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Why? Why would a primarch be 2' taller than a marine? Especially when Alpharius was able to pass himself off as one?

im2randomghgh wrote:
Well You're thinking of terminator armour as armour in a very literal sense. Think of it more like Ironmonger from Iron man. DAT GUY'S HUGE!

Those suits are MASSIVE! There is a reason it is called tactical dreadnought armour. Rather than being heavy power armour, it is almost a light dreadnought.

That's just silly. I'd like to you to attempt to draw a schematic of a marine inside such an armour. Unless the marine simply sits completely in the torso like a tiny pilot, it is impossible.

I'd stake an "average" SM at around 7'6"-8', with exceptionally large marines (Pasanius, B'aken) being a few inches over eight feet.

Jes Goodwin says 7' to 7'6'. Good enough for me.

I'd stake a Primarch at about 2' taller than a marine. this would mean a primarch of "average" height would be about 9'6". ex: in the HH series, Loken was described as coming up to Horus' chest.

Almost three metres tall primarchs just seem goofy to me. It is hard to imagine them living in normal human societies as they did, if they were that huge.

There's a picture of a power armoured marine beside a terminator armoured marine in the Chaos codex I think. The Terminator is barely taller.

They were, however, super-human in every sense of the word. Ferrus was, what, 12'? 15'?

Crimson wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:
Well You're thinking of terminator armour as armour in a very literal sense. Think of it more like Ironmonger from Iron man. DAT GUY'S HUGE!

Those suits are MASSIVE! There is a reason it is called tactical dreadnought armour. Rather than being heavy power armour, it is almost a light dreadnought.

That's just silly. I'd like to you to attempt to draw a schematic of a marine inside such an armour. Unless the marine simply sits completely in the torso like a tiny pilot, it is impossible.

I'd stake an "average" SM at around 7'6"-8', with exceptionally large marines (Pasanius, B'aken) being a few inches over eight feet.

Jes Goodwin says 7' to 7'6'. Good enough for me.

I'd stake a Primarch at about 2' taller than a marine. this would mean a primarch of "average" height would be about 9'6". ex: in the HH series, Loken was described as coming up to Horus' chest.

Almost three metres tall primarchs just seem goofy to me. It is hard to imagine them living in normal human societies as they did, if they were that huge.

1. Again, think IRONMONGER

2. The sources differ too much. If you take a single, individual source (like you just did) then I could take any other, individual source. Like that silly short story where they're 9'.

8' is just an all too common description of them. Unless every single source that ever said they were 8' were retconned, but then BL wouldn't exist.

3. You are aware that Fulgrim killed an avatar by caving it's skull in with his fist right? It wasn't described as having any kind of size advantage over him. And they are at LEAST 10' tall, probably more, as Thirianna described it is more than twice her height.

Psienesis wrote:They were, however, super-human in every sense of the word. Ferrus was, what, 12'? 15'?

Don't be that guy. No, they were not that tall.

im2randomghgh wrote:
1. Again, think IRONMONGER

2. The sources differ too much. If you take a single, individual source (like you just did) then I could take any other, individual source. Like that silly short story where they're 9'.

8' is just an all too common description of them. Unless every single source that ever said they were 8' were retconned, but then BL wouldn't exist.

3. You are aware that Fulgrim killed an avatar by caving it's skull in with his fist right? It wasn't described as having any kind of size advantage over him. And they are at LEAST 10' tall, probably more, as Thirianna described it is more than twice her height.

1. I DO! And I have no idea how a person is supposed to fit in that either. Where are his real legs, where are his real arms? It is too small that a complete person could fit in the chest alone, and too big that limbs could be in the armour's limbs in a manner that would allow the joints to be even in remotely right places.

2. You are right that it is matter of preference. The canon is not consistent. I just think that BL authors are prone to silly exaggeration, so I rather trust Goodwin. BTW Deathwatch RPG gives unarmoured Space Marine height of slightly over 2,1 metres (so under seven feet.) That is again one divergent datapoint.

3. And Alpharius can be mistaken for a normal space marine. Fluff is inconsistent.

In the end, I am not trying to prove anyone wrong. This is fiction, nothing of this is real. I just try to illustrate why I personally prefer more conservative height numbers.

They wouldnt have to worry about normal doors, cause they didnt spend all that much time in normal society. The only time they would spend in regular human sized domains they would probably be on a mission of some sort, and in that case they could just shoot the door out. Collateral damage, boo hoo.

Lion El'Jonson was explicitly stated to be slightly taller than three meters, which is ten feet tall. This is while wearing power armour that isn't really power armour, and he was noted to tower over the fully armoured Marines who landed on Caliban.

Lion El'Jonson isn't even a particularly large Primarch. Ferrus Manus, Leman Russ, and especially Magnus the Red, were all larger than he was.

I do believe Marines are slightly over 2.1 meters, or seven feet tall, as Deathwatch states. But Primarchs making Marines look puny in comparison is pretty much fact, and Alpharius is very much the exception, not the rule. He was the shortest Primarch, to the extent that some Marines could masquerade as him.

The Emperor was directly stated in "The Last Church" to be superhumanly tall and large. I don't know why people think the Emperor would be the size of a normal human, literally no evidence points to this being the case. While it is true that the Emperor could alter his size (Or at least the perception of his size), his "default" form was never described as anything but "Very big."

Where the concept of canon is absent, there is no "right" or "wrong". Only differing interpretations. The Emperor is as big or small as you like.

I for myself find the idea of Primarchs or the Emperor being unable to ride in a Rhino or an Aquila Lander to be silly, hence I'll not subscribe to this supposed "who has the longest" (body) contest amongst Astartes and Big E.

(Where is that even from? BL going wild again?)

All your doorways must have 15' of clearance...FOR THE EMPEROR!

Lynata wrote:Where the concept of canon is absent, there is no "right" or "wrong". Only differing interpretations. The Emperor is as big or small as you like.

I for myself find the idea of Primarchs or the Emperor being unable to ride in a Rhino or an Aquila Lander to be silly, hence I'll not subscribe to this supposed "who has the longest" (body) contest amongst Astartes and Big E.

(Where is that even from? BL going wild again?)

But that interpretation has to my knowledge absolutely no fluff at all backing it. Which is basically what I'm saying. An interpretation can only be valid if there is fluff to back it up, and all fluff concerning the matter dictates the Primarchs and the Emperor being gigantic.

And Primarchs don't ride in normal transports, their transport is usually custom-made for them, like Fulgrim's Stormbird he made himself. And frankly, why would a Primarch need a transport?

There is no fluff at all concerning a Primarch being anything but "bigger than a Marine," and why should the only actual statement on a Primarch's height be thrown out?

It's from Descent of Angels. It is also the only statement on Primarch height I can recall, in terms of actually giving it a number. Though every other source also makes it clear that Primarchs are bigger than Marines.

Though this is all really irrelevant to the discussion at hand, as like DarknessEternal has been saying, the Emperor, though his default form was large, could alter his size easily.

Void__Dragon wrote:An interpretation can only be valid if there is fluff to back it up

All an interpretation needs is the opinion of its holder, though it is certainly shaped at least to a large part by what he or she has read/seen before. Still, perhaps this could be compared to the people who make up their own Marine Chapters - they don't exist in the fluff, but they're certainly part of their players' interpretation of the setting.

Fluff gets made up all the time, quite often in contradiction to other fluff - and with how I now understand the setting, there is just no difference between you as a reader or the author who wrote book X. It's all equally valid. All that matters is that you pick something you like.

"To suggest that Black Library novels are somehow of lesser relevance to the background is to imply that every player who has created a unique Space Marine chapter or invented their own Elector Count is somehow wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."
- Gav Thorpe

Void__Dragon wrote:Though this is all really irrelevant to the discussion at hand, as like DarknessEternal has been saying, the Emperor, though his default form was large, could alter his size easily.

I'm just saying that a consensus cannot be achieved, and another three pages of supposed facts won't change that. Actually, I think it's even better that way. It gives a false sense of a canon that doesn't exist.

Lynata wrote:All an interpretation needs is the opinion of its holder, though it is certainly shaped at least to a large part by what he or she has read/seen before. Still, perhaps this could be compared to the people who make up their own Marine Chapters - they don't exist in the fluff, but they're certainly part of their players' interpretation of the setting.

Fluff gets made up all the time, quite often in contradiction to other fluff - and with how I now understand the setting, there is just no difference between you as a reader or the author who wrote book X. It's all equally valid. All that matters is that you pick something you like.

"To suggest that Black Library novels are somehow of lesser relevance to the background is to imply that every player who has created a unique Space Marine chapter or invented their own Elector Count is somehow wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."
- Gav Thorpe

Then Mr. Thorpe and I obviously disagree, and according to him my opinion is no less valid than his.

I'm just saying that a consensus cannot be achieved, and another three pages of supposed facts won't change that. Actually, I think it's even better that way. It gives a false sense of a canon that doesn't exist.

Perhaps not.

Personally, I prefer my Primarchs larger than Marines, with my Marines at on average a little above seven feet in power armour.

Crimson wrote:First of, there is no fething* way a terminator armour adds a metre of height. Stuff that adds height is the soles of the boots and that thing above the head, nothing else. That is a foot of height at most.

Terminator armor is more than just a heavier suit of armor. They are more of a completely enclosed exo-suit where their hands end somewhere in the forearm region, and the feet somewhere around the calf.

Void__Dragon wrote:
Personally, I prefer my Primarchs larger than Marines, with my Marines at on average a little above seven feet in power armour.

I think pretty much everyone agrees that Primarchs were bigger than normal marines. The disagreement is about how much bigger. I personally find the idea of three metres tall primarchs goofy. And frankly, I just do not trust any numbers from Black Library books. Some novels have had normal marines to be nine feet tall, and that is obviously totally off.


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Omegus wrote:

Terminator armor is more than just a heavier suit of armor. They are more of a completely enclosed exo-suit where their hands end somewhere in the forearm region, and the feet somewhere around the calf.

So terminator's feet are not actually in his boots? Those are some kind of robot feet? This idea seems being completely fabricated out of thin air.

I don't think Terminator armour is that much bigger, unless the marine unside is squatting.

I always imagined him 9 to 10 feet, but find it would funny if he was actually danny devito sized.

ShatteredBlade wrote:I always imagined him 9 to 10 feet, but find it would awesome if he was actually danny devito sized.

There thats better now

I think it is stated that the order is as follows: (shorter to taller)

Human
Marine
Primarch
(?)Emperor

How much taller? I think its a personal preference thing. For me being superhuman does not mean a Godzilla type of man.

IMO the height was something like that:

Human
Marine/Emperor
Primarch

Yeah accuse me of heresy

But the fact is that my zujitsu teacher(hopefully this translates correctly ) is still 1 head shorter than me (I am 1.83m, 6.04 ft) and he still tosses me around like a rugged doll (ouch! )
So martial proweness has nothing to do with height >

I think the Emperor made himself look bigger for the effect though, rather than any real advantage it would give. If the primarchs had been looking down when talking to him, it would've detracted from the shock and awe factor a bit.

Durza wrote:I think the Emperor made himself look bigger for the effect though, rather than any real advantage it would give. If the primarchs had been looking down when talking to him, it would've detracted from the shock and awe factor a bit.

This is a really valid point and I agree on that, at least as far as the common crowd is concerned. But apparently Primarchs had really strong psychic defenses so the effect would be lost on them anyway(or at least this is what I think ). On the other hand they would remeber that the "little" handed their arse to them so they would stay silent

Magnus seems like the only one strong enough to see through the illusion, and size doesn't really matter much to him.

Omegus wrote:

Crimson wrote:First of, there is no fething* way a terminator armour adds a metre of height. Stuff that adds height is the soles of the boots and that thing above the head, nothing else. That is a foot of height at most.

Terminator armor is more than just a heavier suit of armor. They are more of a completely enclosed exo-suit where their hands end somewhere in the forearm region, and the feet somewhere around the calf.

This is just extremely wrong. No model or illustration has ever been done that would show a roughly normally proportioned space marine fitting in this armor in any way other than hands-in-gauntlets and feet-in-boots. No fluff has ever described this either. The only time the hand would end up somewhere in the "forearm" is when wearing a power fist, but that's to be expected.

In fact, check out this illustration:



That's what a marine looks like inside terminator armor. It's a giant exoskeleton that has to pretty much be built around him to put it on, but it doesn't make him any taller or his limbs longer. Anywhere that states terminator armor adds anything more than a foot or so of height is just wrong. It's wrong based on models, wrong based on illustrations, and wrong based on logic.

That's just one illustration, there are plenty of others where the proportions simply don't make any sense unless Terminator armor is an exo-suit like that massive prototype armor in the first Ironman movie. In the novels, Space Marines in terminator armor are also frequently described as "towering" over their brethren.

Of the top of my head, the Atramentar tower over both Cyrion and Talos.

Most decriptions I've read have a human coming up to about the chin of a marine, which would make a marine about 7' -7'6" to my mind. Marines are described as coming to about the same area on a primarch maybe a bit lower, so I would put a Primarch at about 8'6" to 9' with the taller primarchs at around 9'6". As for the Emperor, I reckon he was born normal sized, but biomanced himself up to around primarch height/+, although he could probably appear however he wanted (e.g. super xenos psyker kitten! Put the chainswords away, I was kidding! )

Castiel wrote:(e.g. super xenos psyker kitten! Put the chainswords away, I was kidding! )

You do not joke about such things.

Omegus wrote:That's just one illustration, there are plenty of others where the proportions simply don't make any sense unless Terminator armor is an exo-suit like that massive prototype armor in the first Ironman movie. In the novels, Space Marines in terminator armor are also frequently described as "towering" over their brethren.

Or maybe terminators are 25 metres tall, the three metres tall space marine pilot completely enclosed in the helmet!

Are you using the models as a basis for a fluff description?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:You do not joke about such things.

My bad!