With the return of the Lion immanent, I think many people are wondering whicj pirmarch will be the next to get a table-top model? Will it be Corax? There have been some mentions in the lore of how it could happen. What about Jaghatai? Or Dorn? Maybe even Fulgrim? While speculation is fun, I think it’s also interesting to think about what primarchs shouldn’t return? Which ones have a completed arc and should remain dead?
Fair warning, there will be some Horus Heresy and post-Horus Heresy spoilers in the following article so be warned.
Let’s start by taking a look at the status of each Primarch:
- Horus – Dead
- Leman Russ – Missing
- Ferrus Manus – Dead
- Fulgrim – Active, no model
- Vulkan – Missing
- Rogal Dorn – Might be dead, might not, the lore keeps changing
- Roboute Guilliman – Active, has a model
- Magnus the Red – Active, has a model
- Sanguinius – Dead
- Lion El’Jonson – Active, has a model
- Perturabo – Active, no model
- Mortarion – Active, has a model
- Lorgar – Active, no model
- Jaghatai Khan – Missing
- Konrad Curze – Dead
- Angron – Active, has a model
- Corvus Corax – Missing
- Alpharius/Omegon – 1 dead, the other might be dead depending on if they ret-con the lore
By my count, there are four dead primarchs, two from each side, and two that might be dead depending on the lore status. I will go through each group and give my thoughts on each member.
Dead/Possibly Dead:
In this group we have Horus, Ferrus Manus, Sanguinius, Curze, Alpharius/Omegon and Rogal Dorn. I will start by saying that ll the slain primarchs should remain dead. Reviving them will just undermine the narrative arcs that have been laboriously established in the Horus Heresy novels. This will cheapen their actions, and taint the series. I could see space for Rogal and Alpharius/Omegon to return, although this would diminish Curze a bit given his vision for Rogal’s fate. I also think these two could stay dead as they represent serious casualties incurred during the Scouring, making it less one-sided and raising the stakes. Their forces have fought each other in notable battles during the Heresy and thus could make for a good pair to return together at some later date.
I think there are issues in terms of how you bring back Alpharius/Omegon as chaos leaders without pledging the to a god, but this can be overcome. Their allegiance could be nebulous and shifting, or even just Chaos undivided. The Vasthorr book has opened the doors to more minor chaos entities and so we could see new figures be introduced as well.
Missing/Active:
In this group we have: Russ, Fulgrim, Vulkan, Perturabo, Lorgar, Jaghatai and Corvus. As you look at this list you an quickly see that most of these characters are loyalists. The forces of Chaos have been getting their primarchs for a while. That being said, I think there is room for all of them to return. I think the big issue with the chaos ones, aside from Fulgrim, is how to incorporate them into the architecture of chaos. For a while GW had a strong push to play down any minor chaos entities (as they were hard to copywrite) and thus focused on the big four. This mainly caused issues with daemon princes as they had to have a mark and thus you couldn’t be a daemon and not be pledged to one being, unless you were Be’lakor.
With Vahstorr’s return, we have an avenue for Perturabo either as an acolyte or usurper of Vashtorr. Lorgar needs to be dedicated to the entire pantheon and a being of raw chaos for him to really work. This might be a bit of a challenge but I think we will see him at some point.
When it comes to the loyalist primarchs, they all have niches hollowed out via the Horus Heresy:
- Guilliman – mainly army buffs but the sword does give him some punch
- The Lion – hard to say yet but I imagine he will be more kill-y and more tank-y, while providing less army buffs.
For the others here are some possible niches:
- Russ: Should be the deadliest primarch but also provide the fewest buffs, he works as a duelist
- Vulkan: Focus should be on his toughness with some army-wide buffs, sort of the opposite of Guilliman in terms of damage, but Guilliman is already quite resilient.
- Jaghatai: Like Russ should be a duelist but with more speed and less damage and toughness.
- Corvus: should be a mix of Jaghatai and Vulkan, provide some damage, especially against characters but rely on stealth and placement to get into position. Should also heavily buff the stealth abilities of his army.
I think we will see all missing primarchs return at some point. In the short term, I think GW will focus on getting four loyalists back to mirror the chaos pantheon’s four. In which case I think the loyalists will get Russ and Corax next. Russ has a clear role in a non-codex compliant legion so that’s easy. Corax has an uncompleted arc and thus has some narrative potential. He also is dissimilar enough from his brothers to make work. We could get Dorn for the Black Templars but that would open a can of worms and I would expect one dead chaos primarch would have to return to even the sides.
This is all conjecture though. I am excited as to how GW will work their return into the fluff and how they will react to the Imperium of Man in its current state.
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