Brother Tiberius was curious about becoming a Primaris Marine and the perks that come with it. He just may regret ever asking.
Brother Tiberius of the Crimson Fists sits down in the recruiting office with the Mechanicus Genewright to review his options. The chair he is in is larger than he is and wonders why the Mechanicus like blowing things out of proportions.
“Well Brother Tiberius, it says here you’re a Rynn’s World veteran, you got the Marksman’s Cross three times in the Orkicide sorties of the Geminid Belt, and you served as company standard bearer with distinction on three campaigns in the outer rim pirate star cluster. It looks like you’re an ideal candidate for late stage Primaris gene therapy,” stated the Adept.
“My duty is my life,” Tiberius nodded.
“Yes, of course. We all have our place in the Imperium. Do you have any questions for me, before I submit your paperwork?” asked the Adept.
“Yes actually… I know my chapter was decimated by Orks and is fatally under-strength, but why should we rebuild it completely with Primaris Marines? Is there anything wrong with being a normal marine? Actually, I guess the better question is, what are the perks of being a Primaris Marine?”
“Oh it’s great! You get a second wound!” replied the Adept excitedly.
“Well I saw that, and it’s nice, but I also saw that even though Primaris Marines are all two wounders. There’s also half as many of them in a squad, so doesn’t that kind of even out?”
“Well you also get a bolt rifle. It’s a bolter but with better range and a point of armor penetration. So that’s just mathematically superior to a normal bolter,” stated the Adept rather matter-of-factly.
“But that’s a situational upgrade at best. I mean sure, if a bunch of Chaos Terminators teleport into the middle of my battle line it would be nice to see them get knocked down a peg to a 3+ save, but again, you only have half as many bolt rifles. 5 Primaris Marines with 5 bolt rifles is not really equal to 10 normal marines with 10 bolters in most situations,” Tiberius replied.
“But the ten marines don’t have a rend,” the adept fired back.
“But they have twice as many shots. And if there’s a captain standing near them, they have more dice to re-roll if they get ones. They get more value out of force multipliers.”
“But if they get shot they die in one hit,” the Adept replied, feeling rather annoyed by now.
“They have literally the same number of wounds in the unit as half their number in Primaris Marines,” said Tiberius. “And if they get hit by supercharged plasma or autocannons, the Primaris Marines still die in one shot.”
“Well there’s other perks.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” asked Tiberius, bracing himself.
“There’s Gravis Armor for officers. You get an extra point of toughness and a power fist with a really cool pistol on it.”
“Well I like the fist gun and the T5, yea, that’s great,” said Tiberius. “But does it teleport?”
“No.”
“Can it ride a bike?”
“No.”
“Jump pack?”
“No.”
“Oh, so you have to hop out of a Land Raider then.”
“No, you have to walk. No Primaris Marine can ride in any space marine vehicle. Except the Thunderhawk.”
“But that’s just dumb…… The Thunderhawk is like a Russian nesting doll. You put marines inside of Rhinos then you drop the Rhinos out of the Thunderhawk. You don’t just walk straight out the front door of a Thunderhawk. You can fit a tank in it. You can drop tanks out of Thunderhawks,” said Tiberius, dumbfounded by what he has just heard.
“Primaris Marines always walk. Until they get a fancy new Primaris tank,”
“But we have Land Raiders and Stormravens… And Stormravens are really good this edition.”
“Well when you’re a Primaris Marine, you’ll be too tall to ride in one,” clearly stunned that Tiberius isn’t understanding.
“What about drop pods?”
“Nope.”
“You mean to tell me that the drop pod, the signature space marine insertion strategy, is not valid for Primaris Marines? Are they even really marines at that point? What’s the point of even showing up if you’re not falling out of the sky at the speed of sound in a one-way brick and popping the doors off guns blazing?”
“Sometimes it’s nice to take a walk.”
“In a swamp full of Nurgle crap and fart gas while the Death Guard is shooting you?”
“Well what’s the alternative?” the Adept asked, clearly exasperated.
“Riding in a Land Raider. Or a Rhino. Or a Razorback. Or a Stormraven. Or a drop pod.”
“Mechanized infantry is so 20th century. This is the 41st millennium! Stop and smell the flowers!”
“You are actually just insane, aren’t you?” asked Tiberius as he starts to rise from his oversized chair.
“Honestly, once Cawl got credit for everything for the last ten thousand years I pretty much completely checked out,” the Adept shrugged.
“Well, cancel my application for the Primaris program,” commanded Tiberius.
“Fine. You’ll just be the last guy in your chapter that isn’t a Primaris Marine and it’ll be really awkward when you’re the short guy at the dinner table.”
“Yea, I’m not worried about that. There’s this great new tank called the Rhino, maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s kind of a big deal in space marine army lists. I’ll be sitting in the back of one while these new kids are all walking to the battle.”
