Primarch

Several of the Primarchs at the Triumph of the Ullanor Crusade. From left to right: Sanguinius, Mortarion, Magnus the Red, Angron, Jaghatai Khan, Lorgar, Rogal Dorn, Horus, and Fulgrim. The first traitor, the greatest traitor, the champions of the chaos gods and the defenders of Terra. But the real impressive thing here is how that balcony is still standing

"Man must become stronger, more profound and more evil."

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

"There is but one good, and that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to him and bad when it turns from him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels."

– C.S. Lewis

"Et tu, Brute?"

– Julius Caesar

The Primarchs were the twenty (-one) genetically-engineered sons of The Emperor and the female Perpetual Erda. Using both His and her DNA in their creation, the Primarchs were designed to be far superior to even Space Marines the Adeptus Custodes: they were taller, stronger, faster and more intelligent. Artificial Perpetuals, to replace the Perpetuals that refused to be a part of His great plan throughout history. Certainly faster and stronger, but the intelligence they display, especially in the Horus Heresy books, seem to be limited to their own specialties, making them oddly normal in some cases and fatally underdeveloped in other areas; the more successful among them, like Russ and Corax, knew how to apply those specialties in various situations, while others, like Angron, just brute-forced their way through situations using their talents like a (War)hammer(40k), but a few like Guilliman and Lion, actually knew how to account for the opposition. Dorn, at least, knew a fair bit about how his brothers waged war, he just didn't care and stuck with what he knew best. They were also incredibly charismatic and were well suited to their role as the generals and leaders of the Imperium of Man.

Problem was, despite all that they were only human, and ultimately their sibling rivalries (and Chaos corruption, in the case of several of them) boiled over and ultimately developed into the Horus Heresy.

Creation of the Primarchs

Horus Lupercal being made Warmaster of the Imperium in Ullanor. From center counter-clockwise: Horus, the Emperor, Magnus, Mortarion, Lorgar, Angron, Jaghatai Khan, Rogal Dorn, Rogal Dorn's mustache, Fulgrim and Sanguinius.

The Primarchs began as a continuation of the Emperor’s Thunder Warrior legions. Each of the 20 proto-legions were led by a general analogue called a Primarch. Unlike the later leaders of the Legiones Astartes, the thunder warrior Primarchs were the same as the troops they led and were hand picked by the Emperor for their skill and command ability. The instability (both physical, genetic, and mental) of the thunder warriors led the Emperor to try and find more stable and powerful generals to lead his armies. It can be safely assumed that the original Primarchs were killed in the line of duty or purged before history could record them thoroughly. The only one named thus far was Ushotan of the 4th Legio Cataegis - then known as the Iron Lords. Valdor considered him almost an equal in terms of his martial and command ability but was disturbed by his innate bloodlust and susceptibility to the then nascent effects of Chaos.

The modern Primarchs were created in a secret underground laboratory on what used to be the Himalayas, under the tightest security. All of them were derived from a subset of both the perpetual Erda and the Emperor's DNA that served as a template, which was altered differently for each of the Primarchs; it is also thought that he engineered them spiritually as well using long-forgotten psychic techniques. As the Raven Guard discovered after the Emperor granted them access to the original data from the Primarchs' creation, many of the Primarchs' gene-samples were wildly divergent from the original template- some had long gene sequences deleted, while others had non-human DNA spliced into them for reasons only known to the Emperor. (A particularly intriguing discovery was one sample labeled "Subject VI", which had extensive amounts of canine DNA added to it.) All of them were given names that probably will never be revealed.

A feature all the Primarchs shared was a special artificial organ called the Immortis Gland. Also known as the "God-Maker", this little thumbnail-sized beauty plugged into their brain cortex was what turned a bunch of unborn babies into near-deities. The organ was separated into two parts: the Dextrophic Lobe, which enhanced their strength, reflexes and size to extreme levels and the Sintarius Lobe, whose functions are mostly unknown, but seem to have controlled their growth speed and long lifespans, while also empowering the Dextrophic Lobe further. All information about the Sintarius Lobe was [DATA EXPUNGED] from the records for uncertain reasons after the Primarchs were scattered. Cawl would later recreate the Dextrophic half of the Immortis Gland as the Magnificat, the organ that makes the Primaris Marines bigger and stronger than their older bros.

The Primarchs also appear to have had some significant Warp phuckery go into their creation, as it is mentioned by several of them at different points during the HH series that they are obviously creatures of the Warp in some regard. Their physical and mental capabilities are all far beyond what even the Custodes are capable of, and all of them are theorized to have been latent psykers. Essentially, their true innate natures are probably fairly similar to those of the Daemon Primarchs, but for whatever reason their physical forms all appear to have curbed their psychic potential to a significant degree (except for Magnus). This can be most evidently seen by the transformation of Corvus Corax during his ten thousand year hunt in the Eye of Terror. He's gone from being a flesh and blood being to a shapeshifting shadow creature capable of roflstomping Daemon Lorgar as easily as he did when they were both material beings. It is also apparent by his various feats that Magnus did not appear to have become particularly more powerful upon his ascension to Daemonhood, while all of the other Daemon Primarchs did. This is likely because Magnus had already pretty thoroughly explored his own psychic potential, and so Tzeentch wouldn't have had much left to unlock. Mortarion, Fulgrim, Angron and Lorgar, on the other hand, all gained a significant amount of power, both physical and psychic, upon transforming. Even Angron, whose patron deity hates psykers, was still tremendously physically empowered by Khorne. Additionally, the Emperor seemingly was not able to either manufacture more Primarchs outside of his original 20 (21 if you count whatever created Omegon), and he appeared not to be capable of replacing or healing those who already existed. This could also be explained by the Emperor's extreme nonchalance when it came to more than a few of his Primarchs, but there are a fuckton of situations in which the ability to create either more Primarchs or replacement pieces for them would have come in quite handy. The two most obvious examples are the two Lost Primarchs; apparently the Emperor either decided not to replace them or was unable to do so, yet the loss of two Primarchs was undoubtedly nothing to sniff at. The same could be said of Angron, whose brain had been so badly mangled by the Butchers Nails when the Emperor found him that he was already a half rabid monster. However, the Emperor apparently was not able to help him.

The Master of Mankind raises his eighteen babies as devoted father. The truth is less kawaii desu.

The Emperor's original plan was to have His superhuman creations mature safely in His lab and guide them from 'birth' toward the role He'd foreseen for them. However, in a retcon, Erda did not want for her sons what the Emperor had planned for them and herself, and in spite of the safeguards the Emperor had set up, caused the scattering, an event in which the Ruinous Powers were able to spirit the Primarchs away from the laboratory right before they would emerge from their pods and scatter them across the universe (Conveniently, the canine sample was sent to a wolf-planet) Just as planned. The sheer levels of pants-on-head retardation at play in this decision are a genuine marvel of skubbery, but for that rant, feel free to check out Erda's own article. For whatever reason, the Emperor did not punish Erda and she was allowed to live out her immortal life in seclusion, in the remnants of Africa. Somehow, the Emperor knew his sons were still alive but had no clue to where they could be nor any immediate way to search for them. The Alpharius novel indicates that this realization that the Primarchs were still alive was not something the the Emperor came to immediately, as he was overjoyed at finding Alpharius very shortly after the Scattering, as he had previously believed the Primarchs to all have been killed. So after finding Alpharius he took the situation in stride, shrugged it off as a minor setback (unknowingly, this would come to bite him back in the ass nastily later on) and went ahead with the second part of his plan: his Space Marine project. Using DNA samples from each Primarch before they were abducted, the Emperor created twenty legions of Space Marines, in what would later be called the First Founding. They would form the core of the armies He needed to conquer the galaxy, and the absence of the Primarchs leading those would only serve as a motivation for the warriors to search for them. And it was that Cegorach who switched Jaghatai and Fulgrim when they were scattering.

One consequence of the abduction, however was that each of the young Primarchs were forced to adapt to the lifestyle on their new homeworld, something which would influence and mold them throughout their lives. Some, like Guilliman or Dorn, would benefit greatly from their early experiences and be made far better men for having had them. Others, like Curze or Angron, would be irrevocably damaged by their own. The Primarchs rapidly grew to adulthood and quickly rose to power, nearly always becoming the leaders of their world. Some, like the Khan or Perturabo, conquered their worlds by force of arms. Others, like Magnus or Fulgrim, were so clearly just the best person for the job that they were made planetary rulers by popular demand. The only Primarchs who did not come to rule their respective worlds were Angron, who just straight up failed to conquer his, Horus, who was seemingly discovered by the Emperor only a few years after the Scattering and so did not have the time, and Alpharius, who as luck would have it was Scattered right back to Terra and recovered shortly thereafter. As the Emperor crusaded to unify the galaxy he would occasionally stumble upon another long-lost son. When this happened, the Emperor would hold a celebration in honor of this discovery, give the Primarch their Legion to command, then tell them to fuck off and start conquering worlds while he fapped to his favoured offspring. The Emperor was a dick like that. It would seem that surrounding perceptions can shape baby Primarchs' appearances to fit their homeworld's community.

Did the Emperor Love his Sons?

Before we get into the rediscovery of the Primarchs, we need to address this issue. Different writers have different interpretations of the Emperor, and GW never got any of them on the same fucking page. This lead to discrepancies in the various books; in the first duel between Horus and the Emperor for example, the Emperor could not bring himself to kill Horus because he loved him, and it was only after he witnessed Horus callously annihilate Ollanius Pius that he realised his son was gone, allowing him to finally let loose and destroy Horus.

Later authors would contradict this, writers like ADB would go on to claim he never saw the Primarchs as 'sons', just as carefully crafted tools to enforce his will and vision (even referring to them by number instead of name). Even later writers would go on to claim the opposite again, with the Emperor declaring the Primarchs to be his sons in the Siege of Terra series, so fuck if we know what's going on. The issue gets even more confusing when you look at his closest advisors, such as Constantin Valdor and Malcador, who are plagued with the exact same problems, writer to writer. Sometimes they claim the Emperor only saw his sons as tools, other times they do support the idea that he loves his children.

Hopefully one day GW will finally have some consistency, though that's about as likely as hell freezing over.

In case anyone is wondering, Erda claims she always loved the Primarchs, though considering the planets some of them were sent to, this is almost guaranteed to be a bullshit lie or self-deception.

Rediscovering the Primarchs

Originally Horus was the first Primarch to be discovered, but a retcon changed that to Alpharius and had it kept secret. Or did it? With Alpharius and Omegon, it's honestly impossible to tell.

Horus, who would become the Emperor's favoured son, was retconned to maybe being the second Primarch to be found, and the second missing Primarch was stated to be found after Corax in a different retcon. Thankfully these are the only three (or two?) GW fucked with in the order they were found, so the whole list of those being discovered is as follows (dates given by the website for the Horus Heresy tabletop game):

• Before 801.M30: Alpharius/Omegon (speculated)
• 801.M30: Horus
• 819.M30: Leman Russ
• 821.M30: DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS, DAMNATIO MEMORIAE IN PERPETUAM
• 824.M30: Ferrus Manus
• 830.M30: Fulgrim
• 832.M30: Vulkan
• 835.M30: Rogal Dorn
• 837.M30: Roboute Guilliman
• 840.M30: Magnus the Red
• 843.M30: Sanguinius
• 846.M30: Lion El'Jonson
• 849.M30: Perturabo
• 854.M30: Mortarion
• 857.M30: Lorgar
• 865.M30: Jaghatai Khan
• 896.M30: Konrad Curze
• 899.M30: Angron
• 922.M30: Corvus Corax
• 927.M30: DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS, DAMNATIO MEMORIAE IN PERPETUAM
• 981.M30: Alpharius/Omegon (officially)

The majority of Primarchs somehow recognized the Emperor on sight, immediately pledging their allegiance to their father. A few (such as Leman Russ and Vulkan) only swore allegiance after being bested in a contest. The only exception is Angron, who outright refused to follow the Emperor as he preferred to die in battle along with his rebels brothers and sisters in their fight against the oppressive Not-Romans. The Emperor simply shrugged and abducted his son, leaving Angron's followers to get slaughtered. Angron never really got over that dick move.

At the end of the period known as the Great Crusade, Horus, who had recently been promoted to the title of Warmaster, fell to Chaos and rebelled. It didn't take long for eight of his fellow Primarchs to join his side against the Emperor, resulting in the full-scale civil war known as the Horus Heresy. Funnily enough, most of the Primarchs who sided with Horus were those who felt that the Emperor had taken a giant, steaming dump on them. So, regardless of whether the Emperor actually loved his sons or not, and while he is the greatest tactician, biologist, warlord, and leader in the history of mankind; in practice he's worse than a crack-addled transient junkie as a father.

Primarchs and Legions

Legion Number	Name	Title	Homeworld	Legion Name	Allegiance	Current Status
I	Lion El'Jonson	Lord of the First, The Lion	Caliban	Dark Angels	Loyal (THE most)	Active (Formerly Injured), traveling the Imperium Nihilus, founding his own protectorate by making use of his newfound teleportation powers.
II	+++Records expunged+++
III	Fulgrim	The Palatine Phoenix, The Phoenician	Chemos / Callax (allegedly)	Emperor's Children	Traitor	Daemon Prince (Slaanesh)
IV	Perturabo	The Hammer of Olympia, Lord of Iron, The Breaker	Olympia / Medrengard	Iron Warriors	Traitor	Daemon Prince (Undivided)
V	Jaghatai Khan	Warhawk of Chorgoris, The Great Khan, The Khagan	Chogoris/ Mundus Planus	White Scars	Loyal	Missing in the Warp Disappeared into the Webway while hunting Dark Eldar after they raided Chogoris.
VI	Leman Russ	The Great Wolf, The Wolf King	Fenris	Space Wolves	Loyal	Missing in the Warp Disappeared into the Eye of Terror with the 13th company but promised to return one day. Magnus supposedly knows where he is, but he isn't telling. The Wolves found his armor in a Khornate Shrine an armor rumoured to be his on the Temple of Horus on Rudra, implying he either; turned into Wulfen, to Chaos, is dead, or is murdering his way through the warp as a half-naked barbarian. Allegedly a figure resembling him was spotted with the 13th company during the 13th crusade.
VII	Rogal Dorn	The Praetorian of Terra, The Vigilant, The Unyielding One	Inwit	Imperial Fists	Loyal (MEGA DUPER)	Missing (presumed dead) Assumed deceased and certainly missing a hand, disappeared while boarding a Chaos cruiser during a Black Crusade. One of his fists was recovered and its bones were placed in a shrine, where each new Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists engraves their name upon it. Rumored to still be alive, though that begs the question of whose fist is in the Phalanx, though he could just be missing a hand.
VIII	Konrad Curze	The Night Haunter, The Dark King	Nostramo	Night Lords	Traitor	Dead Lost what little sanity he still had after destroying Nostramo. By this time, Konrad stopped justifying his methods to himself and fully embraced the depraved side of his "Night Haunter" persona, spreading untold terror and pain wherever he went. By the time of the late Horus Heresy, the Emperor wanted to put a stop to it and sent a Callidus assassin named "M'shen" after him. Curze knew about her mission from the get-go but he made sure the assassin could reach him unimpeded. He did not resist when she entered his chambers and asked the Callidus to kill him. Initially it was speculated that Konrad realized he became the very thing he sought to rid the galaxy of and knew what had to be done- a perceived hero who lived long enough to see himself become a villain. It turned out that in his view, the assassination vindicated everything he'd ever said and done; he punished and killed evil-doers and now the Emperor used his own methods to kill him, thus proving that all his atrocities were both justifiable and necessary. Whatever the case, Konrad was already a jaded, broken man after the Nostramo debacle and wished only to die. The idea that the Emperor wouldn't have him killed or might even pardon him was horrifying to Curze, as he believed that there would be no justice in such an act.
IX	Sanguinius	The Great Angel, The Brightest One	Baal	Blood Angels	Loyal	Dead Deceased, slain by Horus. Spirit is evidently intact somewhere in the Warp. His body is currently in a stasis crypt in Baal, so his corpse remained fabulous for the last 10,000 years. Commemorated during Sanguinala, a holiday dedicated to his memory.
X	Ferrus Manus	The Gorgon of Medusa	Medusa	Iron Hands	Loyal (Extremely, rivaling The Lion and Dorn)	Dead Deceased, slain by Fulgrim and his head offered to Horus as a gift (which actually horrified him). Fulgrim still has the body, which he repeatedly clones and murders again in a futile attempt to make him turn traitor. Some claim he is still alive on Mars, though he almost certainly isn't.
XI	+++Records expunged+++
XII	Angron	Slave of Nuceria, Red Angel, Lord of the Red Sands	Nuceria	World Eaters	Traitor and the primarch who hated the Emperor the most.	Daemon Prince (Khorne) Spends most of his time Getting Shit Done and being banished to the Warp for a hundred or so years after the Imperium responds to his Blood Crusades.
XIII	Roboute Guilliman	Lord of Ultramar, Avenging Son, The Victorious, The Master of Ultramar, The Blade of Unity	Macragge	Ultramarines	Loyal, barring that one episode he doesn't like to talk about	Active (Formerly Injured), back in his old role of Lord Commander of the Imperium, trying his hardest to keep the Emperor's work from going completely down the drain while while waging an unending war against the forces of Chaos and the Imperium's equally monstrous bureaucracy. Rather unhappy about it all but is keeping his head above water nevertheless.
XIV	Mortarion	The Pale King, The Death Lord, The Prince of Decay (Post-Heresy)	Barbarus / Plague Planet	Death Guard	Traitor	Daemon Prince (Nurgle) Went back to the warp after the Horus Heresy, where Nurgle gave him dominion over the Plague Planet, which he shaped into the image of Barbarus. Was banished by Grey Knights during the Battle of Kornovin, which was the origin of Draigo carving a name onto his plague-ridden heart (how Draigo did so is a mystery, so we'll just chalk it up to him being too high on drugs to be infected by Mortarion's plagues). Helped Abby by creating the zombie plague, along with other contagions, after he got the Hand of Darkness artifact. He eventually got better and waged a full-scale invasion of Ultramar when he heard that Guilliman's finally awake. Had to retreat after he had to deal with the other Chaos Gods' typical shenanigans (mainly encroaching on his strongholds in the Scourge Stars while he was off campaigning).
XV	Magnus the Red	The Crimson King, The Red Cyclops	Prospero / Sortiarius	Thousand Sons	Traitor, though he never planned this	Daemon Prince (Tzeentch) Now a daemon prince, one of his first major campaigns was to invade the Space Wolves' homeworld. Was banished, but the Wolves were all but ruined; most of their upper command structure and progress with stabilizing their flawed gene seed was gone. Feeling they weren't down for the count yet; he went in again and bloodied the entire star system of Fenris itself, irreparably damaging the Wolves' home system. Appeared during the Gathering Storm, where he trapped and captured Guilliman and his retinue in the warp. After he escaped, Magnus chased and confronted Guilliman all the way to Luna, but was banished by the Custodes and Sisters of Silence. Now currently biding his time for another offensive.
XVI	Horus Lupercal	The Lupercal, The Favorite Son	Cthonia	Luna Wolves/ Sons of Horus/ Black Legion	DOUBLE TRAITOR link dead :(	Dead (Maximum) His essence has been erased from existence. When the Emperor mustered up the resolve to finally end Horus, he shot him with a psychic blast powerful enough to obliterate his very soul, ensuring that the Chaos Gods couldn't just bring him back from the dead. His body was recovered and brought to the Eye of Terror, but was later destroyed after an incident involving Fabius Bile and a clone of Horus.
XVII	Lorgar Aurelian	Bearer of the Word, Urizen (Colchisian for "wisest of the wise")	Colchis / Sicarus	Word Bearers	Traitor Prime	Daemon Prince (Undivided) Rules as a daemon prince of Chaos Undivided and currently located in Sicarus, the Word Bearers' home planet. Previously a shut-in NEET that left command to his legion to his Dark Apostles: Lorgar has finally gotten out of his tower and is personally leading the Word Bearers now. He has recently been seen evangelizing about Chaos in the material realm, with a large legion of Word Bearers behind him. Got his ass kicked by a warp-empowered Corax and is doing everything he can to avoid round three.
XVIII	Vulkan	Lord of Drakes	Nocturne	Salamanders	Loyal	Missing (temporarily dead) Curze wanted to get his torture fetish on, so he tortured Vulkan to death. Several times. Vulkan's status as a perpetual ensured he always came back, but less and less sane as Curze's treatment got worse and worse. He eventually managed to escape, but accidentally teleported over Macragge's atmosphere, crashing down on the planet like a green comet of insanity. By this point, anything remotely resembling sanity had left Vulkan's mind. He was eventually "killed" by another perpetual, in a well-meaning attempt to reset Vulkan's brain. It worked (sort of. At least he wasn't a howling maniac anymore) and after taking a short death nap, he got better and disappeared for a while. Resurfaced during The War of The Beast and was recruited to lead the Imperial forces against The Beast's forces. Then disappeared after ramming The Beast into a plasma reactor and killing them both in a squall of gore. The Salamanders claim he continued to lead them for a few more centuries after that death, then left them with the Tome of Fire, claiming he had a special mission that they could not accompany him for.
XIX	Corvus Corax	The Lord of Shadows, The Liberator, The Deliverer, The Raven-Lord, Chooser of the Slain, The Shadowed Lord	Deliverance	Raven Guard	Loyal	Missing (lost in the Warp) Went missing after heading for the Eye of Terror to atone for his sins, saying only "Nevermore" before leaving. His status is currently unknown, but the Raven Guard believe he's still alive and will return once again. In reality, he is indeed alive and hunting his fallen brothers, although the Warp has changed him into a living, shapeshifting shadow.
XX	Alpharius Omegon	Head of the Hydra, Aleph Null, The Hydra, The Threefold Serpent, The Final Configuration, The Last Primarch	Terra and a planet of unknown name, allegedly (both claims likely false)	Alpha Legion	Alpharius: Very loyal. Omegon: even Tzeentch can't keep track.	It's Complicated Alpharius bought the Cabal's story about letting Horus kill all of humanity to kill off the Chaos Gods in the long run, and was eventually beheaded by Rogal Dorn during a battle on Pluto. Maybe. Quite frankly, with these two one can never be entirely sure what the truth really is. Omegon took on his mantle officially ("the jest made real") and this new "Alpharius" may or may not have been killed by Guilliman (the Ultramarines suspect they may have only killed a body double). His loyalties are unknown, but he was against the Cabal's proposal, indicating he either thought sacrificing his entire species was too big of a price (which would mean he's still loyal to humanity), or he wanted Chaos to survive by feeding off humanity (which would mean he was a traitor).

Their Eventual Fates

An accurate retelling of the final stages of the rebellion.

Traitors

• General downside to those who became Daemon Princes is that the further they go from the Eye of Terror, the more their power wanes. Also most of them spend most of their time in the Great Game (eternal war in the Warp), growing increasingly distant from the real world affairs.
• Horus was killed by the Emperor during the Siege of Terra, who utterly destroyed his soul. His legion enshrined his corpse until the Emperor's Children stole it. Fabius Bile managed to successfully clone him, but Abaddon killed the clone to cement his position as his successor as Warmaster of Chaos. While "Horus" is supposedly very dead, which was his fault for being a fuckwit, shards of his soul which were broken off in the Warp remain. Including one in the realm of Khorne...
• Konrad Curze allowed a Callidus assassin to infiltrate his lair and kill him, either because he himself became the thing he hated the most, or to justify to himself that every atrocity he has done in the name of justice was a necessary act. Except...there was that crown he always wore, the one with a stone in it that looked oddly similar to a soulstone...
• The Alpha Legion's story is a bit complex:
  • Alpharius was slain by Rogal Dorn in combat during the Battle of Pluto. He is very much dead as he did not bargain with the Dark Gods and had his head split open by a fellow Primarch's chainsword. Conspiracy theorists will speculate that it wasn't really Alpharius, though the death is strongly corroborated by Omegon's response. So unless Alpharius used a body double to trick Rogal Dorn AND his own twin, into thinking he was dead and allowed Omegon to take his place and identity permanently; (or his twin merly acted as if he had died as part of the ruse, this is the Alpha Legion triple mind gamesa are kinda there thing) there isn't any hard evidence to suggest that the dead "Alpharius" was anything other than the actual Primarch, but knowing the Alpha Legion that doesn't mean too much without definitive proof.

Actually, screw all that. Following the novel "Alpharius Head of the Hydra" it is revealed that Alpharius and Omegon exchanged identities the moment Omegon was found because Alpharius had been instructed by both the Emperor and Malcador to act as the hidden sword of the Imperium ever since he was found immediately after the scattering of the Primarchs; giving credit to that, the Alpharius acting as the public face of the Legion is secretly Omegon, while the one identifying as Omegon is the real Alpharius. Going by this, Alpharius has always been loyal to the Emperor, while Omegon probably believed the Cabal and decided to aid Horus (this would be further confirmed by several novels in the Horus Heresy series that showed entire contingents of Alpa Legion Astartes breaking down into civil war) and died at the hand of Rogal Dorn for that.

• • Omegon reluctantly took Alpharius's identity after he sensed he was dead, and his legion a bee-line for Ultramar after the Horus Heresy, where he met his end after dueling Big Bobby G. However, because the rest of the Alpha Legionaries did not break even after the death of their primarch (in fact they managed to beat the Ultramarines in the conflict altogether); nobody could truly confirm if they did indeed kill the real deal, or if it was a body double.
  • While it's been established that a decent amount of Alpha Legionnaires were surgically altered to resemble their Primarch and even believe they were Primarchs themselves; that and the figurehead role of "Alpharius" has been largely interchangable between both the twins and their sons, which makes sense for a legion whose MO is flexible leadership. While we can be reasonably certain that at least one of the twins is dead, whatever "Omegon-Alpharius" or at least whichever person who thinks he's Alpharius have been up to following the Heresy is a matter of fierce debate and speculation.
  • One warband of the Alpha Legion believes that Omegon is still alive in the 42nd millennium and somehow certain elements of the Necron knows where he is. And there is that one big guy in scaled armor trapped in Trayzn's toybox...
• Angron is a Daemon Prince of Khorne. Still gets shit done, but did get his arse handed to him by the Grey Knights on Armageddon.
• Mortarion is a fucktwit who rarely does anything of interest (still sulking over his eternal existence as the thing he hates the most), but is a Daemon Prince of Nurgle. Apparently now holds the largest domain in the Eye of Terror, rather than just one planet he had in the old fluff. Got some open heart surgery, courtesy of Draigo/Ward. Created zombie plague from one of the artifacts Abbaddon used in his XII crusade. He invaded Ultramar after hearing news that Guilliman's finally awake, though he ultimately had to go back to the Scourge Stars due to his poor fortunes in the war as well as being summoned back by his patron God.
• Fulgrim's soul was trapped in a painting while his body was possessed by a daemon for a brief time before swapping places with the daemon and taking its powers (or so he claims). The first Primarch to become a Daemon Prince, although he aimed at achieving (demi)godhood instead (by sacrificing Perturabo). Abandoned what remained of his legion to rule his pleasure daemon world, and didn't tell them how to get there (yet Abaddon somehow manages to contact him anyway).
• Lorgar is a lazy fucknut who does nothing since they fled to the Eye of Terror, and handed the rule over his legion to the council of Dark Apostles, but still a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Taught Abaddon how to summon daemons. Lost a duel with a powered-up Corax during sometime after the Heresy.
• Perturabo becomes irrelevant after he goes on to drop largely out of post-Heresy fluff, but is still a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Rules the most stable planet in the Eye of Terror, where he does nothing but watching his sons sieging each other. Helps Failbaddon in a couple of Black Crusades by giving him some Daemon Engines. It doesn't really help, but it's more than Lorgar's done for Chaos Undivided. He is also leading his Legion after the 13th Black Crusade in their new offensive against the Imperium.
• Magnus the Red got broken into several pieces during his fight with Leman Russ, with several of them actually believing they were the real Magnus and going their own way. Some pieces were eventually put back together to form "the Crimson King", the Daemon Primarch form of Magnus who joined Horus in his rebellion. This sometimes also gets shit done, leading armies to the Space Wolves' planet and screwing with the Imperium, keeping his big red trollface on all the time until he gets his ass tossed back into the Warp. Other fragments seem to be floating around throughout history, appearing to have their own agenda, pretending to be daemons or helping the Imperium from time to time. By the time of the Gathering Storm and the 42nd Millennium the disparate fragments have mostly recombined to the Crimson King (leaving out a few key elements, namely the ones who embodied his best qualities; for example, the part of Magnus that embodied his love for his Legion chose to fade into nonexistence instead of being reabsorbed into the Crimson King) making him as whole as he can be.

Loyalists

If GeeDubs ever dared to make a multiple outcome final campaign World of Darkness style this will probably be the Golden Ending while respecting all the current canon material.

Sorted from most to least absent:

• It is believed by Mortarion that they are now returning to realspace.
• Sanguinius (as dead as possible) was killed by Horus. His body was recovered, and he's the only Primarch who doesn't have any legends about returning, though there are some theories on the identity of the Sanguinor which were later proven incorrect half correct (he is able to manifest Sanguinius to Dante during the events of the Dark Imperium). Sanguinius foresaw his death and accepted it as a necessary sacrifice for the future of the Imperium, in no small part because his visions also warned him that he would only survive the Horus Heresy by becoming corrupted himself. The trauma of his death by the Talon of Horus left a psychic manifestation of him still on the Vengeful Spirit. As of late it turns out his soul has been wandering the warp ever since, only deciding to make himself known to revive Commander Dante when he ended up as Swarmlord-shishkebab after realizing that you really don't want to get into melee with the Swarmlord a little too late (Dante being Dante, he still managed to banish it to the Hive Mind, showing just how bloody exceptional you have to be for Sanguinius to bother interfering).
• Ferrus Manus (killed normally) was killed by Fulgrim during the Drop Site Massacre. His body was not recovered, so some Iron Hands think he might still be alive, and for a time it seemed like he did survive. However, Vulkan later exposed the "Ferrus Manus" leading the remaining Iron Hands as a marionette-like machine with one of the Primarch's hands attached to it, destroying the fake soon afterwards. The fact that Ferrus was decapitated by Fulgrim after being defeated and had his head delivered to Horus makes this claim fairly dubious. Just don't say that to the Iron Hands, though. Unless you want free open-heart surgery from a ceramite and steel power fist. Fulgrim did try to clone him (several times) in the hope one of them would join the traitors, but every clone so far has refused and been subsequently killed by him. An apparition of an iron handed giant - the 10th son - was seen leading the charge in an army of human souls against an army of daemons when the Emperor entered the Webway).
• Rogal Dorn (missing, presumed killed, definitely injured) disappeared during a Black Crusade in a desperate ship boarding action. Only his severed hand was recovered and its skeleton enshrined. Debate rages about whether the Zerg rush of World Eaters killed him, or whether he's still out there, murdering his way through traitors with an Astartes-pattern shotgun and a chainsword grafted where his hand used to be. Original 40K novels stated his entire skeleton was on display on Terra, but it's been retconned to only his hand. Still, a Primarch without a skeleton would be bad-ass, if not a little amusing.
• Vulkan (dead but perpetual) got the shit kicked out of him during the Drop Site Massacre, whereupon his fluff gets a bit hazy:
  • The old Codex: Space Marines states that his body was never found, only a book containing only the names of nine powerful relics and a bunch of annoying riddles as to where they might be found, penned by Vulkan himself. In the 41st millennium, the Salamanders believe that he is still alive and that collecting the nine relics - they've found five so far - will reveal his location.
  • In the Black Library novels, starting with Vulkan Lives the big V had to be dragged into a Thunderhawk in bloody tatters. Kurze captured him and tortured him to death... repeatedly; as a Perpetual, Vulkan would not stay dead. After an indeterminate amount of time and deaths, Vulkan managed to escape by teleporting himself into orbit around Macragge and reentering its atmosphere. When he recovered and learned that Kurze was planetside, he flipped out and went after him. A well-meaning Perpetual stabbed him with a fulgurite (a spearhead-shaped piece of stone that contains a bit of the Emperor's power), hoping to either cure his madness or kill him for good. Now apparently dead, Vulkan was put in a stasis capsule inscribed with the words "Unbound Flame," with an honor guard of Salamanders until his remains could be returned to Nocturne. As of the end of Deathfire, he somehow managed to return to life again, although there's no indication as to whether or not he's still a Perpetual. As of the War of the Beast, he's still alive in M.32, after the wounding of Guilliman. He's apparently been wandering the Imperium for a millennium fulfilling his own oaths, but returns to Terra to take command and reclaim Ullanor from the united Ork race. Even with one of the greatest forces assembled since the Horus Heresy, with the remnants of the VII Legion Chapters, the fight devolved to Vulkan facing off with The Beast one-on-one, and sacrificing himself in The Beast's temple-gargant's core, detonating it with both himself and The Beast inside it. Whether both of them died is highly unlikely. He hints that Dorn is also alive, meaning he is either privy to some secret information, doesn't know of his brother's death, or is going insane.
  • The 8th Edition Codex reconciles these stories somewhat, by claiming that sources within the Salamanders themselves believe Vulkan led them for three millennia (which accounts for his appearance during the War of the Beast), sometimes falling in battle but apparently always returning (also accounting for his perpetual status). He eventually disappeared on some final undocumented mission, not without leaving his Tome of Fire and bequeathing his personal artefacts to the chapter but not actually saying where they were, giving rise to the legend that if they are all found he will then return.
• Corvus Corax (missing in the Warp on personal business, but we've been told some of said business) disappeared into the Eye of Terror as atonement for putting down the mutant hordes he created in trying to create Space Marines out of desperation. Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore." Beyond the Imperium's eyes, his wraith-slip powers began to mutate and he became a shadowy shapeshifter hellbent on killing all his traitor brothers. Corax was last seen beating Lorgar's ass so hard that the useless fuckwit had to run with his tail between his legs. Yeah, he beat a Daemon Primarch (who had Chaos Marine and likely daemon backup but it was Lorgar so it wasn't much of a fight) into up and running, while Corax himself was on his own. Basically the battle between Guilliman and Magnus on Luna, in reverse. Eat it, Papa Smurf.
• Jaghatai Khan (missing in the Warp on personal business) disappeared into the Webway after chasing a group of Dark Eldar. The White Scars think he will return someday, and when you consider the fact that time is just as weird there as it is in the rest of the Warp, there is a small possibility he's still around.
• Leman Russ (missing in the Warp on personal business) disappeared into the Eye of Terror but promised the Space Wolves that he would return for the Final Battle. Magnus appears to know where he is now, but he sure as hell isn't telling the Space Wolves. Reports during the Thirteenth Black Crusade claim that a figure matching Russ's description was seen leading the 13th Great Company have surfaced, but were never verified. Numerous crusades by the Space Wolves to find Russ have resulted in failure, although they did find his armor in a shrine of Khorne in the Eye an armor believed to be his in the Temple of Horus on Rudra - so either he succumbed to Chaos, was killed by a Khorne champion, devolved into wulfen, or is currently pillaging The Warp as a muscle-bound, half-naked barbarian hero.
• Roboute Guilliman (grievously injured by a Primarch, got better) was formerly preserved in a stasis field, seconds from death after he was poisoned by Fulgrim. Fast-forward a few thousand years and some Eldar flubdubbery, however, and Big Bobby G is back in action, and he's mad at the current state of the Imperium. After a private meeting with the Emperor, he assumed direct command of the Imperium itself as Lord Commander of the Imperium. When he isn't curb-stomping traitors to death or otherwise trying to keep the Imperium afloat, Guilliman is busy re-vamping the Imperium with numerous reforms in an attempt to realize his father's dream for humanity. Needless to say; a lot of people are unhappy about this, but they can't exactly tell off one of the Emperor's actual sons and expect not to be on the business end of a Custodes guardian spear. He's also taken the time to rewrite the Codex Astartes as well.
• Lion El'Jonson (grievously injured by a Space Marine, got better) returned to Caliban only to discover that his friend Luther had stabbed him in the back. THAT LUTHER HAD A PLANET-WIDE PARTY AND EVENTUALLY PASSED OUT INTO A COMA AFTER DRINKING 200 TANKARDS OF SPACE WOLF-GRADE ALCOHOL. He sleeps deep within the Rock, originally on life support and now fully-healed (but none of the Dark Angels seem to know this). The Arks of Omen saga revealed that he's actually been active for some time, having aged considerably and having adjusted some. Nowadays he leads a pack of redeemed traitors in protecting as much of the Imperium Nihilus as he can. He has yet to meet Roboute, though he's aware that Big Blue's alive.

Two Missing Primarchs | The Forgotten & The Purged

Who are the two missing Primarchs, you ask? Sigmar Heldenhammer and Archaon (depending on how WHFB fits in with 40K, if it does). Or maybe (per /tg/ canon) Rachnus Rageous and Tialoc Ekans. Samus and Guts are also contenders, and many Bolter and Chainsword regulars consider Icarion and his Lightning Bearers to be their headcanon II Legion.

The Legions in question are the Legio II (Second Legion) and the Legio XI (Eleventh Legion).

What, you wanted a serious answer?

Okay, fine. Nobody really knows. It is very intentional that no lore exists about these two legions, making them completely unknown. References to their existence are common in canon, but no details are ever explicitly mentioned. This is a feature of the lore, an intentionally kept mystery whose details provide more questions than answers. What has been established is that they got killed for some reason and the existence of their Legions was wiped from record by the Emperor. Malcador the Sigillite claims that the Primarchs had been manipulated from the start, and were to be maneuvered into their proper roles prior to the Horus Heresy and those which would not be manipulated would be removed. Although Malcador's own testimony is tainted by the fact that he later admits he had to lie, though many of his statements do mirror what we have seen from the Emperor's own statements.

Games Workshop have mentioned Primarchs besides the eighteen above on other occasions, but they backtracked since. Back in the first edition of Warhammer 40,000, all twenty First Founding Chapters were known, as were their Primarchs (though, at the time, the Primarch was just the first Chapter Master). Of these, the Valedictors and Rainbow Warriors were declared in a later White Dwarf to have been founded after the Second Founding.

Later, in the short story Hell in a Bottle from the novel Into the Maelstrom, a chapter known as the Iron Hearts get fucked over by a Chaos Lord. The short story also mentions that the Chapter has a Primarch known as Rubinek. Of course, this was just a huge cock-up on the author's part, who himself admitted that he meant Chapter Master.

The [REDACTED] Event

• The First Heretic shows that by the Razing of Monarchia (43 years before the Isstvan V Drop Site Massacre of 006.M31), the II and XI Legions had already been stricken from the records. It also states that the remaining Primarchs had to swear an oath never to speak of their missing brothers and that the missing Primarchs' corresponding legions were personally purged by the Emperor, so it had to have been something extraordinarily bad. However, Lorgar still remembers something about them, saying "I still remember how they-", before Magnus cut him off. Lastly, it is revealed that the Emperor had considered purging Lorgar and the Word Bearers (making them the third legion to be purged) for starting a religion around him, but Russ had talked him out of it. #BlameLemanRuss
• In The Lightning Tower Rogal Dorn says that the lost Primarchs' disappearances were "separate tragedies", so it seems like they disappeared in two different incidents.
• In Descent of Angels, which takes place as of the time Lion El'Jonson had been rediscovered, Chief Librarian Israfael tells the then initiate, Zahariel El'Zurias, that the Lion has 19 brothers; indicating that as of that time they had not committed whatever atrocity lead to their demise. This also means that the existence of the Primarchs was not a secret among the Imperium.
• In Dark Imperium, Roboute Guilliman declares "I was one of twenty. Two failed. Half the rest turned on my Father." This suggests that the downfall of the two lost primarchs was not a result of them betraying the Emperor. Instead their demise was a result of them "failing" their purpose as primarchs and being terminated as a result. Interestingly this line also seems to imply that it is no longer forbidden to speak of the two missing primarchs in the 42nd milenium, as Guilliman casually references them to make a point about primarchs being fallible. (The 2021 revision of the book adds a bit more to this; it looks like the Imperium has covered up the fact that there were even two deleted Legions and Primarchs in the first place.)
• The Chamber at the End of Memory has Rogal Dorn note that he was one of the few Primarchs who ever met with the II and XI Primarchs. It also reveals that not only was the entire Imperium forbidden to speak of the missing Primarchs' existence, but every non-Primarch save for Malcador who had ever interacted with them was mind-wiped so they would remember nothing about them - including their own gene-sons, presumably other than the fact that they were purged from all record and be left unable to speak even about that. Even the other Primarchs had their memories altered so they couldn't recall much more about their lost brothers beyond the fact that they existed - Dorn is dumbstruck by this discovery, and even more so when Malcador tells him that it was his own idea (and Roboute Guilliman's) to have his fellow Primarchs' memories altered. Malcador also states that whatever it was that the II and XI Primarchs did, it was against the very ideals of the Great Crusade and would have ruined everything the the Great Crusade had accomplished to that point. Their old living quarters in the Imperial Palace are protected by extremely powerful psychic wards, and when Malcador briefly restores Rogal Dorn's memories of them he realizes the hateful truth. That the entire Horus Heresy up to the Siege of Terra was not so awful or threatening to the Imperium as what had happened to the Missing Primarchs; in fact, if they were still alive, the Imperium would have long since fallen.
• Deliverance Lost suggests that whatever happened to the missing Primarchs occurred sometime before the Emperor found Corvus Corax, as Corax asked the Emperor why there were only sixteen other Primarchs waiting for him if he was the nineteenth (it's unsure whether this was referring to him being the Primarch of the nineteenth Legion, or him being the nineteenth found); the Emperor avoided the question, claiming that "it would be a discussion for another day". This is no longer the case, somehow, as he is now the third-to-last primarch found, right before the second missing primarch.
• In Prospero Burns, Leman Russ mentions that the Space Wolves had fought other Space Marines before the attack on Prospero, which may have something to do with the purge. A senior Space Wolf describes Russ' "wyrd" as being "the Emperor's executioner". Several books since have backed this up, though ADB denies this.
• In Scars there's a reference to rumours and "whispers of past atrocities" that only a Primarch could kill another Primarch. Russ also turns up and talks a bit about fighting Magnus, and the resulting "shame". So if he's responsible for offing one or two of his brothers, they must've done something pretty fucking heinous.
• In The Dark King, when asked if he will report the Night Lords for censure, Dorn remarks that he feared to add another empty statue to the Emperor's palace, implying that the missing legions were exterminated for committing severe atrocities.
• In The Last Council Malcador states that one of the missing Primarchs was fallen and disgraced. Alpharius mentions that one of the primarchs had died. While the lost Primarchs and their Legions were wiped before he was rediscovered, its Alpharius....you can't keep info like that from him.
• Their legions were purged in the times of the Rangdan Wars they participated in.
• In The Wolftime, which is set during the Indomitus Crusade, two Adeptus Custodes are discussing the Space Wolves' resistance to their new Primaris Marine reinforcements. During the discussion, one of them, Hastius Vychellan, notes that, if Roboute Guilliman turned on the Emperor, the Space Wolves would be among his first opponents, as the Custodes' history with the Eleventh Legion demonstrates. The other, Maldovar Colquan, notes that this shared history is an example of how loyalty to the Emperor can be corrupted by lies and manipulation. It's quite vague, but the implication is obvious: someone manipulated the XI Legion into turning traitor without them realising it, and the Space Wolves (and likely the Custodes as well) went after them for it. The book doesn't say who manipulated them, but since Malcador mentions in The Chamber at the End of Memory that the lost Legions' Marines were spared and re-used after their deletion, but the Primarchs weren't, it's possible it was the XI Primarch.

Name of one of the missing Primarchs

• In The Last Council, Horus (who had been outraged by the erasure of his brothers from Imperial records) struggles to mutter the name of one of the lost Primarchs while Malcador is using his psyker powers to seize his nerves so as to prevent him from saying it. Horus managed to say"M-Mal...al...", which pissed Malcador off to the point that it required Alpharius and the Khan to convince Malcador not to kill him outright. Obviously people looking for connections immediately found one in Malal, the fact that hearing the name made Malcador remember something that stirred up a spiteful hate (Malal's primary emotional aspect), and the fact that Malal's favourite/sacred number is 11 (the number for one of the missing Legions, and the Roman numeral for "2" can be seen as two "1's,") there may be some circumstantial connection to the Anti-Chaos Chaos God (ignoring the fact that copyright caused GW to change Malal's name to Malice).

(50% Horus was just trying to say “Malcador” and couldn't finish it due to the force choke 50% Game's workshop is trolling us, others contend that Horus was trying to say "Har... har... harder.")

II Primarch

• The 2nd Primarch was the third Primarch rediscovered. After Leman Russ, but before Ferrus Manus.
• Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix mentions that the 2nd Legion's "normally contemplative", "quiet" and "humorless" Primarch had accused Fulgrim of arrogance for boasting he would bring a world under compliance with only eight total Astartes (& that Fulgrim considered the remark high hypocrisy, even bringing to mind the old adage of pots and kettles), which means that at least one missing Primarch was found early enough to have some kind of interaction with his brothers and make a contribution to the Great Crusade (being 3rd in line after Horus and Russ, actually). Considering how recent the encounter had apparently happened, and how Fulgrim refers to the Primarch as if he is still around, it appears that he was still very much active and un-purged at the time of the novel's events, although Fulgrim does not refer to him or his Legion by name (referring to him only as the "master of the Second" and "his brother"). It's also not known if Fulgrim's accusation of hypocrisy was in regards to his Legion being undernumbered or Fulgrim being arrogant, but appears to learn toward the latter.
• In Fabius Bile: Clonelord, Flavius Alkenex mentions that Fulgrim once described one of the two (likely the 2nd since the 11th was almost last to be recovered) having made a pilgrimage to the Attila System of Ultima Segmentum to make an archaeological expedition inside the Ymga Monolith for unknown reasons during the earliest days of the Great Crusade. Worth noting that "pilgrimage" has some pretty religious meaning's to it which is something the Emperor greatly and heavily frowned upon. Unless it's the animu thing of touring places highlighted in the cartoon.

XI Primarch

• The 11th Primarch was nineteenth primarch rediscovered. After Corax, but before Alpharius Omegon.
• In The First Heretic, when Argel Tal and the other Word Bearers are in the Emperor's gene-labs, they find the 11th's gestation pod. It is mentioned that the 11th was still "innocent and pure" prior to the Primarchs being scattered, although this was a vision given to the Word Bearers by a daemon so take it with a grain of salt.
• In the 9th Edition of the Adeptus Custodes Codex, it is mentioned that the Dungeons and Vaults of the Imperial Palace contained many taboo and esoteric items and entities with Subject XI listed as one of them. Whether it's actually one of the Lost, his clone or a coincidence is a never ending debate.

The Lost Legions

• The Regimental Standard article Field Dressing a Lasgun Wound makes reference to the II and XI legions taking part in the Rangdan Xenocides, but cuts off before their names are given (though given the amount of whitespace between the word "the" and the end of the page, this would suggest at least one of them had a particularly long word in their name). Given it references the rank of "Warmaster", it means this was during the tail end of the war.
• The First Heretic specifies that the missing Legions were purged at least 43 years before the Drop Site Massacre, so we can conclude that neither one took part in the Horus Heresy. At the same time, members of the Word Bearers Seventh Company travelling through time with Ingethel the Ascended reveal rumors that the surviving members of the lost Legions were folded into the Ultramarines (their Chaplain thinks the rumor is a load of grox-shit, but their Captain does note that the Ultramarines are on record as receiving an increase in troops; however it should be noted that Ingethel is a Daemon Princess, and could easily have been bullshitting herself).
• In The Chamber at the End of Memory, Malcador stated that when both the Primarchs were purged, it left their legions leaderless. Indicating that the the II and XI legions were around when both Primarchs did the thing. And that Dorn and Guilliman had spoken up to convince him that just purging the two lost legions completely would be a waste of good soldiers. Instead, Dorn and Guilliman created the plan to wipe the Legions' memories, and have them put to use elsewhere. While it is not actually said where they wound up, beyond Malcador saying that he ensured they were "attuned to new circumstances", it is possible that Dorn and Guilliman had the Marines integrated into their own legions. If true, this may support the fanon explanation of the Rainbow Warriors and Valedictors existence.
• In Fear To Tread, Sanguinius admits to Horus that he had not told the Emperor about the Red Thirst because he feared that the Emperor would purge the Blood Angels in the same way as the missing Legions, indicating that some form of gene-seed flaw caused at least one of the Legions to be purged.
• Visions of Heresy - Book One has a pictographic list of all the original legions. Interestingly, the II Legion pict-capture is labeled "-ERROR #CDIV- file not found", while the XI Legion pict-capture is labeled "-CENSORED- by Imperial decree". This seems to indicate that the XI Legion was merely censored, while the records of the II Legion were wiped entirely. ‘Error #CDIV’ is a play on Error 404 using Roman Numerals.

Known Timeline

• 792.M30, the Primarchs were created . The 11th is still "innocent and pure". The Primarchs are scattered.
• 798.M30, The Great Crusade began.
• The 2nd Primarch is found and reunited. He is the 3rd Primarch found, after Horus and Russ.
• Sometime during the early years of the Great Crusade, the 2nd Primarch leads an expedition to the Ymga Monolith in the Attila System of the Ultima Segmentum.
• After the discovery of Guilliman, the (then) 8 found Primarchs all met up. The 2nd accused Fulgrim of hubris. Fulgrim feels the 2nd was guilty of the same and called him out on hypocrisy.
• Magnus is found and all (then) 9 found Primarchs meet up.
• Around the time Lion El Johnson (11th to be found) was discovered, the two lost Primarchs had not yet done whatever made them get un-personed.
• Between the 890s.M30 - 930s.M30, both the 2nd and 11th Legions were deployed along with the Solar Auxillia to the Rangdan Xenocides. This is the last recorded action of either Legion. Something happened to them during this war. An Alpharius (who may or may not be THE Alpharius) met Lion and offered to manage the mess here in his stead. Clearly any non-Primarch person can just march in to meet Lion and ask to take away his job!
• approx. 898.M30 Corax, the 18th Primarch discovered, is found "around a century" after the start of the Great Crusade.
• Between 898.M30 - 963.M30, the 11th Primarch is discovered. At some point he is reunited with his legion.
• The information of the lost Primarchs and their Legions is wiped, leaving Alpharius as the only non-lost Primarch to not see all others at least once (if the Rangda's Alpharius is someone else entirely) .
• 981.M30 Alpharius Omegon is discovered and (or at least) given leadership of the XX Legion (the at least is because Horus found him/them first and took a while to tell others this).
• Between 981.M30 - 000.M31 Horus confronts Malcador about the destruction of the lost Primarch's statues in the Reliquary. Attempts to say one of their names out of spite for Malcador, is force choked and can only get out the syllable "Mal-".
• 000.M31, Magnus mentions its the first time since [REDACTED] 9 Primarchs have met up in one place. Its likely that Magnus wanted to say something like "Since the 2nd was with us.".

Other Info

Lion El'Jonson wouldn't lead the fight against the Rangdan xenos until 890s.M30, and not until the 6th year of his involvement did the title of "Warmaster" get thrown around. Adding this to the document in "Field Dressing a Lasgun Wound", means that the 11th Legion's participation in the Rangdan Xenocides didn't happen until at least 8 years after Lion El'Jonson took the helm. The Xenocide would end by 930s.M30, meaning the 11th only participated in the war for a possible 32 to 42 years. The Horus Heresy didn't begin until 005.M31, and the 2nd and 11th had been expunged and condemned 43 years before the Dropsite Massacre which occurred at 006.M31, disproving the dates 965.M30 & 969.M30 as being the period where they were exterminated by the Space Wolves. By the time the Rangdan Xenocides ended, there would have been a possible 23 to 33 year gap between 930s.M30, the end of the Xenocides, and 963.M30 for them to have committed whatever atrocity called for damnatio memoriae, assuming it didn't occur during the Xenocides.

Considering that the 2nd was around for at least a century with no issues before the 11th showed up and they both got expunged three decades after the end of the Rangdan Xenocide, it's a strong possibility that the 11th was the ring leader of the two & dragged the 2nd Primarch down with him.

Out of universe, Rick Priestley admitted that the unknown legions were supposed to be a reference to the three Roman legions wiped out in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, whose numbers were never reused after they were slain to a man by Germanic barbarians as well as add an air of mystery and strangeness to the setting, that it had been so long since the primarchs and their full legion were around that people had entirely forgot about them .Nowadays, it doesn't even really let people do much with homebrew fluff since the setting has developed in such a way that it's almost impossible for someone to connect a homebrew chapter to the missing primarchs without getting laughed out of their Local Game Store. If you play in the privacy of your own home, however, there's nothing stopping you and your friends from nailing it down and having your Self-Insert Primarchs show up and give the Imperium a Noblebright/even GRIMDARKER (Delete as appropriate) kick in the ass.

It seems likely, given the frequent references to betrayal relating to these two Primarchs, that the Lost Primarchs did something rebellion-related or perhaps tried to carve out their own empires. Perhaps they realized that there could be peaceful coexistance with the Xenos (as was the case of the Interex), and ended up thinking the Imperium was Evil. Either way, they did something massively damaging (or nearly pulled something off) that would have crippled the Imperium for its myriad enemies to finish off. A possible hint at the cause of their descent is mentioned in Extermination in the section regarding the Alpha Legion of all groups. Three incidents, all [REDACTED] in name, tell us that one Legion had a problematic source for its recruitment. Specifically, a potentially tainted source. Although not said in sequential order, one Legion was deemed to have failed the qualification to be a Legion since it did not have enough marines to be combat effective. Lastly, a place called "Labryk Polaris" and another redacted incident point at attempts to replicate or even supersede the Emperor's gene-craft. Combining all of these cases, it's clear that one Legion had severe issues with their gene seed and their primary recruitment world. This led to said Legion failing the rudimentary testing regiment that all legions undergo. From there, the Primarch in question must have performed a few experiments in how to create more marines. Whatever the result, the Emperor clearly did not like it.

It should further be noted that, in the 42nd Millennium, when asked why there were 11 symbolic chairs rather than 9 for the Primarchs, Guilliman replies something along the lines of "Of the 20, two failed and half the rest turned on my father", explicitly distinguishing this "failure" from heresy/treason, hence the reasoning in keeping ceremonial seating for them out of honor. Of the 20 Primarch plinths on Terra, 9 were destroyed but 2 were covered up. So it might be that they weren't traitors, but went TOO FAR (given that this is the Imperium of Man, the height of human Grimdark, that is not a good thing), somehow. However, the memories of all the Primarchs regarding the two abolished legions were altered by Malcador, thus making Guilliman's input unreliable.

Where Are The Lost Legions Now?

Note: This assumes that the theory of the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines absorbing the II and XI Legions is correct.

Assuming that the survivors of the II and XI legions were mind-wiped and assimilated into the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines in The Chamber at the End of Memory (despite common misconceptions online, anyone who actually read the story would know that it does not confirm this, even if it's a possibility), it raises the question of where, if anywhere, the descendants of the two legions are now. Given that the Ultramarines are the progenitors of the majority of Space Marine chapters in the galaxy, and there is precident for chapter that are 'offically' Ultramarine to have gene-seed of the Tratior Legions, that leaves a lot of options. Even having the founder of the chapter appear in the Horus Heresy series is no guarantee that the chapter isn't descended from one of the lost legions, since the members of the chapter wouldn’t even know themselves. By the end of the Horus Heresy the only person who knew which marines were and weren't descended from the Lost Legions would be Rogal Dorn who likely took the secret to...wherever he went, and Roboute Guilliman once he 'woke up' from his Nap. As of Dark Imperium, the one person who knows even part of the contents of the gene-seeds for these legions is Belisarius Cawl, who most likely used what samples he had of these gene-seeds (as well as un-chaosified gene-seeds of the other eight) to raise additional super-space marines despite Guilliman's insistence to not entertain such notions. As with the original legions, these new marines and the chapters they eventually formed were equally dispersed among the official gene-lineages with no evidence of their true heritage being apparent.

The obvious place to start looking for successor chapters of the lost legions is any chapter that seems to deviate a bit too far from the behavior of their supposed primarch during the second founding and formation's within the original space marine legions that also strayed from the rest of the Legions

The Mortifactors and Doom Eagles are two such candidates, given that they don’t behave anything like Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines. Especially given that the II Primarch was described by Fulgrim as “normally contemplative”, “quiet”, and “humorless”. It would also explain why the Soul Drinkers believed themselves to be descendants of the Imperial Fists despite later being shown to not have Dorn’s geneseed, despite having a weapon gene-coded to the Soul Drinkers. The fact that the Soul Drinkers rejected the authority of the High Lords of Terra and fought for the common good of humanity rather than the Imperium itself also fits well with fan theories of one of the lost primarchs being a humanitarian who either believed coexistence with xenos was possible or rejected the Imperium for being just another tyrannical regime and unlike Jaghatai couldn't take the hypocrisy for the common good in the face of survival necessities against Chaos.

Another common theory is that given similarities between the Mortifactors and the Sons of Malice, and the fact the 11th Legion was absorbed into the Ultramarines could imply that during the founding of the Astartes Praeses, some geneseed belonging to the Mortifactors (who were a second founding chapter, so likely could have simply been a group of the 11th legion who stuck together), was used in order to create them. If the 11th Primarch was a cannibal corrupted by certain powers of the warp, it could lend credence to why the Emperor wanted to get rid of him so quickly.

Then, of course, there is the elephant in the room, the red-headed stepchild of the Imperial Fists, Sigismund and the Black Templars. The Black Templars are about as un-Imperial Fist-like as it is possible to be, Imperial Fists being siege specialists who tend towards stoicism and prefer to dig in and defend until the last man, whereas the Black Templars are hyper-aggressive, always crusading, rarely if ever man any fortifications (they don't even have a homeworld, just maintaining a chapter keep on every world they liberate), and are known for their hatred of psykers and extreme piousness, something that is not really seen in the other Imperial Fist descendants. Though Dorn has been shown to have quite the well of rage himself. And, of course, they do not have "fist" in their name. A lot of attention is paid on Sigismund obsessive desire for Dorn's paternal favor, and there is a brief moment of attention paid to the fact that Sigismund offered to personally tear down the statues of the II and XI primarchs on Terra, sayng they are traitors and did not deserve to be remembered. Dramatic irony perhaps? There's also parallels to Sigismund's IRL namesake, whose father died when he was young, was basically adopted by King Louis the Great of Hungary and Poland, and ended up becoming king of Hungary. Dorn even says in a moment of anger that Sigismund is “not his son, and never will be”. Regrettable statement made in a moment of anger? Or a subconscious Freudian slip?

Finally, the retconned OG first founding Rainbow Warriors and Valedictors are theorized to be lost legion loyalists too.

However, it should be noted that a Chapter's culture, tactics, and temperament aren't necessarily determined by ancestry. Deviations might just be a sign of a Chapter's circumstances affecting its internal culture and structure (e.g. the Red Scorpions' genetic purity leading to even more extreme xenophobia and intolerance of corruption than usual, and their Apothecaries being given authority than in most Chapters), or of a homeworld culture displacing that of the Chapter's founders (something that is discussed when Uriel Ventris fights alongside the Mortifactors in one of the Ultramarines novels). Even heritable traits might be lost, gained, become exaggerated, or otherwise change over time, due to mutation or genetic tampering. Applying Occam's Razor would lead one to conclude that most of the weirder Chapters' origins are probably quite boring, too, since Lost Legion heritage raises just as many questions as it answers, if not more.

Rules on the Tabletop

Horus Heresy, 1st Edition

Thanks to Forge World, not only do we have models for the Primarchs, but rules as well. As you can guess, they are ungodly death machines who can easily win their points back and more. That's not to say they're invincible, though; they can still be killed if you screw up badly enough. Do be sure to see Primarchs in 8th Edition and the google drive link on that page as well, should you want to play 30k using the modern rule set. All currently released Primarchs have the following statlines:

	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv	Invul	ML	Points
Horus	8	5	7	6	6	6	5+1	10	2+	3++		500
Angron	9	5	7	6	5	7	6(10)	10	3+	4++		400
Fulgrim	8	6	6	6	6	8	5	10	2+	5++/3++ in CC		380
Mortarion	7	5	6	7	7	5	5	10	2+	4++		425
Ferrus Manus	7	6	7	7	6	5	4+1	10	2+	3++		455 or steal his hammer for 415
Konrad Curze	8	6	6	6	6	7	5+1	10	2+	4++		435
Vulkan	7	5	7	7	6	5	4	10	2+	3++		425
Lorgar	6	6	6	6	5	6	4+1	10	2+	4++	2 or 3	375 or Chaosify him for 450
Perturabo	8	6	7	6	6	5	4	10	2+	3++		455 or give him Forgebreaker for 490
Rogal Dorn	8	5	6	6	6	5	4	10	2+	4++		385
Corvus Corax	7	6	6	6	6/5	7	6/5	10	2+/3+	5++		450 or fuck him over for 350
Alpharius	7	7	6	6	6	6	5	10	2+	4++		415.... or is it?
Roboute Guilliman	7	6	6	6	6	6	4+1	10	2+	4++		400
Roboute Guilliman (40k, 7e)	9	6	6	6	6	6	6	10	2+	3++		350
Magnus the Red	7	5	7	6	6	6	4	10	2+	4++	5	495 or charge up for 670
Magnus the Red (Daemon, 40k 7e)	7	7	8	7	7	7	6	10	4+	4++	5	650
Leman Russ	9	6	6	6	6	7	6	10	2+	4++		455
Jaghatai Khan	7	6	6	6	6	8	6+1	10	2+	5++/3++ in CC		385 or give him a bike for 460
Lion El'Jonson	8	5	7	6	6	7	5(7)	10	2+	4++		460
Sanguinius	9	5	6	6	6	7	6	10	2+	4++		485

• Special Rules (not counting the ones specific for each Primarch)
  • Primarch
    • Adamantium Will
    • Independent Character
    • Eternal Warrior
    • Fear
    • Fleet
    • Fearless
    • It Will Not Die
    • Master of the Legion
    • Precision Shots
    • Precision Strikes
  • Sire of the [Legion]

40k

As of 8th edition (special rules not included):

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv	Points/Power level
Roboute Guilliman	8"	2+	2+	6	6	9	6	10	2+/3++	360/18
Magnus the Red	16	2+	2+	8	7	18	7	10	3+/4++	445/21
Mortarion	12	2+	2+	8	7	18	6	10	3+/4++	470/24

Each of them have one or two close-combat weapons, all of which are AP2 or 1, backed by some decent gun to lay some dakka down while they run to the glorious melee. Their Primarch rule acts like a big bundle of USRs wrapped up together in one package, and as ICs they can join squads as well (though most of the Primarchs are better run solo). Each of them have a page worth of special rules and unique wargear, both of which can be stupidly powerful to the point of broken, but that's OK since even the cheapest of the Primarchs costs no less than 350 points and eats an extremely valuable Lord of War slot that might otherwise be spent on a Thunderhawk or a Fellblade.

Pimpin Rides

Also worth mentioning, that Perturabo and Rogal Dorn are special enough to get their own personal special/unique vehicle, other primarchs may get their own vehicles in the future (who knows?). However, rules dictate that neither vehicle can be taken in games under 3000 points. Meaning you can only use it in 3000+ matches.

• Perturabo gets to ride in The Tormentor, a Shadowsword with the Command Tank upgrade. Not only that, but Perturabo is so awesome, he managed to somehow give it 15 troop capacity, meaning it can take 12 Power Armoured dudes + himself, or 6 Terminators for his bodyguard. But, it doesn't stop there! It also has a single Void Shield! It costs 25pts more than a normal Shadowsword with the same upgrades, but following FAQs it also has BS4, free sponsons, and gains Tank Hunters/Monster Hunters any time it fires all its guns at one target.
• Rogal Dorn, on the other hand, gets a customised Thunderhawk Gunship, the Ætos Dios. This ship has Turbo Laser as standard, plus a single Void Shield to protect it, it also has It Will Not Die so can regenerate some of its hull points and finally it ALSO has a 4+ invulnerable save against missiles, all on top of being a flyer which means you can only snap-shot at it, all for the bargain cost of 600 points - which is actually 175 points CHEAPER than a normal Legion Thunderhawk with a Turbo-Laser, though you obviously still have to pay for Dorn.
• Jaghatai Khan gets his own bitching jetbike: the Sojutsu Pattern Voidbike. It has two master crafted heavy bolters, ups his toughness to 7 and lets him do d3 hammer of wrath attacks, strangely enough though, it also costs him -1I.

Douchebagginess

It is well known that most of the primarchs were douchebags to varying degrees.

From least to most douchebag. Note, the scale really drops off into fucking douchebag after Jaghatai, and straight-up villain after Fulgrim and FUCKING CUNT after Lorgar. Also, depending on what they did, the Lost Primarchs may be even worse than all actions depicted here. Generally speaking, we'll be grading these guys on their personalities, treatment of their legion and others, and their motives and reasons for their actions. Also, we'll be adding more weight to their actions during the Great Crusade rather than the Heresy, not many Primarchs had a clear head during the Age of Darkness. Keep in mind that, as charismatic and badass as they may be, the Primarchs are responsible for a level of warmongering and genocide that would appall even the worst of Earth's dictators. How they feel about these atrocities, and why they did it (is it grim necessity, standard Imperial procedure or baseless sadism?) is what separates the "good" from the "bad".

The Nice Guys

1. 1. Vulkan - The least douchebaggy primarch by far. Vulkan routinely put the lives of him and his men on the line for the sake of the Imperial citizens. Vulkan would throw himself to the defence of a no name human tribe with the same ferocity and zeal as he would Terra itself. A total bro. Also was the largest, strongest Primarch (Ferrus' metal arms were determined as cheating, though according to the Khan, Mortarion was as strong or stronger) and held back in sparring for fear of hurting his brothers. His only real fault was that, despite his strong distaste for terror weapons, he had a thing for setting people on fire. The only times he was an asshole were when he forgot who he was due to Curze's torture driving him mad. Of course, he's still a Primarch and a fiery general, and he will leave you a pile of ash if you end up on his shitlist.
   2. Sanguinius - Despite some... unorthodox tendencies, he is reported as being the most charismatic of the Primarchs, perhaps second only to Horus. He is particularly noteworthy for how much he improved his legion. The Blood Angels before his arrival were so bloodthirsty and terrifying that even other Astartes looked askance at them. But Sanguinius took these butcherous vampires and taught them humility and nobility, and to put the well-being of humanity above any personal glory. They actually managed such a total 180 that they were, and still are, regarded as one of the most heroic, resplendent legions out of all of them. A pretty all-round nice guy, he was so naturally charming that he actually managed to get Jaghatai Khan of all people to laugh at a joke of his. He was also exceedingly humble despite being such a giga-chad, and often played the role of peacemaker between his more cantankerous brothers. He can lapse at times however, as seen in his treatment of Curze by denying him a chance of changing his fate & earning forgiveness, and he regrettably had to kill many of his Red-Thirsted men when they got too batshit even for him. Like Vulkan though, he can still be a ferocious force if riled up, he once beat the shit out of guy for daring to imply the Signus III campaign was a trap (it was, but he had no reason to suspect Horus at that point). Sanguinius's temper was actually such that Leman Russ cited the Angel as one of two Primarchs he didn't know if he could beat. Basically if you pissed him off, he turned into the Hulk.
   3. Magnus the Red - For his faults, Magnus was one of the nicest Primarchs right up there with Vulkan and Sanguinius. Before the whole Prospero thing, this guy's MO was all about the advancement of humanity: always trying the diplomatic approach to preserve what could be preserved, using shock and awe tactics to limit damage when fighting, happily taking remembrancers along his legion (Although all remembrancers amongst the fellowship were psykers to some degree). Magnus was a friendly and open-minded idealist, which makes it all the more tragic when he gets deceived, framed, backstabbed and then coaxed into selling his soul to the Cuttlefish of Keikaku. He is easily the most sympathetic of the traitors, considering he only joined them after being backed into a corner; had Jaghatai been at his side during and after Nikaea things might have turned out differently. He was also the only traitor Primarch who actually cared about his men, even after ascending to daemonhood. The novel Deathfire also ups his bro-ness quite a bit, as he proved himself the only traitor-aligned Primarch to sincerely do something very helpful for one of his loyalist brothers after the Horus Heresy was already in full swing. This "special favour" is made all the more striking given how it took place after Magnus had his adoptive homeworld burned out from under him. Perhaps his skin was red not only because of mutation, but because it also showed the greatness of his heart? On the other hand, this was done by one of the fragments of Magnus that embodied his love for his gene-sons and fellow Primarchs (which ultimately self-destructed to keep the Crimson King from absorbing its power), so any hope that he kept that good heart died after Ahriman's failure at his Second Rubric on Prospero and when the Emperor offered him a chance to redeem himself as the Primarch of the nascent Grey Knights he threw it away. While his soul was still in one piece, Magnus's main character flaw was his arrogance. As in, this guy's ego had only two contenders in all the galaxy; the Emperor Himself, and Lion El'Jonson. Maybe Eldrad too. While he wasn't an in-your-face type like Fulgrim, Magnus and his Legion were still entirely convinced that they knew the Warp better than anyone else, which led to them disregarding many warnings and red flags that could've been avoided, leading almost directly to their awful, awful fates. It also caused him to have a complete blind spot where his own insufferability was concerned, as he genuinely believed himself to be the most intelligent of his brothers. This Sheldon Cooper-esque attitude caused many of the other Primarchs represented at the Council of Nikaea to wish Magnus personally rebuked despite their support of the Libraius initiative itself. When he learned of this, it appeared to have caught him completely off guard, and dismayed him tremendously. Also, Magnus wasn't ENTIRELY innocent as he had implanted sleeper agents and spies throughout the Imperium, ruining the lives of those brainwashed while betraying the trust of his brothers. Why he did this isn't exactly clear (it's very unlikely to be Chaos related) though it's most likely an attempt to obtain information and records his brother might otherwise destroy. Regardless however, his more questionable traits appeared not to have ever been the result of malice, but were instead a byproduct of his solipsism and thoughtlessness. This is brought into sharp relief during his final duel with Vulkan, where Vulkan lays out in no uncertain terms that Magnus's own petulance, arrogance, and narcissism were the primary reasons why he fell, and that he was ultimately the architect of his own failures.
   4. Corax - Even after being raised under the tyranny of the Kiavahrans, he refused to take after their tyrannous ways, wanted to make things right, and asked the Emperor to end the civil war he started while liberating his homeworld of Lycaeus. He was one of only two Primarchs to make use of precision warfare in such a way as to actually save lives, and he cared to an almost Vulkan-esque level about civilians. Konrad Curze was the other Primarch to do so but unfortunately, if you were caught in one of Curze's "precision strikes", your entire purpose was to die so horrifically and so publicly as to make everyone else surrender in terror. Seeing the ruthless tendencies the Terran members of his legion had, he quietly shipped them way the fuck away from the rest of the Great Crusade to go fight xenos or got them all slaughtered during the Battle of Gate 42. He was also one of very few primarchs to readily admit his own mistakes, which were numerous and sometimes tragic. If one were determined to find a moral chink in his armor, it would be fighting for the Imperium despite claiming to be a freedom fighter. However, he was aware of this contradiction and considered moral consistency a price worth paying for the eternal salvation of the human race, while resolving to return to ensuring freedom for the oppressed once the Crusade was over. Considering the fact that the 40K Raven Guard 6th company still go after particularly oppressive governors if they get a chance, Corax raised his sons pretty well in that regard so his desire for freedom is genuine. Developed a brutal habit of folding Chaos Space Marines into pretzels when shapeshifting into a tangible shadow during his hunt against his Daemon brothers Post-Heresy but left the slaves alone.
   5. Jaghatai Khan - Despite him being modeled after the guy who holds the high score on raping and pillaging, Jaghatai was actually very reasonable and a pretty fun guy to be around. His main hobbies included raiding and jetbikes, but he had an appreciation for the fine arts as well. He was very good friends with Magnus and very pro-psyker. However he also kept his distance from pretty much everyone else, save Horus, not wanting to deal with other people's bullshit, unless they were really worth the effort - as the result very few people knew and trusted him (especially once most of his only bros turned traitor). He seemed to have something of a "live and let live" type philosophy, as after he conquered his home planet, he just kinda fucked off back to the Steppes with a warning to everyone not to piss him off too much. It should be noted that though his aloof dickishness was the primary reason why most of his brothers left him alone, the Khan was never spiteful or deliberately malicious (at least not to anyone who didn't 100% deserve it). While the Khan didn't seem to care too much about the whole Great Crusade thing and spent most of his time doing his own thing, he never turned his back on the Imperium and sincerely believed in the idea of an Empire in the starry skies. And this was despite being the one of the few Primarchs to understand how bunked the whole Imperial Truth secular atheist propaganda really was (remember that the Chogorisian had Shamans, who also are the ones who select the White Scars' Chapter Master through mysterious initiatic trials); and of the Emperor himself he declared that he was "neither a monster nor a simpleton", mostly because he knew that Chaos was far worse (of course). So, the Emperor knew all along that the Khagan had his priorities right and would therefore not betray him, even when Malcador brought up the topic; and this was in spite of the personal relationship of father and son being explicitly awkward.

Arrogant Project Manager (Yes Guilliman needs his own category)

1. 1. Guilliman - R.G. is a jerk with a (or rather two) heart(s) of gold or a nice guy with a nasty mean streak, depending on how you look at him. Some people might say this dude was a statesman in the same vein as Augustus Caesar- he was great at building states and making life generally better for people, but only if you ignore the deported and murdered people who didn't agree 100% with the new regime. For somebody more reasonable, Guilliman was perhaps one of the most responsible and human among his brothers. He cared about the common man, personally planned post-war reconstruction and political integration into the Imperium of the planets he conquered and (unofficially) tolerated moderate presence of religion in Ultramar. But for sure the guy had a big ego, as he constantly spoke and behaved like he knew what was best for everyone, at least until proven wrong (multiple times). And you better not get on his shit list, although to be fair he was mostly a complete jerk with people he considers being psycho mass murderers with no respect for their own sons or civilian populations. And despite what some people would have you believe, he knew he couldn't plan for every situation and expected people to use their own judgment rather than blindly follow his codex. Like Jaghatai Khan, we know Guilliman recognized that the Emperor was a horrible father (likely since he's one of the few among his brothers to have had actual decent adoptive parents) and that the ideals the Emperor espoused were far more important than the Emperor himself ever was, and after learning that his whole Imperium Secundus plan was based on bad assumptions he's been beating himself up about it all the way into the 42nd millennium. While he's grown more cynical since his revival and subsequent realization of how badly the Imperium had devolved in his absence, he has refused to abandon his noble ideals or his faith in humanity as a whole and has privately considered the possibility that in retrospect he had been overly dismissive of Lorgar's ideas about the Emperor's divinity. He also seems to be a bit more irritable than he used to be, but given his current situation it would be more surprising if that wasn't the case. Also, may have actually imprisoned Cypher and the Fallen so that the Emperor wouldn't discover who broke Lion El'Jonson's best sword, ultimately causing him to die in battle in Emprah's mini-me's own pseudo Horus Heresy. Additionally, he has developed a legitimately unprecedented trait for a Primarch: that of sufficient self-awareness to not just recognize, but actually LEARN from his mistakes, such as during the Hexarchy coup attempt or not trying to secure Ultramar à la Imperium Secundus during the Terran Crusade.

The Douches

1. 1. Horus - Pre-Heresy he was a surprisingly chill dude, except if you crossed his sensibilities. Was essentially flat-out stated to have been the most charismatic of his brothers, with the possible exception of Sanguinius. Unlike Sanguinius however, Horus's charisma was something he had deliberately cultivated rather than being a natural trait of his, which speaks volumes of his personality. Just to give you an idea of his character in the halcyon days, Horus killed Sanguinius but retains enough anti-douche credit to rank as the least douchey of The Douches. He was that nice before the Heresy. In fact were it not for the Heresy he would probably be in third place after Vulkan and Sanguinius. Got along well with both regular people and nearly all his brothers (Corax was seemingly the only Primarch who disliked him, and he was biased due to his disdain of the brutality of his own Legion's Terran members who were close buddies with Horus's Legion), but he gradually started treating some of them like shit after becoming Warmaster and resented the idea that he and his brothers would not be able to rule over the planets that they had conquered. His insecurities may have also made him vulnerable to the Dark Gods' lies when he received a vision of the Imperium 10,000 years into the future where the Emperor was worshiped as a god, he and many of his brothers were forgotten, and everything was Grimdark--a future that, unbeknownst to him, he would be directly responsible for creating specifically as a result of his own attempts to avert it. The whole Heresy thing just sort-of kills his position on the list. After going full Chaos, he rapidly became a much, much bigger dick.
   2. Rogal Dorn - Although one hell of a masochist, and at times thick-headed, he did see the idea behind the Imperium, and actually agreed with it. Honest and dependable, while Rogal didn't make for interesting conversation, he would always do his job without complaint. Had as much empathy and subtlety as one of his fortresses and ended up hurting a lot of people (mostly emotionally, but sometimes physically too) with his over-the-top brutal honesty. The prime example was when he betrayed Fulgrim's trust after they had a discussion regarding Konrad's visions, and provoked Curze into almost killing him. However, he could occasionally get quite philosophical, and is perhaps the only Primarch to admit that his own nature and power unsettled him.
   3. Leman Russ - Nowhere near as much of a dick as butthurt Magnus fanboys would have you believe. He was indeed savage and brutal, but ultimately always keeping the larger goal of betterment of humanity in sight and having good reasons for that myopia. Prone to picking fights with his brothers and destroyed Prospero under questionable circumstances. That said, he used the culture of his homeworld to give his Legion control over its savagery, and made the Space Wolves focus on protecting people from monsters instead of just butchering civilians. He did use terror tactics, mass killings, and the destruction of knowledge, but he did so out of loyalty to humanity and the Emperor, not just because he felt like it. Bottom line: Russ certainly had his fair share of flaws, but as belligerent and myopic as he could be he always tried to make the galaxy safe for humanity in the longer run. He was also capable of admitting to mistakes, which was uncommon amongst the Primarchs. During his fight with the Lion for instance, he started the brawl with the Lion over perceived kill stealing but after a while it dawned on him what an ass he was being, and he stopped fighting and burst out laughing at his own stupidity. He was awfully stubborn however, and as such this sort of thing didn't happen often.
   4. Ferrus Manus - A big dude with a penchant for bursts of choleric anger. Between his resting bitch face and his Social Darwinist ideals, he seems at first glance to be a natural candidate for a traitor. However, his honesty and loyalty to the Emperor mean he certainly wasn't as bad as Perturabo or Mortarion, and he did sincerely believe that weakness would cause the Imperium to collapse. He was... really a pain to deal with, however. Unlike, let's say, Dorn, who was only really mean when you made it on his shitlist, Ferrus was only nice to people who made it on his friends list. Anyone else could, as far as he was concerned, either stay out of his way or get introduced to his fists. Most of the Loyalists and even some Traitors (at first) viewed the protection of the innocent as their goal, while Ferrus encouraged tactics that led to massive civilian casualties, and where Primarchs like Curze or Angron took Legions that were bad about mortal deaths and kept up such practices, Manus took a Legion that had tried to minimize mortal deaths and made them worse about it. All this said, he was loyal unto death to the Emperor's ideals and he also understood that his sons' fetish for cybernetics was beyond unhealthy and wanted to help them overcome it. His death ensured that last part would never happen, and indeed made them double down on their hatred of the flesh.
   5. Lion El'Jonson - The Lion was complex, to say the least. He had an arrogance that matched Magnus or Horus's worst moments combined with a difficult early life fighting Chaos beasts on Caliban. This "do-or-die" attitude spilled over into his interpersonal skills, hard. Too hard. Put simply, you had one chance with Johnson and if he ever decided you wasted it, then it was over and you went on his shitlist forever. The end result was a Primarch who was aloof and taciturn, whose poor communication skills made him unsuited to lead the Primarchs but whose ego made it impossible for him to accept the seniority of Horus or Russ. At the same time, there was a competitive, spiteful, and self-centered side to the Lion, which led him to execute one of his own Dark Angels over a conflict of authority and nearly kill Russ over an argument about kill-stealing. The Lion's own awe-inspiring presence, which was powerful enough to make Astartes from other legions literally drop to their knees when he crashed unannounced on a war-council aboard the Vengeful Spirit, didn't help his ego either. There's been speculation in-universe and out of it that he wasn't wholly loyal to the Emperor, but it has been made crystal clear in-universe that he personally was 100% loyal to Big E, and that the whole "muh secret traitors" thing is primarily due to a combination of bad luck and the Dark Angels already having a poor reputation. The Lion may also have been the most "douchey" of all the Primarchs who weren't outright evil at some point. For you see, many of the Primarchs had absolutely ginormous egos, but most of those who did also either possessed the people skills to hide it or were so charismatic that it just didn't matter. Fulgrim, Magnus, Guilliman, Alpharius, and especially Horus are notable examples of this tendency. As stated earlier, the Lion easily had one of the largest egos amongst all his brothers, matched perhaps only by Magnus, but since he had virtually no people skills he was unable to hide it very well. This resulted in him being the Primarch who was liked by the fewest of his brothers (he basically only got on with Jaghatai Khan). Practically everyone he ever met invariably formed the same opinion of him; he was incredibly good at his job but such an ass that it almost didn't matter. His ego cast such a long shadow over his achievements and ability to work with others that even though Guilliman considered the title of Warmaster a two-horse race between Horus and the Lion, he still didn't include the latter amongst his Dauntless Few (a list that included Ferrus Manus of all people).
   6. Alpharius Omegon - Damned if anyone knows. You just can't trust that/those guy(s), which does make him/them a pretty big dick by default. The fallout from some of the Alpha Legion's Crusade-era shenanigans suggests a certain inclination to showing off at the expense of civilian lives, probably due to an enormous inferiority-superiority complex. Still, they rebelled under perhaps the best intentions among all the traitors with Alpharius at least recognising Chaos had to be defeated (we think- it's still ambiguous as to their end goals) Omegon is possibly a bit better, in that he wasn't willing to sacrifice all of mankind to do so (maybe). The whole thing is made infinitely more irritating by the fact that Alpharius and Omegon apparently switched names and places when they first met. So after the Rangdan Xenocides, anything attributed to Alpharius was actually Omegon's work, and vice versa. After Omegon's probable death by Dorn at Pluto and Alpharius taking his mantle (back) to (allegedly) die at Guilliman's hands, the legion debatably turned into a schizophrenic monster, though this is better than what Fulgrim's actions turned his legion into by far. Alpharius himself (maybe) in his own memoirs presents himself as a tactician and combatant worthy of inclusion in the Reasonable Marines, but who in person had a Lion-sized (hah) chip on his shoulder. Problem is that the memoir itself purports to be a lie, so who really knows.
   7. Fulgrim - Rather like Horus, Fulgrim was one of the Traitor Primarchs who started out as quite a kind fellow, and even fondly remembers his foster parents as doing the best they could. Initially he was an incredibly idealistic artisan who wanted to help humanity improve to the absolute limits of its potential. He did this primarily by trying to be the best example of humanity he could be, and demanded the same of his sons. To their credit, they succeeded quite splendidly at this for the most part. Unfortunately he had a rather fragile ego which was probably due in large part by the fact that his legion was virtually non-existent when he came to command it. As such, he had the Primarch equivalent of a Napoleon complex due to the head start most of his brothers got on him, and as such could get fairly petulant if he was challenged in a personal way. This led to him ultimately having a somewhat elitist view of himself and his legion, and he could be a bit of a dick when it came to Astartes and mortals who failed to live up to his astronomically high standards, even before his fall. He also can't keep a secret, betraying Konrad Curze's trust and causing him to go nuts on Dorn's face. Other than Horus and Sanguinius, was the only Primarch to really get along with all his brothers (save Jaghatai, but that's his fault. Oh, and Mortarion thought he was a prancing idiot, but Mortarion low-key hated everyone. And Fulgrim considered Russ a dumb hick. And he didn't seem to like the Second very much), and was BFFs with Ferrus Manus, of all people. That is, until he chopped his head off. Rude. Notably, he was also the only Primarch who made any particular effort to befriend Konrad Curze, which, according to Curze, meant a great deal to him. Too bad he was such an incorrigible gossip... Also took pride to the extremity of arrogance, hence his fall to Slaanesh. Interestingly, his bizarre fixation on friendship with Ferrus never left him, constantly cloning him with help of Fabius Bile and trying to win him over his side. Needless to say, he's failed thus far.

The Self-righteous Dick (Yes Lorgar needs his own category too)

1. 1. Lorgar - The architect of this shithole galaxy, who ruined everything -for everyone- forever. Lorgar endured a traumatic childhood of abuse by Kor Phaeron (piss be upon him), but still found a way to be a (relatively to 30K) good person at first. He hated war, wanted to be everyone's friend, and used religious worship of the God Emperor to uplift Mankind. His approach to the Great Crusade was not only the most peaceful but spawned fanatically loyal and prosperous worlds, making him pre-heresy Magnus-tier levels of bro. Too bad he chose to listen to Kor Phaeron and Erebus after the Razing of Manarchia killed his psyche. This makes his downfall vastly more tragic, as even during the Heresy he still had enough good in him to risk death against Corax to save his sons, while genuinely caring for Angron. Following this, Lorgar would go from benevolent to monstrous. He caused or helped ensure other people (his sons included) suffered HORRIFIC fates from Chaos, whether they wanted it or not. He sent 50,000 of his sons to die at Calth because he deemed them 'unworthy' of fighting the war. He screwed over the two brothers he supposedly loved the most by making one a permanent slave to Khorne, and engineering the events that would lead to the other's downfall and death of his world, not to mention his noble dreams. Lorgar's totally blasé about his crimes and uniquely unrepentant for them. He was fully aware of his actions, their consequences, and was self-aware enough to doubt the very morality of his path repeatedly, only to continue his atrocities. Kor Phaeron's inner monologue implies that Lorgar had far more agency than he's given credit for, making Lorgar's efforts to deflect blame utterly cowardly. All of this makes his actions during the heresy truly heinous. The sheer cruelty of his deeds and the psychology behind them completely outweigh whatever redeeming qualities he had, and leave him all but unworthy of sympathy. Had it not been for the excuses of his traumatic past, goodness in the crusade, and his NAYtheist father fighting with Kor Phaeron for worst father award, Lorgar would be the most evil primarch in 40k. Depending on who you ask, Lorgar would earn that dubious honor anyway. Given everything that happened, can you blame them?

The FUCKING CUNTS

1. 1. Mortarion - Described by Alpharius as being "bleakness personified", Mortarion rubbed virtually everyone the wrong way and gave precisely zero shits about it. He seemingly got along with a grand total of three people; Horus, because it was almost impossible not to like him, Konrad Curze, because he too had a garbage tier childhood, and Eidolon, because he told Eidolon he intended to work with him instead of lord over him (a statement that shocked Eidolon into silence, after the treatment he'd received from Fulgrim). Still happened though. Terse, grim and blunt, he was downright bigoted against psykers, and resented (or at the very least looked down upon) nearly everyone who he felt had it easier than him. He was also notorious for using chemical and radiological terror weapons and generally not giving a fuck about who got killed by them. In fairness to him however, he and his legion were usually (though not exclusively) deployed to environments so awful that such weapons typically didn't make things much worse. Also his opponents were usually xenos due both to them typically being the only ones who could survive on the planets he got sent to, and the fact that he really liked killing them. He also was at least somewhat justified in his hatred of psykers, as his necromancer foster father and his fellow overlords had all been psykers, and had been horrific in their subjugation of Barbarus's human population. Had he not turned Traitor, he likely would have been somewhere near Lion El'Jonson in terms of overall dickishness; a spiteful lone wolf type who had a habit of nursing grudges, gave very few shits about who or what his legion killed, went primarily on extermination campaigns, and was generally disliked by everyone for being an ass. Over time, he became more and more disgusted with people's acceptance of tyrants and psykers, and became much more likely to kill everything in the vicinity of what he considered evil. Over time he also lost what little tolerance he had ever possessed for weak mortals, and decided that the Imperium was being crafted in such a way as to coddle the weak. Not good as far as he was concerned. Interestingly he did care deeply for his own people, which is why he was so driven to take down both monsters and tyrants after witnessing how his foster father oppressed the populace, though he didn't exactly do much, if anything, to show it. Then Nurgle made him his plague-ridden bitch and Jaghatai fucked him up and humiliated him in the Siege of Terra, at which point he decided to just take his bitterness out on everyone lacking the Plaguefather's "gifts".
   2. Angron - Loved killing people and not much else. Most of the casualties within his legion were a result of him being a team-killing psycho because quite frankly he didn't care what he got to kill as long as he got to kill it. That said, Angron at least had an excuse for being such a rampaging dick all the time. The Butcher's Nails had effectively turned him from being a genuinely nice fellow who could empathically relieve the suffering of others by taking it into himself into a half-mindless killing machine, as it actually has not just remapped but replaced parts of his brain, effectively removing from him any emotions other than pain, hatred, and battle-lust while also destroying his capacity for empathy and compassion, which arguably means he doesn't even have any Moral Agency (that's Philosopher-speak for saying that he can't be held ethically accountable for his actions any more than a toaster can for burning your fingers). One may wonder what sort of guy he would have been without the implants, presumably he'd be more like his pre-retcon White Dwarf version where he was an honourable warrior whose martial valour ended up leading him down Khorne's path (this was very quickly retconned with the Black Library novels). But he stick to his guns despite the suffering. On top of that, he got fucked over pretty hard by Big E when they first met, so it's no wonder he went traitor the moment Horus made him an offer, we may even credit him for enduring years fighting for the Imperium instead of just getting himself killed in any of the battles as he himself personally wanted. At the end of the day, Angron was probably the Primarch who gave the fewest fucks about his legion and was content to let it run itself without his leadership, although he never really wanted one to begin with. As a result, many of the saner parts of his legion loathed him, to say nothing about his general reputation (Istvaan III wasn't the first time...). The action that places him so low on this list is the fact that he allowed the spread of Butcher's Nails throughout his Legion, despite his own hatred of the damn things and the fact they cause him so many issues, not least going psycho rage-monster most of the time; which is a pretty fucked up thing for him to condone. Then again, many of his sons accepted the mini-Nails to get closer to their Primarch, psykers, however, died horribly, not that Angron gave a shit. Perhaps he allowed it because seeing his sons with Butcher's Nails reminded him of his fallen gladiator brothers and sisters on Nuceria, but then again he blew up the planet along with all of the people he once fought to liberate just because they were bad-mouthing him. He really wasn't all that great of a guy even during his moments of lucidity, and he was one the few Primarchs to willingly kill his own men during the Great Crusade, an act even Horus thought was unthinkable.
   3. Konrad Curze - Arguably the most sadistic of all primarchs, Konrad really got off to torturing people and manipulating the masses through fear. What started as a quest to use fear to save lives in compliance actions turned through time and circumstance to a simple desire to torture and maim, and his wish to protect the innocent was smothered by his urge to punish the guilty. The man who was supposed to be the ultimate harbinger of justice ended up as an unholy combination of Batman and Joker. By the time the Heresy broke out, any ideas of mercy or decency he may have harbored had long ago been buried under a massive pile of flayed guts. Somewhat like Angron however, the Night Haunter's actions are mitigated somewhat by the fact that the guy practically redefined crazy. His upbringing had much to do with shaping his awful view of reality, but what really screwed him over were his visions. He saw the future in psychic visions constantly, but the futures he saw were always permutations of the absolute worst outcome to any given situation, and he couldn't do anything to stop them. These visions came with severe psychic fits during which Curze would violently spaz out. They became worse and worse as time went on, and the psychological and psychic stress of them reduced Curze from a Punisher-esque individual to a completely sadistic screwball who would build stuff out of corpses and then sincerely thank those corpses. He also suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, with the Konrad Curze and Night Haunter personas constantly warring for supremacy within his mind. Needless to say, the Night Haunter ultimately won out. He did admit that what he had done was wrong, but instead of trying to atone for his atrocities, he used the excuse that the future was set in stone (which he mostly believed) to justify just going along with the horrors he saw in his visions. In fact, the only two things that genuinely seemed to scare him were the possibilities that the Emperor wouldn't order his death -- or even worse, be forgiven for his behavior (and render his entire outlook on life meaningless). The fact that he refused to turn back to heroism at so many opportunities because he felt himself a puppet of fate makes him contemptible and pathetic.
   4. Perturabo - Despite inconsistent characterization via 'too many cooks in the kitchen' syndrome, the overall picture of Perturabo that emerged over the years is far from pretty. He's a cold, ruthless monster with a massive martyr complex and siege mentality. He started off well enough by saving a local boy from being monster-chow, only for it all to go downhill rapidly. In his youth he was aloof and arrogant, leading to his bitchfit after losing to his adoptive brother in a sculpting competition. Pert's adoptive dad spurned his architectural ideas to milk his worth as a general, but Dammekos' family still did all they could to raise their adoptive son and give him a good life in space ancient Greece. Perty also never used his massive power to try and realize said dreams on Olympia, even after conquering it (pay attention to this). He'd later meet his Legion, and one of his very first acts was making his sons murder 1/10 of their own for not being good enough. He'd create the worst situations, tackle them in the worst way, and constantly whine about his struggles. Then he'd have the audacity to expect accolades after solving the problems he'd manufactured, and getting pissed when it never came. This gets worse when one sees that Russ, Mortarion, and The Lion got similarly horrendous tasks but never sulked about it or committed self-sabotage in the hopes of eventual praise. The mindset that would forge such a monster showed in his actions. Despite seeing Magnus as a beloved brother, he'd make him a warp sextant and then smash it right in front of him to 'teach Magnus a lesson'. His legion became known as the 'Corpse Grinders' for using Imperial Army units as cannon fodder, so much so that future armies revolted upon assignment to the IW. Horus had to step in and ensure all future mortal troops were penal legionnaires only. Like on Olympia, he longed for pursuits outside of bloodbath-attrition wars and then did nothing to pursue them. He had the nerve to call Corax a coward for not wanting to have his sons adopt the same retarded strategy as him at Gate 44. His petty 'woe is me' attitude caused the infamous rift with Dorn. Pert destroyed a painting commissioned for his legion after misinterpreting it. He killed the officer who broke the news of Olympia's rebellion. These are the highlights, but the mundane reality of how he had absolutely no regard whatsoever for human life despite occasionally paying lip service to the idea is truly telling. One Great Crusade later, and Pert would finally snap when a revolt on Olympia drove him to decimate his home and kill his truth-bomb dropping adoptive sister. With a little nudge from Horus, Perty joined the traitors. What makes all of this so fucked is that he had no excuse for any of it at any point. He was never a lobotomized murder machine, driven into bat-shit insane misanthropy after living in 40K Gotham, or raised on a toxic hellhole by psychic alien tyrants. He had a loving family almost on par with Guilliman, meaning he clearly knew right from wrong. And when he turned traitor, he did so out of bitterness and spite. Perturabo's defining legacy at this point is a legion that's been turned into a mirror image of himself and one of 40K's most evil fuckers ever, on par with the Night Lords, Word Bearers, and Emperor's Children. The atrocities under Pert's command come from his twisted calculus that it was the most efficient path to victory. He is a logistical and strategic genius, but rather than use said talents to ensure the prosperity of others on a large scale, he dedicated them towards the perpetuation of a self-destructive meat grinder of his own making, and aiding the greatest betrayal of mankind in its history. The idea that Perty might be a turbo-autist or was messed up by his awareness of the Eye of Terror just doesn't cut it as a justification. Perturabo fully earns Abbadon's title "The Lord of Shit".

See Also

Return of the Primarchs: A What IF? series filled with pure AWESOME and MANLY TEARS.

A little side note, if you want an awesome look at the Primarchs in all their Crusadey goodness, go look at Aerion the Faithful's Libris Primaris project. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/152862-artwork-libris-primaris/

The Angel: Possibly Primarch Zero.

Miniatures

• The official 30K miniatures are produced by Forge World
• Hitechminiatures has good alternative models
• Wargame Exclusive also has very good alternative models but a smaller selection - yet.
• Cadwallon has Chibi Primes (well, some still.)

Gallery

Loyal

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  Lion El'Jonson

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  Jaghatai Khan (can't hate a man who wears heeled calfboots)

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  Leman Russ

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  Rogal Dorn

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  Sanguinius

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  Ferrus Manus

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  Roboute Guilliman (Big Bobby G)

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  Vulkan

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  Corvus Corax

Traitor

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  Horus Lupercal (THAT ONE FUCK-UP)

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  Fulgrim (look at his sexyness)

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  Perturabo (Fucking MANCHILD)

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  Konrad Curze/Night Haunter/Batman

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  Angron (GETS. SHIT. DONE.)

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  Mortarion

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  Magnus the Red

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  Lorgar Aurelian (goldboy)

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  Alpharius/Omegon

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  Lore accurate Height chart

How To Make A Primarch

Artist's depiction of a primarch's creation

The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions
Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan
Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo