The day has finally come, the iconic space marine is no more. Please indulge me as I say goodbye to a dear friend.
In a sad day that we have all seen coming for a long, long time, GW has ceased production of the remaining non-Primaris kits and their associated vehicles. The humble Tactical Squad, after nearly 28 years of stalwart service, is no more. The kits depicting the MKVII and MKVIII armor patterns have finally ridden their Rhinos into the sunset, taking their Whirlwinds, Vindicators and Predators with them. And with their departure a chapter of my hobby life closes. I think long-time hobbyists will understand what I am feeling, but to anyone else, it is not unlike graduating college, hitting a round number birthday, or having kids. Things will never be the same.
Without Hyperbole, the Space Marine Tactical Squad is the single most important kit Games Workshop ever produced. GW has never posted actual sales data for individual items, but anecdotal evidence from former staff and store managers claims that Space Marines would frequently accounted for as much as 60% of a GW store’s sales during the aughts, with Tactical Squad boxes frequently outselling entire ranges. It is hard to overstate how much fuel this single box contributed to GW’s meteoric rise.
What made this box so era-defining? Space Marines were already the most popular faction in Warhammer 40K and the Tactical Squad was the backbone of the army, but this was also a golden era of modeling, hobby-craft and general creativity for 40K and it’s players. GW catered to hobbyists as much as players, which is an important distinction. Books such as the Citadel Miniatures Modeling Guide (1994) and How to Make Wargames Terrain (1996) showed a commitment by GW to grow the hobby skills of its customers, not just their collections. Space Marine lore made them the perfect army for customization because there were hundreds more chapters than had ever been described – hobbyists could let their imaginations run wild creating their own, unique army. In 40K’s 4th edition this was taken to the next level, where players could actually create custom “rules loadouts” to represent their homebrew chapter. Now the ability to customize your Space Marines was
It is hard to express the paradigm shift that the hard plastic, multi-pose Tactical Squad represented when they were released as part of Warhammer 40K’s Third Edition in 1998. Sure, the RTB01 Space Marines had been hard plastic and multi-pose, but they were more than twenty years old and long out of production. Sculpted by the immortal Jes Goodwin, this new kit was a modeler’s dream. There were MKVI legs and helmets alongside the MKVII armor. Bolt Pistols, knives and pouches had come with Tactical Marines since the 80s, but now there were scopes, grenades, purity seals and auspex scanners. Hobbyists could mix armor marks and equipment to make whatever meta story we wanted. As if this cornucopia were not enough, other plastic kits were released alongside the Tactical Squad, all with interchangeable parts. Devastators and Assault marines could swap nearly all their parts to make nearly anything a hobbyist could want.
As the years went by, GW improved upon and “remastered” the Tactical Squad several times, improving the design and adding more bits, more wargear and customization. Molded banners replaced bare banner poles, hands molded onto arms gave way to hands molded onto weapons for better assembly. In its final incarnation the kit contained a variety of pistols and combi-weapons for sergeants, enough options to make an entire MKVI marine, including torso and shoulder pads, and every special weapon available to Tactical Squads in the codex.
So what happened? There is no one thing that lead the downfall of the Tactical Squad kit, and there likely will never be a definitive answer, especially with how opaque Games Workshop is as a company. Many will point to the advent of Primaris Marines, but I think they, like the End Times for Warhammer Fantasy, are a symptom of something larger, not a mere whim. My personal feeling is that gradually in the 2010s GW began de-prioritized bringing new players into the hobby and increasingly prioritized selling things to their existing user base. Put another way: Instead of getting new players to buy the same products, they got the same players to buy new products. Statistically, most of these players already had at least one Space Marine army, so how do you get them to make a new one? You make new Space Marines.
This past Saturday morning my eight year old son sat down next to me and said “Dad, I really want to put together and army for a game.”
You are unlikely to see an “In Memoriam” post on Warhammer Community for the once revered Space Marine. If you go to the Warhammer store you will see hundreds of items listed under Space Marines, in stock and ready for purchase. But do not be fooled; the Space Marine is gone, extinct. I expect few to understand, but those miniatures for sale are not Space Marines. Those are Primaris Marines. And the maligned, misused, disparaged miniatures that have been consigned to legend, those are Space Marines! They deserve no execrable “first born” moniker. In truth they were not even the first, but they were the best and they will be remembered, by me and my sons, at least.
