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 BuFFo wrote:
Wasn't sure what to write as this thread's title.

So, the Legions existed before the Primarchs, right? If so, when the Primarchs were "rediscovered", were there any Legions who said "Dude, who are you? Get outta here, we don't need you." Or did every single legion accept their Primarch with open arms?

Some did, some didn't. From reading the forgeworld Horus heresy books, after the primarchs were lost and the space Marine project was in full swing, the emperor did seem to make an effort to 'match' the Terran stock for the legions from similar recruitment pools to that which they would be drawn from in the future.

With some chapters, finding their gene sire was like finding a missing part of themselves. With others, there was great friction between the original 'terran' contingent and the primary and the newly chosen warriors from the new world(s).

With some legions, chapter tactics would have changed drastically, like with the iron hands or dark angels. With some, the new directions the primarch wanted to implement essentially dialled what came before up to 11, such as the iron warriors or death guard. With some. Such as the ultramarines and imperial fists, the transition was seamless and painless. With others, like the space wolves (who were barely controllable berserkers at this point), meeting their primarch gave them direction and focus and tempered them into something far greater than what had come before.

Perturabo ordered the legion he inherited to be decimated (one tenth of the warriors were killed by their peers for the sins of the legion not already being up to his brutally high standards.

Three legions stood out for me in terms of a friction between the Terran and new contingents however. But this could change - we don't have any forgeworld stuff yet on blood angels, dark angels or white scars.

The first was the world bearers. The original Terran contingent for the most part stuck to their original manifesto of bringing down false idols and heralding the imperial truth. The new recruits from lorgars homeworlds tended to be more fanatical and held the emperor as a god. Things happened, and the emperor chastised lorgar for this and punished the legion. This ultimately made the legion turn to chaos. In the process, lorgar seems to have, for the most part, sought to isolate and ultimately exterminate the Terran (there are exceptions though) forces in his legion.

The second was the dark angels. There are references of the Terrans in the force being distrusted by the lion with the changes in tactics/direction he brought about. While he didn't seek to kill them off, they did lose a lot of status, and many were punished by garrison duty at caliban.

The third, and most obviously to me was corax and the raven guard. Prior to their unification, the raven guard often fought with the Luna wolves/sons of Horus to the extent that the warrior lodges were quite well established. Quite meeting up with corax on deliverance, and corax, for the most part distrusted them, but for other reasons - seemingly the Terran stock was nomadic slaver/traders and these were the people corax had fought all his life to bring down. It culminated in the battle for gate 42 where corax seemed to try to throw them into the breach without support and rid himself of a problem. They didn't all die, so his next step was to create nomadic predation fleets (exile in all but name) - and get rid of them. It did solve some problems as it removed the warrior lodges from his legion for the greatest part. some of these fleets became blackshields
during the heresy (ashen claws come to mind) while others may still be floating about in the lore (it wouldn't surprise me if this is hoe the chapter that eventually became the carcharadons was originally put together).

Bear in mind as well, for chapters that recruited from a single homeworld, there was always a distinction between the Terran and the new recruits. It seems no surprise to me that the terrans, who were often more loyal to the emperor than the primarch (this was typically reversed for those trained from the new homeworlds), and during the heresy, traitor legions often tried to purge the Terran warriors - on istvaan 3, the initial drop by the four legions (sons of Horus, emperors children, death guard and world eaters) was primarily the Terran contingent, and it was horus' plan to destroy them there and purge himself of the loyalists in his own ranks.

The Primarchs were created first. But they were scattered by the Chaos gods. The Emperor took what he learned and made the legions, the Dark Angels being the first which he used to solidify his hold on Terra and begin the crusade.

To answer your question, there were occasional rifts between individual Legionaries and their Primarch. But for the most part they submitted to the Primarch and fell in line. Most all of the rest of the Legions were on board from the start either seeing their Primarch as the ultimate embodiment of their legions values, or possessing values and qualities that were new and they admired. Fulgrims drive for perfection being embraced by his legion etc. Its also worth noting on the other side, some primarchs disliked their legion (Angron springs to mind), furthermore there are lots of examples of a Primarchs homeworld disliking the legion and the imperium when they arrive. As shown in Descent of Angels. And in the reaction of the people of Lorgar's native Colchis revering the Emperor as a god and being rather disappointed when the Imperial truth was explained to them.

So no it wasn't 100% smooth, but yes for the most part the Legions celebrated when they were united with their Progenitor.

Were I looking for an easy explanation to reconcile the apparent fluff disparities, I’d presume the Emperor created the foetal Primarchs and the first batches of geneseed as part of the same wider process. I actually quite like the appropriately grimdark idea that the Astartes concept pre-dated the Primarchs, and that the latter were just a convenient means of bulk-producing stable geneseed.

When Angron was retrieved from Desh'ae he killed the officers that tried to speak to him, Kharn took a pounding and ultimately reasoned with Angron.

There was always a disconnect between the Primarch and his kin, there is a excellent quote in The First Heretic where Kharn says to Argel Tal "We broke ourselves upon the same anvil that broke him, to feel closer to our kin".

Kharn goes onto speak how it didn't work, the legion respected Angron as the murderous weapon he was but there was the never relationship between the primarch and the legion that Emperors Children or Ultramarines had with there Primarch.