More firstborn units lumped together or going away.

[Emperor Ming]

52 minutes ago, SvenIronhand said:

It's not about winning.

[Dracos]

Don’t kid yourself. It’s always about winning. Just a matter of degree. No one can judge the rightness of each persons personal degree but unless you don’t keep score then to some degree it’s about winning 

[Tacitus]

7 hours ago, Dracos said:

Well I hope they’re smarter than the Russians and give them proper Infantry support. Knights are starting to slip in the winning column and I can’t imagine an all Space Marine tank army doing better than Knights. Thematically I would think Imperial Guard would be the way to go for a tank army? Either way I can’t see Marines or Guard doing well without proper infantry support for OC and the actions necessary to score secondaries. 

I can.  Knights have some issues with infantry vs Titanic, but their bigger issue is usually Board Control.  They can't put enough models in enough places at the same time.  The most extreme example is one 500 point Titanic knight vs 500 points of Grots.  The Grots can't kill the knight, but the Knight can't come close to killing enough Grots to play the mission if the Grots ignore the knight and just spam the mission.  This changes - A LITTLE - when knights get to 2K points and 5-7 models compared to 5-6 Objectives.  2,000 points of Marine Tanks is not going to be just 7 models. 

 

Some people focus on the number of bases in a blob, but really the number of blobs is usually more telling and an Armored Company (likely) is going to still have enough blobs to play the mission in addition to the killing. 

[Dracos]

8 hours ago, Tacitus said:

I can.  Knights have some issues with infantry vs Titanic, but their bigger issue is usually Board Control.  They can't put enough models in enough places at the same time.  The most extreme example is one 500 point Titanic knight vs 500 points of Grots.  The Grots can't kill the knight, but the Knight can't come close to killing enough Grots to play the mission if the Grots ignore the knight and just spam the mission.  This changes - A LITTLE - when knights get to 2K points and 5-7 models compared to 5-6 Objectives.  2,000 points of Marine Tanks is not going to be just 7 models. 

 

Some people focus on the number of bases in a blob, but really the number of blobs is usually more telling and an Armored Company (likely) is going to still have enough blobs to play the mission in addition to the killing. 

I know it’s the Age of the Index and while tournament results say different, I can’t disagree. I’m sure at some point Armored Companies will have a place in the Meta. I just think the best builds will still need an infantry component. 

[MegaVolt87]

SM would be in a good place for tank armies if the new HH tanks and dreads didn't end up as legends units and we had an Imperial Armour book like every other edition. The FOC even disappeared in 10th to set this up. 

[Dracos]

7 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

SM would be in a good place for tank armies if the new HH tanks and dreads didn't end up as legends units and we had an Imperial Armour book like every other edition. The FOC even disappeared in 10th to set this up. 

I have to admit I’m kind of OK with not adding the Horus Heresy stuff into modern 40K. I don’t think anything from 10,000 years ago should’ve stayed the same that long. Genre aside it’s so unrealistic it ruins my personal immersion into a sci-fi setting. 

[Sea Creature]

“I don’t think anything from 10,000 years ago should’ve stayed the same that long."

Except maybe for immortals.

[Captain Idaho]

Been mulling that over... to me it's a question whether you want the 40K main protagonist to fundamentally change or not in character.

 

Revered and ancient suits of armour and weapons, strategy that becomes dogma and religion, stagnant and deteriorating empires in the face of ancient enemies and new horrors. That's historic 40K. Having ancient vehicles and unit choices makes sense in that circumstances. 

 

There are definitely people who don't care about that aspect of 40K, or don't feel like it's the priority, but I personally wouldn't agree.

 

Not liking ancient tech from the Heresy does kind of fall flat in theme though when you consider the Imperium still uses bolt guns, lascannons, heavy bolters etc. So it seems to be somewhat arbitrarily applied in this case.

 

From a customer's perspective, GW damn well told us to buy these things they put into legends a year later so that is a direct gut punch for many people.

 

****

 

Regarding the main topic here... Firstborn miniatures get a lifeline in a funny sort of way if there's a direct infantry equivalent in the Primaris range.

 

It is unfortunately not really applicable to vehicles since they're radically different for a universal counts as. An example here might be Assault Intercessors can be easily represented by Assault Marines, minus Flamers and Plasma pistols on the squad by the looks of it (and Eviscerators but that's much more of a modern thing) but an Ironclad Dreadnought doesn't really have the size or armament for a Brutalis Dreadnought cleanly. The Land Speeders even less so.

 

The question of transports raises its head too. If Primaris could get into a Rhino then taking Command squads works well as either Primaris or Firstborn. At the moment this isn't the case.

 

Ultimately though it will feel a little hollow for many Firstborn Veterans amongst us. Not all the options will be there and it'll feel somewhat deflating to fudge counts as.

[Blindhamster]

Is it even counts as for stuff like scouts or sternguard or even assault marines? They’re pretty much 1:1 units (jump assault intercessors can take a plasma pistol per 5 models, sadly doesn’t look like any special gun or evicerator options though)

 

I think with the fact they’ve already done updates to legends, people really do need to get past the idea that using them is somehow wrong. Because one of the main arguments till now was the fact they wouldn’t get updated, which we have already seen isn’t the case.
 

GW is putting things into legends to trim down what appears in the tournament scene specifically.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Blindhamster

[Tacitus]

On 8/30/2023 at 6:37 AM, Dracos said:

I know it’s the Age of the Index and while tournament results say different, I can’t disagree. I’m sure at some point Armored Companies will have a place in the Meta. I just think the best builds will still need an infantry component. 

Somebody on here posted that build.  They were loaded up on tanks and vehicles - it was pretty much alpha strike two turns, play the mission three turns becasue after the first two turns you didn't have enough army left to contest the mission. 

12 hours ago, Dracos said:

I have to admit I’m kind of OK with not adding the Horus Heresy stuff into modern 40K. I don’t think anything from 10,000 years ago should’ve stayed the same that long. Genre aside it’s so unrealistic it ruins my personal immersion into a sci-fi setting. 

Except that's 40K's schtick.  Hyper advanced technology combined with a lack of knowledge of how it REALLY works being replaced by superstition, sacred oils and unguents, and a taboo around changing anything. 

[Tacitus]

3 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Been mulling that over... to me it's a question whether you want the 40K main protagonist to fundamentally change or not in character.

 

Revered and ancient suits of armour and weapons, strategy that becomes dogma and religion, stagnant and deteriorating empires in the face of ancient enemies and new horrors. That's historic 40K. Having ancient vehicles and unit choices makes sense in that circumstances. 

 

There are definitely people who don't care about that aspect of 40K, or don't feel like it's the priority, but I personally wouldn't agree.

 

Not liking ancient tech from the Heresy does kind of fall flat in theme though when you consider the Imperium still uses bolt guns, lascannons, heavy bolters etc. So it seems to be somewhat arbitrarily applied in this case.

 

From a customer's perspective, GW damn well told us to buy these things they put into legends a year later so that is a direct gut punch for many people.

 

****

Land Raider Ultima?  

 

Quote

Regarding the main topic here... Firstborn miniatures get a lifeline in a funny sort of way if there's a direct infantry equivalent in the Primaris range.

 

It is unfortunately not really applicable to vehicles since they're radically different for a universal counts as. An example here might be Assault Intercessors can be easily represented by Assault Marines, minus Flamers and Plasma pistols on the squad by the looks of it (and Eviscerators but that's much more of a modern thing) but an Ironclad Dreadnought doesn't really have the size or armament for a Brutalis Dreadnought cleanly. The Land Speeders even less so.

 

The question of transports raises its head too. If Primaris could get into a Rhino then taking Command squads works well as either Primaris or Firstborn. At the moment this isn't the case.

 

Ultimately though it will feel a little hollow for many Firstborn Veterans amongst us. Not all the options will be there and it'll feel somewhat deflating to fudge counts as.

I disagree on the lifeline.  Even if we do get Jump Assault Intercessors, the Assault Squad of the past will be noticably shorter and out of scale.   It makes for a nice bandaid as people buy the new kit, paint it and get it ready - especially since GW has been out of the base (Technical paints to use on bases not the class "base paints" with your bottom chapter color layer) for at least a month now.  I figure a lot of people are sitting on some Agastus and Leviathan boxes they can't paint because they can't base the model.  But eventually they'll come back in, and the dinky runts standing new to the new models is going to bother most people. 

[Tacitus]

3 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Is it even counts as for stuff like scouts or sternguard or even assault marines? They’re pretty much 1:1 units (jump assault intercessors can take a plasma pistol per 5 models, sadly doesn’t look like any special gun or evicerator options though)

 

I think with the fact they’ve already done updates to legends, people really do need to get past the idea that using them is somehow wrong. Because one of the main arguments till now was the fact they wouldn’t get updated, which we have already seen isn’t the case.
 

GW is putting things into legends to trim down what appears in the tournament scene specifically.

When updates to legends happens as often as updates to "regulars" people might use them - but a handful of one-off updates at edition change isn't really a reliable update schedule.  Likewise the lack of a continued update guarantee for all Legends the next time the edition changes along with the basic stat profile is problematic.  GW has no real "duty" to update Assault Marines for 12th edition and can just drop them out of 40K entirely - nor can anyone really complain if they did because they were in Legends which basically means this stuff can phase out at any time for any reason. 

[Captain Idaho]

Whilst I agree with your stance on Legends (a beginning of edition change to fix proof reading errors doesn't mean they're supported as the edition goes on) I must say that the problem with small Space Marines next to big ones isn't really the issue. People often go one or the other and if I can take my Space Marines army and still use it without a problem, it's all good that my army is smaller than my opponent's Primaris.

 

Except for when tournament idiots protest of course. But I can't see myself attending a tournament in 10th... not unless the whole Eldar army gets sent to Legends! 

[Xenith]

On 8/30/2023 at 6:01 AM, Tacitus said:

I can.  Knights have some issues with infantry vs Titanic, but their bigger issue is usually Board Control.  They can't put enough models in enough places at the same time.  The most extreme example is one 500 point Titanic knight vs 500 points of Grots.  The Grots can't kill the knight, but the Knight can't come close to killing enough Grots to play the mission if the Grots ignore the knight and just spam the mission. 

 

Just want to jump in there - you actually get just 100 grots for those 475pts that the knight crusader costs, and taken in units of 20, as they have to be, each rapid fire battlecannon gets an average of 22 shots, plus another 18 from the avenger gatling, + another  d6+ 5 from a missile pod. That's 49 shots per turn (averaging 27 dead grots, hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+) Personally I dont think a knight would have an issue killing it's own points worth of weak infantry over the course of a game. Knights are bad for the game though 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Xenith

[Captain Idaho]

Not for the record and to make sure no one misunderstood, I love tournaments. I meant those idiots who ruin other people's games by making faux complaints to organisers when they're not affected.

 

Not meaning to disparage tournament goers. As I love tournaments. Besides I was trying to be facetious!

[TheArtilleryman]

So looking at the new releases we now have confirmed exactly what many have said here. New scouts, as a direct replacement. Jump pack assault intercessors, which may as well be a direct replacement for the assault squad as there is no point buying a firstborn one when this exists. New multipart terminators and Sternguard. 
 

Now. If they can even upscale scouts, they could have upscaled all marines … sigh …

 

Oh and new codex also coming out. It will be interesting to see if anything else has been retired from the codex when it releases or if this is it for this edition.

Edited September 3, 2023 by TheArtilleryman

[Tacitus]

On 9/1/2023 at 2:18 AM, Xenith said:

 

Just want to jump in there - you actually get just 100 grots for those 475pts that the knight crusader costs, and taken in units of 20, as they have to be, each rapid fire battlecannon gets an average of 22 shots, plus another 18 from the avenger gatling, + another  d6+ 5 from a missile pod. That's 49 shots per turn (averaging 27 dead grots, hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+) Personally I dont think a knight would have an issue killing it's own points worth of weak infantry over the course of a game. Knights are bad for the game though 

And how many points does that Knight get while having to run around to each objective with each blob of grots?  The point of the example is that the grot player can completely ignore the Knight on the board and win.  He doesn't HAVE to kill the knight, the Knight can't kill the grots fast enough to win. 

[Tacitus]

19 hours ago, TheArtilleryman said:

So looking at the new releases we now have confirmed exactly what many have said here. New scouts, as a direct replacement. Jump pack assault intercessors, which may as well be a direct replacement for the assault squad as there is no point buying a firstborn one when this exists. New multipart terminators and Sternguard. 
 

Now. If they can even upscale scouts, they could have upscaled all marines … sigh …

 

Oh and new codex also coming out. It will be interesting to see if anything else has been retired from the codex when it releases or if this is it for this edition.

I'd argue "direct replacement" because the old scouts went to Legends.  It may be a parallel replacement etc. but if it were a direct replacement the datasheet didn't have to go to legends.  One would hope that's because the datasheet has changed in some way and not that GW is stupid, but your mileage may vary.  Looking at the models I suspect the datasheet has changed - I see a Grapnel Gun I think.

[Helias_Tancred]

The role of sniping will now primarily  be the realm of Eliminators. It looks like the new scouts have one sniper, but unless he's some super sniper, sniping duties will still be best with Eliminators. We saw this coming.

 

I'll be curious if the new "command squad" can have an apothecary join it? I'd also like a Chaplain or Librarian be able to swap with the captain in that unit. 

[Kallas]

6 hours ago, Tacitus said:

I'd argue "direct replacement" because the old scouts went to Legends.  It may be a parallel replacement etc. but if it were a direct replacement the datasheet didn't have to go to legends.  One would hope that's because the datasheet has changed in some way and not that GW is stupid, but your mileage may vary.  Looking at the models I suspect the datasheet has changed - I see a Grapnel Gun I think.

It looks like the Scouts will have Grapnel Launchers, and it certainly seems like they've gotten something like the Kasrkin treatment, where you have a single Sniper - this is probably to make it a Kill Team compatible unit, rather than having two separate Scout units, even though that does kill off Scout Snipers if it pans out that way which would be a major shame.

 

Edit: It's kind of...ironic(?) if that is how they are structuring the Scout squad, considering that they've gone to great lengths to remove the multitude of options like this from the Space Marine line in the form of Primaris units being mono-loadout.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Kallas

[Karhedron]

On 9/3/2023 at 8:55 AM, TheArtilleryman said:

Oh and new codex also coming out. It will be interesting to see if anything else has been retired from the codex when it releases or if this is it for this edition.

 

As others have suggested, Sniper Scouts will probably be going away and I expect Vanguard Veterans too. Bladeguard are now the melee vets and Sternguard as the shooty vets. There are around 120 sheets in the Index IIRC so 20-30 of those will probably be pruned. We know some like Bikes and Speeders and we can guess some others. Interesting to see what else is to come. Ironclads are out, I suspect some of the other Dreads may be too.

[DemonGSides]

If they would let me slap a jump pack on bladeguard, well, I'd be downright excited.

[Dracos]

41 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

If they would let me slap a jump pack on bladeguard, well, I'd be downright excited.

I’ll see your your jump pack Bladeguard and raise you with units of lighting claw and thunderhanmer Inceptors 

[jaxom]

On 8/31/2023 at 11:30 PM, Tacitus said:

On 8/31/2023 at 10:42 AM, Dracos said:

I have to admit I’m kind of OK with not adding the Horus Heresy stuff into modern 40K. I don’t think anything from 10,000 years ago should’ve stayed the same that long. Genre aside it’s so unrealistic it ruins my personal immersion into a sci-fi setting. 

Except that's 40K's schtick.  Hyper advanced technology combined with a lack of knowledge of how it REALLY works being replaced by superstition, sacred oils and unguents, and a taboo around changing anything. 

To a degree, but the other half of it is when the hyper advanced technology is lost or broken then it's gone. Space Marine chapters may not want to change anything, but when the last Contemptor Ironform or last Spartan tank is destroyed after thousands of years of battle... and it's only M34.

[Dracos]

Yeah see I call shenanigans on that kind of thinking. I know we’re talking a universe of bugs engulfing a galaxy but it’s too unrealistic a look of human nature that once something in known to stay that way especially in a world where humanity has colonized thousands of other worlds. It would be literally impossible odds for that knowledge to be completely destroyed or suppressed. It’s just bad storytelling.