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 Pilau Rice wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

This means they skipped a huge chunk of important development that a normal human child would have, which essentially makes them children or teenagers in terms of their social or emotional development.

QFT.

Remember, the stories that involve the Primarchs are primarily intended to appeal to the the Ages 12-16 range of sci-fi fans. "Common Wisdom" states that this age group doesn't handle the stories of deeper human consciousness well (despite having to read exactly those sorts of books in high school).

For the likes of Angron, the Lion, Curze, I would agree with you, as they pretty much bought up themselves with very little human interaction in their early years.

But Guilliman, Dorn, Corax as well I guess, not so much. But then we see this in the way that the Primarchs who had a poorer upbringing sided with Horus, excluding perhaps Fulgrim and possibly Perturabo, who was bought up by the Tyrant of Lochos.

Surely they should have matured past teenagers though, I mean, they were at least 2 hundred years old by the start of the Heresy. Shouldn't they have grown up a bit by then

Logically, yes, but the books are written to the fanbase.

We need a horus heresy sub forum I think

One legion and primarch I'd like to hear more about is the death guard, while no where near my favourite force I feel they have been woefully under done

Powerguy wrote:
Gulliman has probably the least traumatic upbringing which is why he is one of the most mature and stable primarchs (which is reflected in his Legion structure and his empire building). He had family which adopted him and was groomed as a commander and heir for a decent length of time rather than being forced into the role.

Dorn is a terrible example, despite his facade of calmness he is a textbook psychopath and one of the most mentally unstable Primarchs around.

Corax had an incredibly rough upbringing like most of the Primarches. He lived as a ghost for his entire childhood while uniting an enslaved population and leading an uprising. Those circumstances don't exactly lend themselves to social and emotional development.

While they were certainly physically older by the time the heresy started they were never in a 'normal' situation and were repeating the same behaviour the entire time (i.e. doing the same stupid stuff and never improving) so their social development was minimal. They never had any extended period of time where they interacted with each other as peers - they were always leading and commanding. Expecting them to behave like a normal human is stupid since neither of those statements are correct.

My point was from more of a human interaction point of view. Corax worked with the slaves of Deliverance and built up bonds with them, Guilliman and Dorn rose to prominence by more than feats of battle, actively establishing relationships with regular humans. How Dorn's psyche changed during the Heresy has no relation to how he was beforehand.

Whereas Angron was a slave and treated as one, Kurze was Batman and the Lion was raised in a forest.

Angron and Corax have certain similarities, the difference being that Corax was never in chains.

And why would they act like normal humans, they were created to be generals. Their unintentional upbringings on their respective homeworlds are what led to their flaws. If the Emperor had bought them up on Terra, as was his intention then I am sure the flaws would not have been as apparent, if there at all.

 Formosa wrote:
We need a horus heresy sub forum I think

One legion and primarch I'd like to hear more about is the death guard, while no where near my favourite force I feel they have been woefully under done

Fulgrim is so goddamn weird in the novels.

in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

 Paradigm wrote:

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

thank you

 Paradigm wrote:

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

Wow you guys give these stupid Loyalist Primarchs too much credit, Guiliman has Logistical genius, He's actually based on an general called "Master of Logistics" his battle planning isn't his forte best.
Sanguinius hasn't exhibited above average battle planning.

While Perturabo is stated to be a goddamn startegic genius, Stop neglecting him damn it, He actually planned other Primarch's battles and helped them breach defenses they could not.

How many primarchs had blonde hair, cause it seems a good amount


Roboute, Sanginius, The Lion and a few more?

Khonsu wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

Wow you guys give these stupid Loyalist Primarchs too much credit, Guiliman has Logistical genius, He's actually based on an general called "Master of Logistics" his battle planning isn't his forte best.
Sanguinius hasn't exhibited above average battle planning.

While Perturabo is stated to be a goddamn startegic genius, Stop neglecting him damn it, He actually planned other Primarch's battles and helped them breach defenses they could not.

Welcome to Perturabo's world: always forgotten, never given credit. Is it any wonder he betrayed the Emperor, and forgave Horus for his Betrayel?

Animus wrote:
How did it all go so wrong?
Was it malice or mere incompetence?

what we have to consider is the strongly hinted idea that, when the primarch's womb-capsule thingies were stolen by chaos, that chaos was able to plant its seeds within the primarchs at the time - some of them were touched in some way which would give chaos a major in - at least three are mutants ffs. then the way that they grew up allowed chaos into others - off the top of my head mortarian grew up on a world lousy with psykers and mutation, and caliban where the lion grew up was a chaos-touched death world. a couple more effectively grew up so damaged by their childhoods that they were mentally unhinged.

even so, horus was untouchable until chaos got itself physically into his body, where it spread like an infection and corrupted him.

the mutant sanguinius stayed loyal. the mutant magnus stayed loyal until he believed himself betrayed and had to save his legion. chaos-touched lion stayed loyal despite half his legion turning to chaos.

so it was malice really - chaos malice.

wait a second.....did the Lion and Sanguinius have the exact same freaking hair style


long blonde hair

 thenoobbomb wrote:

Khonsu wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

Wow you guys give these stupid Loyalist Primarchs too much credit, Guiliman has Logistical genius, He's actually based on an general called "Master of Logistics" his battle planning isn't his forte best.
Sanguinius hasn't exhibited above average battle planning.

While Perturabo is stated to be a goddamn startegic genius, Stop neglecting him damn it, He actually planned other Primarch's battles and helped them breach defenses they could not.

Welcome to Perturabo's world: always forgotten, never given credit. Is it any wonder he betrayed the Emperor, and forgave Horus for his Betrayel?

Thought it was his thing In universe, Guess he was right.

 Formosa wrote:
We need a horus heresy sub forum I think

One legion and primarch I'd like to hear more about is the death guard, while no where near my favourite force I feel they have been woefully under done

This.

Do we know what happened to the loyalists in the Traitor Legions who weren't at Isstvan III? And how many were there? Did the Borg, I mean Ultramarines, absorb them too? I guess what I'm trying to get at is if there's anything about, say a company of Iron Warriors, like on Paramar, escaping to later rejoin the Imperium and whether they have any Successor Chapters?

And yeah, I know about the Magpies.

 Paradigm wrote:

LightKing wrote:
in terms of pure, raw military skills (strategy, tactics etc) who had the greatest military mind among the primarchs?

In order, the top 3:

3: Sanguinis- Even Horus thought he should have been made Warmaster, he led the defence of the Imperial Palace (alongside Dorn) and was almost peerless as a warrior as well.

2: Gulliman- This guy literally wrote the book on generalship, but unlike his successors 10000 years down the line, he was not constrained by treating it as digma and was flexible when adapting to new threats. He had a small part in winning the Heresy war, but was immensely important to the Scouring,

1: Horus- In terms of planning, there's none better. Horus manages to plan a galaxy-wide war without letting any information get out, and knew exactly how to deal with each legion. He chose to break the ones he could not turn at Istvaan, and distract the ones he could not beat at Calth, Prospero and Signus. When the war does begin, so many things are already in his favour thanks to his skill at strategy. 1

Sanguinius was widely considered to be one of the most dangerous warriors of the Primarchs, but is not noted as a incredible general or strategist. The reason he did so well leading the defense of the Imperial Palace was was his personal charisma and empathy - he was inspiring and leading from the front, but not being a strategic genius (Dorn was covering the overall defence from that level).

Horus has more reason to be on the list than Sanguinius, and certainly did very well as Warmaster, but the main reason he did so well was more to do with his man management and his ability to get on with all the Primarchs (i.e. none of them hated him, which tends to be important when trying to lead people).

Gulliman was a master of logistics, which is one of the most important elements of strategy, but his outside the box thinking and level of redundancy/contingency planning at a strategic level wasn't on the same level of someone like Perturabo or the Lion. His tactical level thinking was very good though, so imo definitely belongs in the top 3.

The way the original question was phrased makes this tricky to answer - there is a difference between strategy and tactics which makes it very open ended. Just gonna run through all the primarchs quickly:
The Lion - an incredible strategic and tactical mind - arguable the best of the loyalist Primarchs, the only problem was that his people skills were terrible
Fulgrim - one of the best swordsmen of the Primarchs, but not overly noted as a strategist.
Perturabo - very similar to the Lion actually, an incredible strategic and tactical mind but also very cold and calculating
The Khan - always very careful about showing his abilities, but probably deserves to be in the conversation if you are purely looking at the strategic level
Russ - a competent strategist and a great tactician who had incredible outside the box thinking and if asked would pull out all the stops moreso than any other Primarchs. He constantly played up his savage barbarian king role which means he was often underestimated by his brothers
Dorn - while he might get compared to Perturabo quite a bit imo he wasn't at the same level, Dorn was an idealist and even before the heresy was incredibly unstable if you could crack his aura of calm.
Curze - not noted as a strategist, was a master of psychological warfare but that's about it
Ferrus - was an artificer and a physically powerful warrior but again not noted as a strategist
Angron - not much to say here, while his mind was powerful and capable of strategic thought that was only while the Nails weren't messing with his head
Mortarion - not a great strategist, he believed in toughness and bloody mindedness and would often try and win through attrition
Magnus - if you ignore his ability to forsee see the future then he wasn't a noted general, he was incredibly powerful in combat due to his abilities but is known as a scholar more than his leadership
Lorgar - a decent leader, but only when it lined up with his goals on a galactic scale (the rest of the time he was terrible), he would plan in incredible detail but wasn't great at adapting
Vulkan - notable for his incredible physical strength and care for the common man, but not know as a strategic mastermind
Corax - a master of hit and run surgical strikes, but never really shown as a great strategist in the long game
Alpharius - a strategist and tactician to the point that he arguably overthought and over complicated things

Tldr version, purely from a tactical/strategic standpoint my top 5 would be:
The Lion
Perturabo
Gulliman
Alpharius
Horus

@Chaz. The vast majority of the Traitor Legions were gathered together at Isstvan, the Iron Warriors were much more split up than most Legions - some of their garrisons stayed loyal but others merged back with the main traitor group.

@LightKing. The Lion is sometimes depicted with long dark hair, but wearing a golden lion pelt across his shoulders (which could explain the confusion). Sanguinius has always had long golden hair.

I think Russ and The Khan have a shout for top 5. Russ instructed the Wolves to be incredibly flexible when fighting, e.g. use the weapons of the enemy wherever possible [whether it be a gun or crashing a space station into a planet]. Wolves got the job done no matter what, and didn't have a set style of attack.

The Khan is pretty enigmatic but spends a lot of time playing a chess-style game, and focuses on lightning fast responses to changes in the flow of the battle - sounds like pretty strong tactical nuance to me.

Horus? Seems pretty inflexible when it comes to tactics. Speartip again sir? Also, he struggled to take down vastly outnumbered and outgunned loyalist members of the traitor legions at Istvaan III despite having the element of surprise, virus bombs and titans. And, you know, failed to take down the Imperium.

Comes down to which legion you wouldn't want to come after you if you pissed off the Emp. For me, Wolves every time.

Powerguy wrote:


Tldr version, purely from a tactical/strategic standpoint my top 5 would be:
The Lion
Perturabo
Gulliman
Alpharius
Horus

@Chaz. The vast majority of the Traitor Legions were gathered together at Isstvan, the Iron Warriors were much more split up than most Legions - some of their garrisons stayed loyal but others merged back with the main traitor group.

@LightKing. The Lion is sometimes depicted with long dark hair, but wearing a golden lion pelt across his shoulders (which could explain the confusion). Sanguinius has always had long golden hair.

I disagree with Girlyman - he was a quartermaster when compared to the others on that list. I'd switch him for Dorn.

I know most of the Traitor Legions were at Isstvan III, just what happened to those small garrison forces. A small company of 100 Iron Warriors could make an entirely new Second Founding Chapter without the AdMech realising;

IWs absorbed into UM.
UMs don't trust their new friends.
Get rid of them by tithing them to a new Chapter.
IW Successor Chapter.
IW Successor Chapter goes on to found more Successor Chapters.

As for the Lion's hair...

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
I think Russ and The Khan have a shout for top 5. Russ instructed the Wolves to be incredibly flexible when fighting, e.g. use the weapons of the enemy wherever possible [whether it be a gun or crashing a space station into a planet]. Wolves got the job done no matter what, and didn't have a set style of attack.

The Khan is pretty enigmatic but spends a lot of time playing a chess-style game, and focuses on lightning fast responses to changes in the flow of the battle - sounds like pretty strong tactical nuance to me.

Horus? Seems pretty inflexible when it comes to tactics. Speartip again sir? Also, he struggled to take down vastly outnumbered and outgunned loyalist members of the traitor legions at Istvaan III despite having the element of surprise, virus bombs and titans. And, you know, failed to take down the Imperium.

Comes down to which legion you wouldn't want to come after you if you pissed off the Emp. For me, Wolves every time.

Reeks of Russ fanboyism, He wasn't a strategic genius and that's why while attacking with so many advantages the Thousand Sons, Unprepared, Without their Primarch leading them, Outnumbered, Outgunned they held the line pretty goddamn well before he joined the fight.
He was a foolish brute, So cocksure, So high and mighty and a goddamn hypocrite to top it all off "Ooooh we get our powers from the Spirits of Fenris".... Goddamn simpleton.

And yes I dislike Russ, I know I'm not being objective either.

Khonsu wrote:

Reeks of Russ fanboyism, He wasn't a strategic genius and that's why while attacking with so many advantages the Thousand Sons, Unprepared, Without their Primarch leading them, Outnumbered, Outgunned they held the line pretty goddamn well before he joined the fight.
He was a foolish brute, So cocksure, So high and mighty and a goddamn hypocrite to top it all off "Ooooh we get our powers from the Spirits of Fenris".... Goddamn simpleton.

And yes I dislike Russ, I know I'm not being objective either.

No 'fanboyism'. As an Emperor's Children player 'my' primarch would be Fulgrim, however the HH novels turned him into a complete parody; a spoilt, arrogant ladyboy more concerned with whether his armour goes with his cloak than fighting battles, to the point where he's not even considered for the best tactician.

Not a Wolves fan in the slightest but after reading all of the HH novels he's the one that seems to be most feared by the other primarchs and the most tactically flexible