Death means nothing

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

In the words of Doug Murphy, "dead people should be dead".

 

Really though, this is problem is sadly not unique to GW. A sniff of money and any story or character development is gone in a shot. 

 

 

[Evil Eye]

9 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If he wasn’t missing where was he? From the bits of his book I’ve seen/heard he was off some where passed the feth out.

IIRC he was asleep inside The Rock (That Makes You Old) until the message that Guilliman was frolicking in Yvraine's enchanted forest reached him, upon which he woke up immediately and set course for Ultramar to mock his brother with jeers of "Robby likes knife-ears! Robby likes knife-ears!" and jokes about GW bringing back Iliyian Natase*, in a brotherly teasing sort of way. ("Oh, don't take it so personally you silly old blueberry! I'm only jealous!").

 

*However you spell it.

[Astartes Consul]

In terms of Primarchs, the ones already brought back have all been, in-universe, alive the entire time. Sort of. Aside from Horus, Curze, Sanguinnius and Ferrus, everyone else is missing/in stasis/demonic. IMO it would have been better for the narrative to keep Gulliman as the sole loyalist Primarch. But that's just me.

 

As others have said, I think bringing back any of the confirmed KIA Primarchs into the 40k setting would be a point of no return. To my mind, having all the Traitor Primarchs eventually return can make sense narratively. But it does massively stack the things in terms of character models/units on the retail side, though.

 

If GW hadn't decided that all available units for 40k have to be extant in-universe, then some form of riff on the 'seasons' or 'series' concept you seen in other games could have worked. Yarrick still has a model, and there is a campaign book about Armageddon that gives him rules and narrative bonuses for certain types of lists. But you can't field him in an army with, say, Urusla Creed. Or just allow people to use their own judgment/imagination when it comes to the setting. Perish the thought.

 

And obviously, if you want to play in a setting with all the Primarchs being alive, then Heresy exists. 

 

The real loser here? Captain Tycho. Poor bloke is basically the only character they've kept dead.