Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's stated in the fluff that "not all of the primarchs shared the Emperor's psychic power", but i don't actually remember any instance of them (other than Magnus) clearly stating of them using that power (maybe the Horus/Emperor battle, when Horus kills the Custodes with a glance).
So, which of them were actually psykers? I know we can exclude Leman Russ from the list, and probably also Alpharius, as in Legion there's a part where he uses another psyker to shield himself from Grammaticus' mind-readind skills.
This said, how about the rest? which had and which hadn't psyker powers?

There are a few instances of them having passive psykic powers. This is also the case with most normal pskers, transfering emotion, feeling the presence of others is much more common than firing lightning from your hands.

I was in a similar conversation with someone a few weeks ago, the only example I can remeber is when Russ gets angry and all the humans around feel his emotions hit them like a wave.

Corax has some psychic ability to make himself invisible to enemies ( in the HH audio book ) . And Sanguinius had wings, while I know that its not exactly a psychic ability It is a malformation caused by the warp that gave him the ability to fly. I'm sure that there are other instances of primarchs having psychic ability but at the moment I'm drawing a blank.

Bloodfrenzy187 wrote:Corax has some psychic ability to make himself invisible to enemies ( in the HH audio book ) . And Sanguinius had wings, while I know that its not exactly a psychic ability It is a malformation caused by the warp that gave him the ability to fly. I'm sure that there are other instances of primarchs having psychic ability but at the moment I'm drawing a blank.

Hm, of all the HH series, that was the only one which i didn't go through, as i can't stand audiobooks. I always get distracted. Thus, didn't know this Corax thing

Sanguinius had visions - could be a minor psychic power.
Curze had visions too, but only the worst.

Seems rather uncontrolled abilities. Magnus should be the n°1 psyker and the one who got personal training from big E too.

Bloodfrenzy187 wrote:Corax has some psychic ability to make himself invisible to enemies ( in the HH audio book ) . And Sanguinius had wings, while I know that its not exactly a psychic ability It is a malformation caused by the warp that gave him the ability to fly. I'm sure that there are other instances of primarchs having psychic ability but at the moment I'm drawing a blank.

Ya that was shocking: but cool.

Sanguinius could see the future

Bloodfrenzy187 wrote: but at the moment I'm drawing a blank.

Was this a joke?

I think sanguinius' foresight is definately a psychic power.

I was going to say leman Russ, but yeah, he's not manipulating the aether,so he's not a psyker at all.

Sanguinus could be considered a psyker, he's pretty smart and stuff

Fiend wrote:

Bloodfrenzy187 wrote: but at the moment I'm drawing a blank.

Was this a joke?

I think sanguinius' foresight is definately a psychic power.

No, I was truly having a brain fart lol.

All the primarchs were psykers I think. Even Russ. But not all of them used their powers.

Not mortarion. He specifically states that not a single psyker is in the entire death guard.

Later on,we know that Tzeentch and Nurgle are polar opposites,so this makes sense. I guess

Samus_aran115 wrote:Not mortarion. He specifically states that not a single psyker is in the entire death guard.

Later on,we know that Tzeentch and Nurgle are polar opposites,so this makes sense. I guess

Ah i would more say that Tzeentch and Khorne are polar opposites, considering Khorne's abhorrence for pskers of any kind?

Tzeentch basically hates everyone (except maybe slaaneshy),because they all strive for eventual death and pain. Tzeentch would prefer they become his pawns first

But yeah,I can see why they would hate each other. Everyone hates slaanesh,hahaha

The way Tzeentch sees it, Khorne changes living people into dead ones, Nurgle changes healthy people into sick ones, and Slaanesh changes pure people into hedonistic ones. And so they all serve Tzeentch in the end, as he claims to be the chaos god of change.

Tzeentch is Change.

Yes, that is his claim, at any rate

Winter wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Not mortarion. He specifically states that not a single psyker is in the entire death guard.

Later on,we know that Tzeentch and Nurgle are polar opposites,so this makes sense. I guess

Ah i would more say that Tzeentch and Khorne are polar opposites, considering Khorne's abhorrence for pskers of any kind?

Tzeentch is the Chaos God of Hope, Change, Creation, Ambition, Challenging Fate, Evolution, Magic.

Nurgle is the Chaos God of Despair, Death, Disease, Destruction, Apathy, Acceptance of Fate, Stagnation, Fear.

Khorne is the Chaos God of Anger, Blood, Hatred, Killing, Pride.

You tell me which one is the opposite

Tzeentch is Sorcery, the creation of power based on communion with daemons on a contractual basis. Khorne is absolute and mindless nihilistic destruction.

Nurgle is not Destruction, since it is He that preserves.

Nurglitch wrote:Tzeentch is Sorcery, the creation of power based on communion with daemons on a contractual basis. Khorne is absolute and mindless nihilistic destruction.

Nurgle is not Destruction, since it is He that preserves.

You mean he preserves it in ruin after he destroys it?

Thus being the god of Stagnation.

Dragging back to original topic...

Some sources explicitly state Sanguinius as a psyker but his visions are the only powers that have been stated so far. I'm guessing that will change when we finally get to that bit of the HH series. Reading between the lines it seems he has a passive psykic link to members of his legion; when he was injured by the greater daemon the whole legion went into the Black Rage, but more tellingly he was able to snap them all back out of it. Pity that no longer works.

Corax had jedi mind power type gifts, he could make himself unnoticed when he wanted to.

Curze had uncontrolled trances or fits where he would see future events, although without context.

Not sure about the others.

The only Primarch we know for sure was a Psyker was Magnus the Red. For the rest, we have to do a little catagorization.

Firstly let's go through the one's who more or less definatly aren't:
Mortarion-as stated above, he specifically mention the Death Guard lacking Psykers.
Angron-I can't imagine Angron having psychic powers, it infringes on his close combat nature far too much.
Ferrus Manus-Again, Ferrus seems so Tech headed that I can't see him having any.
Horus-In False Gods, during the Chaos-induced Dream sequence, Horus was "stunned at Magnus' disregard for the Emperor's will" when he is trying to fry Erebus. This indicates that Horus didn't know the temptation using psychic powers presents, and thus did not possess any of his own.

Next, the one's who we're pretty sure have no powers:
Alpharius Omegon-Alpharius was never as powerful as the other Primarchs, that's what made him dangerous. I certainly can't see him having any powers.
Roboute Gulliman-Psychic powers seem to random for Gulliman-and anyway, what would his be, the ability to pee off nearly all of his brothers?
Rogal Dorn-Same reasons as Gulliman.
Leman Russ-Of all the Primarchs in this section of the list he is the least likely to have any powers. However, if I recall correctly the Space Wolves legion was allowed to keep it's rune preists after Nikea as they understood the nature of Chaos in a way that only the (ironically) Thousand sons could match. So, it is possible that Russ had some small talent.
Lion El'Johnson-If the Lion did have any powers, it certainly wasn't farsight! Whilst Librarians were important in the First Legion, it's a pretty safe bet that the Primarch did not share their powers (ALTHOUGH!....whose to say that psychic ability was what allowed the Lion to survive the early months on Caliban?).
Fulgrim-The Emperors children Primarch was dedicated to perfection, and most likely saw psychic powers as a blight. The , may have some powers,, but as that technically isn't Fulgrim, we won't count him.
Jaghati Khan-The White Scars Primarch had many talents. Being a psyker amongst a superstitous tribal people probably wasn't one of them.

Penultimately, there are those who may have had some powers, but have not been confirmed, or those of whom we are unsure:
Lorgar-I personally belive that Lorgar did posess some small latent psychic talent that increased his persuasiveness, but so far there's little evidence to suport this. Light may be shed on this issue in the forthcoming The First Heretic.
Perturabo-No idea. It's possible, but given his practical nature it's unlikely.
Vulkan-As above. Though, if he did have psychic talent, it would probably be fire based, we really don't know enough about him to be sure.

Finally, their are the Primarchs who definaetly had a special skill that is highly likely, but never confirmed, to be psychic:
Corax: "These are not the Marines you're looking for..."
Sanguinius: Sanguinius certainly had a gift for forsight, and has been evangilised (see what I did there?) so much in recent fluff that he probably is some form of super psyker by now.
Konrad Curze/Night Haunter: Curze had a similar power to Sanguinius, though his visions were a lot darker. However, it is important to note that he suffered from a form of Schizophrenia, which could have been the root of the problem.

in Thousand Sons, there are a couple of scenes where Leman Russ seems to have pretty potent psychic potential.
Thousand Sons, for a large distance around, are suddenly forced to their knees by some kind of psychic shockwave that completely disorientates them.
One of the Thousand Sons looks to his battle-brother and says something along the lines of "what was that?" The battle-brother looks in a particular direction and answers this question by saying "The Wolfking".

all of the primachs were psykers other less potent than others

Nitros14 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Tzeentch is Sorcery, the creation of power based on communion with daemons on a contractual basis. Khorne is absolute and mindless nihilistic destruction.

Nurgle is not Destruction, since it is He that preserves.

You mean he preserves it in ruin after he destroys it?

Thus being the god of Stagnation.

Destruction implies some energy or violence, whereas stagnation is, by definition, a result of stasis.

Nurglitch wrote:

Nitros14 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Tzeentch is Sorcery, the creation of power based on communion with daemons on a contractual basis. Khorne is absolute and mindless nihilistic destruction.

Nurgle is not Destruction, since it is He that preserves.

You mean he preserves it in ruin after he destroys it?

Thus being the god of Stagnation.

Destruction implies some energy or violence, whereas stagnation is, by definition, a result of stasis.

Not neccesarily. Nurgle's form of destruction is a slow rot from within.

Yes, necessarily. Go read a Codex.

Nurglitch wrote:Yes, necessarily. Go read a Codex.

I've read a lot of Chaos Codexes friend, I think we're getting different interpretations out of it

I mean here's my point. Nurgle sends out fleets to spread disease in realspace. That's actively rotting worlds from within. Destroying them and keeping them in ruin.

I read the first couple of posts and then stopped. Since I am reading the HH in order, and am currently on Legion, I didn't want to read any more spoilers. And since two out of the first three posts contain them, I decided to just throw my opinion in without bothering to see if it is already mentioned.

All of the Primarchs posess a charisma which is nothing short of supernatural. While I don't know which of them were active psykers, surely their level of nearly magical presence would qualify as a psychic ability, albeit a passive one. Many of them may not have even been aware of it.

Just a possibility.

All of the Primarchs posess a charisma which is nothing short of supernatural. While I don't know which of them were active psykers, surely their level of nearly magical presence would qualify as a psychic ability, albeit a passive one. Many of them may not have even been aware of it.

This is it. Their physical and mental ability isn't always going to attract followers however they had a natural ability to transfer their feeling onto others use this to manipulate or impress them. There are instances when SM just knew it was primarch, even though they had no idea who it was they had met.

If Mortarion had no psykers in his legion where did Typhus come from since he offered to guide their flagship through the warp after they executed the navigators for staying loyal but failed and they got stuck in the warp etc etc