The Propecy Fulfiled

            Wow.

            Guess I called that one.  Primaris Marneus Calgar, coming soon to a battlefield near you.

            And please note the text—“ so it’s only fitting that this venerable hero is the first to be reborn as a Primaris Space Marine. “

            (emphasis mine)

            This isn’t a fluke or a one-off.  This is where everyone’s headed.

            Plan accordingly.  And let's all hope for a new Abaddon...

Marines Are Doomed

            Okay.  A little over a year since the last post.

            I’m good at keeping to that schedule.

            So, I’ve slowed down a bit with my Relictors lately.  The classics anyway.  There was a point that I had a beautiful, long-range plan of making the full Chapter, with things get increasingly Chaos-esque as they moved higher and higher thought the ranks.  Six companies at the very (LINK) least.

            Of course, then GW advanced the story a bit, the Relictors were declared heretics and all-but-wiped out.  So my plans were put on hold.  Partly for financial reasons, yeah, but also because... well, I just wasn’t having much fun with 40K anymore.

            Then... 8th edition.  And Primaris.  And a quiet redemption for the Relictors.  Which also gave me some justification for including them as my new Second Company.  I spent a good four or five weeks, altogether, building and painting up all of those.

            And I have a lot of unbuilt regular, non-Primaris Space Marines.  Thirty or forty, easy.  So... yeah, I’ve been thinking about a full Chapter again.  My dear friend Marcus keeps creeping towards it with his Dark Angels.

            However...

            I find myself more and more reluctant to piece these guys together.  Definitely holding back on ordering more parts for them—the odd special chest plate, a specific helmet or head.  And any sort of vehicle... probably not in my future.

            Why?

            I think Space Marines are doomed.  Not just the Relictors.  All of ‘em.

            Allow me to explain.

            And please remember, this is just me pulling thoughts out of my butt that could explain recent design/ sales ideas while also explaining a few things in-story.  The Watsonian and Doylist views of tabletop gaming, if you will.  I’m up for hearing other thoughts, but if you just want to have a screaming argument, there’s lots of other places on the interwebs for that.  Go knock yourself out.

            Anyway...

            I mentioned a while back on my other hobby blog that I got to sit in on a Titan Comics panel about Warhammer 40,000, and they shared a few in-story aspects about the Primaris that had come straight from Games Workshop.  One of the key ones, I think, is that any existing Space Marine can be become a Primaris.  Once they get the extra organs implanted, their bodies change and grow and boom—a couple months later they’re even taller and wider.

            I think this is noteworthy for a couple of reasons.

            I scribbled up a little thing for The Atomic Warlords a few weeks back talking about how many Space Marine characters have effectively gone missing.  Pretty much all of them, really.  When was the last time you saw a Tigerius figure in the wild?  Or Lysander?  Shrike?  The Emperor’s Champion?  Pedro Kantor?

            So, going off the information in those last two paragraphs, what’s a likely thing we’ll see in the future?

            I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are Primaris versions of all these characters in the works.  GW needs to re-release them somehow anyway, and this way justifies all new plastic models and a revised Codex (with all the small tweaks that would be needed after a year or so of eighth edition play).  Plus, it wouldn’t be hard to rationalize a little size difference so Primaris Marneus Calgar is still wearing the only-slightly-retooled Armor of Atilochus and Gauntlets of Ultramar.  The Marines get to keep all their relic-esque weapons and armor while still getting Primaris upgrades.  Imagine a Primaris Lysander in gravis armor with his hammer and shield, or Primaris Pedro Kantor with the Arrow of Dorn.  Hell, I’d probably never play the army, but I’d be tempted to buy a Primaris Gabriel Seth with Blood Reaver just because I bet he’d look so friggin’ cool...

            Of course, once we’ve got all these command units... what’s the point of regular Marines anymore, right?  I mean, really, at this point there hasn’t been a “classic” Space Marine release in... three years?  The Deathwatch, right?  Dark Vengeance was back in 2012, and that didn’t really bring a lot of useful stuff to the table.  Even the current crop of codexes talk about Primaris assimilating into the Space Wolves, the Dark Angels, and so on.  Heck, we’ve been openly told this is a new founding with new, 100% Primaris Chapters.
            The whole Space Marine line could be quietly phased out and replaced with more Primaris options.  More weapon choices.   Bigger tanks and transports.  Dreadnaught variations.

            And at some point...we’re just saying all Space Marines are Primaris now.
            Really, I wouldn’t be shocked if in another two or three years regular Space Marines are pretty much gone.  From shelves and rules.

            And if you’re reading this thinking “hahahaaaa, they couldn’t do that with one of their biggest lines...”  have you seen the new Kill Team Commanders book?  All Primaris.  Heck, if you want precedent, look at how many armies and units from Warhammer were swept off the table during the shift to Age of Sigmar.  Bretonnians, Tomb Kings, the Empire, Dogs of War...

            And it’s not just loyalist Marines, either.  The most recent Chaos/Traitor/Heretic releases have been the Thousand Sons and Death Guard.  They’re both notably larger than previous versions, and much more in scale with the Primaris Marines.

            Plus, that idea of Primaris gene seed being able to enhance classic Marines?  There’s no stipulation that they have to be loyalist Marines.  The Alpha Legion intercepts a certain convoy, the Iron Warriors lay siege to a certain Mechanicus storage center, and look at this... suddenly we have Primaris Fabius Bile (another fig in desperate need of a resculpt/re-release).  Who could be quickly followed by (speaking of desperately needing a new model) Primaris Abaddon.

            So now we don’t just have new models—we’ve got an event to promote them.  A crisis.  A huge shift across the galaxy.  A new box set game to sell!

            Plus—if I may be so bold—this would be a huge chance to finally differentiate Chaos Marines from loyalists.  All along, the heretics have pretty much been “loyalists with horns” and most of the big differences have been about what the Chaos Marines don’t get.  They have very few unique (or at least unique and useful) units or wargear.

            But if the loyalists move on to this degree, it could mean a huge difference.  Heretics could still have all their old armor and heavy weapons and bolters while Loyalists go through a substantial shift in their weapons and tactics.  Chaos could finally, truly have a “retro” Marine look... which would also give them an in-story reason to up their own game and start making their own unique, Chaos-fuelled weapons.

            Anyway... just some random thoughts. 

            Feel free to toss agreements, counterpoints, or other forms of polite discourse below.

Rulebook Redemption

            Just wanted to point a fun fact I noticed last night...

            Page 161 of the new rulebook still lists the Relictors as one of the final defenders of Cadia, there for Lord Castellant Ursarkar Creed's last stand.  Two of their companies stayed to the bitter end.

            Two things about this...

            One, this doesn’t quite line up with the history we know. We know they were there.  We know they were following their own agenda, as a whole chapter. And because of this—and some other Puritan nonsense—they were declared traitors and supposedly fled to the Eye of Terror.

            So if the whole chapter was always off somewhere else all together, and then fled en masse... how did two companies end up defending Cadia at the very end?

            Possible answer—they came back. Space Marines have entered the Eye before.  The Relictors may have been finishing up their own business and then returned to do their job.  This could all be the spin job of one small faction of the Inquisition.  Heck, possibly just one Inquisitor.

            (Looking at you, Cyarro—possible Alpha Legion agent)

            More to the point—point two, in fact—the rulebook itself lists them as a loyalist chapter. It hasn’t shunted them over to traitor legions or heretic forces. The Relictors are clearly listed as one of the Imperial forces defending Cadia.  Their contribution hasn’t been excised or removed or rewritten.

            Fight fire with fire.

Primaris Relictors

            Oh, look. A new post.  It’s been a while.

            Three and a half years.

            I had all these great plans for this page.  Working through my different Relictors companies and models, explaining the how and why of them.  But then my career kinda took off (which ends up being oddly time-consuming) and...

            To be honest, I grew a bit frustrated with 40K.  And with Games Workshop in general.  But that’s a story I’ve told in a few other places.  The important thing is that Dark Imperium has really revived my interest in the game and the universe.

            When we last left the Relictors, they’d been all-but-destroyed.  Declared heretics by members of the Inquisition and more than half their number wiped out by the Grey Knights, the survivors had... well, vanished.  Nobody knows where to.  Possibly the Eye of Terror. Maybe still somewhere within the Imperium...

            Which brings me to the Primaris Space Marines.  At first I figured it’d be impossible to justify/rationalize adding Primaris to my army. Sure, Roboute Guilliman offered the next-generation Marines (and/or the tech to make them) to whatever Chapter could use them. Would that include a Chapter that had been named traitors, though?  A Chapter whose very location was unknown?

            So... bear with me.

            Gulliman definitely has a different view of the Imperium than anyone alive today.  He sees the overcomplicated, superstitious machine it’s become, as opposed to the thing of purity and strength it was supposed to be.  He’s also viewing it through the eyes of a primarch.  He’s legendary for seeing the big picture, playing the long game.  When he’s playing chess, he’s seeing fifteen moves ahead in the game he’s going to play against her once he’s done playing this game with you.

            With all that in mind... maybe he would send a squad or two of Primaris to join the Relictors.  Perhaps he doesn’t feel being censured by the Inquisition is the end-all, be-all that most “modern” people do.  Could be he sees something further down the road, an outcome no one else does, and the Relictors are part of it.  Heck, maybe he’d send them the better part of a whole company to help bolster their depleted ranks.

            But how would the Primaris themselves deal with this?  Would they be horrified to find out their new Chapter is using these cursed weapons of Chaos?  Would they return to Gulliman in horror?  Try to take down the Conclave from within?

            Maybe not.

            It’s been stated a few times now from GW that while they’re all modern beings, the Primaris have a very 31st Millennium mindset, much like Gulliman himself.  They don’t believe in a lot of the... well, mythology that’s sprung up around the Emperor. And around his enemies.  It’s likely that the idea of treating Chaos as a tool, an energy source—of fighting fire with fire—could appeal to an even slightly open-minded Primaris.

            Which is why the Primaris Marines in the Dark Imperium set have become the new Second Company of my Relictors.

            But I’ll get to that in a bit.

            Next time... a few quick conversions.

Relictors and Helmets

            Hopefully we can all agree that Warhammer 40,000 is a fantasy game.  Not in the lizard men-and- elves-and-dragons way, but in the sense that it has little grounding in science.  It has some of the trappings of sci-fi, but they’re all there to set the mood more than help create a sense of plausibility.

            As such, I understand the inherent flaws of the world, since it is more about the game than about believability.  The Imperium has miles-long spaceships that can decimate planets and massive war-robots that can level cities, yet we routinely send out guys with swords and pistols to fight our enemies hand to hand.  Many folks have pointed out the silliness in this.

            It’s also been brought up (although not quite as often) that the idea of un-helmeted Space Marines doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Power armor is the very high-end of personal protection.  It enhances the wearer’s strength and senses, not to mention providing a pile of tactical information.  And a lot of time and work goes into making a Space Marine.  You think you’d want to protect that investment from, say, some kid with a rock and a sling...

            All that being said, I recognize that a lot of models look very cool with their helmets off.  And it does fit with some of the more savage and feral chapters like the Space Wolves, White Scars, or Blood Angels.  So I’d never mock anyone for an un-helmeted marine. Even for a lot of them.

           Anyway, all that was tickling at the back of my head when I first started assembling my Relictors army.  I’d had a bunch of marines kind of kicking around, but couldn’t settle on a Chapter that really appealed to me.  Then White Dwarf 295 came out and I was hooked.  My friends saw the article and even they said “that’ll be his chapter.”

            I had about thirty-odd Relictors painted up when I realized that, by odd chance, not one of them had an exposed head.  It was just what I’d built in the past and what I’d picked when I started assembling the army.  But I really liked it, and decided early on that the Relictors would always wear helmets—everyone from the newest marine to the Chapter Master and every rank in between.

            It was only later that I realized this also gave them a sinister edge.  Since so many marines are modeled or drawn with bare heads, there’s something a bit off-putting about a group of marines that don’t show anything.  And I realized it’s not that the Relictors aren’t showing their faces... it’s the subtle, underlying message that they’re hiding something.

            Now if GW would just make a helmeted Librarian again...

Relictors Organization

Despite some of their more controversial weapons choices, I think the Relictors are pretty much a Codex chapter.  Sources say at least part of their gene-seed comes from Ultramarines stock.  As such, I’ll probably be playing them as an Ultramarines successor chapter in sixth edition, and I think their organization reflects that overall.

That being said, there’s also some switches and changes, and it makes sense to me that the Relictors should be a little...off.  They’re really close to being a mainstream chapter, but there are a few places where they just don’t line up.  So I thought I’d jot down a few notes and thoughts about where I think they’d be different and how those differences might reflect—stylistically—in my actual army and army lists.

The biggest difference between the Relictors and a regular Space Marine chapter is the Conclave.  According to the various fluff, the Conclave is a sort of “inner circle” of the Relictors.  A close analogue would be the Mournival, Horus’s group of commanders and captains before the Heresy (no irony there).  The Conclave is made up of the high-ranking officers and veterans who actually use Chaos artifacts.  The idea is that the rank-and-file don’t know where the chapter’s powerful relics come from, and those marines are kept far away until they’ve proven themselves physically/mentally/spiritually strong enough to use them without risk of corruption

  

So, with that in mind, let’s consider basic chapter structure.  Veterans are generally “above” regular Marines and Scouts, and Captains and command squads are above them.  There also seems to be a hierarchy among companies—that the First Company commander is considered a bit higher up the chain than the Sixth Company commander, for example.  This gave me a good sense of which members of the Relictors are a bit more mainstream and which are probably members of the Conclave (with all that implies).

For modeling purposes, I decided that the Chapter Master and the first five company captains probably made up the Conclave.  Their assorted honor guards and command squads were probably included as well.  And it wouldn’t be that unusual to see some lesser Chaos weapons scattered throughout the First Company, too.  This was where future Captains and command squads would most likely come from, after all.

This also meant a bit of shuffling and tweaks when it came to titles and duties.  If I accept a ranking of the different Captains, for example, it doesn’t make sense that the Master of Relics would be the Ninth Company commander.  Not within the Relictors, anyway.  So I restructured the titles like so.

            First Company—Master of Secrets

            Second Company—Master of the Vault*

            Third Company—Master of the Arsenal

            Fourth Company—Master of the Fleet

            Fifth Company—Master of Relics

            Sixth Company—Master of the Rites *

            Seventh Company—Master of the Hunt *

            Eighth Company—Lord Executioner *

            Ninth Company—Master of the Marches *

            Tenth Company – Master of Recruits

The asterisks mark positions that are, shall we politely say, currently open.  Since the Inquisition’s censure of—and completely unwarranted attack on—the Relictors, the chapter has been notably under-strength.  While I have full faith that their name will be cleared in the near future (if the world of the game ever gets there...), for now they’ll remain low in numbers and with few recruits or Scouts.  So, as much fun as it would be to build a full chapter, I think I’ll be building toward this idea.

I also decided to swap the company colors for the first and fifth companies, making the First Company black/ebonite and the fifth company white/silver.  I liked the idea that Relictors would get a bit darker as they advanced toward the Conclave.  Combined with my decision to leave everyone helmeted, it gave the Chapter a dark edge... which was kind of perfect.  This also carried over to veterans and veteran sergeants, of course.  

First Signs...

And, in what is surely a poor marketing decision, my first post will be directing you to my other page, In The Grim Cheapness of the Future.  It's all about trying to do things on the cheap in this ever-more-expensive wargaming hobby.  And last week I took some scavenged bits from a few lines and put together a Space Marine captain.

To be specific, it was Relictors fourth company Captain Daedalus, the Master of the Fleet.  According to most fluff, this means he should be armed with a thunder hammer, a symbol of the massive firepower he can call down.  But he is a Relictors captain—a high ranking one, too—so there should be a bit of a Chaos influence in his weaponry.  There’s a good chance he’s part of the Conclave, after all.

So you can see how I did all that here...