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So did a light search and saw no one started a similar thread. I am wonderings what everyone's take on who the next Loyalist primarch will be released- has anyone heard rumors or is this all speculation?
To me it feels like almost every army is getting a "Large 1 man army" now.. IE Ghaz, Norn Emissary, all the 4 Chaos god's Daemon Primarchs. I know the lion is relatively new, but GW 1) panders to the SM crowd and 2) needs to update background on the other primarchs.

So, here's my takes and who I think is most likely and why:

Vulkan: can't die. There's that whole "Salamanders have to find his artifacts" but that either implies he's in some sort of self-made statis chamber, or is a troll and is just waiting around until he hears the green fire boys found his toys.

Rogal Dorn: Yes, there's a whole thread on background whether he is or isn't alive. My take is it's an off-screen death, so it's not a 100% given. Also- the returned primarchs have been wielding Big E's weaponry (and shield) so it'd make sense that Rogal lost his hand that is enshrined and he'll use the Emperor's golden talon power claws. (It goes with Rogal's golden armor too!)

Leman Russ: This could go three major ways= First, Russ's time in the warp was time dilated and he's still young- at which point Rowboat and Lionel will have to stop his hissy fit at what the imperium has become, or, Two: He's older and more mature like the lion and uses tactics and cunning more, but is still a beast- like an old an grizzled wolf. Third- Russ embraced his innate psyker/ warp nature and now has an "Order Daemon Form" like Corax. It wouldn't be far-fetched to make him a werewolf and try to sell 2 models.

Corvus: Also in the warp, and also potential to go like Russ (Minus a hissy fit). But this would mean he'd stopped trolling Lorgar- so.. maybe also a Lorgar model comes out? This is why it's lower on the potential for me.

Jaghatai: Though he's in the webway and time is semi-normal there, you'd think the Drukhari would know about him and Yvraine would've maybe said "Oh and tell your mustachioed brother to stop killing us!" to Guilliman. But, when it comes down to it White Scars haven't been as popular as they should be. Mostly because painting white is a pain.

Ferrus Manus: So.. on-screen death. BUT! His ghost said he'd be backa nd his skull is on Medusa.. And he was a cyborg. Ala "Ghost in the Shell" manga, a cyborg that is just a head could survive or be in stasis and we're not 100% sure what the Necrodermis did to Ferrus's insides. But a lot of background shennanigans would have to happen and again, he's not a popular Primarch so.. don't see it happening anytime soon.

Sanguinius: Again, dead as a doornail.. BuuuUuUUUuT: We're not sure what the sanguinor is. From the meta background veiw, we get Sanguinius as the 'Son", Emps is the "father", Sanguinor= Holy Ghost. They could make a cool warp-entity like model for him and/ or do something with Emps' armor so that Sangy can manifest.. But all this is a lot more background changes, plus the impact that his return may stop the black rage.. or maybe enhance it? (Somewhat unrelated, but needs to be said: The Lamenters got a really bad hand dealt to them. Even their color scheme sucks!)

So, there ya go. Lemm know what you think!

First, obligatory note that primarchs coming back is kind of lame, and I"d probably prefer it just not happen. But it's awkward as heck to have Roboute and the Lion back and no one else, so I guess we're probably going to get at least a couple more at some point.

Rationally, it should probably be Russ next. He has a rivalry with the Lion. His kids have their own book like the Lion's. He's been built up a bit via visions and whatnot in the 7th(?) edition campaign where Magnus wrecked Fenris. He also not only has a personality (something his returned brothers lack), but a personality that contrasts quite bit with their quiet blandness.

Granted, Fulgrim has been built up a ton too, and Angron still managed to beat him in the release cycle, so who knows?

My guess is that Russ will be wolfed-up or Earl King-ified in some fashion, if only to do something a little different for the loyalists.

Looking at the other options...

Vulkan. I like him, but I'm not sure he brings much to the table unless you want to play up the idea that he's going around trying to make patches of the imperium self-sufficient (and thus less good at playing nice with the imperium at large) in contrast to Roboute's more large-scale efforts.Part of the problem here is that the treasure hunt is arguably more interesting than the primarch himself. It would be a shame for GW to pull a Kheradruakh and miss out on the opportunities presented by the treasure hunt because they're in a rush to say, "And then Vulkan came back."

Dorn is just so, so very boring. Like, tied with Roboute as possibly the most boring loyalist. If he comes back, would anyone other than the Fist players even care? What does he add to the setting or the game?

Corvus. Would maybe be the loyalist primarch I would choose to bring back if I had to bring one back. At this point, he's not pro-imperium so much as he's anti-chaos. Between that and crow-mode, he's reasonably easy to justify popping up all over the place. I'd argue that, as one of the more disillusioned loyalists who maybe possibly intends to kill even the loyalist primarchs once he's done with the chaos ones... That's a more interesting hook for the setting than a lot of the others.

Jaghatai is probably on the short list of guys who might return, though I don't think he's *actually* been killing eldar for a while now. If he has been, he's been doing such a bad job of it that no eldar character has ever bothered to mention him in any 40k novel ever. I like him, but what would he bring to the table? Even in the HH stories, his whole "thing" was that he was the one everybody forgets about because he's too well-adjusted to be as memorable as most of his brothers.

In the HH books, he seems to spend a lot of time ruminating on how he basically wants a simple life of riding around hunting baddies. So if he were to return, I imagine he'd just... do that? Which makes it easy for him to pop up Phoenix Lord style wherever the plot needs him to. More ambitiously, maybe his desire for simple, straight-forward objectives ends up appealing to a lot of the marines over in imperium Nihilus and you end up with a sort of impromptu crusade of scattered survivors. Make the khan the rallying point for all the scattered survivors, in contrast to Guilliman's more organized crusades.

Ferrus. It's okay for characters to just die and stay dead. If we really want to "bring him back," we should probably just plug his head into a vehicle or dreadnaught or something so that it isn't just another big boy in power armor.

Sanguinius. Bringing him back would be even worse than bringing Ferrus back. It would contradict the whole psychic death screams thing that is a pretty big part of what makes death company a thing and helps make BA a little unique. Bringing him back would not only cheapen his previous death, but GW would have to address what it means for death company and the black rage. And I'm not sure I like the odds of the results being a net positive.

If we absolutely positively had to bring him back, maybe make him literally ghost/warp entity rather than Sanguinius proper. Make him aware of the fact that he's probably just fake echo of the real Sanguinius brought into existence by the psychic awakening, humanity's collective love for him, and the residual psychic power of his death screams being carried on by his sons. Let the angel continue to be too good for this world, and let his tormented ghost slowly grow more and more spooky as it's tormented by its own falseness. Then let he and Magnus wax philosophical about the implications of each being only a portion of their true selves.

Russ - they have the opportunity to release a double model, one grizzled Odin vet contrasting his heresy Thor, and the other a large wulfen beast that he can transform into when he wants to go beatstick.

Just another slightly different primarch is boring. I mean, bringing them back is boring but having them be virtually unchanged is the most bland use of them you can imagine.

I think they'd bring back Sanguinius from the dead before they ever did Vulkan, Jaghatai or Corax.

And it'd be Russ before him.

I expect they had a two part plan. Bring back the "Big Four" from each side.

G, Russ, Lion, and some form of Sanguinius + Angron, Morty, Magnus, and some form of Horus - I mean some form of: A Black Rage Blob coalescing and superpowering the Sanguinor like some sort of liche/horcrux version of Sanguinius, dropping cloned bits of Horus into Abbadon that gives him a split personality and Horus's stats... etc.

If that turned out successful, they probably had a plan (to make a plan) to bring the rest back. I suspect the next one to bring back is Russ because he's easier than Sanguinius -

I hope it's Russ.
Because I'd really like to use my RT era Leman Russ figure as the character he was bough as.

When they do the next Loyalist Primarch he needs to be different from RG and Johnson. While I like those two, there just seems to be more flavor varience in the Chaos lads.

While I don't necessarily like the idea of a wolfen Russ, that would definitely be different. Even if he's not wulfen, he should be more of a beat stick than a buffing character.

As for the others: A jetpack Corax would be different, as would a huge bike Khan, but that's not gonna happen.

It'll almost certainly be Russ. Space Wolves and Blood Angels are the only First Founding Chapters to have their own Codex but no Primarch and I can't see them messing with the background enough to bring Sanguinius back, and certainly not before Russ.

The others all belong to Chapters that don't currently have the model support (or player base) to justify a Primarch for them. In much the same way it seems like it's pretty much guaranteed we'll get Fulgrim and an Emperor's Children Codex at some point in 10th but I don't think we'll see Lorgar or Perturabo for a very, very long time - if ever.

Breton wrote:
... and some form of Horus...

Horus? It'll be Fulgrim.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Breton wrote:
... and some form of Horus...

Horus? It'll be Fulgrim.

Oh I think Fulgrim and Lorgar are easy second wave participants, but I woulnd't count Fulgrim as a Big Four. Ultras/Black Legion, Thousand Sons/Wolves, BA/World Eaters are generally some sort of mirror rival in the rules and/or fluff. DA/Deathguard are somewhat mirrors but haven't gotten much attention to it. Fulgrim has history with Ferrus Manus, but is most likely to be balanced by Dorn as the Fists and Successors are most likely to be the first non-Big-Four loyalist with three chapters in a supplement. Lorgar and Corvus are an easy pair to match.

Corax should be better suited for Peturabo.

Dorn is the obvious opposite to Peturabo. Not Corax.

Breton wrote:
Oh I think Fulgrim and Lorgar are easy second wave participants, but I woulnd't count Fulgrim as a Big Four. Ultras/Black Legion, Thousand Sons/Wolves, BA/World Eaters are generally some sort of mirror rival in the rules and/or fluff. DA/Deathguard are somewhat mirrors but haven't gotten much attention to it. Fulgrim has history with Ferrus Manus, but is most likely to be balanced by Dorn as the Fists and Successors are most likely to be the first non-Big-Four loyalist with three chapters in a supplement. Lorgar and Corvus are an easy pair to match.

He's the leader of one of the four Cult armies. Of course he's one of the Big Four.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Dorn is the obvious opposite to Peturabo. Not Corax.

Breton wrote:
Oh I think Fulgrim and Lorgar are easy second wave participants, but I woulnd't count Fulgrim as a Big Four. Ultras/Black Legion, Thousand Sons/Wolves, BA/World Eaters are generally some sort of mirror rival in the rules and/or fluff. DA/Deathguard are somewhat mirrors but haven't gotten much attention to it. Fulgrim has history with Ferrus Manus, but is most likely to be balanced by Dorn as the Fists and Successors are most likely to be the first non-Big-Four loyalist with three chapters in a supplement. Lorgar and Corvus are an easy pair to match.

He's the leader of one of the four Cult armies. Of course he's one of the Big Four.

Dorn V Perturabo is the classic 30K Matchup, but they appear to be mixing up the Classic Rivalry matrix in 40K. Russ would have been the classic choice vs Magnus for example, and less obvious would be a Perpetual Vulkan vs the Lord of Death and Decay Mortarion. I think part of the switch up is so they don't have to bring back a secondary primarch to rival a "Big Four" (And yes, Fulgrim is one of the "four horsemen" but he's the "least" of them in terms of support, so supplanted by Horus - though one could also argue expanding it to a Big Five instead of Four, including a secondary Loyalist Primarch to the Primary.). I think another reason for the switchups showed up in the Seige of Baal. They're trying to spread out the "iconic" matchups for Summer Campaigns etc ergo giving the BA vs Nids story some oomph, you also see it in DA (instead of BA) vs World Eaters. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Wolves vs Necrons soon.

Breton wrote:
I think part of the switch up is so they don't have to bring back a secondary primarch to rival a "Big Four" (And yes, Fulgrim is one of the "four horsemen" but he's the "least" of them in terms of support, so supplanted by Horus - though one could also argue expanding it to a Big Five instead of Four, including a secondary Loyalist Primarch to the Primary.)

Two things:

1. There's going to be an Emperor's Children Codex. Fulgrim will be part of that release. He is next.
2. Horus is dead. He's not Big 4. He's not big anything. He's dead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Breton wrote:
I think part of the switch up is so they don't have to bring back a secondary primarch to rival a "Big Four" (And yes, Fulgrim is one of the "four horsemen" but he's the "least" of them in terms of support, so supplanted by Horus - though one could also argue expanding it to a Big Five instead of Four, including a secondary Loyalist Primarch to the Primary.)

Two things:

1. There's going to be an Emperor's Children Codex. Fulgrim will be part of that release. He is next.
2. Horus is dead. He's not Big 4. He's not big anything. He's dead.

One thing: Horus' Legion is THE Face of the Franchise for Chaos Marines. They're the Traitor Legion Ultramarines. They have often even shared some version of Chapter Tactics. He's one of their "Big Four". Sanguinius is also dead, but he's one of the Loyalist Big Four. Fulgrim may be next, for the same reason Russ will come before Sanguinius. Both aren't dead, and the rivaly change up pitting the Finesse of Fulgrum vs the Savagery of Russ makes for an easy compare-and-contrast rivalry.

^But Horus's Legion is no longer Horus's legion. It was renamed, repainted and rebuilt by Abaddon, who's been the frontman to CSM since 2nd edition and ten millenia.

Yeah, wasn't Horus supposed to have been completed destroyed, both physically and within the warp?

Abaddon effectively is, and has been since the Heresy, the Black Legion Primarch.

If I was going to be real commercially cynical I'd say they might bring back some sort of Warp Spirit of Sanguinius, then bringing the Russ out and then finally the big event of Vampire Daddy being reborn proper.

But that would take almost, AoS launch guts

With extra points for each easter egg reference to Castlevanias Alucard they have on the model.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

2. Horus is dead. He's not Big 4. He's not big anything. He's dead.

It's imaginary story which is written by company that makes model.

If they make model they can write whatever story they want to justify. They don't have to drop the model from production just because of what was written before. If you disagree show law in UK that says they have to

Bound to be Fulgrim I reckon.

He’s been teased since Paycheck Awakening, and Emperor’s Children are the last Cult army we’re expecting to be disappointed by.

While BA should not get their primarch back, I could see the sanguinator get a glow up similar to st celestion, to get them a cool centerpiece model.

Like the Black Legion has Abbadon. Not a primarch per-sea, but close enough.

I do think Russ will be the next loyalist though.

I think Russ would be boring, to be perfectly honest.

Breton wrote:

Dorn V Perturabo is the classic 30K Matchup, but they appear to be mixing up the Classic Rivalry matrix in 40K. Russ would have been the classic choice vs Magnus for example, and less obvious would be a Perpetual Vulkan vs the Lord of Death and Decay Mortarion. I think part of the switch up is so they don't have to bring back a secondary primarch to rival a "Big Four" (And yes, Fulgrim is one of the "four horsemen" but he's the "least" of them in terms of support, so supplanted by Horus - though one could also argue expanding it to a Big Five instead of Four, including a secondary Loyalist Primarch to the Primary.). I think another reason for the switchups showed up in the Seige of Baal. They're trying to spread out the "iconic" matchups for Summer Campaigns etc ergo giving the BA vs Nids story some oomph, you also see it in DA (instead of BA) vs World Eaters. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Wolves vs Necrons soon.

It's pretty clear GW are not basing their Primarch releases on any sort of rivalry. We got 2 Chaos ones before we got the first loyalist one, for example. It's equally clear the one thing you need in order to release a Primarch is an army for them to lead, which narrows the possibilities right now down to Space Wolves and Blood Angels for the loyalists and Fulgrim for Chaos. It seems extremely likely there'll be an EC Codex at some point in 10th, but the next one up is going to be SW, which opens the door for Russ to return and reset the balance of Primarchs. I hope we never see Sanguinius come back, given how central his death is to the character of the Chapter, and that then leaves Fulgrim as the next one we'll likely see.

I'd have preferred GW never brought them back at all, but if we have to see any I'd prefer they stop there as it seems like a logical point to stop - all current "main" SM/CSM armies (plus the one we know is coming) would have their Primarch at that point. The last thing we need is more SM/CSM bloat in 40k, especially when some armies are still struggling with ancient models for a lot fo their characters and units.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I think Russ would be boring, to be perfectly honest.

Sure, but he still makes sense to be the next loyalist to return. I'm not sure any of the loyalists returning is likely to be all that interesting.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I think Russ would be boring, to be perfectly honest.

Sure, but he still makes sense to be the next loyalist to return. I'm not sure any of the loyalists returning is likely to be all that interesting.

Russ and Corax both have the perk of possibly being rejected by the imperium for not appearing human any more, purge the mutant and such forth.

Sanguinius would be such a mary sue of fluff even compared to robootay that it'd be drab imo.

Khan and Dorn could both return with a healthy dose of mental trauma.

Vulkan is a nice guy.

It's worth mentioning that we don't genuinely. definitively know what Corax's deal is now. The whole crazy warp-infused thing seems to have only appeared in a single short story...and some of it feels more in line with just a tricksy psyker than daemon-infused kind of nonsense.


I'd say that if you were to ask me to genuinely pick Loyalist Primarchs to return?
Vulkan and Corax would be my picks. They both had a bit more empathy for the "common man" than the others, but with an undercurrent of "needs must" that would still make them a good foil to Guilliman.

 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, wasn't Horus supposed to have been completed destroyed, both physically and within the warp?

Yep- Horus got Perma-Death by Emps. He's hanging out in Outer Retconnia with Malal.

Anyhoo- yeah, I kinda imagine Sanguinius coming back in a semi-ethereal form. Like i said, they could use Emp's golden armor as a vessel and have ghostly whisps of golden hair/ ghostliness coming out like the Yncairne.

I'd be interested to see how Russ has changed, and if like Magnus the access to the original geneseed could help with the Wulfen problem, and/ or actually make successor chapters that "take". And again- falling into the imperium Secundus roles, Russ may not be compliant with Lion and Roubute's plans and just go do whatever.

Pretty sure Russ providing some fresh geneseed would allow for SW successors. The reason SW can't really do successors is because Magnus corrupted their geneseed supply during the War of the Fang, right?

I think Sanguinius coming back is pretty much inevitable, given that they set the scene for it with the introduction of the Sanguinor quite a few years ago now.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Pretty sure Russ providing some fresh geneseed would allow for SW successors. The reason SW can't really do successors is because Magnus corrupted their geneseed supply during the War of the Fang, right?

Primaris geneseed seems to be OK however.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
I think Sanguinius coming back is pretty much inevitable, given that they set the scene for it with the introduction of the Sanguinor quite a few years ago now.

A man can dream they'll hold onto that last sensibility. If the sanguinor is a psychic manifestation or something, I can reluctantly live with that. But if they mcguffin birb boi out of a coffin I'll be annoyed.