Ultramarines Support (Or Lack Thereof) from GW

[Doghouse]

And what about unique looking Troop or veteran kits? I'm not talking about units with unique rules.

 

BA and DA have them. Ultras never did. There is no reason for them not to.

 

There is no reason to have them though because we have upgrade sprues now, Ultramarines have access to two of them. Plus the whole nature of generic space marine kits (not including primaris) means anyone can make that unique look for their marine units.

The theme is determined more these days to set models apart but chapter tactics and strategems.

[Nova_Dew]

Ultramarines did have them, but when you dictate how every other chapter looks based on yourself, you don't get to keep that look since you just told everyone else to use your look, it does suck that there isn't bundled kits, but GW likes money and not giving the kits away for 1/4th the price like they do for DA/SW/SW for their biggest selling faction just means they make more of it.

As for parts nearly every kit is Ultramarine-y the Company Command kit has a modified Invictarus Suzerain Squad helmet, the Sternguard kit has a Greco-Roman crest, and how many kits feature the Greco-roman laurels? 

[Morovir]

The real question is why the Ultramarines Primaris upgrade sprue costs £2 more than the others, despite offering nothing more.

[Prot]

Unfortunately this is where we have to step in and warn you guys to stop making personal, sarcastic, trollish posts or the thread will get shut down. Please and thank you.

[Tamiel]

As an Ultramarine player, I would take a roman/greek inspired unit over yet another special character any day.

[Harrowmaster]

As an Iron Hands player I feel ultras definitely get plenty of support from GW. Most of the codex is about them and from their point of view (it has gotten better as the editions go on but it's still the case). They have 6 HQ characters, a primarch, two unique units (tyrannic war vets and terminus ultra), a decent doctrine, a good strat (nerfed with the changes but still good), a good relic and warlord trait. 

 

The IH doctrine is good as is the strat but the warlord trait and relic are meh, we don't get any special characters and there's no unique units (the case for most chapters barring templars).

 

So I feel ultras get a lot of support from GW (hell they have primaris calgar and honour guard releasing) when you compare them to everyone else in the same codex. 

 

They can't really be compared to guard or eldar though (that's like trying to compare Cadia to Tau). Edit: They will lose every time because it's one subfaction against an entire race/army, it's not a good baseline.

[Prot]

This is just my personal take on it... I don't expect anyone to agree with it;

 

If we are talking 'background' and lore, the Ultra's get more attention than ever. It did feel like years ago they were simply a poster child for the 'make your own chapter up' codex. We'd see splash art, a few words about Sicarius but basically people wanted to play a different chapter and you had a much larger collection of DYI chapters than ever.

 

Then in 7th it became a lot more about rules. White Scars ruled the day with their ability with the formation of free stuff that GW wasn't selling too much of.

 

Now as we transitioned into 8th GW decided they had to figure out which of the Primarchs made the most sense to bring back into the fold as the Cicatrix Malediction would explode, and a massive threat would push on towards terra. With tht they decided on Guilliman and as a direct result we see more 'rules' and unit depth for Ultra's. But to me this is largely, and almost completely based on Guilliman. So for every day play it means little.

 

on the table top, once GW nerfed BG and the toys he surrounded himself (as a result knocking GK down a good peg as well) and we still saw Raven Guard as a strong showing on the tournament scene.

 

But overall, in 8th, I really like the effect of chapter tactics. It needs expansion for everyone though. I personally think only the truly deviated codexes need a ton of special rules and their own book: Sometimes BA even borders on being a Codex Chapter. Wolves and DA are definitely in their own cloud as far as I'm concerned.

 

Regardless I think we all like to see special and cool things for our favourite chapters. I just think GW is beyond that level of attention now. I think new models is the biggest motivator nowadays. Back in the day we saw rules for models that didn't exist! It was up to the hobbiest to put those ideas to practice. Nowadays it's about new units driving the need for new rules. In other words, (again my words here:) It doesn't matter how 'deserving' we think our favourite chapters are of special rules. If it doesn't move new models, it's probably not happening.

 

Don't forget the order of things at GW: The design team makes a model, hands it to the rules team, and then a new rule is created.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

You said BA border on being codex SM... OMG you better hope no BA players read this.

[Nova_Dew]

You said BA border on being codex SM... OMG you better hope no BA players read this.

A BA player just read this and it's not too much of a stretch, we have our differences but thanks to 8th being 8th assaulting is dicey and not always your best option, we tend to be red codex marines that are slightly better in CQC and a tendency to pyromania, and have to use aura's on aura's with special characters out the wazoo, yay small detachments or burning cp's to get the HQ and elite choices we need with the cp's we dont have and have only one way to get back :(

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Tbh I rarely if ever see anyone play BA like vanilla much less field something like a Stalker. This is actually one of the best editions for melee since 3rd edition imo .

[Nova_Dew]

which is odd, if you ask me BA's are kinda Vanilla +1, we get the standard SM gun line going on with better CQC and the units to do that. As for taking a Stalker, the Hunter is better iirc, gets the +1 to hit flyers but no -1 against non flyers (unless errata'd), might not hit as hard but is more versatile and personally it looks better too

[Daigo Cannon]

I just hate how we are roll over from the sale point of view.

 

Tooth and claw, 2-3 free wolf upgrades

Aggressors, free DA upgrade I believe intercessor came with 2

Hellblaster, free 2 BA upgrades, I believe there was a intercessor or aggresors box with free upgrade too

Wake the dead NO UM upgrade

And as mentioned, UM upgrade sprue is $2 above the other upgrade sprues.

[Canadian_F_H]

Yeah I noticed that. IDK why they did that. Of all things that's a legit gripe if I've ever seen one. It's such a simple spru and the other big 3 chapters do get theirs free in at least 1 box of some kind.

 

Like, I understand why my BT upgrades are expensive. Have you ever seen what comes in that box? It's amazing, and I legitimately wish upon anybody the joy of a box of bits that chock full of goodies.

 

But those other chapter spru that came about recently are all simple and roughly equivalent, so I really don't understand why some are bundled free with a squad while the UM one isn't...

[Daigo Cannon]

Correct, if an ugrade BOX came in with as much stuff as the BT for UM i will definetively will buy one, BT has so much in it.

[SickSix]

Lets get one thing straight, if UM deserve a codex they are at the absolute BOTTOM of the list. Black Templars, White Scars, Raven Guard and then even lots of successors would follow with more justification than Ultras.

 

To beat a dead horse, being the template or 'poster boys' is going to come with drawbacks.

 

But UM don't get insufficient support, nor are they over supported. It's mainly a perception problem that any Space Marine generic release is VIEWED as an Ultras release becuase GW is going to paint it blue. So do UM has sexy exclusive units? No. But do they always have the most up to date rules? Yes. Do they get access to every new Space Marine general release? Yes.

 

Ultras are just fine.

[Subtleknife]

Lets get one thing straight, if UM deserve a codex they are at the absolute BOTTOM of the list. Black Templars, White Scars, Raven Guard and then even lots of successors would follow with more justification than Ultras.

 

To beat a dead horse, being the template or 'poster boys' is going to come with drawbacks.

 

But UM don't get insufficient support, nor are they over supported.

 

Ultras are just fine.

I disagree. I would not place one first founding above another. All can easily be made unique, hell just look at deathguard...all it takes is one release and they suddenly add a lot more flavour to the faction. All it would take is GW to decide to do it and there would be plenty of avenues to explore.

[Ishagu]

Ultras are one of the original big 4.

[Kinstryfe]

Possibly controversial opinion: UM do just fine specifically because they get access to everything, and because their whole schtick is having access to everything. Their rules are also in a pretty good place: theoretically useful in many situations but not insane, and pretty sensible for Astartes. I think that if anything, a nice upgrade sprue like what some other chapters get could be argued for, but we've seen that aside from the Ultima a lot of Ultramarines aesthetic elements tend to get worked into standard kits like Sternguard or even things like the crested Sergeant head in the MkIV kit, reinforcing the whole Ultras-are-the-standard problem that keeps them from standing out more. I'm not sure how to fix that.

 

Second possibly controversial opinion: yes there are a lot of Marine codexes (marines, green marines, red marines, silver marines, black marines, hairy marines...) but there should perhaps be more than one "generic" Marine codex. I feel bad saying it, but I'd give first priority to the sons of Dorn. Three of the chapters in C:SM are Dorn's geneseed, so it makes sense in my mind. Especially since Templars are possibly the most different chapter this side of Fenris so would probably benefit the most from a differentiation.

[Ishagu]

Imo it should be like it's done in the Horus Heresy.

 

One book for all the shared, generic units. A second seperate book for all the unique stuff. The entire marine range can be condensed into two books this way

 

You could update the books individually this way, adding to all factions simultaneously, re-balancing all units at the same time.

[Subtleknife]

Imo it should be like it's done in the Horus Heresy.

 

One book for all the shared, generic units. A second seperate book for all the unique stuff. The entire marine range can be condensed into two books this way

 

You could update the books individually this way, adding to all factions simultaneously, re-balancing all units at the same time.

Yep I agree that this would be the best way. That way everyone can feel special.