Meet the eighteen primarchs

I own one primarch. Vulkan, of the Salamanders, still grey, still on the shelf. Of all the ones I could have started with, I picked a man who is currently missing.

That is roughly my level with the lore. Salamanders and Ultramarines on the shelf, a few of the novels read in the wrong order, and until recently I could not have told you who most of the Emperor’s sons were. So I wrote the list I wanted when I started.

Eighteen short introductions, in legion order. Nothing deep, just enough that the names stop being noise.

Twenty sons, eighteen names

The Emperor made twenty primarchs, one for each Space Marine legion. Then the II and the XI were removed from the Imperial records. Names deleted, thousands of marines struck off the rosters, monuments pulled down. Games Workshop has never named either of them, and does not intend to.^§ Black Library author Aaron Dembski-Bowden puts it about as bluntly as it can be put: naming them “would be an answer”, and answers are not allowed here.

The Imperium has a name for this kind of thing. An Edict of Obliteration, also called a Damnatio Memoriae, High Gothic for condemnation of memory. Statues come down, archives burn, and everyone stops saying the name. The Investiary on Terra once held a statue of all twenty brothers, each on its own stone plinth, standing in a ring. Two of those plinths are a subject nobody raises. In one of the novels the Lion counts twenty-one chairs set for a council, notices that two of the banners are blank undyed cloth, and says out loud that two of his brothers will never sit in them.^‡

Imperial historians rate it the most successful erasure ever carried out. Then, ten thousand years later, a record of the II and the XI fighting in a campaign called the Rangdan Xenocides turned up by accident in copies of the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer. The greatest cover-up in the Imperium’s history, undone by a misprint in an army pamphlet.^‡

Games Workshop’s own bookkeeping is my favourite part. One Warhammer Community article talks about twelve of “the eighteen*” primarchs. There is an asterisk. There is no footnote. Nowhere on the page.^**

The 40k Lorecast opens its Great Crusade episode the same way, and I have not heard it put better: twenty legions, “by 20, we actually mean 18”, because two are redacted.^***

Twenty made. Eighteen named. Two holes in the numbering below, left where they belong. Half of them later turned traitor in the war now called the Horus Heresy, and every entry below is standing next to it.

The eighteen, in legion order

I — Lion El’Jonson, Dark Angels

LegionIDark AngelsLoyalist

He slept for ten thousand years and woke up in 2023 in a fairly bad mood. Games Workshop handed him the Emperor’s own shield and a power sword called Fealty, and his model comes with a spare sword and an optional helmet, so the First Legion keeps its options secret even from the person building it.^†† Caliban, loyalist, and one of only two loyal brothers currently upright.^†††

II — [redacted]

That is the entry. There is nothing else.

III — Fulgrim, Emperor’s Children

LegionIIIEmperor's ChildrenTraitorSlaanesh

Vain, boastful, and in charge of a legion that could not stop admiring itself. He killed his brother Ferrus Manus at Isstvan V, and Forge World then sculpted the two of them as one duel. Fulgrim shipped first, because Ferrus was not finished yet, so for a while you could buy the winner and not the loser. Chemos, traitor, and lately a daemon prince back in circulation.

IV — Perturabo, Iron Warriors

LegionIVIron WarriorsTraitorChaos Undivided

A brilliant, bitter man, adopted on Olympia by a ruler who saw a genius and decided to use him. His model wears Terminator armour, stands on a wrecked Cerastus Knight, and carries a hammer called Forgebreaker. Forgebreaker belonged to his brother Ferrus, who is dead. Nobody in this family sends flowers.

V — Jaghatai Khan, White Scars

LegionVWhite ScarsLoyalist

He kept the traditions of his home world Chogoris even where they irritated the Imperium, and half the galaxy assumed he would side with Horus. He did not, and he mattered at the defence of Terra. He also waited longest for a miniature. His arrived in January 2022 and closed a Forge World project that had run for ten years.^* Loyalist, lost somewhere in the Webway.

VI — Leman Russ, Space Wolves

LegionVISpace WolvesLoyalist

The Emperor’s executioner, sent to burn Prospero for Magnus’ sorcery, largely because Horus arranged it that way. Russ and Magnus were designed as one scene on a shared base, so those two kits genuinely are aimed at each other. He later chased traitors into the Eye of Terror, left Bjorn the Fell-Handed minding the legion, and promised to return for a final battle. Ten thousand years on, the Space Wolves are still waiting, and they still believe him.

VII — Rogal Dorn, Imperial Fists

LegionVIIImperial FistsLoyalist

Dorn turned Terra into the largest fortress ever built. His opposite number Perturabo was the galaxy’s foremost expert on breaking fortresses. The two of them were a matched set. His model stands with both hands on the pommel of his chainblade and declines to move an inch. Inwit, loyalist, missing and presumed dead, and one text has Curze describing him as torn to pieces.

VIII — Konrad Curze, Night Lords

LegionVIIINight LordsTraitorChaos Undivided

A horrible childhood and a lifetime of psychic visions produced a primarch whose lightning claws are named Mercy and Forgiveness. The designers say every surface of his model was shaped to hurt something. Nostramo, traitor, dead, killed by an Imperial assassin, and that is the only ordinary thing about him.

IX — Sanguinius, Blood Angels

LegionIXBlood AngelsLoyalist

Sanguinius could see the future and had no control over it, so he fought the whole war knowing it would kill him. He teleported onto Horus’ flagship beside the Emperor anyway. His model is winged and posed after old paintings of the archangel Michael fighting the Devil. Baal, loyalist, dead.

X — Ferrus Manus, Iron Hands

LegionXIron HandsLoyalist

He forged weapons for his brothers with metal hands coated in Necron necrodermis. Fulgrim killed him at Isstvan V, and the roster I read calls Fulgrim his beloved brother. There was barely any artwork of Ferrus when the model was made, so it leans on Iron Hands furniture: cogs, an armoured gauntlet, a backpack full of technology. Medusa, loyalist, dead.

XI — [redacted]

Also nothing. You get used to it.

XII — Angron, World Eaters

LegionXIIWorld EatersTraitorKhorne

An enslaved gladiator who led thousands of people to freedom, then let Lorgar talk him into becoming a Daemon Prince of Khorne. The warp has since rebuilt his body with the Butcher’s Nails fused into it. He was also the first primarch Games Workshop ever modelled, in 2012, and the designer calls him the hardest of the eighteen, because nothing existed yet to set his size against.^*§§

XIII — Roboute Guilliman, Ultramarines

LegionXIIIUltramarinesLoyalist

He was already running a multi-planet empire when the Emperor found him, and his brothers mocked him for being bookish and a glorified accountant. The accountant then took a mortal wound from Fulgrim, spent over ten thousand years in stasis, was revived by Belisarius Cawl together with Yvraine of the Ynnari, and now runs the Imperium as Lord Commander.^‡‡ My Ultramarines are his, so he is the primarch I own most of without ever having picked him.

XIV — Mortarion, Death Guard

LegionXIVDeath GuardTraitorNurgle

Barbarus was permanently wrapped in poison fog, and Mortarion grew up in the mountains, where it was worse. He carries a scythe called Silence. He now serves Nurgle, the plague god, so the fog has essentially followed him through his entire career. Traitor, daemon prince, still working.

XV — Magnus the Red, Thousand Sons

LegionXVThousand SonsTraitorTzeentch

The strongest psyker of the brothers, and the one who calls the warp the Great Ocean, a lovely name for the worst place in the setting. Told to stop using sorcery, he kept using sorcery, and everything that happened to Prospero followed from that. His home world goes by Sortiarius now, and he is a daemon prince of Tzeentch.

XVI — Horus Lupercal, Sons of Horus

LegionXVISons of HorusTraitorChaos Undivided

The Emperor’s most trusted son, made Warmaster at Ullanor on the day the Emperor announced he was going home. It did not hold. His model carries the mace Worldbreaker and stands on the head of a giant Imperial eagle, and Forge World built it so you can paint him as Luna Wolves or Sons of Horus, depending which stage of the betrayal you prefer. Cthonia, traitor, dead. The Emperor destroyed his soul.

XVII — Lorgar, Word Bearers

LegionXVIIWord BearersTraitorChaos Undivided

Lorgar worshipped the Emperor as a god. The Emperor, an atheist, sent the Ultramarines to raze Lorgar’s own planet to make the point. Lorgar went looking for gods who would appreciate him, found several in the warp, and started the war. His model is the quietest of the eighteen, just a heavy, brooding stance. Colchis, traitor, daemon prince of Chaos Undivided.

XVIII — Vulkan, Salamanders

LegionXVIIISalamandersLoyalist

The most humane of the brothers, by the reckoning of the roster I read. His legion was nearly wiped out at Isstvan V, and he still ended up fighting in the Webway to keep daemons off Terra and commanding the final defence of the Palace. He is the only confirmed Perpetual among the primarchs, so death does not necessarily take. Nocturne, loyalist, missing, possibly dead, and the Salamanders have not stopped waiting. Like Ferrus, he had almost no artwork behind him, so the model was built from Forge World’s own Salamanders art: Mk III armour, XVIII Legion iconography, and the skull of the firedrake Kasare on his shoulder.^*

XIX — Corvus Corax, Raven Guard

LegionXIXRaven GuardLoyalist

He could melt into shadows and walk through them, and at Isstvan V he came very close to killing Lorgar while most of his legion was slaughtered around him. His model carries the whole Panoply of the Raven Lord: two pistols, an energised whip, lightning claws, and a set of mechanical wings. The designer admits the hard part was finding a pose that could hold all of it. Deliverance, loyalist, lost in the Eye of Terror.

XX — Alpharius, Alpha Legion

LegionXXAlpha LegionTraitorChaos Undivided

There were two of them. Alpharius and Omegon were identical twins who both used the name Alpharius, and the Imperium never worked it out. They joined Horus after a xenos group called the Cabal convinced them a traitor victory was the lesser evil, and there is plenty of evidence they played both sides anyway. His model is stabbing a wounded Space Wolf in the back, helmet on, so you cannot tell which twin you are looking at. Rogal Dorn killed him before the Siege of Terra.

What I am not going to pretend to know

Four things I went looking for and did not find. Leaving them out would be tidier than it is honest.

How many daemon primarchs are loose right now. The best roster I found contradicts itself on one page, calling one brother “one of the three” and another “one of the four”. No number from me.

Whether Russ, the Khan, Corax, Vulkan and Dorn are alive. Every status above for those five is lost, missing or possibly dead, and it comes from one hobby-press roster rather than from Games Workshop.^†

The loyal-to-traitor split. Add up the allegiances above and you get nine each, but Games Workshop only ever says half of them turned, and I could not find a page of theirs that names the two nines.

The II and the XI. There is no answer. There was never going to be an answer. Having read around it, I think that is the best thing about them.

The one on my shelf

Out of eighteen brothers I managed to buy the one who is missing, presumed dead, and technically difficult to kill. I bought Vulkan for the green and the fire, long before I knew where his story stops.

He is not painted yet. I have been avoiding the fire.