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Chaos Space Marines

2020-10-17T07:49:50Z

2001:48F8:3028:1577:5D60:8436:DAA3:4541: Fixed a typo

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer<br>And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. <br>And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine."<br>And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.<br>And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 65 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel, most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10 000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than most of the other traitor legions. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And they're still a great threat despite all this..

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard off, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The Only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such legion or primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking enemies brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New Hope? A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed? Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book. Speaking to the former, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] were just laughably useless. On top of that, random tables plagued the book (though nowhere near as much as the Chaos Daemons), troops were of questionable value and utility and the army played like Space Marines, but with too many goddamn cuts to it.

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===

What does this mean for the future? Well, seeing how the Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward there is hope for a functional army where the crunch matches the scary what-the-fuckery of the fluff. This is nice; according to the news, the Traitor lists aren't going anywhere and whatever weakness the current list has is mainly a go-to while the book gets written. Benefit of the doubt, sure - but there's not a lot else to go on, here.

Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd. CSM can still ally with Daemons and Renegades so that's still nice (although it would be nice if Renegades had a list that didn't rely on Forgeworld). There are some issues with the index we've been handed but the Codex not only fixed that but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

Overall, things are looking bright for what is arguably the most benighted faction in the game aside from Sisters. <s>Those poor gals...</s> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smqK5cHSxMA|'''NOT ANYMORE''']

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can hurt.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Magnus the Red

2020-10-17T05:26:07Z

2001:48F8:3028:1577:5D60:8436:DAA3:4541: Fixed a typo

{{heresy}}
{{awesome}}
[[File:Magnus-The-Red-Primarchs-Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-4995855 (1).jpeg|400px|thumb|right|Handsome bastard...]]
{{Topquote|For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.|Ecclesiastes 1:18}}
{{Topquote|If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.|Woody Allen}}
{{Topquote|I'm the bad guy? How'd that happen?|2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLmuF-0P4tk William Foster]}}
{{Topquote|Look at this cookie I found.|2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrIsig8mLU The red man himself.]}}
'''Magnus the Red''', '''"Master of Prospero"''' (a.k.a '''The Crimson King''', the '''Sorcerer-King''', '''Cyclopean Magnus''', the '''Red Cyclops''', '''The One Who did <s>Nothing</s> Wrong''', [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|'''My Special Magny Magic''']], [[TTS|'''The Saucy Spice Boy''']], and [[TTS|'''Wide Ahriman''']]) is the primarch of the [[Thousand Sons]] and rules over the Planet of the Sorcerers, and formerly Prospero. He is directly after the [[Emperor]] as the mightiest Psyker/Sorcerer in the whole Warhammer 40k Universe. He is notable for having an enormously variable physical form with a few common themes he keeps to most of the time (red skin and hair, one eye, etc) and [[Eldrad|being enormously, staggeringly, almost unbelievably arrogant,]] and with his shifting physical form and his hubris he's a real chip off the old block. Because of this there is debate over if he had a big ol' red eye in the middle of his forehead, or had normal eyes but one socket was empty. Either way he was a cyclops (The colour of his single eye is also described as constantly changing). He is also the Primarch of the [[Blood Ravens]] (maybe), which would explain their color scheme, high percentage of psykers, their Chapter Badge, their name, their beliefs, and that they steal everything that isn’t nailed down (who are kidding, including what's nailed down as well). Of all the Primarchs, with the exception of [[Vulkan]], [[Sanguinius]] and [[Jaghatai Khan]], Magnus was one of the most open minded and compassionate to the discriminated, being a psyker and all.

He, along with old [[Mortarion|Morty]], are among the few traitor Primarchs who actually hate/despise their respective Chaos Gods. Mortarion for his general disdain for all things psychic in nature, and Magnus for being humiliated and played like a [[Metal Gear|damn fiddle]] by [[Tzeentch]]. Then again, being a Daemon Prince does make even the idea of doing so impossible by definition, so instead he's chosen to blame the Imperium for pushing him to the side of the traitors.

==The Great Crusade==
[[File:Past-Magnus-The-Red-Primarchs-.jpeg||300px|right|thumb|Magnus nerdin out in his private astrology room.]]
Magnus landed on the planet of [[Prospero]], a planet whose ancient civilization was composed predominantly of psykers, who had fled there because they were persecuted by humanity at large for being psykers. As Magnus was himself such a being, he formed a kinship with the people of Prospero in short order. Taken in by Prospero's people, he absorbed knowledge like a sponge, and became crazy powerful, and in time far exceeded the power and control of all of his teachers. After a while, he became the single most powerful ''thing'' on the fucking planet, and he led a campaign to eradicate a race of predators on Prospero known as the ''Psychneuein'', which had overrun many of Prospero's early cities, and had an unhealthy fondness for laying their eggs in unsuspecting psykers' brains. Which was probably why the beasts had destroyed the entire population of Prospero, save for its capital city, Tizca. One by one, bit by bit, Magnus' forces retook the planet, putting the Psychneuein to the sword, and within a year, [[Awesome|Magnus had mostly reclaimed the entire world]] (except for the Desolation of Prospero, which was everything except for Tizca).

Once the campaign on the Psychneuein was complete, Magnus became the planetary leader by popular demand. Magnus decided to be fucking awesome, and rebuilt the cities (or mostly just Tizca). Like a somehow perfectly stable fortress lasting some 50 years in [[Dwarf Fortress]], Tizca became arguably the most beautiful city in Imperial space, with crystalline spires and pyramids, long marble roads, and psychically-resonant crystals in key locations; designed to calm the turbulent minds of younger psykers and help them control their burgeoning psionic potential. The city quickly became known as a shining jewel of humanity, and one that showed proudly how far its citizens had come from the brink of near-extinction. Prospero also had one of the most technically advanced defensive networks in the Imperium, all of which was hilariously wasted except for the shields when Magnus, in a fit of Primarch-scale angst over his "I screwed everything Dad was doing and failed my purpose entirely in the process" whoopsy-daisy, decided that the [[Space Wolves]] should get the rabbit punch.

All this time, Magnus continued to codify and systematize everything he could about the 'Great Ocean' - the name the Prosperans had given the [[Warp]]. Huge libraries filled with knowledge about psychic powers and the warp were established, and Magnus himself used his powers to peer into the Empyrean itself, claiming many of its secrets, though at terrible risk to himself. While this was exceptionally dangerous, much of what the Imperium's [[Inquisition]] currently knows about the Warp came directly from several of his manuscripts that survived.

With such a powerful mind heading into the warp, it was inevitable that the [[Emprah]] (who happened to be out and about the galaxy looking for his lost sons) would eventually take notice. So he eventually came to Prospero, and he and Magnus psychically brofisted before talking for several days. The Emperor taught him even more about psychic powers, but cautioned Magnus to be ''slow and purposeful''. The Emperor was well-aware foul horrors lurked in the Warp and liked nothing better than [[Anal Circumference|forcibly sodomizing an unprepared Psyker's soul]], but Magnus didn't care, especially since his forays into the Warp to save his Legion from the flesh-change had already come at a price neither of them realized - Magnus believed he'd only given up on his right eye, sacrificed ala Odin when he had consorted with [[Tzeentch|Warp-entities whose nature he did not understand]]. To Magnus, one eye was was an acceptable price and he didn't heed the Emperor's warnings as he believed he'd come out on top of the bargain.

Magnus was put in charge of the [[Thousand Sons]], but would not immediately embark on the Great Crusade - since many of his Legion were psykers, and there had been so many small mutations that a number of them couldn't survive the gene-seeding process. Even worse, during combat, psykers ran the risk of losing control of their powers and underwent "Flesh Change", where their body mutated rampantly out of control at all the Warp energy running through them (we call them something else, but won't speak its name as... wait, I didn't say it's [[Chaos Spawn|naSHHTLSUROHSONTOOLS!]])

Magnus was aware of the mutations his Astartes were suffering, and entered the Warp to seek answers about the cause of this and if a cure existed, though he didn't know that he had consorted with [[Tzeentch]] by doing so, and the god of [[Just as planned]] saw a ''lot'' of potential in this one. In return for knowledge and a way to stop the flesh-change, Magnus lost his eye so hard that he '''never saw it coming''' [[Cegorach|(ah-ha-ha-ha!!)]].

In any case, because of the setbacks that had befallen the Thousand Sons, the selfless efforts of Magnus to save them, their shared psychic talents, and the continuing distrust and persecution of many Imperial agencies and other Space Marine Legions towards the Thousand Sons' use of psychic abilities and the rampant mutations present in their gene-seed, the Primarch and his Astartes developed an extremely close emotional and psychic bond. One of the strongest among all Primarchs and their Space Marine Legions, exceeding even the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves]]' dedication to [[Horus]].

Finally, about midway into the Great Crusade (100 Terran years after it had begun), the now "stable" Thousand Sons Legion (although numbering only 10,000 soldiers), with Magnus leading them on the field, were permitted to take part in the campaign as part of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet. And it was ''glorious''. When they were deployed, the Sons were a sight to behold, flinging psychic storms to consume their enemies and striking bolts with precision and prescience, using their abilities to ascertain enemies' weak-points. Magnus was unique among the Primarchs in that he would always try diplomatic routes first, however - in this way, the Thousand Sons won many battles without so much as a shot fired. This did not sit well with [[Rogal Dorn]] or [[Roboute Guilliman|Girlyman]], who viewed this approach "unmanly". Likewise, Magnus drew constant distrust from [[Mortarion]] and [[Leman Russ]], who distrusted the Sons' sorcerous ways and were somewhat concerned of a trait the Sons had picked up: [[lootas|after conquering or annexing a world, they would take huge amounts of knowledge: books, scrolls about forgotten /forbidden lore, and ancient artifacts, back to Prospero for study, analysis and codification]]. ''And this doesn't sound like the Blood Ravens, you say? Nicking everything shiny that's not nailed down?'' Point is: nobody looted so prolifically as The Thousand Sons. The White Scars and Blood Angels aligned themselves with them to rig the Librarium. What that did was to actually impose some restraint on psykers, that made everyone a bit more accepting towards them. Their worries only intensified when it was discovered that the Sons had little warp critters (familiars) called "tutelaries" buzzing around them and acting as warp power-packs. This Elegan/tg/entleman believes Magnus’ tutelary was an ADORABLE WARP KITTEN!

When diplomacy didn't work, The Sons were known to fuck entire armies with lightning, fireballs, mass mind-control, precognition of enemy strikes and counter them with precision strikes, dealing so much devastation with only some few squads of Marines. Magnus himself once fought Ork gargants by himself, and despite being able to zap, melt or transmute their hulls with just the power of his mind, he instead [[Awesome|scaled himself to the size of a Warlord-class Titan, and beat the shit out of them with his bare hands]].

A very important event called "Council of Nikaea" or "The Trial of Magnus the Red", took place about 50 years before the Horus Heresy, where Magnus was called by his brothers and the Emperor to answer for abusing his powers and to install some form of control of psykers used in battle across the galaxy. The fact that the Sons obsessed with preserving valuable knowledge (whatever the source), was another factor that pissed a bunch of Primarchs off. The Thousand Sons' political opponents among other Astartes Legions found hoarding xenos' artifacts useless and counter-productive to the goals of the Great Crusade (which actually more or less sought to eradicate all alien life in the galaxy). Finally, the Emperor stepped in, bitch-slapped everyone for acting like a [[Derp|fucking child]] (irony!), and pointed out that whilst dangerous, psychic powers were still necessary to the Imperium as a whole
So psykers were now to abstain from using their powers in battle. The ever fabulous Jaghatai Khan facepalmed his high forehead, whilst groaning, that this is exactly what he'd warned Magnus about. Magnus was ticked off, but calmed down a bit a little later and continued the Crusade with the new restrictions in place (actually, they carried out their arcane ways in secret).

==Horus Heresy==
[[File:DaemonMagnus.jpg|right|thumb|He doesn't get much press-time because of how bad he and his Legion got dicked by Tzeentch, but when he DOES, watch your fucking [[FATAL|ass]]!]]
When Magnus learned that Horus intended to betray the Emperor and slaughter like half the galaxy, he resolved to use any method possible to warn the Emperor. With few other options, he made a deal with Tzeentch again, to combine their powers and smash the psychic seal The Emperor had installed to protect the Webway from the warp (Magnus simply did not bother to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U walk around the Wall] through one of the entrances that the Webway has) and enter the Imperial Palace all the way from Prospero. Unfortunately, this deed majorily fucked up the Webway project the Emperor had been working on for over 9000 years, which would have made the dangerous warp-travel obsolete and would [[Heresy|unify the Imperium of Man using a human-engineered version of the Eldar Webway gate]]. Big E called Magnus out and banished him back for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOqOlETcRU&t=0m30s| breaking the law] and using sorcery to get through the Webway. [[Eldrad|The dick]] didn't even listen to Magnus about Horus's betrayal and declared Magnus a [[Extra Heresy|DOUBLE HERETIC]]. Magnus realized that the Imperium is comprehensively fucked and that he needed to do all he could to protect it and Prospero. Emps should probably have told his super-psychic son about his psychically-sensitive all-important project [[derp|THAT MAGNUS WAS DESTINED TO OPERATE]], but that would make [[Grimdark|nobody happy]], wouldn't it?

When Horus learned of this, he was quietly amused. The Emperor ordered Horus to have Russ bring Magnus back to Terra to stand trial for what he had done, and Horus being a [[Eldrad|dick]], quietly altered Russ' orders to lay waste to Prospero instead and slaughter the Thousand Sons. As Magnus was already officially a (slightly tolerated) heretic, Russ stoically accepted the order to bring a third of his brothers down. (Seriously, [[Companion|Constantin Valdor]] is way more out for Magnus' blood than Russ himself is.) Russ took his whole Legion to the party, and accompanying the Space Wolves were a full contingent of Adeptus Custodes (led by aforementioned Valdor), millions of [[Imperial Army]] troops and an elite anti-psyker unit: the Sisters of Silence (think a unit of [[Culexus|Culexus Assassin]]s and you get the general idea). Barring a last-ditch attempt to Skype Magnus through Kasper Hawser, an agent that had been brainwashed to visit Fenris and spy on the wolves that Magnus was not connected to(because [[Tzeentch|reasons]]).

Interestingly Russ actually attempted to contact Magnus and his legion several times in an attempt to get them to explain their actions, and even when he was directly above the planet he kept sending Magnus calls to try and get him to just talk to him, but Magnus had put the planet on lockdown and kept denying any contact with the fleet, which royally pissed off Russ. A shame too, if he said fucking anything he probably could have stopped his people from getting fucked.

Magnus, sensing this and realising that this had been [[Just as planned]] by Tzeentch and that it has done this to completely destroy both the Thousand Sons and the Space Wolves, decided to counter-dick-move the Lord of All Fate. Instead of calling Russ back and peacefully working out what had happened (which would have solved everything), he decided to accept the destruction of everything that he had worked for, so that [[not as planned|Tzeentch's ultimate goal would only be half-fulfilled]], [[derp|because letting your enemy accomplish half of what they want and making the Imperium far more vulnerable to Horus is better than making them fail and giving your traitor brother a harder time]]. Tzeentch was richly amused by this. As Prospero burned, Tzeentch and Magnus engaged in act after act of dickery and counter-dickery; with Magnus finally pushed into a towering rage and taking to the battlefield at his capital: crushing his enemies with volleys of MIND BULLETS (forgetting the whole reason he refused to talk to Russ), before he engaged Leman Russ himself in close-combat. The two fought fiercely and [[Awesome|Magnus managed to Falcon pawnch Russ so hard, his breastplate shattered ''and one of his hearts punctured''. ]]Russ got lucky and took out Magnus' second eye, and then performed a back-breaker on him that ended the fight. Tzeentch was greatly amused by all of this because it's rare for anyone, let alone a mortal, to predict and out-manipulate the plans of the Architect of Fate himself. He thus made Magnus an offer: Become Tzeentch's servant and preserve what was left of his Legion and homeworld or watch it all burn in a pool of his own blood.

Pussying out, Magnus agreed because the thought of actually dying to atone for his mistakes only seemed like a good idea until he had to put it into practice. As a result, Magnus' cowardice ruined everything he'd been working towards and explicitly doing the one thing he'd been trying to prevent. The response of Magnus' new patron was immediate: for once, Tzeentch was true to his word. The City of Light was transported into the Eye of Terror onto a Daemon World. Prospero was destroyed that day, but Magnus and his Legion survived. It is unclear ''when'' they ended up on the Planet of the Sorcerers; before or after the Siege of Terra, but Magnus the Red had been so damaged by his battle with Russ and the psychic effort of teleporting to Sortiarius that his soul had fragmented across time and space. The shards represented different aspects of Magnus's personality, all tied to various places and people in the galaxy (one existed in the past many decades before the Heresy) and all had different motives. One shard helped the Salamanders resurrect Vulkan, whilst another had gone full daemon and tried to kill as many knight-errants as possible. Ahriman and co gathered several of the more powerful shards back together and managed to perform a Rubric to bond them back together into a stable form. Magnus was saved from fading away but effectively become a daemon prince and the most powerful of all Tzeentch's servants. One of the shards, representing Magnus's good side was bound into the dying Revuel Arvida, becoming Janus. Magnus originally planned to join the assault on Terra purely to get this part of his soul back but seeing as Janus appeared later in The Beast Arises series, we can assume this didn't go to plan.
[[Just as planned|Magnus had never served Tzeentch willingly, but now had no choice - exactly as Tzeentch HAD PLANNED from the very beginning (we might think), and now he was committed to the very cause he had tried to foil]].

Some head-scratching does arise ae to why Magnus didn't: a) simply tell his Legion to lay down their weapons and try and talk Russ out of obliterating the entire world, (especially since Russ was willing to listen), b) take the hara-kiri option, which would have at least brought everything to an end a little earlier or c) try to confront Russ elsewhere where there wouldn't be a large amount of civilian/auxilia deaths and the vast repository of knowledge the Thousand Sons had wouldn't be lost, or d) just go to the Space Wolves himself, since that way he wouldn't take his entire Legion and planet down with him. The common consensus is that Magnus was too proud to consider the idea of explaining himself and resolving things peacefully (especially with the brother he had always considered to be an ignorant savage), but this falls flat when you remember that he also could've talked to the Custodes if he thought Russ wasn't willing to talk (and seeing as how Russ kept calling him like a needy girlfriend, he obviously was). There's also no reason presented anywhere for why he didn't take any other option presented here, and once you examine the event, it becomes clear this is one of those odd writing issues where the Burning of Prospero was written into the lore so far in advance as something that happened, that when they actually got to detailing it they forgot to adequately justify it from the side of Magnus and his Legion.

==Post-Heresy==
[[File:Cl9SiZhXIAADyip.jpg|left|thumb|300px|An exceptionally skilled drawfag's depiction of Magnus during the Horus Heresy.]]
And so, the Horus Heresy came and went. The Siege of Terra occurred, Horus had fought the Emperor and (SPOILER WARNING) failed, and the Traitor Legions were driven to the [[Eye of Terror]]. However, the Thousand Sons now had to deal with more immediate problems: with their serving of Tzeentch, the Flesh Change returned with a vengeance. Magnus made efforts to stop this, but being a servant of the God of Mutation has its drawbacks and before long Magnus seemed to have given up. Growing desperate, [[Ahzek Ahriman]], the Chief Librarian and First Captain, took matters into his own hands. Having lost his brother to the Flesh Change before they found Prospero, Ahriman gathered a cabal of other sorcerers, the Book of Magnus, and performed the Rubric of Ahriman in an attempt to stop the Flesh Change.

The results were not what Ahriman expected: while it stopped the Flesh Change and further empowered all psychic Thousand Sons, all non-psyker Thousand Sons had their bodies turned to dust and sealed within their Power Armour, becoming little more than robots needing guidance from a Thousand Son sorcerer.

Confronting Ahriman, once his most favored son, Magnus angrily demanded an explanation. Ahriman basically telling him to shut it [[rage|did not help]] and Magnus was about to kill Ahriman when Tzeentch spoke to him: ''"Magnus, why do you seek to kill my pawn?"'' (which is strange since of all the chaos gods, Tzeentch cares about his followers the least) Once again, Magnus realized [[just as planned|he'd had been used]]. Disgusted, broken (and still really angry but unable to do anything about it) Magnus simply exiled Ahriman from the Planet of Sorcerers. For the last ten thousand years, Magnus and Ahriman both have labored to restore the Sons' bodies to their original forms, [[troll|with Tzeentch ensuring they fail all the while]]. Though, it is really weird the God of ''Mutation'' and ''Change'' would be preventing change and keeping some of his strongest minions in a form that cannot be mutated (well, I mean he probably could because Warp but we've never heard about it).

===Fragments of Magnus===
Unknown to everyone save perhaps Tzeentch himself and Magnus' inner circle, the teleportation of Magnus to the Planet of the Sorcerers at Prospero had the side effect of splitting the Primarch's soul into a large number of lesser fragments, many of which might not have even been aware of the split and believed that they truly were Magnus the Red.
The actual number of fragments is not known exactly, but an allegorical representation of them showed a broken statue of a bird, with some fragments being as small as grains of dirt though the largest piece was definitely recognisable as parts of a bird.

*The fragment that traveled to the Planet of Sorcerers was the greatest shard of Magnus' soul, although upon its arrival it was nothing like the Primarch or the daemon-prince Magnus that are well known to the 40k universe. Although it appeared to be Magnus the Red, it has the mindset of a senile old man who was dying. This Magnus barely knew where or when he was at the best of times and was constantly forgetting who his companions were or what Leman Russ had done to him or his Legion. This shard of Magnus spent centuries ''(of warptime, so practically no time at all in realspace)'' fleeing his memories through the warp while being chased by his equerry [[Amon]] who was trying to bring him back. In a moment of lucidity he was the first to reveal that his soul had been shattered, but only by reliving the battle of Prospero did the Thousand Sons have an idea of where the largest shards went to, so Ahriman led a quest to reclaim them and restore his Primarch, gathering enough to amalgamate the Crimson King.
**'''The Crimson King''', the Daemon-Primarch of Tzeentch as he exists in the present, was the recombination of several shards as the Horus Heresy went on and by far the most powerful of the Magnus-fragments. His first act was to declare that he would join Horus' rebellion and lay siege to Terra to reclaim his greatest fragment ''(Janus)''. He would exile Ahriman for the first failed Rubric, would later instigate the Battle of the Fang and then spend the next ten thousand years being a dick, eventually fouling up Ahriman's second Rubric but achieving near-complete unification of all the shards. Unsurprisingly, the only parts that weren't reunited with The Crimson King were all the ones which embodied Magnus' noblest, most selfless qualities.
*'''"Magnus"''' (as the father of the Thousand Sons and '''author of the Book of Magnus''') was the portion of Magnus that seemed to care the most about his legionaries and of his son Ahriman in particular. Much diminished, he remained behind the scenes for centuries attempting to subvert the Daemon-Primarch and guide his son Ahriman ''(and by extension the Legion)'' back to greatness and presumably ''(at a push)'' back onto the path the Emperor intended for them. It was he who inspired Ahriman to attempt the original Rubric in the first instance since it was actually his own spell. "Magnus" (the father) knew that it would fail, but the flesh-change was overcoming the legion anyway, and the failed attempt would provide Ahriman with both the time and the conviction to eventually complete his great work and attempt a second rubric by pooling his own resources with knowledge gleaned from various other fragments, including the Athenaeum of Kallimakus. It was also he who infuenced Amon's dreams to seek out Ahriman to kill him and undo the Rubric and end their brothers' agony. While this shard of Magnus admitted he sacrificed Amon to re-motivate Ahriman to do the second Rubric, he believed it was the proper course of action to save their legion and make Magnus whole without the Crimson King's infuence. The end result may have actually cured his legion & father by reuniting the broken primarch and reversing the flesh-change, and allow the personality of "Magnus" (the father) to assert control over the united fragments and redeem himself. However, even if it had worked the interference of the Crimson King would have caused it to destroy the fragments instead. Ultimately, it faded into oblivion rather than allow the Crimson King to reabsorb it.
*The great library of knowledge: the '''Athenaeum of Kallimakus''' actually was a fragment of sorts, but not able to act independently, only providing a link to the stream of consciousness of the original Magnus the Red. However the Athenaeum was corrupted after being discovered by the Crimson King, who attempted to insinuate his own mind into the thought-stream and attempt to assert control over Ahriman's second rubric result. His dipping in and out of the stream introduced flaws into the spell which would still have allowed the Thousand Sons to regain their flesh but would have destroyed all the fragments of Magnus in the process.
**A separate lesser shard was hidden within the ashes of '''Mahavastus Kallimakus''' himself, that was carried around in an urn for years yet was completely oblivious to the [[Sisters of Silence]], the [[Thousand Sons]] and one of the [[Knights-Errant]], beneath whom the urn had passed almost completely unnoticed. It was only when proximity to the shard of Aghoru that it awakened, although its motivations are largely unknown because it seemed to be operating under the orders of the other shard until it fused with it.
*One fragment remained on Prospero, representing his acceptance of the Emperor's judgement against him, this Magnus was stuck in limbo and meditation for a while, until [[Jaghatai Khan]] rocked up to Prospero to find out what had happened. This fragment served up a nice big info-dump and urged him to pick a side in the war, and in return Jaghatai banished him from Prospero.
*Another became a daemon of vengeance that was unwittingly passed from host to host ''(It was thought to be a normal daemon, no-one realised it was a actually a shard of Magnus)''. It eventually came to inhabit the body of a renegade space marine called Astraeos. This shard saw the Crimson King as a usurper but was eventually consumed after a very quick battle with the Crimson King following the failed second Rubric.
*One returned to Nikaea and represented the part inside of Magnus that died when the Emperor made his pronouncement against him. This shard was literally a corpse being clawed at by daemonic hands.
*One represented his warrior aspect and was found on the planet Aghoru seemingly waiting to duel whoever showed up. It held off a [[Knights-Errant|Knight-Errant]], a Rune Priest, a small squad of space wolves, a bunch of cyber automata and a freaking Samurai at the same time without any overt use of psychic power until it was bound into the body of a mortal. Interestingly, this shard had no intention of reuniting with the greater because Magnus was not actually known for his battle-prowess, so this fragment would rather have remained and made a name for himself equal to Angron or the Lion, nonetheless it later absorbed the shard of Kallimakus into itself and was absorbed in turn into the Crimson King anyway.
*Another fragment representing Magnus' desire to seek knowledge for the sake of its acquisition. It was thrust into Terra's past and inhabited the body of King Kadmus, one of the Emperor's enemies, requiring Ahriman to time-travel in order to reclaim it.
*One fragment remained on Terra and was fused by [[Malcador]] to '''Revuel Arvida''', inadvertently creating an entity known as '''Ianius''' ''(Janus)''. Yes, the same Janus that would become the first Supreme Grand Master of the [[Grey Knights]]. It is believed that this fragment embodied Magnus's nobility and connection to the Emperor.
*From the Prologue and Epilogue there may very well have been a second fragment of Magnus that resided on Terra and was known to Malcador and Rogal Dorn. But where Revuel Arvida housed a shard in his flesh and became Ianius who remained ostensibly Astartes, this shard was fully formed ''(an oversized giant with crimson skin)'' and housed within a villa hidden deep beneath the crust of Terra from where he narrates the novel ''Crimson King''. This fragment took upon himself the role of archivist of the Horus Heresy, and pinned his hopes for the future on some all-seeing device in the warp called ''The Orrery''. Perhaps building it with the help of his equerry Amon while he was chasing a different shard of his emotional father through time and space via the warp, or by completing his own orrery separately, or simply referring to the one the Crimson King made. It could then be this shard of Magnus who rescued the ship carrying the body of Vulkan and guided it back to Nocturne so his brother could be resurrected.
**It may also yet be Janus speaking from an earlier time period before his binding, who knows? The warp is confusing enough without it being inhabited by multiple aspects of the same guy over different time periods.
**Regardless of whether it is Janus or an entirely separate fragment, one of the Terran shards was believed by the Crimson King to be the first and greatest fragment of the Soul of Magnus and so he was willing to lay siege to Terra to reclaim it, even going so far as name it his sole reason for joining Horus's side of the war.

By the novel Ahriman Unchanged, Ahriman would complete his second Rubric and attempt to cast it on [[Sortiarius]]. Unfortunately the Rubric was not completed as Ahriman was interrupted by a member of the Thousand Sons who knew that the outcome would result in Magnus's annihilation and wanted to avoid it, so he seized control of the magical energy before Ahriman could finish the spell and obliterate their father. This resulted in several of the fragments reuniting into the Daemon Primarch Crimson King and increasing his share of power to a state indistinguishable from that which he possessed as a complete being. The aspect of vengeance: Astraeos would be the Crimson King's first victim and be absorbed almost immediately, while Magnus (the father) would fade away into nothing after having hung on for so many centuries only to fail in his objectives to lay claim to the soul of Magnus or heal his Legion- all it could do was deny the Crimson King what little power it still possessed.
*Although he [[Just as Planned|might have actually succeeded]], in by failing to complete the second Rubric, as a side effect Ahriman was uncoupled from his destiny and now "free" from divine manipulations, something that Magnus ''(the Father)'' had wished for all of his sons. But even then Ahriman ultimately continued to serve Tzeentch of his own will, so how much of a victory this may have been is up for debate.

This means that while Daemon-Primarch Magnus at the turn of the 41st millennium is in his most complete state and the various schemes of the separated fragments have been put to rest, Magnus is still not "whole" and likely will never return to his original state due to the loss of significant fragments; in particular, the evaporated essence of the compassionate father figure who set the rubric in motion, and probably the missing nobility of Janus, who died centuries earlier in service to the [[Grey Knights]]. At this point it can be assumed that Tzeentch filled in the remaining parts with himself, cementing Magnus's state as a Daemon Prince and eliminating any chance of his redemption.

===Post Rubric===
[[File:Magnus vs Robboute.jpg|500px|right|thumb|Magnymagick and [[Roboute Guilliman|Papa Smurf]] having a calm and brotherly conversation over at Luna in the 41st Millennium. [[TTS|And I, Cato Sicarius, will prevent anyone from interrupting this conversation!]]]]

'''Battle for The Fang:'''
The unified Magnus the Red: The Crimson King, later showed up on [[Fenris|FENRIS]] ITSELF and became the second Daemon Primarch after [[Angron]] to get shit done, rampaging through imperial lines and laying waste to everything in his path with MIND BULLETS and RAW PHYSICAL POWER until the Space Wolves responded and after an extremely hard fight Magnus phased himself out and teleported all his marines out of the Fang after having his back broken once again, this time by Bjorn. While he succeeded in sabotaging an experimental (seemingly successful) Space Wolf geneseed mutation cure and killing an entire Great Company HQ, The Great Wolf (turns out wolfing a Wolf Lord's wolf means warping your hands inside him and ''ripping his hearts out'') and almost killing Bjorn the Fell-Handed himself, he did not finish the Space Wolves once and for all. Of course, Magnus claimed it was not his goal in the first place.

Funny how two out of two Daemon Primarchs to have gotten shit done ended up being repelled by the actions of the Space Wolves. On the other hand, the Wolfies were pushed to their very limits trying to repel the chosen of Tzeentch, and they only got off easy once he fucked off after his main objective was finished.

'''Warzone Fenris:'''

Of all the Daemon Primarchs so far seen in the fluff, he seems to be the most [[Reasonable Marines|collected and coherent]], as far as Chaos goes; in the trailer of Wrath of Magnus he actually sounded quite composed and at odds with Angron's "BLUDFUTEBLUDGUD!" or Mortarion's "IHAVESPESSASHMA"; he told the Thousand Sons in a strong but civilized way to put their differences aside to focus on the goal of destroying the Space Puppies, and remarked how [[Awesome|all of them were his sons, even Ahriman or any other wayward sorcerer who had gone his own way through the ages and that despite the millennia long pass, he still holds Prospero in high regards and consistently fights for his homeworld's memory and people;]] [[Kharn|what a cool guy.]]

During the campaign, Magnus' goal was never to destroy Fenris (though it would have been a satisfying bonus), but instead to make the Wolves suffer as he and his sons did during the Burning of Prospero: with the Wulfen and their genetic flaw revealed, they would be regarded with suspicion and mistrust. Because the people of Fenris have seen first-hand the horrors of the Warp, the Inquisition ordered a massive purge that saw most of the population of Fenris exterminated. Midgardia basically got destroyed, Fenris became a partly irradiated wasteland, and Magnus pulled Sortiarius into the materium (as the whole invasion of Fenris also turned out to be a massive ritual for which the Grey Knights killing the populace helped a lot, yes Grey Knights dun fucked up). Interestingly, while Magnus is lauded for his vast intellect he seems to have neglected the insignificant detail of *knowing* that the Space Wolves were tricked by Horus into annihilating the Thousand Sons instead of detaining them in order to take them to Terra as the Emperor had decreed. This order was slightly "re-interpreted" by Horus and then passed on to Leman Russ with the known consequences (the traitor legions refer to them as "the betrayed" for that very reason). There goes split personality for ya!

Notably, during the above campaign, Magnus got Mortarion's aid in exchange for the latter taking over Midgardia and transforming it into a plague infested planet. However, Magnus proceeded to back-stab Mortarion by arranging Midgardia to undergo exterminatus before the latter succeeded in claiming it. Magnus likely did this out of vengeance because he's still salty over Mortarion's role during that little Council of Nikaea thing, something something best served cold...

'''Gathering Storm Book III:'''

Magnus and the Thousand Sons are found to be lurking in the webway after the resurrected [[Roboute Guilliman]] and his allies have escaped from the Red Corsairs. Guilliman, realizing that Magnus is hoping to use him to sneak into the Imperial Palace via the webway gate, instead detours to a dormant gate on Luna. A huge battle between Guilliman's forces and the Thousand Sons ensues, whilst the two Primarchs go mano-a-mano. In a rare example of the [[Ultramarine|blue bastards]] not getting their way and the whole "Daemon Primarch" thing actually making a difference, Magnus' super-psyker abilities bring the G-man within a gnat's testicle of actually getting killed before the loyalist cavalry arrives in the form of the Imperial Fists, the Adeptus Custodes, and the Sisters of Silence. The Sisters nullify Magnus' powers long enough for Guilliman to turn him into a kebab. This somehow causes Magnus to unleash a psychic shockwave that blows him back through the gate, after which some Harlequins who'd tagged along with Guilliman seal it off, stranding him in the webway.
Since then, Magnus has been involved in many other major attacks on the Imperium at the behest of Tzeentch, such as the invasion of the Stygius Sector.

==On the tabletop==
===As a son of the Emperor===
[[File:FWMagnusTheRed.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Magnus, back before he was a red giant. Well, a redder giant.]]
{| class=wikitable
! Points || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| 495 || 7 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 4 || 10 || 2+/4++
|}
With his decent statline, Magnus has the Primarch rule in all of its goodness, '''Arch Sorcerer''' (ML 5 psyker that harnesses on a 3+, needs three 6's to roll perils and re-rolls 1's if he does) plus he randomly generates his powers from any of the 5 main disciplines plus Sanctic (E.G. 2 biomancy, 2 telepathy, 1 divination). now think about rolling all 5 on biomancy! with '''The Eye of the Crimson King''', which gives him line of sight to anything in range while also giving his powers Ignores Cover. '''Phantasmal Aura''' makes him [[Jaghatai Khan|harder to hit]] by forcing anyone in melee or shooting at him (and the ''infantry'' unit he joined) -1 to hit while also forcing Barrage weapons aimed at him to add +1 Scatter. He's also a decent army buffer, boosting his legions leadership, making his attached unit Fearless ([[Forgeworld|even though the Primarch rule already did that]]), allowing Sehkmet Terminators as troops and letting you re-roll reserves.

*'''The Horned Raiment''' is your standard 2+ 4++ armour made of warp energy that lowers the number of wounds taken from the D by 1
*'''Psyfire Serpenta''' is an S8 AP2 Assault d3 gun with Soulblaze(that could be argued to be a plasma weapon and thus weakened by the sallies)
*'''The Blade of Ahn-Nunura''' is an S+2 AP1 two handed '''force''' blade.

The February 2019 FAQ <s>nerfed</s> balanced Magnus heavily. Making '''Mind Wrath''' a power he has to buy separately along with '''Infernal Bargain'''. This increases his cost by 175 points, bringing his total to 670 and making him the most expensive of the Primarchs. Mind Wrath lets him double the range of any witchfire and add a single d6 strength to a maximum of 10 at a penalty of his powers needing +2 Warp Charges to cast. His witchfires still do not need line of sight and ''Ignore Cover''. His ''Infernal Bargain'' rule allows his army to cancel out a single Perils of the Warp anywhere on the table once per game, which is a safety net in the event a low level Psyker fluffs his casting roll and subjects the entire army to a potential pinning check. Magnus is still powerful and he is clearly still the best psyker in the game, but not quite the Destroyer [[Cheese]] of his first incarnation.

[[File:RussMagnusDiorama.jpg|left|thumb|300px|Magnus and Russ having a civilized chat on the philosophy of the Warp. Also, Magnus doesn't have his nipple horns anymore. Maybe Magnus got tired of losing another eye every time he sneezes.]]
''Biomancy'' so far seems to be the most powerful for him to roll on, as Iron Arm makes him an unkillable juggernaut of S10 T9, Warp Speed let him out-dance Fulgrim and out-rape Angron at 7 attacks on I9, with both combined allowing him to take on Horus or even Russ in a challenge, Enfeeble and Endurance being generally great powers in any situations. Haemorrage sadly continues to be useless, though, and five times out of six you'd roll it instead of some useful power.

Hilariously Biomancy-powered Strawberry can mindbullet most Primarchs from distance in just 2 or 3 turns. Angron, Fulgrim and Corax could even go down in one turn with some luck. Although Lorgar's superior deny and Horus's armor of "fuck your psychic powers on a 3+" may pose a problem, and them hiding in a transport or a unit (probably both) counters this tactic completely - then again forcing your enemy's Primarch to hide just by deploying yours is a victory on it's own (unless it's Alpharius, who's straight up ''designed'' to hide in a unit).

You can go for support monster with ''Divination'' or supercheese with ''Telepathy'', but those disciplines lack boostable witchfires (Psychic Scream while awesome on its own don't have strength value). ''Pyromancy'' is on the other end of the spectrum, with all the witchfires all the time everywhere, potentially with re-rolls to wound from fiery form, but it can't increase his survivability or close combat prowess.

Magnus is THE straight-up best Primarch for his points. The reason for this is his sheer flexibility. While you may not be able to [[Lorgar|choose your psychic powers,]] you can tailor him to different roles at the start of any game just by picking a discipline. Up against a melee Legion and need a buffer for your gunline? Divination, motherfucker. Enemy brought a Warhound/Spartan/Primarch who isn't Horus or Russ? Biomancy to fly up and smash it. Up against Admech with those 4+ armor MCs? Say hi to Pyromancy. If there were only a few psychic powers that Magnus' rules could turn into OP nastiness it'd be okay, but with Biomancy in particular, there are an absurd number of such powers. Pray to the Emprah Forgeworld nerfs him.

Just keep him away from sisters of silence... even they might struggle though. Especially since, Psyker or not, this is still a Primarch designed to tear apart anything and everything. A Culexus Assassin hiding behind a unit will also royally fuck him over.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Primarch fighting, while fun to see, isn't a very competitive thing to do as it'll usually tie up both Primarchs for the entire game without either of them dying. With that in mind this section is all about how Magnus fares against other Primarchs mathhammer wise. Please note that all the various abilities, with the exception of Blind, are taken into account (Blind is ignored because it is just too random and unreliable to come into play) and the match-ups assume the Primarchs are the only ones involved in the fighting, so various abilities like Angron's "The Butcher's Nails" and Rampage do not provide any bonuses. As with Lorgar, psychic powers are not accounted for, which is a slightly false choice given that if you're sending Magnus in for a Primarch duel you probably will buff him but a necessary one if this is to be doable and fair.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

*Magnus vs Angron
** Angron first round: hits 4.5 times, wounds 3.75 times and 1.875 after saves which IWND will take down to 1.542 at the start of next turn
** Angron second round: hits 3 times, wounds 2.5 times and 1.25 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.917 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which FNP and IWND will take down to 0.5 at the start of next turn
** Unsurprisingly Magnus loses this one pretty badly

*Magnus vs Fulgrim
** Fulgrim (Fireblade): hits 3.5 times, wounds 2.333 times and 1.167 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.834 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Again unsurprisingly Fulgrim wins comfortably even without taking into account Child of Terra or Mastercrafted

*Magnus vs Mortarion
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.278 at the start of next turn
** Mortarion: hits 1.667 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Magnus actually out-endures Mortarion as his negative modifier to hit balances out Mortarion's superior regen and extra wound. Not that it matters because it will take several lifetimes before either of them actually die.

*Magnus vs Ferrus Manus
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 time and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Ferrus: hits 1.333 times with Forgbreaker and 0.333 times with his Servo Arm, wounds 1.111 times and 0.278 respectively which after saves becomes a total of 0.695 wounds after saves which IWND will take down to 0.362 wounds at the start of next turn
** Another ridiculously long fight but Ferrus' Servo Arm and better invulnerable save just tip the fight in his favour

*Magnus vs Konrad Curze
** Konrad: hits 3 times, wounds 2.25 times and 1.125 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.792 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 at the start of next turn
** Konrad wins this one without having to use his hit and run + HOW combo which turns this into a bloodbath

*Magnus vs Vulkan
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0 wounds at the start of next turn
** Vulkan: hits 1.333 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Vulkan wins because Magnus can't hurt him

*Magnus vs Lorgar
** Magnus (round 1): hits 2.222 times, wounds 1.728 times and 0.576 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.242 wounds at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2.667 times, wounds 2.222 times and 0.741 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.407 wounds at the start of next turn
** Lorgar: hits 2 times (Master-crafted and +1A for pistol), wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 wounds at the start of the next turn
** In spite of WS6 and 5 wounds, Lorgar's save is increased to 3++ against attacks from Force Weapons, giving him a mutual kill or narrowly win if he concusses Magnus in the penultimate round.
*** '''Happy psychic fun:'''
*** Magnus with Iron Arm and Warp Speed: hits 4.667 times, wounds 3.889 times, [[FAIL|0.432 after saves]] and IWND will take down to 0.099 wounds at the start of next turn
*** Lorgar with Precog: hits 2.778 times, wounds 1.543 times, 0.772 times after saves and IWND will take down to 0.439 wounds at the start of the next turn
*** Lorgar with Precog crushes Magnus (after a long time), the rerolls to hit and wound more than makes up for Magnus' aura and boosted Toughness, and [[Shield-Captain|rerollable 3++]] completely neuters Magnus' damage. Magnus needs Iron Arm, Warp Speed ''and'' Endurance to outlast him. Or roll Precognition himself with any Bio-blessing.

*Magnus vs Perturabo
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Magnus (Blinded): hits 1.333 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.37 after saves which IWND takes down 0.037 wounds at the start of next turn
** Perturabo: hits 1.333 times with both, wounds 0.889 times with his hands and 1.111 times with Forgebreaker and 0.444 and 0.556 times after saves respectively, which becomes 0.111/0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Perturabo (with Magnus Blinded): hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 times after saves
** Another victory for Magnus comes when Perturabo doesn't have Forgebreaker. When he does this becomes a walkover in the other direction as Magnus won't kill him before he becomes blinded and then he becomes essentially unable to hurt Perturabo

*Magnus vs Alpharius
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Alpharius: hits 1.944 times, wounds 1.512 times and 0.756 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.423 at the start of next turn
** As usual, Alpharius loses

*Magnus vs Rogal Dorn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.33 times (Dorn cannot be wounded on more than 3+ thanks to his armour) and 0.67 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.44 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Dorn: hits 2 times, wounds 1.5 times and 0.75 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.417 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Magnus loses this one

*Magnus vs Corvus Corax
** Corax: hits 2.667 times (Scourge)/ 2 times (Shadow-walk), wounds 2 times (Scourge)/ 1.5 times (Shadow-walk) and once or 0.75 times respectively after saves which IWND will take down to 0.667/0.417 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times (Scourge)/ 1.333 times (Shadow-walk), wounds 1.667 times (Scourge)/ 1.111 times (Shadow-walk) and 1.111/0.741 times after saves which IWND will take down to 0.778/0.408 wounds at the start of next turn
** Corax's superior initiative means that if he uses Shadow-walk he can kill Magnus just before he can strike on turn 15. If he uses Scourge he loses, however. As usual Blind and Hit and Run could turn the fight more in his favour

* Magnus VS Jaghatai Khan.
**Jaghatai: hits 2.666 times, wounds 1.333 times, 0.666 wound after saves with IWND bringing this down to 0.333
**Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.555 times after sames with IWND bringing this down to 0.222
**Magnus loses this one too

</div></div>

===As a Daemon Primarch===
[[File:Magnus-revealed.PNG|right|thumb|300px|Exactly as planned!]]

{| class=wikitable
! || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Magnus''' || 7 || 7 || 8|| 7 || 7 || 7 || 6|| 10 || 4+R1/4++R1
|}

Rules-wise, he's a beast with 7s across the board barring strength (8) attacks (6) and ld (10). He rocks a 4++ and can re-roll ones (so yeah, throw in the grimoire of names to have a 2++ re-rollable and guy becomes unkillable when combined with the fact that he's an FMC with EW), as well as Daemon of Tzeentch, Deep Strike, VotLW, Fearless, Fleet, IWND, and the WT Lord of Flux: Enemy units within 12″ of your Warlord treat all terrain, even open ground, as difficult terrain; any enemy units that run, turbo-boost, move flat out, or charge within that radius must take dangerous terrain tests. He has what is by far the best psychic output in the game: Mastery level '''5''', AW (so he DTWs on 3+ against everyone), manifests his WCs on a 2+, has LoS to all units on the table for the purposes of using his powers, and '''''never''''' suffers Perils of the Warp. He knows every spell in the Tzeentch and Change disciplines. With the expansions brought in the new rulebook, this means Magnus can bring to the table 2 D attacks (One of which is an 18" Beam?!) per psychic phase with relative ease, all while still being able to murderize anything that he comes across, and in melee he uses a sword that uses his strength, AP2, Soulblaze, Force, and Transmogrify (a 6 to wound causes Instant death and turns the slain model into a [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Sp... you know this stupid gaOHGODWHYBLAGRABAH]]). He's 650pts, so use him wisely.

Model-wise, he appears to take minor inspiration from his EPIC monkey form (which is a good thing.) He has multiple head options, including a cyclops head, which is incredibly fluffy as his face has been described as constantly changing. His armor appears to be to have changed from golden to silver (but it still has its nipple horns. Sexy, sexy nipple horns), and the motif of a bird skull appears everywhere. He has bird wings, and is posed on a Space Wolf Dreadnought arm. Ah, and he's so FUCKHUEG that he rivals an Imperial Knight.

====8th Edition====

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Magnus''' || 445 || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 7 || 18 || 7 || 10 || 3+
|}

Naturally, Magnus was some of the small slither of cheese that Chaos had access to in 7th, so GW casually nerfed him to ensure their precious space marines didn't have too hard a time (if this was hard to see, don't look at what has become of poor Ahriman). Don't let this hit fool you too much though as Magnus is still a force to be reckoned with. Gone is the all seeing eye, immunity to perils and ease of power casting. In its place we still get the best psyker (still significantly weaker than before as he has now forgotten most of his spells and how to give people the big old D). With 18 wounds, he can take more hits than a Land Raider and Bloodthirster and with 7 strength 8 attacks (*16 with his X2 S blade*), he can still bend over most things in the game with his fancy blade. His new force multiplier effects make him a more balanced command unit but unless you want him to sit at the back as a big fire magnet and hope his measly 3 powers can make up for his enormous cost over his combat hitting power, a Thousand Sons army isn't going to benefit from these too much. Apparently, Magnus has changed his devotion to Khorne judging by the obvious strategy GW have currently geared him to.

Oh, and don't let Thunder Hammer/Stormshield Terminators charge him. They obliterate him, even with Weaver of Fates up to give him a 3++R1; besides, you easily have the maneuverability to ensure they virtually never manage to pull this off.

*In all truth while his insane strength and 7 attacks are brutal, especially when adding prescience you probably want to stay away from anything with an invulnerable save higher than a 4, use him with warptime for mass hit and run and bolstering or intimidating important areas. Smite anything rocking Stormshields or other intimidating saves, and hope he rolls an overall 10, for a juicy 2d6 mortal wounds.

* Obviously Mortarion was not better enough when compared to Big Red, so GW fixed that by nerfing the cyclops (and boy did they hit him hard). No more invul rerolls, 2D6 mortal wound Smite only goes off on 12+ now, transmogrify from his blade is still not free, if you manage to even pull it off (funnily most characters hide from Magnus) all for 30 MORE points. On the plus side he allows rerolls of 1 for both him and his sons within 9" when making a psychic test, he adds his psychic phase bonus to DtW tests now, he also gets full access to 3 psychic disciplines for a total of 18 spells to chose from and he ignores any mortal wounds caused by perils on a 2+. He's less tanky than he used to be, but he is much more psychically focused than before.

====Magnus' Terrible Weakness====
Unfortunately not everything is awesome for the Daemon Prince, aside from getting his ass kicked by the Space Wolves and Grey Knights [[Angron|(though he's hardly alone in that regard)]], Magnus has a terrible weakness in the form of three completely normal humans carrying Thunder Hammers. This is all 7th edition only, but check it out anyway:

Seriously, three Inquisitors (all of which have 3's and 4's where Magnus has 7's and 8's) can kick his ass. One of them just needs to be carrying a Null Rod and Thunder Hammer, another carries the Grimoire of True Names, Empyrean Brain Mines, and a Nemesis Daemon Hammer, while the third also carries Empyrean Brain Mines and a Nemesis Daemon Hammer. All of this makes for a combination that Magnus simply cannot win against. He is incapable of ''targeting'' the unit with his sorcery; while he can and should hit the unit with Wrath of Magnus on the approach if possible, as Beams do not target, this won't help him in melee, where he is reduced to using '''Boon of Flame''' to summon support (which will not be able to charge on summon turn) and '''Boon of Mutation''', which is extremely unlikely to help in any meaningful way. If they charged him, the Psyk-Out grenades mean he's I1 for testing against the Mines; if they didn't, why didn't Magnus just get the hell out of there instead of getting into close combat with these guys? On subsequent Inquisitor turns, the bearer of the Grimoire will challenge him; Brain Mines and Challenges happen at the same time, so per the sequencing rules, the Inquisitors can choose to use the Mines second. Magnus must now take an I test on I2 (typically two tests, of course), so with odds ''at best'' 1/3 (at worst, 1/9) he can still swing - otherwise, he can't swing at all. If he ''does'' swing, it's at WS 2 (so he hits on 5s and is hit on 3s). Mathwise the three Inquisitors beat him to death in 3 rounds (another Triumvirate of the Imperium?). Even if it wasn't for dropping his Leadership down to 5 for Daemonbane tests, the second the Inquisitors Wound him he's Concussed, meaning it's even easier for them to paralyze him with the Mines and spend the second round wailing on him. If you really wanted to fuck him over then you could also ally in a Culexus Assassin, as they (simply by standing near him and not actually getting into the fistfight) combine with the Grimoire to drop his Leadership to 2, making him incredibly likely to die if a Nemesis Daemon Hammer rolls a 6 to wound. That all said, remember that Magnus ''does not'' have the Daemonic Instability special rule, so he's not going to take a bajillion extra wounds after losing combat with nerfed Leadership. You could also add to the hilarity with an Inquisitor with Rad and Psychotroke grenades (the Psychotroke grenades especially have a 1/3 chance of either reducing Magnus to I1 or LD 2 for the phase, which will make all of the other effects in the unit even worse for him).

Of course this relies on them actually getting into combat with Magnus, and so long as the player's smart (and your opponent doesn't load up his Inquisitors in something ridiculous like a Corvus Blackstar) you should be able to get around the board without having them ever get into combat with him. The Lord of Flux WT helps in this respect by messing up charges.

Funnily enough too his 30k incarnation is incredibly weak to the Sisters of Battle, mainly because they can load up on combi-crossbows and two squads armed with these things will kill him in a single shooting phase while being either more annoying to kill thanks to Adamantium Will, or impossible to hurt with his Psychic powers if they're joined by a Hereticus Inquisitor carrying a Null rod (as they should be). Obviously the solution here is just to make him invisible and take them on in combat, but there's still the rare chance you won't get it (especially if you want other powers for bigger threats).

==Trivia==
*If you translate his name into Latin, you get Magnus Rubricatus, meaning, "Great Red [Man]" (or, "Big Red" if you're feeling lulzy). Also it has "rubric" in it. Sly GW strikes again!
*The god Thor had a daughter named Thrudr (Strength) and two sons, Modi (Wrath) and '''Magni''' (Mighty). They embody their's Sire's essential characteristics (much like the Primarchs vis-à-vis of the Emperor). This may well be coincidental though; albeit since it is modern B.L. Fluff that Leman (who is often compared with Odin for various obvious reasons) was the leader of the Censure army sent to capture / slay Magnus and burn Prospero, it is not entirely excluded that this piece of fluff represents an obscure and far-fetched "prophetic" and artistic rendering.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Magnus.jpg
Image:1476133187098.png|Damn, Aghoru has FUCKING bright sun!
Image:Magnus-rule-63.jpg|<strike>Wincest rule 63...</strike>[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device| '''DELETE.''']]
</gallery>

==See Also==
*[https://youtu.be/bjBmT8y9PAU?t=6m56s A video chronicling Magnus' fall to Chaos. It is less conniving than originally imagined.]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6adES3Z0Qag Daddy (not the Emperor, Magnus) addressing his children for the visit to the pet shop.]

{{Primarchs}}
{{Daemons-Characters}}

[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Thousand Sons]]