Predicting Primaris (Again): Will the generic range be "complete" in 10th Edition?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

We should see some new kit this week for LVO. Hope this includes jump assault and termies.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Expecting the desolators and brutalis... or am i? Never quite seem to get revealed do they?

[Karhedron]

I think it is too soon for Brutalis and Desolators unfortunately. If they are going to be part of the 10th ed release wave then they are likely still a few months out. I suspect the LVO will cover things like Arks of Omen 4 and possibly 5.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

I think it is too soon for Brutalis and Desolators unfortunately.

Why are you trying to hurt my feelings :P

[Orange Knight]

It feels like it has been an age since we had a wave of Primaris releases.

 

Yes, Black Templars had a big wave of releases but we've not had generic kits outside of some characters in a long while.

9 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

I think it is too soon for Brutalis and Desolators unfortunately. If they are going to be part of the 10th ed release wave then they are likely still a few months out. I suspect the LVO will cover things like Arks of Omen 4 and possibly 5.

 

I don't think they are a part of the 10th edition wave. I was led to believe that they will be released close to the updated chapter supplements. 

 

It's crazy to think but Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, White Scars etc don't have 9th edition rules. These are now the forgotten factions of 40k lol.

 

The 10th edition set is rumoured to have Terminators.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Yeah, the Desolators/Brutalis should be here in the next couple of months, with a Marines-only box dropping sometime in March:

 

New HQ (Gravis LT?)

5 Heavy Intercessors

Brutalis

10-man Desolation Squad

 

I assume it'll tie in with the "Tarmoth system" that was teased in the New Year's article where we first saw the Desolator silhouette.

 

The 10th-Ed launch box will be coming later, although Valrak still expects it to drop in June - Terminators, supposedly a new Librarian, and who knows what else (new Assault EQ?).

 

And then the actual followup Primaris MPK wave will likely follow shortly after that, though like they did with 9th, they might put out the opposing faction's codex first, But certainly before the end of the year.

 

 

[Nephaston]

Makes me wonder if and what will get the ETB treatment.

8th had Dark Imperium and Shadowspear, where everything sans Suppressors saw an eventual MPK, along with ETB Aggressors, Redemptors, 3-man Reivers, and 3-man Intercessors.

9th we had Indomitus, where everything sans Judiciar, BGA, and Outriders got a MPK, along with the ATV, the Firestrike, the Hammerfall, and a 3-man Assault Intercessors.

 

Now to me it sounds a lot like the Brutalis and the Desolators will be multipart from the get go especially since the respective equipment lists seem to be complete, and being paired with an already existing MPK would seem weird.

But the chances that Leviathan (read 10th ed. Launch box) are near 100%, which would mean ETB Jump assaults, ETB Termies, and ETB whatever else find it's way in there. Not to mention up to three kits of potentially anything and a three man kit for the beginners.

 

Steel your wallets, sharpen your credit cards, and count your change come June.

[Lemondish]

Valrak's latest video shares a rumour that he has high confidence in regarding the future of Primaris.

 

He's heard, from sources he trusts, that the 10th edition take on Space Marines will actually do away with the rules distinction between Primaris and Firstborn. They'll exist as separate elements in lore, but the next Codex will drop that distinction in the rules. Marines will be Marines.

 

He's particularly interested in how this affects transports. I am too.

 

He also shared details about supplement chapters. The original plan was for these books to release separately in the back end of 9th edition. With what he's heard now, these rules will be rolled into 10th edition instead.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Lemondish

[Guest]

@Lemondish If this is true it might actually heal the very rift they created and the community ran with...

 

Making a Tactical Squad but in MkX makes me very happy.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Brother Captain Arkley

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

On the one hand, I hate to hear about the supplements being punted. But on the other, I feel like GW's recent abandonment of any attempt at balancing the game via points was a poisoning of the 9th Edition well anyway.

 

And even though, going by the Black Templars' example, I think the plan is for every First Founding chapter to get its own upgrade kit complete with plastic representations of all their relics, I can't really see that GW ever planned for those upgrade kits to drop in 9th for the Codex-compliant chapters while making the BA, DA, and SW players wait for 10th, so they probably always were intended for next edition anyway. The 9th-ed supplements may have had zero in the way of plastic support products for the codex-compliant chapters, just updated books with Crusade content and lightly-rewritten rules.

 

And dice. Definitely dice.

[Lemondish]

@Lord NordI'm not entirely sure that would have been the case. I think we often forget that 9th edition 40k was marred right from the beginning by a pandemic. It's possible all this was supposed to already happen.

 

@Brother Captain ArkleyI'm not sure that's the likely outcome. I mean, you can kind of currently do that anyway as long as you're cool with counts-as. The way Valrak described it, it sounded more like the Primaris keyword essentially disappears. That won't mean unit datasheets disappear, so you'll still have tactical squads carrying boltguns and Intercessors with bolt rifles, ostensibly. You just won't have any Primaris specific rules or limitations. Want Sternguard in an Impulsors? Sounds like that'll be possible. Bladeguard piling out of a Land Raider? Also possible. Hellblaster filled drop pods or Stormravens seem likely too.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

15 hours ago, Lord Nord said:

On the one hand, I hate to hear about the supplements being punted. But on the other, I feel like GW's recent abandonment of any attempt at balancing the game via points was a poisoning of the 9th Edition well anyway.

 

And even though, going by the Black Templars' example, I think the plan is for every First Founding chapter to get its own upgrade kit complete with plastic representations of all their relics, I can't really see that GW ever planned for those upgrade kits to drop in 9th for the Codex-compliant chapters while making the BA, DA, and SW players wait for 10th, so they probably always were intended for next edition anyway. The 9th-ed supplements may have had zero in the way of plastic support products for the codex-compliant chapters, just updated books with Crusade content and lightly-rewritten rules.

 

And dice. Definitely dice.

How does a second founding show any intention for first founding chapters?

[Marshal Reinhard]

7 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

How does a second founding show any intention for first founding chapters?

You serious?

[Karhedron]

15 hours ago, Lemondish said:

Want Sternguard in an Impulsors? Sounds like that'll be possible. Bladeguard piling out of a Land Raider? Also possible. Hellblaster filled drop pods or Stormravens seem likely too.

 

I am so hoping that this turns out to be true. 

[Blindhamster]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

How does a second founding show any intention for first founding chapters?

Kinda agree, remember not every chapter has had even as much as the current sprues before, the only chapters to have really good upgrade sprues in the past were dark angels and black templars.

 

with blood angels and space wolves getting similar treatment via distinct full 10 man squad sets instead, outside of that, most chapters were lucky to even have shoulder pads

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Which chapters don’t have shoulder pads ?

[Blindhamster]

14 minutes ago, BLACK BLΠFLY said:

Which chapters don’t have shoulder pads ?

 

now? None.

 

I was talking past tense. 8th was the first time that a lot of chapters even got upgrade sprues at all. So it feels like it may be expecting too much to think they will all get the BT upgrade sprue treatment. I think DA will get it, wolves maybe too at some point. Not sure about anyone else, the rest may be stuck with what they have now (which is basically shoulderpads and a few heads plus a specific weapon)

 

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

How does a second founding show any intention for first founding chapters?

 

The fictional order of founding does not matter so much as the fact that they are one of the more well-known and popular chapters.

 

Hence - we could expect other well-known and popular chapters to get similar treatment, and most of those would be "First Founding."

[Vermintide]

20 hours ago, Lemondish said:

You just won't have any Primaris specific rules or limitations. Want Sternguard in an Impulsors? Sounds like that'll be possible. Bladeguard piling out of a Land Raider? Also possible. Hellblaster filled drop pods or Stormravens seem likely too.

 

Big if true.

 

Wonder if that means we will ultimately get more options for Primaris units? I'm theorising here but when I was playing a few games of 3rd ed a while ago, we proxied Primaris for the old school marines by using a Hellblaster as the special weapon guy in a Tac Squad, put an Assault Intercessor in as a Sergeant with pistol and chainsword, etc. I wonder if something along those lines is the endgame. After all, the more layers of distinction they remove, the closer we get to just admitting they are simply updated sculpts.

 

I mean, sure, it's unwieldy considering what kits you'd have to buy to be able to do things like that, buuuut this is GW, they're not exactly above it are they. Buying 4 Dev squads to get 4 matching weapons, anyone?

[Nephaston]

In hindsight Primaris would have really benefitted from having kits like 30k has now. A dedicated troop kit like the Mk3/4/6 kit with anything but the basics coming from a separate sprue.

 

So a Phobos/Tacticus/Gravis 10-man sprue with Carbines/Rifles/LMGs and specific special/heavy weapon sprues.

[Blindhamster]

per the 10th ed rumour thread.

I think, if they really want to break the massive divide that has happened, they need to properly integrate things.

Rather than "new firstborn squads", they need to release new marine squads that mix firstborn model designs with primaris ones. A new tactical squad that has some marines in mk 3-8 and some in mkX, give them bolt rifles or bolt carbines* (so rapid fire, longer range, or assault, shorter range) and the usual suspects of special and heavy options.

 

From a model perspective, scale the marines in earlier mks to either be the same size as primaris, or very slightly smaller.

 

*I say bolt carbines, rather than bolt guns, because the carbine is the same size and seems the logical successor, plus as an assault weapon it opens up new interesting tactical option for the... tactical squad.

[Mr. Oddity]

6 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Rather than "new firstborn squads", they need to release new marine squads that mix firstborn model designs with primaris ones. A new tactical squad that has some marines in mk 3-8 and some in mkX, give them bolt rifles or bolt carbines* (so rapid fire, longer range, or assault, shorter range) and the usual suspects of special and heavy options.

 

From a model perspective, scale the marines in earlier mks to either be the same size as primaris, or very slightly smaller.

 

*I say bolt carbines, rather than bolt guns, because the carbine is the same size and seems the logical successor, plus as an assault weapon it opens up new interesting tactical option for the... tactical squad.

I definitely agree that the basic squads should be consolidated at this point, although I don't know if we would see a full resculpt. Ideally such a kit would be a replacement for the current Tactical kit to allow for the new scale to be propagated throughout the line. In either case, I could see them introducing an individual upgrade frame with a selection of special and heavy weapons for both boxes. I'm guessing the current specials and heavies would be included, but depending on the available space I could see them dropping the plasma cannon since Hellblasters and Inceptors both kind of cover that profile.

 

I could also see them reintroduce volkite as a special weapon given its reappearance in a few spots in the current edition. The aux grenade launcher would probably be a special weapon as well. The stalker rifle feels like the least clear option in this hypothetical scenario - would it still be a basic armament, would it get upgraded to a special weapon with some boosted stats, or would it disappear due to its visual similarity to the standard bolt rifle?

 

Of course, this is all hypothetical and I would say not likely to occur for a while - the Primaris line itself isn't technically finished since the Brutalis and Desolators haven't been released yet, nor have the (hopefully inevitable) jump troops. There isn't an analogue for the artillery role of the Whirlwind or Thunderfire either, and Suppressors haven't even gotten a solo release yet. Exciting to think about the potential though!

[Marshal Reinhard]

16 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

*I say bolt carbines, rather than bolt guns, because the carbine is the same size and seems the logical successor, plus as an assault weapon it opens up new interesting tactical option for the... tactical squad.

The bolt carbine should just quietly replace all (godwyn pattern anyway) boltguns, on all models, classic marines alike. It's essentially a redesign of that weapon that makes sense with the ejection port correctly aligned with the barrel. Reffering to the reiver version/the one on the spacewolf lieutenant/DA master.

 

Speaking strictly model here. If the carbine is too unadorned, just adorn it.

[Vermintide]

Increasingly I feel like it's conceivable we'll see it go like, Phobos, Tacticus and Gravis all have their own mirror version of each role.

 

For example, with Tacticus we already have Hellblasters and MissileDudes, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see LasGuys and GravBros or whatever added later down the line. Then all they have to do is consolidate the datasheet to be called Tacticus Devasationisors or something, and the only functional difference is which gun you pick. The fact it requires you to buy four separate boxes to make all four variants is of no consequence to GW, and in some respects it's actually kind of better for consumers too, because you choose which one you want, after all.

 

Applying that thought process to the others: For Gravis we have Melta guys already, I could easily envision them getting something like a man-portable onslaught gatling cannons and las-talons to fill out the range. With Phobos, we have snipers who can choose from the Las-Fusils or G-36 bolters, maybe they could add some kind of long range missile launcher or something, who knows. It would fit the pattern.

 

You can apply the same to all the troop kits too, it would be easy to roll them all into one and just make the variants into loadout options. So then instead of 20 datasheets for each individual one, you have like, Phobos Troop Unit, Tacticus Troop Unit, Gravis troop unit; Phobos Heavy Unit, Tacticus Heavy Unit, Gravis Heavy Unit; and so on.

 

You get the picture anyway, that's how I would see them consolidating things rules-wise, while still working within what we can call "primaris logic", and accounting for how the kits are actually sold.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Vermintide

[Nephaston]

Yeah, the design space for primaris is absolutely bonkers wide just by nature of their light/medium/heavy armour, not to mention the layer of veterancy that Bladeguard introduced to Tacticus.

 

Take snipers for example, phobos covers the classical character snipers with eliminators. On Tacticus we could feasibly see something in line with the rail weapons of tau or Votann, while on Gravis the sniper archetype could be Elephant hunting guns, but for big monsters like the Macrofexes.

 

The big IF is imo actually the consolidation just because it makes too much sense for GW to ever consider. Why have a Phobos Intercession squad as a single troop unit when you can have two /s.