It's possible for all of the Primarchs to be brought back

[Emperor Ming]

A big problem with the primarchs coming back is that they all will have financial immortality

 

GW will always step in to save them in lore so they survive. 

 

 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

6 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

A big problem with the primarchs coming back is that they all will have financial immortality

 

GW will always step in to save them in lore so they survive. 

 

 

Well,

 

Except Vulkan. He can die as many times as they like!

[Karhedron]

13 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

Well,

 

Except Vulkan. He can die as many times as they like!

 

Perpetual regeneration. I now have a vision of Vulkan regenerating into David Tenant and exclaiming in bewilderment 

 

"I know these teeth!" 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

5 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

Perpetual regeneration. I now have a vision of Vulkan regenerating into David Tenant and exclaiming in bewilderment 

 

"I know these teeth!" 

"Brothers.... Am I ginger?"

 

 

[Marshal Rohr]

5 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

It is not just the Primarchs returning, I have been keen to see the 40K setting progress again. I started playing way back in 1st edition and to me, 40K always felt like an ongoing storyline that we as players could take part in. 40K 2nd edition was launched with a battrep between Blood Angels and Orks in which the BA Captain was killed by a psychic attack from a Weirdboy (although the after-battle report said that he had actually just about survived). A couple of years later and the Angels of Death codex came out with Captain Tycho, complete with half-mask, backstory relating to that Battrep and special rules hating Orks. It felt like the universe was progressing.

 

That was by no means an isolated example. 40Ks first named special characters were Yarrick and Ghazkull and they were used to tell the tale of the 2nd war for Armageddon. Fats forwarding to 3rd edition and GW ran the Armageddon 3 campaign. Both characters received shiny new models and the conflict was used to detail several new sub-factions including the Salamanders.

 

Then we had the Necrons released as a proper faction (rather than a piratical raiding force) and 40K took a dabble in eldritch horror as the C'tan were linked to all sorts of shenanigans. Then we had The Big One, the 13th Black Crusde. This felt like a culmination of a decade's worth of storytelling. This was the 13th Black Crusade, the apex of Abaddon's efforts to break out of the Cadian Gate (the previous war in the Gothic Sector was retrospectively declared the 12th). This picked up so many storylines such as the Blackstone Fortresses, the Guard's defence of Cadia, Eldrad's attempts to stop Abaddon, even the reappearance of the Wulfen. This was played out as a massive worldwide campaign and GW promised that the outcome would set the direction for 40K lore for the next edition.

 

The results rolled in. Chaos did well on the ground but overall the Imperium won a narrow victory, partially due to winning more battles of Battlefleet Gothic and thus maintaining control of the space lanes. The Eldar kicked Ahriman and the Thousand Sons out of the webway and even managed to recapture the long lost Crone World of Belial IV. Maugen Ra's lost Craftworld of Altansar emerged from the Eye of Terror to tip the balance. These were all huge developments and it looked like 4th edition was going to do massive things with the story to reflect this. My friends and I waited with baited breath to see what would happen next.

 

And the answer was, NOTHING! 4th edition arrived and the storyline was frozen. There was no conclusion to the 13th Black Crusade, the clock was stopped at 5 minutes to midnight with Cadia still balanced on a knife-edge. None of the developments before and during the campaign let anywhere. The only piece of fluff that offered any sort of resolution was a short story published in White Dwarf where they killed off Eldrad as he attempted to take control of a Blackstone Fortress from Abaddon. All the storylines established during the Campaigns were simply abandoned.

 

Looking back after nearly 20 years, it is hard to overstate just how disappointed most of us were with this. The 40K storyline was effectively killed at the start of 4th edition with all the stories that came out after that point being either historical or side-quests. The galaxy was frozen and unchanging. Even the codices stopped shedding more light on their respective factions in favour of just rehashing the existing lore again and again. I pretty much lost interest in the lore side of 40K and just looked at it as a gaming system.

 

4th, 5th, 6th and 7th editions rolled around with GW refusing to touch the status quo. It was not until the very end of 7th edition that the return of Magnus and then the Gathering Storm campaign actually started to move things forward again. I had dropped out of 40K by this point and was playing other systems such as X-Wing but the return of Primarchs to the 40K setting and finally getting to see the resolution of the 13th Black Crusade (as well as other plot lines such as the awakening of Ynnead) rekindled my interest. I have been playing 40K and following the lore against since the start of 8th edition with much more interest than during 4th-7th. 

 

I guess this is a long-winded way of answering your question but what I want to see from the returning Primarchs is progression. I know that neither Chaos nor the Imperium will win any decisive battles at the galaxy-wide level because to do so would destroy the setting. But I want to see the storyline progress. I want to see what happens next and feel like my own games are part of that grand narrative. I lost interest with 40K when GW gave up on a decade's worth of storytelling and turned it in a static setting for 4 editions. I am grateful that this has finally been dropped and the storyline has been allowed to progress again.

 

Did you feel like the detailed campaigns in the Imperial Armor Series were not sufficient? Because each one of those expanded the universe far more than progressing the story line has. 

[Noserenda]

2 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

A big problem with the primarchs coming back is that they all will have financial immortality

 

GW will always step in to save them in lore so they survive. 

 

 

Like that isnt true for every special character? Theyve killed barely a handful over the years, usually because their model was out of production :D  

[Lay]

25 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

 

Did you feel like the detailed campaigns in the Imperial Armor Series were not sufficient? Because each one of those expanded the universe far more than progressing the story line has. 

I guess there's a  difference between progressing a setting vs progressing a story

 

If we treat 40k as a story, then it doesn't matter of a random character is getting scarred or if the entire Imperium is split in half, as long as it leaves the setting with permanent changes going forward.

 

By contrast, the Imperial Armour books expanded the setting "sideways" which works well in a static setting. The Taros Campaign, for example, took place at the same time as the 13th Black Crusade and the events of that campaign were a direct result of the Imperium pulling resources away from Tau space and towards the Cadian Gate. Likewise, the siege of Vraks is kind of a "prequel", that showed how the imperium lost a random world that just happened to be part of the supply chain of the Cadian Gate. Whether the timeline was indeed frozen at the time didn't really matter.

 

That said, I'm skeptical that adding more Primarchs will be a net positive for 40k when the Heresy already feels like it went on for too long. Primarch fatigue is real

[ChapterMasterGodfrey]

I want Primarchs to return. However, I want them to be different from how they were in 30K. I want to see the overall story of 40K progress, I know some people don't and that's fine. At the moment though, it feels like the story only progresses down dead ends. Isn't there several bits of lore that are on cliffhangers never to be resolved? The Dawn of Fire series had such potential to centralise the main narrative of 40K a la Horus Heresy. When they announced it they said it basically was the "next" Horus Heresy.

 

I was expecting to by now have Dawn of Fire: "Guilliman gets to Baal" (this still hasn't happened), Dawn of Fire: "Guillliman comes back from the plague wars", Dawn of Fire: "Whatever the hell is happening with the pariah nexus", Dawn of Fire: "Return of the Lion", Dawn of Fire: "Arks of Omen", Dawn of Fire: "4th Tyrannic War".

 

But no we have Dawn of Fire: "A fleet resupplies at a planet"

 

They need a big Dawn of Fire Novel to jump forward in the time line. We literally don't know if Guilliman went to Baal before or after the Plague Wars.

 

To bring this back on point, Yes I want Primarchs back, back but different, back following character development, and back with good contextualising lore that doesn't exist in isolation like Son of the Forrest did.

[chapter master 454]

Seems like to me, most like the idea of the Primarchs coming back...they just don't trust GW with writing stories as they write what they are selling, not what makes good stories.

 

...boils my blood...

[Karhedron]

3 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Did you feel like the detailed campaigns in the Imperial Armor Series were not sufficient? Because each one of those expanded the universe far more than progressing the story line has. 

 

Not really, these were self-contained side-quests that had no impact on the larger setting. Also I never invested heavily in these as they came out at the height of Forgeworld's "pay to win" phase. My gaming group had a strong dislike for FW (sadly it still persists to this day) meaning there was not much incentive in me getting into these sandboxes.

[Marshal Rohr]

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

 

Not really, these were self-contained side-quests that had no impact on the larger setting. Also I never invested heavily in these as they came out at the height of Forgeworld's "pay to win" phase. My gaming group had a strong dislike for FW (sadly it still persists to this day) meaning there was not much incentive in me getting into these sandboxes.

As pointed out above each “side quest” was directly tied to a much larger 40K event/campaign. I’m also not talking about Forge World models and rules here. If GW was committed to doing deep dives into slices of the setting at the time of the Indomitus Crusade on par with the Imperial Armor Series, it would go a ling way to making 40K something like it used to be, instead of the “Pay 60 Gold Coins to Unlock Boarding Actions Map” DLC/Mobile Game model they’ve adopted. That’s why everything now is wide as an ocean with all factions having some part to play, and deep as a puddle with no detail or exposition. When was the last time we got a two page spread about space marine ships and the more esoteric craft some chapter use WITH new chapters named that no one ever heard of, like Badab? If you wanted to do a fleet based chapter you’d have to buy the Vault subscription and know you need to look at the Badab War campaign book. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Marshal Rohr

[Sword Brother Adelard]

We did get some pretty in depth looks at the indomitus crusade fleets in white dwarf, with force depositions, deployments and ship lists.

I'd like more of that, but it would be incorrect to say we haven't had that sort of thing.

[jaxom]

On 10/21/2023 at 3:06 PM, Sword Brother Adelard said:

There's another reference to him being one of the primarchs against Guilliman's codex reorganization post-heresy. It's in one of the other legions' index.

I thought it was the Council of Iron Fathers who objected, acquiesced, and then quietly went about not really changing their clan structures.

On 10/22/2023 at 2:39 PM, Jscarlos18 said:

WARNING! Rant:

  Reveal hidden contents

As a Tyranid fan I know that sadly the xenos factions will never be as relevant to the story as the IoM and Chaos, specially with the Primarchs, so seeing them return is something I don't want.

 

Unfortunately, they are the characters that sell the best with the fans, and I know that with the mono-God Primarchs, RG and Lion now in 40k and the tabletop, it's a matter of time when all or almost all are brought back. Even Sang, Ferrus and Horus. Potentially the two missing ones, if they're really desperate.

 

The Primarchs have the whole Warp Demigods made flesh to justify their feats and abilities.

 

I know some people don't like Herohammer and feel like not every faction needs their own Primarch equivalent for 1vs1 duels, but I'm curious how will GW do to justify the IoM and Chaos not steamrolling the xenos factions and their main characters each time the IoM/Chaos and their Primarchs enter the battlefields in the narrative.

 

The excuse of having numbers doesn't matter much when the hordes of Tyranids/Orks/other xenos get completely whipped out already without much problem. Even their main chqaracters already struggle to fight the not-best SM protagonist of the day.

 

I read Crusade:Tyrannic War and loved the bits of the Norn Emissaries. I also love the lore of Deathleaper and Old One Eye.

 

Don't know the rest of xenos fans, but would love to brag about the Swarmlord every once in a while like how IoM/Chaos SM can say how awesome are their Primarchs.

 

Really the disparity in "Power Levels" is absurd, even if that is not something that matters in the lore. IoM are the protagonist of the setting but would love to see xenos characters kicking named Space Marine's or even Primarch's asses sometimes.

 

I think the most powerful xenos in lore that have been able to fight them on equal footing were the Prime-Orks and the Avatar of Khaine in Fulgrim right?

 

I don't know. What do you guys think? I'm being absurd? Does it really matter if the xenos main characters never reach Primarch-tier levels of combat power?

Ironically, the majority of lore has major Marine special characters getting beaten by xenos special characters. It's the juggernaut of the Imperium that throws more bodies at the problem until it's not a problem anymore. Sicarius lost at Damnos, Calgar got shredded by the Swarm Lord, Helbrecht lost a hand to the Stormlord, Thraka minces pretty much everyone, Shadowsun wooped Ko'sarro and Shrike; and then the Imperium sends in the the second wave.

 

I like how the 10th edition cinematic addresses this. Guilliman can't be everywhere, the Imperium has lost half its resources, and his armies are stretched too thin. 

On 10/23/2023 at 3:05 AM, Karhedron said:

 

I would put Ferrus in there as well but basically I agree with you. The Black Legion arguably have Abaddon who fulfils the same role and I like to think that the Blood Angels will one day get a Super Saiyan version of the Sanguinor.

It's all about that centerpiece model for me. Abaddon is a great center piece. An updated Sanguinor would be a great center piece. I don't think Legion of the Damned are coming back as part of the Space Marine range, but a primarch-sized LotD model with a flaming skull would be a great center piece.

 

 

11 hours ago, KaosRaptor said:

But I'm curious as to what people who want the Primarchs back are hoping to see exactly?

The 3rd edition update to Imperial Fists (and then the Black Templars) and the way Angels of Darkness was misinterpreted by many led to the Dark Angels personality being replaced with "All Fallen-Hunting All The Time," to the point where there is nothing else. I'm hoping/was hoping to see the Lion's return as an opportunity for that to change. Son of the Forest leaning so heavily on the Arthurian mythos gives me tentative hope for the 10th ed codex having some interesting lore advancement in that regard.

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

 

Did you feel like the detailed campaigns in the Imperial Armor Series were not sufficient? Because each one of those expanded the universe far more than progressing the story line has. 

 

I really like the deep dive campaigns into different warzones in the galaxy. Makes it feel like an actual galaxy instead of a small building where everyone ends up interacting with everyone else. GW still has the talent around to do this as well. Take the "Amidst the Ashes" mission pack - that tiny little book is packed full of story and atmosphere.

 

At some point we really should have progressed enough to where we can be in a setting again, yeah?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

2 hours ago, jaxom said:

I thought it was the Council of Iron Fathers who objected, acquiesced, and then quietly went about not really changing their clan structures.

 

Sure, my only point was, rather jokingly, that at one point, whether by mistake or because of a change in plans by the lore writers, in one of the early IA articles in WD, Ferrus was said to have survived the war. By the time the Iron Hands got their article, Ferrus was said to have died at the dropsite massacre.

[Alternis]

On 10/22/2023 at 8:12 AM, Karhedron said:

 

The Grail in Son of the Forest is from Arthurian myth (a big part of the Dark Angels background) and nothing to do with the Blood Angels. In myth, the Grail Knights sought the Grail to cure the wounded Fisher King (the Emperor) and thus heal the kingdom. 

If it was just the grail you’d be right. 
 

but it’s not just a grail, it’s also a Spear and a Candelabra. 
 

all items associated with Sanguinius. I have to disagree with this viewpoint as it’s very focused on the 1 item while ignoring the other 2, makes no sense. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Alternis
Added Evidence

[Special Officer Doofy]

3 hours ago, Alternis said:

If it was just the grail you’d be right. 
 

but it’s not just a grail, it’s also a Spear and a Candelabra. 
 

all items associated with Sanguinius. I have to disagree with this viewpoint as it’s very focused on the 1 item while ignoring the other 2, makes no sense. 

 

You're wrong and those are Arthurian as well.

 

"At this point in the story of Percival, he arrives at the castle of the Fisher King. This king has been wounded in the thighs or the groin, and as long as he is injured, his land is desolated and ruined.

 

At this castle, there is a strange procession. During this procession, various marvellous objects are carried from one room to another by young men and women.

 

There is a bleeding lance, candelabra, a silver platter, and a type of dish called a ‘graal’. This is the dish, or cup, which later became known in the legends as the Holy Grail."

Edited October 25, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, Alternis said:

a Spear and a Candelabra. 

The Emperor’s Spear would be Russ. The Candelabra might be the Emperor’s Flame (sword).

[Karhedron]

41 minutes ago, jaxom said:

The Emperor’s Spear would be Russ. The Candelabra might be the Emperor’s Flame (sword).

 

That is the point though, these items do not signify other Primarchs. They are references to the Arthur legend.

[phandaal]

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

That is the point though, these items do not signify other Primarchs. They are references to the Arthur legend.

 

Yeah. They are an on-the-nose, exact reference to the items found with the Fisher King in Arthurian legend, as @Special Officer Doofy noted.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

The thing to remmber is that GW is a business and they don't really care about the lore or long term players. If it sells it releases. I wouldn't be surprised if after Russ and Fulgrim drop during 10th we get Sanguinius returning as a big release for 40k's 40th anniversary in 2027. 

[Jscarlos18]

34 minutes ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

The thing to remmber is that GW is a business and they don't really care about the lore or long term players. If it sells it releases. I wouldn't be surprised if after Russ and Fulgrim drop during 10th we get Sanguinius returning as a big release for 40k's 40th anniversary in 2027. 

Very unlikely they release him that soon. Horus, Ferrus and Sang I can see them leave for much later.

 

Although BA are one of the few SM that have their own codex/supplement at the moment, so it could happen.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Jscarlos18

[Alternis]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:55 PM, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

You're wrong and those are Arthurian as well.

 

"At this point in the story of Percival, he arrives at the castle of the Fisher King. This king has been wounded in the thighs or the groin, and as long as he is injured, his land is desolated and ruined.

 

At this castle, there is a strange procession. During this procession, various marvellous objects are carried from one room to another by young men and women.

 

There is a bleeding lance, candelabra, a silver platter, and a type of dish called a ‘graal’. This is the dish, or cup, which later became known in the legends as the Holy Grail."

I’m not ‘Wrong’ and I’m sure it must fill you with such pride to word it like that.

 

But each to their own. 
 

This is 40K for King Arthur, those items have significance to the greater plot and it can ONLY be related to another Primarch, it would make no sense to throw in not 1 but 3 red herrings into the mix that have no relevance to 40K and just a vague reference to ancient Arthurian legends? 
 

LOL OK.

[gideon stargreave]

22 minutes ago, Alternis said:

I’m not ‘Wrong’ and I’m sure it must fill you with such pride to word it like that.

 

But each to their own. 
 

This is 40K for King Arthur, those items have significance to the greater plot and it can ONLY be related to another Primarch, it would make no sense to throw in not 1 but 3 red herrings into the mix that have no relevance to 40K and just a vague reference to ancient Arthurian legends? 
 

LOL OK.

40k does this all the time. 

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Alternis said:

This is 40K for King Arthur, those items have significance to the greater plot and it can ONLY be related to another Primarch, it would make no sense to throw in not 1 but 3 red herrings into the mix that have no relevance to 40K and just a vague reference to ancient Arthurian legends?

 

40K tends to be about as subtle as a brick when it comes to metaphors. If they were going to link the artefacts in the vision to other Primarchs, I think they would be more obvious about it. The Grail could relate to the Blood Angels or it could be a metaphor for healing the Emperor. Does the Spear relate to Russ (the Emperor's spear) or Sanguinius (spear of Telesto)? Who does the Candelabra represent in this vision?

 

If you look at Arthurian myth, the three artefacts match the legend. If you try to map the artefacts to Primarchs you have one artefact that could easily be associated with 2 Primarchs, one Primarch who could potentially be associated with 2 artefacts and one artefact that does not seem to relate to any Primarch in particular. If you want to see how GW handle Primarch metaphors, look at the following from Njal Stormcaller's vision in "Ashes of Prospero"

 

Quote

I saw a sleeper entombed in rock, and a white storm that rode upon a chariot of lightning. A shadow rises to the call of the Allfather’s messengers, a darkness that strikes from within. The benighted ones turn their supernal gazes upon our worlds – the Eater of Worlds, the Corpse-King and the Misbegotten Child move once more. The Cyclopean Fiend, we have already seen. Even the Golden One has broken his gaze from the Empyrean again.

 

There we have Lion el Johnson, Jagatai Khan and Corax on one side and Angron, Mortarion, Fulgrim, Magnus and Lorgar on the other. If GW was going to put Primarch references in the Fisher King scene, I think that is the sort of level they would pitch them at rather than trying to make 3 objects that actually are part of Arthurian myth stand for something other than what they actually are.