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Firstly, go easy on me - first time poster!

Was each founding Legion made with a specific role in mind?

Some of them are more obvious than others, but what do you guys think of some of the missing chapters? I've taken a stab at a few of them but my knowledge is probably quite limited compared to some on this forum.

1. Dark Angels - Role Unknown?
2. N/A
3. Emperor's Children - Training/Martial Prowess?
4. Iron Warriors - Siege Specialist
5. White Scars - Scouting/Lightening Warfare
6. Space Wolves - The Loyal Hounds - sent to hunt down with overwhelming force and brutality
7. Imperial Fist - The Emperors Champions/Fortification Experts
8. Nightlords - Psychological Warfare/Night Warfare
9. Blood Angels - Assaults
10. Iron Hands - Machinery and Bionics
11. N/A
12. World Eaters - Brutality in force
13. Ultramarines - Emperor's dutiful host
14. Death Guard - ?
15. Thousand Sons - Keepers of Knowledge
16. Luna Wolves - Leadership and Strategy
17. Word Bearers - To spread the Emperor's Word - Evangelize his cause
18. Salamanders - Masters of the Forge
19. Raven Guard - Masters of Guerrilla Warfare/The Unseen
20. Alpha Legion - Subterfuge

As I said I have quite a few holes, and I'm not sure my assessments are are even correct, but it was something fun to think about. Any ideas to fill in the gaps would be awesome.

What do you folks think?

Yes. Obviously. Also, this should go in 40k Discussion.

40K Background actually.

Ah my mistake! Told you I was a noob here

Hopefully an admin can move it.

There were a few chapters that I felt like the evidence for their purpose was not as clear cut - but that's just likely due to my lack of lore knowledge.

Any thing stated on the world eaters would be flat wrong sadly, their role can never be ascertained as angron was corrupted as soon as the nails were hammered in, there are possible hints but nothing solid.

Death guards could be made to deal with plague worlds and the rot of nurgle.

 Formosa wrote:
Any thing stated on the world eaters would be flat wrong sadly, their role can never be ascertained as angron was corrupted as soon as the nails were hammered in, there are possible hints but nothing solid.

What hints would you point to that would give a clue as to their purpose pre-corruption?

Also does the Chaos god that favors each corrupted legion say something about their initial role? I would argue yes, or Khorne would not be interested in them?

AFAIK Dark Angels were created to be sort of a jack-of-all-trades legion. Not in the sense of every legionnaire being in essence a tactical marine fit for just about any and all duties but with the legion having six different wings to deal with specific tasks. Nowadays only Deathwing and Ravenwing remain, while Ironwing was a thing in Epic and maybe you could argue that the chapter/legion armory still is a remnant of it.

Emperor trying out different kinds of formations and task forces kind of makes sense especially in this case, DA being the first legion and the prototype and setting the benchmark for legions to come.

This just makes me think that when DA get some FW love will we see some Stormwing and Dreadwing units?

 Lammikkovalas wrote:
AFAIK Dark Angels were created to be sort of a jack-of-all-trades legion. Not in the sense of every legionnaire being in essence a tactical marine fit for just about any and all duties but with the legion having six different wings to deal with specific tasks. Nowadays only Deathwing and Ravenwing remain, while Ironwing was a thing in Epic and maybe you could argue that the chapter/legion armory still is a remnant of it.

Emperor trying out different kinds of formations and task forces kind of makes sense especially in this case, DA being the first legion and the prototype and setting the benchmark for legions to come.

This just makes me think that when DA get some FW love will we see some Stormwing and Dreadwing units?

That's a pretty good point, as you said - them being the first legion it would make sense to have them be generalist. Good call!

What was the purpose of the Ironwing and Stormwing? (I'm not super upto date on the Dark Angels lore)

Also were the Guardians of the Covenant a second founding of Dark Angels? They seem like the super monastic/secretive group (even more secretive than DA?) wing of Dark Angels.

 Ealdwulf wrote:


That's a pretty good point, as you said - them being the first legion it would make sense to have them be generalist. Good call!

What was the purpose of the Ironwing and Stormwing? (I'm not super upto date on the Dark Angels lore)

Also were the Guardians of the Covenant a second founding of Dark Angels? They seem like the super monastic/secretive group (even more secretive than DA?) wing of Dark Angels.

From the all-knowing encyclopedia that is 1d4chan:

Not simply a Legion numbered "one", they were quite literally the First legion created and sent outwards onto the Great Crusade. HH: Extermination tells us that after this the Emperor decided to make the following legions more specialised and engineered their development towards different roles, so basically the Emperor simply intended the First Legion to sally forth and "just be Space Marines". So they became the benchmark by which other legions would be measured against, however they eventually got supplanted by the empire-building Ultramarines when times changed.

That meant the Dark Angels had to figure out warfare all on their own, and by the time of the Heresy, Lion El'Jonson had split the Legion into six "Wings"; each dedicated to a different form of warfare, of which two survived into the later 40k:

Ravenwing - Cavalry & Fast Attack
Deathwing - Veterans in Artificer Armour (later Terminator Armour)
Stormwing - Boarding Assault Marines.
Dreadwing - unknown function, though its commander wields a big axe.
Ironwing - Battle tanks and other lethal vehicles.
The remaining "wing" has not yet been confirmed

In this fashion, acting all on their own without support from the other legions that followed they killed lots of Orks and other xenos scum for great justice and were the most successful Legion during the early years of the Crusade.

The DA codex says that it is unknown which founding Guardians of the Covenant were a part of.

You have to take into account that the legions were changed after they were reunited with their primarchs. The natures of some of the legions were quite different in their original forms.

Death Guard were the Dusk Raiders and specialised in surprise assaults. They would rapidly move in and overwhelm the enemy before they had time to respond. Morarion declared "you are now my Death Guard" when he took control of the legion and completely changed their combat doctrine into lots of infantry with chemical and radiation weapons.

Word Bearers were the Imperial Heralds. They were originally almost a penal legion where the children of defeated warlords were taken as a tithe for the emperor and made into Space Marines. They were tasked with bringing the ultimatum of surrender or die to other human empires, and carrying out said ultimatum if the enemy resists. Lorgar grew up on a religious world and so he influenced his legion into becoming religious.

I don't know about the other legions but it is important to note how much the primarch's personal preferences altered the way their legions functioned. Even if the Emperor had original plans for their design, the legions that existed at the time of the heresy may have differed wildly from said plans.

Wasn't each legion created identical?

Their Primarchs and Homeworld have moulded them into what they are now.

For example, it would have been Rogal Dorns stubbornness/resilience which influenced the Imperial Fists get so good at defence tactics and being brought up on Cthonia would have made Luna Wolves so relentless and such good brawlers.

Taffy17 wrote:
Wasn't each legion created identical?

Their Primarchs and Homeworld have moulded them into what they are now.

For example, it would have been Rogal Dorns stubbornness/resilience which influenced the Imperial Fists get so good at defence tactics and being brought up on Cthonia would have made Luna Wolves so relentless and such good brawlers.

Not quite. In the Horus heresy book's forgeworld have been filling out the backgrounds of the legions, and there are some differences in how they were founded, their initial deployments, chosen tactics etc.

However the 'role' the OP is talking about is almost certainly shaped from their primarch, and amplified once the Primarch is found.

This topic has already been pretty fleshed out in this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/628933.page

I suppose it was a bit ago

The Legions weren't exactly created with roles in mind, as the Emperor planned to have them all raised on Terra. The nurturing of the Primarchs had raised them the way they were, although the Astartes did inherit traits from their Primarch, who may have been a designed task, like Magnus and his psychic power.

For example, Russ' wolfish upbringing, followed by being head of the Fenrisians through brawn and dominance led to the pack mentality of the Fenrisian Space Wolves, as well as adopting the nature by the Terrans.

Dark Angels were the few with a designated role as the "prototype" Legion, being the testing phase. The Emperor's Children and later all got their roles from their Primarch. The EC strove for excellence because of Fulgrim, and became what they became because of him. The Iron Warriors became siegemasters due to Perturabo's love of engineering and also because of being left to do the work. The Scars became expert bikers because of their Primarch and the Chogorian Astartes' tradition of horses. The Wolves because of Russ. The Imperial Fists were so unstanding a zealous because of Dorn's stubbornness and strive for honesty in all things. The Night Lords took after Curze's viligantism, as well as the criminal scum of the world (imagine if all of Arkham was turned into US Marines, but given free reign to do as they please in war). The Blood Angels favoured ariel assault due to Sanguinius mutating wings due to Baal radiation. Ferrus Manus loved forging and technological development, and the current Iron Hands are the way they are due to the death of Manus. Angron turned the War Hounds into the World Eaters. Guilliman revolutionised the XIII. Mortarion's resilience and never-say-die attitude made the Death Guard. Horus and Cthonia made the Luna Wolves as good as they were, as was the relation between Big E and Big H. Magnus and the Properonian culture shaped the Thousand Sons into scholars and psychics. Vulkan and the Radiation of Nocturne changed the Salamander's appearance, while his blacksmith upbringing shaped their love of fire and hammers and his kindly attitude they mirror. Corax's actions from the shadows and the people who followed him changed the Raven Guard into shadowfighters and assassins. And we don't know about ALpharius, perhaps they had a natural talent.

How much of the Primarchs traits were already apart of how the Legion would grow though? They were created from their genetic material after all. I think that the Emperor is likely to have had some form of design for each of his Sons with specific roles in mind, what all of their roles were I am not sure. So how much of it was already ingrained into the Legion via the Geneseed and how much of it was Primarch influence through their actions.

The Warhounds were notoriously blood thirsty and savage but they had their limits. When the Primarch was returned this nature was bought more to the fore and embraced because it was the way of the Primarch, the Terrans wanting to become part of it and the new recruits already adopting it. I think a good example of a POV here is provided by Lhorke from Betrayer.

So yes, I would say, the Primarchs upbringing led to changes in their respective Legions but rather than change their outlook entirely, amplified what was already there. But then were the Iron Hands ones for Cybernetics before the return of Manus etc?

I believe in Delierance Lost there is reference made to the Gene Seed of a couple of Legions and how they had variations. Also in Angel Exterminatus Fabius reflects on the Imperial Fists in his 'care' and what make them hardy. Not entirely sure which books but there are also Primarchs reflecting on roles that the Emperor had wanted them to play, I think Unremembered Empire has some references to this, will have to go and have a look.

Ealdwulf wrote:Firstly, go easy on me - first time poster!

Was each founding Legion made with a specific role in mind?

Welcome to the Dakka. This is a great 1st question and 1st post.

The answer, based on things I've read, is Yes...and No.

Taffy17 wrote:Wasn't each legion created identical?

Their Primarchs and Homeworld have moulded them into what they are now.

Good points, but No...and Yes. It's complicated, but it's like this: Nature Versus Nurture.


--- Nature ---


The Primarchs, and the Geneseed derived from them, were strongly suggested to be different. It was heavily suggested in the Horus Heresy novels.

What happened was, there was 1 prototype Geneseed, like the purist of the lot, that formed the baseline. Then there were 20 batches that for some reason each deviated from that baseline in some way. It was suggested by a Genetor Tech Priest that those deviations were due to the Emperor wanting to rush his Great Crusade plan along, so they had to streamline the process to make more geneseed faster. Of course, genetics is a tricky area and those mutations caused problems further on (such as how most Chapters don't have all 19 implants for the Creation of a Space Marine, or they have strange mutations like giving Space Wolves long fangs, etc.)

Thus, even before the Primarchs were scattered to different worlds, there was already something different about each of them.

However, there is another suggestion that does not necessarily contradict the above. The Emperor wanted to get his Great Crusade going, but at the same time, he wanted to experiment with each in some way. He deliberately altered each of the Legion's Geneseed in a different way, just to see how they would turn out, but he probably did not know how those changes would turn out. They may have been further tainted by Chaos, but even before that, there seemed to have been some intentional tampering. The 2 mission Legions may have been failed experiments, but it's deliberately unclear.


--- Nurture ---


Then, after the different types of Geneseed developed different Primarchs, they were scattered to different places, with them manifesting their talents in different ways.

Each Legion was supposed to be self-sufficient, as they fought on their own most of the time. The Dark Angels are a great example of this, becoming masters of various types of warfare as they were the 1st Legion, the only Space Marines around, so they had to do everything. However, once there were more Legions around, the Legions with their Primarch started preferring certain forms of combat. And it was usually around the time they found the Primarch a Legion really started finding its niche, which was whichever way its Primarch likes to fight, as suggested.

The best example of this sort of thing is when the Space Marines from a Legion before they found their Primarch conflict with their brethren in the Space Legion post-Primarch.

The anecdote I remember had to do with White Scars. The old grognards who were recruited before they found Khan were preparing to attack, taking care of logistics, planning and stuff, when they found the newer recruits were already riding into battle. They were like, "Why are you already attacking," to which the other replied, "Why aren't you already attacking?" That definitely shows a difference in cultures.


---


Thus, were the Legions created with a role in mind? It looks like the Emperor tampered with the Geneseed in a way so that each would have certain traits, leading to different roles, but even he couldn't foresee exactly how. So they were probably created to take on different roles in mind, but what those roles would be were not planned. Maybe there were certain leanings, but it's ambiguous, and I think it's deliberately so.

Some, but not all. Alot of the Legions were made unique by their Primarch, but they were primarily just meant to combat humanity's foes.

Only one (that I can think of) with a specific role is the Alpha Legion. They were meant by the Emperor to be his Black Ops unit, carrying out false flag attacks and such. Practically SAD in space.

I guess they weren't completely identical when they were made.

Obviously they gained the traits of their primarchs such as Blood Angels having fangs and handsome appearances, space wolves also having fangs and aggressive hair growth (don't quote me on that) and Luna Wolves looking uncannily like Horus.

Also some of them were given roles by the emperor, such as the Emperors Children who were regularly used as representatives and standard bearers before their primarch was found.

But short of physical traits i believe they were all initially identical terran born and trained marines.

Basically the legions were nearly identical at inception. There were a few differences, but nothing that would classify them into a "role". The legions were so massive that the idea of them fitting into a specialized battle field role is not possible. Different elements excelled at different things. The "role" that many people perceive legions fitting into are a result of their primarchs guidance after they were found. These changes were based on the primarchs' personalities and proclivities, which were a direct result of their respective rearing. So no they were not intended to fit specific roles beyond conquer the galaxy in the emperor's name.

Personally i believe either the emperor never intended to end the great crusade, thus keeping all legions doing what they do indefinitely, or upon the completion of the crusade they would have been dealt with in the similar manner that thunder warriors were at the end of the unification wars.

He never really saw the Astartes as people or subject as much as tools to serve the greater human race. The allegorical relationship between angels and humans in Lucifer's fall i think shows a very good analogy for their role in the emperor's plan. greater than mortals but forever relegated to serving humanities betterment.

I had read, that the Salamanders, Space Wolves and Alpha Legion had some specific role in mind when created. Once reunited with their primarch and the HH, that will not be found out now.

I think that its fairly obvious the Big E had a purpose in mind for his sons. It was mentioned earlier that whatever Angron's purpose had been was erased by the Nails, but I'm not so sure. I think the primarchs all still came out pretty close to the Emperor's vision for them (if they had been too off base, he would just have had them destroyed--maybe the fate of the two missing ones??) even if that vision had been altered by their upbringing.

The Chaos gods could have thrown the kids anywhere. They could have put them on worlds where the kids would have mutated into slavering monsters. But instead, they put them on worlds where the kids would turn out close to what they were supposed to be, because that would cause far greater damage. By perverting, rather than erasing, the Emperor's plan, they managed to sow the seeds of discord across the entire galaxy, and bring the Imperium to a crashing halt. If the Emperor had just found Chaos-worshipping maniacs, then each of them would just have been a single warlord in a small stellar fiefdom, rather than a commander of a legion of the finest gene-bred warriors the galaxy has ever known, in possession of war material capable of leveling planets and extinguishing stars.

Even the ones who DIDN'T turn still served the cause of Chaos. If Sanguinius and Russ hadn't been accepted by the Imperium, hell, even venerated by it, do you think mutants, particularly the sanctioned varieties, would enjoy nearly as much acceptance as they do?

Boy, I just thought of a cool alternate setting. What if there was an alternate universe where half the primarchs (the loyalist ones, say) were NOT stolen, but instead grew up according to the Emperor's wishes? And the other half grew up in demonic worlds, where they were raised to be a counter-army in the direct service of Chaos. All the primarchs would still be alive, which could be cool...

 Jimsolo wrote:
Boy, I just thought of a cool alternate setting. What if there was an alternate universe where half the primarchs (the loyalist ones, say) were NOT stolen, but instead grew up according to the Emperor's wishes? And the other half grew up in demonic worlds, where they were raised to be a counter-army in the direct service of Chaos. All the primarchs would still be alive, which could be cool...

I mean, they'd be alive up until the Loyalists died. Hell, in the normal fluff seven of the nine traitor Primarchs are still alive and kicking, which you can't say of the loyalists. Angron even shows up to the Black Crusades from time to time, just to get out of the house. The other Chaos Primarchs don't bother because they're immortal; they just don't care about mortal plane anymore.

But on topic, I agree with Tiberius: the Legions are way too large to be specialized. If anything, the Emperor planned for their specialization to be the rapid conquest of entire planets. Consider the logistics necessary to conquer Earth in a week, subjugate it in a month, then leave a year later with an loyal regency in place. The US Military, for all its might, can't even conquer Afghanistan. Sure, theoretically the US Military could flatten the country and totally depopulate it, but that's not useful to the US just as that's not useful to the Emperor.

Once the Legions were reunited, the Primarchs emphasized elements they were most familiar with, but it's not like Sanguinius or Angron got rid of their artillery detachments. Lorgar got in a bunch of trouble, not (just) because he was building temples to the Emperor, rather because building temples takes a long time; Lorgar's progress was just too slow and his punishment was to conquer planets faster.

I think the better idea is the Primarchs were created with different period. Given Forge World's Warhammer 30k rulebooks, the Legions had virtually the same equipment available. As seen in the Horus Heresy books, the Legions often worked together when conquering planets. No Primarch has a truly unique doctrine, but they'll each have a different perspective to a problem.

Yeah they were all designed to conquer worlds, so they all had equipment to do so. There are nuances between them that can be explored though, for example, death guard, when they were the dusk raiders, excelled at lightening speed hit and run attacks. They weren't designed with that strategy in mind though.

The Imperial Fists ended up as the Emperor's praetorians. They were his bodyguard. I would like to see WH40k if else. Only other legion I would consider making is the Space Wolves.

Any thing stated on the world eaters would be flat wrong sadly, their role can never be ascertained as angron was corrupted as soon as the nails were hammered in, there are possible hints but nothing solid.

The XIIth Legion was increasingly deemed by the Imperial War Council as being more suitable for use against targets where annihilation was the goal rather than Imperial Compliance or liberation

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/World_Eaters

The War Hounds had a clearly define role, the same as the World Eaters. They existed to as the most extreme form of Imperial justice and war, not the Wolves keeping the other Legions in line, or the Night Lords being let loose against newly conquered empires that broke Imperial law. They existed when the Imperium needed everything living thing dead, the dad, the mom, the kids, even the f@cking goldfish. I mean really it Angron only made it so that they became unmanageable but they were butchers from the start, I think I remember a short story about Kharn where they send initiates to murder random IMPERIAL NO LESS civilians as part of skull taking competitions.

The Emperor's Children and later all got their roles from their Primarch.

The Emperors Children at the start would be considered something like Embassy personnel.

In situations of hazard and utmost danger, the Emperor often used members of the newly redubbed Emperor's Children Legion as aquilifers and equerries due to their singular character and mien, a responsibility the Legion was proud to carry. Bearing the palatine eagle standard of the Emperor, members of the IIIrd Legion accompanied Imperial diplomatic missions and emissaries as bodyguards

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Children

 Beaviz81 wrote:
The Imperial Fists ended up as the Emperor's praetorians. They were his bodyguard. I would like to see WH40k if else. Only other legion I would consider making is the Space Wolves.

The Custodians were his bodyguards. Fists were more like his landscape gardeners.

 JamesY wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
The Imperial Fists ended up as the Emperor's praetorians. They were his bodyguard. I would like to see WH40k if else. Only other legion I would consider making is the Space Wolves.

The Custodians were his bodyguards. Fists were more like his landscape gardeners.

Keep telling yourself that lie if you want to sleep.

 Beaviz81 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
The Imperial Fists ended up as the Emperor's praetorians. They were his bodyguard. I would like to see WH40k if else. Only other legion I would consider making is the Space Wolves.

The Custodians were his bodyguards. Fists were more like his landscape gardeners.

Keep telling yourself that lie if you want to sleep.

Ha ha ha. I know its confusing, what with them both being dressed in yellow...

All joking aside I do have a lot of love for the fists, and respect for painters who can make them look great. I'll always prefer my fists crimson though.

 Ealdwulf wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Any thing stated on the world eaters would be flat wrong sadly, their role can never be ascertained as angron was corrupted as soon as the nails were hammered in, there are possible hints but nothing solid.

What hints would you point to that would give a clue as to their purpose pre-corruption?

Also does the Chaos god that favors each corrupted legion say something about their initial role? I would argue yes, or Khorne would not be interested in them?

Angron was dropped on nuceria by the gods, this was intentional as all the primarchs were sent out into the universe by the emperor intentionally (ref: scars) but the gods monkeyed with where they were supposed to land (khan was supposed to land where fulgrim landed, chemos, and fulgrim was supposed to go to chogoris), so we can take an educated guess that the "bad" primarchs all landed where they did "just as planned", so back to Mr angry Ron, his corruption I believe was very key to the whole downfall of the primarchs.

Read the FW hh fluff about them and you can see they hold brotherhood above all, bonds that bind them to each other and by extention the other legions, see how easily khan is able to hold the word bearers and world eaters together by forming a bond with argal tal, now see how angron behaves in his downtime, moving among the members of his legion strengthening the bond again, when you remove the butchers nails from the equation you get a small glimpse of what the world eaters could have been, quite possibly angron had the nails not been hammered in would have been the brother that united the others, the linchpin, because none of the others even remotely fill that role.