Sympathy for the Devil - favourite Traitor Primarchs.

[Mr Mystery]

How do?

Nice and straight forward this one, as it's about your favourite Traitor Primarch, and the reasons behind that favour.

My one is easy.

It's Perturabo.

One of the Emperor's two siege masters, he got dealt an exceptionally ****ty hand. Whereas as Dorn and his Imperial Fists got all the breaks and the glory, the Iron Warriors got stiffed with the grubby, grotty hard work of laying siege, and quite often weren't even given the honour of the kill, as other Legionnes Astartes got to exploit the breaches bought with Iron Warrior blood.

I mean, wouldn't you be pissed off with your Dad if you did all the work, and your arse of a Brother repeatedly got the praise? And I know he's not the only one to get the ****ty end of the stick, but he had potential.

Angron? Stiffed of a glorious death, but ultimately guided too much by the brain butchery in his head.

Lorgar? Victim of a necessary censure, and really, really bad advisors. In a sense, both Lorgar's fathers stiffed him.

Horus and Fulgrim don't really count, as their turning wasn't particularly self determined.

Alpharius? Listened to Xenos. Took their word for it. Prick.

Mortarion? Yeah ok, similar situation to Perturabo.

Magnus? Betrayed by Horus, not The Emperor overall. It was Horus that set the Wolves on him!

Rights, over to you. Let's hear some sympathy for the devil!

[Tyrendian]

As a preface, please don't get offended by me slandering your favourite Primarchs - I'm just too lazy currently to phrase things politely, no slights are intended

My favourite is probably Perturabo as well, closely followed by Magnus (who, for the longest time, was still loyal far into the Heresy; or at least not working actively against Big Daddy E but hardly able to go back...).

Several of the others, on the other hand, I can't stand - Mortarion is a grumpy dude with no personality beyond being grumpy, Angron is an angry idiot with no personality beyond being angry (through no fault of his own, but still), Fulgrim is just an idiot for the way he got corrupted...
Curze (whom you forgot, shame on you!) is odd... depends a lot on who wrote him and what his mood is; in Vulkan Lives and the flashbacks in ADBs NL trilogy I found him to be just about as pathetic and pitiful as it's possible for a Primarch to be, while in Unremembered Empire he's all kinds of evil genius awesomesauce.
Alpharius is... odd... in a really fun way, what with taking the guise of line Legionaries all the time just to confuse the ever-living daylight out of the world. Also, I kinda like to think he not only believes the Cabal, but also was right in doing so.
Horus is... kinda too important to really like or dislike for me; without him the whole thing wouldn't have happened, so it's kinda hard to be angry with him Also, he's pretty much a victim of that dolt Erebus showing him nothing but the truth (in that vision of the Emperor being worshipped as a god in the future, and only half of his brothers being remembered fondly - must've stunk to think you'd be erased from all memory...)

[Charon]

I guess the only ones left that are somewhat likable are Magnus and Alpharius.
The rest was cool until some writers decided to make them complete morons. Lorgar had an entire book with him *****ing and moaning. Angron is like Hulk without Bruce Banner and even less personality. Mortarion is so busy looking grim that he forgot to add some personality. Fulgrim turned into a complete idiot and while I really liked the book because of the creepy/disgusting things happening all around I disliked Fulgrim most of the time.
Torn on Curze but well he went mad after all. Pertuarbo has the same personality as Mortarion.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Ha, I don't like Perturabo at all.

I have a soft spot for Lorgar and Magnus.

[Mr Mystery]

Some more thoughts on the tragedy of Perturabo....

He was the equal of Rogal Dorn when it came to siege craft, excelling in the laying of a siege rather than building a fastness - though of course that's a matter of perspective.

He or Dorn were essential if Horus' uprising was to succeed. Why? Well, the Rebel Legionnes Astartes rushed to Terra, knowing their best chance came from minimising the time the rest of the Imperium had to react and reinforce, given their target was glaringly obvious.

Had Perturabo not turned, which again is entirely due to the Emperor being a dick to him, the Rebels would in all likelihood been repulsed from The Emperor's palace with crippling losses to both men and materiel.

In the nightmare scenario for Horus, imagine if the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists had both defended the Palace....the words 'no chance, tosser' spring to mind....

Now don't get me wrong, the whole tale of the Heresy is a tale of tragedy - so little of it was unavoidable had The Emperor been more even handed in his treatment of his sons? I mean there's tough love and healthy competition to be added to inevitable sibling rivalry, and then there's just being a dick to some of them whilst strongly favouring others.

But yeah. Poor old Perturabo. He didn't deserve the treatment he and his Legion received.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I suspect you're giving a bit too much weight to Perturabo's version of events.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I like Magnus, he's the Icarus character, the one who flew too high and far and came crashing down because of it. He's intelligent and progressive, but also arrogant and naive. He thought he was his own master, but he was always a puppet dancing on a string, waiting for its master's call to hit the stage...

[Haighus]

Had Perturabo not turned, which again is entirely due to the Emperor being a dick to him...

The funny thing is that is was actually Horus who was being a dick to him mostly, he made it look like the Emperor's fault though. From the fluff in HH Book 3, the Iron Warriors stepped up in intensity and got given even more hellish and destructive warzones than they had already for the last few years of the GC. Horus basically managed to give almost an entire Legion PTSD and make them break, but framed the Emperor for it. Well played, Horus, well played.

Also, I don't buy the Cabal stuff. I feel like A/O have been totally played by the Cabal. Pretty much every other portrayal of divination in the Warhammer 30k/40k background shows many, many threads of the future, with hundreds of possible outcomes, yet here there were only two? I personally reckon that the Cabal wants to destroy humankind, and basically duped the Alpha Legion and showed them only what suited them for their goals. This is especially true when looking in hindsight and knowing that the Alpha Legion taking the path they did actually led to the outcome they were supposedly trying to avoid- what if the Alpha Legion had sided with the Emperor, and Horus had been defeated thoroughly? The Cabal intended that outcome IMO.

[Thornblood]

Whilst I'm an Iron Warriors player, and love perturabo, there is only one contender for me. Fulgrim was really well written, I love the split where in the books atm alpharius is beginning to fall whilst omegon still seems to be a puppet of the cabal... But it has to be Dracula Batman Himself.

Konrad Kurze. The living embodiment of bat**** crazy. More pop culture references than a Seth McFarlane comedy. Inpredictable, paranoid, impulsive and thoughtful at the same time. Unpredictable. Just makes a great villain.

[YorkNecromancer]

I've got no sympathy for Peturabo. The Iron Warriors? Sure; they really got stiffed. All the grunt work, none of the thanks, and then their Primarch comes along and makes them murder a tenth of their brothers to - what? Teach them what a d!ck he is? F**k Peturabo. The Iron Warriors are very sympathetic, but their Primarch really isn't.

I don't know if I'd say any of the traitor Primarchs are really all that sympathetic except maybe Magnus The Red, but he looks too damned goofy to be credible.

Angron's an awesome antivillain, but when you break it down, even with the Butcher's Nails, he's kind of a petulant little tool. Like, the World Eaters start to use them to be closer to him and win his love, and he doesn't even notice or care. That is some self-obsession right there.

Alpharius, there's not really a personality there, so I don't know how interesting a character he is.

Fulgrim's pretty great; the whole OCD drive to perfection makes perfect sense.

Kurze is okay, but he's not as interesting as his chapter, who are basically The Worst; just the most completely horrible group of lunatics. If the Night Lords didn't have those dumba** bat-winged hats and a colour scheme matching the interior wall of Roxy's Disco circa 1973, I'd probably collect them.

Horus is pretty cool, but I think that's mostly the sculpt.

Mortarion's not really got a personality beyond 'don't like nothing and no-one and is basically sarcastic all the time'.

Who does that leave? Oh Lorgar. Yeah, he's pretty cool; I like the irony that he's basically responsible for the Heresy, and arguably the long-term failure of Chaos (because no Lorgar, no Imperial Creed to pull humanity away from the worship of Chaos). Plus the Word Bearers are the default 'We like daemons' Legion.

So, yeah, Lorgar. Either him or Fulgrim are probably the best.