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New Primaris Space Marines Lead The Way In 8th Edition Warhammer 40,000
May 15, 2017 by brennon
Games Workshop has now broken their silence on the new Primaris Space Marines for Warhammer 40,000. Forged in secret by Belisarius Cawl under orders from Roboute Guilliman they are here to reclaim the Galaxy from the Xenos and Chaos forces arrayed against them.
In the accompanying FAQ that came out today with the video, they talked about what this means for the existing Space Marines. They don't replace them, in fact, they are meant to complement them on the battlefield.
While there are going to be entire Chapters made out of these new Primaris Space Marines there will also be many where they have been called into service to plug the gaps in existing faction's forces. The style of them is great, really drawing on a new dynamic look.
As well as these Space Marines they also teased that you're going to be getting a new Primaris Dreadnought too which I reckon is going to built on the idea of the Contemptor Dreadnoughts.
Last but not least we have a run down of their new equipment which means they're wearing MK X armour and carrying around a new pattern of Bolt Gun too.
They look seriously dangerous and ready to stick it to the enemies of the Emperor. In terms of their use in-game, they are more expensive than their Space Marine buddies but the cost might be worth it.
Known as the Intercessors, we also got a run down on the new Bolter statistics which come in at Range 30, Strength 4, AP -1 and Rapid Fire.
So, what do you make of the new Space Marines?
"As well as these Space Marines they also teased that you're going to be getting a new Primaris Dreadnought..."
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By the WILL OF RETCON –
These are neat. But it doesn’t come across to me as a necessary part of the lore. When you put them in Art, it falls apart. I guess If we have some pieces with Regular marines side by side there is some cool imagery there – But all the Primaris Space Marines together ?
It looks just like Space Marines..
I see what you did GW; And it’s not that clever. (still cool though).
So finally Roboute Guilliman saw this picture and decided to genetically engineer the new Primaris space marines that have proper human proportions?
Do the proportions look different to you? I can’t really tell the difference
They seem leggier. I like these guys and I’m an Ork player.
Aye, @warzan The proportions are more human and less the heroic scale. These are probably as close to truescale and GW want to get! Primarily, their chest, legs and arms are better proportioned. GW confirmed that only heads and shoulder plates are compatible between these and normal Marines.
In Mankind’s darkest hour cometh the fat space marines…..
They are more human in scale and less cartoonish
Design looks good. Anyone know of any size comparison pics with the regular marines?
The video has a shot of the new guys in the midst of some older marines. I’ll see if I can link a still. Give me a few…
looking at that there does seem to be a noticeable size difference (if not scale)
If that’s the case then we are looking at a ‘terminator’ type replacement here.
Will be interested to see if the envy sets in quickly or slowly – as there are a lot more marines than termies out there 🙂
Not sure they’ll be replacing the Termies. These guys are listed as a ‘Troops’ choice in the Force Org. No specialist weapons either, which means we’ll probably see dedicated Support/Assault squads.
@irredeemable – i don’t think Warren meant they’re replacing terminators; he’s talking about something he’s referred to before about how the plastic terminators replaced the metal ones.
The only Space Marines I currently own are Grey Knights, and I really don’t see them buying into the new program since they already have super-pure chaos-resistant Gene Seed.
But that DOES NOT mean I won’t be thinking about starting up one of the newly founded chapters, once some info on them becomes available.
Thanks 🙂
I see it now, misread that.
Wonder how long it’ll take for a Chaos variant to come out, and what the fluff for them will be.
Ordinarily, as a Thousand Sons player, I’m reluctant to add non-Rubricae marines to my army (which was why I liked the release of the Scarab Occult plastics), so that would rule these out, but one idea I had a while back when thinking of the fluff for my army was one of my Sorcerers (who was an Apothecary pre-Heresy (side note: he was in the 40k fanfic I posted over on the forums the other week)) having been trying to breed new marines with TS gene seed and having a unit of them in my army (probably as Chosen ruleswise). That’s something I’ve since dropped, but if Chaos Primaris marines were released I could see me reviving this idea with my sorcerer’s creations being analogous to the Chaos Primaris.
low and behold, Fabius Bile as been working on something similar all these years 😉
My first thoughts exactly.
If I was ever to start a Slaaneshi Marine army it would be through Fabius Bile.
schmexy!
just thinking about these guys….
i realise that theyre like super-solders compared to nomal marines – but surely if they’re been developed in secret – grown in giant testtubes on mars (or however marines are born!) then they wont have seen any real action or battle yet.
so they might be big, tough and have new toys but they’ll be complete muppets when it comes to and will be proper warfare…!?
They’ll probably have been programmed with tactics and stuff while in the test tube; there might even be some sort of technosorcery that can copy memories that’d be employed to give them experience.
If so I could imagine it giving GW a way of introducing a Chaos variant without going down the route of being creations of Fabius Bile and other Chaos-aligned apothecaries; they could have the conflicting memories of multiple marines put into them occasionally driving a batch insane causing them to defect.
Someone *cough*Alpharius/Omegon*cough* manages to secrete some gene seed from traitor legions in with the smurfjuice?
SWEET!
I’m betting that these guys are intended to be the replacement for the 30+ year old marine aesthetic, while the fluff softens the blow to old timers like me.
I would have preferred them to just say:
Here are the new Space Marine models. They are larger and more like how the stories depict them. Feel free to use your old ones for as long as you like but these will be replacing them.
The new narrative and godawful “slightly better than a regular marine” rules seem really forced.
I suppose the question will be is the aesthetic change enough for us to swap out our marines for these guys?
It was a no-brainer when the terminators changed, but this doesn’t strike me as anywhere near as big a change in aesthetic as that. (Which I’m not complaining about lol)
A more cynical person might suggest this is a naked attempt to sell Space Marines to people who already have Space Marines by making them *better* Space Marines. But I’m not a cynical person.
Or just good business sense?
if it works 🙂
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Space Marines are by far their biggest seller, so it makes sense to sell as many as possible. Some ways of doing it are creatively better than others, though. Offering the likes of Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels as variants on the standard Space Marine is a good way of selling more Space Marines whilst offering something creatively interesting. These aren’t that. Doesn’t mean they won’t sell, though.
I think it could be possible that GW will release all Space Marine units in Primaris scale over the next years so they will over time replace the old ones, because the Marine range is too big to be changed at once.
Could be the plan. Do you think they’ll remain ‘super’ marines or revert to regular Space Marines if they do?
I think it is absolutely the intent to modernise the entire space marine range over time. They are updating the look and giving old customers a reason to buy new stuff that is more palatable than just calling them resculpts and upping the sizes.
I think they are better looking models and it is a good move. I would just like them to be more straight with customers though. They are beginning the process of reinventing their core product line, pure and simple.
I think they wouldn’t revert them to old Marines, that would probably a big change and would feel strange for players that only play Primaris Marines.
I have read somewhere that the Primaris will get many releases some of them new vehicles and dreadnoughts.
And some plasmaguns:
https://www.facebook.com/StayFrostyStudios/photos/a.279278248896382.1073741832.270163443141196/800740930083442/?type=3&theater
In short, for me, yes. I’ve been waiting for this. If i collect for the new game then i will only have Primaris. If i collect for a previous edition ( 1st or 2nd ) or for the sake of painting then i will use Primarus for the regular marines as they should have been. I am almost certain to buy a squad of these just to try them out.
Also, i think if i play the 8th edition my main aim will be to take out any of the degenerated geneseed marines first, whilst there is still time.
I would posit a bigger question will be – is this the end of Marines 1.0? I can see there being a gradual phasing out of “regular marines” as time goes by. I am sure that regular marine kits will still be available to buy for some time yet and there will be rules for them for even longer, but I would not be surprised if there are fewer and fewer new kits for old marines and lots of new kits for new marines. I predict Primaris Marines to dominate the release schedule for the rest of the year. If GW are going to maintain a narrative like they have with Age of Sigmar (and I really hope they do) then it kind of makes sense that gradually the old marines would be upgraded to/replaced by new marines.
New Space Marines, each one more Space Marine-y than the last. With our new and improved formula, New Space Marine is guaranteed to get the Xenos stains out of your Imperium, or your money back*
*No money actually given back
Make Space Marines great again !
I even read that this new Space Marines come with 10% more marine in every power armour!
@redben can you verify if this is true?
Primaris Centurions?
Not only more Marine, but more better Marine!
Who doesn’t like a good xenos stain
These just look like true scale marines too me, Except that they wont fit through most vehicle hatches without a lot of mechanicum certified lubricant.
Don’t get me wrong I think they look pretty good objectively and when I get round to doing a truescale marines project or if I wanted to convert some thunder warriors this is what I’ll be buying but for me they don’t look distinct enough from the common all garden marines to get me excited.
How many do you think could fit in a rhino…. like if you laid them flat like Ikea furniture?
Secret Mechanicum technosorcery means the inside of Astartes vehicles are dimensionally transindental 😉
So bigger on the inside ?
I guess they borrowed that tech from a visiting Time lord …
Don’t be silly – the Big E would never condone using such filthy Xenos tech!
Borrowed? They don’t know the word. They killed the bloody peaceful Xeno Time Lord and took it from his crispy corpse. Now that’s how the Imperium does trade negotiations!
They are gonna sell like candy. I can’t imagine people not saying “you know, this might be a great start for that x chapter I always loved, but with these cool new marines for ALL of the squads”…
Very smart GW, very smart.
The only thing I have against these is that they are almost too convenient. Corax attempted to rebuild his legion knowing the gene-seed recipe and yet he failed (mostly due to the Alpha Legion). However Bellisarius Cawl didn’t know anything about the gene-seeds and had to reverse engineer how they work and then make them better. It doesn’t fit into the narrative.
we havent seen any pictures of these guys with their helmets off – who knows what monstrosities are actually inside? …maybe they’re robots! 😉
The article about this
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/15/primaris-space-marines-faq-may15gw-homepage-post-2/
Quote:
These are a brand-new breed of warrior, commissioned by the Primarch Guilliman and developed in secret on Mars for the past 10,000 years by Archmagos Belisarius Cawl
(I presume Cawl has been doing work on this for 10k years, but only got the seal of approval from Guilliman when he came back).
Anyway, I’ve never really collected a Space Marine army (since I started collecting in 2nd edition), so I’ve not got an issue with this new (true?) scale.
Think they look better, I like the armour design, but I’m slightly worried when you start lining them up against the other models. Is everything going to get gradually up-scaled, or is it only going to be these marines and the new Chaos stuff (which GW has also said is going to get bulked up).
The sentence implies Guilliman ordered them ten millennia ago, around the time of the Heresy (probably sometime after the Heresy before Fulgrim forced him to be put on ice). In which case it’s possible that the process was actually perfected say five millennia ago, but Guilliman wasn’t around to sign for delivery so they got stuck in an Imperial Mail sorting office until he got around to claiming them :p
Or it’s possible that it actually took 10,000 years to actually get it right. Let’s face it, innovation and the Imperium are not exactly best friends – in 10,000 years there has been a grand total of 3 power armour variants! I mean, if someone was working on this for 10,000 years, you would expect that they wouldn’t even have to understand everything they were doing, you could have fluked it in that time
Almost certainly it took 10k years, I was just using 5k for the sake of a joke 😉
10k is nothing for a perfectionist, but one really has to wonder why no one managed to to something about it when you consider that even the Emperor himself couldn’t stop chaos when he created his primarchs.
So unless we’re missing vital enemy action here it does not make sense that Chaos & co did nothing to mess with the process over the entire 10k years.
The only thing that makes sense (from a narrative pov) is that this propaganda, because after the rather embarrasing loss of the primarchs you wouldn’t want to tell you made another mistake …
Bolt Rifile ?! What’s a Rifile guys? 😉
It’s a gun thats a bit bigger than a bolt pistili
like the new Bolter
My only issue is the scope. It can’t see past the iron sights.
You of little faith! The Emperor guides their sight through the scope even with a gun sight in the way! It’s designed to encourage them to trust in the all powerful Emperor all the more.
I don’t really know anything about space marines but these seem more streamlined somehow
I actually really like the look of these guys. I’m super interested in seeing what they are like in the fluff. Personalities could be a bit different since they are basically test tube babies where as marines are at least born to human parents.
Also I want to see how normal marines act towards them. Will the get all jealous and Salk or will they accept them as true battle brothers because they see the bigger picture and the need for help.
Be interesting to see how these new marines interact with the dark angels, being those guys are seriously shady and clearly up to no good but these new marines won’t have any real connection with the rest of the chapters dark past. Could cause some big friction.
So many questions!!
I didn’T own marines in many many years now, hald an eternity it feels like. So i’m rather intrigued by those guys, i really like the look of their new and streamlined armor, the helmets look really cool. And i really like the poses we are seeing so far.
They’ll never fit in a rhino now
But they probably will fit in the new Primaris Rhino. And Primaris Land Raider. Rolling off the Mars assembly lines sooner than you might think.
That’s why they’ll get their own vehicles..
I like them. Maybe I’ll be starting my very first 40k space marine army soon-ish 😎
I dare you to paint them as a Roman legion … 😉
i second that and i’m looking forward to see that 😉
They look better than existing marines, simply because the scale is better. Marines still look awful though, even with longer legs.
I assume that GW will start to roll out some new vehicles to accompany the Mega Marines. I’m going to guess that these will be 5 to a box priced at £25, or perhaps 8 at circa £30. That seems to be the pricing structure for this number of minis with GW these days.
Very interesting. Wow. I wonder if this will be something they use to test out a rescale across the 40k universe in general. I like how subtle yet substantial this change is to the model.
Looks like they will have 2 wounds, too!
Ok, I’m calling it out now, my crazy.. crazy idea!
Here it is.. I believe that these new Marines will added to many, many Chapters. And of course even entire Chapters founded made up of Primaris Marines. But there’s a corruption, a problem a fault in the genes, Chaos was here! These Primaris Marines will rise in the ranks, only the most paranoid and astute Chapters will not trust them enough. Then, an order is issued many years later, ala ORDER 66!
“Kill all Chapter leadership, Chaplains, Librarians, Captains, Veterans, Chapter Masters”
With but a single signal or command, these Primaris Marines turn on their brothers! They hard almost impossible to stop in these mind-frenzy, after all they have two wounds!
Many Chapters suffer great losses, brothers vented out to space! Relics squandered or destroyed, fragging all over the place of leadership. It is a blow that none expected, save the Inquisition. Beware my brothers!
So Pri-Marines
-Models-
Look great, the proportions look better and the armour looks like a good progression for Astartes power armour.
I especially like the Bolt Rifle.
and selfishly from looking at the pics they don’t seem like they will be much larger than my own “tru” scale attempts.
-Rules-
I like the rules,
Their not a lot better than normal marines and i appreciate the move towards what i consider a fluffy marines rules to be.
-Fluff-
And here’s the bit i don’t like, all I’m getting from the articles is “OMG their the best”
Not enough is known about the Fluff on them yet for me to do a full eye roll yet but were def at a half roll.
There needs to be a but….
OMG their the best but….
…..we cant make any more
….They have a shorter life span
….they lack initiative (as in the ability to think outside of the norm not strike last in combat:) ),
……..their just meat robots. (Girlyman and Cawl would prefer this but would make poorer soldiers in the long run)
…..their Thunder Warriors so they will go crazy/ have an aneurysm soon without warning.
Also IMHO one of the first pieces of fluff with them needs to be older marine schooling one/ showing one up through his experience etc then there will be an eye roll of epic proportions
-Overall-
The fluff on them is not exciting me but the model and rules to run a closer representation to how marines are in the fluff defiantly does.
Aye, I hope they have a narrative disadvantage.
i like the models. from what i’ve read above heads and shoulders are compatible from the existing range. from the stat line above, they’re just marines with 2 wounds and a better range on the gun.
to me there just marines, in scale with the fluff. if the guardsman is the average human, these are just that bit better. time to buy lots, get some shoulder pads and heads from ebay and pretend they’re “normal” super soldier marines from chapter xyz using the new marine rules.
Seems like a background way to do true scale marines without invalidating current marines. They are nice enough, but they are still marines which I have always model wise found pretty boring. These seem firmly in the middle of boring armour marks.
MOAR MEHRENZ!
For me this is the only ball GW have dropped for 40k 8th so far. Obviously Marines are a big seller and I can understand why they might have chosen to go down this route. But it’s so safe, so pedestrian, so predictable.
It’s the first thing the *new* GW have done which feels to me a lot like something the previous regime would have done.
I like the look of these dudes, I’ll get some for sure, only worry is they will make my current marines look stupid…. I’l have to see them in person, and beside a “normal” marine.
The “Bolt Rifle” looks a handy weapon though!
Meh.
This is a difficult one. I have to confess that I have been over the 40K fluff for a while, I think a lot of the black library output has kind of swamped the interesting bits. So for me, the idea behind these guys is not such a wrench, I can live with the silly fluff. I can understand how it would be a deal breaker for many though, and rightly so.
As models I think they are excellent, certainly a lot better than the last effort of creating more powerful marines, those awful centurion things.I can see myself buying a squad to paint to add to my blood angels, simply for the visual interest if I manage to get a few games of the new edition in this summer.
The Emperor’s new clothes?
I see no point a part from sell. I hope they will be elitte units in way there is not many of them
They are Troops. Also, from their Primaris Space Marines: FAQ:
Q – Will there be multiple types of Primaris Space Marines?
A – You bet. So far you’ve seen the Intercessors, the line infantry clad in Mk X armour, but there are plenty more on the way. And likely vehicles too…
Those super marines are actually rather nice when compared to regular marines.
So indeed its a true scale update of Space marines. Nice act.
it will be clone wars next then H2?
I like these 😀 . I’m thinking of using some as Sargeants for my standard marines as well as taking a squad or two to use as Primaris.
So they finally managed to produce Space Marines as they should be in the lore and they delegate them as new super marines?
Sigh…..
You can easily make normal marines “true-sized” by adding combat heels to them 😉
Need more than that I am afraid, the new sculpts seem to be the size and bulk the normal marines should be.
Um … While I love the background of 40K, I m not a regular 40k player by any stretch… (Not until the short fat blokes * return) but …..I like these ……..The starter set with these blokes and the Death Guard might be a sure purchase for me
*”Short Fat Blokes” a prejudicial, and quite frankly offensive (I was shocked… horrified even) term for the coolest 40K army ever made, coined by Onlyonepinman, embraced by myself (because I saw their inner beauty … *sniff)
They ARE short fat beardy blokes!
I’m not sold on this “true” scale. I want my 100% true scale models. They better be 10 feet tall and still come in boxes of ten! 😛
I think these guys will add some good tension to the 40k story. These new Marines are genetically breed in tubes by the looks of things and not made from existing humans. They have already said that some of the existing marines don’t trust them and some Chapters refuse to accept them.
Adding to that now is the fact that the Galaxy is spilt in half by Chaos we might also be facing a civil war.
I like these models, the changes are quite subtle, but all the better for that.
GW clearly want to give people that already own lots of space marines a reason to buy lots more space marines, but they’re a business so fair enough.
It will be interesting to see how the lore gets fleshed out – what we have so far is basic but contains a few seeds of potential internal conflict in the imperium that could be fun to develop. I’m sure not all the old marines will take kindly to guilliman’s new poster boys, for example. And the ecclesiarchy has never much liked new ideas that stray from the emperor’s original vision. And the adeptus mechanicus has always seemed a not entirely trustworthy “empire within the empire”, so maybe Cawl’s influential role in this is a power play by the ad mech. And you just know that at least some of these new blokes are gonna turn out to be disastrously flawed nutjobs. Civil war could be on the cards.
Wonder if these could work while brushing off the old rules for the Movie Marines…
So basically a reason to make “in proportion” space marines.
Only problem is, the vehicles were already out of scale (unrealistically small) … so the vehicles are even more unrealistically small now!
Perfect chance to release UltraUltramarine-sized new rhinos and land speeders.
It’s a decent compromise to get true scale marines into the game with rules that fit in with the fluff; so in a sense they’ve fixed things.
The only problem was to find a way to release them without causing so much rage in existing SM players/owners that they drove people away from GW in anger.
Therefore, invent lame fluff reasons to sneak them into the game. Maybe five years down the road, enough people have bought the new stuff and they can quietly phase out the old stuff whilst saying that regular marines have always been this awesome – minimises rage, maximises new sales.
I don’t even think the lore and background for them is particularly lame. It’s just more space Marines. That’s my only issue really with 40k in general – the utter obsession with Space Marines. Given how well they sell as a range I realise I am probably in a minority and I can’t fault GW for this move because it will reach a big audience and drive (hopefully) lots of sales which ultimately is what allows them to make lots of other new kits. But still, yawn innit?
Oh, it’s as smart as smart can be.
I remember thinking “hey, they look spot on with those 32mm bases…”, then realised that the concept of 32mm bases didn’t seem odd at all, whereas when the shift to larger bases seemed strange originally.
What if this was part of the plan all along? Get people comfortable with larger bases, wait until everyone has forgotten about it, then bring out minis to fit the bases – breaking people in gently, as it were.
Wargamers are a bit skittish – got to treat them like horses…
Looks like GW is phasing in a larger scale for their 40k miniatures like they have done in AOS
I really fancy doing a marine army after seeing these properly – they look superb
As someone with only passing interest in 40k nowadays, I do like them a lot. I might even buy them for other projects as generic vacuum soldiers, since they aren’t covered in toilet paper and skulls like normal marines.
To my untrained eye I cannot see any difference beyond a slightly different helmet. Personally not impressed but If GW can drum up excitement this easy all power to them. Must be doing something right.
They’re a bit taller, have slightly different looking armour and a longer bolt gun. They’re basically a scaled up Space Marine
Longer legs and torso- so more realistically proportioned, rather than just a scaled up space marine.
well Space Marines have been looking weedy next to Sigmarites…
…and not as epic as they should be in the novels. I was listening to the Pharos Heresy Novel and the Spare Marines were terrifying when they fought ordinary troopers.
…and 40k would be more epic if the Chapters had Legion numbers like 30k 🙂
I remember Space Marines had Toughness 3 and they changed it to Toughness 4 in White Dwarf 128 – just to keep pace with other 40k stuff 🙂
Eeeeh, I kinda like the models, but that gun is ridiculous – why spend so much time and effort making a truer-scale marine, and then ruin it by making the existing massive gun even bigger. I know it’s not “true scale Marines” marketing-wise, but that’s obviously the idea, as they’re not different enough to be a long-term unit, apart from the ridiculous gun obviously. Looks-wise they’re not “at a glance” different enough from a standard Marine as a tabletop unit.
Hopefully they’re not SO tall that they won’t look out of place in a squad mixed with 80s/90s/00s SM figs, but it’s not like GW have ever used a consistent scale anyway.
Anyway, be a nice basis for Primarchs etc at old-skool scale SM armies as well.
Just lose that gun. Did I mention the gun? I know the mechanicum don’t really do “intelligent design” but c’mon – extending the barrel by adding another 27kg of solid plasteel to the body of a boltgun? Couldn’t just extend the ACTUAL barrel, or would that be too similar to 40k “Sniper Rifles”?
Will be nice to use these models in Shadow Wars though, let’s be honest!
I think, love these guys or hate these guys, they have definitely provoked some discussion