…because nothing someone who hates Space Marines can do will ever top the humiliation of the Primaris Firestrike Servo-turret as meted out by Games Workshop’s own hand. If the Primarch hates its favored sons so, what chance do you stand?
What is it that makes Space Marines attractive? For me, it’s their atavistic nature combined with high technology. A Space Marine is a member of an actual knightly order, talking the medieval talk and walking that ancient warrior walk. Even in peace, they live the lives of martial monks. In war, their arms and panoply harkens back to their ancient roots, but much more advanced: power armor as impervious against small arms as plate was against bows and bolters as devastating as a longsword brought against the bowman.
Much like a knight starts out as a squire, so do Space Marines take to their duties early in life, inducted as mere teens. A knight focuses their activities on training and fighting; a Space Marine takes it to the core of their being as they get psycho-indoctrinated and bulked out with implants.
And then you put one of these superhuman knights into an almost-mobile turret.
In which shots are fired from a different platform
Warhammer 40,000 has long-ago stopped being a satire – especially so when it comes to writing Space Marines. The tongue doesn’t even exist in the same physical plan the cheek. I read the 9E codex to confirm. So when Games Workshop puts an Astartes on a glorified Sabre Gun Platform, it expects you to take it seriously, like the coolest thing to have happened to turretkind.
Though if the store description and mere two mentions (once in fluff, once in the actual sheet) in the Codex are anything to go by, the writers seem to understand when they have a turd on their hands.
The nonsense of the Firestrike Servo-turret goes beyond putting your transhuman special forces forces into an immobile platform that nullifies most of their strength. No, the kicker at the end of the day is that this thing is mobile. Look at the stupid plates at the end of if its legs. Those are supposed to be antigravity plates like those on a Land Speeder and all the ugly Primaris tanks.
This insult to the legacy of tarantula turrets can fly (now).
Setting aside a worse “movable fortification” than the dumb Tau flying wall, the rules that Firestrike Servo-turret has been blessed with says that it moves 3″. Mounted on an 80mm base, this thing hops forward less than the length of its base. It is an insult to the mere concept of motion.
Firestrike Servo-turret also comes in units of threes, just in case you wanted to make sure that your opponent can’t miss the blob of 24″ lascannons helplessly hopping down the table, hoping to see a vehicle one day.
Ceramitemanning my own argument
Now, this isn’t the only dumb Space Marine unit out there. Since GW loves producing Astartes only slightly more than it loves selling books, the years have seen some awful things happen:
- Now this is pod racing
- Skrillex’ Own Tesla
- Open cockpit walker syndrome patient zero
- Grogu Marines
- Drop chickens
- Woof woof woof for the woof time
- Triumph of need to sell models over aerodynamics
- Sentinel by Fischer-Price
- Triumph of need to sell models over aerodynamics: Furry edition
- Who let G.I. Joe fuck the Deathstorm?
However, none of them even come close to the “mobile on a technicality” turret.
Granted, there are some classical models that are fairly silly even if you accept the premise that it’s OK to get into power armor and rush into melee.
For example, this sorry bastard:
If you agree that Space Marines should ride motorcycles into battle without the intent to dismount, then giving them a heavy weapon platform isn’t a terrible idea.
It is, however, fairly awful to put it in a side car and only give it two weapon options.
There was nothing stopping GW from renewing the kit to actually have options as well as non-stunty Marines. Nothing prevented them from remaking it into an actual tricycle, especially to upset the Squat fans who hadn’t seen a trike for sale since the early 90s.
With that in mind, once the Primarines got their own (and very bitchin’) bikes, the ATV didn’t look like too terrible a replacement for the Attack Bike:
In summary: Primaris Firestrike Servo-turret is a contrastless land
In the world of dumbshit Primaris designs and awful fan kitbashes, Primaris Firestrike Servo-turret stands out as the epitome of bullshit. Conceptually stupid, having no place in the lore and getting no love even among the least brain-burdened whales, it the most overcomplicated model of a dumpster fire in the world.