I don’t paint anything for months and then all of a sudden BAM! A few new marines are painted and added to my Army of the Imperium project. This guy was fun to paint. After the jump, I share my thoughts on my problems with Primaris.
Rear details of my Lieutenant
The new Primaris aren’t overly decorated. I have a theory on this. 10,000 year old Space Marine armour has been fixed, repaired, rejuvenated and revered with honours and trophies added everytime it’s seen a battle. The brand new Primaris Marines haven’t seen that kind of action yet so are missing the details we’ve come to expect to see on our Marines. It’s LIMM, Less Is More Marines. I believe there is a business strategy behind this as well. Primaris isn’t an evolution, it’s a reboot. MK7 marines (2nd to 7th edition) have been saturated. What else can you do with them? They had recently remade plastic sprues for Tactical, Assault, Devastator Marines. All the big Chapters had been fleshed out with plastic kits. There was nowhere to go with the marines apart from turning it up to 11 and having a complete redesign.
The Primaris are great and Games Workshop are still selling the non-Primaris Astartes, but for how long? Will we see new MK7 Adeptus Astartes? I’m not sure we will. I think the range will slowly disappear as people only expand or start new armies with Primaris Marines.
If I can’t bring myself to use the guy on the left with the guy in the middle, then the guy on the right has no chance, right… right?
This leads me on to my point. I’m not a gamer. I’m a collector first and a painter second. I loved painting my Space Wolves just before the Primaris was announced, but the Primaris have killed my Space Wolf project dead because I don’t know whether to add a Redemptor Dreadnought or a Space Wolves Dreadnought. All my Space Wolves are wearing older MK armour and a Redemptor would look ridiculous and out of place. A Space Wolf Dreadnought makes more sense but am I just throwing good money away on an outdated model? The collector in me just doesn’t like mixing the old with the new. I know I’m being silly because it’s written into the background that Primaris fight side by side with the Adeptus Astartes. I know non-Primaris will become phased out, so what’s the point in buying more?
Anyone else feel like this? Am I being an old stick in the mud and worrying about nothing? Maybe I’ll just go and paint some Stormcast Eternals while I wait for the dust to settle.
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Do what I do, convert them slightly, start a homebrew Chapter and use them as "counts as" whatever you wish. Presently, I have a Primaris Mephiston, Primaris Librarian with Jump Pack, 20 Primaris Death Company with custom Jump Packs I'm designing along with Pop Goes The Monkey, and using the Intercessors as Tacticals, because, "Why not?"
Agreed 100%, except the silver lining is that at least we know that the normal-sized marine range is done. Now I can buy and paint the older dreadnoughts, rhinos, and generic terminators knowing full well we will not see updated models for these. I did not want to invest time on painting these before because I was worried they would be replaced with newer, sharper kits.
At the end of the day, collectors like you an I will view these as completely different armies in the same way a beakie army or a metal red-era army would not be mixed with the marines that came after, or the most recent primaris.
Hadn’t thought of it that way but it’s a fair point – the number of morphs the BA honour guard to command squad to sanguinary guard has been through… the current lineup is basically ‘peak’ for the choices available.
Solun, that's a really nice way of looking at it.
You are over thinking it dude. Collect paint convert and enjoy!
I know, you’re right Zab.
I think your assessment is correct. Then it boils down to how you feel about it – a personal decision as a hobbyist.
I am in the same hobby boat as you – painter/collector primarily, rare gamer. The core of my collection is Khorne – primarily 40k but also now AoS. My first edition terminators are small next to my newer versions (current chaos terminators with the forge world World Eaters kit). Those originals started on 25 mm bases, got upgraded to 32 mm and even still they are on bases too small. Set them next to a Slaughterpriest from AoS and my original terminators are at risk of being trod upon.
So from a gaming sense of things, if they aren't already obsolete they sure will be as the chaos line gets updated in the years to come. But the collector in me sure is happy to have these guys, along with every World Eater miniature Games Workshop has ever made. If my collection wasn't complete, would I still buy and paint them – you bet. But I am also happy to see things moving forward. The size creep in the miniatures was inevitable as technologies, aesthetics, etc. evolve. I love my old minis but I can't deny the new models from the past couple of years are amazing.
It's the folks who regularly put their minis on the table top that I sympathize. The awkward primaris lore is an attempt to let the old and new live side by side. But just as 25 mm based Marines were phased out, we will eventually see everything shift to primaris scale. So if you build and paint to play, and are looking to the long term, you definitely should be considering how much time to spend on the older line. But for painters/collectors – I say the old stuff still looks great and represents a certain piece of history in the hobby.
I agree with you – I like the new Primaris marines but while they've been marketed as an addition to the Space Marine line, they're absolutely not. They make the old marines look so pathetic I can't stand to see them together. If GW had the resources (and the balls) to completely replace the entire Space Marine range with Primaris in one go, I think they would have done it. As it stands, there's going to be a good several-year period where the Space Marines are in an awkward transition phase as the old models are slowly replaced.
I predict the rules for Mk2-7 armoured space marines won't die off, even if the models stop being sold.
One of two things will happen- the primaris will adopt Tactical/Devastator or equivalent roles etc as the old stuff gets phased outroles as well as their own inflexible all plasma/all bolter configurations. In that case, you substitute like for like and your Mk7 tactical becomes a counts as Mk8 tactical.
Alternately, the primaris stay in their current legionesque squads and the Mk7 cannot go away because it would drop too many tools from the spacemarine army.
If the unthinkable did happen and the rhinos/landraiders etc got dropped along with their occupants then your normal 40k marines would instantly become a horus heresy army.