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So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

The_Peacemaker wrote:
So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

Because general consensus is they are lost in the same way puppies go to the farm.

But I like your thoughts. However this would feed into marine bloat. People already complain about marines getting too much. This would add to that.

However that being said. I would add a new if they remove an old. Have a current chapter get wiped out clean. I think we're due a good civil war refresh.

Nah. There's already too many in the Heresy.

The_Peacemaker wrote:
So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

They only brought back one Primarch, Guilliman. Angron, Mortarion, Magnus and Fulgrim have been playable in Epic since. . . 1994? And lore-wise those guys have always been around in-universe. Angron in the First Armageddon War, for example.

The_Peacemaker wrote:
So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

All 20 primarchs were found. All 20 fought in the Great Crusade. End of story.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:

The_Peacemaker wrote:
So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

Because general consensus is they are lost in the same way puppies go to the farm.

But I like your thoughts. However this would feed into marine bloat. People already complain about marines getting too much. This would add to that.

However that being said. I would add a new if they remove an old. Have a current chapter get wiped out clean. I think we're due a good civil war refresh.

A way to avoid the bloat would be to have a lost primarch that is NOT on the side of the Imperium or Chaos. Either with his own faction of renegades or by joining xenos like the Tau or Eldar. Or for extra fun, the Orks. It would be hilarious if one of the lost Primarchs adopted ork kultur and became a warboss in his own right.

The 2nd and 11th Primarchs were confirmed as dead in "The Chamber at the end of memory". Whatever happened to them was so traumatic that it threatened the ideals of the nascent Imperium itself. The Primarchs voluntarily allowed Malcador to suppress their memories of their lost brothers.

In the above story, Dorn is angry with Malcador for removing his memories until Malcador explains that it was actually Dorn and Roboute's idea to do so. Malcador allows Dorn to remember them for a minute and Dorn reflects that were they still present, the Loyalists would probably have lost the Horus Heresy already.

Malcador states that only 1 Primarch proved mentally strong enough to be allowed to retain his memories of the event. It is not stated outright but I believe this was Alpharius as it would explain why he is the only Primarch who claims to already know about the existence of Chaos at the outbreak of the Horus Heresy while pretty much all the others are shocked by the revelations.

Despite Black Library dropping more hints, I am almost certain that the identities and fates of the lost Primarchs will never be revealed, partly because several of the hints have been contradictory. I suppose this could be glossed over by Malcador's memory wipe affecting different Primarchs differently resulting in muddled and contradictory recollections (a variation on the "unreliable narrator" trope).

Biggest mistake GW made was bringing primarchs back to life.

They weren't originally immortal and the last if their kind died out in m32.

Then they showed that guilliman was in stasis. Then they said and btw, the lion is also in stasis.

Then it got even worse when they retconned the deaths of dorn and Vulkan, making one handless and the other an indestructible immortal... (Despite Vulkan being my 2nd favourite primarch him being dead is better for the setting).

I'm surprised they still had ferrus killed given their determination to resurrect primarchs...

So we'll see:

Ferrus clone back from the dead ala Dinobot 2 from beastwars
Nighthaunter wasn't dead after all! Mshen can't kill a primarch!
Sanguinius resurrects through mephiston/sanguinor, maybe as a super sayian fusion
Alpharius isn't dead! He's never alpharius
Horus - of course he's alive, an obliterated soul is nothing to a demi god like him..

TBF I think Alpharius actually being dead would be far more of a plot twist than him being alive.

As for good idea or not, well that's subjective on every level save one: sales. We'll see how that's worked with how heavy GW goes in on Primarch content for 40k.

More will come back.

From a hobby perspective they make great models and are fun to use in game. From a business perspective they generate cash.

I expect we'll get:

-Fulgrim and Angron on the Traitor side
-Lion, Russ on the loyalist side

Beyond that, into the future I expect: Lorgar, Loyalist Fulgrim clone, Corax, Vulkan, Khan, Dorn, Perturabo, Alpharius

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF I think Alpharius actually being dead would be far more of a plot twist than him being alive.

As for good idea or not, well that's subjective on every level save one: sales. We'll see how that's worked with how heavy GW goes in on Primarch content for 40k.

I stand by my desire for the reveal that Guillimans dead and the bloke wandering around now is Alpharius.

Please no. The missing primarchs were meant to give you room to build your own background for your space marines outside of the 9 first founding chapters or 9 traitor legions. Making an official story for either one kills what little nod there is to making your own theme. Why take away that option?

I’d prefer to see the primarchs stay as relics of the past but the cat is out of the bag. And as my learned colleagues have stated, they sell well so GW will make more. You can’t blame them for good business.

It would be nice if the dead ones remained dead though. The Blood Angles, Iron Hands, Black Legion, and to a lesser extent the Night Lords derive a good amount of their character from the death of their primarch. They lose a bit of that character when those defining deaths get hand waved away.

the iron warrior in me took joy in the fact that Dorn got Zurg rushed by random chaos space marines during a black crusade. I know that’s outdated at this point but it was funny and helped build a universe where anyone could die. The only plus side of Horus coming back would be Abaddon asking “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?”

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Please no. The missing primarchs were meant to give you room to build your own background for your space marines outside of the 9 first founding chapters or 9 traitor legions.

No, they weren't. They literally never existed to create mystery for the past. GW has confirmed this time and again.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Please no. The missing primarchs were meant to give you room to build your own background for your space marines outside of the 9 first founding chapters or 9 traitor legions.

No, they weren't. They literally never existed to create mystery for the past. GW has confirmed this time and again.

Citation needed. I've never heard that and them existing for fan Chapters makes more sense than them just being not around.

The_Peacemaker wrote:
So they are bringing back the primarchs. But why not have a lost primarch become found? And tell his story all fresh and new!

Uuuh no. Not everything needs to be explained or shown. There's this thing called "mystery". The primarch etc are already TOO explored and explained...

Top of that it's 100% quarantee whatever GW could come up with would be anti climatix and boring. They can not meet the mystery(which btw was never even intended to be explained. Not even GW knows what actually happened to them. They were inserted there just to add some mystery for players to go "oooo what happened? What? Why? How?")

The lost primarchs aren't intended to be found. Their names are "Insert Your Fluff Here". Finding them robs them of their purpose.

 Ishagu wrote:

From a hobby perspective they make great models and are fun to use in game. From a business perspective they generate cash.

I am actually quite surprised we have not seen more already. We had 3 Primarchs in the space of around a year. A lot of players (myself included) rather expected them to churn out a fresh Primarch every 6 months. I guess there is something to be said for keeping their powder dry.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Please no. The missing primarchs were meant to give you room to build your own background for your space marines outside of the 9 first founding chapters or 9 traitor legions.

No, they weren't. They literally never existed to create mystery for the past. GW has confirmed this time and again.

It doesn’t seem strange that’s there’s exactly two mystery legions? Almost like it was meant to give one likely loyalist and one likely traitor option for you to make your own background with?

 LunarSol wrote:
The lost primarchs aren't intended to be found. Their names are "Insert Your Fluff Here". Finding them robs them of their purpose.

Except every homebrew Chapter Lore about mysterious uber mary sues originating from the lost legions comes from fluff noobs and is generally the worst background one could pick.

I like all the small hints in the lore about them but nowadays you cant just simply make up a legion and expect that people do not just roll their eyes and chuckle about it. Reading about "Lost Legion Successors" for the umpteenth time made up by people who just bought their first few marines and writing something completely uninspiring and lazy like "lost in the warp for a bazillion years" just fills me with nerdrage.

Granted, If you wrote an actual BOOK of Background supported by models which do not look like standard marines at all I'd probably dig it.

The main reason they shouldn’t bring 2nd and 11th primarchs to the table top is cos GW would probably do it badly.

However if they do ever do it I agree they can not be empire or chaos as we do not need more SM options and if they were chaotic wouldn’t they have joined in the heresy.

One of them could be in with the tau, convincing more humans join the greater good...

I also think that NOT bringing back the primarchs that the fluff allows for, russ and lion etc is a bad move. Pre great rift I would agree that the primarchs should stay gone but they way they have moved the story on, with empire fragmented and a greater chaos presence I think it makes sense. In most instances there is 20+years fluff promising the return of the primarchs in their chapters hour of need.

Morkphoiz wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The lost primarchs aren't intended to be found. Their names are "Insert Your Fluff Here". Finding them robs them of their purpose.

Except every homebrew Chapter Lore about mysterious uber mary sues originating from the lost legions comes from fluff noobs and is generally the worst background one could pick.

No amount of elitism (or name calling like "Mary Sue"-ism) is going to eliminate the right (by virtue of -doing it-) of a fandom to write terrible fan fiction. And that's before getting into the "Who are you (or anyone else) to decide what fan fiction is good, and by what standard?" For that matter, some of the stuff that GW has published has probably been called bad fan fiction.

In any event, those two nameless primarchs have existed long enough for people to have asked GW enough times why they're there, and the response has been consistent over time: They're the two 'My story needs a different primarch/chapter/geen seed' chapters.

 solkan wrote:

Morkphoiz wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The lost primarchs aren't intended to be found. Their names are "Insert Your Fluff Here". Finding them robs them of their purpose.

Except every homebrew Chapter Lore about mysterious uber mary sues originating from the lost legions comes from fluff noobs and is generally the worst background one could pick.

No amount of elitism (or name calling like "Mary Sue"-ism) is going to eliminate the right (by virtue of -doing it-) of a fandom to write terrible fan fiction. And that's before getting into the "Who are you (or anyone else) to decide what fan fiction is good, and by what standard?" For that matter, some of the stuff that GW has published has probably been called bad fan fiction.

In any event, those two nameless primarchs have existed long enough for people to have asked GW enough times why they're there, and the response has been consistent over time: They're the two 'My story needs a different primarch/chapter/geen seed' chapters.

Except it hasn't been consistent. I've asked at two different Games Days 10 years apart and received the mystery answer both times. People have reported being told by studio members that it's to reflect the missing Roman Legions, some have been told it's for creativity, and others have been told it's for further mystery. The fact they decided that the canon answer is "these legions were destroyed and/or subsumed by Ultramarines" kind of doesn't support your assertion that it's for people to invent new chapters that are born from dead legions.

 solkan wrote:

No amount of elitism (or name calling like "Mary Sue"-ism) is going to eliminate the right (by virtue of -doing it-) of a fandom to write terrible fan fiction. And that's before getting into the "Who are you (or anyone else) to decide what fan fiction is good, and by what standard?" For that matter, some of the stuff that GW has published has probably been called bad fan fiction.

I mean, if they didn't have official models and were sombody's homebrew? Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Raven Guard would be mocked relentlessly among others.

 Platuan4th wrote:


The fact they decided that the canon answer is "these legions were destroyed and/or subsumed by Ultramarines" kind of doesn't support your assertion that it's for people to invent new chapters that are born from dead legions.

They allude to the fact that at least one legion got rolled into the ultramarines and the space wolves claim to have destroyed one. It’s not difficult to make a scenario where part of each legion escapes their sanction and continues to function in a limited capacity. The space wolves failed to destroy the Thousand Sons and they weren’t fighting back at the start of prospero.

The other evidence we have of the legions being completely destroyed comes from a short story where Malcador admits to changing the primarchs memories, allegedly on their behalf. Call me a sceptic but I don’t trust Malcador to be truthful. He’s the man who laid most of the groundwork for the Imperium, which is a bastion of truth of course. On top of that he quite clearly can manipulate memories so anything he says should be taken with a huge dash of salt.

Even in the face of the current lore, there is an easy way to keep the two legions open for people to make the own background. Will a lot if I it be sub par writing and concepts? Maybe it will. But everyone has to start somewhere. When someone paints there first model, people tend to encourage them to paint more to get better. Why should that be any different for writing. You can’t be good at any skill without practicing it and the first attempts may not always be great. And at the end of the day if someone wants to make an army of ninja marines who are the best at everything and aren’t limited by imperial dogma let them. It’s not like it hurts anything. Encouraging creativity is good for the hobby. Why stifle the opportunities for it.

That’s why they should leave the two lost primarchs alone. Leave some room for player creativity in the face of ever increasing names character and hyper focus on a handful of concepts.

Ferrus clone back from the dead ala Dinobot 2 from beastwars 

Or alternatively, given his cameo in Master of Mankind, Legion Of The Damned Ferrus.

An update to the Legion would be cool

locarno24 wrote:

Ferrus clone back from the dead ala Dinobot 2 from beastwars 

Or alternatively, given his cameo in Master of Mankind, Legion Of The Damned Ferrus.

An update to the Legion would be cool

Yes, because let's reveal every bloody mystery in 40k...

Some people just don't know when to say when. Part of the appeal of things sometimes is the mystery, the proverbial door that is just ajar enough to peek in but not get the full picture. Describing every little thing in almost pornographic detail and leaving nothing to the imagination hurts franchises.

pm713 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF I think Alpharius actually being dead would be far more of a plot twist than him being alive.

As for good idea or not, well that's subjective on every level save one: sales. We'll see how that's worked with how heavy GW goes in on Primarch content for 40k.

I stand by my desire for the reveal that Guillimans dead and the bloke wandering around now is Alpharius.

Now that would be awesome.

 Grimtuff wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

Ferrus clone back from the dead ala Dinobot 2 from beastwars 

Or alternatively, given his cameo in Master of Mankind, Legion Of The Damned Ferrus.

An update to the Legion would be cool

Yes, because let's reveal every bloody mystery in 40k...

Some people just don't know when to say when. Part of the appeal of things sometimes is the mystery, the proverbial door that is just ajar enough to peek in but not get the full picture. Describing every little thing in almost pornographic detail and leaving nothing to the imagination hurts franchises.

On the other hand, never explaining any of the mystery is just frustrating. You can't just hint that there is some shadowy character with an agenda, some secrets waiting to be revealed, some sort of grand plan hidden under the surface... and never actually show any of it. Otherwise you end up with something like the X-Files, where every question was "answered" by asking two more questions until it became obvious that there was nothing hidden at all, just smoke and mirrors to pretend that the story was deep instead of random bs they came up with on the fly.

 Tiennos wrote:

On the other hand, never explaining any of the mystery is just frustrating. You can't just hint that there is some shadowy character with an agenda, some secrets waiting to be revealed, some sort of grand plan hidden under the surface... and never actually show any of it. Otherwise you end up with something like the X-Files, where every question was "answered" by asking two more questions until it became obvious that there was nothing hidden at all, just smoke and mirrors to pretend that the story was deep instead of random bs they came up with on the fly.

I don’t think that’s a good comparison though because 40k isn’t a TV show, movie, or book. All of those are expected to have an end and all of the content is supplied by the creator. 40k is a setting designed for you to use the stories and plot hooks to frame what’s going on on the tabletop. There isn’t a single central plot to follow and the setting looses its value if you answer too much of it because suddenly the player input is suddenly meaningless.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:

 Tiennos wrote:

On the other hand, never explaining any of the mystery is just frustrating. You can't just hint that there is some shadowy character with an agenda, some secrets waiting to be revealed, some sort of grand plan hidden under the surface... and never actually show any of it. Otherwise you end up with something like the X-Files, where every question was "answered" by asking two more questions until it became obvious that there was nothing hidden at all, just smoke and mirrors to pretend that the story was deep instead of random bs they came up with on the fly.

I don’t think that’s a good comparison though because 40k isn’t a TV show, movie, or book. All of those are expected to have an end and all of the content is supplied by the creator. 40k is a setting designed for you to use the stories and plot hooks to frame what’s going on on the tabletop. There isn’t a single central plot to follow and the setting looses its value if you answer too much of it because suddenly the player input is suddenly meaningless.

I agree that a setting can afford to be much more loose and vague than a story, but the moment you make it obvious that a mystery will never be resolved, it stops being interesting. If you can be sure that the lost primarchs will never be explained, then why care about them? If you know that you will never, ever learn anything significant about these guys, they're not relevant to anything. Sure, they can be used for fan works... just like I can say that my original chapter, the Space Monkeys, was created via a secret crazy mechanicus project to make space marines out of jokaeros.

The lost primarchs are one of those things that fans like to talk a lot about, but that will never pay off. We can make all the theories we want, which is fun, but it's ultimately a waste of time as no one will ever be proven wrong or right. If it was sudeenly retconned that they never existed in the first place, the setting would hardly lose anything.