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Hi there, as I was going through the lore, I know the 18 legions and their Primarchs, and the Emperor created 20 primarchs - what happened to the two lost? Do we know? I am just reading "The First Heretic" from Horus Heresy books, and Magnus and Lorgar are talking about two legions being purged and forbidden to talk about...what was that? Is there any story about that?

There are a few different facts we do know about the legions that will not be named
1. One suffered from a genetic defect and was purged. (Sanguinius is afraid of being purged because of Black Rage/Red Thirst/some BA gene corruption)
2. Both were purged by the Space Wolves (When sent to sanction Magnus, Russ remarks on the fact that this was not his first time sanctioning someone)
3. Some people think they were absorbed into the Ultramarines. This was refuted somewhere.
4. In an Alpharius flashback, he saw the genetic lab where they were grown. Two growth tanks were broken/shattered. 2 tanks = 2 primarchs

The "official" explanation is that the reason these guys exist is so that people have room to make their own custom SM and CSM groups.

SirSertile wrote:
There are a few different facts we do know about the legions that will not be named
1. One suffered from a genetic defect and was purged. (Sanguinius is afraid of being purged because of Black Rage/Red Thirst/some BA gene corruption)
2. Both were purged by the Space Wolves (When sent to sanction Magnus, Russ remarks on the fact that this was not his first time sanctioning someone)
3. Some people think they were absorbed into the Ultramarines. This was refuted somewhere.
4. In an Alpharius flashback, he saw the genetic lab where they were grown. Two growth tanks were broken/shattered. 2 tanks = 2 primarchs

The "official" explanation is that the reason these guys exist is so that people have room to make their own custom SM and CSM groups.

The Soul Drinkers, as far as I recall, had nothing to do with Dorn geneseedwise. So thouse legions may have been distributed amongst others.

I believe the Horus Herasy has referred to the two as the Purged and The Forgotten

My person theory is one was purged for whatever reason by the Space wolves, and his entire legion was likely murdered.

As for the lost my personal theory is that the Forotten primarch died before the emperor found him and the Emperor hide it to continue to boost the belief in how powerful the primarchs to the masses. This legion was merged with others and would slowly die out.

SirSertile wrote:
There are a few different facts we do know about the legions that will not be named
1. One suffered from a genetic defect and was purged. (Sanguinius is afraid of being purged because of Black Rage/Red Thirst/some BA gene corruption)
2. Both were purged by the Space Wolves (When sent to sanction Magnus, Russ remarks on the fact that this was not his first time sanctioning someone)
3. Some people think they were absorbed into the Ultramarines. This was refuted somewhere.
4. In an Alpharius flashback, he saw the genetic lab where they were grown. Two growth tanks were broken/shattered. 2 tanks = 2 primarchs

The "official" explanation is that the reason these guys exist is so that people have room to make their own custom SM and CSM groups.

1. I don't think it's a given fact per se, but purging due to genetic deformation and/or corruption was definitely up in the more popular and plausible explanations. It might get complicated in terms of the Primarch when applying this explanation, but tha depends on how you flesh it out, I guess

2. I'm pretty sure that the following is true: It's generally considered true (and canon) that the Space Wolves exterminated one of the unknown Legions (whether it was II or XI is unclear), and may have destroyed the other.

3. Even if it wasn't refuted anywhere, it's (as far as I know) not considered canon by many people (if at all). In my opinion, it's a misconception at best (funnily enough, a misconception I once held).

4. Where did you get that information from? Because I know about the flashback with Horus (where I'm pretty sure he comments on the unfulfilled potential of the Primarch of the XI Legion while looking over his tank), but never heard of this.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I believe the Horus Herasy has referred to the two as the Purged and The Forgotten

My person theory is one was purged for whatever reason by the Space wolves, and his entire legion was likely murdered.

As for the lost my personal theory is that the Forotten primarch died before the emperor found him and the Emperor hide it to continue to boost the belief in how powerful the primarchs to the masses. This legion was merged with others and would slowly die out.

From what we know, the 20 primarchs were retrieved. The 2nd and 11th were both retrieved and lost before Corax's discovery.

Engrenages wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I believe the Horus Herasy has referred to the two as the Purged and The Forgotten

My person theory is one was purged for whatever reason by the Space wolves, and his entire legion was likely murdered.

As for the lost my personal theory is that the Forotten primarch died before the emperor found him and the Emperor hide it to continue to boost the belief in how powerful the primarchs to the masses. This legion was merged with others and would slowly die out.

From what we know, the 20 primarchs were retrieved. The 2nd and 11th were both retrieved and lost before Corax's discovery.

This is incorrect. Gav Thorpe has clarified that in the conversation with the Emperor, the Emperor is referring to the 19th and 20th primarchs to be found, because Corax was numbered 19, but was the 18th found. The 19th and 20th he is referring to are Alpharius and the second missing primarch.

They could have found a body.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
They could have found a body.

Not sure that would constitute a complete and utter record expunging, though. The Legion would just be without a Primarch, which isn't all that much of a stretch considering that the Legions all operated in some capacity before they found their Primarchs. So in the case of finding as body, they'd just continue operating. Hell, the Emperor may have decided to take up direct leadership of one (or both) if the Legions Primarchs had been found dead.

interesting...thx guys..

 IllumiNini wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
They could have found a body.

Not sure that would constitute a complete and utter record expunging, though. The Legion would just be without a Primarch, which isn't all that much of a stretch considering that the Legions all operated in some capacity before they found their Primarchs. So in the case of finding as body, they'd just continue operating. Hell, the Emperor may have decided to take up direct leadership of one (or both) if the Legions Primarchs had been found dead.

Several legions had gene seed issues that were only fixed/made better when the primarch was found. Maybe the Emperor didn't want to admit to the imperium at large that one group of his grand kids failed from the beginning? All this is speculation though

Ragnaira wrote:interesting...thx guys..

No problems. I would definitely look at other threads pertaining to this topic (there are plenty on this forum alone) to get a better idea.

HoundsofDemos wrote:Several legions had gene seed issues that were only fixed/made better when the primarch was found. Maybe the Emperor didn't want to admit to the imperium at large that one group of his grand kids failed from the beginning? All this is speculation though

Well depends what sort of 'failure' it was and how serious it was, though it's not all that much of a stretch to say finding a corpse instead of a living Primarch could definitely give such cause. Never thought of it this way before. Kudos to you for this idea.

And as you said, it's all very much speculation haha.

I've always kinda thought that one died before the emperor found him, be a nice twist one all the others. Other than Angron all had taken over their world before he found them. (Yes I know exactly what Horus and the Twins were doing isn't terribly clear), but as a general rule they won on there world. I was imagine that one didn't, they failed and died. Then we get Sanguinius's fear that his legions genetic instability would lead to a purging. This leads me to believe at least one of the missing had such a flaw that they and there legion were scrapped for it. That could be the purge or maybe the lost primarchs legion was so wrong that they had to die.

Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

A little on the nose and unimaginative if it was nothing more than that...

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

pretty sure I have read exactly this, not 100% certain of the source but pretty sure it was one of the original rogue trader era writers.

Also, there are a couple of threads about this so might be worth searching those for more info

In Vulcan Lives!, Vulcan has a feud with Curze due to his.. rather... insane methods and overly cruel behaviour.. However, he does not want to feel responsible for another plinth being empty and a Legion being purged.
This makes me belief one Legion was sanctioned and exterminated caused by their actions, whatever they were.
Probably worse than Curze, intolerable by Imperial Standards.
Think combining the Night Haunter with Angron. Someone like that could hardly be tolerated...

 Thairne wrote:
In Vulcan Lives!, Vulcan has a feud with Curze due to his.. rather... insane methods and overly cruel behaviour.. However, he does not want to feel responsible for another plinth being empty and a Legion being purged.
This makes me belief one Legion was sanctioned and exterminated caused by their actions, whatever they were.
Probably worse than Curze, intolerable by Imperial Standards.
Think combining the Night Haunter with Angron. Someone like that could hardly be tolerated...

Sanguinius says something similar, but in regards to his legion's growing flaw in the Red Thirst. This leads me to believe that one of the legions may have had serious geneseed issues or Chaos mutations.

 IllumiNini wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

A little on the nose and unimaginative if it was nothing more than that...

Almost all of the old fluff was written that way. Go look at the old Rogue Trader book. It was very much tongue-in-cheek stories and characters stolen from history, movies, and other sources. Pseudo-Latin everywhere (drives my wife, the Latin teacher crazy)

This book:



You had Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, for crying out loud!





Angron? He's just the Angry One, get it?

TheWanderer wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

pretty sure I have read exactly this, not 100% certain of the source but pretty sure it was one of the original rogue trader era writers.

Also, there are a couple of threads about this so might be worth searching those for more info

That's my memory as well.

I like to think that one of the Primarchs ended up on an Ork world and fought his way up the ranks to end up as a Warboss (typical Blood Axes, having an umie as a boss). The Emperor shows up to collect him but soon discovered that Ork tradition runs deep. After a while all the WAAAGHs, looting, and calling the other Primarchs gitz pushed the Emperior's patience to the limit. The Wolves where called to end Warmarch Viridius Cutis and his Astortes. The Emperor declared that all records to be purged and usage of the word "git" by any Astartes to be punishable by death.

But really the two mission legions and primarchs are there to allow for user created chapters/legions. As others said the mission legion in roman history is very likely the inspiration for their existence (or lack there of).

There's also the long-running fan theory that Sigmar and Barney Skull Wing Dude are the two missing primarchs.

Vankraken wrote:I like to think that one of the Primarchs ended up on an Ork world and fought his way up the ranks to end up as a Warboss (typical Blood Axes, having an umie as a boss). The Emperor shows up to collect him but soon discovered that Ork tradition runs deep. After a while all the WAAAGHs, looting, and calling the other Primarchs gitz pushed the Emperior's patience to the limit. The Wolves where called to end Warmarch Viridius Cutis and his Astortes. The Emperor declared that all records to be purged and usage of the word "git" by any Astartes to be punishable by death.

Definitely an entertaining theory

Vankraken wrote:But really the two mission legions and primarchs are there to allow for user created chapters/legions. As others said the mission legion in roman history is very likely the inspiration for their existence (or lack there of).

The user-created Legions is definitely part of it, but I think there's enough references in the fluff of 40K for there to be a set of plausible fluff reasons for the fact that these Legions no longer exist. These days, I reckon it's incorrect and too easy to simply say "They're Legions inspired by the Roman Legions to allow the fan base to get creative."

Kid_Kyoto wrote:There's also the long-running fan theory that Sigmar and Barney Skull Wing Dude are the two missing primarchs.

Please... for the love of god... let's not go back to this really god-awful theory... It hurts just to think about this.

 Vankraken wrote:
The Wolves where called to end Warmarch Viridius Cutis and his Astortes. The Emperor declared that all records to be purged and usage of the word "git" by any Astartes to be punishable by death.

Don't you mean Astorktes?

 KharnsRightHand wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
The Wolves where called to end Warmarch Viridius Cutis and his Astortes. The Emperor declared that all records to be purged and usage of the word "git" by any Astartes to be punishable by death.

Don't you mean Astorktes?

I was debating between adding the k or not but I thought with the k it was a bit too much on the nose considering its not actually Ork space marines (that would be Deffwotch). Digga Marines was also a possibility

 IllumiNini wrote:

SirSertile wrote:
There are a few different facts we do know about the legions that will not be named
1. One suffered from a genetic defect and was purged. (Sanguinius is afraid of being purged because of Black Rage/Red Thirst/some BA gene corruption)
2. Both were purged by the Space Wolves (When sent to sanction Magnus, Russ remarks on the fact that this was not his first time sanctioning someone)
3. Some people think they were absorbed into the Ultramarines. This was refuted somewhere.
4. In an Alpharius flashback, he saw the genetic lab where they were grown. Two growth tanks were broken/shattered. 2 tanks = 2 primarchs

The "official" explanation is that the reason these guys exist is so that people have room to make their own custom SM and CSM groups.

1. I don't think it's a given fact per se, but purging due to genetic deformation and/or corruption was definitely up in the more popular and plausible explanations. It might get complicated in terms of the Primarch when applying this explanation, but tha depends on how you flesh it out, I guess

2. I'm pretty sure that the following is true: It's generally considered true (and canon) that the Space Wolves exterminated one of the unknown Legions (whether it was II or XI is unclear), and may have destroyed the other.

3. Even if it wasn't refuted anywhere, it's (as far as I know) not considered canon by many people (if at all). In my opinion, it's a misconception at best (funnily enough, a misconception I once held).

4. Where did you get that information from? Because I know about the flashback with Horus (where I'm pretty sure he comments on the unfulfilled potential of the Primarch of the XI Legion while looking over his tank), but never heard of this.

IN ARUIALIAN or how ever you spell it lorgar mentions the ultras numbers swelled when the two legions where lost.

Also the wolf mentions before he leaves to the warp, he was sad just to be the dog who is ordered and obeys when he excuted his brothers.

OgreChubbs wrote:
IN ARUIALIAN or how ever you spell it lorgar mentions the ultras numbers swelled when the two legions where lost.

Well let's just assume that this is the only possible reason for the swell in numbers (which is most definitely is not), then we immediately run into a few problems:

-- The Ultramarines suddenly have a whole bunch of Marines they never met before who completely skipped the training/initiation processes and are suddenly in the Legion.

-- Genetic traits, training and attitudes (and similar things) will be quite different. We don't know how different they'd because we know nothing about the traits of the two lost Legions, but they'd definitely be different and it would be easy to "Just become and Ultramarine".

-- What about the gene seed? I doubt the gene seed would allowed to be stored (and maybe not even allowed to be harvested) because they belong to the lost Legions. This would not only mean there'd be records of this somewhere (thus proving this theory), but this also opens up serious implications for second founding Chapters.

There would be plenty of other issues the minute you try to say that the swelling of the Legion's numbers and the loss of the two lost Legions is anything other than coincidental timing. So based on logical thinking alone, I seriously doubt this is true.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Also the wolf mentions before he leaves to the warp, he was sad just to be the dog who is ordered and obeys when he excuted his brothers.

Because we don't know whether or not the two lost Legions actually participated in the Horus Heresy, this could laos refer to Russ' conflicts with the Thousand Sons ( and/or the Dark Angels IIRC). And even if he's referring to the Lost Legions, then we don't know whether or not he destroyed one or both.

The other thing is that I've quite often seen the two lost Legions referred to as "The Purged" and "The Lost", which implies one was destroyed while the other suffered a different fate.

 IllumiNini wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
IN ARUIALIAN or how ever you spell it lorgar mentions the ultras numbers swelled when the two legions where lost.

Well let's just assume that this is the only possible reason for the swell in numbers (which is most definitely is not), then we immediately run into a few problems:

-- The Ultramarines suddenly have a whole bunch of Marines they never met before who completely skipped the training/initiation processes and are suddenly in the Legion.

-- Genetic traits, training and attitudes (and similar things) will be quite different. We don't know how different they'd because we know nothing about the traits of the two lost Legions, but they'd definitely be different and it would be easy to "Just become and Ultramarine".

-- What about the gene seed? I doubt the gene seed would allowed to be stored (and maybe not even allowed to be harvested) because they belong to the lost Legions. This would not only mean there'd be records of this somewhere (thus proving this theory), but this also opens up serious implications for second founding Chapters.

There would be plenty of other issues the minute you try to say that the swelling of the Legion's numbers and the loss of the two lost Legions is anything other than coincidental timing. So based on logical thinking alone, I seriously doubt this is true.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Also the wolf mentions before he leaves to the warp, he was sad just to be the dog who is ordered and obeys when he excuted his brothers.

Because we don't know whether or not the two lost Legions actually participated in the Horus Heresy, this could laos refer to Russ' conflicts with the Thousand Sons ( and/or the Dark Angels IIRC). And even if he's referring to the Lost Legions, then we don't know whether or not he destroyed one or both.

The other thing is that I've quite often seen the two lost Legions referred to as "The Purged" and "The Lost", which implies one was destroyed while the other suffered a different fate.

If the where found pre gilliman would matter, cause up until then they where run off of the degrading line. After they find the primarch they fix the code, would not be hard to say "they serve til they die" like castel's. Or simply let the genecode die out.

Up until the primarchs where found the legions kinda followed the emperors teachings so they would all have the same training and such.

I.E. not sure too much about the ultra's gene code but I only ever heard of it spoken once that one guys spit was acidic....

Also in the book unburden whats up with the death fog the ultras release?

TheWanderer wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

pretty sure I have read exactly this, not 100% certain of the source but pretty sure it was one of the original rogue trader era writers.

Also, there are a couple of threads about this so might be worth searching those for more info

If you're curious, see this thread where I sum up a Rick Priestly interview explaining the mystery: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/420975.page#8127625

OgreChubbs wrote:
If the where found pre gilliman would matter, cause up until then they where run off of the degrading line. After they find the primarch they fix the code, would not be hard to say "they serve til they die" like castel's. Or simply let the genecode die out.

Up until the primarchs where found the legions kinda followed the emperors teachings so they would all have the same training and such.

Even though they were all taught by the Emperor until their Primarchs were found, there would have been some solid defining characteristic in mentality alone, otherwise you have 20 Legions who are very different because they don't differ from each other. The same can be applied to their gene seed and training. If they were all so similar because of the absence of their Primarchs and being trained and schooled by the Emperor, then why not have one Legion instead of 20? Because if they weren't unique and they were all led by the same guy, what's the point in having 20?

Also if the Lost Legions were absorbed into the Ultramarines and then needed to "die out", they would all have had to die before the records of their Legions were expunged, otherwise I imagine something along the lines of polluting the Ultramarine gene seed with this other "unknown" gene seed or big questions being asked about an unknown gene seed would ensue. As far as I know, no such questioning ever happening, the Ultramarines gene seed was never polluted in such a way, and all records were expunged at the same time the Legions were "Lost".

So I'll say again: being absorbed into the Ultramarines (though an interesting theory) doesn't seem to work all that well.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Also in the book unburden whats up with the death fog the ultras release?

No idea because I haven't read the book haha