So The New Primaries Stuff Just Got Revealed...

So the new primaries stuff just got revealed...

And I’m not gonna lie, it’s a 50/50 for me

Floaty rhino: 7/10

Literally exactly what I expected out of a anti-grav primaries rhino:

Fuck ton more guns? Check

Weird land speeder esk anti grav plates/pads? Check

Ambiguous photo that leaves many questions about customization and features? You bet your sweet imperial ass!

It’s got what I’d honestly kinda dreaded and hoped for, the design is slightly more imperial than the repulsor, so at least it doesn’t break the art style as much as that weird ass thing.

But the amount of guns it has leads me to think it’s going to be far too much points wise, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say probably 130-140, maybe even higher if those storm bolters can be upped to frag launchers and that Razorback gun on the top can be uped.Over all though?

Probably going to grab one if it’s less than 60$, I need to shuttle my primaris somehow, and I don’t have the points to grab a repulsor, or the cash quite frankly.

Now,

the abhorrent one cometh......................

WHAT THE FUCK GW!?!?!?

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE SHIT!

HOW CAN I EVEN EXPRESS MY UTTER CONFUSION AND DISAPPOINTMENT AND RESENTMENT?!?

Alright, I’ll cool it for a minute.........

Let me at the very least list the things that make this vehicle a 2 rather than a 0 out of 10.

First, the missile pod. I like where it’s located, it reminds me a a leviathans hunter killer rack, but more up armored and simplified.

Second, the feet. Knowing what I do about actual engineering and design, four pronged foot pads like these would probably disperse this abominations weight out quite well, it probably wasn’t intentional, but good touch.

Third and final, the main gun. It looks to be a light auto cannon of sorts, probably a bit lighter than the one the Tartaros terminator carries. Fighting for what is essentially an imperial crisis suit.

Now...

Its been a minute.....

RANT TIME FUCKERS

ITS GOT SO LITTLE ARMOR ID BE SUPRISED IF I COULDNT KILL IT WITH A LASGUN!

FUCKING SERIOUSLY, YOU MAKE THE DREADKNIGHTS FLAWS LOOK LIKE A GERMAN MASTERPIECE OF ENGINEERING.

CHRIST JUST LOOK AT HOW LITTLE JOINT PROTECTION IT HAS

A FUCKING ROLL CAGE!?!?! THIS ISNT AN ATV ITS A WAR MACHINE, A HUMVIE HAS MORE ARMOR ON ITS .50 CAL

NIPPLE STUBBERS? SERIOUSLY? WHATS WITH THIS FETISH ABOUT NON BOLT WEPAONS ON MARINE VEHICLES?!

YOU GAVE IT A PISTOLED HEAVY BOLTER!?! THIS ISNT A GUNDAM GW! YOU COULD HAVE BUILT IT INTO THE HAND, BUT NOOO, HAD TO GIVE THIS SUMBITCH A BIG IRON.

SERIOUSLY, I KNOW THIS IS GETTING LONG, BUT NOT ONE OTHER VEHICLE IN 40K, NOT JUST THE IMPERIUM, ALL OF THIS GODS DAMNED UNIVERSE, HOLSTERS MECH RANGED WEAPONRY!

IT LEGITIMATELY GAVE MORE ARMOR TO ITS DREAD-COCK THAN ITS PILOT! HES IN PHOBOS ARMOR GOD DAMNIT AT LEAST GIVE THE MAN SOME ARMOR GLASS AND ADAMANTINE!

FUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!

..........ok, I’m better, not good, but better.

Even if this unit can one shot titans it’s not getting picked up, it’s poorly designed. Like the gene stealer cult armiger conversions look better than this thing, and it’s not a very marine weapons platform. If I can build something like it I may proxy, but since I barley buy from Gdubs anyway, this won’t be going into my force.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to argue one point on your essay and add some stuff of my own.

I don’t believe that inceptors are replacement for bikes.

I’m not simply saying this to be a contrarian or because I haven’t thought about it. And while I disagree with your overall statement, I do agree with some of its implications.

For one, they come in squads of three with a max of nine (correct me if I’m wrong but bikes are the same)

Additionally they can also carry either bolt weapons (like standard bikes) or Plasma weapons (similar to dark angel bikes).

But unfortunately, they don’t fill that same niche, at least how you may think. They are far to hefty to be bikes, but they’re just large enough to be attack bikes, they carry heavy ordinance in the form of the plasma wepaons (like a multi melts) and a good suppression weapon in the form of assault bolters (like a heavy bolter). Granted we could argue this forever.

My addition to your thesis is that GW really can’t turn back at this point. They’ve fucked themselves into a corner they can’t bloody escape from.

With how ungodly hard they’ve pushed primaris marines, at this point, they’re the face of the range. I know that’s very bold opinion to put forth, but I have personal experience and well sourced theories to back things up.

Firstly, with the exception of a single new librarian in terminator armor sculpt we saw leaked, every single marine release since 2016 has been primaris. This isnt bad on its own, but they’ve also seemingly been all we’ve heard of when it comes to major events in the lore.

The Ultima founding

The Indomitus crusade

The plague wars

The war for macrage

Literally everything involving cawl

I don’t mean to exaggerate, but from what I’ve read of the new lore (and granted I can’t read everything) most of the big events involve Bobby’s new boys. This also wouldn’t be bad on its own. But combine it with my previously mentioned point and the fact all marketing for 40K involves primaris marines in some form or another, and it’s leading to a problem.

New members of the hobby are completely against old style marines.

A bold clame for certain, but in my experience, an all to acurate one.

New members of this hobby, younger and older, are all flooded with the new marines so much, they don’t even really seem to like the old marines. This leads them to build entirely primaris forces, which are sorely lacking in some departments (even with these new vanguard additions). They are slaughtered in CQC and are decimated by fast outflank troops. Most of they’re heavy options are so armed to the teeth that they our price they’re purpose (a repulsor tank is almost as well armed as a land raider, but until recently was they’re only dedicated transport, this ment it was always pumbled with heavy weapons fire)

This leads to, in my experience, extreme frustration with they’re terribly balanced choices. I’ve seen more than a few players go through the cycle of

Buy a primaris army

Get outplayed by more well rounded forces

Try to compensate by expending with harder to use units (Reviers to counter CQC warfare and Incepters to try and outflank)

This either doesn’t work or isn’t good enough to do much good overall

By now they don’t have room to expand their either other SM stuff or have just given up on 40K or just switch army’s

This wouldn’t necessarily be bad if it didn’t mean that while GW is pushing more niche units on primaris. This going to exasperate the current issues with the army of always having nice units that would well compliment standard marines but needing to have there own everything to do a job (they’re own transports being the most obvious issue).

This is going to hurt GW if what they’re doing is what I think they’re doing. Instead of a hard “Yes primaris are replacing marines” or a hard “no they’re just add ons with a new design direction”. I believe they’re trying to subtly replace e entire marine range with ever so slightly different models. So far we’ve seen he primaris come out in waves

The Core ( basic things like mainline infantry, tanks, HQs) with dark imperium and the releases soon thereafter

The Fast attack expansion (shadow spear and the most recent drops having things like revamped old character who got primaris’d)

What I believe this will lead to are two more “Army expansions”

The Melee ( one or two dedicated primaris melee units, possibly a buff to reviers and agressors)

Even more specialists ( heavy artillery and flyers for primaris, potentially a new lord of war that was mention in the books, the overlord)

This will lead to an army of entirely specialist, which as anyone who can guess based on this mamothian writing, is a bad thing. Primaris have no “all arounder” a jack of all trades master of none unit. Somthing that can be variable ( like a primaris tactical squad) without a core like this, the range will always die when fighting an army that can adapt or out do them. Interseccors for example are basically tau when it comes to they’re combat doctrine; make gunlines out of them and make sure nothing gets close. This would be fine if they weren’t out gunned by the tau do to a multitude of factors. And this goes for all they’re units.

With all this stated, his is how I think it’s going to go down GW is going to officially say that primaris are the only thing allowed for marines, and shits going to hit the fan fast and hard. Your going to have veteran space marine players who see the issue with this and who have thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in marine models just fucking quit. Possibly go to heresy considering how much traction that’s gotten recently. This leads to huge profit drops as formally loyal fans ditch the hobby or simply play older editions/heresy. This then means newer players don’t get into the hobby as easily. Which means GW bring old marines back a fixes the issue until they see they’re profits plateau and do it all over again because they never learn from mistakes.

Primaris Space Marines are a Botched Concept.

No wait, hear me out, this is advocating FOR Space Marine players, not being sour at their new release.

So there are no Primaris Bike equivalents being released this time around; if there are then they’re a glaring omission from the White Scars article this morning.

This truely highlights the issue with Primaris as a whole; GeeDubs were so afraid of alienating Space Marine players and hurting their profit margins that they damaged Space Marines as an army irreparabley.

Back at the dawn of 8th edition we got Primaris Marines; these guys were not replacements for Tactical, Assault and Devastator marines, but a new thing, with new statlines and fluff. They were also bigger than Space Marines. What we didn’t know back then was that they were not bigger, they were True Scale.

Compare a Primaris Captain to a Custodes, a mini-marine and and a Guardsman and you’ll see. Regular Space Marines are supposed to be as tall as a Custodes; they’re written as such in the Horrus Heresy novels. Plus or minus a few inches for individual heights and body sizes.

Primaris models are the scale that Space Marines are supposed to be. The new Chaos Space Marines are  Primaris scale as well (more or less).

But how does that make them a botched release?

Now that we’re getting more Primaris Space Marines questions are being asked. Questions like “where are Primaris bikes to go with my White Scars?”

The answer is you’re not getting Primaris bikes yet. The Vanguard Primaris and the Impulsor are the releases this time around and if those units don’t suit your chapter’s fluff then you’re out of luck.

This means that all White Scars are getting is a Primaris character and some Shoulder Pads.

So where are the bikes then? I’ll tell you where they should have been; on the molding machine that was used to churn out the Redemptor Dread and the Repulsor 2 years ago.

Back when we transitioned from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition of 40k, we got replacement models for pretty much all of the Space Marine range. Tactical, Assault and Devastator marines, Landspeeders, Rhinos, Predators, Razorbacks… All replaced within a couple of years. We didn’t have social media back then, so I can’t speak for everyone, but I know my gaming circle were excited. We eagerly bought the new kits and built our new marines armies, leaving our old marine models in the dust.

This was repeated with most armies as Tyranids, Eldar, Imperial Guard and Chaos were all eventually updated and their models were replaced. It was kinda sucky replacing things we spent money on, but we did it again because “oh! New Shiny!!”

Fast forward to the Dawn of 8th edition and suddenly we have a problem. Primaris are not replacements. They’re new. Different units with different wargear and new things that weren’t in the range before. They’re continuing to support the old stuff as well. Except they’re not going to make new stuff for the old range, they’re just going to keep supporting them.

They took a simple concept of updating the old range with new sculpts and turned it into something convoluted and ambiguous.

Instead of having Tactical, Assault, Devastators, Terminators and Bikes you have Intercessors, Reivers, Hellblasters, Aggressors and Inceptors.

Intercessors don’t have the flexibility of Tactical Marines.

Reivers don’t have Jump Packs like Assault Marines.

Hellblasters don’t have the flexibility or range of Devastator Marines.

Aggressors can’t deep-strike and don’t have the flexibility of Terminators.

And Inceptors are bike replacements but no one realises it… Not even GeeDubs.

All of these units, except maybe Inceptors, try to do what their mini-marine equivalent do but don’t do it as well. Why is that?

At the Dawn of 8th GeeDubs’ rep was in the toilet. Even though social media had been a great way to talk to their customers for years, they ignored us. They put out one codex every 6 months and didn’t release new stuff unless they had to and they ignored whole armies for years.

What would happen if they suddenly announced that the whole Space Marine range was obsolete? They spent decades only supporting Space Marines regularly and building it up as their best seller but what if those sales suddenly stopped?

This is why we got Primaris. They knew it was time to update the range but didn’t want to just replace the existing range for fear people would just walk away instead of buying new things to replace their old minis. That’s why Primaris Marines don’t do the same thing as the old Marines. That’s why Primaris Marines can’t ride in the old transports. That’s why Mini-Marines are still in the game.

In the same vein, they do want Primaris to sell. That’s why Mini-Marines wont get an update. That’s why Mini-Marines can’t ride in Primaris transports.

Now that they’ve made their bed, they have to lie in it; which why we’re getting Vanguard Primaris. More new units that don’t make the old units obsolete so they can still sell their best sellers. They won’t release Primaris Bikes because they’re not confident that people will buy them and if the new thing replaces the old then no one will buy the old things anymore either.

So now we have a situation.

GeeDubs can continue this trend of adding stuff to Space Marines without replacing the old stuff or bite the bullet and discontinue the old stuff and replace it with things that aren’t as good or as flexible.

Or they can admit that Primaris was a stupid idea and release True Scale updates for Tactical Marines and alienate everyone who invested in Primaris.

Either way, they’ve made a complete horses-arse out of this.

It would have been better if they just released True Scale versions of the old Marines, like they just did with the Chaos Space Marines. They could have even said that the older models could still be used and kept their wargear options in the codex for a few years; like they did with the “las/plas” Razorback from 2nd ed that hung around until 6th.

At least that way, White Scars and Blood Angels would have Bikes and Jump Assault Infantry models that suit their fluff and don’t look dinky when standing next to Primaris units in the same army (or when standing beside the new Chaos Marines. Or custodes).

Raven Guard are the only chapter who got anything meaningful in this release. Vanguard Primaris are all stealthy which suits Raven Guard to a tee… and they painted all their Vanguard Primaris models as Ultramarines… And release Codex White Scars before Codex Raven Guard.

The saddest thing of all; Codex White Scars is being released for the first time ever in the history of Warhammer 40,000; this should be celebrated. But if you build your army with new Primaris models they will all be on foot; including the Master of the Hunt who leads them.

A sad state of affairs indeed.

Edit: at least we know the Sisters of Battle range will be fully replaced when they’re released. None of their current models are best sellers so replacing them with better stuff can only improve profit margins.

“FUCK”

"A soldier's darkest hour should not be spent pleading for miracles of salvation- it should be spent firing their weapon at whatever evil stands before them"

- Tactica Imperium proverb

It’s almost as if CRWBY doesn’t know how to do a coplex character who going through tons of shit. Like they’d rather focus on making FNDM ships cannon because they think it will make the fans overlook all the other shit that’s gone down that should be talked about but instead it’s “OMG Lesbians yasss Queen you goo slayyy”.

Seriously, out of all the fandoms out there ours has a serious problem with rose tinted glasses, and it shows hard, especially in the big two.

I still want Jaune Arc to be happy

He's suffered more consequences than other characters. Has Suicidal Tendencies. Is the only character from the main two teams to actually lose more than win.

Lost Pyrrha (his partner & mentor) no other character has lost a member of their team yet. That must weigh on Jaune constantly if the V4 Pyrrha scene (which went nowhere cuz CRWBY) is any indication

Lost his chance at avenging Pyrrha (due to Cinder's Plot Armor)

His family never believed in him (which wasn't addressed in V6 when we met one of his sisters of course cuz CRWBY)

His own self loathing only increases with every mistake or failure.

He's convinced that his life doesn't matter as much as Team RWBY or Ren & Nora

The FNDM hates his guts almost as much as they hate Adam Taurus. Actually maybe even more since they're convinced he's just a good-for-nothing harassing creep that deserves to be CUCK'D or Killed

Truth is he probably hates himself more than Miles does writing him or FNDM does by just existing. He'd most likely rather leave the shield he has with Pyrrha's family than keep it cause he doesn't feel deserving of love. He's not invincible like Pyrrha. Quite the opposite, he's vulnerable. Extremely so. Maybe not physically due to his own feats of strength. But emotionally? He's falling apart slowly. He can hide his emotions but eventually they'll either consume him inescapably or drown him permanently.

Hate him all you want. But Remember if he dies, we would lose one of the more consistently developed characters in RWBY (regardless if his arc took to much screen time and has been messed up cuz CRWBY)

What are you guys talking about? Nothing happened in Tiananmen Square. These are clearly just trucks delivery water.

“Fucking heretics the lot” said the imperial fists as we construct siege weapons

Out of all your brothers, who do want to punch the most? The least? Why?

Most is probably Lorgar. Least is probably Mortarion, because that’d be gross like punching shit.