Primaris, slower, tougher slightly worse tech Eldar?

[Brother Raul]

Hi All,

          I've been trying to get my head around how Primaris marines have changed the way space marines play.

 

I love the models and their part in the advancement of the story line plus they are easier to paint well.

 

As a BA player the contrast between FB and primaris marines gameplay was noticeable immediately. It's still early days in the release schedule but the core units seem to mirror roles usually associated with witchcraft and FB 'utility' doesn't exist anymore (maybe space Wolves might get some mixed unit shenanigans).

 

BA had some cool niche rules (heavy flamers, double meltas on ASM ECT) that the core primaris cannot replicate, this might be a SOB and IG thing now.

 

Jet pack shooting & monoclonal shooting and it's variants is now through out the codex as well as more specialised melee units and I can draw direct comparisons between Aeldari codex units and primaris SM units like erradicators and fire dragons.

 

At a first glance I didn't like it but it's grown on me, it pushes us into a more unique tier (especially the 2 wound thingy- why does my super soldier with 3 lungs, 4 hearts and a 22 foot penis die as easily as other less enhanced beings?).

 

The forced specialisation is also a bit better for game play overall and experience (more certain results) but can be a bit too rock, scissor, paper which Warhammer fantasy editions sometimes suffered from.

 

But that's GWs challenge, to have  core rules that flow so you can superimpose the special rules without ruining the gaming experience.

 

What are people's thoughts? For the emperor!

 

[Karhedron]

In a way, the increased specialisation has been necessitated by the way the rules have changed between 7th and 8th and then again with the transition to 10th. Anti-tank weapons used to be limited to just a couple per squad and units like Devastators competed with tanks for limited Heavy Support slots in the force org chart. Each anti-tank weapon could do considerable damage to a vehicle (one-shot kills from a single melta gun were possible in some editions).

 

8th changed it so that any weapon could hurt any target which made vehicles an endangered species. 10th has improved things with vehicles going up in toughness and AP generally coming down. What this means in practice is that infantry-based anti-tank weapons now need to be used en-masse to take out vehicles. A Tactical squad with a single lascannon embedded is not a serious threat to most tanks now and is only likely to remove a handful of wounds while MBTs typically have 12-16 wounds.

 

The upshot of this is that true anti-tank squads need to have more heavy weapons in order to get the job done which leads us to the existence of Hellblasters, Eradicators and Desolators.

 

I fully agree that Primaris squads are closer in concept to Eldar Aspect Warriors than traditional multi-role Marine squads. As a fellow BA player, I know what you mean about some of our more interesting Firstborn squads getting sidelined. Mono-task squads are theoretically easier to balance although the early results from 10th edition suggest that this has not really happened as some factions have twice the win rate of others. Hopefully this will get ironed out in time as the codices drop and balance dataslates change the points values of particularly high/low performing units.

[Blindhamster]

I dont entirely agree, in that not all marine squads were particularly versatile in practice anyway.

 

Tactical squads were versatile but not particularly good at anything - a problem they've had for probably 7 editions at this point.

Assault squads actually probably would count as somewhat versatile due to good movement, option for melta guns and decent amount of at least passable melee

Devastators in practice weren't versatile, you realistically need to build them for a job, be that anti tank or anti infantry.

Vanguard are punchy, maybe tanky.

Sternguard were shooty

 

etc

It's nowhere near as different now as some people like to make out. Particularly when you consider that whilst you could have units that could do a little bit of everything, most lists you would see didn't its why las/plas tactical squads were just a given for a long time, and why even now when comparing tactical squads to intercessors, people ALWAYS use the lascannon for it, because its just better.

 

That said, its also true that primaris do feel a bit more like eldar aspect warriors in their unit designs still. Yeah.