Thursday, May 18, 2017

The new Age of Ultramar Marines



Image stolen from erion (or something like that) on the beasts of War forum.

Following the formal unveiling of the new Primaris Space Marines, the 40k followers on teh interwebz have lost their collective shit! Dozens of Facebook and blog posts (like this one) editorializing their thoughts on why the size change, or praising the true scale marines that should have always been, or raging whilst running the cash grab banner up the pole (again, as usual)! Sometimes they're just screaming in ALL CAPS about self-entitled snowflakes (whilst resembling the same such self-entitled snowflakes themselves) as in our gaming group's FB page...

Officially, the fluff has been retconned *updated* yet again. This time to fit new 'inventions' into the SM rosters, though admittedly these are far better than the previous putting a marine inside of a marine debacle of miniature design. I believe the narrative goes something like this: with the rebirth of the Smurf Primarch, the technologically stagnant Imperium of Man is once again on the invention train! First up: Roboute Girlyman is improving upon the Emperor's work!

HERESY! *BLAM!*
(The Inquisition knows who approved of this notion and is coming for you if you did...)

Don't worry folks! GW's Marketing department has said:  You're army isn't obsolete...unless of course you read the following line below from the 1st link above: 

"...Some, Guilliman has forged into new Space Marine Chapters, whole brotherhoods comprised only of these new warriors..."

Hmmm...odds are they'll just stop making the old 'little' marines eventually and well then again maybe your space marine army is obsolete after all. Unless of course the sudden eviceration of decades of fluff (wherein both the successors and surviving legions-turned-chapters of the other primarchs, who rightfully venerate their's above all others, and none of whom would ever degrade their precious geneseed with the addition of Girlyman's no matter how beneficial...) doesn't matter to you.

Commencing fluff rant in 3...2...eh, nevermind.

Yeah, seriously, I don't care. My primary marine army is made of 30K Alpha Legionnaires. True, I'm sure they'll give the new, 8th ed-Age of Ultramar a try as good ol' CSMs. But I won't be rushing out to buy a whole new army to replace my existing one. Besides, they're chaos not loyalists right? 

Sorry ebay, but you can't have these!

Well, rumor has it the new Deathguard will also be primaris sized (apparently Nurgle's boys needed more cow bell too!), and that chaos has gotten bigger marines as well. Sing it: Retcon, retcon-yeah we're moving on

Ooh! I know: Fabius Bile did it! Yeah! Let's blame that guy! Or hell, the warp actually warping the bodies of the marines whom are directly exposed to it does have a ring of obviousness doesn't it?

Sure I could see a few of these new Primaris marines popping up in my Alpha Legion ranks because, well, we've infiltrated every fucking marine army anyways by this point, right? Well that or I was thinking one of the new bigger marines would make for a cool Alpharius/Omegon conversion. More of a paint job than a conversion as all I'd have to do is scrape off that infernal aquila on his chest plate. The FW fluff books discount the Alpha Legion's twin-primarchs as false rumors anyways, so its not like Omegon will get an official mini any time soon if ever. That and it'll be easier than converting a Sigmarine into Alpharius as so many AL players do currently.

I also have the last dregs of the Rainbow Warriors who fall into the 'ACCESS DENIED.' category of SM chapters. Indeed, the Imperium as a whole would seem to agree that they'd best be left as forgotten. As such, I doubt ol' Girlyman will be offering them any of these new marines, even if they are/were the only successor chapter of his with a girly name! 

So, as such my 2 existing marine armies are pretty much exempt from this new fad aside from maybe picking up one or two for counts as primarchs. 

My suggestion for anyone starting a new army which already consists of (invariably unpainted) 'regular' marines? Might I suggest the Black Dragons? Always a favorite of mine, this mutant bunch has had geneseed instability issues since the beginning, sometimes resulting in oversized marines (among other things), so sprinkling a few of these new primaris marines into the ranks is if anything: completely fluffy for them! 

As a closing thought on the subject: I do wonder that if these new marines make the old go the way of the ancient Thunder Warriors (albeit with vastly superior resources with which to fight), could GW be setting the scene for an eventual 2nd Space Marine Heresy?


6 comments:

  1. I think people are making way too much out od this. But it does reopen the classic "how many (uber) marines can you fit in a rhino?" debate. And that always brings me joy.

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  2. Yes I'm wondering how long it'll be for the enlarged 'Primaris' vehicles to hit the shelves.

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  3. You do know that there is going to be a "my little pony - friendship is magic" RPG, don't you ?

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  4. Rainbow Warriors Space Marines DOES NOT = Brony Fanboi.

    (oh, and just in case you're wondering, the cyclonic torpedoes should be hitting your location in minutes...)

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  5. Dig the models and while I am actually pleased to see true-scale marines, not impressed with the fluff whatsoever. I would have much preferred GW just say "look, we're going to re-tool the space marine range over the next few years, deal with it", and just gloss over that the new models are bigger than the old ones.

    In the end, I think it'll be like the 32mm bases for me. I wouldn't suddenly switch to the new size in mid-project, but I could see doing a new project using them.

    It actually quite wants me to do another Geno Five-Two army with a small allied Alpha Legion force using the new models. "Why yes, we're ALL Alpharius."

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  6. Well of course they're all Alpharius!

    Yeah I think that would have been better than making than making a fluff reason for the new marines. The Sonoftaurus blog brought up abunch of the logistical nigtmares and obvious morale issues such an influx of these new marines would cause in a real world-like scenario. Whereas in the grimdark? Yeah that's just glossed over as one and simply accepted universally (which is ANYTHING but grimdark).

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