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I haven't read myself, but apparently in one of the HH books someone makes a passing comment about the wolves destroying the 1k sons, and then mentioning they've demonstrated this ferocity before. Are they just talking about the wolves' skill in combat, or are they referencing the execution of, at least one, of the missing primarchs? It could be certainly interpreted that way. Not to mention their reputation as executioners even before the Magnus incident. Thoughts?

from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

 Brennonjw wrote:
from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

hm, good to know. Shame we'll probably never know what actually happened with concrete evidence though. Thanks dude

While Prospero Burns seems to push that the Wolves were involved in the Missing Legions, Betrayer muddles the water by showing how the Wolves came to major blows with the World Eaters during the Great Crusade, that almost ended in the death of both primarchs. Thus, it's just as likely that the vague descriptions in Prospero Burns of the Wolves, "previously coming to blows with their brothers" may be referencing the Night of the Wolf incident instead.

The general consensus on this topic is approximately what Brennanjw said:

On the assumption that mentions of prior conflicts between Astartes refers to the two Missing Legions and their Primarchs:

The Space Wolves are thought to have destroyed one ("The Purged") with the possibility they destroyed the other.

The other missing Legion was either destroyed by the Space Wolves (as aforementioned) or went missing somehow.

As for the Space Wolves killing the Primarchs of one or both of the missing Legions, that's impossible to say since we have no information about them.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

hm, good to know. Shame we'll probably never know what actually happened with concrete evidence though. Thanks dude

No it isn't, the gaps have always existed to allow fan made legions. As soon as they give anything concrete that is destroyed. That's why the references to them are so vague.

 JamesY wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

hm, good to know. Shame we'll probably never know what actually happened with concrete evidence though. Thanks dude

No it isn't, the gaps have always existed to allow fan made legions. As soon as they give anything concrete that is destroyed. That's why the references to them are so vague.

Not correct (or at least not the whole story). From previous discussions on this topic (on this very forum, in fact), the ability to further the players' options in creating their own Legions and/or Chapters was a byproduct of the lack of detail pertaining to these legions. It was not the original reason or even one of the main reasons that the two missing legions exist.

 IllumiNini wrote:

 JamesY wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

hm, good to know. Shame we'll probably never know what actually happened with concrete evidence though. Thanks dude

No it isn't, the gaps have always existed to allow fan made legions. As soon as they give anything concrete that is destroyed. That's why the references to them are so vague.

Not correct (or at least not the whole story). From previous discussions on this topic (on this very forum, in fact), the ability to further the players' options in creating their own Legions and/or Chapters was a byproduct of the lack of detail pertaining to these legions. It was not the original reason or even one of the main reasons that the two missing legions exist.

The only people who can qualify that for sure are Rick, Brian, Alan and John (and no doubt a hand full of others). My first 40k purchases were during rt (even if I couldn't make head nor tale of the game), and I have spoken to most of the above as an employee of gw, so I am going to go on my own anecdotal evidence that heavily suggests that this was the case, rather than a discussion on a forum. Whether deliberate or not, it is still the reason they won't fill the gap.

side note: at one point, didn't they list all the founding legions? Way back when I remember the rainbow warriors being on the list of the first 20, but then again this was back when Leman Russ was some commander who was given permission to make a bunch of marines

@JamesY: Fair enough. Being someone who has never worked at GW, I have more reason to believe the forums simply because that's my experience, though ultimately you may be right.

@Brennonjw: That was indeed the case, but that was later retconned, with Rainbow Warriors becoming a 2nd Founding Chapter (I think).

@ Brennonjw no the original founding list has always been the same. In the RT book there is an illustrated page with different chapters on, so they were the original/first canonical chapters, but not necessarily the first legions.

People have speculated that Rainbow warriors were one of the two, as their homeworld Prism has "records deleted" on the current maps, so it's people adding 2 and 2 and getting a question mark for an answer.

@IllumiNini Yeah you've no more reason to accept anything other than what seems to make the most sense to you.
RT was all about creating your own thing, as it was a crossover between RPG's and wargames as we know them now. Models made out of other kits, table cloths with books beneath them, the infamous shampoo/deodorant speeder. Those missing chapters, as I have always understood them (along with the people I have spoken to over the years), where sort of a means of maintaining that DIY spirit.

 JamesY wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
from my rough undestanding:

1 legion was executed, the space wolves were involved (they are nicknamed 'the damned')
1 legion was nicknamed 'the lost' and it's been stated round-aboutly that the primarch never came to inherit his legion

hm, good to know. Shame we'll probably never know what actually happened with concrete evidence though. Thanks dude

No it isn't, the gaps have always existed to allow fan made legions. As soon as they give anything concrete that is destroyed. That's why the references to them are so vague.

I'd rather learn about a giant mystery in 40k lore than spare Jimmy's "Amazing Marines" that killed every single guy ever and they're the best in the galaxy. Plus, theres more than one way to make a chapter (remember, legions don't exist anymore). Blackshields, successor chapter, lost in the warp, new founding, no imperial records, the list goes on.

Plus, GW probably sealed that fate for making legions when both were described to be dead. Who'd make an army that dies so pathetically and early, and then becomes defaced from everything they've had so then the persons legion fluff makes no sense because then suddenly all of that is replaced by what little information we do have of the legions.

Even if the Space Wolves were involved in purging a Legion the chances of them doing it by themselves is highly unlikely. They'd have had reinforcements from other Legion's or from the Custodes (or from other organisations).

IIRC Rick Priestley stated in an old interveiw that the original story of the missing legions was that they turned traitor and then decided to fight for the Emperor anyway. Therefore they where expunged from the archives as an act of mercy so that they would not be remmembered as traitors. Apparently this was how it was written in the Epic Space Marine rulebook, 1989. I wasn't around at the time and I don't own a copy of the book so can't verify it myself.
I have not found any other fluff to support this and the fact that they where supposed to have been found before the HH contradicts this in the current fluff. Might just have been his original idea or something he made up afterwards.

This might be the interview in question: http://www.40kradio.com/archives/1433

@ shieldbrother I'd rather little Jimmy was able to use his imagination to create his own super primarch with ridiculous ott feats, and for all the other little and big Jimmy's out there to be able to do the same, and get more enjoyment from the hobby, than have more hh novels to read based on a minor mystery that doesn't need any more addressing than it's already had. They don't matter, as far as the story goes they are entirely inconsequential. Unless we ever get late unification era/ early great crusade era fiction.

 JamesY wrote:
@ shieldbrother I'd rather little Jimmy was able to use his imagination to create his own super primarch with ridiculous ott feats, and for all the other little and big Jimmy's out there to be able to do the same, and get more enjoyment from the hobby, than have more hh novels to read based on a minor mystery that doesn't need any more addressing than it's already had. They don't matter, as far as the story goes they are entirely inconsequential. Unless we ever get late unification era/ early great crusade era fiction.

Suppose you have a point there, but it seems we'll just have to agree to disagree

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
@ shieldbrother I'd rather little Jimmy was able to use his imagination to create his own super primarch with ridiculous ott feats, and for all the other little and big Jimmy's out there to be able to do the same, and get more enjoyment from the hobby, than have more hh novels to read based on a minor mystery that doesn't need any more addressing than it's already had. They don't matter, as far as the story goes they are entirely inconsequential. Unless we ever get late unification era/ early great crusade era fiction.

Suppose you have a point there, but it seems we'll just have to agree to disagree

I'm always happy to do that .

On topic though, I'm reading Angel Exterminatus at present, and have just read Perturabo's recollections of his time on terra. It says that there is a trial all primarchs have to undertake as a rite of passage, and that some had failed.

 JamesY wrote:

On topic though, I'm reading Angel Exterminatus at present, and have just read Perturabo's recollections of his time on terra. It says that there is a trial all primarchs have to undertake as a rite of passage, and that some had failed.

In fairness would anyone bet on Angron succeeding at something other than smashing stuff? Failing it doesn't mean they were purged.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 JamesY wrote:

On topic though, I'm reading Angel Exterminatus at present, and have just read Perturabo's recollections of his time on terra. It says that there is a trial all primarchs have to undertake as a rite of passage, and that some had failed.

In fairness would anyone bet on Angron succeeding at something other than smashing stuff? Failing it doesn't mean they were purged.

The implication is that they died during the trial. On the sw, we know Horus changed the Emperor's orders regarding Magnus, and info we get on the events that occurred are vague so it could be suggested that on previous occasions there was no, or very little, actual bloodshed. The sw would probably be quite happy for other legions to believe rumours that they had, and so not contradict or correct them. I can't recall the source, but it says somewhere that the wordbearers and ultramarine legions were so large because they subsumed the warriors from the dismantled legions.

I only added the trials info to the discussion to show that they are being deliberately vague and contradictory about those two legions, and unwilling to commit to a concrete background.

the quote relates only to the Ultramarines from a word bearer, and It's been suggested that it was mostly sour grapes from the word bearers who refused to just give Gulliman his due

Doubtful. Russ himself, maybe.
In Scars, I think? You see the fall out. Only Bjorn seems to think, well, we did what we were told, whatever.
Most of the command staff had a wtf have we done moment.
So they had no idea if it happened before.
If the legions strength had been cut in half for some reason, someone would know something. Or they'd smell it.
Calling them executioners first came from the mouth of a daemon, which may or may not be referring to them killing the sons. Even though it was said before it happened. Warp shenanigans to set them up
The Wolves are just as touched by Tzeench as the Sons were I think.
Small kill team action. Killed that Champion of the enemy.
Ooops it was a primarch you say. lol or woof woof.
Though I think we'll get a few better hints when Russ tries to take Horus down, then scurrying away with his tale between his legs.