More Firstborn retired

[lansalt]

1 minute ago, Osteoclast said:

How many players came in after 8th edition? It’s entirely possible that this may not affect most players.

Most of the current players and 40k customers came after 8th, or at least that's what the data provided by  @N1SB  suggests:

 

Add to that the older fans who are fine with updating their collections to play, and you can see how this all makes sense from GW's point of view. 2017 was 6 years and 3 editions ago after all.

 

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, lansalt said:

Most of the current players and 40k customers came after 8th, or at least that's what the data provided by  @N1SB  suggests:

 

It wounds me, deeply, that the majority of 40K players dont even know how good it was in 5th. ;)

[OpossumStrong]

23 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

You're not even being subtle anymore.

I'm sure we all knew it's coming, long time ago.

 

As for me, i never been a fan of the old terminators(some people on the forum in the new terminator thread got the same conclusion, new termies look way better), beakies, heavy squads, jump packs, tracked tanks for SM, it was looking all out of proportion, unfitting the "elite units of the Imperium" or straight ugly(for my taste) i did like some armour marks, weapons, some of the HQs were awesome.

 

I was happy with the primaris refresh, i got rid of my old army and from the moment they released them i got only primaris.

 

And it's not like i hate them, or hate the people who likes them, I'm just confused with the stagnation people are willing to accept and make it look like the "right point of view".

 

I know a lot of people like their old marines, but i want new cool looking miniatures, like DG/Necrons/Tyranids(that's why I'm collecting them as well), I don't want upscaled beakies in 41k, 10k years is enough to advance, even for the state of the stagnated Imperium, that's why we got all this lore, awesome books like "The great work".

 

I know you're loosing old armies and the attachment to old lore/models, i know a lot of you won't agree with me, but we need the progress, yes it wasn't a soft one but a needed one.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by OpossumStrong

[Scribe]

3 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

I know you're loosing old armies and the attachment to old lore/models, i know a lot of you won't agree with me, but we need the progress, yes it wasn't a soft one but a needed one.

 

Not in the slightest. 

[Redcomet]

And as much as it sucks, the fans that are only interested in buying a new version of the Tactical squad every 15 years, really aren’t the ones Gw are chasing.

Same as Apple. They make their money on the ones that get a new iPhone religiously every year, not the ones that way 7 years before getting a new one.

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, Redcomet said:

And as much as it sucks, the fans that are only interested in buying a new version of the Tactical squad every 15 years, really aren’t the ones Gw are chasing.

Same as Apple. They make their money on the ones that get a new iPhone religiously every year, not the ones that way 7 years before getting a new one.

 

This isnt the issue at all, and is a weird goal post shift.

[OpossumStrong]

1 minute ago, Scribe said:

 

Not in the slightest. 

I would feel sad to field my 3rd edition SM against cool looking necrons/tyranids 

 

[Scribe]

Just now, OpossumStrong said:

I would feel sad to field my 3rd edition SM against cool looking necrons/tyranids 

 

 

Again, this isnt reality.

 

[irlLordy]

20 minutes ago, Osteoclast said:

How many players came in after 8th edition? It’s entirely possible that this may not affect most players. 
 

I’m definitely looking forward to the new scouts that this portends; the existing models have just always looked too dorky for me. 

 

Scouts, bikes and land speeders were included in the Conquest magazine partworks, so at least some new/returning players (like myself) will be impacted. Scouts were also decent in Kill Team, so new players would have picked them up there too.

[Rain]

4 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Not in the slightest. 

 

Change for the sake of change is not only good, but necessary. Yes, my name is F. A. Tweever. How did you guess? 

[ChargingSoll]

I really hope the primaris version of the assault squad is cool. 

 

The dawn of war 2 intro cut scene is what brought me into 40k and to see their equivalent fade away is sad. 

 

The primaris are nicer models but they are also different in aspects to their OGs. 

 

It's the end of an millennium.

Edited July 24, 2023 by ChargingSoll

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I think people are making a much bigger deal out of this than need to taken, and confirmation bias is certainly in full effect.

 

Other than the assault marines and the stalker/hunter, those other kits were so, so old. It doesn’t make sense for GW to continue to produce them and I’m not sure re-working those kits would be the right move..

 

That being said, it is a huge jump in conjecture to say all legacy space marine units are going to be removed from the game. It doesn’t make sense and I don’t see that happening. I fully expect Rhinos, Predators, and Land Raiders to stay in the codex (as well as flyers). Those vehicles are used by loyalists and traitors alike and I’m doubtful we’d see loyalists lose access to them and see traitors maintain them. 
 

WrathofTheLion made a great point already on why we’re seeing the assault squad go away and we all know why the stalker/hunter is, it was a ridiculous idea from the start. 

[OpossumStrong]

Just now, Scribe said:

 

Again, this isnt reality.

 

In the Terminators thread i saw comments about how funny the old terminators look compare to the new one, but we can see this only when we have something to compare with.

 

Don't get me wrong, 30k 2nd edition, upscaled models looking good for the environment they are in, but when i compare old SM sculpt from 2003 to a new necron, i can see what is better in terms of aesthetics.

[lansalt]

11 minutes ago, Scribe said:

It wounds me, deeply, that the majority of 40K players dont even know how good it was in 5th. ;)

But going by the data above, 4th-5th was the worst era ever for GW in financial terms. They actually lost money for the first time ever since their creation.

In hindsight, the push for more FW resin, the HH series, BL books, changes/retcons in the portrayal of some factions, and finally the return of primarchs and the primaris were all ways to broke above GW's stagnated ~100bn top revenue while costs keep rising. And they finally succeeded with 8th edition.

[Squark]

22 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

It wounds me, deeply, that the majority of 40K players dont even know how good it was in 5th. ;)

I think your glasses are rather rose tinted here. 5th edition gave us parking lots, Grey Knights shooting twice as well as a tactical squad for nearly the same points, and butchered the carnifex*. Armies like Sisters and Necrons** were in the same boat as Death Guard, Admech, Votann and, well, Sisters are now.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are things I miss from 5th, but anyone who views it as a magical golden age is wearing nostalgia glasses.

 

 

*Pun intended.

** Well, they got their proto-6th edition codex in the last three months. But before that...

Edited July 24, 2023 by Squark

[Brother Captain Arkley]

I think as a whole if GW didn't create the divide in the first place.

 

Which in turn created animosity in the community as a side effect, Primars/Anti Primaris. I wish GW just made the basic units bigger, but that horse has bolted and escaped to the next county..

 

I am not going to deny I am in the Primaris camp but I will maintain that even if I am a little abrasive at times, and for that I apologise, I have let other factors on this board effect my reason at times.

 

If someone was to offer me a Tactical Squad the size of Intercessors I would be taking them 100%.

 

I wish the divide was never created to begin with.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Brother Captain Arkley

[Karhedron]

42 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Don't misunderstand my comment. The only positive that can come from this is a more streamlined and less bloated codex.

 

That is hardly even a positive. A codex with a lot of entries is only a problem if GW don't put the time/effort required into keeping those entries balanced against each other.

 

GW culling Firstborn units is fixing a problem of their own making by making an even bigger problem. 

[Kallas]

25 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

I'm just confused with the stagnation people are willing to accept

In the models? No, most of us are happy with new models, the problem is demolishing the lore of the setting and trashing the aesthetic of the Marine line for the sake of reselling the entire thing. Primaris are very much in the 'clean futuristic lines' category of design aesthetic, yes, even Bladeguard - I'm not saying that they are less gothic or anything, they are simply part of the same clean, smooth visuals as the rest of the Primaris line; also not a knock on that design aesthetic, it's just significantly different from the relative grime of the pieced together armour marks of the previous Marines. Part of the reason why I, personally, very much like Firstborn is the sense of stagnation (in-universe) you get from these rare armour marks: the odd Mk 4 helmet that is clearly sleeker and better designed than the later ones because it came from a time when the innovation wasn't stymied; the Mk 5 armour that is literally stapled together because it was built in a hurry, because the pressures of the Horus Heresy forced them to rush construction of more suits of power armour, and so on.

 

These design cues bring the lore and the miniatures together. Modern Primaris look just fine as their own thing, but they feel fundamentally separate from the original aesthetic, because they are sleek armour mark, it's modern and stylish rather than brutal and basic: the exposed cables of older marks of armour are because they hadn't worked through the kinks, and then over the years it became unthinkable to modify the suits that had survived thousands of years of warfare and were more storied than any of the wearers could possibly hope to match - but the new suits of armour simply...aren't. They're new, every suit is fresh and unadorned by the weight of the past that the previous marks are; the same can be said for Mk 8, and even somewhat for Mk 7, which is kind of why Mk 7 is generally considered to be the least interesting - because it's the least steeped in history.

 

25 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

i want new cool looking miniatures, like DG/Necrons/Tyranids(that's why I'm collecting them as well), I don't want upscaled beakies in 41k, 10k years is enough to advance, even for the state of the stagnated Imperium, that's why we got all this lore

On one hand you want new miniatures, on the other you talk about the lore. The stagnation (in-universe) is literally the point... the Imperium is such a mammoth structure that trying to change anything is basically impossible. Well, not any more of course, now you just magic a Tech-priest into being and say he made a bajillion brand new super Astartes  I also want cool looking miniatures: so GW took away the miniatures I thought looked cool, apparently... Different strokes for different folks and all that, but what works for you isn't universal (and yes, I get that that works the other way too).

 

18 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

I would feel sad to field my 3rd edition SM against cool looking necrons/tyranids 

I mean, you seem to be going out of your way to be as demeaning as possible. Aside from scale issues, why the older models not as cool looking to you? Hell, we've got well-proportioned Firstborn miniatures that are pretty new (eg, Librarian, and Deathwatch) and they look great (to me, at least) - why do you think people bought them in the first place if they didn't think they look cool.

 

Don't mistake scale for design. Properly proportioned Firstborn using the new design techniques (ie, good bodily proportions and not squatting weirdly) would (and do) look fantastic: Mk 6 Beakies in HH look great (and they're not even fully scaled properly either), so why are you making statements as if old Firstborn scale is somehow immutable? The Terminator is basically a perfect renewal of the kit: it keeps the exact same design aesthetic but brings the proportions up to the new scale, and the result is phenomenal; why would refreshed Firstborn not look just as good?

 

13 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

Don't get me wrong, 30k 2nd edition, upscaled models looking good for the environment they are in, but when i compare old SM sculpt from 2003 to a new necron, i can see what is better in terms of aesthetics.

That's the thing, Primaris simply aren't the same aesthetic as Firstborn. They can certainly look good (that very much depends on personal preference: some people like Desolators, and other people have functioning vision ) but they are different. Upscaled, refreshed Firstborn would look great, and we have already seen units that come closer (as mentioned earlier: eg, Deathwatch, HH Beakies)

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

20 minutes ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

I think as a whole if GW didn't create the divide in the first place.

 

Which in turn created animosity in the community as a side effect, Primars/Anti Primaris. I wish GW just made the basic units bigger, but that horse has bolted and escaped to the next county..

 

I am not going to deny I am in the Primaris camp but I will maintain that even if I am a little abrasive at times, and for that I apologise, I have let other factors on this board effect my reason at times.

 

If someone was to offer me a Tactical Squad the size of Intercessors I would be taking them 100%.

I wish the divide was never created to begin with.

I am surprised this is not the more commonly expressed position. It’s mine, too… and I’m 100% in on Primaris. Having played 40K back in 4th Ed and stopping just before 5th dropped, it was only the true-scales marines that brought me back in (specifically, the Bladeguard and similar models in Indomitus at the start of 9th). 
 

I don’t particularly care for the lore divide, although it’s become a lot more tolerable, but I wouldn’t ever pick up an old-school, heroic-scale Marine unit now. My old army (still have some models hiding away in boxes!!) can stay as it is, but for new projects I would only ever buy Primaris *because of the rescale*. 
 

If GW had just rescaled the Tac squad, etc, that may have been enough to get me back in too. Certainly the lore divide wouldn’t be there and we’d have less community arguing over this. At any rate it would have been better to rescale the Marine range this way (and even creep in some updates this way, with plausible lore explanations). But that’s not where we are now. 
 

Instead, it seems to me the only real way to “fix” the issue now is to keep retiring the old scale Marine models and units, while allowing people’s old models to “count as” the newer units if they so desire. The way 10th has dropped hasn’t left me so confident of that working out too well, however (despite otherwise enjoying a lot of the rules updates in 10th).  While Terminators look like they were done right, Sternguard and Vanguard don’t, and who knows where something like Devastators would end up. 
 

TL:DR // the best fix, IMO, is “merging” the Primaris and OG marines ranges—and we seem to finally be seeing some of that—but GW hasn’t left me confident that will be done in the best fashion. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Brother Captain Vakarian
Spelling/grammar

[DemonGSides]

I think everyone would've been happier with just "True Scale" Space Marines, but that doesn't sell.

[Kallas]

1 minute ago, DemonGSides said:

but that doesn't sell.

It doesn't?

 

Huh, guess I missed the part where they released True Scale Firstborn and they completely tanked!

 

12 minutes ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

I wish the divide was never created to begin with.

Me too

Spoiler

 

[DemonGSides]

Just now, Kallas said:

It doesn't?

 

Huh, guess I missed the part where they released True Scale Firstborn and they completely tanked!

 

Me too

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I mean it's pretty obvious that if you create a new unit that people (basically) have to use and then make people buy that new unit, it's going to drum up more sales than a "Hey we updated these guys; buy em if you want!"

Kinda weird that you don't think that's true!

[Scribe]

19 minutes ago, lansalt said:

But going by the data above, 4th-5th was the worst era ever for GW in financial terms. They actually lost money for the first time ever since their creation.

In hindsight, the push for more FW resin, the HH series, BL books, changes/retcons in the portrayal of some factions, and finally the return of primarchs and the primaris were all ways to broke above GW's stagnated ~100bn top revenue while costs keep rising. And they finally succeeded with 8th edition.

 

We could debate the reasoning here, but its not going to be 5th, the ruleset. :)

25 minutes ago, OpossumStrong said:

In the Terminators thread i saw comments about how funny the old terminators look compare to the new one, but we can see this only when we have something to compare with.

 

Don't get me wrong, 30k 2nd edition, upscaled models looking good for the environment they are in, but when i compare old SM sculpt from 2003 to a new necron, i can see what is better in terms of aesthetics.

 

So you feel the new Terminator, is lesser than, or somehow inferior, to the new Necron?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

5 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

I think everyone would've been happier with just "True Scale" Space Marines, but that doesn't sell.

 

The Chaos Legionaries, Havocs, Terminators, Possessed, and HQs were all rescaled and *everyone* rebuilt their armies.

 

I was one of the voices at the start of 8th that decried the Primaris as ridiculous but that was lore based and nothing to do with the models. When the Chaos refresh scaled them all up, I praised the new sculpts and have a proud big new Chaos army with all my old minimarine chaps tucked away in a box.

 

A rescale instead of a revamp would have been universally accepted IMHO.

[Kallas]

4 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

if you create a new unit that people (basically) have to use and then make people buy that new unit, it's going to drum up more sales

Ah, so it will sell better, ok that's what you meant when you said "does not sell".

 

It's also entirely possible to do a little bit of both: want to introduce some new weapons, well do that with the new box, and now people are forced to buy them! I mean, it's also super great to force people into buying new stuff since their old stuff is going to get canned - people love that, right? 

 

But you go on supporting predatory business decisions.