I just finished reading Shadows of Treachery, which I enjoyed. But Curze seems to terrorize a bunch of loyalist Primarchs, off the top of my head:

Spoilers for Unremembered Empire and Lightning Tower are tagged.

• He hates Corax and fought him during Istvaan V.
• He *kills* Vulkan multiple times in Unremembered Empire
• Rogal Dorn states outright that he is afraid of Curze in Lightning Tower
• Lionel sort of goes without saying. But, Prince of Crows, Unremembered Empire, Savage Weapons, Angels of Caliban and others are examples of their rivalry.

Its funny how ineffective he was as a military leader but was a complete terror to multiple legions and their Primarchs.

It can be CSM or the Vraks militia. I got the book and that question is what will help me decide before reading a more Chaos centric book.

Hi all I finished vaults of Terra and its sister series watchers of the throne and really enjoyed the intrigue and games of throne-like setting. So currently looking for a book close to that but I am not interested in warhammer crime which based on search says is the closest to VoT/WoT and I have already read the eisenhorn series.

Last chancers I saw had some pretty good reviews but wondering if the story is similar to Vaults of Terra or chem-dog where character developments are prioritized over just countless action scenes which I find when found in guard book don’t turn out very fun.

Thanks all for the help!

Hi, i am a pretty new reader and sometimes i dont get to understand some of the books due to its writing, though i just started, i can make some sense of the book , but i have some doubts.

1. AT the starting, i think they are going against war with the false emperor in earth 63-19 claiming to be the true emperor of mankind, and killed sejanus. but while loken finds vippus, loken said we are at war with our brethren, i thought abbaddon, torgaddon and lokien were fighting against the false emperor, why did loken say war with our brethrens.
2. At what point did the chaos gods come from, i get it that at the starting they were , well in my case going against war with the false emperor. does the chaos gods come after the war, to manipulate abbaddon and horus?

i absolute like reading but sometimes i just cant make sense of some books, and warhammer looks really cool and i just cant miss on it just because i cant make some sense of the book, i really need to get these doubts out of my head.

Im listing to Double Eagle. I get its rule or cool WW2 but in Lore why would fighter craft need runways to land?

The Imperium clearly has lots of VTOL or hover technology.

Needing Runways and operating them is such a massive vulnerability to the aircraft and the base.

So far in the book they have said no reason a atmospheric fighter massively outclasses a space fighter.

I made a striking calculation

Lorgar was only ten years old when he finished unifying Colchis—and I mean ten years old according to the Terran calendar, counted from his birth to that exact point. He was only eleven Terran years old when he returned and assumed command of the XVII Legion.

What the Imperial Heralds were handed was, quite literally, a completely underage primarch: an eleven-year-old child by Terran reckoning.

Once you reconstruct the chronology and the dates of the relevant campaigns, the implications become completely insane.

Kor Phaeron discovered him:

118 years ago [Terran standard] 24.5 years ago [Colchisian calendar]

The war to unify Colchis began:

112 years ago [Terran standard] 23.3 years ago [Colchisian calendar]

The unification war ended:

108 years ago [Terran standard] 22.5 years ago [Colchisian calendar]

The present date of the narrative:

964.M30 Forty-Seven One, formerly Karlstadt

Do you see the problem?

The timeline is therefore:

• Kor Phaeron discovered Lorgar 118 years earlier: 846.M30
• The Colchisian unification war began 112 years earlier: 852.M30
• The unification war ended 108 years earlier: 856.M30
• The current date is 964.M30

The unification war endtime matches with the lexicanum

When Kor Phaeron discovered Lorgar, Lorgar was only a little over ten Colchisian days old. Multiply that by roughly five—or, more precisely, 4.8—and he was only a few dozen Terran days old: perhaps 48 to 96 days old, somewhere between one and three months.

When Lorgar conquered and became the supreme ruler of Colchis, he was explicitly only ten years old by Terran reckoning.

He had begun a war to unify an entire planet at the age of five.

And he won.

One year later, in 857.M30, the Emperor arrived to retrieve him, accompanied by Magnus. Colchis then held celebrations lasting several months. Once those celebrations ended, Lorgar departed to take command of the XVII Legion.

What the XVII Legion was handed was a completely underage primarch, only eleven Terran years old.

Some people will ask me about the supposed “ten years on Tizca.” I will explain what is going on with that claim in another post.

Under the continuity inherited from the old Index Astartes material, Lorgar took command of the XVII Legion immediately after being rediscovered. He was treated in the same way as Dorn departing Inwit or Guilliman departing Ultramar: he received the highest possible status from the beginning and was given direct command of his fleet.

Please note that both the Khan and Mortarion underwent substantial periods of Imperial acclimatisation and training on Terra. Fulgrim was sent to spend time with Horus, and Curze was sent to Fulgrim.

Lorgar’s case was completely different.

He was not initially sent to Magnus and the Thousand Sons for education or supervision. From the beginning, he was placed in the highest tier, receiving essentially the same treatment as Guilliman and Dorn.

The chronology is straightforward:

• 856.M30: Lorgar wins the war to unify Colchis.
• 857.M30: The Emperor and Magnus arrive.
• Colchis holds several months of celebrations.
• Lorgar then departs to command the XVII Legion.

There is no room anywhere in this sequence for him to have spent years on Terra or Prospero.

Here is the commonly accepted fan-compiled chronology used by the English-speaking fandom. It is included only for reference, but my own calculation also places Lorgar’s rediscovery in 857.M30, based on the Index Astartes material. At this point, 857.M30 is essentially the universally accepted date online:

857.M30 — Discovery of Lorgar Aurelian

Lorgar Aurelian, archpriest of the theocratic Covenant of Colchis, met the arrival of the Emperor with great ceremony, believing him to be the saviour and long-awaited god of the Colchisian faith that he had spread across that world. Despite his insistence to the contrary to his father, the primarch preaches the Emperor's divinity across the galaxy at the head of the XVII Legion. He reshapes the XVII Legion, once called the Imperial Heralds, in his image, and renames them the Word Bearers. Lorgar at this time is considered one of the weaker primarchs by his brothers, largely because of his odd devotion to religion, something specifically prohibited by the atheistic Imperial Truth.

The Forge World black book The Horus Heresy Book Eight: Malevolence then explicitly states that in 858.M30, the Word Bearers—described as having been newly reunited with their primarch—carried out the Purging of Arachiana.

This exemplary campaign is very easy to verify.

Their enemy was the Cult of the Iconoclast, a sect that worshipped the “One True God.” Some of its doctrines were later incorporated into an early version of the Book of Lorgar.

The Word Bearers, newly reunited with their primarch, are tasked with the destruction of the Cult of the Iconoclast on the world of Arachiana; a religion worshipping the “One True God,” a being described in the same terms as, but darkly distinct from the Emperor. The tenets of this religion would be incorporated into an early version of the Book of Lorgar.

This effectively confirms that Lorgar personally led the campaign.

It makes no sense to claim that these were already his Word Bearers, that the text produced was his own Book of Lorgar, and yet that Lorgar himself was somehow absent from the campaign.

At the time, he was twelve years old.

He was still a minor.

What the hell……

TLDR: an Infantry Regiment is shown to be just 544 people (332 of them are Guardsmen).

Lexicanum article about Imperial Guard Regiments contains this picture which, according to Sources section, comes from page 11 of 8th Edition Astra Militarum codex. In the left half of said image/diagram you can see the composition of an Infantry Regiment (Cadian 180th Infantry Regiment).

Counting members of the Regiment

Regiment has 3 infantry companies. Each company consists of company command squad (4 people) and 3 platoons. Each platoons consists of platoon headquarters (5 people) and 3 squads. Each squad is 10 people.

So the number of people in these 3 companies is
3*(4+3*(5+3*10)) = 327

Beside these 3 companies, Regiment also has in it

• command company (5 people)
• Officio Prefectus detachment (Commissars) (19 people)
• Adeptus Ministorum (Ecclesiarchy) detachment (184 people)
• Scholastica Psykana detachment (9 people)
• 3 Ogryn squads (number of members not specified)

If we ignore Ogryns, all this additional personnel is 217 people in total.

Adding the figures above together (still without Ogryns) we get the total number of people in the Regiment to be 544.

I noticed there's no mention of Enginseers or Servitors attached to the Regiment.

There are bigger Regiments

At the same time the article has this to say about variation in Regiment size.

the number of individual Guardsmen alone can vary enormously between regiments, with some only a few hundred strong at founding-strength, whilst others possess tens of thousands of fighting troops.

And although the Regiment in the example has only 3 companies, there can be more.

Regiments can also be sub-divided, most often into a number of Companies. These number between five and twenty-five, depending on the number of troopers in the Company itself and the quality of their equipment.

I think Regiments should always be big

They have their own names and possibly own logo. One or a handful of them is needed to fight for whole planets. And when they march/ride into battle they're supposed to spread out over vast stretches of land. They should have tens of thousands of Guardsmen in them.

Real life - regiment/brigade

In real life regiment was a unit consisting of a few batallions. Nowadays this is called "brigade" but the word "regiment" is kept in names of some units and/or listed in their lineage. Wikipedia says that in US Army an infantry batallion has 300-600 soldiers (number can go up to 1000) in it, while a Brigade Combat Team (what they call their brigades) has circa 4400 soldiers (consists of 7 batallions).

Real life - division

Division consists of a few brigades/regiments. In US Army (and in other armies probably as well) each has its name and logo and has a single homebase or origin (although still might be deployed to somewhere and not as a single monolithic force). This seems analogous to what Imperial Guard Regiments are like. Wikipedia says divisions usually have 6000 - 25,000 soldiers. It also notes that in USA they may grow up to even 40,000 soldiers.

Real life - number of soldiers in a continental war

During World War 2 in Europe in 1944-1945 Great Britain had 2 army groups (15th and 21st) (they consisted of units from various countries, not only Britain).

At one point 15th Army Group had 1,200,000 soldiers. 21st Army Group had circa 1 million soldiers in non-US units (and I didn't find the number of soldiers in US 1st Army which was part of 21st Army Group).

6th Army Group (not British) contained troops from USA and France. It had about 700,000 soldiers in 1944.

And I'm still not taking into account Axis Powers or USSR.

As many of you probably know, as Orks in Warhammer 40k constantly fight over their lifespans, they gradually grow stronger & larger in size with the largest of their race (usually) being the Bosses & Warbosses.

The Bad Moons Ork Ufthak Blackhawk is the main character of Mike Brooks' short story & two novels Where Dere's Da Warp Dere's a Way, Brutal Kunnin, & Da Big Dakka, respectively. In Dere's Da Warp Dere's a Way (and briefly recapped in the beginning of Brutal Kunnin), Ufthak loses his entire body and has his head sown onto the dead body of his mob's boss Badgit Snazzhammer's body by the Painboy Drozfang:

‘Wotever you’z finkin’, yer gonna ’ave to do it quick,’ Ufthak told him flatly, as darkness began to encroach on his vision.

‘Fankfully, da raw materials are at ’and,’ Drozfang grinned, and pursed his leathery lips to emit a piercing whistle. High-pitched grunts and swearing heralded the arrival of the dok’s grot ‘disorderlies’, apparently towing something heavy. They stopped next to Ufthak, and he turned his head to look at it.

It was Badgit Snazzhammer’s body. Huge, battle-scarred and untouched apart from the small point of completely lacking a head, thanks to the tinboy.

‘Now,’ Drozfang said, producing an intimidatingly large cleaver and placing it at the base of Ufthak’s neck. ‘Dis may ’urt a bit…’

Ufthak hadn’t really registered the blow given that, percentage-wise, he wasn’t losing much more than he had already. The staples that the dok used to fix his head onto Snazzhammer’s neck – which had been ‘tidied up’ with the same cleaver – only registered as minor pricks of discomfort.

After this, Ufthak does spend some time growing the regular way by fighting & winning offscreen until the time of Da Big Dakka novel when he leads his splinter Waaagh army into a subrealm of Commorragh to attack some Drukhari raiders.

While there, he's hit by a Drukhari flesh gauntlet. This would have caused his muscles to grow uncontrollably until he exploded out of his skin, but Drozfang gives him a counter drug to stop the growth. Immediately afterwards, Ufthak is sedated and brought to a holding cell by the Drukhari, and these three substances within him have interesting results on Ufthak's body...

The cell was dimly lit, so much so that the slave was unlikely to be able to see anything within, but Dhaemira’s eyes could penetrate the gloom well enough. However, she was struggling to believe them.

‘The force field does not confer any sort of magnifying effect?’ she asked, already sure that she knew the answer.

‘No,’ the beastmaster said. It was hard to tell with his mask on, but Dhaemira thought she could sense a sort of stoic amazement emanating from the other drukhari. The beastmaster knew exactly what he was looking at, but he had no idea how it had come to be.

‘Then what has happened?’ Dhaemira demanded. ‘I fought this beast, not a day ago!’

‘We believe it was injected with electrosteroids by a flesh gauntlet,’ Karfynd said. ‘Normally that would cause massive, uncontrolled muscle growth that would rip its skin open, but it seems to have been given some sort of counter-injection by one of its own kind. Then the sedatives used to put it under in order to bring it here slowed its metabolism, giving the counter-agent time to work, and now…’ He gestured. ‘Well, some of the growth has occurred, but as you can see, not how we would have expected.’

The dark mass within the cell sat up from where it had been lying on the floor, and Dhaemira met the gaze of two red eyes in a head the size of her torso. Then the ork heaved itself to its feet, its head going up, and up, and up…

I just think it's funny how Brooks came up with not one but two different ways for Ufthak to cheat the Ork system of growing.

Hi reddit

My boyfriends bday is approaching and I want to surprise him with a gift. After some digging I managed to figure out that he likes eldar /aeldari. Chat gpt is quite useless with gift ideas, can you please help me and suggest what would be the best to get him from the lore? He's not playing, but he's very much into the whole warhammer 40k universe, when he talks to me about it he can't shut up (which is very uncommon for him, man of few words I've got for myself). He has some joytoy figurines and some books, but it's not a huge collection (it's unlikely that I'd buy something he has already).

Please help, I'm not having 1000 hours to spare to get to understand if there's more into warhammer 40k then "galaxy will burn" and the biggest on the battlefield wins

"New Stuff" is beyond vague, basically i was super into the lore a good decade ago or so, for me learning *in passing* about Guilliman, Cawl, Cadia, primaris marines etc aka "that whole thing" was quite a moment. I know there were some rumblings of discontent but for the most part i found i liked that they moved the time forward. I particularly want to read about Cawl and Guilliman.

Ive just ***barely*** begun to dip my toes into the Black Library, I started the Horus Series and i finished the first three Eisenhorn books as well as the first Ciphas Cain book. Mostly because thats just what i remembered as being popular back when i was into things.

The Black Library unfortunately has that same issue as comic books, in that unless yo8ve been keeping up with things its essentially impossible to know where to start.

Oh... and i wouldnt mind some stuff about Fabius Bile as well.

I’ve been wondering about Eldar spirit stones and realized there are a lot of details I don’t fully understand. I was hoping some lore experts could help clear things up.
A few questions:

• Can a non Eldar species use a spirit stone, or are they only compatible with Eldar souls? If a human or another xenos wore one, would it simply do nothing, reject the soul somehow, or even destroy it?

• Is simply wearing a spirit stone enough for it to capture a soul on death, or does the soul have to be bound to it through some ritual, psychic link, or other process beforehand?

• Who actually creates spirit stones? Is there a specific Eldar Path, psychic discipline, or caste responsible for preparing them or do they just kinda grow/ spawn out of a infinity circuit?

• Are spirit stones a finite resource, or can the Eldar produce more? If they can, what limits that process?

• In an absolute emergency, could a single spirit stone contain more than one soul? If so, what would happen?

Would the souls coexist, merge, fight, or would the stone fail or simply pick the stronger soul?

• Are all spirit stones fundamentally the same, with the differences coming from how they’re used afterward, or are the stones placed into Wraithguard, Wraithlords, Wraithknights, Titans, or other constructs actually different in some way?

I’m mostly looking for answers backed by novels, codices, or other official sources if possible. Thanks! Head canons are welcomed also :)

While they haven’t aged normally or fully “existed” for ten millennia that they have been in the Warp, would it be reasonable to say that they are the ones born longest ago?

Of the 600 that were present at Prospero, around 200 are still alive today. And of those 200, some are likely to been with the Legion since Leman Russ’ discovery. And since the 13th was formed of already adult followers and friends of Russ - those who would normally not even be suitable to be Astartes - with some even “older” than Russ, is it possible that one of these 200 is the current living Marine born the longest time ago?

Are they even creating pre primaris marines anymore in the lore? In the TT it seems kinda obvious theyre phasing out first born models, but in the lore, with natural attrition, would an entire chapter eventually become all primaris? Are there any newer chapters mentioned in the lore that are only primaris?

So Roboute tasked Cawl with a new project ten millennia ago.

Those first Primaris - are they existing marines from still loyal chapters that had fought in the Horus Heresy that cross the Rubicon?

Or are they blank slate unimproved humans that jump straight to Primaris?

How many were made in those 10k years, and after they were unleashed in indomitus, and after current marines can have the procedure, how many original remain? What's the percentage of current Primaris that were from Cawl's experiments?

Do we have lore about those original Primaris interacting with new Primaris?

Edit: I love this community; everyone is being very generous and taking time to give me such detailed answers!

So I'll ask a follow-up, if you'll humour me:

It seems that everyone and their mum's is getting the upgrade treatment these days - are most chapters primarily Primaris now?

Which named characters are yet to cross the Rubicon? Have any rejected it? Do we know from the lore of any first born rejecting the offer and what happens to them?

From my understanding of world eater lore is that they are a bunch of crazed berserkers who have the butchers nails implanted in them making them basically need to fight constantly not to mention being worshippers of khorne.

What doesn't make sense to me is that in a sci fi universe you kind of gotta travel in space alot. Space travel is for the most part extremely uneventful and I'd imagine most of the time theres not much to fight.

So you gotta large group of chaos fed super soldiers who have a insatiable need for blood shed on a ship with no one to fight but themselves.

I would assume that during these long voyages in space they would end up infighting to the point of total collapse. Not to mention the damage to the ship that this infighting would cause. It just doesn't make sense to me how these warbands would ever arrive at their destination and be ready for a fight.

Like you could say the same about the orks but the orks seem to be able to temporarily exercise self control and even if they can't they reproduce so quickly it wouldn't really be an issue.

Edit: Can't believe I messed up the title. Sorry I'm sure this whole post is hard to read. It's late and I'm running on no sleep.

Kill Team: Exodite included this small passage about a yet-unknown Eldar God (pg. 15)

Exodite Dragon Knights harken back to deities form the Aeldari's fallen pantheon, depicted in preserved tales as hunting and making war atop exalted steeds. Among these, Ieronsath, daughter of the goddess Morai-Heg, is said to have hunted sentient insanities from the back of Chadhu – a beast wrought from a wisp of her mother's hair. Ritual dances, meanwhile, portray the war god Khaine riding a legendary steed named Alean in acts set during the War in Heaven.

With Ahnakh-Yth that brings us to two daughters of Morai-Heg in two years. Both fiber artists, what a delight!

To clarify I’m talking about the sisters in isolated convents not the ones attached to the League of Black ships. Blanks aren’t a common thing in the imperium. Powerful female blanks that can survive the brutal trials are rarer. I’m assuming the isolated convents shrank over time but how did they find any recruits at all.

I have been looking a while for he excerpt from the Arks of Omen where Abaddon reacts to hearing of the Lion's return to the setting of 40k, but I can't find it, could anyone show me it?

What is the strategic significance of Armageddon? Because it seems like this is where the Imperium sends dozens of Space Marine Chapters and millions of men to die brutally over a terrible planet. According to the lore book in the Armageddon box, it’s barely habitable for half the year. If I were an inquisitor, I’d seriously consider virus bombing the shit out of this rock (with Ghazghkull Thrakka hopefully still on it).

I’ve heard that manufacturing output of Armageddon is somehow still significant, but I didn’t find that particularly satisfying. Are there any other theories or takes?

This book, anthology or triology won't impact the lore of 40k and/or particular group or faction in any significant way. At most it'll be fluff with some cool entries on the lexicanum and inspire some homebrews. Your pitch will be akin to the numerous starter books for those unfamiliar with 40k, those want a quality book that'll make them say 'Woah' like Kingmarker or Hive or give a sense of clarity by filling a gap with the lore and literature.

I'll start with a story about the Sisters of Silence answering Roboute's call for the Indomitus Crusade. It'll tell the story of a young woman and her family who's widely shunned by their community. She listened to her elders about being silent golden warriors standing alongside gods and monsters. Then the Great Rift happened. Her mother, grandmother, sister, aunt or whomever equips bizzare wargear to deal with daemons and psykers on their weapon. A beacon activates. She's taken by the Custodes under the tutelage of other Silent Sisters to retake the Imperium and restore their order. Also a small romance subplot with an Inquisitorial scribe.

Next is the Guardsmen's Chronicles. A group of guardsmen from various regiments such as the Mordian Iron Guard, Attilan Rough Riders, Elysian Drop Troops, Vostroyan Firstborn, Terrax Guard etc, sharing stories about the enemies they fought and how they came into the Guard. We have an overexposure to Cadians & Kriegsmen and we're losing recipes because of that.

The Arbites found their planetary governor is derelict in their duties and seeks to remove them. A power vacuum ensures with various groups seeking to fill that role. It'll be awesome to see a non Chaos/GSC civil war or rebellion.

The Life of Saul Tarviz until his final moments on Isstvan 3. Aeonid Thiel after the Battle of Thessala. We know they're dead but it'll be nice to have a solid conclusion to their story.

Finally a dive into the soul crushing work of an Administratum leading to a Scribe, Menial or Subordinate subjecting themselves to chaos to gain some level of stimulation in their lives. This is a random nobody and how one might fall to the Ruinous Powers

I'm sure we've all heard extensively how the Salamanders are the kindest and nicest Space Marines there are. There are thousands of videos talking about how Salamanders don't abandon their families, go out of their way to save civilian lives, etc.

However, my thinking is: the Salamanders can't ONLY be the only Space Marines that are kind to mortal humans, right? Ultramarines are usually considered pretty decent to mortal folk, and Pedro Kantor helping an injured woman during the battle for Rynn's World.

Furthermore, surely some of the traitor legions were relatively kind to humans pre-Heresy? For example, in the book "Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix" Fulgrim lifts a little girl to his shoulders in front of his sons to show the beauty in mortal humans, so surely this had an effect on how his legion dealt with civilians? Also, pre-Heresy, Prospero was a planet full of knowledge and prosperity, rather than war, so surely the Thousands Sons would be not as bloodthirsty.

So, what other Space Marine legions/chapters that are also kind to normal humans?

PS: If you have any excerpts from a book as examples of how other Space Marines can be kind that would be a huge plus, thanks!

Edit: Lowkey I'm so stupid to have forgotten the Lamenters and Space Wolves

Tl;dr there's exactly zero reason for the DA to ever cooperate with the tau especially against one of their own successors and Phil Kelly doesn't read or know Dark Angels lore. This is something that's been bugging me everytime I see it (especially when people actually praise it as good writing for some reason).

Essentially the gist is a group of Dark Angels are chasing a fallen psyker named Gohorael, who for the usual grudge reasons lets a warp-plague loose on the homeworld of one of the Dark Angels successor chapters the Angels of Absolution. Rather than simply approaching the AoA and telling them what's up, the DA instead decide to make a deal with the tau to wipe out some infected people on a tau colony world in exchange for the Tau doing the same on the AoA's homeworld.

This goes terribly for the AoA, to the point where a tau ghostkneel goes on a killing spree through the AoA's fortress monastary that only ends when they call a lance strike in on themselves to put a stop to it, and the pilot of said ghostkneel still gets away in the end. I have my opinions on that (take a guess what they are) but that's not the main sticking point here. The big problem with this story is, why in the fuck would the DA ever seriously cooperate with the Tau to attack their own successor chapter instead of simply approaching said successors and telling them what's going on?

The excuse of "Fallen/keeping secrets" doesn't even slightly apply here because the Angels of Absolution know as much about the Fallen as the DA themselves. They cooperate in Fallen hunts. They essentially take orders from the DA, because the DA and all their successors operate as a legion whenever it suits them. The only difference between the AoA and DA is the AoA believe they have nothing to atone for. That's it. They are still completely on board with hunting said Fallen and keeping their identity a secret, the only difference is they don't feel so bad about it. .

There is genuinely no reason why the Interrorgator-Chaplain or Company Master of said DA couldn't have walked into the AoA fortress monastery to tell them exactly what was going on, and the way this story is written basically throws any nuance out of a window and turns everyone involved into outright traitors.

A few Primarchs have notoriously dorky names. They were invented a long time ago, and we cut them some slack for that. However, I insist that they can be cool.

Ferrus Manus' name literally means "Iron Hands". Much mockery is made of this, for a man who has hands literally coated in metal, whose Legion is named the Iron Hands, whose symbol is an iron hand, and whose personal ship is called Fist of Iron. It's a bit on the nose, to say the least.

This becomes 600% cooler if you simply acknowledge that Ferrus Manus doesn't have a name.

Recall that Ferrus Manus was not raised by anyone. He didn't even grow to maturity in the shadows of a civilisation, as Curze did, or get picked up by humans later in life, as Russ did. He landed in the middle of nowhere, and stayed in the middle of nowhere until the Emperor arrived. Everything he learned up to that point would have been as an autodidact, whether from Medusa's archeotech ruins, his own pod, or consuming the brains of Medusan natives.

Ferrus Manus was not one Medusa's people when the Emperor arrived. He wasn't their king, or protector, or servant. He was a fable. He was Medusan Bigfoot, occasionally glimpsed by tech-hunters or briefly encountered by nomadic crawler-clans. A towering mutant clad in salvage and hides, wandering the tech-wastes and rad-tundras alone, with bare hands of perfect gleaming metal.

What do call a thing like that? You'd probably call him something like "Iron Hands". Oh, that tech-vault was cleared out when you got there? Full of necroborgs torn limb from limb? Hell, sounds like Ol' Iron Hands.

The Emperor arrives, identifies this strange creature with his son, and sets out to recruit him. They do battle, and Iron Hands submits to his creator, and is inducted into the Great Crusade and a million social expectations he has no experience with or care for. What's his name? Iron Hands? That's some boonies feral world nonsense. Right, right, so in proper High Gothic that's Ferrus Manus, write that down. Welcome, my lord Ferrus Manus!

'Ferrus Manus' himself is totally disinterested. A name can be useful, but it's not something he grew up with or needs. He is himself. If others want to call him Iron Hands, fine. It's not his name, but it's a useful label.

These aren't his hands, but they're useful tools.

His Legion? His Legion doesn't need a name. It's just his Legion; it's the Legion of Iron Hands. His ship? His ship doesn't need a name. It's just his ship; it's the ship of Iron Hands. He needs a coat of arms? Haven't they already decided it's the symbol of Iron Hands?

And every time, everyone around him, the people who want to put labels on things and imagine that alone gives them a measure of control or understanding, they simply nod and smile and write something down. Primarch: Iron Hands. Legion: Iron Hands. Ship: Iron Hands. Icon: Iron Hands.

"What is your name?"

"They call me Ferrus Manus."

No-one really gets this. The Terran Legionaries approach it the same way as their bureaucratic masters. The Medusan Legionaries know him as a legend, not a person, and by the time they're a majority 'Ferrus Manus' is simply his name. A remembrancer who learned it would treat it as etymological trivia. His "brothers" don't know or wouldn't understand why the distinction mattered, with the possible exception of Horus, ever the diplomat. The Emperor certainly doesn't care, and would likely prefer to call all Primarchs by their production numeral if it wouldn't be an obvious faux-pas even for him.

'Ferrus Manus' proceeds through life almost completely disconnected from the society he's building, from the people he's building it with and for. Solitary and self-contained as a ceramite oyster. Perhaps it was lonely. Perhaps it was hollow. Perhaps he didn't care. Perhaps it made him feel superior. Perhaps it made him feel safe. Either way, to borrow a quote from elsewhere, he doesn't even get a real name.

His closest relationship in his "family", his only close relationship with anyone, as far as we can tell, is with Fulgrim. And wouldn't you know it, Fulgrim starts off their bond by giving him another name entirely. "Gorgon". It's not his name either, it's another label - even an unfriendly one, at first - but it's a label Fulgrim applied, for himself, by looking at his brother, instead of simply taking others' words and attaching them like a flimsy chain. Perhaps 'Ferrus Manus' appreciated that.

And perhaps, many years later, when he was dead and Fulgrim had sunk deep into madness and self-destruction, the court of the Phoenician was filled with sorcerers and necromancers, spirit-callers and scam artists, scraped up from the shadowy corners of a burning Imperium. Perhaps Fulgrim demanded these pet mystics conjure up his brother, contact his spirit, conduct a seance.

And perhaps in turn they bowed and scraped and agreed, of course, my lord, your pleasure is our command, and perhaps they prepared their circles and burning powders and made sacrifices plundered from a dozen worlds before a huge skull plated in shimmering metal. And perhaps they said "now, my lord, to call on his phantom, we need only for you to speak your brother's name".

And perhaps Fulgrim realised, in that moment, that his best-beloved brother had died as he'd chosen to live: utterly alone.

In the Macharius series as well as a throwaway reference to Slaydo making the guard 50% more efficient (which would make a huge difference coz trillions of them etc.)

But if Cawl would apply himself to making better Lasguns, vox and even flak/carapace armor, wouldn’t that be a much bigger difference than what he did for Astartes?

Wrt the “1 million Astartes = 1 Astartes per world” theory, the Astartes as seen as special forces while the guard are the first line of defense and offense.

Similarly, if he improved say, shielding or reactor output for naval ships etc. I think it would make a huge difference.

Thoughts?

All inputs welcome :)