Thread: Primarchs and Legion Datasheets

Militaris Dominatus? Imperius Maxima? Something that makes them sound like they are the bestest, with a latin twist.

What is the base generic Primarch profile people are working from?

WS8 BS6 S5 T5 W4 I7 A5 Ld10 Sv2+ ?

When I did this a while ago I pretty much just took the Chaos Daemon Prince profile as the basic statline - the rationale being that the primarchs were analogous to his deamon princes. Then you apply the daemonprince template over the top of those that then became daemon princes (by referencing the stat difference between a chaos lord and a daemon prince).

EDIT: minus the monstrous creature part of course.
So the base primarch would be:

WS7 BS6* S6 T5 W4 I6 A4 Ld10 Sv2+*
*These being the only exceptions to the statline.

This is pretty much +1 per stat vs a normal marine commander. Then you would have some stat variation. What I envisaged was people like Dorn and Guilliman possessing the above stats as more 'generic' primarchs, where their strength lay would be in army augmenting special rules (Guilliman would have strategic assets coming out the wazoo for example), whilst people like Russ and Night Haunter had slight stat modifications to reflect their predilections.

Then you apply the daemon template back over that to get daemon princes, with someone like Lorgar having a basic profile like:

WS8 BS6 S7 T6 W5 I7 A5 Ld10 Sv2+
Monstrous creature, daemonic, 4+ invulnerable save (reduced from the sons of the emperor, lost their protection maybe)

With again the other more extreme variants receiving changes (like Mortarion being T7...)

Hellebore

Originally Posted by Son of Sanguinius

Okay, methinks I should lay down some basic profiles for certain equipment, mostly based on yabbadabba's ideas. If you're going to design Primarchs for this thread, you should use the following equipment rules if they apply.

If your Primarch has a bolt weapon, you can call it whatever you like, but it will count as this:
Alpha-Class Bolter
Forged in the crucible of Mars' forges, these ornate and potent weapons were made specifically to suit the Primarchs. They use the following profiles, but always count as pistols for the purposes of an assault.
. . .Rng: 24". . .Str: 5. . .AP: 3. . .Type: Assault 2

If your Primarch as some sort of power armor, it counts as the following:
Aegis Imperator
As the sons and champions of the Emperor, the Primarchs marched to war in the finest suits of power armor the Mechanicum could craft. They count as Artificer Armor that confers the Feel No Pain and Deep Strike special rules.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: And this improvement to Son of the Emperor...

Son of the Emperor
A unit with this rule benefits from the Eternal Warrior and Fleet special rules. It is also immune psychic powers without a given Strength value and has a 3+ invulnerable save.

If a unit with this rule has the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule, it and any unit it is with may choose to automatically pass any Morale check they are called upon to take.

If a unit with this rule has the Fearless special rule, it confers Fearless to any unit it is with.

I like that, would the deepstrike on power armor apply to leman russ? as the wolves have never used teleportation?

The base profile I want used is this.

WS- 7; BS- 6; S- 5; T- 5; W- 4; I- 7; A- 4; Ld- 10

The stronger, bigger Primarchs (Magnus, Angron, Ferrus, e.g.,) get +1 Strength, -1 Initiative. Skilled Primarchs get +1 WS. Crazed Primarchs get +1 Attack.

The existing rules for Angron, the Avatar, and Greater Demons, all of which are stronger and bigger than the Primarchs, are at Strength 6, and if the Sanguinor can handle Kabandha at Strength 5, so can the Primarchs.

My profile tends to be toned down from most others for two reasons. 1) I want playability in the metagame. 2) In LotR: RotK, Legolas drops a damn Mumakil, howdah, and accompanying archers all on his own, but the rules set in both LotR games don't allow for this type of thing because it is unfair. So I don't want people to replicate something like Leman Russ taking out a titan.

I was assuming magnus, because of his love for powers and whatnot, would get something more related to shooting, passing psychic powers, and the power of them.
When I think magnus I think of the Tzeentch greater daemon, he has all of the chaos power, but they are stronger (more range, adding a blast after the hit, can hit multiple units) I never really assumed magnus to be stronger physically than the other primarchs.

BS over 6 will let you re roll misses at a lower BS. Perhaps something along the lines of "when using psychic powers Magnus has a BS of 8"
I would probably end up making the primarchs too strong though. Aangron, really big, really crazed. will he get +1 str, +1 attack? his reputation seems like it would fit.

In thousand sons, doesnt magnus take out a xenos titan with his mind?

Yes he does, but something that can take out a titan is going to be crazy in the metagame. Magnus should get a ton of psychic bonuses- auto-passing tests, immune to perils of the warp, four powers a turn, which may be multiple ranged attacks. Perhaps even ignoring the Son of the Emperor's rule for immunity to psychic powers. I'll post my preliminary rules for the Cyclops shortly.

The Red Cyclops...


MAGNUS THE RED, PRIMARCH OF THE THOUSAND SONS
WS- 7; BS- 6; S- 6; T- 5; W- 4; I- 6; A- 4; Ld- 10

POINTS
400

UNIT TYPE
Infantry

UNIT COMPOSITION
1 Magnus the Red

WARGEAR
Aegis Imperator; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

Axe of Tizca: This is a master-crafted relic blade that follows all of the normal rules for a force weapon.

Scepter of Quetesh: This is a master-crafted relic blade that follows all the normal rules for a witchblade.

Options: Magnus may replace the Axe of Tizca with the Scepter of Quetesh (+20pts).

PSYCHIC POWERS
Smite; The Avenger; Quickening; Null Zone; Gate of Infinity; Vortex of Doom; Wings of Sanguinius

SPECIAL RULES
Independent Character; Fearless; Psyker; Orbital Bombardment; Son of the Emperor

Soul of the Emperor: Magnus automatically passes psychic tests and is immune to Perils of the Warp. He may use up to four psychic powers per turn, any of which may be ranged attacks, though he may not use the same power multiple times in the same turn.

Warrior-Scholars of Prospero: If you include Magnus in your army, all of your units with the Combat Tactics special rule lose it. Instead, the unit's sergeant is automatically upgrade to a psyker with a single psychic power at no additional cost. This also applies to any Independent Character. If the unit is already a psyker, it gains an additional psychic power at no additional cost.

Knowledge is Power: If you include Magnus in your army, you may redeploy D3+1 of your units before the start of the game to anywhere inside your normal deployment zone.

Does following the rules for a witchblade also remove the ignores armour saves from the relic blade? If so it's not really worth an extra +20pts. If it doesn't then I assume the only part of a witchblade's rules that it follows is the 2+ to wound and the S9 for pen?

Hellebore

It is a two-handed power weapon that always wounds on a roll of 2+ and is Str 9 against vehicles.

Wow, stunning rules for Magnus! I love them! Few questions though. Can magnus use his abilities to fire at multiple units? Similar to the abilities of a Tzeentch daemon?
Nice on declaring he can fire multiple shooting attacks, that was about to be my next question.
Warrior-Scholars of Prospero seems really beefy! I like it! I am unsure about how it will affect a chaos marines army. I can only relate it to if it was applied to space wolves, then we would have 100 rune priests lol. I guess that could potentially give every unit lash of submission? Or would they use the non chaos powers as this is pre HH?
I have gone and confused myself... Anywho, pending on what powers are available to the upgraded sergents and ICs. I might suggest limiting the upgrades do D6 or so sergeants, or raising his points a bit.

but yeah, I am only really knowledgeable of daemons abilities and wolves right now.

I love the rules though, I think that fielding a primarch should change the flow of your army completely. These rules do just that! I love how the rules are not simply "take xx as troops" or +1 stat for everyone! Man I really want to use these sometime!

Any chance we could see a PDF of the rules for these bad boys? Maybe once you are comfortable with them?

Thanks for the comments.

I'll edit Magnus to be able to fire at multiple units.

Note for all the Primarchs, though. Unless they are lord of a Legion with an existing and contemporary codex or they are a Demon, they are meant to be used with Codex Space Marines. Hence why most of them modify or replace Combat Tactics.

SoS we should add tone more sections to this mate. The first will be options for a command squad/honour guard, with upgrades to work alongised the primarch (eg. if the primarch can teleport, so can his bodyguard), and transport options.

This bodyguard should be unbreakable when led by its primarch, and to make it really elite one of the following:
+1WS/BS/I/A
or
Unbreakable, with a reroll on those saves that need to be taken on losing combat
or
USR upgrades - counter attack, etc

cheers.

Well, in truth, the Space Marine Codex already has Honor Guard, the Space Wolves have Wolf Guard, and the Blood Angels have Sanguinary Guard. That said, I would be open to developing this into more of an expanded view.

I think it might be cool to have something along the lines of "Russ may only join a unit of wolf guard, they unit may be upgraded to XXX for XX points per model.
Or, to make it easy for space wolves, they could all upgrade to Wolf guard battle leaders. Then they can take more options. They will also have wound allocation though, at 2 wounds a piece I dont think it would be too beefy, but then again I am terribad at making rules. Heh, make them all take mark of the wulfen.


Would primarchs be only available in games of 2000pt or more, as many apocalypse things are? I have been reading the rules with apoc in mind, having Magnus in a 1000pt game would be pretty silly.


So, on the topic of primarchs and possible gameplay for them. I thought it might be a good idea to post a pic of a wolf lord I got on ebay a while ago. It seems to have been made as a leman russ model, the face is a bit too neanderthal for me though.

When I post the rules that are consistent across the Primarchs, I will make a note that they are allowed for Apocalypse and allowed only by consensus in the metagame. Cool model.

EDIT: More food for thought here. I'm considering more changes to the basic rules. Tell me what you think.



Son of the Emperor: A Primarch has the Eternal Warrior, Feel No Pain, Acute Senses, and Fleet special rules. He is also immune to psychic powers without a given Strength value.

Father of the Legion: A Primarch with the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule may choose to automatically pass any Morale check it is called upon to take. This ability is conferred to any unit that he is with that also has the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule. If the Primarch has the Fearless special rule, he confers it to any unit he is with.

Aegis Imperator: This is a suit of artificer armor that confers a 5+ invulnerable save and allows the Primarch to teleport onto the battlefield as if he was wearing Terminator Armor.

Maxima-Class Bolter: Maxima Bolters fire with the following profile- (Rng: 24”, Str: 5, AP: 3, Type: Assault 2). They always count as pistols for assault purposes.

For the compilation, do you guys prefer a subset of the basic rules at the very beginning, or would you like each Primarch to have it written out for them?

It really makes no difference to me and means almost no additional work, as most of it would be copy/pasta.

Originally Posted by Son of Sanguinius

Just some feedback mate
Son of the Emperor: A Primarch has the Eternal Warrior, Feel No Pain, Acute Senses, and Fleet special rules. He is also immune to psychic powers without a given Strength value.

I'd drop the acute senses and fleet from this list. This gives you some more space for the Primarchs who would specialise this way.

Originally Posted by Son of Sanguinius

Father of the Legion: A Primarch with the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule may choose to automatically pass any Morale check it is called upon to take. This ability is conferred to any unit that he is with that also has the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule. If the Primarch has the Fearless special rule, he confers it to any unit he is with.

Hmm, I would maybe give all Primarchs the choice to reroll a leadership test as well as standard.

Originally Posted by Son of Sanguinius

Aegis Imperator: This is a suit of artificer armor that confers a 5+ invulnerable save and allows the Primarch to teleport onto the battlefield as if he was wearing Terminator Armor.

I would add "advanced comms system" to give them a teleport homer and +1I for spotting sentries etc (to replace the acute senses). I'd possibly up the Inv Save to 4+.

Originally Posted by Son of Sanguinius

Maxima-Class Bolter: Maxima Bolters fire with the following profile- (Rng: 24”, Str: 5, AP: 3, Type: Assault 2). They always count as pistols for assault purposes.

Nice

Oh and as these are standard rules, they should be a one off at the start of the fandex "Primarch General rules: All Primarchs have these rules unless specifically different in the individual primarch's rules".

Hope it helps!

yeah i'd say stick those rules up front. makes it easier for me, personally, cuz then i have a reference.

Gotcha. Will do.

Something else to ponder.

I've given standard Armor and Bolt weapons for Primarchs, but what about swords?

Roboute, Lion, Vulkan, Jaghatai, Horus, and probably others have all been described as using swords. Should we make them as simple master-crafted power weapons? Do we make them all into relic blades? Do we give them new rules?

My inclination is master-crafted power weapon that re-rolls to wound and adds an additional d6 to armor penetration.