Primaris Space Marines

Look out Chaos, there's a new kid on the block.

"They were forged for Mankind's darkest hour, and that hour is upon us" - Roboute Guilliman

"In a galaxy wreathed in darkness, we must be the light" - Unnamed Primaris Officer in the Primaris Codex.

"Hear me out; a Space Marine... Space Marine!" - The head of GW (and you thought they were talking about Centurions this whole time!)

Primaris Marines (also known as Ultra-Ultramarines, Supermarines, NuMarines, Chadmarines, The Greater-est of them all, Adeptus Restartes, Super Space Marines, Biglymarines, 8thmarines, Bigmars, Guillimarines and Marines II: Electric Boogaloo) are the next step forward in Space Marine evolution (Not counting the Raptor supermarines by Corax during the Horus Heresy before Alpharius spiked the gene-tech with Daemon Blood). Big Bobby G got together with Belisarius Cawl and put together this next generation of Astartes. They are bigger, faster, stronger, and maybe smarter than all that have come before them. Buckle up boys, its about to get hot in here.

History and Background

Shortly after the conclusion of the Horus Heresy, Guilliman predicted that another major Chaos attack on the Imperium might come at some point in the future. Though the Space Marines had proven themselves worthy defenders of Mankind, the Primarch foresaw that there might be a time where even they would struggle against the onslaught of the Ruinous Powers.

In a frankly extreme show of just as planned, he gained the aid of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl and began a program to create a new, superior form of Space Marines in secret over the next ten millennia. To assist him, Guilliman gave Cawl a relic called the Sangprimus Portum- a device containing the purest samples of each Primarch's genetic material that outstripped even the gene-seed in its potency.

Even after he was poisoned by Fulgrim, Guilliman's plan continued without anybody learning about it, and by the time of his revival the first batch of Primaris Marines were ready to be unveiled to the Imperium.

In conjunction with the Ultima Founding, there are now going to be entirely new chapters composed just of Primaris Marines as well, with some taking over the fortress-monasteries of extinct chapters.

New Stuff

• The basic Primaris Marine is encased in Mark X Tacticus Armour. Basically, it's the best of all the suits that came before it, wrapped up into one convenient package; no Beakie schnozz, but it's got that sweet Maximus style vox grill. As usual, mechanically this is entirely cosmetic.
  • We don't talk about Mark IX Power Armour.
  • Bigger, tougher Primaris Marines wear Mark X Gravis Armour. As of 8E, this translates to +1T. Shiny.
• They wield the Mark II Cawl-pattern Bolt rifle as their standard firearm. Apparently a "perfected" version of the ubiquitous bolter, it does have an improved statline - [Range: 30" Strength: 4 AP: -1 and Rapid Fire] - which appears to be a boltgun with an extended barrel.
  • Its statline is one AP worse than the new "Special Issue Boltgun" Sternguard carry, but their big selling point is some combination of being cheaper/easier to manufacture and using more readily available/cheaper/easier to manufacture ammunition, reflected in their points cost - bolt rifles are the same gun for 3 points cheaper in 8E.
  • The Lieutenants get to carry master-crafted automatic versions - only 24" and AP 0, but Assault 2 Damage 2.
• An enhanced gene-seed, which was created by combining the purified genetic material of the Loyalist Primarchs with parts of the Custodes creation process (as they don't have gene-seed) that adds 3 more organs to the existing 20. What these new organs are called or what they do is currently unknown.

Potential Problems

• While Primaris Marines are created from the gene-seed of all the Loyalist Primarchs, it is unknown how some of the more extreme genetic quirks of each bloodline will manifest in them. We could see anything from Blood Angels with cute little Cupid wings to Flesh Tearers with terrifying vampire fangs to translucent skinned Raven Guard to even blacker skinned Salamanders to Lamenters with greying temples and bags under their eyes(plus a too old for this shit attitude) to Black Dragons that look like a metal hedgehog with adamantium coated, giant bone spines and Space Wolves with fluffy little tails. But then again there's NO reason to actually expect these modifications to worsen their genetic quirks. They're marines with new enhancements, not marines with a double dose of gene-seed or anything. It's probably somewhat more likely to strengthen their resistance to their quirks if anything. It's all up to whatever GeeDubs wants to do though, so anything is possible.
  • According to Cawl, the Primaris gene-seed is actually even more stable than the standard version, with an estimated deviancy of .001% per generation. So far, it's at least been stable enough to create a Space Wolves successor that hasn't immediately devolved into Wulfen.
• The initial batch of Primaris Marines, made and trained on Mars by Cawl and Guilliman, may bear the blood and colors of Raven Guard, Salamanders, Blood Angels, or Space Wolves, but they may know next to nothing of the ways and culture of those chapters if Guilliman hasn't let other members of those Chapters in to help (what little they might be taught could be skewed by Big G’s biased point of view), and are destined to stand uncomfortably apart from their brothers (even in chapters that fully accept them) just as the Terran marines did in the Legions.
  • Guilliman is also providing every chapter with the ability to make Primaris Marines of their own, so future generations will be fully immersed in their respective chapters. Regular Marines can also be upgraded to Primaris, which will help with preventing the loss of beloved characters.
  • Of course, that also means only chapters with ready access to being supplied will have these. Don't expect Primaris Carcharodons any time soon. Robbie MacNiven, writer of the Carcharodons novel Red Tithe, has revealed that everyone's favorite space sharks WILL be receiving their own Primaris Marines. PRAISE THE FORGOTTEN ONE.
• In terms of actual combat experience, these guys are jumping into the deep end as green as an ork's asscrack. They may be bigger, stronger, faster, and have better armor and weapons, but that doesn’t change the fact that the marines they are reinforcing are their seniors by centuries. The Dark Imperium novel say that the first batch of Primaris Marines are actually augmented space marines from the days after the Horus Heresy put into stasis and are constantly pestering the whippersnappers with tales of what the Imperium was like 10,000 years ago.
  • Later stated they mainly consist of Neophytes from various chapters who were drafted into the program, so they are utterly green ONLY harshly trained and have little true combat experience compared to most Marines. Think scouts on (extra) steroids.
• Primaris Marines are probably much harder and more expensive to produce than regular Astartes, especially when their borrowed Custodes lineage is taken into account. There may be entire chapters of them at first, but those numbers may not last long as they will likely be far harder to replenish after heavy casualties, and Primaris chapters probably wouldn't be able to bounce back from something like Rynn's World.
• Chaos will be interested in the Primaris Marines. The Chaos Gods are not happy with the existence of the Primaris Marines, and are creating some warp charged warriors to counter them (enhanced Chosen, perhaps). Fabulous Bill will definitely be interested in them as well, and the possibility of Chaos Space Marines converted into Chaos Primaris Marines, or even Bill himself converted into a Primaris Marine, should be very worrying to the Imperium. They've supposedly been made resistant to Chaos, but "resistant" doesn't mean "immune" by a long shot. And come to think of it, the cover image of 8th Edition does seem to partially show a Plague Marine in Tacitus armor...
  • The discovery that Cawl wanted to use Traitor Legion gene-seed as well as the gene-seed of the missing legions to make Primaris Marines doesn't help the matter; Guilliman refused to let him do so, but he has a feeling Cawl will try it anyway with predictable results.
    • Although since Cawl claims that the Primaris gene-seed is more stable than the standard gene-seed, it might be able to resist the influence of chaos, especially if Cawl's claims that they are resistant to chaos is true.
    • Plus since we don't know why the lost legions where destroyed, there could be nothing wrong with their gene-seed.
• While it's possible that Cawl was able to make incremental changes to the Astartes standard wargear on his own within the span of 10,000 years, the introduction of Grav-tanks (which should be impossible to reproduce given how rare they are) is a bit too unbelievable. On the other hand, Cawl is considered by the rest of the AdMech to be at the absolute limit of what they consider to be orthodoxy, though this has the potential to cause its own problems - especially given Cawl's fondness of xenos technology and the implementation thereof. That being said, there were already grav-tanks during the heresy era, and we all know Cawl is 'innovative', so it's not too far out of the ballpark.

Forces of the Primaris Marines

Primaris Marines don't get to select from a variety of equipment loadouts, but the equipment they do carry is designed by Cawl, who is shockingly competent, so they usually outgun their non-Primaris equivalents who tried to choose an otherwise identical loadout. They enjoy, as of 8E, +1W and +1A relative to a regular marine, making them more durable and a lot more dangerous in melee combat. Some of them wear Mark X Gravis Armour, for another +1T.

• Primaris Captain: Primaris Captains are the analogues of Space Marine Captains. They are decked out in the new Gravis Armor which somehow manages to be even MOAR egg-shaped than a Squat Hearthguard. They're armed with a mini-Gauntlet of Ultramar/Hand of Dominion (I.E. a three-shot bolt pistol built into a power fist) and a master-crafted power sword. Others use the standard Mark X power armor and wield a power sword and their choice of Stalker Boltgun or Auto Bolt Rifle. There's also a plasma pistol and power fist model exclusive to Games Workshop stores celebrating their anniversaries.
• Primaris Librarian: Just what it sounds like. Has a fancy-looking Force Sword.
• Primaris Chaplain: Not seen yet, but implied to exist since decals for Chaplains are in the transfer sheet that comes with the Librarian and Captain.
• Primaris Lieutenants: The Primaris Lieutenants are somewhere between a Captain and a Sergeant in rank, and are often the most experienced of a Primaris Squad. Their role is to take command of demi-companies when the Captain is absent, freeing Chaplains and Librarians to focus on their own specialties. Lieutenants are differentiated from their fellow marines by a red-on-white stripe on their helms. Some of them can be helmetless which often showcase an extreme amount of Hair-esy. They can either use a power sword or a master-crafted automatic version of the Bolt Rifle (shorter range and worse ap, but better rate of fire at long range, fireable after Advancing, and more damage per shot from being master-crafted).
• Primaris Ancients: Primaris Marines dubbed honorable enough to have the privilege of carrying the Standard's Banner. Identifiable by their white helmets (although that could change depending on the Chapter), they are in no way related to another dude-clad-in-power-armor-wearing-a-white-helmet-that-also-comes-with-the-same-name-from-a-certain-WH40K-game. At least until he's been upgraded. In case you were wondering, "Ancient" is a corruption of the rank of "Ensign" which was a term for an army's flagbearer in the Middle Ages, so it has nothing to do with how old the Marine in question actually is.
• Primaris Apothecary: A specialization of Primaris Marine only seen so far in artwork. Their left bracer appears to have a screen on it for monitoring lifesigns, and instead of the Narthecium they have a gun-like device.
• Primaris Techmarine: One of them acts as the pintle gunner for the Repulsor Tank. That's about all we know.
• Reivers: Reivers are Space Marines created from the gene-seed of Sly Marbo. Think Catachan Jungle Fighters in Power Armor. It's time to piss yourselves, traitorous scum. The Reiver squad is armed with over-sized combat knives glimmering with disruption fields, heavy bolt pistols that are more effective against armor, and "shock grenades" that prevent opponents from firing on them in overwatch and penalizing their hit rolls. Their helms are death’s heads, with their left pauldrons enlarged to provide better protection in melee. Their armor is stripped down to be eerily silent, adapted for stealth work (and they watch veeery carefully for twigs). Reivers are a specialized infiltration and close-combat unit. Essentially, they are Primaris Reasonable Marines. They are also totally not Night Lords, even though they wear skull helmets, are used to "terrorize" enemy units, and have a bad habit of leaving enemies flayed and out in the open- this is represented by reducing opponents' Ld by 1 simply by being 3" away.
  • The skull helmets apparently incorporate weaponized loudspeakers (Possibly 'graciously gifted' by the Howling Banshees during Cawl's time with the Ynnari). Reivers "disrupt the hearing of the enemy with vox-amplified war cries and audio-sonic weaponry", which assumes both that combat is happening in atmosphere and that the enemy is capable of hearing, but what can you do.
• Aggressors: Aggressors are basically Primaris Terminators mixed in with Centurions. They have shoulder mounted missile launchers, an even more specialized Gravis armor, and gauntlet mounted belt fed guns that include heavy flamers as well. Somebody has been ripping off the Deathwatch.
• Intercessors: Intercessors are the standard SUPER bolter Marines, having most in common with a bare-bones tactical squad as they're armed with Primaris versions of the same things (such as their super bolters and Mk X armour). Compared to tacticals, they perform better in melee and have better range and armour piercing, making them effective in a wider variety of situations. This is both a strength and a weakness, as while they may even bigger Jacks of all trades, they're also worse for being masters of nothing. Other than by making good use of their range bonus, they can almost never lay as much hurt down with their bolt rifles as tacticals can, especially against hordes; and with their bolt pistols being the basic type, tacticals may hit harder on the charge. And that's all before taking weapon options. This might be part of the reason that other Primaris Marines are more specialized: to compensate/synergize. As Primaris specialists may be more vulnerable to heavy firepower and be fire-magnets, Intercessors with their flexibility can more reliably protect others (range) plug any hole that arise from specialist losses, or make themselves useful against any foe until the hard-hitting second wave arrives.
• Inceptors: Inceptors are the Assault Marines equivalent drop troops of the Primaris Marines and are equipped with a new pattern of Jump Packs, two Assault Bolters (which are basically sawn off Heavy Bolters), and a pair of absolutely ridiculous-looking shoe-shovels. Unlike Assault Squads, the Inceptors' focus is on firepower and a pseudo Hammer of Wrath. This makes them closer in role to Assault Bikes. They lack melee weapons of any kind; this doesn't mean they can't fight in melee, as their sheer weight allows them to crush their enemies to death, and they still have the statline of "normal" Primaris marines. Don't get it in your head that their melee ability is "good", though, or even decent, and only engage in melee if you have to; they do far better blowing things into tiny pieces.
• Hellblasters: Hellblasters are Primaris Marines who make Flash Gitz green(er) with envy. They use Plasma Incinerators, enhanced Plasma Guns with longer range and armor piercing ability. Aside from that, there's nothing special about them as compared to "regular" Primaris marines. Very expensive and vulnerable to strong weapons, but they fuck up TEQs and can pose a threat to vehicles if they can get into Rapid Fire range, though outside of said range it's not as suicidal to unload a charged volley, so they can threaten vehicles there, too. Also, with the changes to how cover works, they are terrifying against cover campers. With how big a fire magnet these guys are, if you get these guys close to an expensive or dangerous vehicle or multiwound TEQs feel free to HELLBLAST them into oblivion in a suicide barrage. (That is, IF they're at risk of being wiped out or swarmed.)
• Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought: For no matter how great and glorious they may be, in the grim future even they are not immortal. Though how enough of these brand spanking-new Space Marines were curbstomped just enough to warrant Dreadnaught status, we'll (probably) never know. Times be desperate, yo. Probably because they're so hard to kill that just about all of them that couldn't be saved are made dread-ful.
  • Then again, there's nothing explicitly stating that only Primaris Marines are compatible with the new dread, especially since it looks like just a standard sarcophagus installed in an upgraded chassis. It's likely that the first batch of Redemptor Dreadnoughts mostly contains regular Astartes. Furthermore, we currently don't know how long the Indomitus Crusade has been going know that by the time of the Dark Imperium novel and by extension the launch of 8th Edition it's been approximately 112 years since the Indomitus Crusade began and is quickly coming to a close. That's a fairly reasonable amount of time for Primaris Redemptor Dreadnoughts to become more mainstream, though considering how old some Dreads are...
• Repulsor: The Repulsor is the standard transport and/or tank (nobody's entirely sure yet) of the Primaris Marines. Which is good for them, because they can't go inside standard Space Marine transports, including ones that can hold Terminators, Centurions, and (in 30k) even fucking Primarchs. There must be some mysterious force surpassing even the Emperor blocking the door. Being a floating Metal Box, it might be considered the spiritual successor to the Grav-Rhino, if you covered said Grav-Rhino with missile pods everywhere including on its rear and sides, put a TL lascannon in the hull, and gave it what looks like a heavy stubber as a coaxial gun to go with the turret lascannon and pintle-mounted Gatling gun.
• Overlord: The Overlord is the Primaris exclusive dropship used to support the bigger frames of the Primaris Marines. You would think the Thunderhawk would be big enough for them but it seems they are too special to share the same vehicle with their smaller brothers. Anyways, the Overlord is noticeable for one thing. It is ECKS BAWKS HUEG, making a Thunderhawk look like a Stormtalon in comparison. In terms of specs, it is the Corvus Blackstar on steroids. Seriously, it has powerful quintuple engines and twinned hulls thick enough to permit insertion from orbit, like Thunderhawks or Stormbirds, and like Blackstars, Overlords possess twin transport bays with their own assault doors, but they're considerably bigger (they can carry up to 40 of your Chadmarines) and even more blessed with advanced technologies like fucking energy shields (Guess Cawl kind of 'borrowed' some of that sweet ass energy shields from the pointy-eared gitz). Additionally, the Overlord is equipped with anti-munitions cannons, wing-mounted Desolator Lascannons, nose-mounted Melta Cannons and Heavy Bolters fixed on its lower wing surfaces. This thing is pretty much a flying Titan or an Imperial Manta.

On the Tabletop

Crunch wise, Primaris Space Marines are about as physically dangerous as Space Marines are already supposed to be fluff-wise, so they get an additional Attack and an additional Wound; weapons which deal additional Wounds seem to be fairly ubiquitous now, so defensively, that might not be as impressive as it looks. However, so far they seem to have exclusive access to shiny new toys from Cawl, including a "basically Kraken" Bolter with +6" range and -1 AP, a Plasma gun with +6" range and -1 AP, and a half-range one-handed Assault Heavy Bolter. Defensively, so far they only have access to Gravis armor, which grants +1 Toughness (and even then only the Captain and Inceptors can use it). Finally, their squads don't mix weapon types, with all members carrying the same loadout; whether this will be a benefit or a downside relative to "standard" marines being able to carry a mixed loadout remains to be seen with the other new rules in 8th, such as the ability of any squad to split its fire across multiple targets.

All the Primaris units so far also cost nearly twice as many points as their older counterparts and have unit sizes no larger than a 5 model maximum (including the Sarge). This strongly suggests they will be more useful as a supplement to standard Marine forces than they might be as outright replacements; they're far too inflexible and expensive to be fielded effectively on their own, and their lack of melee specialists and access to weaponry with a range greater than 30" is a glaring flaw (for now) as well. And while their movement is no worse than any other Marine, for reasons that totally aren't financial in origin they can't take any transports usable by standard Marines. Not Rhinos, not Drop Pods, not Land Raiders, not even the motherfucking Mastodon. They can use the Thunderhawk, but odds are you're not going to have room for it in your standard 2000 points game and even then it has to be carrying only Primaris Marines (and in that case, it still can't carry too many). They have a special transport called Repulsor (which is a grav tank) and the Overlord (which is basically a giant Thunderhawk), but beside that they have no choice but to go footslogging.

Rules Datasheets

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  Stats for the Captain. GW is being awfully generous with these datasheets.

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  Behold the Intercessor Datasheet (thanks GW!).

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  The Inceptor rules, sadly the shoe-shovels have no stats.

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  Hellblaster stats, because leaks are great for those on the outside. Note how when their guns explode they die, rather than take damage.

Gallery

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  Primaris Marine of the Galactic Rangers chapter

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  A Primaris Captain channeling the Juggernaut BITCH!

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  Primaris Lieutenants, not quite butter bars, not quite seasoned

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  I am NOT Tarkus!

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  Super Smurfs!

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  A Squad of Intercessors about to go to town on some greenskins. Aren't they beautiful?

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  Inceptors! Now capable of flying and skiing! Youjo Senki inspiration?

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  An entire squad of Super-Smurfs with upgraded Plasma Guns. God help us all.

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  Boo, assholes!

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  I HAVE LEGS! I HAVE FULLY ARTICULATED LEGS!

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  Guilliman and Cawl have figured out how to build hover tanks once more!

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  Looks great, but then you realize that for a 100 year old Space Marine, this guy looks super old. I guess being a battle psyker sucks that hard. Or ya know, that's an old librarian who received an upgrade.

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  "Lord Commander,the batch 3789-Alpha is missing! Just after the visit of..." "I know."