The Astral Hammers - NH's custom chapter.

[The Other Dave]

So who's going to be the first to paint up some Astral Hammers?

I was thinking of going up to Yodobashi and picking up a 3-pack of easy-build duders on Saturday for just this purpose.

[me_in_japan]

I'm quite keen to paint one of these chaps myself, too. But again, no Primaris (or, aheheh, loyalists of any kind... )

[YellowStreak]

So who's going to be the first to paint up some Astral Hammers?

I was thinking of going up to Yodobashi and picking up a 3-pack of easy-build duders on Saturday for just this purpose.

I'll probably do the same once I'm back in the US. We should discuss exact colours!

BTW for those for up on 40K lore than me, what is the organization for an all-primaris chapter? Shorty-marines had the first company as all Terminators*, 10th company as all scouts, etc.
Is there an official TO&E for Primaris?

*I wish they had Primaris Terminators. Terminators are my favourite marine power armour...maybe someday?

[The Other Dave]

BTW for those for up on 40K lore than me, what is the organization for an all-primaris chapter? Shorty-marines had the first company as all Terminators*, 10th company as all scouts, etc.
Is there an official TO&E for Primaris?

No - they've actually come right out and said that Guilliman has gone so far as to relax the traditional Codex organization of "each company has exactly ten squads, exactly six of which are tactical, two are devastator and two are assault," with lots of ad-hoc seconding of squads from "reserve" companies and having them officially join "battle" companies, taking up their company number and using squad numbers over 10.

The main fiddly questions we'd have to think of that most chapters deal with are:
How to show battlefield role? (The "codex" way being via squad markings on the right shoulder pad.)
How to show squad number?
How to show veteran status?
How to show company number?

Personally, I like the idea of using Heresy-era battlefield role markings, if only because a) they look really cool, and b) it ties in with our chapter's connection to that age. Personally, I'm partial to company number as a number on a kneepad rather than a trim color, and veteran status through helmet color. The Iron Hands themselves are way off-codex with company markings, using the clans of their home planet instead, and putting squad markings on the leg, but again I personally like the idea that the Hammers have a strong "pre-Ferrus-Manus" influence. (Sorry, the nitty gritty of unit markings is my fetish, heh.)

[YellowStreak]

(Sorry, the nitty gritty of unit markings is my fetish, heh.)

Then perhaps you should be named "Master of the marky-bits and other assorted unit and role identifiers".
What is required?
Veteran markings (helmet colour - what colour? White?)
Sgt colours (Red helmets?)
Company markings
Squad markings
I guess there would no longer be tactical/devastator/assault marking if those roles no longer exist for Primaris?

[Primarch]

From my understanding, the Primaris organisation is more in line with the old legions. Rather than having mixed tactical squads, they split into units armed with the same weapons. So you'd have a squad all armed with bolters, a support unit all armed with meltas and a support unit all armed with heavy bolters.
It does seem that Primaris are lacking some pretty important pieces of kit though. Although the rules allow you to deal with heavy armour by just firing enough bolters into it, that does seem very inefficient. Likewise, in a galaxy where half of the enemy are going to try to get close with you and chew your legs off dedicated assault troops would seem to be a handy resource. Letting the Trygon devour squad A so that squad B can safely chip away at it with bolters just seems odd. I expect we will see more Primaris options in the future and with them more specialist troops.

[YellowStreak]

Do Primaris have scouts? Or are they still relying on 10,000 year old defrosted dudes and haven't yet had to start embiggening normal human aspirants? (I guess maybe they'll embiggen all the regular marines first..?)

Reavers aren't scouts right, they're 'full' marines? Or are they the scout replacement?

[The Other Dave]

Do Primaris have scouts? Or are they still relying on 10,000 year old defrosted dudes and haven't yet had to start embiggening normal human aspirants? (I guess maybe they'll embiggen all the regular marines first..?)

Reavers aren't scouts right, they're 'full' marines? Or are they the scout replacement?

Reivers are full marines, yeah. I believe that Primaris chapters use scouts, they just get the few extra organs (say that in the Ren voice if you like) to make them primaris after they graduate from scouting. So there's really two kinds of primaris marines - those who are thawed out veterans of the Indomitus Crusade 100 years ago when the great rift opened, and more recent guys who got the primaris treatment as part of the standard "marine upgrade" after being scouts.

Vigilus revealed that it's possible for full marines to get the primaris treatment, but there's a 61% failure rate - even Calgar was dead on the table for 10 minutes or so when he had the procedure done. So it's not something that's undertaken lightly.

@Prim - Yeah, assault and dedicated transports are the big gaps. Inceptors even have a "do mortal wounds on a charge" rule, but... no assault weapons. Hellblasters, especially Dark Angel or (with the Vigilus specialist detachment) Crimson Fists, can put the hurt on armor pretty effectively, but overall primaris marines seem designed to be designed to be masters of short- to mid-range anti-infantry firepower. Personally, I expect a Codex Primaris within a year or so with shiny new units to fill those gaps.

[jus]

I kind of like the uniformity of individual squads doing their individual thing. The legion thing was cool!

As for heavy support, I imagine that's where the amazing yet oft overlooked floating repulsor tank comes into play as an anti amour option. It's got lots of guns and is piloted by a primaris tech marine and we're all about tech marines because we're iron hands. Not to mention being the dedicated ( only) transport they got. Maybe that's our thing, having lots of repulsors and techmarines.

As for assault, hmm aggressors have powerfist right? If not, we have dreadnoughts :p, and characters with melee weapons.
But I agree, an actual assaulty unit would be a nice addition. Echoing yellowstreak's sentiment, primaris terminators would be welcome, because 40k just wouldn't be the same with out them. Aggressors don't count.

By the by, I wonder how long it took for Calgar to "embiggen" after the procedure, he has needed to grow another foot to fit into his primaneus armor. I can't imagine dying for 10 minutes and then waking up a head taller

[The Other Dave]

By the by, I wonder how long it took for Calgar to "embiggen" after the procedure, he has needed to grow another foot to fit into his primaneus armor. I can't imagine dying for 10 minutes and then waking up a head taller

The implication in Vigilus is that it took him quite some time to recover fully (looking at the timeline of the war in the book, maybe even a period of time measured in years, which is saying a lot for Calgar) - probably there was some growing going on there.