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Magnus the Red

2021-01-21T21:16:24Z

2603:8001:8600:4749:34D3:48:7EB6:2956: /* Horus Heresy */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pussying out, Magnus agreed because the thought of actually dying to atone for his mistakes only seemed like a good idea until he had to put it into practice. As a result, Magnus' cowardice ruined everything he'd been working towards and explicitly doing the one thing he'd been trying to prevent. The response of Magnus' new patron was immediate: for once, Tzeentch was true to his word. The City of Light was transported into the Eye of Terror onto a Daemon World. Prospero was destroyed that day, but Magnus and his Legion survived. It is unclear ''when'' they ended up on the Planet of the Sorcerers; before or after the Siege of Terra, but Magnus the Red had been so damaged by his battle with Russ and the psychic effort of teleporting to Sortiarius that his soul had fragmented across time and space. The shards represented different aspects of Magnus's personality, all tied to various places and people in the galaxy (one existed in the past many decades before the Heresy) and all had different motives. One shard helped the Salamanders resurrect Vulkan, whilst another had gone full daemon and tried to kill as many knight-errants as possible. Ahriman and co gathered several of the more powerful shards back together and managed to perform a Rubric to bond them back together into a stable form called the Crimson King. Magnus was saved from fading away but effectively become a daemon prince and the most powerful of all Tzeentch's servants. One of the shards, representing Magnus's good side was bound into the dying Revuel Arvida, becoming Janus. Magnus originally planned to join the assault on Terra purely to get this part of his soul back but seeing as Janus appeared later in The Beast Arises series, we can assume this didn't go to plan. (Though Magnus shows that Perpetuals can be permanently killed by Psyker Powers/Chaos Sorcery when he perma-kill REDACTED)

[[Just as planned|Magnus had never served Tzeentch willingly, but now had no choice - exactly as Tzeentch HAD PLANNED from the very beginning (we might think), and now he was committed to the very cause he had tried to foil]].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'''Warzone Fenris:'''

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

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

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

'''Gathering Storm Book III:'''

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

</div></div>

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

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

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

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

====8th Edition====

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leman Russ

2021-01-21T21:12:01Z

2603:8001:8600:4749:34D3:48:7EB6:2956: /* Burning of Prospero and the Horus Heresy */

[[File:RussPortrait.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Leman Russ. Showing that even posthuman viking furries could gain Daddy's ''FABULOUS'' hair. L'Oreal, ''because you’re wolf it''.]]

{{Topquote|It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.|Virgil}}
{{Topquote|Wrestle me arm and your spine shall implode.|Russ plays a 'Small Baby Game' with the Dark Eldar}}

''Were you looking for the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|tank]] named after yours truly?''

'''Leman Russ''', '''The Great Wolf''', '''The Lord of Winter and Ruin''', and '''Wolf King of Fenris''', also known as '''Lemon Russ''', '''Lemon Rust''', and '''[[Magnus the Red|That Fucking Furry]]''', not to be confused with the [[Leman Russ (tank)|tank bearing his name]], is the primarch of the [[Space Wolves]] legion. A superhuman nordic king with a warrior's crude humor and a stubborn streak a mile wide. He was such a hard headed son of a bitch, that he's survived extended fights with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], [[Lion El'Jonson|The Lion]], [[Horus]] and even the Emperor himself. General all-around badass deserving of much respect, but superstitious and flawed, with a serious problem valuing others' points of view, even if he understood them. He's blond underneath [[Rip and Tear|all the blood.]] There appears to be no specific way to pronounce his surename as both the wider Imperium and the Wolves themselves commonly alternate between "R-UH-ss" and "Rh-OOs", when speaking about him or the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|battle tank named after him]].

==Origins==
[[Image:LEMAN_RUSS.jpg|frame|My hand is fire, my hair is rage, my pauldrons are justice and my cock is wolf. Prepare to die!]]
When the Primarchs were lost, Leman's capsule landed on [[Fenris]], a harsh planet of insane violence that the Norse gods shit out after a three day meth fueled orgy with a tyranid hive fleet. The locals there enjoy a life of fishing, drinking, sailing, fucking, pillaging, and conquering other tribes of people for the modest little islands they all have to live on. Granted, it's also usually a very short life, because they're sharing the world with trolls, yetis, wolves the size of horses, wolves the size of battle tanks, bears the size of a house, whales that kill for fun, and krakens, which are to a squid as a [[Hierophant]] is to a [[Hormagaunt]].

So it was that little baby Russ left his capsule in the polar mountain region of Asaheim. There, some monstrous female wolf found him and said to herself "I WANT!". So Russ was raised by a dire wolf In Spess (google "Romolo and Remo" for a "real life" version). A few years pass, Russ growing up big and strong and hairy, having a grand old time running around the mountains and killing the sheep and such of the humans there with his wolf brothers. Eventually a king named Thengir heard of the Wolf-man, and decreed he be captured and brought to his hall. The mist of ages (and retcons) have hidden the details of Thengir's first meeting with Russ. Some stories would say that Russ was bound and gagged and dragged into the hall of the King Thengir after his Wolf family was slain, others claim a hunting party stumbled across his cave and kicked off a bloody melee in which a dozen hunters were killed, along with Russ's mother, after which the hunters realized they weren't fighting a wolf (they were probably drunk and kind of retarded) and somehow convinced Russ to stand down and come with them, a conversation that may or may not have included copious amounts of alcohol and whores. Thengir took a wondrous interest in Russ and ordered he be educated. In a short time, Russ was trash-talking every short bastard who dared look at him the wrong way, and had become insanely good with weaponry. When Thengir finally died, all declared that Leman of the Russ become the new high King.

Also, remember that Volsung Saga quote regarding Warrior Initiations for [[Angron|Berserks]]? Considering that (according to old Fluff) Sanguinius looked like a young teen adult at 1 year old, Leman Russ passed this trial that when he was around 7-10 months old or so. No wonder he went on to be a [[Eldrad|dick]] [[Primarch#Douchebagginess|with]] [[Magnus|some]] [[Unknown Primarchs|of]] [[Lion El'Jonson|his brothers]] and his new recruits (first, the Space Wolves feed them like they arrived to Valhalla and [[Assholetep|then, throw em in a thunderhawk and kick em into them in the cold wilderness of Fenris until they transform into Wulfen or return home by themselves]]...) and was easily manipulated by the Luna Wolf Primarch in tearing a new asshole to Magnus.

==GW origins==
He was just an ordinary commander who came with two wolves, Freki and Geri. This is them.

[[Image:russ_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|left|This is the very first canonical portrayal of Leman Russ. I shit you not (In Rogue Trader; before primarchs were a thing, but still.)]]

http://www.solegends.com/citrt2/rt070121LemanRuss/Wd117p80070121SWCommanderLemanRussx-01.htm

==The Next Step==
Russ conquered and took. He bartered and traded. He united the people of Asaheim under his rule. Somehow, the Emprah heard of it and realized it all had to be the work of a Primarch. So then he attended a royal banquet in the Hall of the Mountain Ki- I mean Leman Russ. The Emprah, taking a leaf out of Odin's book, disguised himself as some old geezer, then waited until the right moment to reveal his true identity. When he did Russ refused to bow down and challenged him to several contests, he ate so much the Emprah was forced to back down. Russ drank so much the Emprah was forced to back down. By now, the Emprah was fairly surprised at finally being out-done by someone else, Russ gazed upon the Emperor and challenged him in combat, and so did the Emprah raise his Power Glove into the air for all to see, and so did he then bring it down on Leman Russ's head, knocking him the fuck out in one solid hit.

[[Image:russ_furry_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|right|...and this is the first portrayal getting ready for a furry con.]]

Of course fluff changes and a 1-hit KO wasn't very fulfilling, so the new lore arrived: After the Emperor revealed himself Leman Russ skipped the eating and drinking contests and just challenged the Emperor to a fight. It is unknown whether the Emperor was in his full armour and actually had his Power Fist at the time, or whether he used his psychic powers; but the duel lasted for hours. (Presumably Russ did a lot better this time by virtue of not being drunk.) In the end, though the Emperor, presumably pissy that Leman was waving his cock in his face by just straight up fighting him, punched him square in the face and dropped him. When Russ awoke, he laughed it off and swore loyalty to the one who managed to beat him. Afterwards he ended up in command of the one Space Marine legion that knows how to eat, drink, brawl and make war upon any asshole that mocks their Thunderwolf.

Rumour has it that the Emp was so pleased with Russ' prowess, that he tasked him and the Space Wolves to be his executioners and it seems Russ is the reason the 2nd and 11th Legions no longer exist. So he has experience fucking up a Primarch, which is pretty goddamn manly. (Not confirmed by any sources and is not more than passing conversation in one Black Library novel, other than that, yeah totally definitely didn't kill the other legions. Also if you take how he acted with Angron and Magnus, he totally hated his job of being the executioner... and apparently thought Lorgar was a pretty cool guy).

(The novel "Betrayer" give's Angron's version of their run-in, where he tells to Lorgar what happened. Russ had taken it upon himself to school the World Eaters as he was disgusted by their behavior. Angron was having none of Russ's babbling and picked a fight with him by insulting the Big.E. Angron eventually defeats Russ in single combat, but because only he was fighting to kill while Russ was trying to teach. It then ends with the Space Wolves entirely outmaneuvering the Eaters and winning a tactical victory by surrounding Angron, some more hissing vitriol between the two Primarchs and Angron leaving. The World Eaters believed they won due to a higher kill count and the Wolves leave disappointed that their legion brothers were too retarded to see the lesson Russ was teaching. It is pretty telling that even <u>Lorgar</u> replies to Angron that he was a complete tool on that night and would have been killed after hearing him boast of how he won against Russ. With that said, Lorgar was able to get Angron to learn the lesson Russ was trying to teach him by just talking to him ''for two minutes'', and he did it without getting a shit load of his own men killed or getting his ass kicked in a duel. Not only does it show just how badly Russ failed at what he had set out to do on the Night of the Wolf, but also how his own hot headedness and fundamental inability to understand his brothers can royally bite him in the ass.)

Apart from that, Russ and his Space Wolves had a goddamn good time during the Great Crusade, although it hasn't been written about so this is all we can guess. Until ''Inferno'' dropped. It turns out that Russ became the Emperor's executioner in the process of fighting the Rangdan Xenocides, which saw entire Army regiments, Titan Legions and [REDACTED] Space Marine Legions (could be Chapters, could actually be entire Legions) wiped out. With the Luna Woves up to the eyes in glorious warfare in the Galactic East, Russ and the VI headed north along with the I Legion - this is the war that ended the I's time as the largest Legion. The end of the Xenocides entailed a series of bio-pogroms which left the Wolves with a very ugly reputation, and from then on Russ' role was the doer of necessary dirty deeds.

==Burning of Prospero and the Horus Heresy==

When that bitch-ass [[Horus]] started whining and crying, Leman Russ and his Legion were on their way to Prospero to bring Magnus the Red to Terra for questioning. Horus intercepted the message and re-worded it to order Russ to destroy Magnus and his Thousand Sons, and interestingly Russ found when they arrived at Prospero he didn't want to do that. He decided to go against the orders he thought were legit, and instead detain him and his legion so that they could be transported to Terra (ironically doing exactly what his legit orders were by going against what he thought they were), but when Magnus refused to answer the phone and the Thousand Sons' calls were all being blocked by the Primarch (and by a Tzeentch Daemon in disguise) he became more and more annoyed, and eventually he was pissed off enough that he and the Space Wolves carried out a class-10 clusterfucking on Prospero (aided along a bit by Magnus himself lowering his planet's defenses because he wanted to atone for his wrongdoings in the dumbest fucking way possible). It should have ended with the glorious finale where Leman Russ himself lifted Magnus the Red over his shoulders and broke the sorcerer's back over his knee (rumour has it that Russ could be heard shouting “Ah yes. I was wondering what would break first: your spirit… or your body!”...turns out it was both at the same time!). But even so, the red bastard managed to utter one single word of power and escaped through the fucking ground. Russ was so enraged that he ordered the 13th company of Space Wolves to pursue the fleeing Thousand Sons through their pansy-ass portals.

(Though Russ lost his duel with Magnus. The Red Giant gained the upperhand and was going to kill Russ had his two Wolf Pets not intervene and distracted Magnus enough for Russ to counter-attack and win. 3 vs 1, Pathetic. Only Corax and Dorn were able to beat Traitor Primarchs on their own during the Heresy)

This said, winning the Battle of Prospero left a bitter taste in Russ' mouth and complicated things for the Wolves in the long run. First of all, despite his reputation as the Emperor's Executioner, fighting Magnus took a serious toll on Russ. Rumour has it, that during the battle between those two demigods Magnus, by psychic means, laid his heart and mind bare to Russ, revealing that he knew not only every blow that was coming from his brother, but everything that he had come to know, accepting his failure and his fate, which was defeat. In the recently published Horus Heresy novel Wolfsbane Magnus' last words to Russ are finally revealed "You are a sword in the wrong hands. You have severed an innocent neck." In other words: Magnus was even aware that the wolves had been manipulated into wiping the Thousand Sons out, instead of detaining them and bringing them back to Terra (but not aware he wasn't actually innocent), and the idiot just let it happen instead of talking to Russ who wanted to ignore his orders and detain the Sons, in order to bring them back to Terra.

It will be interesting to see how GW tries to fill the logic gap regarding the hatred of Magnus towards the wolves now, considering he obviously *knew* that Russ had been manipulated into killing Magnus and the entirety of the Burning of Prospero is directly his fault. One easy way out would be the loss of the shard of Magnus that held his nobility which was absorbed by Ianus (first grandmaster of the Grey Knights, a former Thousand Son that was in the process of succumbing to the flesh change when this little "accident" occurred), but most fans would prefer a more convincing explanation. Seeing a hypergenius like Magnus hating the Space Wolves for destroying his legion - irrespective of the fact that he *knew* that they had been manipulated into doing so and the fact that he intentionally chose for his legion to be destroyed - makes less sense with Magnus' added layer of remorse and self-awareness. Then again, said hypergenius, even at his best and most complete, had a monumental know-it-all complex, a lot of pride in his life's work, and a long history of mutual scorn with Russ. That, plus the fact that Primarchs are not known for [[Konrad Curze|making]] [[Rogal Dorn|rational]] and [[Perturabo|empathic]] [[Angron|decisions]] [[Horus Heresy|with one another]], might help explain some of it.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Only room for one wolf pelt wearing Primarch in this universe.]]
Either way, the events of Prospero shook the Wolf King deeply, but Russ decided to carry on and try to make the best of a real clusterfuck of a situation. (An Inquisitor once called it an "emo phase" in front of a Rune Priest, and was fed balls-first to a Thunderwolf.) Not long after that, the news of the Drop Site Massacre reached the Wolves; which was another blow for the Wolf King. In his own words, Russ felt he'd been "in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing", wasting his time and men fighting an eventually futile battle instead of standing with his brother Primarchs against the real threat. Just to make things worse, the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula|Alpha Legion turned up to batter the Wolves]] and prevent them from heading to Terra and helping Big E. As the rotten cherry on top of an already really bad cake, the White Scars, who'd been bros with the Thousand Sons and had no idea why Russ had just decided to fuck them up royally seemingly out of the blue, weren't going to help them after Prospero. But the [[Dark Angels]] of all people aided the Wolves in fighting off the Alpha Legion, letting the Wolves damage their fleet to an impressive degree. A plus here was that [[Bjorn the Fell-Handed]] came to his attention, setting the young warrior on the path to ironclad badassness. This said, when he went to Yarant to fight the main Traitor advance, Russ was badly injured, entering a coma and giving Bjorn temporary command of the Legion. He bought Dorn and the Emperor more time, but didn't make it back to Terra until it was too late.

Oh and Empy totally gave him a spear after most of the Terran members of his original legion died fighting various gribbly xenos. Including Tyranids. Yup. Said spear was tossed into a certain Daemon Primarchs single eye, thereby preventing him from manifesting in reality AND resurrecting his legion. Russ totally hated this spear btw. At one point Russ tried to hit a moon orbiting some planet (he was drunk, don't judge) and the spear was lost for months [[troll|but since it had been a gift from Big.E the Wolves did spend said months searching for it]]. In the novel "Wolfsbane" and the short story "Two Metaphysical Blades," it's revealed he was secretly fearful of the spear and purposefully avoided using it while claiming he was a short range fighter that preferred swords and axes; "forgetting" it at conferences before people brought it back. He later uses it and became fond of it as a weapon after a trip into the Warp revealed its intended purpose in parallel with his role. Later he uses said spear to [[Battle of Trisolian|fight]] chaos-empowered Horus, after another try to get rid of it. He manages to stop the Warmaster with it, but then he acts like a fucking idiot, instead of just killing Horus and ending the rebellion then and there, he tries to reach out to Horus' good side and gets fucked up because of it.

Funny thing, that spear. It's actually the twin of another spear, the Apollonian Spear, wielded by the commander of the Custodes, Constantin Valdor. Russ's spear is known by many names, including Gungnir (the spear of Odin), simply the Spear of Russ, and others. But, this spear and its twin were both crafted by Big E and infused with parts of His psychic insight, so before any of those other names it was called the Dionysian spear. Now, this is a bit of a deep cut on GWs part, but the Apollonian and Dionysian actually refers to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (feeling lost yet?), who was in turn writing about the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. In Nietzsche's philosophy, the Apollonian is representative of everything bright and individual, meaning life and the person living it, as well as order and stability. The Dionysian, however, is representative of the primordial state from which all things originally emerge, the CHAOTIC nothingness from which the individual Apollonian springs forth. So, bringing it back to 40k, the Apollonian spear of Constantin Valdor can impart the memories of the person it kills to its wielder, capturing that individual and orderly moment. When inquired by Valdor, the Emperor intended it to be a tool to make Valdor understand his foes and as a check to keeping from getting too arrogant. What does Russ's spear, the Dionysian spear do? Well, we really don't know, but if the novel Wolfsbane is anything to go by, it seems that at least a couple people believe it's the weapon best suited for killing a Primarch. As seen with how the spear stabbed Russ and showed him how horrifying the truth of the Primarchs' origins were and how it erased all the corruption temporarily from Horus' mind, it's certainly a potent and terrifying weapon. And since the Primarchs are essentially the Emperor's Own Daemonkin, it stands to reason that the Dionysian Spear was designed by the Emperor to destroy the soul of the Primarchs and return them to the primal Chaos from which they originated. This in turn jives with Russ's wyrd of being the Emperor's "executioner".

== Russ and his Brothers ==

In many ways Russ can be best understood by looking at the clashes between him and his brothers, butting heads with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], and [[Lion El'Jonson]] over the years. All three of them had much in common with Russ, and there was potential for great brotherhood there, but in large part his lack of tact or understanding crushed whatever relationship might have been.

His fight with Angron was an attempt to teach his brother a lesson. Both of them were consummate warriors, both relied on their amazing athleticism and berzerker rages to triumph in battle, both were known for losing their temper when challenged, but Russ saw weakness in his brother's lack of strategy. Leman tried to just talk to the World Eater's primarch, but Angron was so uncontrollably, incredibly, "calm down son", angry that he just attacked Russ. While Russ and Angron were dueling, their retinues kicked off an open war, and in the battle that followed Russ found himself defeated by Angron, but Angron was in turn outmaneuvered and surrounded by the Space Wolves, thus proving Russ's lesson that warrior prowess isn't enough. That said, no one learned '''anything'''. Angron thought himself the victor because he'd won the duel and his sons had inflicted greater casualties than the Wolves, but Russ thought himself the victor because he'd proven his point and "educated" his brother. On the flip side, arguments that Russ should have been more tactful ignore that he was trying to deal with a Space Marine Legion of questionable loyalty that could and had caused massive amounts of collateral damage. There's a time for caution; it's not when rampaging supersoldiers are threatening the Imperium and its people. Which is indeed a good point, but then he should have gone all the way and gotten Big.E's approval to deal with this shit once and for all if it came down to that instead of trying to do things on his own on the sly. No matter how you look at it, Russ' idea to "educate" his brother was one of good intent (no really, it's a genuine bro' move that the Primarchs rarely extended to another) but of poor execution. If Russ had paid more attention and thought things through rather than sticking to do things his way, he'd have used subtler methods of persuasion to calm Angron, as Fulgrim and especially Lorgar had done in the past. Russ would have had an easier time of persuading Angron than either of them, given that he and Angron had a similar sense of brutal honor and a great lust for war. But, ultimately, it didn't occur to Russ to slow down and think his idea though, so he failed that day..... Well, that last statement is a bit in the grey zone. It was rightfully pointed out above that Russ was not exactly cool-headed either. And it was only when Angron said that without the Nails he might have been a more honourable man (like Russ claimed to be); but that if this were so he might have decided at some point to storm the Emperor's palace and "chop the slavering bastards head off". That was the final straw for Russ who couldn't take more of that shit, hissed "Heretic" as he lost his temper and things went downhill from there until both legions clashed. It is also noteworthy (and of course grimdark/tragic) that Angron made some pretty valid and surprisingly logical arguments including showing genuine regret for having been pressed into a role he had never wanted ("I died on Nuceria") , especially considering what a berzerk killer he was even then already. Several years/brain hemorrhages later only the berzerk killer with the attention span of a two year old was left but that's a story for another day (as in: when he was [[troll]]ing Ultramar with Lorgar, which ultimately culminated in his ascension to daemon(prince)hood).

Russ really, ''really'' didn't get along with Magnus, even before the burning of Prospero. He hated that his brother used sorcery and warpcraft so extensively. The Rune Priests of the Space Wolves use their psychic abilities in a much more limited and controlled way than the Thousand Sons, and the Rout never used Chaos familiars (which the Thousand Sons - to be fair - were totally unaware of using. They thought them to be benevolent spirits or "tutelaries"... until the Burning of Prospero of course when these spirits showed their true colours and turned on Magnus' sons). The Wolves also use the spirits of Fenris, hence all the totems and runes. Nearly all fluff indicates that this is utter horseshit, until the Spirit of Fenris was revealed to be real. Russ' convictions led him to feud with Magnus, but so did his concerns over the threat the XVth Legion posed to the Imperium and his frustration with Magnus' tendency to abandon his allies in favor of investigating some psychic artifact or slow down a conquest to avoid damaging some books. Russ never stopped to consider that Magnus' understanding of the Warp might have been better than his, or that the things Magnus preserved might have value for the humans Russ wanted to make the Galaxy safe for. Ridiculous theories that Russ was a psyker aside, another significant source of the feud between Magnus and Russ was The Crimson King's sheer arrogance. Leman Russ was rightly proud of his cunning battle tactics and personal ferocity, and was fully aware that he grew up on a savage death world where everything is constantly trying to kill you, while Magnus had it comparatively easy on Prospero. The Wolf King and his Legion, from the Wheel of Fire to the Rangdan Xenocides, had proved its mettle, cunning, and devotion to the Emperor many times over, yet Magnus treated him like a dumb hick and acted as though his psychic powers made him the greatest primarch. It couldn't have helped matters that some of the threats the VIth had bested were psychic in nature. Yet Magnus knew none of this; only the Emperor and the Space Wolves understood the extent of the threats they had faced down. Russ never considered that Magnus had no knowledge of the terrible secrets that only he had been entrusted with; he expected Magnus to take the word of an "ignorant savage" that the abilities he defined himself by couldn't be trusted. Whether Magnus would have listened if he did explain all that on the other hand, is another story - recall that he didn't listen the first time the Emperor told him to stop.

Perhaps most famous and most tragic of Russ's feuds was his strife with [[Lion El'Jonson]]. Both men had very similar origins, but slight differences in their upbringings drove a wedge between them. The Wolf and the Lion were both raised by the wild: both of their pods had crashed in areas with no humans, and they had to learn to survive with no lessons from other men. Both were eventually taken in when they were discovered by the men of their world, but that's where their stories differ. Where Russ was raised in the friendly, bawdy brotherhood of Thengir's men, the Lion was trained and educated in the somber fraternity of the knightly Order. While Russ had been brawling and singing with his friends, leading great hunts to destroy monsters and enemy tribes, the Lion was mastering discipline and embarking on solemn quests to destroy the Great Beasts of the forest. The battle between the two came on the world of Dulan, where the VIth and Ist legion were fighting together to slay a tyrant who'd insulted Russ's honor. At the beginning of the conflict the two brothers had promised to work together, but as time went on the Lion grew tired of his brother's insistence on utterly smashing every pocket of resistance rather than taking a more efficient, direct method of ending the war. Eventually he just launched an assault on the tyrant's palace, and beheaded the man before Russ could reach them. In the heat of the moment, Russ was ''furious'' to hear that and immediately confronted his brother. Russ was an angry dickhead, the Lion was a snarky bastard, and before long blades were drawn and the two were trying to kill each other in a violent battle. After a long and bloody fight in which the two of them beat one another senseless and finally fell over the ramparts of the fortress to the ground below, Russ started laughing, the ridiculousness of what they were doing finally apparent. Here they were, two Primarchs of the Legiones Astartes, brawling like children instead of leading their men. The Lion, however, didn't laugh. Like, at all. He coldly asked if his brother would yield, a question that just confused Russ. ''His brother thought this was a real duel?'' Russ had thought of the fight as a brawl between angry brothers like would happen on Fenris: a quick spat that would end with both of them beaten and bloodied, a spur-of-the-moment thing to vent their anger they'd laugh about over a tankard of Mjod years later. The Lion however was taking it deadly seriously and while Russ was laughing he struck a final blow, shattering Russ's skull and ending the fight. Had Russ stopped to consider his brother's mentality, or listened more closely to the Lion's words, he would have realized that the Lion saw the conflict as something profoundly different from what Russ thought it was, taking the matter of honour as something deadly serious. Again, Russ's lack of consideration was his failing.

However, while certainly abrasive, arrogant, and brutal, Russ was also every bit as loyal as Sanguinius or Dorn. The other thing Magnus, Angron, and the Lion had in common? All three of them behaved like assholes in their way. The Lion had zero people skills, arrogantly considered himself the best of all Primarchs, acted like he was some prince-in-waiting and lorded it over his brothers, him turning a small brawl into a duel of honour case in point. Magnus was much more enjoyable to be around but he arrogantly assumed he knew best because of his powers and blatantly favored psykers in his Legion. Angron's case is... [[Rage|self-explanatory]]. Bottom line, his brothers all put their own feelings/goals before those of the Emperor. Not to say that Russ was tactful, diplomatic, or understanding with these three - he certainly could have handled all of these conflicts better - but Russ was never a dick just for the sake of being a dick - he was a dick because someone had to keep his brothers in line.

His relationships with his brothers also highlight another one of his traits. Fans LOVE to call him a hypocrite, and this isn't far off the mark. However, it's not quite on target either. To elaborate, Russ did indeed criticize (and at times even physically attacked) his brothers for traits he or his Legion also had. On closer inspection, though, the way Russ dealt with his flaws was different from his brothers - and that's the best justification for his behavior:

*Russ and Angron both led Legions that were extremely violent, especially towards the defenseless. But Russ made a point from the very beginning to rein himself in and taught his Legion to temper their bloodlust and fight to make the galaxy safe for humans by example. Angron didn't care about either his Legion or the people of the Imperium, the only leadership and example he gave the World Eaters was to slaughter anything that dared stand in his way. Even worse, Angron jammed the Butcher's Nails in the brains of his War Hounds, taking their discipline and brotherhood away from them and leaving them to degenerate into blood-crazed psychopathic supersoldiers living only to kill without rhyme or reason. Russ gave massacres of friendly units as his main reason for intervening.

*As for Jonson, both Primarchs had an element of glory-seeking in their nature. Both were also very stubborn and combative, with an animalistic side. However, Russ wasn't ruled by his pride but his drive to serve the Emperor came from a different place: the Lion lectured Russ about wasting time destroying the Emperor's enemies, when winning wars is all that matters. ''(ironically a similar lesson that Russ tried to teach Angron)'', while Russ couldn't countenance leaving any enemies alive. During a dispute between the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels over a friendly fire incident, Russ personally apologized to the Lion in spite of the Dark Angels being the ones who knowingly fired on the Rout. Russ put aside his lust for glory and victory to save the lives of his men, then privately made it clear [[Rip and Tear|what would happen should the Dark Angels do something similar again.]] By contrast, the Lion's honour was everything to him, that the Dark Angels fired on the Rout because they had been fired on first ''(even after warnings were given)'' and that the Lion seemed fully prepared to kill his brother in the brawl over kill stealing, because Russ laid hands on him first. This distinction justifies Russ' initial hatred of Jonson though the two did come to an understanding later; that the reason for the Lion breaking his promise on Dulan was because Russ was putting off the final blow and allowing the battle to drag out, costing lives, which was pretty much the lesson Jonson was trying to point out earlier. All because Russ had wandered off the battle-plan to sort out the Wulfen issue within the 13th Company, something that Russ later realised that the Lion <u>already knew</u> and had quietly disposed of the evidence for his brother, even though he could have used the knowledge to break the Space Wolves Legion.

*With Magnus, the accusations of hypocrisy carry little weight. Russ' attempts to cover up the Curse of the Wulfen are somewhat similar to Magnus' treatment of the flesh change (the Wulfen curse was not exacerbated by rampant sorcerous power use like the flesh change was), and both Legions did use psykers. The real difference here is how they dealt with the situation. However, the Rune Priests were much more cautious than the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons in their dealings with the Empyrean and only ''"taking a sip of the cup when needed instead of drinking deep each time"'' as the Khan would put it. More importantly, the Space Wolves treat the degeneration of their gene-seed and the transformation into Wulfen as a curse, a failing to be contained and if possible eradicated. The Thousand Sons treat their psyker powers as a badge of superiority, taking any excuse to use them and revelling in what made them unique without considering its links with the flesh change. Russ did his best to control his secrets, he didn't glorify them or thought it made him and his Wolves better than the other Legions. Magnus was controlled by his secrets and saw them as strengths. It's also worth noting that as per ''Prospero Burns'' Tzeentchian dickery had led Russ and others to believe Magnus' equerry had planted a spy among the Wolves, with Amon apparently attacking Bjorn and a Custodian at Nikaea. It is a tragic turn of events in its own right that this "Amon" was in truth a daemon masquerading as the Amon (who had - matter of factly - faithfully stayed at Magnus' side which was generously entirely disregarded by both the Wolves and the Custodians for plot reasons), playing a pivotal role in tipping the balance towards the dissolution of the Librarius (which - ironically - would have been one of the greatest assets the Imperium/the Emperor would have been able to field against Chaos during the Heresy.. [[Just as planned]]!!!!).

TL;DR: Russ shared many flaws with his brothers, but he was defined by being in control rather than being thrall to his flaws. His bloodlust never overtook his discipline like it would Angron. His glory-seeking never overrode his sense of responsibility like it would Lion El'Jonson. He made sure his sons worked against their curse rather than have them embrace it like Magnus did. It comes to no surprise that someone who worked so hard for control resented people who thought they didn't need it, hence the accusations of hypocrisy, however ([[Lion El'Jonson|in]] [[Ferrus Manus|fairness]] [[Rogal Dorn|like]] [[Roboute Guilliman|many]] [[Angron|of]] [[Perturabo|his]] [[Mortarion|brothers]] [[Night Haunter|Primarchs]]), interpersonal skills weren't exactly his forte. Russ' real failing was not that he accused others for things he had to deal with himself, but rather that he was in an unique position where he could have been an example to his brothers ''because he shared and knew how to deal with said flaws'' but his brashness and agressivity drove them apart instead.

On a somewhat amusing tangent. Russ considered [[Roboute Guilliman]] a good choice for Warmaster, and in return Guilliman considered Russ and his legion part of his "Dauntless Few", meaning that Bobby G sincerely believed that alongside Russ and his Wolves, the Ultramarines could defeat any opponent. Rather amusingly, when he was struck down by Fulgrim, Guilliman's last thoughts were, in order, of his sons, of the Imperium, and then for his brothers, the first being Russ. While they weren't exactly [[Fulgrim|best]] of [[Ferrus Manus|buds]], Russ actually believed Guilliman and [[Perturabo]] were the most boring among his brothers after [[Rogal Dorn]], they had a sincere respect for each other as warriors. The only thing they [[skub|had a bit of a pickle with]] was Rob's [[Codex Astartes]] thing; and Russ eventually [[Council of Nikaea|ostensibly acquiesced]] only to [[Thousand Sons|ignore it]] when G-man stopped breathing down his neck, kinda. The Space Wolves did try to form a successor Chapter, the [[Wolf Brothers]], but those very quickly devolved into Wulfen for whatever reason (it is suspected the planet Fenris has something to do with it).

== Post-Heresy ==
Although unable to return to aid the Imperium in the Battle for Terra, Russ and the Space Wolves threw themselves headfirst into the post-Heresy war efforts. Aside from spanking the traitors into the Eye of Terror, he came up with the concept for the Adeptus Praeses. Though he'd told Guilliman where he could shove his Codex, Russ liked the idea of successor chapters for the Wolves. To him (or the little reformist movement within the Legion later, the fluff isn't totally clear), they were a way of maintaining the Wolves' influence alongside that of Girlyman, Dorn and the rest. Unfortunately the Wolves' gene-seed proved too unstable to set up any viable successor chapters, and as a result while the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists and Dark Angels have shitloads of descendants to call on in a crisis, the Wolves are the sole embodiment of Russ' strength and drive. This hasn't helped their situation with Imperial institutions such as the Inquisition.

One-hundred years to the day after the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, during a feast in the halls of the Space Wolves fortress, Russ climbed upon a table to give a speech. He was stricken with a vision, and after standing there speechless for a few minutes, he fell to one knee, issued hushed orders to his retinue, and left. He left his sons with their first Wolf Lord; [[Bjorn the Fell Handed]], and a message.

"In the end, I will be there. For the final battle. For <s>the wolf</s> dinner time."

And then the winds of change blew over the fluff once again. In the audio play Parting of Ways we get a slightly different version of events. There was still an annual feast, though it wasn't just to celebrate the day the Emperor got the snot beaten out of him by Horus, but also to commemorate the Wolves that had died during the spring cleaning that followed the Heresy, plus the completion of the Aett - the giant [[fortress-monastery|fortress]] of the Space Wolves. Also instead of a hundred years, it was two hundred years since the siege of Terra, so unless Dorn was a really slow learner and not very bright and it took him over a hundred years to assemble the Golden Throne, that is a clear lore change. Then again, given how Perturabo thoroughly kicked Dorn's ass in the iron Cage, forcing Bobby.G and the Ultrasmurfs to come and save Dorn's sorry ass, it's a possibility that Dorn just wasn't very bright. It's also a possibility that the Emperor got the Golden Throne from an old IKEA warehouse, which would explain why even a Primarch would have had trouble in figuring out how to put it together in less than a hundred years.

Also Russ wasn't about to hold a speech, instead he had at first partaken in the festivities but as the party grew sullen, Russ retreated, sensing, as Bjorn put it, "a fell wind from beyond the mountains, bleeding through the cracks of the Fang". After clenching the table for a while, Russ clambered to his feet on the table, screaming ''“No More!”'' The shout silenced the Space Wolves in their brawling and made the flags of the smoke filled halls tremble, so Russ apparently also had a gift for speech, plus he had a gift for getting instantly sober as Bjorn described his face going from being ruddy flushed with Mjod to looking like an ice spectre. Russ then held the following [[awesome|kickass]] speech:

''“We come here to celebrate the All-father, we come here to remember his sacrifice and his ascension from the world of the senses and his victory over my brother the traitor.”
''“We remember the dead, who even now gather in the oververse, their blade sharp, their aim keen.”''
''“They are better than we are for they perished in the war to end all wars and their souls have been purified! And what of us those left behind, wallowing in the drinks the fallen gods have left us?”''
''“We have grown fat, we have the beast within us, but is has never yet been mastered.”''

Then Russ paused to grab his drinking horn and held it aloft and continued:
''“So let us celebrate my father's ascension, let us remember what he was able to accomplish, let us remember what he built and what he foresaw and then what he lost and how he failed.”''
''“Do not mourn the fact that he no longer walks among us, for the galaxy was too small to accommodate such a soul, he was of an age of '''gods!''' And we are slumped in an age of mortals.”''
''“The lights of the stars will fade, this place will grow old and the ice will crack it.”''
''“We will forget no matter how much the skalds tell the old tales, what battles are left for us like the ones before?”''
''“My fallen brothers are gone, Malcador is gone, the leeches cluster around the Golden Throne and whisper of deeds done before they were born as if it were '''they''' who achieved them.”''

At this point Russ looked unsteady on his feet and his eyes went glassy:
''“A doubt of all of this, one thing remains true we were not on Terra, we were not there when the palace fell and that shame will pursue us for eternity.”''

Then Russ dropped his drinking horn on the board and then started to speak not to his warriors, but to himself or to some presence that was unseen.
''“It remains unfinished… I have waited for too long, building this mountain, squabbling with Guilliman. I will not grow old, feeble, limping around a crumbling inheritance. I have an Oath to keep, there are beasts left to slay.”''

At this point Russ was fully immersed in his premonitions and he looked around the room, a smile dancing on his fanged face, seeing things from either long ago or yet to come.
''“Listen closely my brothers, there shall come a time far from now, when the chapter itself is dying and our foes shall gather to destroy us.”''
''“Then, my sons, I shall listen for your call, in whatever realm holds me and come I shall, no matter what the laws of life and death forbid.”''
''“At the end, I will be there. For the final battle. FOR THE WOLF TIME!”''

Then Russ gave the mustering signal and he and his retinue left, though as Bjorn made to follow only to have Russ turn towards him saying a single sentence: ''“Not you.”'' When Bjorn asked for an explanation all Russ did was repeat the words: ''“Not you.”'' [[Eldrad|Then he left.]]

It is theorized that Russ like Magnus had the gift of premonition and knew that Bjorn would be needed in the years to come as the first Great Wolf, as it is heavily implied that if Bjorn hadn't been persuaded to take the mantle of great wolf, the Chapter itself would have fallen apart in the absence of Russ.

More likely Russ just didn't want Bjorn's moodiness to poison what ever adventure he was on. His helmet eventually came to be in the possession of [[Ulrik the Slayer]].

As to where Russ went and what happened to him there's a few theories given:
*Russ sought the Lion out to make amends of their old feuding (if so they both forgot to tell both their chapters about it).
*That he fought in eternal combat with the resurrected cadaver of Horus (no that would be Abaddon's task and he completely owned that clone of Horus).
*That he searched for the tree of life to heal the Emperor's soul.
*That he is trapped within a hollow star and tormented by his old adversary Magnus (Since Tzeentch was able to trap Sigmar in another dimension, trapping Russ in a hollow star and have his star pupil Magnus use him as a punching bag makes as much sense as anything).
*That he is actually searching for Magnus, to finish the last task given to him by the Emperor and "arrest" his wayward brother.
*That he passed beyond the bounds of space and time and now roams among the gods, ready to return when needed accompanied by the fallen of his legion sundered in a paradise of warriors (so basically he's in the Age of Sigmar at this point? somebody put him out of his misery, that's not a paradise that's hell on earth).
*That he's simply lost in the galactic fjord known as the Warp and has been playing drunken pranks on daemonic villagers for 10,000 years.

/tg/ theorizes that Leman Russ may return as [[Horo]] (Implying Horo isn't just one of Leman's many, many bastard children growing up on some shithole Feudal world).

Magnus actually know where Russ is now, but he don't tell it even to his trusted sorcerer lords.

The 13th company, and a figure bearing the likeness of Russ, was spotted during the 13th crusade and the siege of the capital of Cadia.

==On The Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Leman Russ:''' || 455 || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 2+/4++
|}
[[File:LemanRussMini.jpg|250px|right|thumb|I'M COMING FOR YOU! [[Magnus the Red|''NEEEEEEERRRRRD!!!'']]]]
An impressive stat-line, even by the insane standards of Primarchs, is coupled with unbelievably powerful wargear:
*The '''Armour Elavagar''' starts as your bog-standard 2+/4++ which is increased to a 3++ against flamer (in case you meet an AP2 flamer or something), melta, and plasma weapons, but the truly <strike>awesome</strike> severely-overpowered-bullshit part is that it imposes -1 to hit on anyone in BtB with him. Do note however that it ''only'' works in BtB contact, so the models not directly in contact with Russ would still hit him as usual (likely on 5+ due to his insane WS). Basically, he's insanely tanky in a fight.
*The '''Axe of Helwinter''' is a ''+2 S master-crafted power axe with sunder and without unwieldy'' for your vehicle-wrecking needs and putting some more guaranteed wounds on high toughness opponents. Also useful for inflicting Instant Death on anything T4 or lower.
*The '''Sword of Balenight''' is a Shredding AP2 power sword; oh wait, it also has '''Sever Life'''. If Russ' prey suffers one or more wounds from the sword, roll a 2d6. If this result beats your target's toughness, add 1d3 additional wounds at ap2, so you can still use your inv save against these additional wounds.
**Thanks to vague wording, when you must make the test for Sever Life is a subject of debate. Some say "suffering one or more wounds" means that the rule applies immediately before saves are made. HOWEVER, the rule clearly states that Sever Life is used only if the model "is not slain" by the initial attacks, and you HAVE to make your save rolls in order to know if they are slain or not, so one can lawfully argue that ''unsaved'' wounds are the real trigger. Keep calm and make it clear with your opponent until a FAQ is released. Besides, the times Russ isn't going to be able to get at least one wound in with this sword are going to be pretty rare.
**As mentioned in the description, the extra attack that would normally be added when using two close combat weapons is already included in his profile of 6.
*For ranged fights he has the [[Vulkan]]-remade bolter (mentioned to be regular one until Xzibit got his hands on it) turned into a pistol for Primarch's hand, called '''Scornspitter''' which is assault 3 AP3 rending, but with pitiful 12" range. Of course if you aren't within 12", then you can't charge, and if you can't charge you're running therefore even if it did have a greater than 12" range it wouldn't be used anyway.

His Wolf-Kin are deployed separately and he can't join them, but they're great harassing units and surprisingly brutal fighters.

Meanwhile, his Sire of the Space Wolves gives him Night Vision, Counter-Attack, Preternatural Senses, and Hunter's Gait: all Wolves get +1Ld and Russ gets to Howl once per game (letting everyone in his detachment reroll run and charge for said turn). Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin gives weapon mastery (like Horus and Calgar). If he's Warlord, you can take Veteran Tacticals (who may run/shoot bolters then charge instead of regular Vet tactics) and Varagyr Terminators as troops.

If Horus plays like everything a Space Marine Chapter Master ought to be, Russ is best compared to an Ork Warboss. He isn't exactly "tactical" in the traditional sense of reserve dickery, but Howl of the Death Wolf combined with Warrior's Mettle Veterans can make your army a strong hunter-killer force, able to get in your enemy's face and fuck up his battle plans. This is an unpredictable force, able to catch most armies by surprise and keep them off balance. Freki and Geri are practically auto-takes, and Russ himself can and will fuck up everything from Leviathans to Thanatars to Land Raiders. Due to high strength, high initiative, and high weapon skill, even Imperial Knights aren't out of the question. Worth it.

==Leman Russ VS other Primarchs:==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Inferno is finally released and you came here to see how your favorite/most hated superhuman demi-god fares against the other Primarchs, because you love delicious Mathhammer trolling and cautious planning before battle.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
'''<big>[[RIP AND TEAR|THEY ALL DIE. EVERY. LAST. ONE. OF. THEM.]]</big>'''

Sever Life on The Sword of Balenight is the real kicker here. Allowing him to potentially pile on more wounds than what would normally be possible for the amount of attacks he has. And since most primarchs only have a 4++, they tend to die in short order (with even the tougher ones eventually going down from sheer wound output). So if you want to add the damage for Sever Life, here's the results:

*Against T6 Sever Life will cause an additional 1.091 Wounds on average.
*Against T7 Sever Life will cause an additional 0.909 Wounds on average.
::Note that these are Wounds that can still be saved via Invulnerable saves.

This is made even crazier with his ability to split his attacks between his axe of awesome and his sword of cheese (Yes just like Horus). Since all it takes is one wound going through to trigger Sever Life thus he can lay on the hurt with his high strength axe while still getting some good jabs in with his sword. When combined with the additional wounds from sever life (assuming it goes off, which against most Primarchs it should since they are mostly in the T6 range) this guy can lay on more wounds on a single target than just about any other Primarch (except a fully buffed Angron, though to be fair that is really all Angron has got going in a fight).

Possibly worse than Sever Life (which probably is intended to trigger after saves, hence the "Is not slain" part) is his armor, which cripples almost every Primarch's ability to damage him with the negatives to hit. Since thanks to his insane weapon skill almost all will be needing 6's or 5's at best to even hit him, and after taking wound rolls and saves into account he is basically taking almost no damage. Which really hurts alot of his opponents since most of their special rules in CC rely on doing damage (e.g. Horus disabling strike and Perturabo's fancy hammer with basically every CC special rule). Even the uber-tanks are left flailing at him, barely doing any damage, while he grinds them out.

The only ones who can even stand a snowball's chance are heavy-hitters in the range of Horus, Fulgrim, Angron with maximum attacks, Sanguinius with the Spear of Telesto and the Angel's Wrath Rite of War, Ferrus Manus, Perturabo and a fully buffed Magnus. In addition a Transfigured Lorgar might be able to tar pit him for awhile (though don't expect him to actually win). But I do mean snowball, even these guys barring some amazing rolls will probably lose virtually every fight (including Horus).

Vulkan holds out pretty well but only if Russ is just using the sword... against the axe... well lets hope the dice are on your side!

Do note too that if Russ brings his wolves along (as he should) then they can challenge and take challenges in his place, as they are both characters. Thanks to how the rules work, this means that Russ essentially has 8 wounds, and in the case of Primarchs who can't ID the wolves 14 wounds. In effect he can use this to prevent Horus from using his talon to drop his stats or Perturabo smacking him too many times with his hammer while making the combat last even longer, since for example if Horus uses Worldbreaker to kill the first wolf Russ can just tank the wounds before his other wolf challenges in round 2, all the while Russ is beating the shit out of Horus completely unharmed. Statistically if Leman Russ brings his wolves along it is near impossible for any single other Primarch to kill Russ before he grinds them down if in a challenge.

HOWEVER if you or your opponent plays him in a list he can potentially be tar pitted with terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. Russ is [[Lion El%27Jonson#The Dulan Campaign|not immune to concussion]] and the invuln save is superior than Russ. This will bring him down to an equal playing field since while they will not be doing much damage to him (since needing 6s to hit), he will probably not be able to rip throw them before the game ends (he is more a challenge monster than infantry wrecker, again that is Angrons job). Though don't rely on this as like all primarchs he is perfectly capable of wiping them out.
Such is the fickleness of the dice. And again this is not even taking into account his two wolves. With either of them tanking a shot or two and preventing Concussion from setting in Leman Russ again has a very good chance of ripping through them. So don't expect this to be a consistent solution to dealing with him.

Bottom line, Horus is lucky that Russ didn't get there first during the Siege or take his chance at Yarant.

</div>
</div>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:russ_original.jpg|First portrayal of Leman Russ in canon (Rogue Trader)
File:russ_furry_original.jpg|First retcon of Leman Russ, now approximately 215% furrier, in 1st. Ed compilation
File:Leman russ by alexboca-d7930sk.jpg
File:Russ_Behind.jpg| RUN <s> FORREST </s> LEMAN, RUN!
File:Russ_Front.jpg| He's running so [[White Scars|fast]] because he saw someone throw a stick.
File:Russ_Side.jpg
File:Horus vs Leman.jpg|
File:Horus-Primarchs-Warhammer-Russ.jpeg|
</gallery>

{{Primarchs}}

[[Category:Space Wolves]]

==See Also==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Q8uymv0vw&index=2&list=PLdPq6mYy-DRdA9aTRJghfDsQiyR5WLs7y/ Admit it, this is the only song that truly befits the glory of the Sons of Russ.]
* [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkqA4-4jIM/ Not so fast.]

Lucius

2021-01-21T20:13:55Z

2603:8001:8600:4749:34D3:48:7EB6:2956:

[[File:Lucius_the_Eternal.jpg|350px|thumb|right|The sick bastard in all his sick glory.]]
{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|Hey, '''BRAH!''' Got a nice spirit stone there. Can I put it in my mouth and cover it in SALIVA?!|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Lucius, being a creepy deviant as always]]}}

'''Lucius the Eternal''' is the sickest fuck in the [[Emperor's Children]], an entire [[First Founding|Legion]] of sick fucks who worship [[Slaanesh|the very god of sick fuckery]]. That's really saying something. He's also one of the [[That Guy|biggest pieces of shit in the whole damn galaxy]], up there with [[Erebus]] in terms of self-centered, ruining everything bullcrap.

Back during the [[Great Crusade]], Lucius was [[Brother-Captain|Captain]] of the 13th Company, where he was the best swordsman in the legion. Meaning, in an entire army of perfectionists, no one was better at sword fighting than Lucius. He was also extremely arrogant, more concerned about his own glory than the Legion's. His arrogance stemmed from his youth on Chemos. Born after Fulgrim's departure, he was educated amongst the nobility and became the youngest swordsmaster the planet had ever seen, regularly beating boys much older than him (and occasionally even his teachers) in duels. Being the very best didn't really help with his personality, and he almost got killed when he ran through one of his opponents for daring wounding him, making a riot break out between his admirers and detractors. Luckily for him (and unluckily for the rest of the galaxy) an Emperor's Children Astartes saw the skilled young swordsman and abducted him in the stampede, deciding that such skill with the sword should not go to waste. This, along with him surviving the implantation process and becoming a full Astartes himself, really didn't help with his feeling of superiority either.

During the campaign on [[Murder]], Lucius got himself into trouble with his superior [[Eidolon]] for using a xenos claw as a weapon, and then came under fire from [[Tarik Torgaddon]] for being a kiss-ass to any senior Emperor's Children marine and obnoxious to anyone else. He later showed off his prowess to the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves]] in the practice cages, defeating [[Erebus]]. However, [[Knights-Errant#Garviel_Loken|Garviel Loken]] found a flaw in Lucius' method — his reliance on technique — and beat him with a punch to the face.

During the [[Battle of Isstvan III]], Lucius initially sided with the Loyalists against the [[Chaos Space Marines]]. But when command of the loyalist Emperor's Children was taken by [[Saul Tarvitz]], Lucius got jealous (failing to note that every loyalist on the planet would eventually die, and who got the most credit didn't matter — even Tarvitz doesn't get much recognition in the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]]). It's slightly skimmed over, but apparently Lucius got corrupted by the [[Slaanesh]]i cultists' music in the battle on Isstvan III, as he started to become obsessed with the "song of death". Eventually he betrayed their stronghold in exchange for joining the Traitors, tricking [[Solomon Demeter]] into killing loyalist Space Marines before murdering him — proving that the age old adage ''"It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself"'' may have some truth to it. And of course, Lucius got off a little bit on Demeter's anguish before putting the poor guy out of his misery. He then proceeded to toy with Tarvitz after explaining his reasons: "I'm better than you". However, Tarvitz took a leaf out of Loken's book, jumped on Lucius and deployed a tactical smackdown. Lucius then got pumped full of [[bolter]] shrapnel, but escaped to get some [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] augmentations.

During the rest of the Heresy, Lucius put his skills to good use murderizing loyalists (and organizing an exorcism/BDSM session for [[Fulgrim]]). He continued being an arrogant supremely skilled bastard, up until he met Nykona "I don't use the floor" Sharrowkyn, a [[Raven Guard]] badass who proceeded to make Lucius his bitch on two separate occasions before stabbing him through both hearts and killing him.

Except the last part didn't quite stick, because he mysteriously got up again after being very definitely dead. Not even Fabius knows how he pulled this off, and Lucius was sensible enough not to stick around long enough for Fabius to find out how it worked by vivisection. He somehow ended up wandering around on Sortiarius, separated from the rest of his legion. After dueling with the [[Thousand Sons]] blademaster Sanakht, Lucius accompanied Ahriman and his cabal in their quest to find the shards of the Crimson King. Along the way, he proved to be an effective manipulator, tempting several of the Thousand Sons into doing what Lucius's demonic allies wanted. He also got his scarred face to be temporary fixed to look more like Fulgrim's, before getting it scarred again by fighting inside the Maze of Tzeentch.

[[File:Iron Hands troll Lucius.png|600px|thumbnail|left|The Iron Hands found a way to make his Come Back From The Death Ability useless. Just throw him away like the piece of trash that he is.]]

But it's (ironically) ''after'' the [[Horus Heresy]] where things start to get creepy. During one of the random gladiatorial games the Emperor's Children partook in, Lucius was struck down. The experience was so enjoyable that it caught [[Slaanesh]]'s notice. Not wanting to lose so devoted a servant, Lucius was resurrected in his killer's own body. After that, anyone who struck down Lucius and felt any satisfaction from the act would find themselves possessed by Lucius, who thus became known as Lucius the Eternal. To all the MANLY FOLLOWERS of [[Khorne]], this makes Lucius a total failure compared to [[Kharn]], as Kharn has been killing stuff for just as long as Lucius without dying once (until [[World Eaters]] claimed his "lifeless corpse" from the steps in front of the [[Golden Throne|Infinity Gate]]... still, that's only one death to Lucius' fucktons). To all the FOOLISH IMPERIAL SCUM, this is the most terrifying thing ever: they know they'll never get him with an [[Exterminatus]] or orbital bombardment because of plot, and they know that their greatest champions (who have their own [[plot armor]]) can't beat him either. He may have in fact aided the Imperium by getting killed by more skilled Chaos Champions and [[Xenos]].

(Though that ability is not foolproof. It certainly wouldn't work against certain people like Kharn, Typhus, Ahriman, Abaddon or any of the Primarchs or God-Emperor or possibly any sufficiently powerful psyker assuming they didn't already explode into daemons. In some of these instances, Slaanesh would bring him back and get pissed at the guy whose soul cannot be possessed, in others they can just nope him out of existence metaphysically.)

The fans have fun speculating on easy and anticlimactic ways to keep him from reviving, like having him die from some unlucky artillery shell from some bored as fuck [[Imperial Guard|Guardsmen]] in [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]] shell him to death without ever realizing what they did, or trapped by mindless [[Tyranid]]s or [[Necron]]s. Despite absolutely zero chance of this ever happening (because he's a named character in 40k, how lame would it be to die and get written out of the lore in such a weak fashion?) the writers have been taking steps to tell us "not so fast!" regardless. The new Chyaos codex has him reviving after a Necron duelist wasted him and took some cold pride in it, so nuts to that, apparently! "Lucius: Pride and Fall" has him resurrecting as a munitorum factory worker who built the landmine that Lucius tripped on. The fans are now asking what if the person who kills him and enjoys it commits suicide before the transformation occurs. Or: take him alive (easier said then done admittedly, but given Lucius' record at fisticuffs a few [[Terminator]]s could probably subdue him easily), cut his limbs off, lock him in a metal box, put that box inside another box, then mail the box to yourself, and when it arrives? <s>SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER</s> Build a heavily armed fortress on top full of [[stormtrooper]]s who think they're just there to support a crusade and BAM, problem potentially solved. Or alternatively, freeze him with a stasis field while activating a tesseract labyrinth to keep him out of the scene. Also the writers claim his plot armor ability is not foolproof, as shown by making Lucius cautious enough to run away if he really is close to dying for real. It's also implied that if he died in the Webway, he'd croak forever; bad news for him because the 8th edition Dark Eldar codex reveals that gladiatrix extraordinare [[Lelith Hesperax]] wants to capture him and take him back to Commorragh for a duel and she knows about his resurrection/possession ability but thinks she has a way around it - remove his soul-carrying armor.

But let's face it, probably the easiest, most permanent way of dealing with this asshole is to just inter his lunatic ass inside of a Helbrute and call it a day.

In between [[Black Crusade]]s, Lucius is said to wander that [[Eye of Terror]], supposedly looking for either the location of Fulgrim's pleasure world, or to find a means to weaponize his penis. If things had gone very differently, he could probably get some help with that from the [[Iron Hands]]. At one point he got himself captured by [[Dark Eldar]]s as part of a contrived bargain they had made with Fabius Bile. He was kept as the main event by a powerful Archon (She controlled a minor Webway realm to herself) but he kept winning and everyone got bored. Bile hooked up him with the drug rack as a means of keeping him alive long enough to pillage as much information as possible. The archon decided that he wasn’t worth the effort of keeping around and ditched him from the top billing. It was also revealed (if by implication) that if Lucius od’d on his new toys, then Bile - as their proud maker - would get turned into him. Jury’s out on how that would work with the the whole clone body thing that Fabius has going on.

By the time of the 13th Black Crusade, the Emperors Children Legion (implied to be bigger today than during the Heresy) has fully mobilized to attack the Imperium. Lucius and his warband participated at Extremis Six alongside his Primarch Fulgrim

==On the Tabletop==
Lucius gets a standard Chaos Lord statline, plus WS7 and I6. He clocks in at 165 points, and is equipped with a power sword, a doom siren, and a 3+/5++. He has two unique abilities: his Lash of Torment reduces the attacks of all enemies in base contact by one and gives all his close combat attacks Shred, and his Armour of Shrieking Souls means that each time he passes an armor or invuln save, the model or unit that caused the wound takes a S4 AP2 hit. He also has the Duellist's Pride rule, which makes his attacks characteristics equal to his opponent's weapon skill in a challenge.

In a codex full of one-trick ponies, Lucy is the ultimate one, being quite good at killing 3+ or worse characters but being otherwise almost totally useless. Unlike [[Kharn]], who you can point at basically anything, Lucius struggles with 2+ save characters. The bane of his existence, though is S8 weaponry, as he lacks Eternal Warrior and will likely get splatted by the first Thunder Hammer/Artificer armor captain he challenges. His low number of attacks (3) and his lack of a second close combat weapon mean that he struggles outside of challenges, too. He does bring a Doom Siren along, meaning double-Siren drive-by fun if you put him in a Rhino with Noise Marines.

=== 8th Edition ===
8th ed. Lucius got buffed hard, getting a price cut, 5 attacks instead of 3 base and a 2-damage power sword. The Lash of Torment is now an S4 AP-1 D2 Assault 2 weapon that can be fired both into and out of combat, essentially giving him 7 attacks base before additional rules like Death to the False Emperor kick in. Duelist's Pride has changed since challenges are gone. Now, if he directs all his attacks at a single enemy character he gets +2 attacks. Sadly that Doom Siren of his is now totally lame. Ah well. Like every damn character in 8th ed he also gives a 6" bubble of rerolling 1s on to-hit rolls to units with his subfaction keyword, '''EMPEROR'S CHILDREN.''' All this for a mere 11 points over a naked Chaos Lord, not bad.

*Alternate opinion: Lucius' swordsmanship is supposed to be "Perfect", but he hits on a 2+ just like every other melee character. Compare him to the Emperor's Champion for instance. Would you rather have +2 attacks or re-roll to hit any miss AND +3 strength vs characters? The Black Sword is just better than the "Blade of the Laer" <s>which slew the Primach Ferrus, because reasons</s> at the time it was possessed by a [[Keeper of Secrets]]. Then you have Lucius mediocre saves 3+/5++. They could have at least give him a 4+ in combat; he's Slaanesh's champion after all. The prominent rack of Combat Drugs on his back does nothing. Finally, his character aura is just bland. Look at the auras the Imperial special characters grant. Granting +1S to sonic weapons, FNP within 6" would have been more characterful. While he isn't terrible, the best thing you can say about Lucius is that he's cheaper, and that's really a shame. Maybe when/if he gets a plastic model they'll do something interesting with him.

==Other Lucius'==
Apparently, the name is widespread in the 40k, and there are a lot of other dudes, places and things named Lucius, amongst which:
*'''Lucius the Pretendent''' – another Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, who hilariously cosplayed Lucius the Eternal, by challenging and slaughtering Imperial champions on [[Medusa]] V. Accidentally rolled two sixes and ascended to [[daemon]]hood.
*'''[[Forge World]] Lucius''' – one of the top-grade forge worlds, rivaling [[Mars]] itself with the quantity and variety of things it produces. Has its own exclusive patterns of [[Warhound Scout Titan|Warhound]] and [[Reaver Battle Titan|Reaver]] [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|titans]], as well as [[Standard Template Construct|STCs]] of [[Macharius Heavy Tank]]s and Cyclops demolition tanks.
*'''Lucius [[Drop Pod]]''' – big-ass drop pod specifically designed for deploying dreads.

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[[Category: Emperor's Children]]