Okay lets make this two questions:

who is your favorite Loyalist primarch?*

and,

Who is your favorite Traitor primarch?*

and why?

If you have runner's up or want to make a top 10 go ahead!

* It will be intresting to see in wich category Alpharius and Lion el Jonson will end up...

Ugh, as far as loyalists go.... I'll say Vulkan. Jaghatai and Lion tie for second.

Traitors, I'm gonna go with Alpharius, obviously. No greater troll in the universe (unless you count Tzeentch). After him, it'd probably be either Magnus or Perturabo. But really, those are primarchs I feel sympathetic for.

As far as whose the greatest villain is, Konrad Kurze. Hands down.

Loyalists:

Sanguinius: went to face Horus on the Vengeful Spirit knowing he would die there. And there is the rumour the Emperor could not have slain Horus without Sanguinius damaging his armor first.

Corax: The guy can become invisble (sort of), is there anything more OP then that? oh wait, Vulcan... never mind!

Alpharius: yes i put him in the loyalist faction!

Traitors

Omegon. and his twin is in the traitor faction, just to keep everybody guessing where their loyalty lies.

Angron: Once stated that it was fortunate that the butchers nails made him a frothing berzerker, otherwise he'd walk up to the emperor and "take the slaving bastards head". Pre-heresy angron pointing out that forcing worlds to join the imperium or die is slavery. Awesome.

Nighthaunter: For just being a one man army/ evil batman/ being unstoppable and completly wrecking the ultramarines sh*t in the unremembered empire novel. Space marines know no fear, but with Nighthaunter on the loose they get very, very, very concerned.

Horus. But my personal conception of Horus rather than the version the HH novels are showing us.

I haven't read "vengeful spirit" yet, but so far I feel the HH Novel Horus is not living up to the legend. Horus should be the top primarch. He should be a towering figure, a master manipulator, a masterful General, a ruthless streetfighter, a charismatic magnificent bastard. He should be 25% Frank Underwood, 25% Avon Barksdale, 25% Jim Jones and 25% Augustus Caesar. Instead so far he's 100% Haydon Christianson as Anakin Skywalker; a cipher with implausible motivations who comes across as an easily manipulated dupe. You should hate Horus' deeds but have a sneaking admiration for the man. This doesn't happen so far. The HH Novel Horus is a little man who does not fill the gap in the canon left by the towering Horus of the older background.

If we're talking primarchs as portrayed in the novels so far, I really like Dan Abnett's portrayal of Gulliman. Gulliman was never my favourite Primarch previously, but Abnett has taken his stiff, aloof, somewhat arrogant demeanour and made him into a sympathetic and well rounded character. He's flawed: relatively humourless, earnest, snooty and conventional, but his enormous intellect and superhuman abilities force him to recognise his own flaws and find humility despite himself. It's a neat, if short character arc, made all the more impressive for avoiding bathos and unnecessary drama. He's logical, cold, reasonable, but he finds passion in defending what's important when the chips are down.

Agree. In the old Space Marine rulebook (before it would be called 40k Epic) there is a short bit of background story about one of his marines going "i have a bad feeling about this my lord. I've been having these dreams. Do you really have to go that warrior lodge meeting?" and Horus blows it off as nothing and tells him not to worry. I wish they had kept that bit in the novels.

They should have Aaron dembski-bowden do a story about Horus, so far he really has you undertsanding and rooting for the traitor primarchs he writes. from Lorgar bitchslapping the sigilite to Angron's BSOD moment and reaction when he finds out the legends of his homeworld tell he fled and abonded his army of freed slaves.

Got to be Leman Russ. The man gets a type of tank named after him, he was just that good (or perhaps a metaphor of his stubborn nature). Plus I love the story of how he and the Emperor first met with the whole contest of drinking, eating and combat. The God Emperor, strongest of all and defeated in a game of who can neck the most mead/rum etc!

Favourite traitor, don't really have one as I haven't looked into them too heavily yet to comment.

Sigmar.

Loyalist - Roboute Gulliman - after reading Know No Fear and Unremembered Empire. He's one of the less dickish of the Emperor's sons. Sanguinius also has empathy but it's empathising with humanity from the outside.

Traitor - Angron. When it all comes down to it, at least he's honest , which is something few characters on either side can claim to be.

Sigmar.

I was wondering if anybody was gonna vote Sigmar.

Unfortunatly GW said the warhammer world and the 40k universe are seperate universes. Wich is BS since RoC: lost and the damned pretty much states the warhammer world is in the imperium but inside a permanent warp storm.

Got to be Leman Russ. The man gets a type of tank named after him, he was just that good (or perhaps a metaphor of his stubborn nature). Plus I love the story of how he and the Emperor first met with the whole contest of drinking, eating and combat. The God Emperor, strongest of all and defeated in a game of who can neck the most mead/rum etc!

Favourite traitor, don't really have one as I haven't looked into them too heavily yet to comment.

Yeah i read that story to in an old white dwarf. It was awesome:

Russ eating 4 aurochs and the Emperor drinking six barrels of mead but by then Russ has drunk everything else! And the Emperor getting a bit pissed off at that point calling Russ a glutton. So russ goes all "come at me bro" And the Emperor hits him square in the face with his power fist, but it's okay, Russ could think clearly again after 15 minutes- and claimed his headache was from a hangover and not from getting punched in the face!

Alpharius/Omegon land themselves in both categories.

Loyalist: hmm. I'm fond of the Unforgiven, so the Lion gets points for that.

Traitor: Purely traitor, not sure, tbh.

Horus. But my personal conception of Horus rather than the version the HH novels are showing us.

I haven't read "vengeful spirit" yet, but so far I feel the HH Novel Horus is not living up to the legend. Horus should be the top primarch. He should be a towering figure, a master manipulator, a masterful General, a ruthless streetfighter, a charismatic magnificent bastard. He should be 25% Frank Underwood, 25% Avon Barksdale, 25% Jim Jones and 25% Augustus Caesar. Instead so far he's 100% Haydon Christianson as Anakin Skywalker; a cipher with implausible motivations who comes across as an easily manipulated dupe. You should hate Horus' deeds but have a sneaking admiration for the man. This doesn't happen so far. The HH Novel Horus is a little man who does not fill the gap in the canon left by the towering Horus of the older background.

Completely true. In the novels, Horus is a chump manipulated by Lorgar/the Word Bearers. Literally, it's Lorgar/Word Bearers masterminding everything about the Primarchs and their Legions betraying the Emperor, except for Alpharius/Omegon and Alpha Legion who sided with Horus because he/they were warned by the Cabal that if the Emperor won, bad things would happen, but if Horus/the Traitors won, Chaos would burn itself out in an orgy of destruction. On the flip side, I think Tzeentch played the Cabal, b/c if Alpharius and Alpha Legion had gone against Horus and the other Traitors, if only at the end (having used the rest of the time as set up for a 'hail hydra' moment against the Traitors), I think the Loyalists would have made out better, and the Emperor probably wouldn't have gotten quite so screwed up.

Favorite Loyalist: Rogal Dorn, followed by Alpharius Omegon ( ) and Vulkan.

I am a true son of Dorn because he defended the Emperor and his Palace while Rowboat Girlyman was chasing shadows, leading to the formation of the Black Templars.

Favorite Traitor: Alpharius Omegon

I just love the Alpha Legion and their ambiguity.

Alpharius/Omegon land themselves in both categories.

Loyalist: hmm. I'm fond of the Unforgiven, so the Lion gets points for that.

Traitor: Purely traitor, not sure, tbh.

On the flip side, I think Tzeentch played the Cabal, b/c if Alpharius and Alpha Legion had gone against Horus and the other Traitors, if only at the end (having used the rest of the time as set up for a 'hail hydra' moment against the Traitors), I think the Loyalists would have made out better, and the Emperor probably wouldn't have gotten quite so screwed up.

Tzeentch didn't need to play the Cabal, because chaos CAN'T win so hard it burns itself out, because chaos is constantly fighting itself. This is also why most of Tzeentch's plots and plans are contradictory: he makes sure chaos can't have a total self collapsing victory. Atleast thats my opinion, and it makes Tzeench look like a mastermind again and not a self sabotaging chump.

"Hail hydra' moment"- i liked that.

Favorite Loyalist: Rogal Dorn, followed by Alpharius Omegon ( ) and Vulkan.

I am a true son of Dorn because he defended the Emperor and his Palace while Rowboat Girlyman was chasing shadows, leading to the formation of the Black Templars.

Favorite Traitor: Alpharius Omegon

I just love the Alpha Legion and their ambiguity.

Poor Dorn, it must have been heartbreaking being the last to enter Horus throne room on the Venegful Spirit and find the corpse of Sanguinius and his heavily wounded father. Atleast he saved the emperor by getting him back to the palace and on the golden throne.

Rowboat Girlyman! LOL!

Well, it's good to remember that while Tzeentch is the master of manipulation, it doesn't win all of the time. Mortals have that pesky free will, and there's just so many variables to keep track of (also it'd be total BS to say that).

And as for the Cabal, I think they lied to the Alpha Legion. The phyric victory for the Imperium and the 10,000 years of stagnation it would bring with it, as predicted by the Cabal, happened more as a result of their actions than anything they would have done to the contrary, if they had sided with the Emperor instead of Horus. They helped bring about the future they were trying to avoid (as is often the trope), and they did that directly as a result of the information passed to them by the alien Cabal.

A group which contained many races that were openly hostile to humanity, if not merely dismissive of them because of their relative age. It's entirely possible, and more than a little bit likely, that they tried to eliminate humanity and chaos at the same time (because why do they care if chaos is gone, if humanity wipes them out afterward?).

Agree. That was one of the things taht bothered me in Legion: the emperor has suppresd knowledge of daemons, chaos and to a certain extent the warp. But what he has been constantly saying is "kill the xenos!" So when you are alpharius (pick one, any alpharius will do) and some xenos (who you have been told are the enemy) show up and tell you this thing called chaos (what you don't truly know about) needs to be stopped at mankinds expense, would you believe them?

Also the Cabal pretty much told them chaos will burn out itself along with humanity- so that the aliens will inherit the galaxy- and they expected the AL to go along with it?

My theory is that Alpharius figured out the Cabals plan after 5 minutes and decided the "emperor looses" option was the better one for humanity and they teamed up with horus to make sure chaos would loose!

Just fighting along the loyalists was to straight forward for the AL. Joining the traitors and subtley make sure they fail- that's more like it!

Loyalist: Rogal Dorn

Traitor: Coin toss between Angron and Konrad Kurze.

Duh...

Vulkan! HE can survive crashing from space into Maccarage and not even get a scar!

Duh...

Vulkan! HE can survive crashing from space into Maccarage and not even get a scar!

Night Haunter's reactions to it say it all:

At first: "Well that was quick!"

Later: "Why. Won't. You. Die ?!!"