40K: I Am Extremely Whelmed By The New Primaris Units
Lets take a look at the new Primaris units coming on Shadowspear.
Over the weekend the datasheets for the new units coming in Shadowspear leaked. Of course this has the whole community in a frenzy going over the new units to see what good and bad about the new units. Goatboy’s already given us a nice run of the Chaos units, you can see it here, so today I’m going to go over the new Primaris units. Overall I will say I’m pretty whelmed by these units. They’ve got some cool ideas, but I don’t think they will make a big impact on the meta. With that said lets go over the units and see what they have to offer.
N.B.: Two big caveats to everything I’m about to say.
1. as of this writing points haven’t leaked yet, I’ll be guessing at stuff but my opinions might change some depending on points.
2. The datasheets we’ve seen are very clearly made for the models that come int he Shadowspear box. Future releases may contain the “real” rules for this units with additional weapon and upgrade options, that may radically effect their performance.
Captain In Phobos Armor 
Starting with the new HQs we’ve got another Captain Datasheet. This Captain has all the expected Primaris Captain’s stats so no surprise there. He is wearing Phobos armour but that alone doesn’t actually seem to do anything on it’s own. Wargear wise he’s pretty basic, with his knife he’s got 6 attacks, but all at S4 with no AP or anything special. He comes with a fancy Master-Crafted Instigator bolt carbine, which is decent except its got one shot. You do pay 100ish points for a model to sit back with a single shot weapon. Like the regular Primaris Captain you’re not really taking him for damage output, but for buffs.
Like other Captains he has an Iron Halo and Rites of Battle. In addition hes got a Camo Cloak, giving him +2 save in cover, which isn’t all that useful on a character but doesn’t hurt. More important his other two abilities: Concealed Position and Omni-scrambler. Concealed Position is the ability that Space Marine Scouts currently have that lets them set up during deployment anywhere more than 9″ away from enemy units and deployment zones. While the Captain doesn’t really need to get close to be good, many of the other new units also have this ability so its nice he go with them to provide support. Omni-scrambler is a new ability they get that prevents enemy units coming in as reinforcements from deploying within 12″ of the model. This can hamper deep strikers and GSC abilities and mess with charges so it IS pretty good. Overall this guy doesn’t do a ton of damage but has a lot of nice support abilities and I’d think about taking him instead of a regular Primaris Captain.
Librarian in Phobos Armour
The new Librarian is basically the exact same stats wise as the normal Primaris Librarian with the addition of a Camo Cloak and Concealed Positions. Assuming they cost more than a regular Primaris Librarian I don’t think those too would really be worth paying for most of the time (though you could play VERY aggressively with your Psychic Hood). The other big change is they get access a new discipline, the Obscuration discipline. Currently we have no idea what those spells are going to be. If the new Obscuration discipline ends up being good this guy could be the real gem of the new batch and see a lot of play. If they are meh, he’s going to get sidelined.
Lieutenant in Phobos Armour
Hey another Primaris Lieutenant (that’s 10!), we joked one was coming and we were right! This guys a basic Primaris LT with a few slight tweaks. He’s armed with a Master-Crafted Occulus bolt carbine, which is just a D2 bolter that you don’t get cover against (no word on if you play VR games with it, but I’d warn against using its scope to look at the Great Rift). The gun is kind of whatever. In addition to that he can Deep Strike thanks to his Grav-chute. His Knife Fighter ability means every time he rolls a unmodified 6 in combat he scores two hit instead of one, but… he’s got a basic close combat weapon and 4 attacks. It sounds like a cool ability but in reality it means every other time he attack in close combat hell get an extra basic S4 hit; nothing to write home about. Overall this guy is just an LT that can Deep Strike, given we haven’t had LT’s that can do that before I guess its cool.
Infiltrator Squad
Alright now we are getting to troops, this should be good right? Right? At first glance these guys do seem like they should be. They’ve got a cool new gun a total of 4 new special rules, in addition to Combat Squads and ATSKNF. However as soon as you start looking into the rules they just don’t really add up to a great rule and the big fault is the weapon. These guy have the Marksman bolt carbine, which is… just a bolter basically. Sure on an unmodified hit roll of 6 the weapon auto wounds, but even with a full 10 man squad thats going to get you an extra of 1-2 wounds a turn before saves, not really world-shaking. Without any other weapon options these guys have a damage output very slightly above a 10 man Tactical Marine Squad with no upgrades, and a little worse than an Intercessor Squad.
They do have an array of other abilities. They can set up where they want, but the unit really doesn’t want to be close to the enemy. They can get a -1 to be hit at the cost of shooting, and they can heal some wounds and bring people back, on a 5+. They can also mess with enemy deep striking, which is their best trait. Overall they are pretty similar to basic Intercessors, trading some damage output for a little extra tankyness. And thats a problem, Intercessors already don’t put out enough damage to really be a great unit – so losing some damage output hurts. They also look like they could be costly, at a 1 PL to 20 pts the unit would clock in at 220 pts. For that I could get 20 Scouts, with twice the damage output, or get 50 Guardsmen- both of which seem better options. While these guys have cool abilities they simply aren’t going to do that much. Seem slightly inferior to Intercessors.
Suppressor Squad
I’m going to be honest, the Suppressor Squad is really, really odd. I’m not sure why they even exist, we’ve already got Primaris Marines that fly and deep strike with heavy weapons, Inceptors, so I’m not sure why we needed a worse version of those. The Autocannon is just an Autocannon with an extra AP. Deep Strike and Fly seem very wasted on a long range unit with heavy weapons that doesn’t want to move. Smoke Launchers are a cool idea, but this is really a unit I want shooting each turn, not hiding under smoke. The Suppressing Fire rule is interesting, but seems an odd fit on Primaris armies which don’t really want to assault, and on a unit that seems to want to shoot light vehicles not infantry.
This unit just doesn’t seem to do anything that Hellblasters or Inceptors don’t already do better. It’s also a very vulnerable unit, with a low model count and T4. It’s got a bunch of abilities that seem to want to be on an assault unit, and a weapon that wants to be on a stable firing platform. These guys or a Predator… Hmm? Oddball unit. We’ll have to wait for points and full unit options on these guys.
Eliminator Squad
These guys have some potential. They are basically the new version of Sniper Scouts, which a multi-fire mode gun. Executioner Rounds actually do decent damage and make the unit a real threat to characters. Mortis rounds on the other hand are kind of crazy in their ability to pretty much hit any unit they want anywhere and reliably. These guys are going to be real trouble for AM and GSC armies I think. I could also see parking 9 of them around Guilliman and really put out some pain. They also seem cheap, at 1 PL a model that puts them around 20 points, which isn’t bad for what they do. I could see these guys showing up. Solid unit!
Final Questions
Hey I was right about a new Space Marine Codex!
Overall these guys have a lot of cool rules that don’t seem to gel right now. This leaves me with a few questions. First off you’ll notice the Vanguard Keyword is nowhere to be found. That leads me to think Vanguard are going to be a Specialist detachment, which could give some extra abilities to these guys. We also don’t know what spells, warlord traits, stratagems or relics they’ll get. It’s possible they’ve got some killer stratagems. Lastly, are Deathwatch going to get these units? Will they get specialist ammo (on the Eliminators, they are “bolt” weapons)? Will they be able to mix and match them? A Helix Adapt in a squad with Hellblasters or Inceptors could be real good. And what other options will these units get in the future. I think all of these are going to have to be answered before we can make a final call on these guys, but right now I just don’t see big meta changers among the lot.
Let us know what you think of the new units, down in the comments!
