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Primarch

2022-05-31T16:12:08Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:9CC:B75:2B6B:467E: Undo revision 828258 by 2A04:CEC0:109C:14B3:0:24:159F:DA01 (talk)

[[Image:Primarchs big.JPG|thumb|right|500px|Several of the Primarchs at the Triumph of the Ullanor Crusade. From left to right: Sanguinius, Mortarion, Magnus the Red, Angron, Jaghatai Khan, Lorgar, Rogal Dorn, Horus, and Fulgrim. But the real impressive thing here is how that balcony is still standing]]
{{Topquote|Man must become stronger, more profound and more evil.|Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None}}
{{Topquote|There is but one good, and that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to him and bad when it turns from him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels.|C.S. Lewis}}
{{Topquote|Et tu, Brute?|Julius Caesar}}
The '''Primarchs''' were the twenty ([[Omegon|-one]]) genetically-engineered sons of [[The Emperor]] and the female [[Perpetual]] [[Erda]]. Using both His and her DNA in their creation, the Primarchs were designed to be far superior to even <s>[[Space Marines]]</s> the Adeptus Custodes: they were taller, stronger, faster and more intelligent. Artificial Perpetuals, to replace the Perpetuals that left His great plan throughout history. Certainly faster and stronger, but the intelligence they display, especially in the Horus Heresy books, seem to be limited to their own specialities, making them [[Roboute Guilliman|oddly]] [[Vulkan|normal]] in some cases and [[Perturabo|fatally]] [[Magnus the Red|underdeveloped]] in other areas. They were also incredibly charismatic and were well suited to their role as the generals and leaders of the Imperium of Man.

They are named after the inexpensive clothing retailer in whose changing rooms all 20 primarchs were conceived.

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

==Creation of the Primarchs==
[[File:Warmaster's_Coronation.jpg|300px|left|thumb|Horus Lupercal being made Warmaster of the Imperium in Ullanor. From center counter-clockwise: Horus, the Emperor, Magnus, Mortarion, Lorgar, Angron, Jaghatai Khan, Rogal Dorn, Rogal Dorn's mustache, Fulgrim and Sanguinius.]]
The Primarchs began as a continuation of the Emperor’s [[Thunder Warriors|Thunder Warrior]] legions and were successors to [[the Angel]]. Each of the 20 proto-legions were led by a general analogue called a Primarch. Unlike the later leaders of the Legiones Astartes, the thunder warrior Primarchs were the same as the troops they led and were hand picked by the Emperor for their skill and command ability. The instability (both physical, genetic, and mental) of the thunder warriors led the Emperor to try and find more stable and powerful generals to lead his armies. It can be safely assumed that the original Primarchs were killed in the line of duty or purged before history could record them thoroughly. The only one named thus far was Ushotan of the 4th Legio Cataegis - then known as the Iron Lords. Valdor considered him almost an equal in terms of his martial and command ability but was disturbed by his innate bloodlust and susceptibility to the then nascent effects of Chaos.

The modern Primarchs were created in a secret underground laboratory on what used to be the Himalayas, under the tightest security. All of them were derived from a subset of both the perpetual Erda and the Emperor's DNA that served as a template, which was altered differently for each of the Primarchs; it is also thought that he engineered them spiritually as well using long-forgotten psychic techniques. As the [[Raven Guard]] discovered after the Emperor granted them access to the original data from the Primarchs' creation, many of the Primarchs' gene-samples were wildly divergent from the original template- some had long gene sequences deleted, while others had non-human DNA spliced into them for reasons only known to the Emperor. (A particularly intriguing discovery was one sample labeled "[[Leman Russ|Subject VI]]", [[Furry| which had extensive amounts of canine DNA added to it]].)

[[File:BabyPrimarchs.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The Master of Mankind raises his eighteen babies as devoted father. The [[Grimdark|truth]] is less [[Anime|kawaii desu]].]]
The Emperor's original plan was to have His superhuman creations mature safely in His lab and guide them from 'birth' toward the role He'd foreseen for them. However, in a retcon, Erda did not want for her sons what the Emperor had planned for them and herself, and in spite of the safeguards the Emperor had set up, caused the scattering, an event in which the Ruinous Powers were able to spirit the Primarchs away from the laboratory right before they would emerge from their pods and scatter them across the universe (Conveniently, the canine sample was sent to a wolf-planet) [[Just as planned]]. For whatever reason, the Emperor did not punish Erda and she was allowed to live out her immortal life in seclusion, in the remnants of Africa. Somehow, the Emperor knew his sons were still alive but had no clue to where they could be nor any immediate way to search for them. So he took it in stride, shrugged it off as a minor setback (unknowingly, this would come to bite him back in the ass nastily later on) and went ahead with the second part of his plan: his Space Marine project. Using DNA samples from each Primarch before they were abducted, the Emperor created twenty legions of [[Space Marines]], in what would later be called the [[First Founding]]. They would form the core of the armies He needed to conquer the galaxy, and the absence of the Primarchs leading those would only serve as a motivation for the warriors to search for them.

One consequence of the abduction, however was that each of the young Primarchs were forced to adapt to the lifestyle on their new homeworld, something which would influence and mold them throughout their lives. The Primarchs rapidly grew to adulthood and quickly rose to power, often becoming the leaders of their world. As the Emperor crusaded to unify the galaxy he would occasionally stumble upon another long-lost son. When this happened, the Emperor would hold a celebration in honor of this discovery, give the Primarch their Legion to command, then tell them to [[Angron|fuck]] [[Mortarion|off]] [[Lorgar|and start]] [[Alpharius|conquering]] [[Perturabo|worlds]] while he [[Horus|fapped]] [[Rogal Dorn|to]] [[Sanguinius|his]] [[Leman Russ|favoured]] [[Roboute Guilliman|offspring]]. The Emperor was a [[Eldrad|dick]] like that.

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

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

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

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

==Rediscovering the Primarchs==
Originally Horus was the first Primarch to be discovered, but a retcon changed that to Alpharius. In the retcon, the Emperor decided to keep Alpharius's existence a secret for no real fucking reason.

Horus, who would become the Emperor's favoured son, was retconned to being the second Primarch to be found. Thankfully these are the only two GW fucked with in the order they were found, so the whole list of those being discovered is as follows:

*0.Alpharius (Omegon)
*1.Horus
*2.Leman Russ
*3.DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS, DAMNATIO MEMORIAE IN PERPETUAM
*4.Ferrus Manus
*5.Fulgrim
*6.Vulkan
*7.Rogal Dorn
*8.Roboute Guilliman
*9.Magnus the Red
*10.Sanguinius
*11.Lion El'Jonson
*12.Perturabo
*13.Mortarion
*14.Lorgar
*15.Jaghatai Khan
*16.Konrad Curze
*17.Angron
*18.DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS, DAMNATIO MEMORIAE IN PERPETUAM
*19.Corax
*20.Omegon (Alpharius)

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

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

==Primarchs and Legions==
{|align=center border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"
|-
|align=center|'''Legion Number'''
|align=center|'''Name'''
|align=center|'''Title'''
|align=center|'''Homeworld'''
|align=center|'''Name of the Legion'''
|align=center|'''Allegiance'''
|align=center|'''Description/Current Status'''
|align=center|'''30k/40k'''
|-
|align=center|'''I'''
|align=center|[[Image: Lion_El%27Jonson_portrait.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Lion El'Jonson]]
|align=center|Lord of the First, The Lion
|align=center|[[Caliban]]
|align=center|[[Dark Angels]]
|align=center|ULTRA LOYAL, maybe even more than Rogal Dorn.
|align=center|
*Crushes the horrors of Old Night, destroys worlds, whole civilizations, erase stuff from history, <s>doesn't afraid of anything. </s>
*Sees himself as a man that no one else can compare to and constantly toils to maintain this standard (although he wasn't as excessively vainglorious as Fulgrim).
*Unlike Fulgrim however, The Lion's greatness caused him to be a hardcore pragmatist and largely detached from everyone around him. The Lion just couldn't relate to anyone else not even close to his level (even most of his brother primarchs couldn't fit the bill), so he always felt alone in the universe. A big part of this was that his insanely huge ego combined with his lack of people skills to result in a complete asshole who virtually nobody liked.
*Was a bit of a loose cannon with a long but explosive fuse. The Lion is as smart and introspective as he is merciless and brutal. He wasn't necessarily easy to piss off like Angron, but anyone who manages to cross his threshold of patience will find themselves on the business end of his weapon. Several times. And possibly dismembered to boot.
*Fought Luther during his betrayal at the end of the Horus Heresy, where he was wounded from their duel. He survived however, and was spirited away and tended to by the [[Watchers in the Dark]] in a super secret chamber in [[The Rock]] (that not even the Dark Angels knew about), where he spent the last millennia healing his wounds. As of the current edition; The Lion is now supposedly fully healed and all he's waiting for is the Emperor to tell him to wake up from his millennia-long cat nap.
|align=center|[[Image:Lord of the First.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[File:Lion vs Curze.jpg|150px|thumb|right|]][[File:Horus-Heresy-Lion-Great Crusade.jpeg|150px|thumb|right|]]
|-
|align=center|'''II'''
|! colspan="5" |+++Records expunged+++
|-
|align=center|'''III'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Fulgrim_Ancient_Sketch.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Fulgrim]]
|align=center|The Palatine Phoenix, The Phoenician
|align=center|[[Chemos]]
|align=center|[[Emperor's Children]]
|align=center|Traitor
|align=center|
*A patron of the arts, who wanted to enjoy the finest and most exotic things in life.
*Believes that he and his legion should be the avatar of humanity's perfection, and so everything about them should be flawless, everywhere from appearance and actions to their fighting style. Due to this, Fulgrim's battle tactics revolved around utterly perfecting their strategies. Everything from his soldiers to their strategies were intensely drilled until their fighting was closer to a intricately-choreographed play of death than anything. To him, war is an art, and he wanted to perfect his arts.
*A master blacksmith in his own right, capable of forging weapons that even [[Ferrus Manus]] couldn't help but deem "perfect". His artwork however, wasn't always the best in the universe due to being so perfect it hit uncanny valley levels.
*Was initially corrupted by Chaos through the Laer blade, a Slaaneshi-possesed daemon sword he looted as a trophy, but wasn't aware of what Chaos was. He would fully give in to the temptations of the sword after he beheaded Ferrus Manus, where his utter grief at the act caused him to succumb to the daemon within the sword.
*Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, ruler of the Pleasure World. <s>Fulgrim's actual consciousness however, may or may not also be still imprisoned within his own body by</s> the daemon who possessed him in the first place was eventually conquered by Fulgrim's inner will or whatever, but his new personality is generic "DEMON PRINCE OF THE DARKNESS AND EVIL".
*Managed to incapacitate Guilliman at one point by slicing his throat with a poisoned sword.
*Still has a soft-spot for his brother Ferrus. He asked [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bile]] to clone his brother several times so that he could attempt to lure Ferrus into Chaos' side again. All his attempts have ended in failure, which he has blamed Fabius for due to his certainty that a "perfect" clone would join him.
*Heard about [[Roboute Guilliman|Big G]] waking up and is a bit buttmad about it at the moment. He tried to give Guilliman a cursed artifact during his return party, but was found out and subsequently banished. Needless to say: he mad.
|align=center|[[Image: Fulgrim.30k.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image: 40k.fulgrim.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Warhammer-fuldrim-lorgar.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''IV'''
|align=center|[[Image: Perturabo_Portrait.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Perturabo]]
|align=center|The Hammer of Olympia, Lord of Iron, The Breaker
|align=center|[[Olympia]]
|align=center|[[Iron Warriors]]
|align=center|Traitor
|align=center|
*A man who already had the knowledge to create the best at everything he did from birth. Perturabo considered this a curse however, feeling it robbed him of any sense of accomplishment while growing up, contributing to his eternal grumpiness.
*Originally preferred diplomacy and was an admirer of the arts during his time in Olympia, but meeting the Emperor (who had no time for such things) caused a violent switch to flip inside Perturabo's mind, turning him into a ruthless warlord throughout the Great Crusade, likely because he wanted things to be different from Olympia once he joined E-money, but once he realized that The Great Crusade was basically Olympia 2.0; he just gave up, flipped the table, and accepted how things really are and played the part.
*Just as much as a master of siege warfare as Dorn (both in offense and defense), but the lack of opportunities and recognition led him and his legion to be specialists of tearing shit down.
*Unlike Dorn however, Perturabo's general strategy is a combination of stubbornness and ice cold-calculating efficiency, orchestrating war like it was one giant math problem. The problem with this is that he didn't even see his sons as people. As far as he was concerned, they're just armored meatbags who pull triggers and push buttons and were about as expendable as guardsmen. It worked incredibly well but won him few friends.
*Suffers from a massive inferiority complex, partially due to his certainty that the Eye of Terror was always watching and judging him. Nobody believed him when he said this, so it was mostly attributed to Rogal Dorn, whom the Emperor ''greatly'' favored over Pert, despite having similar skillsets.
*Daemon Prince, ruler of Medrengard. Described as the ultimate Obliterator; so expect him to be carrying around titan grade weaponry and millennia of pent-up [[Rage|RAEG]] when he finally shows up. Given that Magnus, Fulgrim, and Mortarion are back in action; he'll probably come out eventually as well.
|align=center|[[Image: 30k.Perturabo.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Warhammer-Pert-Angron.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''V'''
|align=center|[[Image:Karn.port.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Jaghatai Khan]]
|align=center|Warhawk of Chorgoris, The Great Khan, The Khagan
|align=center|[[Chogoris|Chogoris/ Mundus Planus]]
|align=center|[[White Scars]]
|align=center|Loyal
|align=center|
*A hard and stern Primarch, he rarely smiles and almost never laughs. Throughout the Heresy he’s often depicted as an introvert who only keeps the counsel of a hand select group. Though rather than making him into a recluse, he's fully capable of being charismatic when he needs to. The Khan is quiet, but he can quickly become the warrior: smile, laugh, bellow and be powerful when he sees the need.
*Encourages a painfully 'liberating' leadership structure on the White Scars. Every Khan (basically Chapter Master) has an extremely high level of autonomy - a byproduct of the steppes. Causes a lot of problems for logistics and cooperation with allies.
*Many Primarchs became a product of their homeworld, the Khan definitely did. He idolises the ways of [[Chogoris]] and venerates its lifestyle. A very Taoist and Confucian way of seeing things, no one else in the Imperium truly understands this, a fact that further isolates the White Scars from the wider Imperium. The White Scars is the amalgamation of Asian culture in the HH, it’s the most different and alien Legion simply because it tries to adopt a Asian-centric style.
*Has a strained relationship with the Emperor. On one hand he recognises the need of the Imperium and has always directly supported it. On the other hand, a major identity point for the Khan's character is his hatred of Empire and Emperors. On Chogoris he killed a lot of emperors and destroyed a lot of Empires. He sees Emperors and Empires as ultimately flawed and has a very low respect for them.
*Tying in with this hatred of Empire is his hatred of stagnation. Every Emperor he killed was fat, and this made him become a person who hates the easiest path. A big motivator for him during the novel Scars was his rejection of the path most travelled. The Khan's greatest fear is stagnating, so he will likely always chose the hardest option because of that. Emphasising this, The Khan is also described as being a compulsive, a part of him is always moving.
*The Khan really didn't like the Imperium, in Warhawk of Chogoris he flatly stated that the White Scars would leave the Imperium if he felt the Emperor was not respecting the White Scars enough.
*Unknown, disappeared into the [[Webway]] while hunting [[Dark Eldar]] after they raided Chogoris.
|align=center|[[Image:Past Khan.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:The path of heaven .jpg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''VI'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait..Leman.Russ.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Leman Russ]]
|align=center|The Great Wolf, The Wolf King
|align=center|[[Fenris]]
|align=center|[[Space Wolves]]
|align=center|Loyal
|align=center|
*Had a high opinion of himself and his legion, if only because he felt that he's earned that kind of respect through the centuries. Of all the Primarchs, Leman was the one most willing to cross any line to do what the Emperor asked, at least at first. Later on, he decided to become his own man and protect the people of the Imperium. Also notable for curbing the more savage tendencies of the Wolves and teaching them to control their ferocity, unlike [[Angron|some]] [[Konrad Curze|people]].
*Wanted to test his legion all the time, to prove he is the best.
*Unknown, disappeared into the [[Eye of Terror]] with the 13th company but promised to return one day. Magnus supposedly knows where he is, but he isn't telling. The Wolves found <s>his armor in a Khornate Shrine</s> an armor rumoured to be his on the Temple of Horus on Rudra, implying he either; turned into [[Wulfen]], to [[Chaos]], is dead, or is murdering his way through the warp [[Conan_the_Barbarian|as a half-naked barbarian]]. Allegedly a figure resembling him was spotted with the 13th company during the 13th crusade.
|align=center|[[Image:30k.Russ.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Scouring of Prospero2.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Horus_vs_Leman.jpg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''VII'''
|align=center|[[Image: Rogal_Dorn_Portrait.png|thumb|250px|]] [[Rogal Dorn]]
|align=center|The Praetorian of Terra, The Vigilant, The Unyielding One
|align=center|[[Inwit]]
|align=center|[[Imperial Fists]]
|align=center|MEGA DUPER Loyal
|align=center|
*A brutally honest and steadfast man, but was equally indifferent to those around him. Dorn's personality is akin to a wall, he was a man you could take at face value; he would never lie or deceive you, and he would always speak his mind without a hint of falsehood, even if it ends up working against his favor. That said, he could never properly relate with other people's emotions. He will speak the truth, but lacked any glib of tongue to express it in a way that wouldn't feel like he was delivering it with the bluntness and intensity of a power fist to the face.
*Embodied the "soul" of the Great Crusade unlike any other; he received the most accolades from the Emperor and fought alongside him most often.
*A master of siegecraft, although fortifications was his forte. So much that he was tasked with fortifying the Imperial Palace. He would also build grand fortresses on the worlds they conquered.
*Assumed deceased, disappeared while boarding a Chaos cruiser during a Black Crusade. One of his fists were recovered and its skeleton is placed in a shrine, where each new Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists engraves their name upon it. Rumored to still be alive, though that begs the question of whose fist is in the Phalanx, though he could just be missing a hand.
|align=center|[[Image:The horus heresy praetorian of dorn by raffetin-dae3g5k.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Dorn-Sang-Primarchs-Warhammer-.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Warhammer-Dorn-malc.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''VIII'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Konrad_Curze_sketch.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Konrad Curze]]
|align=center|The Night Haunter, The Dark King
|align=center|[[Nostramo]]
|align=center|[[Night Lords]]
|align=center|Traitor
|align=center|
*A man of justice who believed that he needed to instill absolute fear into people to ensure lasting peace.
*Possessed psychic powers that allowed him to perceive the future in short glimpses. The problem was that they were uncontrolled and they constantly subjected him to see the worst possible future in the darkest, most vivid detail possible, including the deaths and fall of his brother Primarchs as well as the Emperor's own entombment on the Golden Throne. This only served to widen his ever-growing insanity.
*An unstable sociopath, to say the least. Curze's visions, upbringing, and perceived need for brutality took a heavy toll on his sanity, but he held firm under the belief he was making the galaxy a better place, like what he did with Nostramo. This all came crashing down after Nostramo reverted back to its old ways when he was away; deciding that nothing would ever change, he chose to bombard his home planet into rubble.
*That said, he was a master at infiltration and unconventional warfare, just as much as he was a master of scaring the shit out of people. His crowning achievement is that he managed to fuck up Guilliman's Imperium Secundus by himself, no aid from his legion what-so-ever, something his brothers couldn't even come close into doing.
*Lost what little sanity he still had after destroying Nostramo. By this time, Konrad stopped justifying his methods to himself and fully embraced the depraved side of his "Night Haunter" persona, spreading untold terror and pain wherever he went. By the time of the late Horus Heresy, the Emperor wanted to put a stop to it and sent a Callidus assassin named "M'shen" after him.
*Curze knew about her mission from the get-go but he made sure the assassin could reach him unimpeded. He did not resist when she entered his chambers and asked the Callidus to kill him. There are believed to be two reasons why this might have been. One is that Konrad realized he became the very thing he sought to rid the galaxy of and knew what had to be done- a perceived hero who lived long enough to see himself become a villain. The other is that the assassination vindicated everything he'd ever said and done; he punished and killed evil-doers and now the Emperor used his own methods to kill him, thus proving that all his atrocities were both justifiable and necessary. Whatever the case, Konrad was already a jaded, broken man after the Nostramo debacle and wished only to die.
|align=center|[[Image:Konrad-Curze-Primarchs-Warhammer-.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Night Haunter 8th Ed.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Horus-Primarchs-Curze-Lion.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''IX'''
|align=center|[[Image:SanguiniusArt5mt.jpg|thumb|250px|]][[Sanguinius]]
|align=center|The Great Angel, The Brightest One
|align=center|[[Baal]]
|align=center|[[Blood Angels]]
|align=center|Loyal
|align=center|
*A noble and unparalleled warrior, known for the angel-like wings that grew from his back.
*Was known as the greatest exemplar of the Emperor himself, mirroring many of his father's best traits, instead of only one or two of them like his brothers. If anything, Sanguinius is a reflection of what the Emperor could have been as a truly benevolent being, concerned not just for mankind's future, but man as individuals as well.
*A pretty cool guy to be around. Despite being a fabulous, angelic demi-god of war; he had mankind's best wishes at heart and fought for it with graceful ferocity, hell even the Primarchs couldn't resist Sanguinius being so bro-tier. He is essentially the vampiric, bishie version of Vulkan.
*Showed the same amount of concern for his legion. Sanguinius did all that he could to hide the Red Thirst from being exposed to the wider Imperium, knowing full well that the Blood Angels would receive the II/XI Legion treatment if it came to light.
*Psychic, and capable of seeing glimpses of the future.
*He was powerful as he was nice, Sanguinius was one of the most powerful, if not ''the'' most powerful, of the Primarchs in terms of martial prowess. Especially if you pissed him off. Feats include; ripping the wings off a bloodthirster and literally throwing him to the warp, single-handedly holding a defensive point during the Siege of Terra against numerous traitors, soloing Titans, and managing to damage Horus' armor ''even after being exhausted from literally soloing entire armies''.
*Deceased, slain by Horus. Spirit is evidently intact somewhere in the Warp. His body is currently in a stasis crypt in Baal, so his corpse remained fabulous for the last 10,000 years. Commemorated during Sanguinala, a holiday dedicated to his memory.
|align=center|[[Image:Heresy-Sang.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:The horus heresy book 26 unremembered empire by raffetin-dap4ekw.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Emperor Sanguinius Echoes of Imperium.jpg|thumb|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''X'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Ferrus_Manus_sketch.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Ferrus Manus]]
|align=center|The Gorgon of Medusa
|align=center|[[Medusa]]
|align=center|[[Iron Hands]]
|align=center|Extremely Loyal, rivalling The Lion and Dorn
|align=center|
*Wants to get things done quickly, without needless philosophizing.
*Contrary to his sons; Ferrus wanted to advocate the strength of one's flesh, rather than relying completely on bionics and mechanical augmentations as shown by the Iron Hands, if any he was appalled at the idea of turning man completely into machine. He wasn't able to realize this after getting a viking crewcut by his best friend, however.
*A master artisan, thanks to his metal arms, which allowed him to practice his craft with incredible precision and detail.
*Deceased, slain by Fulgrim and his head offered to Horus as a gift (which actually horrified him). Fulgrim still has the body, which he repeatedly clones and murders again in a futile attempt to make him turn traitor. Some claim he is still alive on Mars, though [[Void Dragon|he almost certainly isn't]].
|align=center|[[Image:Ferrus.30k.jpg|150px|]]
|-
|align=center|'''XI'''
|! colspan="5" |+++Records expunged+++
|-
|align=center|'''XII'''
|align=center|[[Image:Angron.port.jpg|thumb|250px|]][[Angron]]
|align=center|Slave of Nuceria, Red Angel, Lord of the Red Sands
|align=center|[[Nuceria]]
|align=center|[[World Eaters]]
|align=center|Traitor
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*Embodies the name "World Eater". He and his legion consumes entire worlds in a whirlwind of indiscriminate slaughter until nobody but them is left, pre and post-Great Crusade.
*No real ambition beyond endless slaughter, thanks to the butcher's nails augment jammed into Angron's brain. It also made him incredibly violent and quick to anger. At first it was to satiate the unending bloodlust generated by the butcher's nails, but now its to glorify [[Khorne]].
*One of the most powerful of the Primarchs in terms of sheer melee combat prowess. Rivaled only by Sanguinius in terms of single combat capability.
*A poor leader and general, however. He could murder armies sent against him, but he lacked the tactical acumen (or anything resembling sanity) to focus on the objectives truly needed to win a war. Angron is in the end a gladiator let loose in a galaxy-wide arena: murdering all of his opponents is the only acceptable (or even concievable) way to win.
*A retcon made his [[Leeroy Jenkins]] behaviour one of the largest factors for fucking up the Horus Heresy. If Angron had kept his murderboner down for just a few more minutes and let Horus finish off the remaining loyalists on Istvaan with another Exterminatus strike; they would have been able to march to Terra faster and with much more manpower and have a better chance at winning. Whether this was Angron just being Angron or a secret ploy by Khorne to keep the blood flowing by thinking past the Horus Heresy is unclear (after all, if Horus won; Chaos eventually starves to death. If Horus lost; he has a aeons' worth of blood and conflict to revel over and maybe even an eternal stalemate ensuring he lasts forever, if at the cost of the Great Game continuing for eternity as well.).
*Daemon Prince of [[Khorne]]. Spend most of his time Getting Shit Done and being banished to the Warp for a hundred or so years after the Imperium responds to his Blood Crusades.
|align=center|[[Image:World-Eaters-Warhammer-40000-.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Angron .jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Angrondemon.jpg|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XIII'''
|align=center|[[Image: Robute Guilliman.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Roboute Guilliman]]
|align=center|Lord of Ultramar, Avenging Son, The Victorious, The Master of Ultramar, The Blade of Unity
|align=center|[[Ultramar|Macragge]]
|align=center|[[Ultramarines]]
|align=center|Loyal, barring [[Imperium Secundus| that one episode he doesn't like to talk about]]
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*A proud and fair visionary who always looked towards building a better future for humanity. Guilliman never did anything without thinking what would happen at the end of the day and he always tried to plan a better outcome for whatever he did, whether its building an empire or subjugating an enemy civilization.
*Was more for the people than the Emperor, hence why he thought preserving his Imperium was more important than the survival of the Emperor himself.
*A general first and warrior second, which was the key to his success throughout the Great Crusade. He wasn't the best at crossing swords or gunfights, at least in comparison to many of his brothers; but he was exceptional at commanding his forces and resources, ensuring all wars he fought in were running at optimum efficiency.
*The greatest statesman among the Primarchs. Guilliman was best remembered for his ability to set up an efficient form of government on every planet his legion conquered, turning them into model, self-sufficient worlds in order to prepare them for the future after the Great Crusade. This is best exemplified by Ultramar, which still remains one of the most powerful and idyllic planetary systems in the Imperium, even after 10,000 years. More tellingly, was allowed by the Emperor to keep Ultramar's 500 worlds as a semi-autonomous mini-empire within the Imperium because it was just so well run.
*He's also a logistical genius, and invented the organizational model that 8 of the 9 First Founding Chapters still use (more or less).
*Previously kept in a stasis chamber after his throat was sliced by Fulgrim with a poisoned sword.
*Recently revived with the help of Belisarius Cawl and the Ynnari and their new soul manipulation powers. Is now active once more, and not very happy with how badly the Imperium has gone to shit since he was not-quite-dead. Currently back in his old role of Lord Commander of the Imperium, trying his hardest to keep the Emperor's work from going completely down the drain while while waging an unending war against the forces of Chaos and the Imperium's equally monstrous bureaucracy. Rather unhappy about it all but is keeping his head above water nevertheless.
|align=center|[[Image: 30k.Guilliman.png|thumb|150px|]][[Image: Primarchs-Guilliman-40000.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Roboute-Guilliman-Primarchs-Warhammer-40000.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XIV'''
|align=center|[[Image: Mortarion Portrait.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Mortarion]]
|align=center|The Pale King, The Death Lord, The Prince of Decay (Post-Heresy)
|align=center|[[Barbarus]]
|align=center|[[Death Guard]]
|align=center|Traitor
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*A bitter, petty man, kind of like the edgy goth kid of the group. Mortarion didn't want to associate anyone who hasn't gone through the same brand of abuse he has during his childhood and also hated those who had relatively comfy ones in comparison (like Guilliman or Dorn). He would only find some friendship with Konrad Curze (due to his "raised alone and became psycho-Batman" origin) and Horus (because just about everyone liked Horus).
*Has an immense abhorrence for psykers and the warp, due to his experiences on Barbarus. As a daemon prince, he is the very thing he hated in the first place. He takes the resulting bitterness out on everyone else in the form of horrible diseases.
*Stubborn to the core. Mortarion's favored tactic that he passed onto the Death Guard is a combination of attrition and unrelenting assaults; they take the pain while dishing it out in greater amounts, non-stop. He also valued individualism throughout his legion, largely leaving it up to his troops to figure out the best strategy in a conflict, rather than micro-managing them.
*Was already disenchanted by the Imperium by the start of the Horus Heresy (Seeing the Emperor and his works as total hypocrisies), so he threw his lot in with Horus. However, due to a ruse by Typhus; he and his legion ended up being infected by a virulent Nurglite plague while in the warp, which caused them to be in a constant state of agony but remain alive due to their Astartes-grade toughness. Unable to bear the pain and see his sons suffer; he pledged his loyalty to Nurgle and the god "cured" them of the plague (cure is probably incorrect, it was more of mutate their bodies to be compatible with the plague). From here, he became a daemon prince.
*Went back to the warp after the Horus Heresy, where Nurgle gave him dominion over the Plague Planet, which he shaped into the image of Barbarus.
*Was banished by [[Kaldor Draigo|Grey Knights]] during the Battle of Kornovin, which was the origin of [[Kaldor Draigo|Draigo]] carving a name onto his plague-ridden heart (how Draigo did so is a mystery, so we'll just chalk it up to him being too high on drugs to be infected by Mortarion's plagues).
*Helped Abby by creating the zombie plague, along with other contagions, after he got the Hand of Darkness artifact.
*He eventually got better and waged a full-scale invasion of Ultramar when he heard that Guilliman's finally awake. Had to retreat after he had to deal with the other Chaos Gods' typical shenanigans (mainly encroaching on his strongholds in the [[Scourge Stars]] while he was off campaigning).
|align=center|[[Image:Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-Horus-Heresy-Mortarion-2073409.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Mortarion-40k.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XV'''
|align=center|[[Image:Magnus-The-Red-Primarchs-Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-4995855 (1).jpeg|thumb|250px|]] [[Magnus the Red]]
|align=center|The Crimson King, The Red Cyclops
|align=center|[[Prospero]]
|align=center|[[Thousand Sons]]
|align=center|Traitor, though he never planned this
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*An optimistic scholar who thirsted for knowledge and always believed that information should be preserved for the greater good of mankind, regardless of its origins or the danger it might pose.
*As a psyker from birth, he was sympathetic to the discrimination faced by his fellow psykers and labored for his kind to be accepted. He did so by training psykers to control and enhance their powers, in the hopes of showing to people the benefits of his kind's gifts. This had mixed results with his brother primarchs, especially in the face of the Emperor's "psykers are bad" standing orders.
*Had an ego to rival the Emperor himself, but with far less justification for it.
*Defying the Nikea council's rulings, Magnus continued to experiment with warp powers and during a Tzeentch-induced prophesy that involved Horus' betrayal; he attempted to warn his father with a psychic message. During the sending process; he accidentally destroyed the Emperor's webway project, causing him to be arrested by Russ and the Wolves to answer for his disobedience.
*As Horus was already corrupted by this point, he altered the orders to instead destroy the Thousand Sons' homeworld. Realizing he's been played like a damn fiddle by Tzeentch, Magnus' resolve was broken and initially accepted his destiny of being destroyed by the wolves in an attempt to spite Tzeentch, but eventually decided to attempt to rebel against his fate but ultimately failing after Leman Russ beat him up badly. He then made a desperate deal with Tzeentch to save his legion in return for his servitude. He and the Thousand Sons were teleported to the Planet of Sorcerers, where more hijinks ensued with his [[Ahzek Ahriman|first captain]]'s certain ritual. Also his soul was broken into pieces somehow during the deal, and he's still trying to collect them all.
*Now a daemon prince, one of his first major campaigns was to invade the Space Wolves' homeworld. Was banished, but the Wolves were all but ruined; most of their upper command structure and progress with stabilizing their flawed gene seed was gone. Feeling they weren't down for the count yet; he went in again and bloodied the entire star system of Fenris itself, irreparably damaging the Wolves' home system.
*Appeared during the Gathering Storm, where he trapped and captured Guilliman and his retinue in the warp. After he escaped, Magnus chased and confronted Guilliman all the way to Luna, but was banished by the Custodes and Sisters of Silence. Now currently biding his time for another offensive.
|align=center|[[Image:Past Magnus.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image: 30k.magnus-the-red.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image: 40k.magnus-the-red.jpeg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XVI'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Warmaster_Horus_Remembrancer_Sketch.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Horus|Horus Lupercal]]
|align=center|The Lupercal, The Favorite Son
|align=center|[[Cthonia]]
|align=center|[[Black Legion|Luna Wolves/ Sons of Horus/ Black Legion]]
|align=center|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1rT6Vi5Ln4 DOUBLE TRAITOR link dead :(]
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*A charismatic strategist who overwhelmed his enemies through sheer numbers and precision tactics, with an emphasis on wiping out the leadership structures of enemy forces.
*Big E's most favored son, always being held in the highest regard, second only to the Custodes. This was a combination of him being the first Primarch found (before the retcon) and his long rap sheet of victories throughout the Crusade.
*Due to his position and experience, he was the most well-liked of the Primarchs during the Great Crusade. Just about everyone looked at Horus as the greatest among them.
*For all his charisma and leadership, Horus was still wracked with self-doubt once appointed Warmaster, constantly afraid that he was unable to live up to the title (poor dude basically thought that anything less than Big E levels of success was failure). Being overall commander of the Emperor's forces AND being his personal favorite was a lot to live up to. This was one of the reasons why he succumbed to the temptations of Chaos.
*Was one of the few Primarchs who was suspicious of the Emperor's plans for the Astartes post-Crusade, fearing they'd be disposed of like the Thunder Warriors and was mistrustful of the Emperor's intentions in the long run in general, to say nothing of his resentment about how the worlds he and his brothers had conquered would be governed by ordinary humans. The Ruinous Powers would also use this to their advantage.
*Rebelled against the Emperor after being fed a vision of the future by the Chaos Gods, in which the Emperor was being worshiped as a god and many of his fellow Primarchs (including himself) were reviled or outright forgotten. Little did he know that this was to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*His essence has been erased from existence. When the Emperor mustered up the resolve to finally end Horus, he shot him with a psychic blast powerful enough to obliterate his very soul, ensuring that the Chaos Gods couldn't just bring him back from the dead. His body was recovered and brought to the Eye of Terror, but was later destroyed after an incident involving [[Fabius Bile]] and a clone of Horus.
|align=center|[[Image:Horus-the warmaster.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Horus-Primarchs-.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Emperor vs Horus.jpg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XVII'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Lorgar_Aurelian_sketch.png|thumb|250px|]] [[Lorgar|Lorgar Aurelian]]
|align=center|Bearer of the Word, Urizen (Colchisian for "wisest of the wise")
|align=center|[[Colchis]]
|align=center|[[Word Bearers]]
|align=center|Traitor Prime
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*A charismatic diplomat with a golden tongue, who relied heavily on his unparalleled speaking abilities to bring worlds into compliance during the Great Crusade. Lorgar would always prefer to talk out a peaceful solution, rather than resorting to violence. That said, Lorgar did know how to slap a bitch when needed.
*A deeply spiritual man, due to growing up in a theocratic society during his time on Colchis. Due to this, Lorgar saw The Emperor as a literal god and decided to spread the good word of the God-Emperor throughout the Crusade. During this time, he penned the "Lectitio Divinitatus", a book detailing how awesome the God-Emperor was, and always built grand cathedrals in all the planets he conquered. As you can imagine, this didn't sit well with the Man-Emperor's secular Empire, so he decided to bloody one of Lorgar's grandest cities to send a message with Guilliman. Little did the Emperor know what this act of dickery would lead eventually to.
*With Lorgar being completely disheartened and defeated; Kor Phaeron and [[Erebus]] lured him to the worship of the Dark Gods, who were more than happy to accept his rabid fanboyism. He would eventually corrupt Horus and ignite the [[Horus Heresy|single biggest clusterfuck in Imperial History]], ruining everything that the Emperor has striven to build since the [[Age of Strife]].
*Rules as a daemon prince of Chaos Undivided and currently located in Sicarius, the Word Bearers' home planet.
*Previously a shut-in NEET that left command to his legion to his Dark Apostles: Lorgar has finally gotten out of his tower and is personally leading the Word Bearers now. He has recently been seen evangelizing about Chaos in the material realm, with a large legion of Word Bearers behind him. Got his ass kicked by a warp-empowered Corax and is doing everything he can to avoid round three.

|align=center|[[Image: 30k.Lorgar.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Lorgar_portrait.jpg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XVIII'''
|align=center|[[Image: Portrait.Vulkan_sketch.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Vulkan]]
|align=center|Lord of Drakes
|align=center|[[Nocturne]]
|align=center|[[Salamanders]]
|align=center|Loyal
|align=center|
*A true man of the people, concerned with the preservation and welfare of humans. Vulkan saw all humans in the Imperium as equals and would protect any servant of the Emperor with great ferocity regardless of their class or status.
*Growing up in a blacksmith society allowed him and his legion to craft some of the finest wargear the Imperium has ever seen. It's also the reason for their fire fetish in combat.
*Inherited the Emperor's perpetual powers, granting him the ability to reincarnate after dying.
*He and his legion took some of the worst losses during Istvaan, and he himself was eventually captured by Konrad Curze.
*Curze wanted to get his torture fetish on, so he tortured Vulkan to death. Several times. Vulkan's status as a perpetual ensured he always came back, but less and less sane as Curze's treatment got worse and worse.
*He eventually managed to escape, but accidentally teleported over Macragge's atmosphere, crashing down on the planet like a green comet of insanity. By this point, anything remotely resembling sanity had left Vulkan's mind. He was eventually "killed" by another perpetual, in a well-meaning attempt to reset Vulkan's brain. It worked (sort of. At least he wasn't a howling maniac anymore) and after taking a short death nap, he got better and disappeared for a while.
*Resurfaced during [[The War of The Beast]] and was recruited to lead the Imperial forces against The Beast's forces. Then disappeared after ramming The Beast into a plasma reactor and killing them both in a squall of gore. The Salamanders claim he continued to lead them for a few more centuries after that death, then left them with the Tome of Fire, claiming he had a special mission that they could not accompany him for.
|align=center|[[Image:Past Vulkan.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Vulkan Lives.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Vulkan-Primarchs-Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-4123369.jpeg|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XIX'''
|align=center|[[Image: Corax Portrait.png|thumb|250px|]] [[Corvus Corax]]
|align=center|The Lord of Shadows, The Liberator, The Deliverer, The Raven-Lord, Chooser of the Slain, The Shadowed Lord
|align=center|[[Deliverance]]
|align=center|[[Raven Guard]]
|align=center|Loyal
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*Sought to overthrow oppression, bringing justice to tyrants.
*Possessed some kind of perception-manipulating psychic power, giving him the ability to be "invisible" to organics (He's still there clear as day, but your mind just can't process that he's right there).
*Preferred covert warfare, sabotaging, fast strikes and assassinating the enemy from the sides, and only striking in the open when the time is right. Basically one of the few primarchs who uses tactics of actual special forces units.
*He and his legion were bloodied during Istvaan and forced out of the conflict. Corvus wanted desperately to help the Imperium's deteriorating situation, so he asked the Emperor for assistance. Emps obliged and gave him the template to create the Primarchs themselves, giving him the ability to train marines at an even faster rate. This was wrecked after the Alpha Legion tampered with the creation process, resulting with the majority of the aspirants coming out as horrible mutants and aberrations.
*While it weighed heavily on his conscience, Corax had to be pragmatic. He made do and used his newly obtained mutant horde as shock troops and it worked; they were able to disrupt the traitors long enough to buy Terra some time to put up a defense.
*After the Heresy ended, he was reluctantly forced to euthanize his creations, wracking Corvus with a huge amount of guilt.
*Went missing after heading for the Eye of Terror to atone for his sins, saying only "Nevermore" before leaving. His status is currently unknown, but the Raven Guard believe he's still alive and will return once again. In reality, he is indeed alive and hunting his fallen brothers, although the Warp has changed him into a living, shapeshifting shadow.
|align=center|[[Image:Warhammer-Corvus-Corax-Primarchs.jpeg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Hh-walpaper-raven-Copy.jpg|thumb|150px|]][[Image:Corvus Corax.jpg|thumb|150px|]]
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|align=center|'''XX'''
|align=center|[[Image: Alpharius2.jpg|thumb|250px|]] [[Alpharius]] [[Omegon]]
|align=center|Head of the Hydra, Aleph Null, The Hydra, The Threefold Serpent, The Final Configuration, The Last Primarch
|align=center|They're not telling
|align=center|[[Alpha Legion]]
|align=center|[[Alpha Legion|Alpharius: Very loyal. Omegon: even Tzeentch can't keep track.]]
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*Shrouded in mystery. It's not even known what their homeworld is, let alone what their upbringing was like. Forge World gave no fewer than four mutually irreconcilable origin stories, all of which were dismissed as lies. That said, the only discernible fact we can give about them is that the two primarchs did not always agree with each other, exemplified with Omegon actively sabotaging Alpharius' operations during the Horus Heresy.
*As primarchs of the Alpha legion; the two frequently exchanged roles whenever needed with nobody ever noticing, but officially; Alpharius is the primarch of the legion while Omegon is commander of their elite covert forces.
*Masters of psychological warfare and manipulation. They didn't need regiments of soldiers or weapons to do his heavy lifting; all he needs is a handful of spies to plant paranoia, deceit, misinformation, and dissent in his targeted worlds. By the time his agents are done: the enemy would either be tearing each other apart and/or distrustful of each other; making them isolated, easy pickings for the main Alpha Legion forces once they're called to reign the planet in.
*Alpharius bought the Cabal's story about letting Horus kill all of humanity to kill off the Chaos Gods in the long run, and was eventually beheaded by Rogal Dorn during a battle on Pluto. Maybe. Quite frankly, with these two one can never be entirely sure '''what''' the truth really is.
*Omegon took on his mantle officially ("the jest made real") and this new "Alpharius" may or may not have been killed by Guilliman (the Ultramarines suspect they may have only killed a body double). His loyalties are unknown, but he was against the Cabal's proposal, indicating he either thought sacrificing his entire species was too big of a price (which would mean he's still loyal to humanity), or he wanted Chaos to survive by feeding off humanity (which would mean he was a traitor).
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|}

==Their Eventual Fates==
[[File:Heresy_Time.jpg|300px|thumb|right|An accurate retelling of the final stages of the rebellion.]]
===Traitors===
*General downside to those who became Daemon Princes is that the further they go from the Eye of Terror, the more their power wanes. Also most of them spend most of their time in the Great Game (eternal war in the Warp), growing increasingly distant from the real world affairs.
* '''Horus''' was killed by the Emperor during the Siege of Terra, who utterly destroyed his soul. His legion enshrined his corpse until the Emperor's Children stole it. [[Fabius Bile]] managed to successfully clone him, but [[Abaddon]] killed the clone to cement his position as his successor as Warmaster of Chaos. While "Horus" is supposedly ''very'' dead, which was his fault for being a fuckwit, shards of his soul which were broken off in the Warp remain. Including one in the realm of Khorne...
* '''Angron''' is a Daemon Prince of Khorne. Still gets shit done, but did get his arse handed to him by the Grey Knights on Armageddon.
* '''Mortarion''' is a fucktwit who rarely does anything of interest (still sulking over his eternal existence as the thing he hates the most), but is a Daemon Prince of Nurgle. Apparently now holds the largest domain in the Eye of Terror, rather than just one planet he had in the old fluff. Got some open heart surgery, courtesy of Draigo/Ward. Created zombie plague from one of the artifacts Abbaddon used in his XII crusade. He invaded Ultramar after hearing news that Guilliman's finally awake, though he ultimately had to go back to the [[Scourge Stars]] due to his poor fortunes in the war as well as being summoned back by his patron God.
* '''Fulgrim's''' soul was trapped in a painting while his body was possessed by a daemon for a brief time before swapping places with the daemon and taking its powers (or so he claims). The first Primarch to become a Daemon Prince, although he aimed at achieving (demi)godhood instead (by sacrificing Perturabo). Abandoned what remained of his legion to rule his pleasure daemon world, and [[Troll|didn't tell them how to get there]] (yet Abaddon somehow manages to contact him anyways).
* '''Lorgar''' is a lazy fucknut who does nothing since they fled to the Eye of Terror, and handed the rule over his legion to the council of Dark Apostles, but still a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Taught Abaddon how to summon daemons. Lost a duel with a powered-up Corax during sometime after the Heresy.
* '''Magnus the Red''' got broken into several pieces during his fight with Leman Russ, with several of them actually believing they were the real Magnus and going their own way. Some pieces were eventually put back together to form "the Crimson King", the Daemon Primarch form of Magnus who joined Horus in his rebellion. This sometimes also gets shit done, leading armies to the [[Space Wolves]]' planet and screwing with the Imperium, keeping his big red trollface on all the time until he gets his ass tossed back into the [[Warp]]. Other fragments seem to be floating around throughout history, appearing to have their own agenda, pretending to be daemons or helping the Imperium from time to time. By the time of the Gathering Storm and the 42nd Millennium the disparate fragments have mostly recombined to the Crimson King ''(leaving out a few key elements, namely the ones who embodied his best qualities; for example, the part of Magnus that embodied his love for his Legion chose to fade into nonexistence instead of being reabsorbed into the Crimson King)'' making him as whole as he can be.
* '''Perturabo''' becomes irrelevant after he goes on to drop largely out of post-Heresy fluff, but is still a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Rules the most stable planet in the Eye of Terror, where he does nothing but watching his sons sieging each other. Helps Failbaddon in a couple of Black Crusades by giving him some Daemon Engines. It doesn't really help, but it's more than Lorgar's done for Chaos Undivided. He is also leading his Legion after the 13th Black Crusade in their new offensive against the Imperium.
* '''Konrad Curze''' allowed a Callidus assassin to infiltrate his lair and kill him, either because he himself became the thing he hated the most, or to justify to himself that every atrocity he has done in the name of justice was a necessary act. Except...there was that crown he always wore, the one with a stone in it that looked oddly similar to a soulstone...
* The Alpha Legion's story is a bit complex:
**'''Alpharius''' was slain by Rogal Dorn in combat during the Battle of Pluto. He is very much dead as he did not bargain with the Dark Gods and had his head split open by a fellow Primarch's chainsword. Conspiracy theorists will speculate that it wasn't really Alpharius, though the death is strongly corroborated by Omegon's response. So unless Alpharius used a body double to trick Rogal Dorn AND ''his own twin'' into thinking he was dead and allowed Omegon to take his place and identity permanently; there isn't any hard evidence to suggest that the dead "Alpharius" was anything other than the actual Primarch, but knowing the Alpha Legion that doesn't mean too much without definitive proof.
**'''Omegon''' reluctantly took Alpharius' identity after he sensed he was dead, and his legion a bee-line for Ultramar after the Horus Heresy, where he met his end after dueling [[Roboute Guilliman|Big Bobby G]]. However, because the rest of the Alpha Legionaries did not break even after the death of their primarch ''(in fact they managed to beat the Ultramarines in the conflict altogether);'' nobody could truly confirm if they did indeed kill the real deal, or if it was a body double.
**While it's been established that a decent amount of Alpha Legionnaires were surgically altered to resemble their Primarch and even ''believe'' they were Primarchs themselves; that and the figurehead role of "Alpharius" has been largely interchangable between both the twins and their sons, which makes sense for a legion whose MO is flexible leadership. While we can be reasonably certain that at least one of the twins is dead, whatever "Omegon-Alpharius" or at least whichever person who thinks he's Alpharius have been up to following the Heresy is a matter of fierce debate and speculation.
**One warband of the Alpha Legion believes that Omegon is still alive in the 42nd millennium and somehow certain elements of the Necron knows where he is. And there is that one big guy in scaled armor trapped in Trayzn's toybox...

===Loyalists===
[[File:Imperium-good-ending.jpg|350px|thumb|right|If GeeDubs ever dared to make a multiple outcome final campaign World of Darkness style this will probably be the Golden Ending while respecting all the current canon material.]]
*It is believed by Mortarion that they are now returning to realspace.
*'''Ferrus Manus''' was killed by Fulgrim during the Drop Site Massacre. His body was not recovered, so some Iron Hands think he might still be alive, and for a time it seemed like he did survive. However, Vulkan later exposed the "Ferrus Manus" leading the remaining Iron Hands as a marionette-like machine with one of the Primarch's hands attached to it, destroying the fake soon afterwards. The fact that Ferrus was decapitated by Fulgrim after being defeated and had his head delivered to Horus makes this claim fairly dubious. Just don't say that to the Iron Hands, though. Unless you want free open-heart surgery from a ceramite and steel power fist. Fulgrim did try to clone him (several times) in the hope one of them would join the traitors, but every clone so far has refused and been subsequently killed by him. An apparition of an iron handed giant - the 10th son - was seen leading the charge in an army of human souls against an army of daemons when the Emperor entered the Webway).
*'''Sanguinius''' was killed by Horus. His body was recovered, and he's the only Primarch who doesn't have any legends about returning, though there are some theories on the identity of the [[Sanguinor]] which were later proven <s>incorrect</s> half correct (he is able to manifest Sanguinius to Dante during the events of the Dark Imperium). Sanguinius foresaw his death and accepted it as a necessary sacrifice for the future of the Imperium, in no small part because his visions also warned him that he would only survive the Horus Heresy by becoming corrupted himself. The trauma of his death by the Talon of Horus left a psychic manifestation of him still on the Vengeful Spirit. As of late it turns out his soul has been wandering the warp ever since, only deciding to make himself known to revive Commander [[Dante]] when he ended up as [[Swarmlord]]-shishkebab after realizing that you really don't want to get into melee with the Swarmlord a little too late (Dante being Dante, he still managed to banish it to the Hive Mind, showing just how bloody exceptional you have to be for Sanguinius to bother interfering).
*'''Lion El'Jonson''' returned to Caliban only to discover <s>that his friend Luther had stabbed him in the back.</s> THAT LUTHER HAD A PLANET-WIDE PARTY AND EVENTUALLY PASSED OUT INTO A COMA AFTER DRINKING 200 TANKARDS OF SPACE WOLF-GRADE ALCOHOL. He sleeps deep within the Rock, originally on life support and now fully-healed (but none of the Dark Angels seem to know this). Perhaps this is a sign of a coming advancement of the storyline, DUN DUN DUN!
*'''Jaghatai Khan''' disappeared into the Webway after chasing a group of Dark Eldar. The White Scars think he will return someday, and when you consider the fact that time is just as weird there as it is in the rest of the Warp, there is a small possibility he's still around.
*'''Leman Russ''' disappeared into the Eye of Terror but promised the Space Wolves that he would return for the Final Battle. Magnus appears to know where he is now, but he sure as hell isn't telling the Space Wolves. Reports during the Thirteenth Black Crusade claim that a figure matching Russ's description was seen leading the 13th Great Company have surfaced, but were never verified. Numerous crusades by the Space Wolves to find Russ have resulted in failure, although they did find <s> his armor in a shrine of Khorne in the Eye</s> an armor believed to be his in the Temple of Horus on Rudra - so either he succumbed to Chaos, was killed by a Khorne champion, devolved into wulfen, or is [[Conan the Barbarian|currently pillaging The Warp as a muscle-bound, half-naked barbarian hero]].
*'''Rogal Dorn''' disappeared during a [[Black Crusade]] in a desperate ship boarding action. Only his severed hand was recovered and its skeleton enshrined. Debate rages about whether the Zerg rush of World Eaters killed him, or whether he's still out there, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIJTvEo4N4Q murdering his way through traitors with an Astartes-pattern shotgun and a chainsword grafted where his hand used to be]. Original 40K novels stated his entire skeleton was on display on Terra, but it's been retconned to only his hands. Still, a Primarch without a skeleton would be bad-ass, if not a little amusing.
*'''Roboute Guilliman''' was formerly preserved in a stasis field, seconds from death after he was poisoned by Fulgrim. Fast-forward a few thousand years and some Eldar flubdubbery, however, and Big Bobby G is back in action, and he's mad at the current state of the Imperium. After a private meeting with the Emperor, he assumed direct command of the Imperium itself as Lord Commander of the Imperium. When he isn't curb-stomping traitors to death or otherwise trying to keep the Imperium afloat, Guilliman is busy re-vamping the Imperium with numerous reforms in an attempt to realize his father's dream for humanity. Needless to say; a lot of people are unhappy about this, but they can't exactly tell off one of the Emperor's actual sons and expect not to be on the business end of a Custodes guardian spear. He's also taken the time to rewrite the Codex Astartes as well.
*'''Vulkan''' got the shit kicked out of him during the Drop Site Massacre, whereupon his fluff gets a bit hazy:
**The old ''Codex: Space Marines'' states that his body was never found, only a book containing only the names of nine powerful relics and a bunch of annoying riddles as to where they might be found, penned by Vulkan himself. In the 41st millennium, the Salamanders believe that he is still alive and that collecting the nine relics - they've found five so far - will reveal his location.
** In the Black Library novels, starting with ''Vulkan Lives'' the big V had to be dragged into a Thunderhawk in bloody tatters. Kurze captured him and tortured him to death... repeatedly; as a [[Perpetual]], Vulkan would not stay dead. After an indeterminate amount of time and deaths, Vulkan managed to escape by teleporting himself into orbit around Macragge and reentering its atmosphere. When he recovered and learned that Kurze was planetside, he [[Rage|flipped out]] and went after him. A well-meaning Perpetual stabbed him with a fulgurite (a spearhead-shaped piece of stone that contains a bit of the Emperor's power), hoping to either cure his madness or kill him for good. Now apparently dead, Vulkan was put in a stasis capsule inscribed with the words "Unbound Flame," with an honor guard of Salamanders until his remains could be returned to Nocturne. As of the end of ''Deathfire'', he somehow managed to return to life again, although there's no indication as to whether or not he's still a Perpetual. As of the War of the Beast, he's still alive in M.32, after the wounding of Guilliman. He's apparently been wandering the Imperium for a millennium fulfilling his own oaths, but returns to Terra to take command and reclaim Ullanor from the united Ork race. Even with one of the greatest forces assembled since the Horus Heresy, with the remnants of the VII Legion Chapters, the fight devolved to Vulkan facing off with The Beast one-on-one, and sacrificing himself in The Beasts temple-gargant's core detonating it with both himself and The Beast inside it. Whether both of them died is highly unlikely. He hints that Dorn is also alive, meaning he is either privy to some secret information, doesn't know of his brother's death, or is going insane.
**The 8th Edition Codex reconcile these stories somewhat, by claiming that sources within the Salamanders themselves believe Vulkan led them for three millennia ''(which accounts for his appearance during the War of the Beast)'', sometimes falling in battle but apparently always returning ''(also accounting for his perpetual status)''. He eventually disappeared on some final undocumented mission, not without leaving his Tome of Fire and bequeathing his personal artefacts to the chapter but not actually saying where they were, giving rise to the legend that if they are all found he will then return.
*'''Corvus Corax''' disappeared into the Eye of Terror as an atonement for putting down the mutant hordes he created in trying to create Space Marines out of desperation. Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore." Beyond the Imperium's eyes, his wraith-slip powers began to mutate and he became a shadowy shapeshifter hellbent on killing all his traitor brothers. Corax was last seen beating Lorgar's ass so hard that the useless fuckwit had to run with his tail between his legs. Yeah, he beat a Daemon Primarch (who had Chaos Marine and likely daemon backup) into up and running, while Corax himself was on his own. Basically the battle between Guilliman and Magnus on Luna, in reverse. Eat it, Papa Smurf.

==Two Missing Primarchs | The Forgotten & The Purged==
Who are the two missing Primarchs, you ask? [[Sigmar|Sigmar Heldenhammer]] and [[Archaon The Everchosen: Lord of the End of Times; Chaos Incarnate; Herald of the Apocalypse|Archaon]] (depending on how WHFB fits in with 40K, if it does). Or maybe (per /tg/ canon) [[Rachnus Rageous]] and [[Tialoc Ekans]]. [[Samus]] and [[Berserk|Guts]] are also contenders, and many Bolter and Chainsword regulars consider Icarion and his Lightning Bearers to be their headcanon II Legion.

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

What, you wanted a serious answer?

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

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

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

=== The [REDACTED] Event ===

*'''The First Heretic''' shows that by the Razing of Monarchia (43 years before the Isstvan V Drop Site Massacre of 006.M31), the II and XI Legions had already been stricken from the records. It also states that the remaining Primarchs had to swear an oath never to speak of their missing brothers and that the missing Primarchs' corresponding legions were personally purged by the Emperor, so it had to have been something extraordinarily bad. However, Lorgar still remembers something about them, saying "I still remember how they-", before Magnus cut him off. Lastly, it is revealed that the Emperor had considered purging Lorgar and the Word Bearers (making them the third legion to be purged) for starting a religion around him, but Russ had talked him out of it. #BlameLemanRuss
*In '''The Lightning Tower''' Rogal Dorn says that the lost Primarchs' disappearances were "separate tragedies", so it seems like they disappeared in two different incidents.
*In '''Descent of Angels''', which takes place as of the time Lion El'Jonson had been rediscoverd, Chief Librarian Israfael tells the then initiate, Zahariel El'Zurias, that the Lion has 19 brothers; indicating that as of that time they had not committed whatever atrocity lead to their demise.
*In '''Dark Imperium''', Roboute Guilliman declares "I was one of twenty. Two failed. Half the rest turned on my Father." This suggests that the downfall of the two lost primarchs was not a result of them betraying the Emperor. Instead their demise was a result of them "failing" their purpose as primarchs and being terminated as a result. Interestingly this line also seems to imply that it is no longer forbidden to speak of the two missing primarchs in the 42nd milenium, as Guilliman casually references them to make a point about primarchs being fallible. (The 2021 revision of the book adds a bit more to this; it looks like the Imperium has covered up the fact that there were even two deleted Legions and Primarchs in the first place.)
*'''The Chamber at the End of Memory''' has Rogal Dorn note that he was one of the few Primarchs who ever met with the II and XI Primarchs. It also reveals that not only was the entire Imperium forbidden to speak of the missing Primarchs' existence, but every non-Primarch save for Malcador who had ever interacted with them was mind-wiped so they would remember nothing about them - including their own gene-sons, presumably other than the fact that they were purged from all record and be left unable to speak even about that. Even the other Primarchs had their memories altered so they couldn't recall much more about their lost brothers beyond the fact that they existed - Dorn is dumbstruck by this discovery, and even more so when Malcador tells him that it was his own idea (and Roboute Guilliman's) to have his fellow Primarchs' memories altered. Malcador also states that '''whatever it was that the II and XI Primarchs did, it was against the very ideals of the Great Crusade and would have ruined everything the the Great Crusade had accomplished to that point.''' Their old living quarters in the Imperial Palace are protected by extremely powerful psychic wards, and when Malcador briefly restores Rogal Dorn's memories of them he realizes the '''''hateful truth'''. That '''the entire Horus Heresy up to the Siege of Terra was not so awful or threatening to the Imperium as what had happened to the Missing Primarchs'''; in fact, '''if they were still alive, the Imperium would have long since fallen'''.
*'''Deliverance Lost''' suggests that whatever happened to the missing Primarchs occurred sometime before the Emperor found Corvus Corax, as Corax asked the Emperor why there were only sixteen other Primarchs waiting for him if he was the nineteenth (it's unsure whether this was referring to him being the Primarch of the nineteenth Legion, or him being the nineteenth found); the Emperor avoided the question, claiming that "it would be a discussion for another day". This is no longer the case, somehow, as he is [[Retcon|now the third-to-last primarch found]], right before the second missing primarch.
*In '''Prospero Burns''', Leman Russ mentions that the Space Wolves had fought other Space Marines before the attack on Prospero, which may have something to do with the purge. A senior Space Wolf describes Russ' "wyrd" as being "the Emperor's executioner". Several books since have backed this up, though [https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8q7qyg/the_space_wolves_what_were_they_really_for_little/e0hih9h/ ADB denies this].
*In '''Scars''' there's a reference to rumours and "whispers of past atrocities" that only a Primarch could kill another Primarch. Russ also turns up and talks a bit about fighting Magnus, and the resulting "shame". So if he's responsible for offing one or two of his brothers, they must've done something pretty fucking heinous.
*In '''The Dark King''', when asked if he will report the Night Lords for censure, Dorn remarks that he feared to add another empty statue to the Emperor's palace, implying that the missing legions were exterminated for committing severe atrocities.
*In '''The Last Council''' Malcador states that one of the missing Primarchs was '''fallen and disgraced'''. Alpharius mentions that one of the primarchs had died. While the lost Primarchs and their Legions were wiped before he was rediscovered, its Alpharius....you can't keep info like that from him.
*Their legions were purged in the times of the [[Rangdan Xenocides|Rangdan Wars]] they participated in.
*In '''The Wolftime''', which is set during the [[Indomitus Crusade]], two Adeptus Custodes are discussing the Space Wolves' resistance to their new [[Primaris Marine]] reinforcements. During the discussion, one of them, Hastius Vychellan, notes that, if [[Roboute Guilliman]] turned on the Emperor, the Space Wolves would be among his first opponents, as the Custodes' history with the Eleventh Legion demonstrates. The other, Maldovar Colquan, notes that this shared history is an example of how loyalty to the Emperor can be corrupted by lies and manipulation. It's quite vague, but the implication is obvious: someone manipulated the XI Legion into turning traitor without them realising it, and the Space Wolves (and likely the Custodes as well) went after them for it. The book doesn't say who manipulated them, but since Malcador mentions in ''The Chamber at the End of Memory'' that the lost Legions' Marines were spared and re-used after their deletion, but the Primarchs weren't, it's possible it was the XI Primarch.

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

(99% Horus was just trying to say “Malcador”)

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

=== XI Primarch ===
*The 11th Primarch was nineteenth primarch rediscovered. After Corax, but before Alpharius Omegon.
*In '''The First Heretic''', when Argel Tal and the other Word Bearers are in the Emperor's gene-labs, they find the 11th's gestation pod. It is mentioned that the 11th was still "innocent and pure" prior to the Primarchs being scattered, although this was a vision given to the Word Bearers by a demon so take it with a grain of salt.
*In the 9th Edition of the Adeptus Custodes Codex, it is mentioned that the Dungeons and Vaults of the Imperial Palace contained many taboo and esoteric items and entities with Subject XI listed as one of them. Whether it's actually one of the Lost or a coincidence is an neverending debate.

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

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

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

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

Out of universe, [[Rick Priestley]] admitted that the unknown legions were supposed to be a reference to the three Roman legions wiped out in the [[Wikipedia: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest| Battle of the Teutoburg Forest]], whose numbers were never reused after they were slain to a man by Germanic barbarians. The intention was to [[Your Dudes|let fans design their own Legions to fill in the gaps for themselves]], though the implications that this would have on the setting clearly weren't thought through. Nowadays, it doesn't even really let people do much with homebrew fluff since the setting has developed in such a way that it's almost impossible for someone to connect a homebrew chapter to the missing primarchs without getting laughed out of their [[Local Game Store]]. If you play in the privacy of your own home, however, there's nothing stopping you and your friends from nailing it down and having your Self-Insert Primarchs show up and give the Imperium a Noblebright/even GRIMDARKER (Delete as appropriate) kick in the ass.

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

It should further be noted that, in the 42nd Millennium, when asked why there were 11 symbolic chairs rather than 9 for the Primarchs, Guilliman replies something along the lines of "Of the 20, two failed and half the rest turned on my father", explicitly distinguishing this "failure" from heresy/treason, hence the reasoning in keeping ceremonial seating for them out of honor. Of the 20 Primarch plinths on Terra, 9 were destroyed but 2 were covered up. So it might be that they weren't traitors, but went '''TOO FAR'''(given that this is the Imperium of Man, the height of human Grimdark, that is not a good thing), perhaps by, for example, becoming a Chaos-fighting Chaos God (if true, It's likely that Malal would see it as the ''Imperium'' having betrayed ''him,'' explaining why he later decided to take the [[Sons of Malice]] under his wing). However, the memories of all the Primarchs regarding the two abolished legions were altered by Malcador, thus making Guilliman's input unreliable.

=== Where Are The Lost Legions Now? ===

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

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

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

Then, of course, there is the elephant in the room, the red-headed stepchild of the Imperial Fists, [[Sigismund]] and the [[Black Templars]]. The Black Templars are about as un-Imperial Fist-like as it is possible to be, Imperial Fists being siege specialists who tend towards stoicism and prefer to dig in and defend until the last man, whereas the Black Templars are hyper-aggressive, always crusading, rarely if ever man any fortifications (they don't even have a homeworld, just maintaining a chapter keep on every world they liberate), and are known for their hatred of psykers and extreme piousness, something that is not really seen in the other Imperial Fist descendants. Though Dorn has been shown to have quite the well of rage himself. And, of course, [https://youtu.be/0Vh_N8CpcL0?t=1207 they do not have "fist" in their name]. A lot of attention is paid on Sigismund obsessive desire for Dorn's paternal favor, and there is a brief moment of attention paid to the fact that Sigismund offered to personally tear down the statues of the II and XI primarchs on Terra, sayng they are traitors and did not deserve to be remembered. Dramatic irony perhaps? There's also parallels to Sigismund's IRL namesake, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#King_of_Hungary| whose father died when he was young, was basically adopted by King Louis the Great of Hungary and Poland, and ended up becoming king of Hungary]. Dorn even says in a moment of anger that Sigismund is “not his son, and never will be”. Regrettable statement made in a moment of anger? Or a subconscious Freudian slip?

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

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

==Rules on the Tabletop==
Thanks to Forge World, not only do we have models for the Primarchs, but rules as well. As you can guess, they are ungodly death machines who can easily win their points back and more. That's not to say they're invincible, though; they can still be killed if you screw up badly enough. Do be sure to see [[Primarchs in 8th Edition]] and the google drive link on that page as well, should you want to play 30k using the modern rule set. All currently released Primarchs have the following statlines:
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left" class="wikitable sortable"
! || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv || Invul || ML || Points
|-
| '''[[Horus]]''' || 8 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5+1 || 10 || 2+ || 3++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 500
|-
| '''[[Angron]]''' || 9 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 5 || 7 || 6(10)|| 10 || 3+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 400
|-
| '''[[Fulgrim]]''' || 8 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 8 || 5 || 10 || 2+ || 5++/3++ in CC || data-sort-value=0 | || 380
|-
| '''[[Mortarion]]''' || 7 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 7 || 5 || 5 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 425
|-
| '''[[Ferrus Manus]]''' || 7 || 6 || 7 || 7 || 6 || 5 || 4+1 || 10 || 2+ || 3++ || data-sort-value=0 | || data-sort-value=455 | 455 or steal his hammer for 415
|-
| '''[[Konrad Curze]]''' || 8 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 5+1 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 435
|-
| '''[[Vulkan]]''' || 7 || 5 || 7 || 7 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 10 || 2+ || 3++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 425
|-
| '''[[Lorgar]]''' || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 6 || 4+1 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=2.5 | 2 or 3 || data-sort-value=375 | 375 or Chaosify him for 450
|-
| '''[[Perturabo]]''' || 8 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 10 || 2+ || 3++ || data-sort-value=0 | || data-sort-value=455 | 455 or give him Forgebreaker for 490
|-
| '''[[Rogal Dorn]]''' || 8 || 5 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 385
|-
| '''[[Corvus Corax]]''' || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6/5 || 7 || 6/5 || 10 || 2+/3+ || 5++ || data-sort-value=0 | || data-sort-value=450 | 450 or fuck him over for 350
|-
| '''[[Alpharius]]''' || 7 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || data-sort-value=415 | 415''.... or is it?''
|-
| '''[[Roboute Guilliman]]''' || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 4+1 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 400
|-
| '''[[Roboute Guilliman]] (40k, 7e)''' || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 10 || 2+ || 3++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 350
|-
| '''[[Magnus the Red]]''' || 7 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 4 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || 5 || 495 or charge up for 670
|-
| '''[[Magnus the Red]] (Daemon, 40k 7e)''' || 7 || 7 || 8 || 7 || 7 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 4+ || 4++ || 5 || 650
|-
| '''[[Leman Russ]]''' || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 455
|-
| '''[[Jaghatai Khan]]''' || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 8 || 6+1 || 10 || 2+ || 5++/3++ in CC || data-sort-value=0 | || 385 or give him a bike for 460
|-
| '''[[Lion El'Jonson]]''' || 8 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 5(7) || 10 || 2+ || 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 460
|-
| '''[[Sanguinius]]''' || 9 || 5 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 2+|| 4++ || data-sort-value=0 | || 485
|} 
*'''Special Rules (not counting the ones specific for each Primarch)'''
**''Primarch''
***''Adamantium Will''
***''Independent Character''
***''Eternal Warrior''
***''Fear''
***''Fleet''
***''Fearless''
***''It Will Not Die''
***''Master of the Legion''
***''Precision Shots''
***''Precision Strikes''
**''Sire of the [Legion]''

As of 8th edition (special rules not included):
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left" class="wikitable sortable"
! || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv || Points/Power level
|-
| '''[[Roboute Guilliman]]''' || 8" || 2+ || 2+ || 6 || 6 || 9 || 6 || 10 || 2+/3++|| 360/18||data-sort-value=0 |
|-
| '''[[Magnus the Red]]''' || 16 || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 7 || 18 || 7 || 10 || 3+/4++ || 445/21||data-sort-value=0 |
|-
| '''[[Mortarion]]''' || 12 || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 7 || 18 || 6 || 10 || 3+/4++ || 470/24|| data-sort-value= 0 |
|} 

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

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

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

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

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

# '''The Nice Guys'''
## '''Vulkan''' - The least douchebaggy primarch by far. Vulkan routinely put the life of him and his men on the line for the sake of the Imperial citizens. Vulkan would throw himself to the defence of a no name human tribe with the same ferocity and zeal as he would Terra itself. A total bro. Also was the largest, strongest Primarch (Ferrus' metal arms were determined as cheating, though according to the Khan, Mortarion was as strong or stronger) and held back in sparring for fear of hurting his brothers. His only real fault was that, despite his strong distaste for terror weapons, he had a thing for setting people on fire. The only times he was an asshole were when he forgot who he was due to Curze's torture driving him mad. Of course, he's still a Primarch and a '''fiery''' general, and he ''will'' leave you a pile of ash if you end up on his shitlist.
## '''Sanguinius''' - Despite some... [[Red Thirst|unorthodox tendencies]], he is reported as being the most charismatic of the Primarchs, perhaps second only to Horus. He is particularly noteworthy for how much he improved his legion. The Blood Angels before his arrival were so bloodthirsty and terrifying that even other Astartes looked askance at them. But Sanguinius took these butcherous vampires and taught them humility and nobility, and to put the well-being of humanity above any personal glory. They actually managed such a total 180 that they were, and still are, regarded as one of the most heroic, resplendent legions out of all of them. A pretty all-round nice guy, he was so naturally charming that he actually managed to get ''Jaghatai Khan'' of all people to laugh at a joke of his. He was also exceedingly humble despite being such a giga-chad, and often played the role of peacemaker between his more cantankerous brothers. He can lapse at times however, as seen in his treatment of Curze by denying him a chance of changing his fate & earning forgiveness, and he regrettably had to kill many of his Red-Thirsted men when they got too batshit even for him. Like Vulkan though, he can still be a ferocious force if riled up, he once beat the shit out of guy for daring to imply the Signus III campaign was a trap (it was, but he had no reason to suspect Horus at that point). Sanguinius's temper was actually such that Leman Russ cited the Angel as one of two Primarchs he didn't know if he could beat. Basically if you pissed him off, he turned into the Hulk.
## '''Magnus the Red''' - For his faults, Magnus was one of the nicest Primarchs right up there with Vulkan and Sanguinius. Before the whole Prospero thing, this guy's MO was all about the advancement of humanity: always trying the diplomatic approach to preserve what could be preserved, using shock and awe tactics to limit damage when fighting, happily taking remembrancers along his legion (Although all remembrancers amongst the fellowship were psykers to some degree). Magnus was a friendly and open-minded idealist, which makes it all the more tragic when he gets deceived, framed, backstabbed and then coaxed into selling his soul to the [[Tzeentch|Cuttlefish of Keikaku]]. He is easily the most sympathetic of the traitors, considering he only joined them after being backed into a corner; had Jaghatai been at his side during and after Nikaea things might have turned out differently. He was also the only traitor Primarch who actually cared about his men, even after ascending to daemonhood. The novel ''Deathfire'' also ups his bro-ness quite a bit, as he proved himself the only traitor-aligned Primarch to ''sincerely'' do something very helpful for one of his loyalist brothers after the Horus Heresy was already in full swing. This "special favour" is made all the more striking given how it took place ''after'' Magnus had his adoptive homeworld burned out from under him. Perhaps his skin was red not only because of mutation, but because it also showed [[Lovedagger|the greatness of his heart]]? On the other hand, this was done by one of the fragments of Magnus that embodied his love for his gene-sons and fellow Primarchs (which ultimately self-destructed to keep the Crimson King from absorbing its power), so any hope that he kept that good heart died after Ahriman's failure at his Second Rubric on Prospero and when the Emperor offered him a chance to redeem himself as the Primarch of the nascent Grey Knights he threw it away. While his soul was still in one piece, Magnus's main character flaw was his arrogance. As in, this guy's ego had only two contenders in all the galaxy; the Emperor Himself, and Lion El'Jonson. Maybe Eldrad too. While he wasn't an in-your-face type like Fulgrim, Magnus and his Legion were still entirely convinced that they knew the Warp better than anyone else, which led to them disregarding many warnings and red flags that could've been avoided, leading almost directly to their awful, [[Rubric Marines|awful]] fates. It also caused him to have a complete blind spot where his own insufferability was concerned, as he genuinely believed himself to be the most intelligent of his brothers. This Sheldon Cooper-esque attitude caused many of the other Primarchs represented at the Council of Nikaea to wish Magnus personally rebuked despite their support of the Libraius initiative itself. When he learned of this, it appeared to have caught him completely off guard, and dismayed him tremendously. Also, Magnus wasn't ENTIRELY innocent as he had implanted sleeper agents and spies throughout the Imperium, ruining the lives of those brainwashed while betraying the trust of his brothers. Why he did this isn't exactly clear (it's very unlikely to be Chaos related) though it's most likely an attempt to obtain information and records his brother might otherwise destroy. Regardless however, his more questionable traits appeared not to have ever been the result of malice, but were instead a byproduct of his solipsism and thoughtlessness.
## '''Corax''' - Even after being raised under the tyranny of the Kiavahrans, he refused to take after their tyrannous ways, wanted to make things right, and asked the Emperor to end the civil war he started while liberating his homeworld of Lycaeus. Seeing the ruthless tendencies the Terran members of his legion had, he quietly shipped them way the fuck away from the rest of the Great Crusade to go fight xenos or had them all slaughtered during the Battle of Gate 42. He was also one of very few primarchs to readily admit his own mistakes, which were numerous and sometimes tragic. Developed a brutal habit of folding Chaos Space Marines into pretzels when shapeshifting into a tangible shadow during his hunt against his Daemon brothers Post-Heresy but left the slaves alone.
## '''Jaghatai Khan''' - Despite him being modeled after [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|the guy who holds the high score on raping and pillaging]], Jaghatai was actually very reasonable and [[Kharn|a pretty fun guy to be around]]. His main hobbies included [[Dark Eldar|raiding and jetbikes]], but he had an appreciation for [[Blood Angels|the fine arts]] as well. He was very good friends with Magnus and very pro-psyker. However he also kept his distance from pretty much everyone else, save Horus, not wanting to deal with other people's bullshit, unless they were really worth the effort - as the result very few people knew and trusted him (especially once his only bros turned traitor). He seemed to have something of a "live and let live" type philosophy, as after he conquered his home planet, he just kinda fucked off back to the Steppes with a warning to everyone not to piss him off too much. While the Khan didn't seem to care too much about the whole Great Crusade thing and spent most of his time doing his own thing, he never turned his back on the Imperium and sincerely believed in the idea of an Empire in the starry skies. And this was despite being the one of the few Primarchs to understand how bunked the whole [[Imperial Truth]] secular atheist propaganda really was (remember that the Chogorisian had Shamans, who also are the ones who select the White Scars' Chapter Master through mysterious initiatic trials); and of the Emperor himself he declared that he was "neither a monster nor a simpleton", mostly because he knew that [[Chaos]] was far worse (of course). So, the Emperor knew all along that the Khagan had his priorities right and would therefore not betray him, even when Malcador brought up the topic; and this was in spite of the personal relationship of father and son being explicitly awkward.
# '''The Competent Asshole Control Freak (Yes Guilliman needs his own category)'''
## '''Guilliman''' - R.G. is a jerk with a (or rather two) heart(s) of gold or a nice guy with a nasty mean streak, depending on how you look at him. Some people might say this dude was a statesman in the same vein as Augustus Caesar- he was great at building states and making life generally better for people, but only if you ignore the deported and murdered people who didn't agree 100% with the new regime. For somebody more reasonable, Guilliman was perhaps one of the most responsible and human among his brothers. He cared about the common man, personally planned post-war reconstruction and political integration into the Imperium of the planets he conquered and (unofficially) tolerated moderate presence of religion in Ultramar. But for sure the guy had a big ego, as he constantly spoke and behaved like he knew what was best for everyone, at least until proven wrong (multiple times). And you better not get on his shit list, although to be fair he was mostly a complete jerk with people he considers being [[Konrad Curze|psycho]] [[Angron|mass murderers]] with [[Perturabo|no respect for their own sons]] or [[Alpharius|civilian populations]]. And despite what [[Matt Ward|some people]] would have you believe, he knew he couldn't plan for every situation and expected people to use their own judgment rather than blindly follow his [[Codex Astartes|codex]]. Like Jaghatai Khan, we know Guilliman recognized that the Emperor was a horrible father (likely since he's one of the few among his brothers to have had actual decent adoptive parents) and that the ideals the Emperor espoused were far more important than the Emperor himself ever was, and after learning that his whole [[Imperium Secundus]] plan was based on bad assumptions he's been beating himself up about it all the way into the 42nd millennium. While he's grown more cynical since his revival and subsequent realization of how badly the Imperium had devolved in his absence, he has refused to abandon his noble ideals or his faith in humanity as a whole and has privately considered the possibility that in retrospect he had been overly dismissive of Lorgar's ideas about the Emperor's divinity. He also seems to be a bit more irritable than he used to be, but given [[Great Rift|his]] [[Age of the Dark Imperium|current]] situation it would be more surprising if that wasn't the case. Also, may have actually imprisoned [[Cypher]] and the Fallen so that the Emperor wouldn't discover [[Assholetep|who broke Lion El'Jonson's best sword]], ultimately causing him to die in battle in Emprah's mini-me's own pseudo Horus Heresy. Additionally, he has developed a legitimately unprecedented trait for a Primarch: that of sufficient self-awareness to not just recognize, but actually '''LEARN''' from his mistakes, such as during the Hexarchy coup attempt or not trying to secure Ultramar à la Imperium Secundus during the Terran Crusade.
# '''The Douches'''
## '''Horus''' - Pre-Heresy he was a surprisingly chill dude, except if you crossed his sensibilities. Was essentially flat-out stated to have been the most charismatic of his brothers, with the possible exception of Sanguinius. Unlike Sanguinius however, Horus's charisma was something he had deliberately cultivated rather than being a natural trait of his, which speaks volumes of his personality. He was also one of very few Primarchs who made a deliberate effort to ''not'' leave the planets he conquered as smoldering ruins, and had a personal philosophy that those the Imperium conquered "should be left better than we found them." Just to give you an idea of his character in the halcyon days, Horus ''killed Sanguinius'' but retains enough anti-douche credit to rank as the ''least'' douchey of The Douches. He was ''that'' nice before the Heresy. In fact were it not for the Heresy he would probably be in third place after Vulkan and Sanguinius. Got along well with both regular people and nearly all his brothers (Corax was seemingly the only Primarch who disliked him), but he gradually started treating some of them like shit after becoming Warmaster and resented the idea that he and his brothers would not be able to rule over the planets that they had conquered. His insecurities may have also made him vulnerable to the Dark Gods' lies when he received a vision of the Imperium 10,000 years into the future where the Emperor was worshiped as a god, he and many of his brothers were forgotten, and everything was Grimdark--a future that, unbeknownst to him, he would be directly responsible for creating specifically as a result of his own attempts to avert it. The whole [[Heresy]] thing just sort-of kills his position on the list. After going full Chaos, he rapidly became a much, much bigger dick.
## '''Rogal Dorn''' - Although one hell of a masochist, and at times thick-headed, he did see the idea behind the Imperium, and actually agreed with it. Honest and dependable, while Rogal didn't make for interesting conversation, he would always do his job without complaint. Had as much empathy and subtlety as one of his fortresses and ended up hurting a lot of people (mostly emotionally, but sometimes physically too) with his over-the-top brutal honesty. The prime example was when he betrayed Fulgrim's trust after they had a discussion regarding Konrad's visions, and provoked Curze into almost killing him. However, he could occasionally get quite philosophical, and is perhaps the only Primarch to admit that his own nature and power unsettled him.
## '''Leman Russ''' - Nowhere near as much of a dick as butthurt Magnus fanboys would have you believe. He was indeed savage and brutal, but ultimately always keeping the larger goal of betterment of humanity in sight and having good reasons for that myopia. Prone to picking fights with his brothers and destroyed Prospero under questionable circumstances. That said, he used the culture of his homeworld to give his Legion control over its savagery, and made the Space Wolves focus on protecting people from monsters instead of just butchering civilians. He did use terror tactics, mass killings, and the destruction of knowledge, but he did so out of loyalty to humanity and the Emperor, not just because he felt like it. Bottom line: Russ certainly had his fair share of flaws, but as belligerent and myopic as he could be he always tried to make the galaxy safe for humanity in the longer run. He was also capable of admitting to mistakes, which was uncommon amongst the Primarchs. During his fight with the Lion for instance, he started the brawl with the Lion over perceived kill stealing but after a while it dawned on him what an ass he was being, and he stopped fighting and burst out laughing at his own stupidity. He was ''awfully'' stubborn however, and as such this sort of thing didn't happen often.
## '''Ferrus Manus''' - A big dude with a penchant for bursts of choleric anger. Between his resting bitch face and his Social Darwinist ideals, he seems at first glance to be a natural candidate for a traitor. However, his honesty and loyalty to the Emperor mean he certainly wasn't as bad as Perturabo or Mortarion, and he did sincerely believe that weakness would cause the Imperium to collapse. He was... really a pain to deal with, however. Unlike, let's say, Dorn, who was only really mean when you made it on his shitlist, Ferrus was only nice to people who made it on his ''friends''list. Anyone else could, as far as he was concerned, either stay out of his way or get introduced to his fists. Most of the Loyalists and even some Traitors (at first) viewed the protection of the innocent as their goal, while Ferrus encouraged tactics that led to massive civilian casualties, and where Primarchs like Curze or Angron took Legions that were bad about mortal deaths and kept up such practices, Manus took a Legion that had tried to minimize mortal deaths and made them worse about it. All this said, he was loyal unto death to the Emperor's ideals and he also understood that his sons' fetish for cybernetics was beyond unhealthy and wanted to help them overcome it. His death ensured that last part would never happen, and indeed made them double down on their hatred of the flesh.
## '''Lion El'Jonson''' - The Lion was complex, to say the least. He had an arrogance that matched Magnus or Horus's worst moments combined with a difficult early life fighting Chaos beasts on Caliban. This "do-or-die" attitude spilled over into his interpersonal skills, hard. Too hard. Put simply, you had one chance with Johnson and if he ever decided you wasted it, then it was over and you went on his shitlist forever. The end result was a Primarch who was aloof and taciturn, whose poor communication skills made him unsuited to lead the Primarchs but whose ego made it impossible for him to accept the seniority of Horus or Russ. At the same time, there was a competitive, spiteful, and self-centered side to the Lion, which led him to execute one of his own Dark Angels over a conflict of authority and nearly kill Russ over an argument about kill-stealing. The Lion's own awe-inspiring presence, which was powerful enough to make Astartes from other legions literally drop to their knees when he crashed unannounced on a war-council aboard the Vengeful Spirit, didn't help his ego either. There's been speculation in-universe and out of it that he wasn't wholly loyal to the Emperor, but it has been made crystal clear in-universe that he personally was 100% loyal to Big E, and that the whole "muh secret traitors" thing is primarily due to a combination of bad luck and the Dark Angels already having a poor reputation. The Lion may also have been the most "douchey" of all the Primarchs who weren't outright evil at some point. For you see, many of the Primarchs had absolutely ginormous egos, but most of those who did also either possessed the people skills to hide it or were so charismatic that it just didn't matter. Fulgrim, Magnus, Guilliman, Alpharius, and especially Horus are notable examples of this tendency. As stated earlier, the Lion easily had one of the largest egos amongst all his brothers, matched perhaps only by Magnus, but since he had virtually no people skills he was unable to hide it very well. This resulted in him being the Primarch who was liked by the fewest of his brothers (he basically only got on with Jaghatai Khan). His ego cast such a long shadow over his achievements and ability to work with others that even though Guilliman considered the title of Warmaster a two-horse race between Horus and the Lion he still didn't include the latter amongst his Dauntless Few (a list that included Ferrus Manus of all people).
## '''Alpharius Omegon''' - Damned if anyone knows. You just can't trust that/those guy(s), which does make him/them a pretty big dick by default. The fallout from some of the Alpha Legion's Crusade-era shenanigans suggests a certain inclination to showing off at the expense of civilian lives, probably due to an enormous inferiority-superiority complex. Still, they rebelled under perhaps the best intentions among all the traitors with Alpharius at least recognising Chaos had to be defeated (we think- it's still ambiguous as to their end goals) Omegon is possibly a bit better, in that he wasn't willing to sacrifice all of mankind to do so (maybe). After Alpharius's probable death by Dorn at Pluto and Omegon taking his mantle to (allegedly) die at Guilliman's hands, the legion debatably turned into a schizophrenic monster, though this is better than what Fulgrim's actions turned his legion into by far. Alpharius himself (maybe) in his own memoirs presents himself as a tactician and combatant worthy of inclusion in the [[Reasonable Marines]], but who in person had a Lion-sized (hah) chip on his shoulder. Problem is that the memoir itself purports to be a lie, so who really knows.
## '''Fulgrim''' - Rather like Horus, Fulgrim was one of the Traitor Primarchs who started out as quite a kind fellow. Initially he was an incredibly idealistic artisan who wanted to help humanity improve to the absolute limits of its potential. He did this primarily by trying to be the best example of humanity he could be, and demanded the same of his sons. To their credit, they succeeded quite splendidly at this for the most part. Unfortunately he had a rather fragile ego which was probably due in large part by the fact that his legion was virtually non-existent when he came to command it. As such, he had the Primarch equivalent of a Napoleon complex due to the head start most of his brothers got on him, and as such could get fairly petulant if he was challenged in a personal way. This led to him ultimately having a somewhat elitist view of himself and his legion, and he could be a bit of a dick when it came to Astartes and mortals who failed to live up to his astronomically high standards. He also can't keep a secret, betraying Konrad Curze's trust and causing him to go nuts on Dorn's face. Other than Horus and Sanguinius, was the only Primarch to really get along with all his brothers (save Jaghatai, but that's his fault. Oh, and Mortarion thought he was a prancing idiot. And Fulgrim considered Russ a dumb hick. And he didn't seem to like the Second very much), and was BFFs with Ferrus Manus, of all people. That is, until he chopped his head off. Rude. Also took pride to the extremity of arrogance, hence his fall to Slaanesh. Interestingly, his bizarre fixation on friendship with Ferrus never left him, constantly cloning him with help of Fabius Bile and trying to win him over his side. Needless to say, he's failed thus far.
# '''The Self-righteous Jerk (Yes Lorgar needs his own category too)'''
## '''Lorgar''' - The dude who brought this whole fucking mess into fruition. If only he had strangled Erebus and Kor Phaeron at the first mention of Chaos. Instead he decided he was going to ruin everything for everybody because his daddy was a NAYtheist and none of the brothers really supported him. He started off as a well-intentioned idealist who sought to use what he knew best to uplift humanity, religion, before the Emperor's actions on Monarchia destroyed his psyche, allowing Erebus and Kor Phaeron to let him know about [[Chaos|the other gods who would appreciate his worship]]. While it's true he shouldn't have been treated so harshly by the Emperor (even Malcador and Guilliman privately said as much), and even though he believed Chaos was necessary for humanity to survive and continue existence, the fact that Chaos & the Horus Heresy caused the 10,000 year old Imperium to become the grimdark, bloody, corpse-littered cesspool we all know and love would normally outweighs all of the slivers of sympathy that he might have had. And yet, there are people far, far worse than him. To be honest, he was one of the nicest primarchs before the destruction of Monarchia, comparable to Magnus before the Burning of Prospero. He tried to befriend everyone and was one of the primarchs that mostly conquered planets by words and faith, instead of by fire and sword and along Dorn and Guilliman, was one of the rarer ones that wouldn't leave conquered worlds as utter shitholes, instead rebuilding them and integrating its population. All this make his downfall even more sad and tragic, and even after his fall, he seemed to be generally concerned about his brother Angron's (of all people) life, which was a primary reason that he was in a hurry transforming him. Also, confrontation with Corax shows that he genuinely cares for his son's lives, putting him above the disgusting fucktards below. Then again, he was completely blasé about the ''horrific'' fates the Forces of Chaos inflicted on people (see the Gal Vorbak for reference), regardless of whether they wanted it or not. Also, he's arguably the only Primarch who is completely unrepentant about his crimes towards the galaxy at large (even Horus acknowledged what a piece of shit he himself had become, and Fulgrim sometimes expressed regret when the pink haze wasn't clouding his mind). In sum, Lorgar is why we can't have [[Noblebright|nice things.]]
# The '''FUCKING CUNTS'''
## '''Mortarion''' - Described by Alpharius as being "bleakness personified", Mortarion rubbed virtually everyone the wrong way. Excluding Eidolon who he actually got along with somehow. And Horus, for whom he acted as de-facto second in command during the Heresy. Terse, grim and blunt, he was downright bigoted against psykers, and resented (or at the very least looked down upon) nearly everyone who he felt had it easier than him. He was also notorious for using chemical and radiological terror weapons and generally not giving a fuck about who got killed by them. In fairness to him however, he and his legion were usually (though not exclusively) deployed to environments so awful that such weapons typically didn't make things much worse. Also his opponents were usually xenos due both to them typically being the only ones who could survive on the planets he got sent to, and the fact that he really liked killing them. He also was at least somewhat justified in his hatred of psykers, as his necromancer foster father and his fellow overlords had all been psykers, and had been horrific in their subjugation of Barbarus's human population. Had he not turned Traitor, he likely would have been somewhere near Lion El'Jonson in terms of overall dickishness; a spiteful lone wolf type who had a habit of nursing grudges, gave very few shits about who or what his legion killed, went primarily on extermination campaigns, and was generally disliked by everyone for being an ass. Over time, he became more and more disgusted with people's acceptance of [[Emperor|tyrants]] and [[Magnus the Red|psykers]], and became much more likely to kill everything in the vicinity of what he considered evil. Over time he also lost what little tolerance he had ever possessed for weak mortals, and decided that the Imperium was being crafted in such a way as to coddle the weak. Not good as far as he was concerned. Interestingly he did care deeply for his own people, which is why he was so driven to take down both monsters and tyrants after witnessing how his foster father oppressed the populace, though he didn't exactly do much, if anything, to show it. Then [[Nurgle]] made him his plague-ridden bitch and Jaghatai fucked him up and humiliated him in the Siege of Terra, at which point he decided to just take his bitterness out on everyone lacking the Plaguefather's "gifts".
## '''Angron''' - Loved killing people and not much else. Most of the casualties within his legion were a result of him being a team-killing psycho because quite frankly he didn't care what he got to kill as long as he got to kill it. That said, Angron at least had an excuse for being such a rampaging dick all the time. The Butcher's Nails had effectively turned him from being a genuinely nice fellow who could empathically relieve the suffering of others by taking it into himself into a half-mindless killing machine, as it actually has not just remapped but ''replaced'' parts of his brain, effectively removing from him any emotions other than pain, hatred, and battle-lust while also destroying his capacity for empathy and compassion, which arguably means he doesn't even have any Moral Agency (that's Philosopher-speak for saying that he can't be held ethically accountable for his actions any more than a toaster can for burning your fingers). One may wonder what sort of guy he would have been without the implants, presumably he'd be more like his pre-retcon White Dwarf version where he was an honourable warrior whose martial valour ended up leading him down Khorne's path (this was very quickly retconned with the Black Library novels). But he stick to his guns despite the suffering. On top of that, he got fucked over pretty hard by Big E when they first met, so it's no wonder he went traitor the moment Horus made him an offer, we may even credit him for enduring years fighting for the Imperium instead of just getting himself killed in any of the battles as he himself personally wanted. At the end of the day, Angron was probably the Primarch who gave the fewest fucks about his legion and was content to let it run itself without his leadership, although he never really wanted one to begin with. As a result, many of the saner parts of his legion ''loathed'' him, to say nothing about his general reputation (Itvaan III wasn't the first time...). The action that places him so low on this list is the fact that he allowed the spread of Butcher's Nails throughout his Legion, despite his own hatred of the damn things and the fact they cause him so many issues, not least going psycho rage-monster most of the time; which is a pretty fucked up thing for him to condone. Then again, many of his sons accepted the mini-Nails to get closer to their Primarch, psykers, however, died horribly, not that Angron gave a shit. Perhaps he allowed it because seeing his sons with Butcher's Nails reminded him of his fallen gladiator brothers and sisters on Nuceria, but then again he blew up the planet along with all of the people he once fought to liberate just because they were bad-mouthing him. He really wasn't all that great of a guy even during his moments of lucidity, and he was one the few Primarchs to willingly kill his own men during the Great Crusade, an act even ''Horus'' thought was unthinkable.
## '''Konrad Curze''' - Arguably the most sadistic of all primarchs, Konrad really got off to torturing people and manipulating the masses through fear. What started as a quest to use fear to save lives in compliance actions turned through time and circumstance to a simple desire to torture and maim. The man who was supposed to be the ultimate harbinger of justice ended up as an unholy combination of Batman and Joker. By the time the Heresy broke out, any ideas of mercy or decency he may have harbored had long ago been buried under a massive pile of flayed guts. Somewhat like Angron however, the Night Haunter's actions are mitigated somewhat by the fact that the guy practically redefined crazy. His upbringing had much to do with shaping his awful view of reality, but what really screwed him over were his visions. He saw the future in psychic visions constantly, but the futures he saw were always permutations of the absolute worst outcome to any given situation, and he couldn't do anything to stop them. These visions came with severe psychic fits during which Curze would violently spaz out. They became worse and worse as time went on, and the psychological and psychic stress of them reduced Curze from a Punisher-esque individual to a completely sadistic screwball who would build stuff out of corpses and then sincerely thank those corpses. He also suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, with the Konrad Curze and Night Haunter personas constantly warring for supremacy within his mind. Needless to say, the Night Haunter ultimately won out. He did admit that what he had done was wrong, but instead of trying to atone for his atrocities, he used the excuse that the future was set in stone (which he mostly believed) to justify just going along with the horrors he saw in his visions. In fact, the only two things that genuinely seemed to scare him were the possibilities that the Emperor '''wouldn't''' order his death -- or even worse, be forgiven for his behavior ''(and render his entire outlook on life meaningless)''. The fact that he refused to turn back to heroism at so many opportunities because he felt himself a puppet of fate makes one unable to decide whether he is contemptible or pathetic. Curze skirts this foul line.
## '''Perturabo''' - Perturabo suffers from somewhat inconsistent characterization due to having been written by a series of disparate authors, each of whom seemingly couldn't be bothered to read the previous guy's book. However, the easiest way to sum him up would be as a stone cold monster possessed of an absolutely massive martyr complex. What makes him the worst on this list is the fact that, unlike the other members of the '''FUCKING CUNTS''' tier, Perturabo never had any real justification for being as evil as he was. He wasn't lobotomized like Angron or bat-shit crazy like Curze, and unlike Mortarion his homeworld and upbringing were not bad at all; Olympia was basically just ancient Greece in space, and he had a family who loved him as much as possible given the culture and circumstances. In fact his world and upbringing were actually fairly similar to those of ''Guilliman'' of all people. He didn't even have the religious conviction of Lorgar; he turned Traitor simply out of spite and bitterness. He also seemed perfectly capable of feeling empathy and compassion as well; he genuinely loved his sister for instance... not that it stopped him from strangling her with his bare hands. This fact serves to make his actions all the worse however, as he clearly could understand right from wrong. He seemingly had absolutely no regard whatsoever for human life; hell the very first thing he did upon meeting his legion was to have a random tenth of them murdered by their brothers for not being good enough to suit him. He spent the lives of his legionaries like they were bolter rounds, and despite his bitching about how hard he and his legion had it, he never made any effort to change his way of making war. Though he was deployed to some of the worst battlegrounds in the Crusade, they were hardly worse than those in which the Lion, Russ, or Mortarion engaged in. Yet not one of them ever sulked about it or felt slighted. Not even Mortarion, who got sent to battlegrounds that would literally kill other Astartes by simple virtue of the environment. He is one of the few Primarchs who made his legion objectively ''worse'' by joining it, as he took a group of hardy siege warfare specialists and, by way of deliberately getting the bulk of them killed for decades on end, turned them into spiteful, bitter monsters with as little regard for life as himself. In fact, he made them so callous that the Iron Warriors both in and out of universe are a top candidate for the title of "[[Daemonculaba|evilest]] [[Honsou|motherfuckers]] in the setting", potentially beating out such luminaries as the Night Lords and Dark Eldar. Only the modern Word Bearers really have a fair claim at being worse. The atrocities that occurred under his command were all the result of inhuman barbarism caused not by madness or uncontrollable compulsion, but because Perturabo calculated that said barbarism was the most efficient means of achieving victory. He could and would calculate precisely the amount of ammunition, fuel, vehicles, ships, and human beings needed to win a campaign down to the last bolter shell and drop of blood, and would then spend those resources accordingly. And to his credit he was ridiculously good at it; his logistical skill was such that he could lose a good 90% of an attacking force in any given action and have his numbers replenished well in advance of the next campaign. Problem was that losing 90% of a force was something he wouldn't so much as bat an eyelash at. By the end we was just an envious, petty bastard who was always complaining whenever things didn't go his way (which was always). The intervening ten thousand years haven't improved his personality in any way either. Like Mortarion he didn't get along with any of his brothers and his inferiority complex and "woe is me" attitude was a cornerstone of almost all his interpersonal relationships, perhaps more notoriously in his all-consuming hatred for Rogal Dorn, in a rivalry that was completely one-sided until the two came to blows during the Heresy. Their rivalry being another example of Perturabo's unwillingness to try to improve his situation, instead preferring to sulk in his own misery, as his jealousy from Dorn stemmed from him being chosen as a builder and architect from the biggest projects in the Imperium, but never once Perturabo is shown trying to build anything outside his private workshop, instead bulldozing through whole planets with his Iron Warriors.

==See Also==

[[Return of the Primarchs]]: A What IF? series filled with pure [[AWESOME]] and [[Fist of the North Star|MANLY TEARS]].

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

==Miniatures==

* The official 30K miniatures are produced by [[Forge World]]
* [https://www.hitechminiatures.com Hitechminiatures] has good alternative models
* [https://wargameexclusive.com Wargame Exclusive] also has very good alternative models but a smaller selection - yet.
* [https://cadwallon.com/ Cadwallon] has [https://cadwallon.com/?s=chibi&post_type=product Chibi Primes] (well, some still.)

==Gallery==

<center>
===Loyal===
<gallery>
File:Lion El'Jonson.JPEG|[[Lion El'Jonson]]
File:JaghataiKhan-1-.jpg|[[Jaghatai Khan]] (can't hate a man who wears heeled calfboots)
File:LEMAN RUSS.jpg|[[Leman Russ]]
File:Rogal Dorn Portrait.png|[[Rogal Dorn]]
File:Sanginuscool.jpg|[[Sanguinius]]
File:Ferrus Manus Pre-Haircut.jpg|[[Ferrus Manus]]
File:Robute Guilliman.jpg|[[Roboute Guilliman]] (Big Bobby G)
File:Vulkan's Face.jpg|[[Vulkan]]
File:Corax Portrait.png|[[Corvus Corax]]
</gallery>

===Traitor===
<gallery>
File:Horus Portrait.png|[[Horus Lupercal]] (THAT ONE FUCK-UP)
File:Fulgrim by slaine69.jpg|[[Fulgrim]] (look at his sexyness)
File:Perturabo Portrait.jpg|[[Perturabo]]
File:Konrad Curze Mugshot.jpg|[[Konrad Curze]]/Night Haunter/Batman
File:Angron Butchers Nails.jpg|[[Angron]] (GETS. SHIT. DONE.)
File:Mortarion Portrait.jpg|[[Mortarion]]
File:Magnus.jpg|[[Magnus the Red]]
File:Lorgar Handsome.jpg|[[Lorgar Aurelian]] (goldboy)
File:Alpharius2.jpg|[[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]
</gallery>
<center>

===How To Make A Primarch===
<center>
{{Heresy}}
[[File:How to make a primarch.jpg|thumb|center|Artist's depiction of a primarch's creation]]
</center>

{{Template:Primarchs}}
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:Chaos]]

Total War: Warhammer/Tactics

2022-05-31T16:11:48Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:9CC:B75:2B6B:467E: Undo revision 828259 by 2601:2C6:500:9930:6C9A:921D:6C52:2C1 (talk) He says, on a wiki dedicated to a board that uses double n-word on the regular

{{/vg/}}

Welcome to the general tactics dump for [[Total War: Warhammer]] and it's sequels. Something to help with noobs and lower the bloat on the main page. If you want to take this knowledge to the online scene (God help your soul) take a look at the community made Banner Rules at [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics/Banner Rules]]

==Basics==
In many ways, Warhammer II plays like your standard Total War game. It features real time battles with an army of roughly 20 units max on each side. There will be at least two armies on the field and whoever is able to completely shatter the other side first wins.

Each army has it's own collection of Infantry, Missile troops, Cavalry, Artillery and Monsters to play with, each offering a different play style. For instance, Dwarfs offer a defensive solitary play style focused around heavily armored infantry and strong missiles where as the Beastmen are an aggressive hit and run faction designed to get in, hit the enemy and break leadership, then get away before the enemy can counterattack. The asymmetrical play style of the factions is a massive part of the appeal.

The battle maps also play a huge role in how battle play out. Some maps are heavily forested, meaning missile heavy armies may struggle due to increased cover for the enemy. On the flip side, some maps have a lot of water, debuffing units unless they have the aquatic trait. It is smart to take a look at your terrains before you plan how you're gonna win.

If you play ranked multiplayer, there will be a limit to how many of a certain kind of unit you can bring, mainly to stop you from missile kiting your enemies to death with a mass horse archer spam. As such, focusing on what you might need for the match up is key.

==Units==

Every faction has a mix of different kinds of units. While they are all different, they each fall under one of these categories.

*'''Lords''': The generals of your army and your most important unit. He can buff leadership and other stats and usually tends to be a beast in combat either through melee or magic. Problem is that if they die, the whole army suffers for it so you have to protect this man. You can also only bring one.
*'''Heroes''': Your secondary leaders, usually coming in both melee and mage form. Not as much as a badass as your lord, but are usually cheaper and you can bring more than one.
*'''Melee Infantry''': Simply put, the foot boys you are throwing into melee. These infantry tend to be slow but also tend to be pretty good at holding the line and dealing damage in prolonged melee compared to missiles and cavalry. Their job is usually to engage the enemy front line and either hold long enough for your other elements to do their job, or break through and begins pouring into the enemy backline.
**'''Swords/Axes/anything the Lizardmen use instead''': Generally tend to be more DPS focused. If you are buying sword infantry, you get them because you want them to deal damage to the enemy frontline.
**'''Dual Swords''': Infantry that sacrifice a shield in exchange for an extra weapon. They tend to have much higher attack than the standard sword infantry and usually carry an Anti Infantry bonus, so they are much better in the frontline fight at DPS. However, they have lower defensive stats and a vulnerability to missiles, and the fact that they usually rely on Anti Infantry means they aren't as versatile as the standard sword unit.
**'''Spears''': Your more defensive option. Not as good at killing things but better at holding the line than swords. They also usually come with an anti-large bonus, meaning they do more damage when fighting bigger targets. Many also come with some kind of kind of charge resistance. Units with both will completely turn the tides on enemy cavalry.
**'''Great Weapons''': Infantry that usually carry two handed weapons like great swords and great axes. They tend to have majority AP damage, so they do more damage than normal sword infantry, but also don't have shields so missiles are very effective against them. Most units with great weapons also tend to have a low attack speed, leaving them vulnerable against hordes.
**'''Halberds''': Great weapons for spears, really. Same thing with great weapons, trades a shield and lower attack speed for more AP damage.
*'''Missile Troops''': Your ranged boys. Good at dealing damage from a safe distance but generally suck in melee. They tend to come either with arc fire or line fire. Arc fire like archers can shoot over allied troops and don't need line of sight, but do less damage. Line of sight troops like guns tend to do way more damage, but need to actually see their enemy before they can shoot, so if allies or terrain is in the way, they might not get a shot in. Luckily, their difficulty in positioning correctly is negated by one simple fact: while only the melee troops in actual contact with the enemy will attack, all 120 units of archers will attack at the same time.
**'''Bow Infantry''': Often, but by no means always, the lowest tier of missle infantry you can recruit. Usually trades raw damage for greater range, the ability to fire indirectly and rate of fire.
**'''Crossbow Infantry''': Basically the same as bow infantry, but they trade range for rate of fire (although not much) and more armour-piercing damage. Notable for covering a large variety of different units, such as the rather mediocre Imperial Crossbowman to Darkshards.
**'''Gunpowder Infantry''': Loud, smelly, and more often than not more dangerous for their user than the enemy (a mechanic entirely missing in-game), these are all kinds of primitive guns. They hit hard, don't care about armor and usually come in unpleasant numbers for the receiving end. The only major downside to them being that they can't shoot indirectly, so you have to make use of clever unit deployment and/or flanking to get the most out of them. Of course, if they are forced into melee it is usually an absolute disaster, more so than other ranged units.
**'''Hybrid Infantry''': Sitting comfortably in between ranged and melee infantry, all of these guys (and gals) can switch between ranged and melee combat at the press of a button. The Elf factions in particular use a lot of them (with Great Weapon Shades and Lothern Sea Guard being outright the best options) so be prepared to not charge them blindly with cavalry; nearly all of them are more than capable of dealing with lower tier cav on their own.
**'''Weapon Teams''': Exclusive to Skaven, these are Clan Skyres crazy contraptions of the shooting, burning and drilling variety. They trade unit size in exchange for an ungodly volume of firepower; once they are properly set up, there is hardly anything stopping them. On top of that, they are also armoured and have large HP pools, giving them a surprising resilience against counter fire from enemy ranged units. Beware of cavalry, for what they posses in offensive power, they lack on the defense.
**'''Others''': Some kinds of missile only show up on one kind of unit and even then there is only one faction that can use them, so i'm putting slingers, javelins and that sort of things into this umbrella category. Mostly rather weak weapons that either benefit from being used in great numbers (slings and javelins) or really strong weapons that suffer from limited ammo-capacity (Norscan Axe Throwers come to mind).
*'''Hounds''': Technically, these units can be any kind of very fast, cheap melee cavalry and not just doggies but whatever. These cheap puppers are used to harass and interrupt Artillery crews, chase off routing units, chew on squishy casters and Heroes and sometimes take out a ranged infantry unit. They're not tough by any means of the word but they're fast and can hold a unit back in a few crucial moments. Some of them are specialized to the point where they can be used for other roles, like the Poisoned Warhounds that can charge into the backs of the enemy line to apply a rough debuff.
*'''Cavalry''': Boys on horse (or other fun creature) back. Mobile and has high charge but tend to fall apart fast in prolong melee.
**'''Shock Cavalry:''' Lance cavalry with loads of Charge Bonus but little in the way of defense; charge them into the sides and backs of the enemy, retreat after 10-15 seconds and repeat until the enemy is mashed, red pulp on the ground... Or crushed bones, or green shroom-mush or what-else. One of the reasons you bring Spears and Halberds is to keep these dudes away from your lines. They're also often decent at countering other Cavalry units.
**'''Melee Cavalry:''' Rare mounted troops that excel in longer engagements (but not forever; they're still cavalry). They usually use Great Weapons, Halberds or Sword'n'Board. Almost never used alone; they're better at quickly engaging and messing with a line battle you're already engaging with with you troops.
**'''Skirmish Cavalry:''' The deeply annoying yet totally crucial lighter cavalry. Annoying because they are tiresome to micromanage and run away all the time when fighting against them, and infantry can never catch them. Crucial because Skirmish Cavalry ''can'' fight in melee but usually work better as ranged, mobile units harassing the enemy's ranged units with melee attacks, countering enemy Shock and Melee Cav with ranged attacks and higher movement speed, and shooting into the back of the enemy line.
*'''Chariots:''' Those sweet ones that swing low. Chariots are a bit rare and are used to break through enemy lines with impunity, cycle-charging like a maniac. They are dismantled very quickly in prolonged melee and tend to not do a lot of damage unless they're charging. One of the hardest type of unit to use properly because they need to be micro-managed at every turn. Also out of every unit, chariot suffered the most when they are out of vigor (aka exhausted), which lowers their speed to the point they can't knock over as many infantry as it wishes during charging and gets caught easily in the crowd as result. So always remember in campaign to not get attacked during march stance while fielding those bad boys. Some chariot units have ranged weapons but don't use them as a ranged unit, make sure to turn melee engage on. Their small unit sizes means that their ranged attacks tend to be a lot worse than other units and if they are staying out of melee they are not using their ability to break through enemy lines. That being said, a chariot having ranged attacks isn't a reason to not use it, think of its ranged attacks as just inflicting some extra damage and more importantly, a leadership penalty as it charges and retreats. Many players forego chariots altogether due to their micromanagement and fragility, which is to their detriment. Properly used, they can shatter enemy lines and ruin morale.
**'''Ranged Chariots:''' Unlike the former category where missile attacks are just a way to deal a little extra damage and a leadership penalty, these chariots are specialized for ranged combat and should only be charged into an enemy when out of ammo. Their function is often similar to that of an artillery unit but more mobile, blasting enemy units with powerful ranged attacks and retreating should opponents try to reach it.
*'''Monsters:''' A category that covers a bewildering amount of different units, every Monster does something different for the faction it's found in. Usually they are either infantry-slayers, monster/cavalry-eaters or huge battering rams meant to break up the enemy's line. A few factions even have "artillery" monsters balance their exorbitant cost by being able to hold their own in melee. Some monsters (like Giants) are cheap and cheerful units you can just throw into the enemy for a spell, while others (like the Dread Saurian) can easily eat up a fourth of your money in multiplayer matches. The only faction without access to a monster is the Dwarfs (Gyrocopters does not count).
**'''Monstrous Infantry''': Monsters that generally come in a small units size and feature slow, relatively tanky monsters designed to help out in the front line. Here's a tip, do NOT throw them in alone, team them up with other infantry. That way the enemy units will have to split their damage across 2 different units instead of being able to focus your monsters down.
**'''Monstrous Cavalry''': Faster, harder hitting but also squishier than the infantry option, they are meant to be used a lot like cavalry. Use them as heavy flankers and for pure raw charge bonus and can even be decent in prolong melee. Their downside often comes in the form of cost, frailty and lower model count compared to most cav.
**'''Single Entity Monsters''': Big super monsters meant to be a gigantic problem for the enemy and generally have impressive stat lines along with a combination of fear and/or terror. Their attacks can stagger smaller monsters. However these guys tend to be expensive and have a massive target that says "Shoot me" in every language in the Warhammer world, so use them wisely. They become overpowered if the unit size setting is not set to Large or Huge (the settings the game was balanced for) because while their health is reduced their other stats are not and their attacks damage a higher percentage of a unit.
**'''Warmachines''': Single entity monsters, but mechanical. These range from imperial Steam Tanks to the Skaven DOOMWHEEL. What all of them have in common is high armour, high morale, large HP pools and very powerful ranged attacks.
*'''Fliers''': Your flying units, ranging from cheap fliers meant to bog down missiles and artillery to fucking dragons. Their edge is that since they can fly they can engage on their terms and you can get them anywhere in the battle they need to. Their downsides comes in needing breathing room to take off again and generally frailty. Even dragons aren't a unit that can stand being in melee for too long, so you got to micro them well. Be warned: soaring around in the skies means ranged units can fire freely without being blocked by either the terrain or their own troops. Many fliers are also large units and can be easy pickings. Wait for them to be preoccupied or flank them so they have to reform their formation before firing.
*'''Artillery''': Your good old catapults, bolt throwers, cannons or what ever crazy contraptions your race can bring to the table. Can lay down an absolute whooping from very long range, some being table to take down even the scariest monsters with fairly little problem. However, they are garbage in melee, are ridiculously slow, are somewhat expensive, and need extra room and a clear line of sight to even fire, which means they need protection more than just about any other unit type in the game. However, it pays off by racking up hundreds of kills before the enemy even meets your front line. Important to note is that while the contraptions themselves offer cover to their crews, they aren't invulnerable and can be destroyed by ranged units and magic.

==Stats==

Each unit in the game has a unit card, which shows the player what they are generally good and bad at. Noobs might be confused as to what the fuck all these words and numbers mean, so here is the breakdown!

*'''Health''': Fairly simple, how much health the unit has. If the unit has more than one model per unit, you can divide the total health by the number of models to see how much health each model has. It's important to know that the threshold at which a model actually dies is surprisingly high and the game itself speads the damage units suffer evenly among the models in that unit.
*'''Armor''': This stat helps mitigate damage coming at your unit. If they are hit by a missile, melee attack, or a spell, a RNG roll goes off to see how much of the non-AP damage goes through the unit's armor (between 50 and 100 percent). Every point of armor is a percentage of reduction, NOT a flat amount. The more armor the unit has, the lower percentage of non-AP damage that will get through. More info on AP and non-AP damage below.
**'''Shield''': If the unit has a shield, this is where it's factored in. Shields help block missile fire coming at you. It comes in two tiers (technically three, but you never see gold shields outside of campaign buffs). Bronze shields block 33% of missiles where are a silver shield block 55%. Keep in mind this only works on small arms fire and not artillery because a shield isn't gonna fucking save you from a cannon. A very few units can deflect arrows (and bullets somehow) with their weapons, being treated as having a bronze shield even when they carry none.
*'''Leadership''': How much morale the unit has. The higher the number is, the less likely your unit is going to rout and run for the hills. Run off the battlefield or rout three times and that unit is gone for the rest of the battle (but not necessarily dead). If it reaches 100, the unit may as well be unbreakable.
*'''Speed''': Fairly simple, the higher the number, the faster the unit. Each unit has a speed cap determined by the animation model, beyond which it cannot move regardless of the speed value. It is not visible to the player.
*'''Melee Attack''': This determines the likelihood of your attacks hitting the other unit. The higher the number, the more likely the attack is to hit against an enemy. This number is often rolled against the next number in this list.
*'''Melee Defense''': Widely considered one of the most important stats in the game. Melee defense is the likelihood your unit has to block the attack of the other unit attacking it, causing it to sustain no damage; However, before either Melee Defense or Melee Attack is applied, there is a base chance of hit of 40% (35% in WH2) before Armor is applied. There is also a minimum of 10% (8% in WH2) and maximum chance to hit of 90%. If you have a choice to buff either Melee Defense or Armor, take Melee Defense. Because what's better than mitigating damage? Not taking damage at all!
*'''Weapon Strength''': How much damage your attacks do. This stat tends to be split into multiple categories. There are also two hidden mechanics: damage on weapon sweeps is split evenly between all enemies hit and weapon strength does not factor in attack speed.
**'''Weapon Damage''': How much damage is going to be rolled against the enemy armor to see if it gets mitigated or not. Generally, if this makes up the majority of your Weapon Strength you want this unit fighting unarmored units.
**'''Armor-Piercing Damage''': Or AP damage for short. If your attack gets through the other unit's Melee Defense, this is the amount of damage that's going to get through no matter what. If the Weapon Strength is mostly Armor-Piercing, then you want these guys going up against heavily armored units to tear through them.
**'''Anti-Large Bonus''': Damage that is not factored into the roll unless they are fighting something the size of a horse or bigger. If they have this stat, throw them against cav or monsters. Applies to both Melee Attack and non-AP damage.
**'''Anti-Infantry Bonus''': Same as Anti-Large, only meant against infantry or smaller. If they have this stat, they are infantry blenders. Applies to both Melee Attack and non-AP damage.
**'''Magic Damage''': Certain units and some Legendary Lords inflict their attack as magic damage. This is useful against enemies with physical resist like Plague Monks and absolutely needed against supernatural enemies like Cairn Wraiths (whom are known for having 75% physical resist, being a ghost and all). Be wary, though: more units in the game have magic resistance than physical resistance, including every dwarf unit (they were created to resist the winds of magic after all). Of course, this is also the damage types of many of the spells in the game. Good news for units that largely rely on Magic Damage came in the form of a developer Q&A on Discord: Warhammer 3 will rework Magic Resist into Spell Resist, making Magical Attacks on units actually worth a damn and many of them into potent can openers.
**'''Fire Damage''': Like Magic Damage, it deals extra damage to those weak to its damage type (AKA units associate to trees like Treeman, Tree Kin, [[Dryad]] and [[Durthu]], because fuck them racist elf loving trees, right?). Unlike the tabletop version, flaming attack deal extra damage against units that are capable of regenerate health (vampire, trolls, ghouls) instead of just stopping their regeneration. Apparently, CA hates fire damage for some reason and stated in the game that [[derp|flaming attacks are weak to heavy armor units despite Irondrakes being able to deal AP damage on the tabletop, due to their flame being able to melt armor]]. We'll just have to wait and see if CA is willing to fix it. Also, like Magic Damage, some units such as Dragon Princes and Irondrakes have Fire Resistance against its effect. Both Physical resistance and Fire resistance will apply for fire melee damage and fire missile damage. As of Warhammer 3 it now reduces healing for all units, were as before it just did bonus damage to regenerating units.
*'''Charge Bonus''': A bonus to both Melee Attack and Weapon Damage (split between Armor-Piercing and non-Armor-Piercing based on percentage) that lasts for 15 seconds after running into an enemy. It starts decaying immediately upon contact with enemy and is almost negligible after 10 seconds. Note that walking into an enemy unit is not the same as charging, you have to actually run into them. You also have to cover a small distance in order to build up the charge bonus.
*'''Ammunition''': A stat unique to ranged units that tells you how much ammo they have. If the unit has 20 ammunition, then they can make 20 shots before running out. This stat goes down as they shoot, allowing you to keep track of how many shots you have.
*'''Range''': Simple enough: the higher the range, the farther a unit can shoot.
*'''Missile Strength''': The same as Weapon Strength, only this stat doesn't worry about Melee Defense. If it hits, it's doing damage (including if it hits your own troops). It also has all the subcategories of damage listed under Weapon Strength. The value given in the stats is actually over 10 seconds, not per shot (because what constitutes a single shot of a flamethrower?).
*'''Mass''': An important stat that isn't mentioned anywhere inside the game but is still important. Units come in two kinds of sizes: small (anything on foot) and large (anything that's mounted or at least as tall as a man on a horse). The larger the unit, the larger the mass. What's important is how mass affects charges and such, because it determines how one unit able to withstand them. Lowly infantrymen (and heroes and Lords on foot) will get knocked around alot when that Necrosphinx - a massive ancient Egyptian robot wielding two fucking swords - starts attacking them. Knocked down models are unable to move and fight, which can give you an edge. The enemy Lord can't bother you if he ragdolls after every hit. Mass also determines how easily a unit can push through a blob of units, whether it is to retreat or whether it is to attack the ranged units by plowing though the melee infantry line. Nothing can stop a two-ton War Mammoth when it decides it doesn't want to be there.

==Passive Abilities==

Some units have special passive abilities that have a variety of effects; the most common will be listed here.

*'''Flying''': Does what it says on the tin. Can only be engaged by other flying units and ranged attacks or magical projectiles.
*'''Causes Fear''':Not to be confused with "Causes Terror", Fear inflicts a penalty on the enemy units' leadership, making them more likely to flee. Most monstrous and/or supernatural enemies have this ability, and some Lords and Banners have it as well. If a unit causes Fear, it is itself immune to it. Like Terror, it falls under Psychology, so some units are immune to it.
*'''Causes Terror''': Units that cause Terror can cause large drops in enemy leadership when they charge, or when they're causing large amounts of damage to the enemy; this is on top of the leadership damage they already cause just by charging. All units that cause TERROR are immune to Terror, and are completely ignored by units that are immune to Psychology.
*'''Frenzy''': A unit with frenzy gains a significant bonus to their melee stats as long as their leadership is above 50%.
*'''Aura of Command''': Found on every Lord and Hero, they project an Aura around themselves that increases Leadership for friendly units. Most Lords and Heroes also can be skilled to make their Aura of Command better and/or to include more bonuses.
*'''Aquatic''': Aquatic Units fight better and move faster in wet terrain, such as rivers and swamps. Unsurprisingly, most Vampire Coast units have this.
*'''Stalker''': Stalkers remain invisible to the enemy until a certain distance, regardless of line of sight. The only things that can break their invisibility are close distance and if they start to attack. Certain units can fire while invisible without breaking it.
**'''Sniper''': If they have this, they'll most likely also have STALKER. Units with this ability do not reveal themselves when making ranged attacks. Examples include Empires Huntsmen and Chameleon Skinks.
*'''Strider''': Striders ignore any movement and vigour penalties from terrain; they will always move with 100% movement speed, but also can move through obstacles, such as trees.
*'''Perfect Vigour''': Like the name implies, units with Perfect Vigour never suffer fatigue; no matter how intensely they fight, no matter how hard they run, they will always remain at their peak performance from the beginning to the end of any battle.
*'''Berserk''': Once a unit with Berserk falls under a health threshold, they will start a rampage, causing you to lose direct control over them. They will always attack the closest enemy unit they can see. It wears off after a few seconds or if their morale gets broken. Lizardmen call this ability Primal Insticts and it gives them a few stat bonuses but works the same way.
*'''Vanguard Deployment''': An interesting ability with a lot of potential uses; it allows for a unit to be deployed outside your normal deployment zone. Several Legendary Lords can aquire traits and skills that give units this ability (or in the case of Skarsnik, basically your entire roster for the first half of the game).
*'''Sundering strikes''': A very rare ability, melee attacks made by a unit with this ability reduces the armour of the enemy hit with it by 30% for 20 seconds.
*'''Ethereal''': All supernatural enemies (such as Ghosts) have this. Ethereal units take next to nothing in damage from physical attacks and only Magic Damage does damage against them.
*'''Ward Saves and Resistances''': Not technically a passive ability, but the game does not do the best job at explaining it, so i'll explain it here. Ward Saves are a flat damage reduction against everything that your unit or character gets hit with, Resistances only against certain kinds of damage. Many characters can have these and in the campaign it is advisable to get them wherever possible. Both Ward Saves and Resistance cap at 80%, so there is (sadly) no invulnerability cheese possible.
**'''Spell Resistance''': As of the the latest Discord Q&A ([https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/nwon8i/total_war_warhammer_3_qa_will_update_as_more/h1ach6r/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3|As can be read here]) Magic Resist will be reworked into Spell Resist. Works like Magic Resist before, but only affects spells.
*'''Poisoned Attacks''': Poisoned attacks reduce the enemies melee stats and movement speed for 10-20 seconds. Some units have different kinds of poison that work in the same way and usually cause the same effects with greater severity. Fun fact: table top version's poison deal constant damage to a unit model each turns, it was changed to stats debuff in this game due to how broken it is when it was put in practice in an actual total war game (In Total War Attila, The Antean faction has a unit called Poison Archers that fires constant damaging poison arrows. If used right, it can annihilate an entire enemy line even on the hardest difficulty).
*'''Regeneration''': Units with Regeneration heal themselves over the course of a battle, up to a maximum that varies greatly on what faction you play, but is usually 60% of the HP stat. Usually more "neat to have" than outright useful, but some units (Like Malus Darkblade) can have outright broken regeneration, so keep that in mind. Important: Regeneration does not replenish dead models on a unit that has more than one.
*'''Unbreakable''': An unbreakable unit will never flee and always fight to the last man, regardless of losses and the situation on the battlefield. Can be a two-sided sword, as most unbreakable units are very expensive elite units that you most of the time really do not want to lose. Iconic units with this trait are the Dwarf Slayers (because slayer oath) and Empire Flagellants (because they are Sigmar's Zealots). Sadly not fearing death also means not bothering with armor so most such units die if a ranged unit as much as looks at them.
*'''Expendable''': Your meat-shield ability. Expendable units do not cause a leadership penalty when they flee from the battle to other units except other expendable units. Very important to keep in mind with the more horde-centric factions of the game like Greenskins and Skaven; this makes tarpits possible without having your main line completely collapse.
*'''Wounds''': A game three trait specifically for single entity units. Once they fall below half health, they lose a chunk of their speed and their weapon damage in both standard and AP. Done to nerf single entity spam, and makes sense given an injured monster wouldn't fight as well as an uninjured one.
*'''Undead''': The Undead work differently from regular units in that they are functionally Unbreakable (meaning that they will never flee), but their Leadership status comes in six steps that are distinct from regular units (here from good to bad): "Strong Binding", "Stable Binding", "Weak Binding", "Critical Binding", "Crumbling" and "Disintegrating". Starting with "Crumbling", the unit will continually lose HP at a slow, but steady pace. "Disintegrating" is the severe form and only occures when the morale would normally be Shattered for living units, the unit will die in a few seconds.
*'''Daemonic''': Signifies that the unit it a Daemon. Pretty much works exactly like undead, the unit is unbreakable and instead starts taking damage when leadership is down before being "Banished" back to the Realm of Chaos.

==Magic==

Magic works in a similar way to the TT game, although there are some differences, but, played right, Magic can be a devastating force that can turn a loss into a victory.

First, the Basics: Like in the Lore, how much Magic you can use depends on the Winds of Magic and how strong they are blowing. On the campaign map, there are visual indicators for how strongly the winds blow but you can also just hover your cursor over any given place on the map and get a number. This number indicates your base power reserve on the battlefield. Certain Lord and Hero traits, followers, and skills can increase your reserve. If it isn't obvious enough, you need a spellcaster Hero or Lord on the battlefield to use one of the many varieties of Magic. All spellcasters know a Lore of Magic; this determines what spells they can learn and use. Some Lords know two Lores or, in the cases of Teclis, Morathi and Alarielle, have an assortment of spells from all Lores. To use spells, you simply select the desired ability and follow the on-screen on placing it. The system is intuitive enough that it doesn't need much explaining and the in-game spell browser even has a video of every spell in action. Once you cast a spell, the cost of it will be deducted from your available power which will regenerate over time at a rate based on your remaining power reserves. Your available magic outside of your reserves is capped at 30, but the amount of spells you can cast is limited via the overall power reserve; once it is drained, you won't get more unless you use abilities like Arcane Conduit. More on Arcane Conduit later. Spells have a chance to be miscast, inflicting minor damage to the spellcaster. You can, at an additional cost in spellpower and a higher chance of a miscast, double click to overcast a spell for more powerful effects, provided you have the spell skilled out.

An exception to the aforementioned rules are bound spells; these are spells that come from magical items your Lord or Hero pick up after a battle or are spells from a different Lore of Magic certain characters can learn, or, more commonly, spells that are tied to a specific item. Bound spells do not cost spellpower or affect power regeneration and have a fixed cooldown, but can often only be cast a fixed number of times. For example, once leveled up, a High Elven mage of any Lore can cast Fireball four times for free except for a 90 second cooldown between each cast.

There are a lot of Lores of Magic to choose from, generally speaking, they can be put into two categories: The Generic Lores (Fire, Light, Death, Beasts, Heavens, Life, Shadows, Metal) and Faction specific Lores (Skaven Spells of Plague, Skaven Spells of Ruin, Skaven Spells of Stealth, Lore of the Big Waaagh!, Lore of the Little Waaagh!, Lore of High Magic, Lore of Dark Magic, Lore of the Deep, Lore of Nehekhara, Lore of the Wild, Lore of Vampires).

The generic Lores are accessible to most factions with some missing here and there. The Empire generally has the broadest variety of Lores (namely, all, plus Lore of Metal through Balthazar Gelt) to choose; Bretonnia and the Wood Elves the least. Faction specific Lores are usually only available for one faction, with some exceptions through bound spells and special characters. Each Lore comes with a passive attribute that affects units map-wide. Before we dive into a deeper description of the Lores themselves, a word on Arcane Conduit and Greater Arcane Conduit.

Arcane Conduit is an active ability that replenishes your power reserves and increases the power recharge rate for 30 seconds, after that, it goes on a 60-second-cooldown. Use this ability! Extra spellpower is never bad and the power you have on hand cannot decay away; only your increased recharge rate reverts to normal after the effect ends. But it's never bad to just use it. It is a no-brainer. The premier mage characters even have access to Greater Arcane Conduit, which is simply a permanently active version of Arcane Conduit. Certain magical items as well as some Lore attributes can increase your reserves and recharge rate as well.

Onto the Lores then.

===Lores===

*'''Lore of Fire''': Fire, so much fire that it has the potential to make the Salamanders jealous and a Sister of Battle rethink her career choice. Provides a number of handy buffs, and two great AoE attacks. Not much to say, since it is so straightforward. The Lore attribute makes the enemy more vulnerable to Fire damage, which synergizes well with a variety of units and increases its own damage even further (Lores apply during the countdown to cast). It is considered the best Lore of Magic for dealing damage. Archaon the Everchosens preferred Lore, for some reason.
-No disrespect to the above but its definitely not considered the "best lore for damage" most people consider fire versatile but not the best at any given task except maybe chaff killing, only great vs low armor or fire weak units. its good certainly but is bad at killing single targets with any kind of armor, anything with armor in general, or high health monstrous units. shadows and celestial are both better damage dealers vs armor. still flaming sword is very effective on ranged focused doomstacks, it makes sisters of avelorn, shades and others even more terrifying. no other spells directly boost archers and the front line protecting them at the same time. the thing people rave about is usually flaming head vs lightly armored infantry, which is devastating but also very specific and its vortex is usually considered bad.
*'''Lore of Light''': Provides some very good buffs, a mediocre but cheap projectile, an extremely useful ensnaring ability that stops any poor suckers from moving so your missile units can shoot them, and a fairly cost effective Vortex that deals bonus damage against Undead. If you want your wizard to primarily buff up your units and stop enemies moving close to your unit, this is your Lore. Also one of the rarer lores, with only four factions (Empire, High Elves, Lizardmen and Tomb Kings having access to it.
-Net is so powerful many people consider it the strongest lore other than maybe vampires or life, for ranged and artillery armies especially. also banishment does not do more damage to undead, that's a myth based on how lore of light worked on the tabletop. in fact because it does pure ap damage but low base damage its actually worse than most vortexes on lightly armored units like most undead are. still pretty good.
*'''Lore of Death''': Basically the opposite of the Lore of Light. Consists primarily of spells that debuff enemy units and some unmissable point-and-click spells. Lore attribute increases your power recharge rate which is never a bad thing. Important to note is that this Lore is the only Lore available to Greenskins other than the Waaagh! Lores. Azhag the Slaughterer uses this Lore (courtesy of his magic crown), as well as Arkhan the Black and that pompous fuck Mannfred von Carstein.
-A favorite lore in multiplayer for powerful direct damage spells you cant avoid, still good but not as effective in single player. purple sun is maybe the best of the armor piercing vortexes, its very large with good ap, some base damage, and disrupts enemy formations by throwing them around. With banishments similar cost (17 vs 18) purple sun is usually as good or better in every situation except it's duration.
*'''Lore of Heavens''': A bit of an odd lore consisting of exactly one good buff for melee units and three potentially powerful but random damage spells and a very niche Lore Attribute that weakens flying units. If you like cosplaying as Emperor Palpatine or [[Awesome|hurling Meteors]], this is your Lore; Otherwise, a good skip.
- Don't underestimate it, i'd take it over fire for damaging spells, its better vs single targets and armor than fire. skip the comet usually, other 3 damage spells are more efficient. Wind blast is one of the best damage spells vs light armor in particular.
*'''Lore of Beasts''': A very diverse, jack-of-all-trades lore that abuses cheap spells, with the most significant spell summoning a Feral Manticore (or a Great Eagle if you're playing High Elves or Wood Elves) to your side; Otherwise, it tends to be overshadowed by other Lores. If you have access to better Lores, you can skip it. The Lore attribute is interesting as it recharges your power reserve as well as increase your recharge rate for 29 seconds when you cast a spell, effectively giving you a good discount on your cheaper spells.
-people take it for manticores pretty much, it has some good buffs/debuffs, but don't expect to do any significant damage with it past early on. maybe on a second caster if you have enough winds of magic boosts from campaign.
*'''Lore of Life''': The ultimate defensive utility Lore. It has lots of spells that buff the survivability of your units and has two decent enough damage spells as well as being the only Lore that has multiple healing spells. The Fae Enchantress and Alarielle the Everqueen speciallizes in this Lore. The Lore attribute heals all friendly entities (not units, entities!) on the map for some HP which is convenient. However, be warned: healing cannot revive already dead entities in a unit! It is widely considered to be an extremely powerful Lore of Magic if used correctly. Especially if running Sigle entity doom stacks it cant be beaten, heal up to full after every fight. lore attribute works better on low health infantry but other 2 healing spells are much better on small units of monsters or single entities.
*'''Lore of Shadows''': A hybrid Lore that is best suited for a more subtle approach. Most of the buffs and debuffs are good enough. Pit of Shades is one of te few stationary vortex spells but overcomes this by vacuuming up nearby units to deal consistent damage to them. What makes it stand out is the Lore attribute granting gives your units a whopping +24% speed boost, which is not to be underestimated.
- Very good lore for AP damage spells, all 3 are highly effective vs armor. plus a good single target debuff and a potent weapon strength buff. maybe the most versatile jack of all trades lore since its damage spells all work against armor. can damage all unit types very well except single entity and its buff and debuff can handle them indirectly. less effective than fire or celestial vs lightly armored chaff generally though miasma is very efficient vs high unit sizes.
*'''Lore of Metal''': Certainly the rarest of the Lores (only the Empire's Balthasar Gelt, High Elves and Chaos' forces have access to it), it mainly focuses on debuffing and buffing armor and weapons. It can reduce enemy armor, can increase your own, and can debuff weapons. The take away spell is Final Transmutation, which is a massive AOE damage spell that gives EVERYTHING a middle finger (over a couple of seconds). Did we mention the passive that gives more AP to all your units? Balthasar's preferred Lore as the self-proclaimed (and frequenly proven) "Lord of Metal". Great for fighting factions that love to throw armor at you but only OK against everyone else.
- Often considered pretty weak, too much focus on buffing/debuffing armor makes it less useful late game in campaign, hounds is usually considered pretty bad, that alone means 3 of the spells are pretty situational or weak. still the other 3 spells are pretty good. best used on gelt who gets extremely cheap casting. Final transmutation is like an AOE spirit leach, only good on single entities and small units but still great.
*'''Lore of the Little Waaagh!''': As befitting for da Gobbos, tons of stuff that give your hordes of Goblins a fighting chance against the enemy. Little in the way of direct damage, but useful nonetheless. Curse of the Bad Moon is one of the optic highlights of the game, and a great spell to boot. The Lore attribute reduces the enemies power recharge rate.
*'''Lore of the Big Waaagh!''': As subtle as a truck racing down a highway with 250 mph ON FIRE. Perfectly suitable for da Orks t' get Krumpin'. Foot of Gork is a devastating spell that can potentially end a battle with a single cast. 'Ere we go! is one of the best offensive buffs in the game and, combined with the Waaagh mechanic, this is a seriously dangerous Lore for anyone facing against it. Wurrzag the Great Green Prophet specializes in this Lore. The Lore attribute increases your power recharge rate. Decent enough.
*'''Skaven Spells of Ruin''': The first of the three Skaven Lores, and the most offensively minded. Warp Lightning may be the most cost effective damage spell in the game, the other spells are rather niche but nonetheless useful. Howling Warp Gale can help a lot with flying nuisances such as Dragons, leaving them vulnerable to your considerable arsenal of ranged weapons and artillery. Ikit Claw uses this Lore, Warlock Enginners and -Masters use it exclusively. The Lore attribute lowers enemy Leadership and Melee Attack, giving your front line a bit more room to breathe, which you can then fill with Warpfire and Warpstone Bullets. flensing ruin is underestimated, overcasted it preforms as well as final transmutation overcast in terms of damage done per winds spent.
*'''Skaven Spells of Plague''': Occupying the gap between pure utility of the Skaven Spells of Stealth and the pure damage of the Spells of Ruin. Whats interesting about this Lore is that it has not one but two spells that summon units and its ultimate spell causes immense damage while simultaneously debuffing the enemy - did I mention that Grey Seers with this Lore can summon Stormvermin? One of the best Lores, even if the most shiny bits are difficult to access outside of Clan Pestilens, since it requires you to level up either a Plague Priest or a Grey Seer for a considerable time to make full use of it - but when you can make use it, the enemy-things will feel it, yes-yes. Lord Skrolk uses this Lore and is the best candidate for using it.
*'''Skaven Spells of Stealth''': The only Lore in the game designed to be used with a spefific sub-faction and, frankly, it does show. It offers a lot of utility and a decent Vortex spell but gets overshadowed in almost every regard by the Lore of Plague and the Lore of Ruin - unless you take the Limitations of Sniktch's campaign into consideration. It's still rather niche and, if you're playing as the other Skaven factions, you're better off using either Ruin or Plague.
*'''Lore of Vampires''': Brutal. Definitively the best Lore in the entire game. Wind of Death will wipe entire units off the floor, averaging hundreds of kills per cast. Some general utility is found in using Raise the Dead to summon units to flank, tank damage, or bodyblock for your more valuable units and its Lore attribute heals (and revives) your undead minions. Its starting ability is also the best healing spell in the game in the form of Invocation of Nehek: a cheap, effective spell that uses excess healing to revive dead entities. There is little that can beat this Lore, which makes it only fair that it is exclusive to the Vampire Counts and Vampire Coast. Count Noctilus can use this Lore as well as all Vampire Lords.
*'''Lore of High Magic''': Another jack-of-all-trades lore that is exclusive to High Elves, Spellweavers and Slann. It can do a bit of everything. Healing, direct damage, buffs, debuffs, AOE explosions and a passive damage reduction. Has the main drawbacks that jack-of-all-trades do: they can do a bit of anything but don't excel at anything and, since High Elves have access to ALL the generic lores, it's often better to pick one that fits their specific needs on the battlefield. One of the more useful spells is Tempest, a vortex spell that damages and heavily slows flying units, locking them in place for your archers or fliers to attack. Eltharion is the only Legendary Lord who specializes in this. people only take it in multiplayer for tempest pretty much, crap in campaign. its not even the best jack of all trades lore.
*'''Lore of Dark Magic''': The unique lore of those assholes in Naggaroth. Where as the Asur Lores do have a few spells that help out their troops, Dark Elves say "Fuck that, let's just use our magic to torture the other guys!". Home to a really good debuff that can help swing fights, and the stand out is Soul Stealer, an AOE damage spell that heals the caster. Unfortunately, aside from those two, the others are just subpar damage spells, a debuff to armor, and a magic recharge spell that hurts the caster. All in all, it has a few stand out options but not one you really want to go all out in. Malekith specializes in this lore.
- Underestimated especially in campaign, power of darkness is the most effective WOM generator skill in the game it gives 3 times as much winds reserves as arcane conduit (30 vs 10) and 4 times as much winds gain speed (plus 60% vs 15%). Chillwind does 24 pure ap damage, 2/3 as much ap as a pendulum spell does. While Chill wind wont kill models much it can deal lots of cheap ap damage to infantry and cavalry, while being fast, cheap, and easy to aim. Doombolt is pretty good for the large AP damage done with good tracking, basic version is as about as good versus armor as overcast amber spear but much better AOE range to hurt units as well. Finally blade wind is a decent, cheap vortex that does about as well vs armor as firestorm thanks to the lore attribute, good vs hordes. You can even just use a dark caster as a winds of magic battery for another caster. also the wood elf lore attribute gives a nice boost to missile damage with every spell cast mapwide. comparable to the other damage lore's like fire, celestial, and shadow. excels most vs single targets and armor usually. can do the most single entity damage out of those 4 lore's and can be comparable to death and metal at that role thanks to Soul Stealer, Doombolt, and Word of Pain.
*'''Lore of Nehekhara''': If you couldn't guess by the name, it's the Lore of the boney bois. It is a buffing lore, through and through, which can give additional damage and anti large, protections, and missile power. Given the fact that your average Tomb King soldier is a literal pile of bones that barely knows which end of the sword to poke the bad guys with... yeah, this can help out a lot. Settra and Khatep use this lore a lot. Overall it's... ok? The damage spells are VERY subpar, and with access to the Lores of light and death, there's really no reason to pick it. The passive heal is nice but won't let you compete with Vampire healing.
*'''Lore of the Deep''': A Lore made up by CA and designed specifically for the Vampire Coast. It has three specific purposes: 1: Damage and dishing out LOTS OF IT (Vangheist's Revenge is one of the coolest looking spells in the game and can seriously lay down the pain), 2: Buffs to missile troops, which helps any gunpowder faction and 3: Summons. You can summon zombies, zombies with guns, and giant crabs to really push the fight in your favor. Cylostra was given this lore by Stormfels, and Luthor Harkon gets it in campaign when you fix his fractured mind. Is it a fun lore? Absolutely! It's a blast! Are the other lores for the Vampire Coast more practical from a competitive standpoint? Sadly, also yes. You can just use the summons on a deep hero with a vampire general so that's something. Its summons are likely more cost effective then lore of vampires depending on what you need. best as a supplement to vampires, not competition.
*'''Lore of the Wilds''': Beastmen got shafted in a lot of ways in their race pack. Their unique Lore of magic was NOT one of them. Wilds has some surprisingly good damage spells that can really help the goat men clear through crowds. Also, a passive that make restores vigor is never one you can complain about. Oh, did we mention they can summon a Cygor? As in literally have one crawl out of the ground and throw shit at the bad people? Yeah, people like to complain about the shit missing in the Beastmen DLC (with good reason, mind you) but, in terms of their unique magic, Beastmen actually got it pretty good. Obviously, it's Malagor's favored lore.
*'''Lore of Ice''': One of the two Kislev exclusive lores of magic in Warhammer 3. Assuming nothing about the lore changes before game 3 comes out, this lore will primarily be providing both damage and slowing capabilities to the battle field. The main spell here is Heart of Winter which gives an increasing slow and AOE damage all in one. It also provides good defensive utility with the passive and a large Damage reduction ability. We won't know how good it is until game 3 is actually out, but it looks to be solid for controlling enemy mobility and bursting them down.
*'''Lore of Tempest''': Placeholder for Warhammer 3. The other lore of magic exclusive to Kislev
*'''Lore of Tzeentch''': Placeholder for Warhammer 3.
*'''Lore of Nurgle''': Placeholder for Warhammer 3.
*'''Lore of Slaanesh''': Placeholder for Warhammer 3.
*'''Lore of the Great Maw''': Placeholder for Warhammer 3.

Spells themselves, just like in the tabletop game, come in six flavors: Buffs/Debuffs, Projectiles, Breaths/Winds, Vortexes, Bombardments, and Direct Damage.

===Spell Types===

*'''Buffs/Debuffs''': Pretty self explanatory. You cast them on a unit or group of units, and it improves or weakens a unit's stats. Overcast buffs usually have an area of effect that affects multiple units; you can these spells cast either on one unit or just out in the wild. To be affected by any buff or debuff, a unit must have at least half its models within the area of effect.
*'''Projectiles''': Similar to a ranged attack, it fires one or multiple projectiles in a straight arc at a target of your choosing. They tend to be cheap and very accurate, but need a line of fire to work. Best used by Casters who have access to a flying mount and to snipe monsters or single characters.
*'''Breaths/Winds''': Basically a directional AoE attack. Winds hit the whole area their indicator... indicates, while Breath spells expand in a roughly tear sized shape. The indicator can sometimes be deceiving; some Breath spells and all Wind spells have a much larger range than the indicator suggests (most notably overcast Wind of Death from the Lore of Vampies AKA the best spell in the game) and it comes down to experience how each spell works best but, fret not, there is not much to it. Like all AoE attacks, they can cause friendly fire. What the game doesn't tell you immediately is that you can change the direction of your Wind or Breath Spell by holding the left mouse button before casting. Also, the Wind spells can deviate from the straight line the indicator shows, which can be quite annoying, but they'll never go as off-course as Vortexes. If a Breath/Wind hits a wall it'll be reflected, potentially letting you hit units that aren't lined up.
*'''Vortexes''': Big pie plates and usually the most potent damage spells in any given lore. Almost all move randomly over the map while they are active but all cause massive damage to units that have a lot of models in them. They never start moving where they can do the most damage so it's best to use them on an enemy unit surrounded by other enemy units.
*'''Bombardments''': Think of them like off-map artillery from other RTS games. You pick an area, and a certain amount of projectiles come down from the sky, inflicting damage. Very straightforward and not hard to use.
*'''Direct Damage''': Direct Damage spells work differently from the other damage spells; they directly inflict magic damage to a units HP stat rather than its models, like a damage-over-time effect and don't inflict friendly fire. However, unlike the others, individual models can resist them. Usually your more reliable character sniping spells (with Spirit Leech from the Lore of Death being the most effective for its cost), although there are some that work better against whole regiments (Like Final Transmutation from the Lore of Metal or Flensing Ruin from the Skaven Spells of Ruin). Ethereal units really hate those.

You still want to know more? Well just head over to [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics/Magic]] and you will find knowledge a plenty.

==Battle Types==
Not all battles are fought under the same conditions. While most battles will be pitched encounters where you and your opponent are literally starting on an even field, some encounters will reflect overworld conditions.

===Regular Battle===
Plain vanilla, what you'll most likely be fighting in campaign and multiplayer. You and your opponent will start on opposite sides of the battlefield, with someone being "defender" and "attacker." While most of these maps are generally even, sometimes the defender will start out in a favourable, elevated position. Other times, the defender will literally be in the bottom of a steep cliff, with beastmen hordes crashing down on them. The battlefield nominally reflects the type of terrain/environment your army was on the map.

If another army is close enough in the overworld map, they will arrive as reinforcements; the direction they come into the battlefield from is affected by their position on the overworld map, so you can have reinforcements come in from the back of your opponent's deployment zone. One change brought by TWWH3 is that this will take ''time'', generally around 1-2 minutes. While this can be affected by certain traits or ancillaries, the attacker can also initiate a "lightning strike," which will either add another minute or two to the timer, or lead to a blitzkrieg attack with no possibility of reinforcements. At the very least, lightning strike battles will leave the attacker WINDED or EXHAUSTED, which does even the battle in the defender's favor somewhat.

When first encountered, the defending army will be given an option to stand and fight, or retreat, an option you only get once. If you fight and lose, you can still have your army survive if you have units mostly intact. If they choose to retreat, they can still be attacked if the opposing army chooses to chase them; losing this battle will cause you to lose your army entirely.

===Chokepoint Battle===

A variation of the above, and pretty much everything is the same, except there is a natural chokepoint between the two armies. Chokepoint battles are initiated when the attacker needs to cross an overworld terrain feature like a bridge or river-crossing. Generally, the defender gets to deploy over a wider area on their half of the field while the attacker's forces have a more narrow deployment zone, but this depends on where the armies are in relation to the obstruction.

While "chokepoint" would make you think a single narrow mountain pass, most of the maps have 2 or more "chokes", so putting all your units to defend a single pass is an easy way to get yourself encircled.

===Ambush===
All armies can take the AMBUSH stance, where they'll do their best to hide their forces and attack armies that cross their path. Ambush success rates can be influenced by a number of factors, including campaign skills, faction bonuses and even the area on the world map you're attempting to set an ambush up in. Some armies, like Skaven and Beastmen, have ambush as their default attack stance. When ambushing your opponent cannot benefit from reinforcements, but the ambushing army ''can''. An army in Ambush stance can be detected either by independent heroes coming across them or if the defending army has a high enough ambush defense chance, in which case the battle will proceed as a normal engagement.

Ambushing armies can position themselves anywhere on the map, while the defending army marches from one end of the field to the next. Ambushing armies are HIDDEN until someone attacks, or they are spotted by the General.

Another addition in TWWH3 is an escape zone. Ambushed armies will attempt to flee the field, taking them out of play. If the Ambusher is victorious, the opposing army will be totally destroyed.

===Siege Battles===
In the campaign modes of Total War: Warhammer, this is probably going to be the second most common type of battle your armies engage in. Whenever an army assaults a settlement, they will encircle and besiege it. From there, they have a number of options. Settlements without walls can immediately be engaged in battle. Cities with walls (mostly major/capital settlements) will have a few extra defenses in place that require potential preparation. If it's an army with no artillery, monsters or monstrous infantry with the Siege attacker perk, they will need to spend at least 1-3 turns constructing siege equipment in order to actually begin the assault. Armies that ''do'' have entities capable of breaking down the enemy gates can immediately assault walled settlements, though they may still elect to construct siege equipment if they so desire.

Battle can be avoided entirely if so desired; armies can simply starve an enemy city out by besieging a city until the city's ''Hold Out Timer'' runs out (usually 12 turns on average, plus or minus a few turns based on traits earned through skills or campaign performance) then claiming the city. Armies and Garrisons within the city start suffering attrition the longer such sieges last and all city construction/recruitment is put on hold for the duration of the siege.

Of course, it's not much of a war game if you don't commit to the battle proper. Against capital/walled cities, attackers are stationed outside the city walls (obviously), with any siege equipment they may have constructed. Most infantry can man such siege equipment in order to more efficiently breach the city, though if nothing else they can create ladders to scale walls and (eventually) beat their way through a gate. Doing so without siege equipment is dramatically more exhausting, however. Many artillery platforms can not only attack gates and towers, but they can also focus their firepower against the city walls themselves to full on crack open holes for your forces to enter through. Defenders can vanguard deploy some forces outside their walls if they so choose, but for the most part will be able to position their units on or behind their walls. A random note on walls: flying units are really effective at assaulting walls, any model that gets thrown off the wall instantly dies, and it's a lot harder to tarpit a dragon when it's clogging up the wall.

Defenders will typically enjoy the use of (debatably useful) towers to help whittle down the attackers while they approach the walls, though they will need to have at least one unit stationed behind a tower for it to remain active. Defending armies will always have a city garrison available to defend (the strength of which is dependent on the city's tier as well as any defensive buildings constructed within it) as well as any banner army currently stationed within the city.

The goal for the attackers is simple. Take the city. They can do this in one of two primary ways. The first, and most frequent way this occurs, is the elimination of the defending armies. The second way is the capture of the primary victory point within the city. By capturing and maintaining control of it for 200 seconds, the attacker can forcibly claim the city even if there are still defenders present. Conversely, the defender must prevent this from happening. Unfortunately for the defender, they either need to rout the attackers entirely or hold out for the entire hour of the battle while protecting the city's victory point.

Total War: Warhammer 3 introduced a rework of siege battles, both for minor and major settlements. In general, settlement battles are now larger in scale, with more of the actual city being involved in the actual battle. There are now a number of supply points spread throughout the city which provide the controller with a stream of...well, supplies. So long as defenders hold those locations, they will continue to receive resources of which they can construct additional defensive structures and towers throughout the city. Attackers can capture these points to cut off these supplies and destroy any fortifications constructed at that point.

Minor settlements are now properly represented as with their own, distinct maps. Unlike walled siege battles, minor settlements take up the entire center of the map. Aggressors have the entire perimeter of the settlement in which to deploy, granting them substantially more flexibility in picking their engagements. Defensive structures and towers are limited to those the defenders construct over the course of the battle.

Major settlements are larger and now in many cases have bridges, walkways and elevated platforms overlooking or undercutting sections of the city, allowing for more diverse engagements and routes throughout the city.

===Subterranean Battles===
Various races (Skaven, Beastmen, Dwarfs and Wood Elves, for example) have alternate movement stances that allow them to ignore otherwise impassable terrain and slip past enemy armies that may be blocking your path forward. However, enemy armies have a chance to intercept armies moving near/across them in that stance in a battle not terribly dissimilar from an Ambush battle. Like an Ambush battle, the tunneling army is at your mercy; they cannot retreat from an interception. Most tunneling armies will be totally wiped if they are intercepted and are defeated, but some, like the Beastmen and Wood Elves, can still regroup after being defeated. Unlike Ambush battles, armies will deploy normally and neither of them will have any notable tactical advantages in deployment options over the intercepted. You can decline an interception if it is your best interest (say, your army is too weakened to fight or you need to conserve your strength for a more opportune target... which is ''real'' unlikely all things considered) and allow them to go forth unmolested. But this section assumes you do the correct thing and intercept underway/worldroot traversing armies.

The battlefield itself is substantially more constrained over a regular field; a long narrow tunnel/hallway will typically make up the zone of combat, putting units that rely on maneuverability at a notable disadvantage over those that hold their ground. Gunlines and artillery tend to be quite powerful on these maps due to the (generally) limited cover and dramatically reduced space for armies to spread out. While some such tunnels have some elevation differences (such as beast paths/world roots, because they're not really "underground"), many of the underway maps also tend to be quite level, for better or worse.

==Battlefield Mechanics==
Dynamic effects that can alter your unit's performance during the course of a battle, and things to keep in mind in general.

===Fatigue and Vigour===
As you may expect, running across massive battlefields, slogging through waist-high water, running up hills and shouldering through dense trees to ''then'' engage heavily armed (and armored) foes in a fight to the death can be a bit draining, be you man, elf, greenskin or even lizard. This will manifest in the form of gradually degrading combat performance as your units get worn down through the various stages of fatigue. Running and combat of any kind will start to drain vigour from a unit, while standing or walking slowly replenish it. Terrain does play a role in how quickly fatigue is lost (i.e., charging and fighting uphill is substantially more draining than charging or running downhill).
*'''Fresh''': The initial vigour level for any army not caught in Force March at the beginning of any battle. Fresh to the field, no wear or tear and eager to spill blood on your command. There are no penalties at this stage (obviously).
*'''Active''': Your troops have performed some minor skirmishing or ran a modest distance, so the pep to their step is gone. A 5% melee attack debuff slightly hampers their combat effectiveness.
*'''Winded''': Your troops have engaged in combat and/or have spent a significant amount of time running. A 5% speed and melee attack debuff and a 10% melee damage and reload speed debuff kicks in.
*'''Tired''': Your troops have engaged in extended combat or have run about the field extensively. The initial starting vigour for armies attacked while in a Forced March stance. Exhaustion starts to take it's toll; a 10% Speed, Melee Damage and Charge Bonus debuff accompany a 15% Melee Attack and Reload Speed debuff.
*'''Very Tired''': Combat and maneuvering around the field have all but drained your soldiers. 10% debuffs to melee damage and armor, a 15% speed debuff and a 25% melee attack, charge bonus and reload speed debuff claims a heavy price from your soldiers.
*'''Exhausted''': The final stage of fatigue. Intense, extended combat after extensive maneuvering with little to no respite has put your troops on their last legs. A 10% melee defense and damage debuff, a 15% speed debuff, a 25% armor debuff, a ''30%'' melee attack and charge bonus debuff and a ''35%'' reload speed debuff severely cripple your exhausted units, putting them at a severe disadvantage against any fresh troops they may have yet to face.

This is a universal mechanic that applies to all factions, including Undead ones (they just have different names for the various stages), so you'll always want to keep this in the back of your mind as battles tend to wage on. These penalties (or lack thereof) can make a significant difference in a unit's combat performance, especially if they're further buffed (or debuffed) by magic, abilities or items to give them an edge.

===Morale===

Similar to Exhaustion, Morale determines the willingness of your units to keep fighting. Morale is affected by different factors: such as by being flanked, the death of your Lord, or being hit by artillery/guns.

When a unit's leadership reaches a critical low, their banners will flash and the unit will begin to [[Squad broken|BREAK]]. Broken units will flee and attempt to disengage; their leadership will slowly rise so long as they're out of combat and the LORD is still on the battlefield. Since [[Squad Broken|BROKEN]] units can still regroup and return to the battle, it's a good idea to chase them away with light cavalry to stop them from regrouping. Otherwise, should they continue to take more losses, the unit will [[Squad Broken 2|SHATTER]] and will not regroup at all.

Effects and Attributes that affect morale:
*'''Encourage:''' This affects morale positively. Encouragement is a generic buff given by Heroes, Lords, and certain units (like Cathayan Airships, Longbeards). They raise Leadership and can even help BROKEN units rally quicker.
**'''Lord Dies/Lord Flees:''' On the other hand, when your Lord dies or flees, you army will take a permanent leadership debuff until the end of the battle. DISCIPLINED units will not need to worry, however. Great when you have an army of battle-hardened Dwarfs or Cathayans, absolutely fucked when they're Undead.
*'''Fear and Terror:''' Already mentioned above. Fear is constant, Terror is caused when charging. Causing Fear or Terror makes one immune to Fear/Terror.
**'''Unbreakable:''' As mentioned above, being UNBREAKABLE or IMMUNE TO PSYCHOLOGY makes you immune to psychological effects. Unbreakable units will also fight to the death, so long after the rest of your army has broken, they will continue to hold. Ungrim is notable for often being the last one standing (if he isn't focused down, that is)
*'''Flanks Secured/Flanks Exposed/Attacked in Flanks/Attacked in Rear:''' Positioning is important in TWWH, and unlike older TW games, there are no fancy formations that give you 360 coverage. When your unit's flanks are secured by another friendly unit, they gain a small bump in leadership. When a unit is attacked from their sides, or worse, [[Squad Broken 2|in the rear]], their leadership will drop and they will be more likely to break and disengage.
*'''Charging/Being Charged:''' Unbraced units will take a Leadership hit when they see a unit of [[Cold One|raptor-mounted raptors]] or [[Beastmen|chaos-tainted horsemen]] rushing at them. Having Charge Defense mitigates this.
*Being tired

===Elevation===
No battle is ever truly fought on an even playing field (in this particular case, we're focusing on the the literal sense). From small hills to towering settlement walls, units may find themselves looking down upon the hapless masses desperately crawling their way up the slopes or they might desperately find themselves shielding themselves from a hail of arrows from on high.

Elevation can play a significant role over the course of a battle. Units traveling up hills not only move more slowly (thus reducing charge bonuses), but suffer increased fatigue gains (up to 150%) and deal less damage to enemies fighting above them (up to 30% less). Conversely, enemies charging down hill lose less fatigue, do so more quickly (increasing charge bonuses) and deal up to 30% more damage against foes below them. The benefits/consequences aren't just limited to melee infantry however. To no-one's surprise, firing at enemies beneath your position confers a substantial advantage; not only does this allow your archers/gunners to shoot over potential obstacles, but it also gives them up to a 30% damage buff against their targets as well. Should your archers or gunners find themselves at the base of a hill or wall, not only do they suffer up to a 30% damage reduction, but their shots are far more likely to be blocked by battlements or terrain, wasting precious ammunition. These percentages are calculated entity to entity and based on the relative slope/height difference between the two (depending on the terrain, two different entities in the same unit might deal more or less damage than each other based on how they're engaging the enemy).

==Tutorials==
A collection of tutorial images and infographs made by various anons on /v/ and /twg/. Some are more coherent than others
<gallery>
File:Warhammer_gun_tutorial.png|Tutorial on how to use gunpowder units in the Total War Warhammer trilogy. Four different formations are covered, each of which is effective in different circumstances
File:Warhammer_skaven_tutorial.jpg|Some factions like Skaven or Cathay have ranged units that are too slow for regular chevrons, but deploying your troops behind the front lines and then baiting the enemy in with artillery works almost as well. In this specific example, R is Ratling Guns, J is Jezzails, and G is Globe Mortars while the lightning bolts are Warp Lightning Canons and the star is your lord
File:Warhammer_tercio_tutorial.png|Tericio tactics are a more in depth tactic with more moving parts which is marginally better than chevrons but a lot more fun. It is only effective on factions like Empire or Kislev whose ranged troops have decent speed, do not try this with Dwarfs. Consider replacing common artillery pieces like cannons with artillery units capable of some self defense, such as Little Grom. Doing so gives your backline melee infantry more flexibility as it does not need to stay quite so defensive
File:Warhammer_dwarf_box_tutorial.png|For defensive ranged races with slow units and a strong frontline like Dwarfs or Cathay, putting a box of units around your ranged units can make you very hard to break. Corner camping is considered one of the cheesiest and most overpowered tactics in the game for a very good reason, it will win you battles that you should not have won
File:Warhammer_pile_of_violence_tutorial.png|A lot of melee factions like Greenskins or Khorne can function quite effectively as a "pile of violence" or rush army that simply charges into melee and smashes gits
File:Warhammer_chaos_warriors_tutorial.jpg|As an alternative to just sending everything in one big blob, send you infantry and monsters in a blob while keeping your cavalry on your wings to charge in and then flank the enemy
File:Warhammer_bretonnia_tutorial.png|Some armies favor using powerful lords and heroes to deal large amounts of damage to the enemy while using other units as more of an anvil to the hero's hammer
File:Warhammer_mannlet_tutorial.png|Some armies such as Vampire Counts and Nurgle work better as a more defensive melee blob where you sit your lord inside your other infantry to have them blast spells at the enemy while healing their allies
File:Warhammer_vampire_tutorial.png|A blob army doesn't have to be defensive, factions such as Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, Greenskins during WAAAGH! and Skaven are quite adept at simply swarming the field with giant blobs of units. This is best done when you handily outnumber the enemy, usually with either multiple armies present for the battle or with lots of summoning
File:Warhammer_tomb_kings_tutorial.png|By end game, most factions will have a doomstack army that they want to build, which features the most powerful units in that faction's roster buffed to the gills and then spammed. In this example, a Tomb Kings player might use a doomstack of Warsphinxes and Greatbow Ushabtis to simply rush the enemy and destroy them with very little tactics necessary
</gallery>

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}