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Ey all! I know this topic is very heated, but I have always wanted to know if theres some kind of sources to the differences in size between the Imperium better warriors.

I'm starting this topic now because I saw this image and to be honest, I think is the best and most "modern" one. So, is this image at least accurate? Or as much accurate as one can be? (I know the emperor could change size as much as he wanted and Primarchs didn't were all of the same size, and marines can change in size because they aren't all clones)

No. Marines are supposed to 7 foot tall in armour. And that’s from Jew Goodwin. He designed them and therefore knows best. I really dislike the silly giant scale of primarchs now. Demon ones fine. Be as big as you like. This chart would just make everything look ridiculous. Just imagine the different people on there having a conversation or a primarch going into a normal human house. It looks comedic. In all the early fluff pre black library nonesense was that primarchs were exceptional physical specimens when found on there planets. Not giants twice the size of everyone else.

Andykp wrote:
No. Marines are supposed to 7 foot tall in armour. And that’s from Jew Goodwin. He designed them and therefore knows best. I really dislike the silly giant scale of primarchs now. Demon ones fine. Be as big as you like. This chart would just make everything look ridiculous. Just imagine the different people on there having a conversation or a primarch going into a normal human house. It looks comedic. In all the early fluff pre black library nonesense was that primarchs were exceptional physical specimens when found on there planets. Not giants twice the size of everyone else.

I can understand all of that but is clearly not how things are now. Primarcs are giant monsters, and thats the way GW has decided to portray them now. In the new Jagathai novel for example you can see it kneeling alongside a White Scar and hes nearly twice the size.

And it looks and sounds comical.

I thought they stated that, lorewise, primaris aren't (much) larger than regular marines. Am I wrong on that?

No you’re not. The issue seems to come from black library authors exaggerating every aspect of the back ground. Including size of marines.

 Galas wrote:

Spoiler:

Ahahahah!
That image almost made me puke with laughter! I don't think I've ever seen any art that portrays the Emperor this big but I wish I had. Can you imagine Big E having a conversation with Malcador with Malcador standing only as tall as His knee and looking up at him trying to look all serious?

Andykp wrote:
No you’re not. The issue seems to come from black library authors exaggerating every aspect of the back ground. Including size of marines.

And Reddit in turn gushing all over this. I can't be downvoted here, you feths.

It is utterly preposterous. It's like they have no sense of scale whatsoever. Primarchs were not that big, I don't give a feth what the BL authors say and this is another thing in a long list of thing they've done with the HH series in damaging the background. The Primarchs had relics that are used in 40k today? Are we saying Vulkan He'Stan's spear was a toothpick for his Primarch? A that's what that pic would imply. The Wolf Helm of Russ went over one of his fingers as a thimble, right? Grimnar's sled could only fit a single foot of the mighty Russ inside it?

I don't mind exaggeration, when it's meant to be wrapped in legend (such as Russ throwing the Kraken, whose tentacles wrapped halfway around Fenris back into the ocean and told the tiddler to come back when it was fully grown) as you can read between the lines. But when it is stone cold fact it is fething stupid.

Exactly. So sad what they have done to the heresy myth.

That picture is silly.

Normal Astartes are seven feet, Primaris and Custodes are about seven and half. Look at the anniversary poster where both types of marines are fighting side by side, the difference is barely noticeable.



And the Emperor is a normal guy, so maybe six feet or so.

I don't understand why so many people confuse the Imperium and the Orks. It is the Orks where the bosses grow bigger higher in the hierarchy they are.

 Crimson wrote:
And the Emperor is a normal guy, so maybe six feet or so.

I don't understand why so many people confuse the Imperium and the Orks. It is the Orks where the bosses grow bigger higher in the hierarchy they are.

Size=strength=authority is a fairly common trope in fiction. On another note, wouldn't the Emperor be like 5 foot and a half considering he was born in a time when people didn't had access to modern food.

The Emperor can make people see what they want, though I believe Corax was one of the few that could see through the glamours and described him as incredibly average and unremarkable looking.

Besides, Ogryns are described as 2,5 - 3 meters tall. Ogryns, which are hugely more powerful than marines. Why would anyone want to imagine their favorite super soldiers as bigger and weaker than Ogryns? The magic is cramming all that power into someone who can still pass for a (large and powerful) human.

As mentioned, the Emperor and the Primarchs could alter their appearance in some fashion.

Perhaps the Primarchs looked similar to the humans around them because they thought they were just normal humans. But after being rediscovered they started to appear more superhuman, even compared to their space marine brothers. Perhaps it was an unconscious thing that altered their appearance.

There we go, fixed for you.

When the original crew of GW writers (Rick Priestley et al) wrote about the primarchs and the Emperor and the Horus Heresy, it was in deliberately mythic/legendary terms. They sometimes described them as being of 'superhuman stature', not because they were literally meant to be giants, but because that was how a bunch of ignorant space-peasants 10,000 years later remembered them in stories. But other parts of the primarch fluff only made sense if they were roughly human/marine size, for example Alpharius' ability to masquerade as an ordinary Astartes, or Sanguinius appearing to the people of Baal as a beautiful angel rather than a giant freak, or Guilliman being the adopted son of a normal human king and noted for his intellect rather than for being a fething giant.

But, by the time GW/FW/BL started covering the HH in depth, the people who had written the original primarch fluff had long gone, replaced by a bunch of ascended fanboys who were (to put it bluntly) too stupid to recognise what was meant to be literal 'history' and what was meant to be myths and legends even within the fictional world. So all the stuff that was meant to be the result of 10 millennia of mythmaking by ignorant space-peasants ended up being forced to be literally 'true', leading to a bunch of nonsensical exceptions and 'twists' to hide the inconsistencies (such as Alpharius and Omegon having to be comically tiny compared to their brothers, or all the primarchs suddenly being latent psykers to explain their 'superpowers').

in the black library celebration book, Malcador is playing a card/thingy game with a "psychic projection" of big E and I would assume he would just appear as what each is supposed to see of him. I've always thought that the EMP was just an average looking human in real life. It is just his glamour/badassness represents what he wants people to see.

I'm gonna have to say no to that picture tho.

Vintersorg wrote:
There we go, fixed for you.

This seems to fit with what I have read, and with the miniatures.

I do know the Emperor could be whatever size he wanted though. And that Alpharius was specifically smaller than normal (which let him blend in with normal marines).

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Vintersorg wrote:
There we go, fixed for you.

This seems to fit with what I have read, and with the miniatures.

I do know the Emperor could be whatever size he wanted though. And that Alpharius was specifically smaller than normal (which let him blend in with normal marines).

Yeah, I like that version much more, but sadly is canon that the Primarchs are giant freaks that are nearly 50% bigger than Primaris marines. And I know in miniatures Primaris and Custodes are the same size but I believe thats because they made the Custodes in scale with the old marines. If Primaris are just a little bit bigger than normal marines in fluf, then Custodes should still be bigger than them.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Andykp wrote:
No you’re not. The issue seems to come from black library authors exaggerating every aspect of the back ground. Including size of marines.

And Reddit in turn gushing all over this. I can't be downvoted here, you feths.

It is utterly preposterous. It's like they have no sense of scale whatsoever. Primarchs were not that big, I don't give a feth what the BL authors say and this is another thing in a long list of thing they've done with the HH series in damaging the background. The Primarchs had relics that are used in 40k today? Are we saying Vulkan He'Stan's spear was a toothpick for his Primarch? A that's what that pic would imply. The Wolf Helm of Russ went over one of his fingers as a thimble, right? Grimnar's sled could only fit a single foot of the mighty Russ inside it?

I don't mind exaggeration, when it's meant to be wrapped in legend (such as Russ throwing the Kraken, whose tentacles wrapped halfway around Fenris back into the ocean and told the tiddler to come back when it was fully grown) as you can read between the lines. But when it is stone cold fact it is fething stupid.

Exactly. How the hell did the new Guilliman wear the same gauntlets that Marneus Calgar is wearing???? Especially as they were originally worn by a Chaos Champion.

 Galas wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Vintersorg wrote:
There we go, fixed for you.

This seems to fit with what I have read, and with the miniatures.

I do know the Emperor could be whatever size he wanted though. And that Alpharius was specifically smaller than normal (which let him blend in with normal marines).

Yeah, I like that version much more, but sadly is canon that the Primarchs are giant freaks that are nearly 50% bigger than Primaris marines. And I know in miniatures Primaris and Custodes are the same size but I believe thats because they made the Custodes in scale with the old marines. If Primaris are just a little bit bigger than normal marines in fluf, then Custodes should still be bigger than them.

Looks about 50% bigger to me. That is way different from, say, 50% taller.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Exactly. How the hell did the new Guilliman wear the same gauntlets that Marneus Calgar is wearing???? Especially as they were originally worn by a Chaos Champion.

Or Vulkan spear be wielded by a normal Space Marine or how Angron axe can be wielded by Kharn with a single hand. Primarch size is all over the place. Even Horus' claw seems to fit well from his giant Primcarch armor to a simple Terminator armor worn by Abaddon.

The warhammer 40K world is a little variable.

Magnus could vary his size (like dear old dad), and Alpharius/Omega were only slightly larger than a regular marine. But marines themselves could come in different sizes depending on how large they were when beginning implantation (think Haegr from the Space Wolf series or Alexis Polux who are supposed to be about as big as a Primarch).

It consequently makes sense that perhaps a few of the bigger stronger Primarchs (say, Vulkan), could be a tad larger than Lorgar or Fulgrim. Nothing says the rest of the Primarchs all have to be the same height, after all.

epronovost wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Exactly. How the hell did the new Guilliman wear the same gauntlets that Marneus Calgar is wearing???? Especially as they were originally worn by a Chaos Champion.

Or Vulkan spear be wielded by a normal Space Marine or how Angron axe can be wielded by Kharn with a single hand. Primarch size is all over the place. Even Horus' claw seems to fit well from his giant Primcarch armor to a simple Terminator armor worn by Abaddon.

Daemon weapons can change size, and Abby's claw looks a lot smaller when Horus is wielding it.

I like this scaling:

Assuming the Sisters of Silence are roughly 6 foot tall here, then the Emperor is about 8.5 foot tall and Custodes 7.5 foot tall. This would make them quite big, but still compatible with human architecture.

The stupid 10-12 foot Primarchs would not fit 99% of rooms in modern day Earth. It would be a real PITA for them to not be able to enter a building for combat.

I'm reading angel Exterminatus rn and perturabo is "one head" taller than a terminator officer. Not a giant

 godardc wrote:
I'm reading angel Exterminatus rn and perturabo is "one head" taller than a terminator officer. Not a giant

How tall is a terminator officer?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:

 godardc wrote:
I'm reading angel Exterminatus rn and perturabo is "one head" taller than a terminator officer. Not a giant

How tall is a terminator officer?

like 8 feet tall.

Also being a head taller then a terminator is about consistant with what we see, Gulliman is only a head taller then Abaddon

Primaris are said to be about a foot and a half taller than original Marines in Knights of Macragge which translates to about a head taller. .

Thunder Warriors should be smaller than marines on average, given The Outcast Dead had two, one of which was shorter than all the Marines, and the other who was tall, but still shorter than the tallest marine.

I don't think Custodes are said to be taller than Primaris, frankly they aren't described as being too much taller than old marines as far as I can tell, but I'd reckon they'd probably be around Primaris size.

This picture has the man at 6' and foot and a half increment from there. I think that's a pretty fair, given some art has regular people crotch high.

Guilliman looks like a teddy bear in that suit of armor