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I've asked about special/named characters in the past, but no one mentioned the Primarchs, Daemon or otherwise.

I have only seen Bobby G, and Mori take the table in 40k. Even in Horus Heresy games they are vacant from game play.

Is it the price, the rules, or something else entirely that causes people to avoid the big guys?

Yes.

In 40K:

Angron
I love the model. Wether or not I use him in any given battle though is about 50/50. It has nothing to do his stats, just the fact that I have alot of other WE options that I also like to use. And if I'd landed onn the Chaos side in the shops just begun Armageddon Crusade? I'd absolutely have him on my roster.

Fulgrim
I love the model. Ok, I love both his 40k & HH models. And I have both sitting assembled & base coated on my shelf. Some time here in 2025 I'll also get around to building some EC units to go with him in 40k....
That model is the ONLY reason I'll play EC, so yes, he'll be in every list.

Leman Russ!
Yes, in 40k.
See, long long ago, when the SW were brand new, GW made LR & his two wolves. They've just never had their own stat block. So my Russ figure, using either Wolf Lord stats or Ragnars (the model is armed exactly as Ragnar is), has been leading my SW since the closing days of RT. Always. There is no other leader. And one of these days GW will eventually give us actual 40k Primarch stats for Russ. When that happens? Then I'll be officially running Leman Russ.


30K:

Fulgrim
Now that I have him built the next time we play HH I'll run my stuff as EC for a bit & put him to use.
(my HH stuff is merely base coated, & I don't have any Legion specific stuff amongst the infantry/vehicles. So sure, they can be EC today)


Edit:
For 40K, concerning the other primarchs:
●Magnus - I've zero interest in playing Thousand Sons. So the odds of me ever running Magnus are extremely low.

●Mortarion - I just don't like the model. As I only buy/build/play models I like.... odds of me ever supporting my DG with him? Zero.

●Guilliman - my UM are built using only RT era models. Guilliman simply doesn't fit the theme, so unless I someday build a modern UM force (very unlikely).... I do have a very nicely painted one on my shelf though!

●The Lion - great model. I'm not at all opposed to adding him to my DA force - someday.

I only play 30k at the moment, Fulgrims boys and a small force of Iron Hands. Iron hands is themed around post Istavaan so obviously no Ferrus. But I'll rock Fulgrim as the mood calls.

Nope. Not for me.

Yes, I play Mortarion regularly. I also regularly face Magnus, Angron and the Lion at the head of their respecitve armies.

Ultramarines are super rare in my area, so I haven't seen Gulliman in a while. The EC player owns Fulgrim, but due to his 4th edition mindset, he is too worried about irritating someone to field his beautiful model.

If we finish the Armageddon Crusade before the edition ends, we plan to have a huge game with all four demon primarchs.

Back in yon dayes of yore when our group was all new to HH, almost every single game had the Primarch involved because we were young un's who didn't know any better.

Now? I haven't used Perturabo in many moons.

Not often.

I have Guiliman, and have put him on the table in the past. But a lot of games I play are crusade or Combat Patrols, where he doesn’t really have a place. And he can be hard to work into themed lists. And once he’s in a list, everything revolves around him.


I would have preferred the primarchs to have stayed in 30k. The demon ones I could see for 40k, but the loyalists should have been kept in the bottle. But once they were out, I had to get the one for my army.

He is not an auto-include like Azrael, but I field the Lion fairly regularly in my 40K games, including tournaments. That he is a Primarch does not factor into my decision-making process. I consider his cost and how his capabilities fit into the list I am building.

I face Mortarion, Angron and Bobby G fairly regularly. Haven’t seen Fulgrim yet.

I've used Magnus fairly often in 40k, but that's mostly because so many of the other Thousand Sons units have been lackluster that Magnus has largely been auto-include - despite having a bullet magnet on his forehead. Now that they have a new codex that makes more units enticing, it probably won't happen as much.

I don't play Marines that have Primarchs (Chambers Militant of the Inquisition- Grey Knights and Deathwatch are the only marines that interest me), but if I did, I'd use Primarchs in the same way I use any named character:

Very, very sparingly, and only when the narrative allowed it. Basically, I'd escalate a Crusade from 500 points to 3k, and at about 2500 points, I would start thinking about scenarios where the Primarch might join in for a game or two.

For me, the inclusion of named characters is ALWAYS a special event, and Primarchs are great campaign-ending additions to a roster.

I don't play anymore, but if I did, I'd use Girlyman once in a while. He's much like Calgar in that regard who joined my 2nd company Ultramarines once or twice. He's not part of the company, but if he invites himself, who's Sicarius to tell him to bugger off*. But overwhelmingly I'd stick to using units from 2nd company.

I used Abaddon once in a while since 2nd ed, and much more frequently around 6th ed or so when I converted a new model for him to replace his armless form after GW embiggened the rest of the game too much for the 2nd ed model to look good anymore. Shame a model's performance is the inverse of the effort of converting and painting it, so he was an absolute dud in every game other than the one in which his own Sorcerer turned him into Spawnbaddon and improved his terminator armor and 4+ invulnerable save to a much more effective 6+ invulnerable save. His melee attacks got better, too.





*That's a rhetorical question. He is of course Captain Cato Sicarius, leader of the best fighting force in the galaxy, and as immeasurable in his grace as in his awesomeness. He'd tolerate his supposed betters if only to prove his magnanimity.

Occasionally.

I'm typically not too much of one for named characters, but I do have the 30k Alpharius model which I've slightly modified to be Omegon. I've yet to actually play him in 30k as I rarely get a game in there, but my custom space marine chapter is a 2nd founding chapter made from all the loyalist survivors of the traitor legions and I occasionally run him there using either Guilliman's stats or custom rules I made for him depending on how narrative the game is.

My best friend plays White Scars and he has the 30k Jaghatai model. He uses the Lion's stats for him at the moment and will sometimes even run Company of Hunters for all the bikes.

Overall though, I'd say maybe only about 5% of either of our games have a Primarch in them.

 Tawnis wrote:
Occasionally.

I'm typically not too much of one for named characters, but I do have the 30k Alpharius model which I've slightly modified to be Omegon.

What modifications did you make to change Alpharius to Omegon?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
Occasionally.

I'm typically not too much of one for named characters, but I do have the 30k Alpharius model which I've slightly modified to be Omegon.

What modifications did you make to change Alpharius to Omegon?

I probably made that sound way cooler than it actually is. I removed his cloak, slightly changed the positioning of his weapon, and had the model he's stabbing on his scenic base painted as an Alpha Legionary.