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 Da Boss wrote:
I hate all the gigantism in the modern game. In my headcannon, marines are a bit bigger than the average human, but a lot of that just bulk and heavier bones, and primarchs are about the same size and the Emprah is a normal sized dude. No reason for the Emprah to be bigger than that, in my view. People might percieve him as being huge, but that is all down to his psychic abilities.

Word. So much.

First, almost all canon places Space Marines at about seven feet on average.

Primarch heights are a bit harder to find. Lion El'Jonson in Descent of Angels was said to be about three meters unarmoured, so about ten feet. I see no reason to think he's especially tall or short for a Primarch, so most would fall under that range.

Primarchs that were apparently particularly short were Alpharius, Omegon, as well as Angron apparently. Alpharius and Omegon in particular were short enough that particularly large Marines could pass themselves off as them.

Magnus, Ferrus Manus, and Vulkan were particularly large Primarchs, though with Magnus this is partly explained by him altering his size at will. In Battle of the Fang he took on a form like his pre-Daemon days and he was apparently five meters tall. Over seventeen feet.

How I imagine it is
Space Marines: 7'
Primaris: 7'6"
Custodes: 8'
Primarchs: 9'-10' (With Alpharius being something like 8 or 8.5 ft and Magnus being around 11+ ft. tall.)

These are just the averages.

Oh, and small ork boyz, the newest and most numerous of an ork tribe, is said to be human height with about twice the bulk. So around 6' tall for your average ork boy. Nobs I imagine to be minimum 7' tall to be around space marine height, but its never stated what constitutes as a nob. The Orky Boys kit's nob boss is a nob, but he is smaller than the regular nobs you get in a nob mob box so its hard to tell when exactly an ork turns from boy to nob. Most likely its a "when it feels right" thing considering that they are orks. Theres an old BL book where there Vostroyans fighting Orks in melee on snow or something. That cover art is a good reference for the size of boyz imo

I like the low end estimates starting with 8 foot something. Gives a sense of scale and realism. 10 foot Primarchs would be unable to walk straight in most houses.

Imagine being a Primarch and having to sit a fight out due to you being too tall to enter a building / building complex.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
I like the low end estimates starting with 8 foot something. Gives a sense of scale and realism. 10 foot Primarchs would be unable to walk straight in most houses.

Imagine being a Primarch and having to sit a fight out due to you being too tall to enter a building / building complex.

That is pretty much how they are described in several HH novels though. In one novel, Guillliman struggles to wield a marine-sized bolter because it is too small for him and has to rip the trigger guard off before he can fire it. In another book, Corax visits the complex on Terra that was supposed to be the Primarchs' home had they not been scattered and it is all built to their scale.

If we treat the HH cover art as canon then Unremembered Empire gives the best scale for Primarchs. Both Gulliman and Sanguinius are about twice the height of the regular humans around them. Assuming the humans are 5'-6' high, that would put average Primarchs at 10'-12'. Alpharius was noted as being the runt of the litter but his Marines were so tall he could be mistaken for a tall Legionnaire. Magnus on the other hand was probably closer to 15'.

 Karhedron wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
I like the low end estimates starting with 8 foot something. Gives a sense of scale and realism. 10 foot Primarchs would be unable to walk straight in most houses.

Imagine being a Primarch and having to sit a fight out due to you being too tall to enter a building / building complex.

That is pretty much how they are described in several HH novels though. In one novel, Guillliman struggles to wield a marine-sized bolter because it is too small for him and has to rip the trigger guard off before he can fire it. In another book, Corax visits the complex on Terra that was supposed to be the Primarchs' home had they not been scattered and it is all built to their scale.

If we treat the HH cover art as canon then Unremembered Empire gives the best scale for Primarchs. Both Gulliman and Sanguinius are about twice the height of the regular humans around them. Assuming the humans are 5'-6' high, that would put average Primarchs at 10'-12'. Alpharius was noted as being the runt of the litter but his Marines were so tall he could be mistaken for a tall Legionnaire. Magnus on the other hand was probably closer to 15'.

Spoiler:

That is Just. So. Stupid.

Yeah, lore it so your battle commanders can't even use the tranports their army rolls around in. Make them not fit through doors or reside in bunkers that the Imperial army has built. God I hate it so.

I almost bought the FW Guilliman model when it came out. Then I saw how cartoonishly giant he was. Same thing happened with the new inexplicably huge Abaddon model. Didn't buy either.

Yeah. Agreeing with poster above. I like the low-end estimates the most for Primarch heights.

Even just an eight foot Primarch would be a tall beast. But a tall beast still just barely capable of operating in most environments built for humans.

It's clearly not, but I take it as imperial propaganda.

There's no advantage to them being huge - their power was in the armies they led, not their personal daring-do.

Making them huge just makes them a target. Sure they will one punch a human to mush, but there are plenty of weapons that are cheaper and more plentiful than primarch fists to do that.

Hellebore wrote:
It's clearly not, but I take it as imperial propaganda.

There's no advantage to them being huge - their power was in the armies they led, not their personal daring-do.

Making them huge just makes them a target. Sure they will one punch a human to mush, but there are plenty of weapons that are cheaper and more plentiful than primarch fists to do that.

Pretty sure watching them tank those very weapons was part of their propaganda.
I’m in the 7.5-8.5 foot camp with an unconscious psychic boosted charisma that made them look bigger again. Freaky psychic talents like Magnus and the Big E probably worked out how to make themselves even more impressive.

Yeah. In all its likeliness, the Emps is probably around six foot something tall. It wouldn't make sense for his backstory otherwise as he was able to hide throughout most of history and influence from the shadows by appearing as advisor to kings, etc...

If he was like 9 foot tall, he would stand out like a Blood Angel from a group of Dark Angels.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Yeah. In all its likeliness, the Emps is probably around six foot something tall. It wouldn't make sense for his backstory otherwise as he was able to hide throughout most of history and influence from the shadows by appearing as advisor to kings, etc...

That is probably true I think. One of the Primarch novels (possibly Perturabo but not sure) has the Primarch remembering the Emperor as being tall when they spoke yet at other times, not appearing to tower over the humans around him. His memories were different depending on the context yet never remembered the Emperor actually changing size.

IIRC, the cube square law really starts to fight against anything human shaped once you go past 8ft tall. I can't see any of the Primarchs being much bigger than that, even Vulkan or Horus. Leman Russ is shorter than a Custodian, and they are the same height as a primaris marine. I'd guess SM are about 7-7.5ft, while custodes, primaris marines, and thunder warriors average about 7.5 ft. Primarchs are probably around 8ft, a full head taller than their SM sons.

That assumes the primarchs are bound by physical laws, they seem to be supernatural to a large extent, able to do things that are mathematically impossible. Obviously the Emperor, and Magnus to some extent, would fall into that category regardless of the other primarchs, they are as tall as they need to be.

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
Aren't the Primarchs supposed to be as big compared to a Space Marine as Space Marines are to normal humans? I've always used this image as a referance for the size compareson even though Horus is in Terminator armor so it makes him larger then normal.

I'm just curious about wether or not the Traitor Primarchs grew once they became Daemon Princes and how they compared in size to the Loyal Primarchs.

No. 7 feet for space marine, 8 feet for terminator/primaris/custodian. Primarch 9 feet and primarch in terminator armour 10.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Pretty sure watching them tank those very weapons was part of their propaganda.

There's a reasonable way to go about that:

Heightened situatial awareness to improve chances of evasion, better armor than everyone else, plus a force field. Then any resulting story of the event becomes exaggerated.

NOT literally taking a Volcano Cannon square in the chest.

GW has this weird contradictory tone in their writing when it comes to 'heroes'.

They've designed this huge sprawling universe where you are told billions die every day in the meat grinder, where weapons exist that can destroy planets and where 'you will not be missed'.

...unless you're one of these pseudo protagonists who somehow survive in this environment.

in their writing its clear the primarchs are a drop in the ocean when it comes to military force. Each ship has more kills on the wall than any primarch.

I find the special character obsession weird as it tries to have its cake and eat it too.

It's a similar problem to the one I have re GRRM and game of thrones - the more you kill people willy nilly, the more obvious it is when you DON'T. when death is common place, survival becomes the outlier.

The same is true in 40k. The amount of plot armour special characters NEED to avoid dying in this ultra violent and lethal environment is immense.

@Hellebore Warhammer Fantasy was a bigger offender than 40k in that regard. At least 40k can always say that these are super-human demigods whose very existence seems to defy the laws of the natural universe and are infused with a fragment of the belief of trillions of souls. There are in universe explenations for what would otherwise be called plot armor, by and large. Fantasy and the mortal humans in 40k can’t say that, and at least in 40k they often don’t.

But frankly I wouldn’t mind it if the space marine heros had a bit more turnover, if one of the super old characters died crossing the rubicon or got eaten by tyrannids or something, like Asmodai or Gabriel Seth. But easy for me to say when I don’t play either of those chapters.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Pretty sure watching them tank those very weapons was part of their propaganda.

There's a reasonable way to go about that:

Heightened situatial awareness to improve chances of evasion, better armor than everyone else, plus a force field. Then any resulting story of the event becomes exaggerated.

NOT literally taking a Volcano Cannon square in the chest.

Fair point although due to GWs lack of forced research on writers the Primarchs have suffered some pretty hefty blows and lost organs more than once.

Hellebore wrote:
GW has this weird contradictory tone in their writing when it comes to 'heroes'.

They've designed this huge sprawling universe where you are told billions die every day in the meat grinder, where weapons exist that can destroy planets and where 'you will not be missed'.

...unless you're one of these pseudo protagonists who somehow survive in this environment.

in their writing its clear the primarchs are a drop in the ocean when it comes to military force. Each ship has more kills on the wall than any primarch.

I find the special character obsession weird as it tries to have its cake and eat it too.

It's a similar problem to the one I have re GRRM and game of thrones - the more you kill people willy nilly, the more obvious it is when you DON'T. when death is common place, survival becomes the outlier.

The same is true in 40k. The amount of plot armour special characters NEED to avoid dying in this ultra violent and lethal environment is immense.

Good point and well said.