New Space Marines Rumors

[Stickmonkey]

Argh! I wrote up a nice little bit for you guys on some new design work and due to the wonders of transversing wireless networks the post was lost. So frustrating.

[Theocracity]

Cheers SM .

How many Flyers are they going to give the Marines? Seems like overkill.

New scouts would be much appreciated. Never liked those sculpts.

[verydarkshadow]

Words cannot express how excited I am at the thought of a box of Mk VIII Tactical Marines.

... but, upon reflection, this seems almost too good to be true. Damn it, I really hope you're right, Stick

[Khorneguy]

is that all mark 8 for the tactical squad? that's a pretty major redesign if they don't include mk6 and 7 parts. If this comes true, i'm sticking to FW. Heavy flamers on tactical squads sound fishy too. Maybe it's a sternguard box? considering how popular they are, it's possible

new jump packs? that'd involve a pretty major redesign for armies beyond just vanilla marines (BA for example)

open wagon scout transport? sounds awful

[Fable]

Cheers. Like I mentioned, these are likely a long way off, and I will fill in more later.

Cheers

Somehow when I read this I just assumed it would be the imperial codex I expect to eventually come out between Tau and Eldar.

[Hokiecow]

I'm under the impression that BT were the next Imperial codex after DA, maybe SM will arrive sometime after Eldar but before Orks.

[Raibaru]

Nothing about a new terminator kit by chance?

Have you seen the SM or are you just relaying information you heard? I'm curious if they're scaled properly or if we'll see more issues with them being taller than previous models.

And I know you said you couldn't share details about the assault squad, but any chance of 2handed options?

[verydarkshadow]

is that all mark 8 for the tactical squad? that's a pretty major redesign if they don't include mk6 and 7 parts. If this comes true, i'm sticking to FW. Heavy flamers on tactical squads sound fishy too. Maybe it's a sternguard box? considering how popular they are, it's possible

With GW's preference for dual-build kits, this box could easily be intended to allow players to build either tactical marines or sternguard veterans. This might explain the heavy flamer.

[loveless]

So a new box of 10 Tactical Marines or is it a new box of 5 plastic Marine Veterans? Either way, sounds solid.

[Azzy]

Really wish they'd recut the Razorback with all the options.

[d6juggernaut]

Poses are all standing, but they aren't as static.

No more half-squatting marines? Truly a revolution

[Starchild]

@d6juggernaut: Any solider or martial artist will tell you that keeping your knees locked is a good way to get killed in combat.


New Scouts will be most welcome. The other day I was reading the White Dwarf that had the first metal Scout release. Jes Goodwin's Scouts are superb models and the current plastics just don't measure up to them.

[spaint2k]

New tactical squad. Hvy flamer. Mk 8 style

Nggnngngg... <looks at army of Mentors with ~40 Mk VIII torsos>

[williamsond]

great news if only to fix the current lvls of mould slip on the tac box set it can be quite severe these days. can't wait to see these if the rumours hold up.

[MajorWesJanson]

OK, wow. If true I will need multiples of all of those kits.

New tactical squad. Hvy flamer. Mk 8 style
Edit: there are more mk 8 bits here than before, but there are still "beakies" too. Includes many options not released before in plastic, including a Hvy flamer, a backpack style (read devastator) missile launcher w flakk missile, slings on bolters, power weapon options. Basically think of all the blinged out options you get w a BA, SW, GK box and now apply it to tactical marines. Poses are all standing, but they aren't as static.

Makes some sense. Any chance of Combi-weapons? If there are, this would make for a great Tactical/Sternguard kit. Plus the current tac squad sprues are rather old, and have been recut once before. Most people have a ton of tac marines, but a new set with new weapon options and more Mk VIII bodies would encourage more sales. With modern CAD sprue design, they could reduce the number of sprues in total, from two copies of five marines plus an upgrade sprue to two full sprues that are doubled, like the Wolf Pack kit.

New assault squad. New jump packs. New weapon options
Edit: retooling similar to tac squad. The jump packs are all new, but don't get knickers in a twist cause they are the same style as current ones. They just look better cause the seam is not there. New cc options in the sprue include thss and lc. There is a few new options in here I can't reveal.

New jump pack design would be nice, the current ones are ancient. Again, adding weapon options encourages new sales, and the additional weapon parts means it could be a combo-Assault Marine/Vanguard Vet kit.

New librarian mini sprue. Codex options included
Edit: this is where the librarian/chaplain kit I saw a long time ago went. Has a force sword or staff, has combi weapons, has pistols. Two heads. All in mini sprue. It's 2 mini sprues. Only options from current codex not present are jump pack, bike, or TA. No info on where chaplain went.

Double combi sprue? Probably going to bump it to the $24 range or so, but that is similar to where the single SM commander box is. A combined body and legs would allow for a far more consolidated sprue compared to the SM commander, and a lot of the options he came with, like tons of shoulder pads, purity seals, back banners and tabards could be left out, fitting onto the new minisprue. Plastic Librarian is great news. I have a ton of librarian models, but I could see buying 2-4 of these.

New Techmarine mini sprue. Conversion Beamer.
Edit: very similar to current tech ax Techmarine. Layered body. Has tech ax, tech sword, plasma pistol, combi weapons, couple variants on servo arms, and conversion Beamer. 2 mini sprues.

Same comments as librarian. I guess they will keep the Servo-harness variant in finecast? Plastic tech marines would be a great addition.


New scout box. New sculpts. Combined boxes. New options.
Edit: includes some new scout only weapons. Heads are less bulky. All codex options present in one box.

Scouts with parts for shotguns, bolters, CCWs, and sniper rifles in a box? Plus Heavy bolter and missile launcher? And new scout only options? Those could be the astartes grenade launchers, as there was a rumor before of a scout kit with them. A combined kit would prevent there being 3 different boxes for scouts, and drop the current two down to one box.

Consolidating like this would also make sense for Terminators, who could easily fit a kit with both assault and tactical options, as Wolf Guard managed to do.

New flyer. Interceptor/bomber. Flat but boxy. Storm raven sized. No transport. No hover. Heavy assault cannon and ff missiles. Or bombs and servo drones in gun pods.
Edit: shares wing/engine aesthetics of storm raven, but fuselage is flatter. Wings not as bent. No thrusters in wingtips. Two tail options, one for each build.

Larger flier for Marines? Makes a lot of sense to me, really. Storm Talon is a fast light flier for relatively cheap, while these would fill the role of a larger, better armored but more expensive gunship. Would also fit well with the Talon escort rule, having a larger gunship escorted onto the board by the smaller Talon.

New scout transport. Like Tauros (FW ig) but open wagon style. Halo warthog mashed w rhino. Pintle TL HB.
Edit: rumored rule only will allow pintle weapon when unit is embarked. Fast vehicle. 4 buggy style wheels. Rider models/bits compatible with new scout box. Roughly rhino sized. For Baja race fans think armored sandrail.

I like the idea, but seems to conflict with LS Strom, and wheels are sort of an Ork thing, not so much the Marines style.

[stahly]

I'm sceptical about all those retoolings. At the moment we rarely see GW updating exisiting plastic kits and the Marine sprues aren't that old and perfectly fine as they are. It seems the changes are only cosmetic.

[Master Sheol]

It all sounds cool.... But.... Why have i the feeling that DA are cheated again...???
I dont think we will ever have any of the new options.............

[Beppo1234]

OK, wow. If true I will need multiples of all of those kits.

New Techmarine mini sprue. Conversion Beamer.
Edit: very similar to current tech ax Techmarine. Layered body. Has tech ax, tech sword, plasma pistol, combi weapons, couple variants on servo arms, and conversion Beamer. 2 mini sprues.

Same comments as librarian. I guess they will keep the Servo-harness variant in finecast? Plastic tech marines would be a great addition.

not to be harping on finecast, but I think the servo harness would be better suited for plastic. FC had it's initial problems, which have mostly been solved. But the biggest problem I've found with it, is the delicate parts of models, staffs and weapons, and I'll include servo harness' and things like Fabius Biles pack, just don't have any sort of durability. I hope it's the other way around from what you are commenting. And to people thinking I'm on a FC rant, it's a good material, for bodies and arms, but delicate bits of models should be cast in something better, or at least future designs should take into account the flimsy nature of thin finecast.

[MajorWesJanson]

I'm sceptical about all those retoolings. At the moment we rarely see GW updating exisiting plastic kits and the Marine sprues aren't that old and perfectly fine as they are. It seems the changes are only cosmetic.

The current Marine sprues are retoolings of older sprues that were in use pre 4th edition. The Assault Marines, Tactical marines, and bikes got updated toolings recut the old sprues into a less wasteful format than the old individual marine sprues all connected together. The Attack Bike was the update of the old bike sprues, and later simply cut in half for normal bikes. The Assault marines used to be individual marines on connected mini-sprues, with separate assault packs, until later they were put in a better format and the assault marine upgrade sprue with the better torsoes and power weapons was done later. The Tac squad models have been the same for a decade, with the only change an updating of the sergeant/ special weapon sprue.

The old style Tac squad showed up in 1998, and the Assault marines in 1999, with both of those units recut somewhere around 2004 or so, hard to pin down exact time of that. The old style assault squad was in the 4th Edition army box, along with the more modern tac squad kit (with old style special weapon upgrade sprue) and the new at the time Command Squad kit. Devastators showed up in 2007 with the DA release, and used the Command Squad sprue for legs.

As for why new sprues/retoolings? Potentiall the same reason as the Chimaera and Leman Russ were redone. To reduce the number of sprues needed for a box and add newer options, while taking advantage of new CAD designs.

A current tac squad has 1 sprue of 2 frames duplicated 2 times, plus an additional smaller sprue with some sergeant and special weapon parts, giving 10 marines with some options. The kit is rather old, and only has a power sword, plasma, melta, flamer, and missile launcher. Bolters are separate from the hands, taking up far more space and making them harder to build. No power fist, much less any of the other power weapon options 6th has given us.

A current Assault squad is made up of one sprue of 2 frames (half borrowed from the tac squad, and half made up of running legs and pistol/ccws instead of bolters) Then it used to have 5 old style jump packs, but that was replaced with a new sprue with 5 proper assault torsoes, 5 jump packs, a power axe, and a power fist, giving them some sorely needed options. End result though is still missing a number of power weapons and gives 5 additional torsoes that are not needed.

Scouts and Sniper scouts are both one sprue each of two frames, making 5 scouts per box. Both are rather well done kits. No real problems there, besides maybe some options for the sergeant.

Updating these kits would allow for modern CAD designs to make much better sprues which could recoup tooling costs for new sprues.
The Space Wolf pack is 1 sprue of 2 frames duplicated twice with a massive 218 pieces, including exotic parts like paired lightning claws, storm shields, thunder hammers, storm bolters, and 28 different head options (admittedly some are for scouts), a design and value that dwarfs that of the basic tac squad.
The Blood Angels have great examples of Jump Pack troops, as the Death Company has 94 parts with options for normal backpacks or jump packs, 20 shoulderpads (twice as many as needed) and complete sets of bolters and bp/ccws, as well as some other weapon options. Sanguinary guard have 5 jump troops with parts for wings, 15 different heads, a number of various axes, swords, and glaives, and a sculpted banner. Both kits do it on a single sprue of 2 frames.

If the Assault Squad and Tac squad both went the way of the successors kits, they would reduce the number of different sprues needed from 4 to 2, reducing the number of sprues in each box from 4.75 frames for the tac squad and 3 frames for the assault squad down to 4 and 2 respectively, allowing for slightly lighter and smaller boxes that include far more options than they do currently.

As for the scouts, the current kits are in good shape, but if GW wants to add a new style of scout (say with astartes grenade launchers) they would need to either make them in finecast or make a new sprue in plastic, which would result in 3 different scout boxes in plastic. And if they are doing a new scout kit in plastic, may as well simply design the new sprue to include the weapon options of the two current boxes as well, and reduce scouts from 2 boxes (3 with the new ones) down to a single box. Less inventory codes and space, more room for new shiny kits.

not to be harping on finecast, but I think the servo harness would be better suited for plastic. FC had it's initial problems, which have mostly been solved. But the biggest problem I've found with it, is the delicate parts of models, staffs and weapons, and I'll include servo harness' and things like Fabius Biles pack, just don't have any sort of durability. I hope it's the other way around from what you are commenting. And to people thinking I'm on a FC rant, it's a good material, for bodies and arms, but delicate bits of models should be cast in something better, or at least future designs should take into account the flimsy nature of thin finecast.

I agree that I would like the servo arm tech marine to be in plastic as well, but from the sounds of it it is merely servo arms, and not a full servo harness which takes up far more room. Plus, the Warp Smith, the chaos Techmarine with servo harness is in finecast, so I am just thinking about that precedent as well.

[PointBlank]

@ StickyMonkey : Quick question, if I may - have you actually seen the new SM sculpts? Do they have the same proportions as last incarnation i.e. over-size Bobble heads and gorilla-length arms, or have they toned that down a bit? I ask because some recent releases have shown an inclination to correcting the uneven scale, while others have exaggerated it.

Cheers
PB