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so going by a general conservative estimate...






Yeah, a 9.5ft tall, built like a tank Primarch would be pretty fething scary, never mind the 'giant' ones like Magnus!

Holy gak. Is that correctly scaled? If so then 9.5ft would be perfect IMO.

 Daedricbob wrote:
so going by a general conservative estimate...






Yeah, a 9.5ft tall, built like a tank Primarch would be pretty fething scary, never mind the 'giant' ones like Magnus!

Catachans wouldn't be that ripped. But I get your point and I like the scale up you did.

 Lynata wrote:
Ogryns do not wear powered armour with large backpacks (this is important - Ogryns can actually bend when boarding, and from how it sounds they do), "up to 3 meters" is not "always 3 meters", and a Rhino looks like it has smaller doors than a Chimera.

Let's not argue, though. As I said, it's a matter of opinions and preferences, and the sources on all of these things will invariably deliver vague or conflicting information.

Ogryns don't like to board. when they do many a guardsmen ends up red mist and dinner. fluff wise ogryns don't like embarking in transports. my two cents

They don't like to, but they still do. They also don't tend to kill the guardsmen who lure them in, and definiutely not eat them, lol.

Also, I'll note that I've never actually heard of a Primarch entering the field of battle chilling in a rhino with his sons. They tend to enter it through personal aircraft.

BTW, humans getting bigger throughout history is a myth. Diet has an impact, yes, but the impact is averages of 5'6'' for a man vs. 5'10", and we haven't been getting bigger. We shrank, throughout most of the world, during the industrial age, and we are now getting back to normal. Romans were quite short compared to us, but they themselves comment on the "massive" gauls and germans (who had better, less grain-based diets and were the same height as modern humans.) Well-fed humans are as tall as modern westerners on average, and poor diets lead to us averaging 3-5 inches shorter. It's not a sliding scale where great diet results in a race of giants.

Also, primarchs or marines above a certain height is just not reasonable. They're described as occasionally having to stoop, but at 12+ feet you're looking at primarchs that can't even reasonably fit in a lot of buildings. Where are all the passages about them being doubled over when in buildings or being forced to smash through 8 by 3.5 foot door frames when invading normal human colonies?

Like, seriously, at 12 feet Sanguinius would not be able to stand in the room I'm in. At 20 feet, the Emperor would be as tall as my house.

You have to account for the Emperor having the most severe case of micropenis ever documented, which inspired him to design everything in his empire as being absurdly large and overtly spacious.

And you're right on your first point. In medieval times, the average commoner was shorter than the average modern human, yeah, but the better off nobles tended to be taller and healthier.

I think Primarchs are about 9-10ft tall. They seem to cause the same impression compared with a SM than a SM would cause compared to a human. Then there would be some which are taller and some which are smaller.
Alpharius is a particular case. In Index Astartes it is stated that Alpha Marines were taller than other marines. Asuming that Apharius was also small for a Primarch it was easy for other Marines to play Alpharius.
Magnus is also something special. In the battle of the Fang Magnus was already a Deamon Prince of Tzeench, so its size could be as changeable as he wanted. An in the novels "Thousand Sons" I got the impression that because of Magnus impressive powers it size actually seemed to vary.

Captain Spitzenberg wrote:
I think Primarchs are about 9-10ft tall. They seem to cause the same impression compared with a SM than a SM would cause compared to a human. Then there would be some which are taller and some which are smaller.
Alpharius is a particular case. In Index Astartes it is stated that Alpha Marines were taller than other marines. Asuming that Apharius was also small for a Primarch it was easy for other Marines to play Alpharius.
Magnus is also something special. In the battle of the Fang Magnus was already a Deamon Prince of Tzeench, so its size could be as changeable as he wanted. An in the novels "Thousand Sons" I got the impression that because of Magnus impressive powers it size actually seemed to vary.

All space marines are about the same height but some are taller or shorter than others, same thing goes with the Primarchs. In most art and the books most Primarchs are easily bigger than space marine in terminator armor and about twice the size of a human (let's assume the humans are all about 6 feet tall) that puts most Primarchs, excluding ones such as Angron and Alparius Omegon, at about 11+ feet and most space marines at about 7-8 feet.

Rereading this thread, it astounds me how many people make these absolute statements on the fluff that they know nothing about.

Lion El'Jonson was ten feet tall unarmoured.

When entering the field of battle in Battle of the Fang, Magnus took on his "original" form, the one he had as a normal Primarch. He was five meters tall, which is almost seventeen feet.

We have statements on the heights of a (presumably) average Primarch and by far the tallest Primarch. So no one is taller than Magnus, and only Alpharius is likely to be notably shorter than the Lion.

 Crimson wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So, if in this image we can see these smaller primarchs at or just under 20 feet and we know Horus is one of the largest primarchs, we then place Horus in terminator armor and he towers over them. In the previous art, we saw how the Emperor was much taller than terminator Horus, whilst only wearing power armor and this makes the Emperor stand in the upper 20s at least!

You cannot tell difference between 10 and 20 feet. This is why these threads are pointless. People have absolutely no fething clue about scale, proportion, or what numbers they're spewing actually mean.

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So, if in this image we can see these smaller primarchs at or just under 20 feet and we know Horus is one of the largest primarchs, we then place Horus in terminator armor and he towers over them. In the previous art, we saw how the Emperor was much taller than terminator Horus, whilst only wearing power armor and this makes the Emperor stand in the upper 20s at least!

You cannot tell difference between 10 and 20 feet. This is why these threads are pointless. People have absolutely no fething clue about scale, proportion, or what numbers they're spewing actually mean.

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Don't forget the fact that according to "Vulkan Lives" if he didn't cloak himself in some form of disguise he would kill people simply by being near them, anywho back onto the Primarch size I think we can all agree that they are between 10 - 15 feet

 Vieltrien wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So, if in this image we can see these smaller primarchs at or just under 20 feet and we know Horus is one of the largest primarchs, we then place Horus in terminator armor and he towers over them. In the previous art, we saw how the Emperor was much taller than terminator Horus, whilst only wearing power armor and this makes the Emperor stand in the upper 20s at least!

You cannot tell difference between 10 and 20 feet. This is why these threads are pointless. People have absolutely no fething clue about scale, proportion, or what numbers they're spewing actually mean.

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Don't forget the fact that according to "Vulkan Lives" if he didn't cloak himself in some form of disguise he would kill people simply by being near them, anywho back onto the Primarch size I think we can all agree that they are between 10 - 15 feet

I'd take Vulkan lives with a pinch of salt, as unlike Kyme's normally great work, it was a fairly awful HH novel, what with Konrad Curze suddenly turning into the Joker instead of Batman and losing all the character building ADB put into him.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Where are these novels that say Marines are eight feet tall now?

I haven't read them.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Where are these novels that say Marines are eight feet tall now?

I haven't read them.

Modern one's that aren't HH. Death of Antagonis epsecially comes to mind, along with Siege of Castellax- and I think Legion of the Damned and the Space Marine collection have it refered to several times. IIRC, it also came up in Soul Hunter. Looking for them is a real bitch though, as they typically only crop up once in a story. Death of Antagonis is notable for featuring an Astartes as the main character who was something like ten feet tall, although he was a Black Dragon.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Vieltrien wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So, if in this image we can see these smaller primarchs at or just under 20 feet and we know Horus is one of the largest primarchs, we then place Horus in terminator armor and he towers over them. In the previous art, we saw how the Emperor was much taller than terminator Horus, whilst only wearing power armor and this makes the Emperor stand in the upper 20s at least!

You cannot tell difference between 10 and 20 feet. This is why these threads are pointless. People have absolutely no fething clue about scale, proportion, or what numbers they're spewing actually mean.

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Don't forget the fact that according to "Vulkan Lives" if he didn't cloak himself in some form of disguise he would kill people simply by being near them, anywho back onto the Primarch size I think we can all agree that they are between 10 - 15 feet

I'd take Vulkan lives with a pinch of salt, as unlike Kyme's normally great work, it was a fairly awful HH novel, what with Konrad Curze suddenly turning into the Joker instead of Batman and losing all the character building ADB put into him.

Although yes in that one he is more like a person who kills and causes chaos than someone who tries to stop it, you do have to take into consideration that he basically wants to die and is probably immensely tormented by those vision/nightmares of his

 Vieltrien wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Vieltrien wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So, if in this image we can see these smaller primarchs at or just under 20 feet and we know Horus is one of the largest primarchs, we then place Horus in terminator armor and he towers over them. In the previous art, we saw how the Emperor was much taller than terminator Horus, whilst only wearing power armor and this makes the Emperor stand in the upper 20s at least!

You cannot tell difference between 10 and 20 feet. This is why these threads are pointless. People have absolutely no fething clue about scale, proportion, or what numbers they're spewing actually mean.

Artwork is completely useless for any information on W40K, as nearly every single picture deviates heavily from the other's image, even within the same artist. The only reliable sources are written, as Black Library novels tend to keep a steady trend for things such as height, weight, and strength save some very strange outliers. The Black Library now near constantly describes Astartes as being eight feet tall, with the Primarchs ranging from under the tens (Alpharius and Omegon) to the teens (Russ) to "whatever the damn hell pleases them" (Magnus). IIRC, the Emperor also had completely control over the size of his body, or at least how people perceived him, considering he was a psyker capable of cowing the minds of millions.

Don't forget the fact that according to "Vulkan Lives" if he didn't cloak himself in some form of disguise he would kill people simply by being near them, anywho back onto the Primarch size I think we can all agree that they are between 10 - 15 feet

I'd take Vulkan lives with a pinch of salt, as unlike Kyme's normally great work, it was a fairly awful HH novel, what with Konrad Curze suddenly turning into the Joker instead of Batman and losing all the character building ADB put into him.

Although yes in that one he is more like a person who kills and causes chaos than someone who tries to stop it, you do have to take into consideration that he basically wants to die and is probably immensely tormented by those vision/nightmares of his

This has no bearing on a complete 180 on old fluff that was well established and viewed as the norm for said characters, instead of completely ignoring it.

 Lynata wrote:
Boy, that must suck not being able to ride in the tanks your army uses. .

This is actually my least favourite thing in the 40K fluff... Because we get these occasional mentions about how tall Marines and their progenitors are... and then the rest of the time, the writers seemingly don't even consider it at all. Aside from maybe one or two spots in the Horus Heresy books where a marine declines to sit because a chair is too small, there's never any concession made to their size. Nobody ever has to bend down to get through a doorway, Primarchs don't have any issues climbing about vehicles built for marines or regular humans... it's just completely overlooked.


There's a similar problem with Marine backpacks. Marines rolling around on the ground, diving through doorways and the like with never any consideration for the fact that they have a pack the size of a mini moke strapped to their back. Moreso for Chaos Marines...

 insaniak wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Boy, that must suck not being able to ride in the tanks your army uses. .

This is actually my least favourite thing in the 40K fluff... Because we get these occasional mentions about how tall Marines and their progenitors are... and then the rest of the time, the writers seemingly don't even consider it at all. Aside from maybe one or two spots in the Horus Heresy books where a marine declines to sit because a chair is too small, there's never any concession made to their size. Nobody ever has to bend down to get through a doorway, Primarchs don't have any issues climbing about vehicles built for marines or regular humans... it's just completely overlooked.


There's a similar problem with Marine backpacks. Marines rolling around on the ground, diving through doorways and the like with never any consideration for the fact that they have a pack the size of a mini moke strapped to their back. Moreso for Chaos Marines...

You're forgetting that everything in W40K is absolutely gigantic, and your average doorway may be wide enough to park an entire Rhino in. All structures are built like gigantic Gothic churches with massive arches and doorways. It's not really the authors lacking a sense of scale, just people forgetting that everything in W40K is over sized

And I don't see how fitting them into Rhinos would be a problem, when he tabletop isn't to scale and the vehicles are built for them.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space-Marine-Tanks/MKIC-DEIMOS-PATTERN-RHINO.html <--- so this rhino here is the one thats the deimos that was used during the heracy etc etc, that is actually the smaller rhino? its not on the new chassis... so its the baby one that can hide away.. and is my point... someone got bigger or they would still have tiddly tanks

That tankis the current rhino with some different plates on the front and sides. It's not smaller.

 insaniak wrote:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space-Marine-Tanks/MKIC-DEIMOS-PATTERN-RHINO.html <--- so this rhino here is the one thats the deimos that was used during the heracy etc etc, that is actually the smaller rhino? its not on the new chassis... so its the baby one that can hide away.. and is my point... someone got bigger or they would still have tiddly tanks

That tankis the current rhino with some different plates on the front and sides. It's not smaller.

Again, the miniatures are first and foremost not to scale (and bear little resemblance to the fluff in the first place), but that variant is also larger. It's not expanded armor, the details show doors on the side which imply it being slightly wider, and exhaust is shoved out of the vehicle to save space. It's definitely larger internally, but not by much.

It's not larger. The door panels on the side just replace the standard plastic ones. It's no wider than a standard rhino. I know, I have both.

And the standard rhino also has its exhausts on the outside of the hull. They just have more integrated shielding.

I can't recall the last time a Primarch actually sat in a Rhino.

Usually they ride Stormbirds and whatnot right into battle, right?

Yeah, stormbirds have been mentioned, and Fulgrim had his own custom one he piloted into battle.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

amudkipz wrote:
How tall is the emporer

Very tall.

How tall are the primarchs?

Also very tall.

Let us say that Average Human is 2 meters tall...
Astartes are 2.5 to 3 meters tall.
Primarchs would be around 4 meters.
I believe Emperor would be up to 5.

This is just my interpretation based on the art, official and nonofficial. In my opinion regular Priamrch would be the same size as Dreadnought, maybe even a little taller witch is freaking huge.

That makes the Emperor 20% taller than a Carnifex... That's ridiculous.

Also for those saying that some of the Primarchs are 20ft tall, wth! That's the same hieght as a Riptide... Seriously look at a Riptide, then a Marine, then back to the Riptide, then back to the Marine, now back at the Riptide. Yeah not happening...

 Zande4 wrote:

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

amudkipz wrote:
How tall is the emporer

Very tall.

How tall are the primarchs?

Also very tall.

Let us say that Average Human is 2 meters tall...
Astartes are 2.5 to 3 meters tall.
Primarchs would be around 4 meters.
I believe Emperor would be up to 5.

This is just my interpretation based on the art, official and nonofficial. In my opinion regular Priamrch would be the same size as Dreadnought, maybe even a little taller witch is freaking huge.

That makes the Emperor 20% taller than a Carnifex... That's ridiculous.

Also for those saying that some of the Primarchs are 20ft tall, wth! That's the same hieght as a Riptide... Seriously look at a Riptide, then a Marine, then back to the Riptide, then back to the Marine, now back at the Riptide. Yeah not happening...

The Carnifex thing seems OK.

After all, a Carnifex is very bent forward. Most of its mass comes from being a big beetle dinosaur. Just compare it to the Trygon. The Carni is not -that- tall. Not saying that the Emperor should be taller. Just that it is not as tall as it might seem.

For simplicity, I always imagined it was something like a meter between each 'stage'

Human - ~1,8 meters
Astartes - ~2,8 meters
Primarch/Emperor - ~3,8 meters

That's how they've always appeared in my head.

To illustrate, the above numbers would result in something like this, with other races added for comparison (Also my interpretation of them, mind you)



DoWII's scaled Marines also look decent; here a Plague Marine Champion and a Catachan Devil (A very big and strong man)



Not to everyone's liking I'm sure, but hey, it's my interpretation. Feel free to shoot me for it.

I always thought making Marines massive would make sense. 40K's architecture is massively oversized anyway, and the disadvantages they would get in that they'd be hit easier would be more than compensated for since they could match some of the horrors of the galaxy at their own game in melee.

ADB has got the Night Lords at 3 meters tall in armor in the excellent series of books he wrote on them.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Zande4 wrote:

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

amudkipz wrote:
How tall is the emporer

Very tall.

How tall are the primarchs?

Also very tall.

Let us say that Average Human is 2 meters tall...
Astartes are 2.5 to 3 meters tall.
Primarchs would be around 4 meters.
I believe Emperor would be up to 5.

This is just my interpretation based on the art, official and nonofficial. In my opinion regular Priamrch would be the same size as Dreadnought, maybe even a little taller witch is freaking huge.

That makes the Emperor 20% taller than a Carnifex... That's ridiculous.

Also for those saying that some of the Primarchs are 20ft tall, wth! That's the same hieght as a Riptide... Seriously look at a Riptide, then a Marine, then back to the Riptide, then back to the Marine, now back at the Riptide. Yeah not happening...

The Carnifex thing seems OK.

After all, a Carnifex is very bent forward. Most of its mass comes from being a big beetle dinosaur. Just compare it to the Trygon. The Carni is not -that- tall. Not saying that the Emperor should be taller. Just that it is not as tall as it might seem.

For simplicity, I always imagined it was something like a meter between each 'stage'

Human - ~1,8 meters
Astartes - ~2,8 meters
Primarch/Emperor - ~3,8 meters

That's how they've always appeared in my head.

To illustrate, the above numbers would result in something like this, with other races added for comparison (Also my interpretation of them, mind you)

Spoiler:

DoWII's scaled Marines also look decent; here a Plague Marine Champion and a Catachan Devil (A very big and strong man)

Spoiler:

Not to everyone's liking I'm sure, but hey, it's my interpretation. Feel free to shoot me for it.

I always thought making Marines massive would make sense. 40K's architecture is massively oversized anyway, and the disadvantages they would get in that they'd be hit easier would be more than compensated for since they could match some of the horrors of the galaxy at their own game in melee.

Well firstly the Plague marine is standing closer than the catachan devil, and in most 40k books it is said that they said that space marines are either half again as tall or a a third again as tall, which puts space marines at about 7-8.5 feet. So no they are not twice the size of a normal human

The Emperor has always been described as being a "Golden Giant"

Notably, this is from everyone's perspective. Not just average Humans or Astartes.

Magnus being 5m tall seems excessive though. Myths and legends (which is what the HH generally is) are always exaggerated.