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Common Theories:

Mutation:
I don't think that this is a likely candidate. Sure, Sanguinius talks about how he is afraid that his legion may be destroyed because of the red thirst, implying that was why the other legions were destroyed, but this seems like a pretty poor reason to completely remove the legion from imperial history.

Rebellion:
Another theory that is not very likely to be true. I have seen theories that talk about how the primarch was raised amongst xenos and rebelled agains the Imperium's xenophobic ways but why wasn't any other legion or chapter that rebelled completely wiped from imperial records?

Corruption By Chaos:
This theory is brushed away by some, but I consider it to be one of the most likely candidates. A common objection is "Why didn't they delete any other lost and dammed legions/ chapters", but early in the great crusade, a strong propaganda weapon that the Imperium used was that the primarchs were invincible. Imagine how demoralising a primarch being corrupted by chaos would be. At the time of the Horus Heresy, people knew that the primarchs were not perfect and even if you are a totalitarian regime, it is quite hard to cover up a galaxy spanning war, chaos space marines and the emperor suddenly becoming a corpse. Another objection is "Why don't the chaos forces talk of them then?", this is because when people think of chaos, they think of Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. They forgest that there is another chaos god: Malice, who is known as "The Renegade God", "The Outcast God" and "The Lost God". He is hated and feared unanimously by all other chaos gods as he is the living embodiment of chaos. Chaos gods, daemons and followers of chaos dare not to speak of Malice and his followers. This is why he is not mentioned by CSMs.

A Dark Secret Is Revealed:
A primarch finds out a terrible truth about the emperor, the imperium or one of his brothers. The emperor decides that he must be eliminated. This is another highly likely reason, as deleting them from imperial records is a way to prevent others from finding the secret.

Legion 2:
The Primarch lands on a feral world and becomes a warlord, uniting the barbaric people of the world. The primarch was touched by the warp when he was taken from Terra and has the curse of hearing the whispers of chaos, which he brushes away. The legion's embracing of barbaric culture, anti-authoritarian ways and savage fighting style earns them a friendship with the similar Space Wolves legion. Russ and the primarch become close friends and win many battles together. Eventually, the legion becomes overshadowed by the wolves and the primarch becomes jealous of Russ. This causes the whispers of chaos to become louder and eventually, he rebels against the emperor. The wolves are sent to deal with them and in a final battle, defeat them. Russ kills his former friend remaining legionnaires are drafted into the Ultramarines legion.

Legion 11:
The primarch is scholarly and inquisitive by nature and seeks knowledge, he is also a psyker and his legion forms good relations with the thousand sons and Magnus. Eventually, the primarch's quest for knowledge leads him to find out a terrible secret about the emperor/ one of the primarchs/ the imperium or psychically predicts something terrible, but true. The emperor decides that he must be eliminated for the greater good. After the primarch is killed by imperial assassins, his legion is
a. Drafted into the Ultramarines
b. Eliminated, with the gene seed kept on terra until after the Horus Heresy, when the imperium forms a new chapter from the gene seed... THE BLOOD RAVENS.

They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

I'm guessing something dark and terrible happened to them after they were formed. Either their primarchs were tainted and that corrupted their geneseed, or maybe they were even experiments into forming legions without primarchs as a basis (maybe some sort of tainted genetic engineering experiments because their primarchs were never found by the Emperor) or their primarchs led them to do something so horrible to get them absolutely destroyed before they could be a threat to the Imperium, and that's before the Heresy even happened- so somehow it was something worse than the traitor legions, which is scary.

So I would guess they either were the first Legions to turn against the Imperium, or they went the way that the Thousand Sons almost did with uncontrolled mutations, or did something that made the others destroy them- so bad that even the loyalist primarchs who would eventually turn evil were in on it for the good of the Imperium.

I know that in the book "Mechanicum" Malcador the Sigillite warns Dorn from even wishing that he had them at his side. And that's one of the absolute "good guys" saying that. Dorn wished that instead of the other thirteen legions that hadn't turned yet, he had the entire "fifteen" legions along with his Imperial Fists to defend against Horus, and Malcador shakes his head and warns "Don't even think it, my friend, they are lost to us forever".

So I assume they are lost for a reason that makes the Imperium shudder at the thought, or at least mourn their passing.

Didn't we just have this thread?

Someone once told me that one of the lost legions Primarchs was the hero of the Empire in the Fantasy setting. I can't remember his name. He was found after a 2 tailed comet fell. A two tailed comet could be a dropship igniting it's burners a bit to late, thus having the re-entry tail, and the fire coming from the breaking thrusters. So this guys story kind of made sense.

This same person told me the Warhammer world was a world in/near the eye of terror that was out of synch chronologically with the rest of the universe, so was not turned into a demon world, but it was reachable through the webway, or by accident.


Whether or not it is true is another story altogether, but it was neat to be told/shared.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
Someone once told me that one of the lost legions Primarchs was the hero of the Empire in the Fantasy setting. I can't remember his name. He was found after a 2 tailed comet fell. A two tailed comet could be a dropship igniting it's burners a bit to late, thus having the re-entry tail, and the fire coming from the breaking thrusters. So this guys story kind of made sense.

This same person told me the Warhammer world was a world in/near the eye of terror that was out of synch chronologically with the rest of the universe, so was not turned into a demon world, but it was reachable through the webway, or by accident.




Whether or not it is true is another story altogether, but it was neat to be told/shared.

Retconned away now but at one time this was hinted with powerfists showing up in a fantasy campaign.

2x210 wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
Someone once told me that one of the lost legions Primarchs was the hero of the Empire in the Fantasy setting. I can't remember his name. He was found after a 2 tailed comet fell. A two tailed comet could be a dropship igniting it's burners a bit to late, thus having the re-entry tail, and the fire coming from the breaking thrusters. So this guys story kind of made sense.

This same person told me the Warhammer world was a world in/near the eye of terror that was out of synch chronologically with the rest of the universe, so was not turned into a demon world, but it was reachable through the webway, or by accident.




Whether or not it is true is another story altogether, but it was neat to be told/shared.

Retconned away now but at one time this was hinted with powerfists showing up in a fantasy campaign.

The End Times campaign will conclude with the WHFB world being spit out of the EoT and right into the solar system! It is also reviled that a super-macguffin resides at the heart of the world! All the 40k armies then descend on the world to claim the macguffin as it will surely grant real ultimate power to whoever possesses it! But being in the EoT has imbued all the WHFB armies with super warp juice, and much like superman, terra's yellow sun grants them super powers so they can fight against M41 era technology using their pre-industrial revolution weapons! This coincides with the release of 40k 8th edition.

Originally the world of WFB and 40K were clearly and specifically stated to be in the same universe, the world of WFB was created as is by the collapse of warpgates at the pole and the inflow of warp material. The gods were the same, in early WFRP you could get hold of 40K items, e.g. they were in the tables in the two Realm of Chaos books, fantasy champions could gain a bolter through a random gift, etc. For reasons of their own GW later decided to break this link but left the Chaos gods the same, the vast majority of the races the same, etc, etc.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

Well, except they never were and are explicitly destroyed by M31 so you can't even use them in the Horus Heresy game, which is the only time the lost legions would apply.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

Well, except they never were and are explicitly destroyed by M31 so you can't even use them in the Horus Heresy game, which is the only time the lost legions would apply.

Never thought of it that way, GW should just reveal/Invent these Legions instead of leaving them blank if what you say is true.

Khonsu wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

Well, except they never were and are explicitly destroyed by M31 so you can't even use them in the Horus Heresy game, which is the only time the lost legions would apply.

Never thought of it that way, GW should just reveal/Invent these Legions instead of leaving them blank if what you say is true.

...It IS true and has been known for years. The Horus Heresy directly states that one of the Forgotten Legions was purged already and completely wiped out, and IIRC the other Legion got taken out as well. There's no real mystery to it as the HH whacked them without them ever even making an appearance.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Khonsu wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

Well, except they never were and are explicitly destroyed by M31 so you can't even use them in the Horus Heresy game, which is the only time the lost legions would apply.

Never thought of it that way, GW should just reveal/Invent these Legions instead of leaving them blank if what you say is true.

...It IS true and has been known for years. The Horus Heresy directly states that one of the Forgotten Legions was purged already and completely wiped out, and IIRC the other Legion got taken out as well. There's no real mystery to it as the HH whacked them without them ever even making an appearance.

Legion name, Primarch's name and lore please

Khonsu wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Khonsu wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
They were intentionally left blank by GW. One to be loyal, one traitor. This allows you to write your own legion & have a plausible explanation for them.

That's what happened.

Well, except they never were and are explicitly destroyed by M31 so you can't even use them in the Horus Heresy game, which is the only time the lost legions would apply.

Never thought of it that way, GW should just reveal/Invent these Legions instead of leaving them blank if what you say is true.

...It IS true and has been known for years. The Horus Heresy directly states that one of the Forgotten Legions was purged already and completely wiped out, and IIRC the other Legion got taken out as well. There's no real mystery to it as the HH whacked them without them ever even making an appearance.

Legion name, Primarch's name and lore please

Doesn't matter considering they're dead.