SNIP*

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the classic 'Tactical/Assault/Devastator' trio receiving updated kits in the future; the classic aesthetic rescaled to match the new Chaos Space Marines. If that is the plan, we'll see some additional minor distinction between Tactical and Intercessor squads in the upcoming Codex.

 

*SNIP*

 

FUTUREMAN PREDICTS: The distinction between Primaris and 'normal' Space Marines will continue to be glossed over. The term Primaris will remain in the background, but in a similar way to different armour marks and space marine organs, increasingly rarely being relevant in game terms. 

 

Right, imagine the sales disaster for any of the older kits once it was a rescaled Tactical Squad was released as everyone just waits for the rescaled everything else. The Primaris release side stepped this (though came with its own problems). I don't think we'll see rescaled kits, but instead a very gradual merging of the rules as the older kits are retired. That could be decades from now if the life span of Berserkers is anything to go by. I think this is actually healthy in the long run because it will help distinguish Heretic Astartes and Adeptus Astartes beyond spikes. 

 

They had to for Chaos, this was completely necessary. Primaris being so much better than CSM was completely unhealthy for the game. This was not even healthy in the short run, definitely long term this was going to cause issues.

 

*SNIP*

 

From a balance perspective, the firstborn and primaris are part of the same army. If they have similar statlines, it becomes much easier to balance them, making it basically on wargear. Lots of weird interactions can come from having more elite primaris units while still being able to get 'bargain bin' troops, etc. when they need it.

 

Yes to both of these. Eighth edition in many ways was a massive beta test of a new rules system. Space Marines, a "durable" army quickly proved to be anything but. They didn't feel like super-humans. The lethality spike of C:SM2.0 took care of half of it and this changes helps with the other half. The entire faction (and all permutations thereof) now will play from the same starting point instead of many units being slightly better versions of the Sisters of Battle.

 

With the drip feed of 9th being what it has been I think that we're only seeing a handful of pieces of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle that will be 9th edition. While I can't see into the future I think this will be the first of many revelations that will make more sense once the big picture is in focus.

 

The impression I get with this edition is that it's heavily focused on MSU and smaller model counts which at this point in the game feels odd for a company that makes models. It could just be a case of marines getting two wounds to make them more of an elite force with a lower body count but it's a weird move given the push for Primaris support.

^This. There's an overall trend in mini games at the moment towards (relatively) smaller, faster play. The idea being that one can't take all the unit one wants to, but because you're getting more games in you have more opportunities to try different combinations of units or different factions/gangs/whatever.