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Do they exist in the fluff? There doesn't appear to be any rules for them, nor does it makes sense given the short time (few centuries) that Primaris have existed.
But is it possible nonetheless?

From what I understand, Blackshield can have variety of backgrounds, from Traitor Marines that seek penitence to lone survivors of a destroyed Chapter.
It seems interesting for there to be Blackshields from a Primaris Chapter that was created, but then lost a campaign horribly.

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Not aware of any in official fluff, but that does not mean it is not possible. The lone survivor scenario would be the most likely way for a Primaris to become a Black Shield fluffwise, but Black Shields have always been exceptions to the rules and can be justified by any number of reasons. The DW will certainly not turn away anyone it thinks it can use to bolster its forces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want to have some fun with the idea, you can even go so far to say that Cawl secretly made some Primaris from the traitor gene-seed that Guilliman forbid him from using and sent them to the DW as Black Shields to keep Guilliman unaware as an experiment to see how it would turn out.

 ikeulhu wrote:
Not aware of any in official fluff, but that does not mean it is not possible. The lone survivor scenario would be the most likely way for a Primaris to become a Black Shield fluffwise, but Black Shields have always been exceptions to the rules and can be justified by any number of reasons. The DW will certainly not turn away anyone it thinks it can use to bolster its forces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want to have some fun with the idea, you can even go so far to say that Cawl secretly made some Primaris from the traitor gene-seed that Guilliman forbid him from using and sent them to the DW as Black Shields to keep Guilliman unaware as an experiment to see how it would turn out.

Very good post to which I can only add warp based time travel shenanigans as perhaps the marine is from the far future and for this reason or that is inclined to join the DW and forsake his chapter for XYZ reason.

Yeah, totally forgot about time shenanigans. Primaris Black Shields from the future would make plenty of sense as well.

Reminds me of the Black Shield npc in my old Deathwatch RPG campaign that was secretly the last of the Custodes that was sent back in time by the Emperor when Chaos claimed Terra in my future timeline (I essentially made Epic levels for the system and the Epic portion of the campaign involved jumping the party 500 years in the future and helping the remnants of the Imperium of that time retake Terra). Of course that was back when Custodes never left Terra, so it made more sense for him to be "the last" back then.

I like the "traitor gene-seed' idea. Part of what I like about Black shields is that they can be any Chapter or even Legion. I currently have 12 Primaris with each 1st founding Chapter + CF/BT & Blood Ravens (so all the ones with rules) I don't want to duplicate chapters or use any obscure ones, so I am making my Sergeants into Black Sheilds (and using Reiver models with Power fists to represent them)

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Loyalist traitors were always part of the appeal for Black Shields to me, so that is likely why the idea occurred to me. Also, if you have read any of the recent fluff, you can see that experimenting in such a clandestine way is completely within character for Cawl.

You might also have seen Primaris transfer directly from the ranks of the Unnumbered Sons into the Deathwatch when the crusade reached various watch-fortresses.

Since they'd never been part of a chapter, I guess the Blackshield 'protocol' would make the most sense.

The lore simply says stuff about "there is no single reason why..." so literally anything could be a reason. It's a Writer's cop out in the fluff.

An Iron Hands marine who liked flesh more than iron.
A Salamander that accidentally killed a civilian
A Black Templar that didn't sing loud enough in choir practice.
A Spacewolf that likes Whiteclaws over mead.

All are valid reasons to be a blackshield, primaris or otherwise.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The lore simply says stuff about "there is no single reason why..." so literally anything could be a reason. It's a Writer's cop out in the fluff.

An Iron Hands marine who liked flesh more than iron.
A Salamander that accidentally killed a civilian
A Black Templar that didn't sing loud enough in choir practice.
A Spacewolf that likes Whiteclaws over mead.

All are valid reasons to be a blackshield, primaris or otherwise.

Space Wolves send copouts like that to the Wolf Claw, there's a whole Ragnar Blackmane novel about it.