Was Primaris Worth It?

In this video Jay goes through if the change to Primaris for Warhammer 40k Space Marines was worth it! We have new videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

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[JachymorDota]

I am no Space Marine player, but I feel the "range refresh" would have been smoother and involved less profiles and confusion if they just... did the range refresh without all the extra steps.

[bpc_]

The biggest issue in my eyes with the primaris stuff Is th loss of personalty in the Chapter units

[LittleTemplar]

I just miss the old "angry face" helmets tbh. I'm probably going to replace all the primaris helmets in my army with the old ones

[vonplackus]

I have mixed feelings about prima boys. On one hand, I actually like the fact that Imperium under robot's leadership is advancing and at least trying to leave the mudhole they are in by inventing new tech and such. On the other hand, replacing, not upgrading older units leaves a sore taste in my mouth.
To add to that, primaris are all pretty much the same which makes sense since its the same armor patttern; that said firstborn had a much greater variety since it was essentially a mix of many previous iterations - they felt like war veterans and heroes while primaris feel more like stormtroopers.
I dont hate them but feel like the older direction was much cooler

[MrGBH]

I like the Primaris models
I do not like the near-complete removal of Firstborn models
I now can't build my Chapter without going to third party

[shadowmetroid]

I only started playing warhammer after the primaris were introduced. That being said, I do miss a lot of the more gothic and grim elements from the old marines that have been abandoned for the "tacticool" look. Especially the banners.

[bego]

The models are nice, the stretched lore to justify the change is sad. I would appreciate if GW allowed themself to communicate technical and marketing decisions instead of trying to build the lore around it.

[Tajealos]

On one hand, I dig the new upscaled designs

On the other hand, their armour looks too uniform
I really dig the look of the Tactical Marines with what looks like several different armour marks cobbled together into one suit; dudes with different shins, chestplates, helmets, power packs, and shoulders look a lot more interesting than the same set of armour copy-pasted ten times with different poses

[kaz]

I'm constantly amazed at your ever growing enthusiasm for warhammer. It's refreshing to listen too, even when you are not happy with something they do.

[Stormeris]

There's no reason why they couldn't just make them firstborn with the same proportions of the new Chaos Marines and Horus Heresy Marines
The lore behind Primaris is the worst part

[kennetheisenbraun]

Going to have to go in almost the complete opposite direction. With the firstborn everything being the same base marine at it's core meant every kit was compatible with each other out of the box, no extra cutting or converting required. The older kits were also more customizable by themselves and more unique. In the old sternguard kit you had marks 4, 6, 7, and 8 to work with where as the new one is all mk X with a 7 helmet. Even the basic tactical squad had bits of multiple marks of armor, and the chest and legs being separate means you could take two sets of the same bodies and get 2 distinct marines. When compared to the new intercessors who are all the exact same guy reposed a few times.

Primaris also seriously mess up the scale. Example: They're not even in scale with their own vehicles. An updated tactical squad kit would have been better, and a glimpse at that are things like the firstborn space marine heroes. It also doesn't help that the primaris almost all feel soulless when compared to the older marines, even if they're technically higher quality models.

Also the vehicles being hover tanks feels out of place with the rest of the imperium, why doesn't the guard and sisters get the too since they have the tech again? Which then goes into the lore side of them which is like a flaming dumpster, especially on release.

tl;dr Primaris are too cookie cutter, their lore is bad, and they feel soilless and out of place when compared to what came before.

[EliWintercross]

Also, I am scandalised that you would want to get rid of the holy, venerable Rhino. That's some outright heresy right there =P

[timunderbakke]

As someone who is newer and primarily had primaris marines as a result, here’s my thoughts

- Really like that primaris kits come with every option the unit can take. I really didn’t like the surprise when I opened my first firstborn kit and discovered I ran out of storm shields from what was legal to take
- Really like the posing and sculpts in general, the old marines may be nostalgic for some but just don’t look as good (yes I know a range refresh could have solved too)
- I think the older tracked vehicles looked better and I wish we had seen that develop into modern primaris tanks on treads over the hover boats.
- I do wish primaris kits had the option for one special weapon in the basic intercessor kit. Assault intercessors sergeants can take the heavier melee weapon for example. My other army is thousand sons and those kits are “bolters plus special guy” and I think that gives the basic unit a chance to punch up just a little

Oh, and forget desolation squad. They look terrible.

[Joe_of_Arc_]

I feel like primaries would have worked better as a slight reset and not a full new release.

[Selvanus]

I do very much prefer Firstborn from a standpoint of: lore, how the models are sculpted, painting fun and what is, in my opinion, a much better and fun building experience

They’re really fun to put together, with often lots of options and neat details, and the building experience feels like you’re forced less to go and build clones and have to go less out of your way to make unique models

Keep in mind, I actually started the hobby itself when Primaris were starting in 2017 and the start collecting box was my first ever build experience. I had built one other Primaris Intercessor squad after that before getting a firstborn start collecting box and falling in love! So much better and fun to build and paint and these were the stalwart soldiers who have lasted thousands of year of war!

You could say I have a bias due to my experience with the 40k games and my absolute love for the Devastators (especially 2nd edition devs with the shoulder mounted heavy bolters) and I overall prefer the older retro models as well above all, but I’ve tried to unbiasedly look at Primaris and I can’t seem to pick out something that I genuinely like

I like that they have a better scale? But it’s hardly better as I feel like they’re too slim in some ways and are quite off, too clean, too smooth and feels very, a phrase I’ve decided fits best for the Primaris, too „anime-like”


Edit: A kitbasher’s opinion on models; only recently started making an army and it’s all firstborn, got around 1500k points with around another 1500k to go

[punishedbutler]

Primaris could have had all their model changes without the lore changes and would have been worth it. The lore changes are what turn me off them. Some of the models aren't to my liking and the style is a bit too generic sci fi but some of the models are decent.

[caboose]

I'm loving the scale improvement of Primaris and Leviathan. I'm NOT loving the Primaris story, overall. I mean, other than the taint of Chaos, what's the difference between what Fabius Bile tried to do (improve Space Marines), vs. Belisarius Cawl? I thought "tweaking the gene seed" was considered heresy? I dunno. If they kept the original armor design (like they did with Leviathan Terminators), but did the scale change, it would have been better, and it wouldn't look as different when integrating the two generations.

[GarredHATES]

I love the Primaris, my only issue is the lore. They should have just been First Born still with upgraded armor.

[timwatters]

If they had just updated the sizes but kept them units the same I believe that they would have gone over much better

[chaosof]

They just announced the Brutalis kit yesterday, going to be released with the Codex mid-October. Looking forward to getting it.