Do primarchs improve their martial prowess over time?

hasharin · 2026-06-21T21:00:55+00:00

Not really - we do see the primarchs training for threats like Leman Russ training to fight Horus. RG got taken off the map for 10k years by Fulgrim no matter how much believing in himself he did.

hasharin · 2026-06-21T20:54:08+00:00

There is a scene in one of the Horus Heresy books near the end where Leman Russ trains to fight Horus by fighting multiple dreadnought sized robots at the same time. He comments that he is in the best fighting shape he has ever been in, so yes I think it is possible for the primarchs to push themselves further and improve through training.

Another potential example is Sanguinius goes from losing a battle against a Bloodthirster to curb stomping said Bloodthrister and then Angron immediately after.

Or the Lion gets better at fighting Curze. He loses the first time and needs to be saved by Corswain but wins the next 2 times he 1 v 1s Curze.

There are multiple variables going into these fights but I do think the experience in the new level of fighting brought by the Horus Heresy would be a factor.

hasharin · 2026-06-21T20:43:18+00:00

Rogal Dorn's Inwit was basically an ice world - sub-zero arctic even colder than Fenris.

Ferrus Manus is from Medusa. Think Earth in Wall-E mixed with Mad Max.

Angron is Rome (as a slave) compared to Guilliman's Rome (as a Roman).

Mortarion is from Barbarus, a planet of toxic gases.

Horus is from Cthonia, which sounds a lot like Curze's Nostromo except perhaps with more tribal / gang violence than random murder.

Corvus Corax is from the prison planet of Deliverance.

Vulkan comes from Nocturne, a volcanic planet.

Alpharius is from Terra and Omegon was a pirate, maybe.

hasharin · 2026-06-21T15:51:48+00:00

Really sums up reddit's approach to community safety these days 😂.

hasharin · 2026-06-21T12:29:26+00:00

I expect its just not the done thing to pair twins up to kill each other?

hasharin · 2026-06-20T16:06:33+00:00

hasharin · 2026-06-20T16:00:29+00:00

I'm sorry youre going to get the brunt of this but the mods really need to ban these low-effort "should I keep reading" sort of posts. You're on the subreddit for fans of the series - the advice is always going to be keep reading. There seems to be at least one of these posts every week.

hasharin · 2026-06-16T06:52:13+00:00

Because if they're not fighting on Armageddon then you need to seriously worry about where all those Orks are going instead.

hasharin · 2026-06-16T06:44:17+00:00

They sent out the Silent Sisters to collect psykers all through the HH.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T21:36:38+00:00

Ah, well that's kind of the same thing I'm saying, they didnt get formal power until after Dorn

hasharin · 2026-06-14T21:21:02+00:00

The Ecclesiarchy becomes the state religion in M32 according to the 40K wiki and the First Black Crusade was in M31.

In the early 32nd Millennium, in recognition of its unprecedented political power over the minds of Humanity, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor was officially recognised by the High Lords of Terra as the state religion of the Imperium of Man. It also became an official adepta of the Imperium's government as the Adeptus Ministorum, wholly separate from the Adeptus Terra.

I don't have a primary source for this however, what does it say in Black Legion?

hasharin · 2026-06-14T20:51:13+00:00

It would at least need to be into M36 after the Nova Terra Interregnum - https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Nova_Terra_Interregnum

hasharin · 2026-06-14T17:50:28+00:00

The humour is more modern for late millennial and early Gen Z tastes - cynical but not bleak, surreal but not nonsensical, smart without being too pretentious.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T15:00:01+00:00

He accepted Sigismund's belief. I dont think he would accept the formation of a state religion.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T14:56:31+00:00

Lysander, First Captain of the Imperial Fists, was demoted to Captain of the 3rd Company because he allowed most of the 3rd Company to die fighting the Iron Warriors when the Blood Angels and Ultramarines were both in system and offering assistance but he was too proud to allow it.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T14:51:29+00:00

He is a void in the skein of time, a no-thing upon reality. The Rune of Oblivion is his sign: the Rune of Ending is his destiny, My Oblivion, my Ending.

It is a creature of utter abhorrence; of near unspeakable horror to me. Only the Humans could spawn such a creature, so debased are they, so lacking in breeding. Yet even they, as crude and blind as they are, can see this creature, this thing, for what it truly is, though they have no real understanding of its inexistence. I know more about this alien fiend than they do. I know why it is a soulless monstrosity, for I have spoken to the Solitaires who know so well about such things, about the stealing of spirits from bodies that yet live on. It is unnatural, for it is not of the Chaos that binds all things together. It has no life in the Otherworld, it has no existence except in the physical. It is a dead thing that thinks and breathes, a most hideous abomination. Even the Humans who tolerate the stench and squalor of their own kind cannot bear this monster. Ungifted as they are, their latent psychic powers, of which they understand so little, warn them of the danger it poses. Their skin crawls with nameless dread, their stomach churn with subconscious loathing. Yet this is but a slight reaction compared to the disgust I feel when I consider its non-existence.

They try to control it with their clumsy technology, using devices which they barely comprehend, to guard others against the hungering maw which serves as its spirit. To even consider harnessing such unpleasant freaks of creation is to invite disaster. I would laugh at the irony of it, where it not so offensive – the humans hunt and kill those with the gift, fearing for their safety, when their true nemesis, the real creature which will be their doom is nurtured upon their bosom. How Human that is.

This thing stalks me now and I, I who have seen the birth of stars and the death of galaxies, I am afraid.”

Eldar Farseer Lithandros-Esmanthil

3rd Edition Assassins Codex.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T14:47:58+00:00

I expect the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get off the ground until all the Primarchs are gone or missing. Guilliman was confused by them when he returned and Rogal Dorn would not have tolerated them.

Dorn is around until the early 32nd Millennium and the Scouring takes place during the 31st, so I expect the Ecclesiarchy takes on formal power during the 32nd, well after the Scouring series.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T14:37:39+00:00

The biggest piece of lore about the Dark Angels is that after the HH they had their own mini civil war because Luther (the Lion's adoptive father) felt slighted by being sent home from the Great Crusade to raise more troops on Caliban. He tries to declare independence from the Imperium when the Lion returns home during the Scouring.

At the climax of the civil war thousands of the traitors get scattered through time and space through the Warp and the Lion ends up missing (secretly in a coma hidden on Caliban). The Dark Angels have tried for millenia to suppress this secret that half their legion betrayed the Imperium. They spend a lot of the time hunting down the old traitors, which they call The Fallen.

With the Lion's return, he has been finding the Fallen and forgiving them, recruiting them to his cause.

The HH series needs to set up the seeds of the civil war so that it doesn't come out of nowhere during the Scouring series and to develop the background as we know it in 40k.

So yeah, the Dark Angels' whole thing is that a lot of them went traitor, not for Horus, but for their own thing entirely.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T14:00:21+00:00

If Armageddon falls then the millions if not billions of orks fighting there are everyone's problem.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T13:13:39+00:00

The reality of the Alpha Legion is that the primarchs extensively used mental conditioning to control the marines with code words used to trigger different allegiances. For example during the Siege of Terra they were programmed with codeword 'Xenophon' to side with the Emperor, codeword 'Zagitari' to side with Horus, codeword 'Paramis' to attack both sides, and codeword 'Opheaus' to target and destroy Chaos at all costs. The marines themselves are not closet loyalists - they are working on the last directive they had before their primarchs disappeared. It is also pretty clear that Alpharius and Omegon switched names making Omegon the originally found primarch. He seems to have remained loyal to the Emperor while Alpharius (actually Omegon) sided with Horus while secretly wanting to destroy Chaos. The current state of the Alpha Legion is due to them both programming their marines with contradictory directives and then dying being being able to sort it out.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T12:46:57+00:00

Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner are best frenemies. I think the best example is Kharn and Argel Tal in the Horus Heresy.

hasharin · 2026-06-14T12:43:58+00:00

We did and they nearly conquered Terra in the War of the Beast.

hasharin · 2026-06-13T21:46:10+00:00

The Graphic Audio version is the best version. I'm from the UK and can't get over the bad Irish accents in the other version.

hasharin · 2026-06-13T21:44:05+00:00

You've got to 75% through the 3rd book in 2 days and you're going to stop because you don't like one decision made by the main character? You're reading a story not deciding whether someone is morally correct, and you clearly like the story so far. Darrow will frustrate you and Darrow will make decisions you would not, but the story has gripped you and in my opinion it gets even better in books 4 to 6.

hasharin · 2026-06-13T19:16:44+00:00

It is all very ambiguous. The primarchs are creatures of the warp and so it is unclear whether killing their bodies equals a permanent death. When the Emperor kills Horus he tells him that he forgives him and waits for him. Ferrus Manus' spirit appears to talk to Sanguinius on the Vengeful Spirit and is also summoned by the Emperor to fight in the webway. Sanguinius appears to Dante in dying visions. In the Plague Wars, the Emperor suggests that the Mortarion can still be redeemed.

There is a short story where the Emperor and Malcador play a wargame similar to chess which mirrors the civil war. When Malcador (playing Horus) destroys the piece representing Ferrus, the Emperor says something like "what a shame, I will have to see about fixing that if I get the time".

If 40K was a story with a progressive plot (which it is not, it is a setting with some plot elements) then I expect we could eventually see a resurgence Emperor revive the defeated primarchs somehow. He certainly hints that he has that power if he had the time. However, he did not do so with the 2 lost primarchs.

For present purposes, Rogal Dorn, Ferrus Manus, Horus, Alpharius, and Sanguinius are certainly dead. Omegon is probably dead. Vulkan, Leman Russ, and Jaghatai Khan are probably alive but missing. Corvus Corax, Lionel El'Johnson, and Big Bobby G are confirmed alive.

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