No primarchs ...

[Helias_Tancred]

I'm coming around to a point of view that bringing back the primarchs, both loyalist and daemon, hasn't done jack shizzle to make 40k a better game.

 

The models are incredible, some of the very best GW has ever released for 40k imo, I love them, but they haven't made 40k a better game. A year ago I would have strongly disagreed with this sentiment, but today and looking at the state of 40k? Nah. I'll pass. It would have been better had GW kept them as the legendary beings they are and in the background and out of the game directly.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17 by Helias_Tancred

[lansalt]

The lore has a bigger scope than the game, yes. Personally, from a game design point of view, I think the army sizes of 2nd to 3rd/early 4th edition were the best for a proper platoon level wargame. All those centerpiece units and big blobs of infantry look great in a table but barely fit in it, forcing the ruleset to become clunky or gamey (rather than simulationist) to compensate for the lack of fire and maneouver.


 

[Lexington]

Bad for the game, bad for the setting.

[Lay]

It's because of the success of Apocalypse. It made large scale armies and giant models popular, and that started bleeding into the main game as a result.

[Special Officer Doofy]

31 minutes ago, Helias_Tancred said:

I'm coming around to a point of view that bringing back the primarchs, both loyalist and daemon, hasn't done jack shizzle to make 40k a better game.

 

Lots of decisions from GW don't make the game better, they just try to increase sales.

[Noserenda]

I quite like having them around in the fluff, gives the writers something different to play with.

They wouldnt even breach the top ten list of things wrong with the game though lol

[Scribe]

For sure one of the worst changes to the setting since 5th, and absolutely had a negative impact on the game as well.

 

28 minutes ago, Lay said:

It's because of the success of Apocalypse. It made large scale armies and giant models popular, and that started bleeding into the main game as a result.

 

Oh and this, turning 40K into Apoc-lite, has absolutely ruined it.

Edited April 15 by Scribe

[Rain]

27 minutes ago, Lexington said:

Bad for the game, bad for the setting.

But apparently good for the bottom line.

 

I hate primarchs being in 40k, even the Chaos ones that actually make some lore sense. But the almighty dollar, or pound sterling, or maple leaves of whatever Canadians use, all apparently disagree.

[ZeroWolf]

26 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

I can't speak on the primarchs from a game perspective, but I'll agree that them being around has definitely had an effect on the setting. They used to be these mythological figures who we could only catch glimpses and mentions of, and now they're bloody everywhere. I wouldn't have minded so much if it was just the Daemon Primarchs, I feel like horrific damned sons returning to bring ruin to a fallen empire fits really well with 40ks vibe, but having both loyalists and traitors running around took away some of the mystery of the setting. They keep popping up, they're like the most zealous weeds.

 

I also feel like they don't match up to their mythological status when brought to the table, but I don't know how you would translate that. Like, to me, a lore accurate Angron would go on the table, and then your enemies army would instantly murder themselves/everyone around them, and that would be the whole game.

To be fair, there's a lot of lore that doesn't quite match up on the tabletop, look at space marines and Custodes for example.

 

1 custode (going by lore) should be able to deal with a small army. Doesn't quite cut that way in game.

 

As for the topic at hand...honestly, I'm fine with it. I think the fact that the Galaxy is still falling apart, despite the loyalist primarchs returning (make peace with it, as we'll probably get 1 loyalist back every edition now, and 1 chaos brother) is still within the grimdark playbook*

 

*at least in my opinion, but obviously, your milage may vary.

[phandaal]

  

1 hour ago, Helias_Tancred said:

It would have been better if GW would have kept them as the legendary beings they are and in the background and out of the game directly.

 

I agree. The 40k setting is beginning to feel like there was no time at all between the Horus Heresy and Current Year. Supposedly there have been ten thousand years of history, which for reference is about four times longer than the time between today and the fall of Babylonia.

 

Sure doesn't feel like it though. We have Cawl (who has totally been around for ten thousand years), Primaris Marines who remember being born on ancient Terra, the Loyalist Primarchs, the Daemon Primarchs, secret immortals from the time of the Emperor, Valdor, et cetera, ad nauseum.

 

It all feels very cynical and real-world driven.

[Evil Eye]

Personally I'd go a step further and say giving a "canonical" depiction of the Heresy was a mistake. Yes, it let them sell a lot of (very nice) minis and make a lot of money in the process but it took an era that had up until then been a mythical, forgotten age shrouded in legend and awe-inspiring if contradictory tales, and made it into just another tract of fluff. And as is often the case, the canonical detailed retelling of the Heresy was far less impressive than the idea of the Heresy we'd built up in our heads. Which is inevitable to some degree, but not helped by the...questionable decisions made (turning Olanious Pious from a single immeasurably brave Guardsman into a perpetual, whatever that nonsense was with the Cabal etc).

 

Bringing the Primarchs into modern 40K, even aside from the Apocalypseification of normal games, just carries that on. Whereas before, hobbyists could ponder what Guilliman looked like, what he'd do if he were released from stasis, what he was like as a person, etc, now it's all spelt out to us, and even aside from the lacklustre execution, it greatly limits the scope of the setting and its nature as a sandbox. Before, the galaxy was filled with unanswered questions and gaps left blank to tell your own stories. Now, the questions are all (poorly) answered, the blank spaces filled, and the return of the Primarchs is one of the more egregious examples of that.

[Helias_Tancred]

1 hour ago, Lexington said:

Bad for the game, bad for the setting.

 

I'm not quite there yet with the latter, but I have thought about it. And I still do. 

[Rain]

44 minutes ago, phandaal said:

It all feels very cynical and real-world driven.

This is the root of the problem, and absolutely kills the verisimilitude of any fictional work. There’s a reason most magicians don’t want to reveal how the tricks are done. The magic is in the not knowing, and the suspension of disbelief. 40k has largely lost that a while ago.

[Helias_Tancred]

51 minutes ago, phandaal said:

  

 

I agree. The 40k setting is beginning to feel like there was no time at all between the Horus Heresy and Current Year. Supposedly there have been ten thousand years of history, which for reference is about four times longer than the time between today and the fall of Babylonia.

 

Sure doesn't feel like it though. We have Cawl (who has totally been around for ten thousand years), Primaris Marines who remember being born on ancient Terra, the Loyalist Primarchs, the Daemon Primarchs, secret immortals from the time of the Emperor, Valdor, et cetera, ad nauseum.

 

It all feels very cynical and real-world driven.

 

Good points! The cynical side of me that has seen years of GW's patterns in product, marketing, and sales, says it was all done for profit above any sort of opinion that it would be "cool" for the setting. 

 

The lore is what it is today primarily to drive sales. 

Edited April 15 by Helias_Tancred

[Helias_Tancred]

1 hour ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Lots of decisions from GW don't make the game better, they just try to increase sales.

 

Truth, and I think that fact has been on the rise over the last several editions. 

[crimsondave]

I’m obviously in the minority here.  I wanted Lion back since the first time I read about him being asleep in the Rock.  Was that the Angels of Death codex?  Idk.  Long time ago though.  I want the ones that make sense to come back to come back.  If they start reanimating known dead ones I’m 100% against that.

[phandaal]

17 minutes ago, crimsondave said:

I’m obviously in the minority here.  I wanted Lion back since the first time I read about him being asleep in the Rock.  Was that the Angels of Death codex?  Idk.  Long time ago though.  I want the ones that make sense to come back to come back.  If they start reanimating known dead ones I’m 100% against that.

 

It was 2nd Edition yeah. In Rogue Trader, he was "Lynel Jacobsen," he founded the Dark Angels, and he died in a duel with Leman Russ (possibly). The early history of the Dark Angels was removed from all Imperial records following the Horus Heresy and the banishment of the nine “treacher-legions” to the Eye of Terror.

 

The Primarchs were much more human back then.

[Lay]

 In the end, we have no one to blame for this but ourselves. We keep buying whatever GW is offering. 

 

48 minutes ago, Rain said:

This is the root of the problem, and absolutely kills the verisimilitude of any fictional work. There’s a reason most magicians don’t want to reveal how the tricks are done. The magic is in the not knowing, and the suspension of disbelief. 40k has largely lost that a while ago.

That's the lifecycle of fiction in a successful franchise. A story has to end eventually. A setting is a canvas that is eventually full. But a franchise is constantly trying to grow. So in order to ensure success, it repeats and expands the best parts of itself until it becomes self referential.

[Rain]

2 minutes ago, Lay said:

 In the end, we have no one to blame for this but ourselves. We keep buying whatever GW is offering. 

 

That's the lifecycle of fiction in a successful franchise. A story has to end eventually. A setting is a canvas that is eventually full. But a franchise is constantly trying to grow. So in order to ensure success, it repeats and expands the best parts of itself until it becomes self referential.

True enough, HH sold like crazy, so GW decided to show primarchs everywhere they could. But then I preferred 40k as a setting and not a story. Mystery is important, and the fleshing out can never properly pay off the questions that the mystery created. 

 

The Horus Heresy, the Clone Wars, and the origin of xenomorphs should have all stayed mysterious. Just as we don’t know exactly what happened during the time of Ancient Rome, or even relatively recent events like the JFK assassination, poorly understood past events in fiction help make stories compelling, and lead to fan theories and personal investment in the fiction.

[DemonGSides]

I don't blame primarchs, they have been strong on the tabletop and they've been weak on the tabletop.

It's Titanic units.  Get rid of all of em.

[Scribe]

37 minutes ago, Lay said:

 In the end, we have no one to blame for this but ourselves. We keep buying whatever GW is offering. 

 

Speak for yourself brother. ;)

[crimsondave]

49 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

It was 2nd Edition yeah. In Rogue Trader, he was "Lynel Jacobsen," he founded the Dark Angels, and he died in a duel with Leman Russ (possibly). The early history of the Dark Angels was removed from all Imperial records following the Horus Heresy and the banishment of the nine “treacher-legions” to the Eye of Terror.

 

The Primarchs were much more human back then.

Still have my old RT from early 90’s.

 

Getting off topic I guess.  I do understand where you all are coming from though.

Edited April 16 by crimsondave

[DemonGSides]

Always fun to see some lore that got ripped apart and passed around to other places.

[Special Officer Doofy]

22 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

I don't blame primarchs, they have been strong on the tabletop and they've been weak on the tabletop.

It's Titanic units.  Get rid of all of em.

 

Mortarion before being nerfed in 10th was 450-490pts in 9th. He was as much points as a titanic unit, the size of a titanic unit and had the rules (and then some) to match titanic units. But you want only titanic units gone? 

[DemonGSides]

16 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Mortarion before being nerfed in 10th was 450-490pts in 9th. He was as much points as a titanic unit, the size of a titanic unit and had the rules (and then some) to match titanic units. But you want only titanic units gone? 

Yeah.  I don't necessarily mind big demons existing; I think a demon prince fits within scope, I even think a game that was aiming a little more in what I want would be able to have Mortarion at a more reasonable size and scope and still feel strong without being OP; I don't think many people would say the best counter a Primarch is a Titanic unit as is, so I think some rationale toning could make it work, though that would probably require a new model now and I don't anticipate nor expect that to happen any time soon.

But I think Knights were a huge mistake for the game and have indirectly (and directly) lead to a lot of bad decisions that have warped the game from where I think it should be.  And I dislike playing against monoliths currently so it's definitely not a fully rational belief, but one I believe would have enough positive knock on effects that a lot more people would like the game, though I get the approachability of "Buy like, 5 models."

 

They fit in Apocalypse (A game type I also love!  And wish got more chances to play, I don't think I've gotten an Apoc game in any way in almost a decade at this point), but warp a lot of what you are doing in 40k, and having to plan around possibly running into a Titanic unit has big implications.

Losing the Baneblade will hurt.  Trust me, it will, I love that big son of a bitch.  So would Mortarion, if we want to go that route too. But it think it'd make for a better, more fun game.  It feels a lot like DBZ with having things that are that powerful; they just force even more crazy things to be made which imbalances other things.  The business side of things also puts its thumb on this side, so it's like even MORE worrisome.

It'd have the knock on effect of making armies EVEN BIGGER as those points get used elsewhere, but maybe the game could stand a general raising of points.  I could be convinced of that.

(BIG DISCLAIMER FOR EVERYONE READING THIS; THESE ARE OPINIONS AND NOT STATING ANY FACTS.  I'M HERE TO TALK NOT GET IN FIGHTS.  WE'RE ALL FRIENDS I WANT YOU TO HAVE YOUR BIG KNIGHTS, THEY ARE COOL I EVEN OWN ONE.)