First Founding
After he conquered Terra, the God-Emperor of Mankind set out on a Great Crusade to re-unite the lost human colonies into a mighty Imperium. He soon realized that bog-standard humans wouldn't be enough; some situations called for a small number of devastatingly powerful warriors, a surgical strike force to smash enemy linchpins. To fill this role, he created his Primarchs, and from their genes, he created twenty Space Marine Legions:
| Legion Number | Primarch | Homeworld | Name of the Legion | Allegiance | |
| I | Lion El'Jonson | Caliban | Dark Angels | Loyal | |
| II | +++Records expunged+++ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| III | Fulgrim | Chemos | Emperor's Children | Traitor | |
| IV | Perturabo | Olympia | Iron Warriors | Traitor | |
| V | Jaghatai Khan | Mundus Planus | White Scars | Loyal | |
| VI | Leman Russ | Fenris | Space Wolves | Loyal | |
| VII | Rogal Dorn | Terra | Imperial Fists | Loyal | |
| VIII | Konrad Curze | Nostramo | Night Lords | Traitor | |
| IX | Sanguinius | Baal | Blood Angels | Loyal | |
| X | Ferrus Manus | Medusa | Iron Hands | Loyal | |
| XI | +++Records expunged+++ | ||||
| XII | Angron | Unknown | World Eaters | Traitor | |
| XIII | Roboute Guilliman | Macragge | Ultramarines | Loyal | |
| XIV | Mortarion | Barbarus | Death Guard | Traitor | |
| XV | Magnus the Red | Prospero | Thousand Sons | Traitor | |
| XVI | Horus | Cthonia | Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus | Traitor | |
| XVII | Lorgar | Colchis | Word Bearers | Traitor | |
| XVIII | Vulkan | Nocturne | Salamanders | Loyal | |
| XIX | Corax | Deliverance | Raven Guard | Loyal | |
| XX | Alpharius Omegon | Unknown | Alpha Legion | It's complicated | |
Two Unknown Legions
In the First Edition of Warhammer 40,000, the twenty First Founding Chapters were all known. It seems that Games Workshop had more love for some than others; when they made fluff revisions in the transition to Second Edition, the Valedictors and Rainbow Warriors were demoted to one of the "Later Foundings."
Nowadays, nothing concrete is known about the Legions II and XI, and likewise their unknown Primarchs. It is suggested that the Space Wolves destroyed them for some reason, and in the Horus Heresy book The First Heretic, a daemon suggests to the Word Bearers that the eleventh Legion in particular did something really bad, and that the left-over Marines were folded into the Ultramarines.