Overview of the Space Marine Legions

One day, a god decides it's time to bring humanity back into the stars and creates giant superhuman soldiers in a basement on Terra that would be known as Space Marines. The 20 legions of these super soldiers will struggle with their identities, their purpose, their faith, and ultimately, each other. And each of these legions is unique in ways you wouldn't believe. So, welcome to our breakdown of the 20 legions of the Adeptus Astartes from Warhammer 40k. We might as well start at number one. The First Legion Astartes is also coincidentally one of the most celebrated despite their habit of secrecy. Often tasked with some of the most important and high-profile missions, the Dark Angels enjoyed much of the spotlight during the Great Crusade. Their first recorded deployment was the defense of the Imperial Palace during the Palace Coup attempt during the Unification Wars. Many of the first Legionnaires of what would eventually become were used to experiment fighting styles and organizational techniques to be used in the other legions. This led to an air of superiority that hung over the First in every encounter with their fellow legions, leading to the unofficial nickname, the Uncrowned Princes. Many First Legion warriors started taking names of epic heroes from Terran myth as they slowly started believing their However, this led them to start believing that there was nothing they could learn from the rest of the Imperium, or even their brother Space Marines. And so, by the time their Primarch Lionel Johnson was found, the first was a legion of secretive and superior traditionalists, ruled by a circle of pseudo-nobility called Hosts. Oddly, the prideful leaders of the Legion did not at first enjoy the presence of their Primarch like other legions did, and it took quite a few duels for the Lion to beat some sense into this group of Astartes. And unfortunately, This feeling of bitterness and wounded pride became a festering undercurrent of heresy that came to a head when Horus attacked the Imperium. The Legionnaires that had still shown resistance to the Lion and his new tactics had been sent to guard their homeworld of Caliban and were very upset about the perceived slight against their honor. In a final act of rebellion, these Marines would become the Fallen, turned against the Imperium, forcing the Lion to destroy most of Caliban and fighting his former best friend Luthor. Heavily wounded, the Primarch slept for over 10 millennia until waking up during the Indomitus Crusade. Currently, the Dark Angels are one of the strongest Space Marine chapters, working in concert with their successor chapters better than any other Legion, all while hunting down what remains of their fallen brothers in secret. That's weird, all it says here is Error 404, Legion Not Found. Well, onto the next one I guess. A Legion diminished by the near total loss of its gene seed, the Emperor's children were a faint echo of the other Legions by the time Fulgrim was found and given command. Driven by his personal need to prove himself as the perfect son of the Emperor and his compulsive need for efficiency, Fulgrim drove his Legion to never waste resources or energy, creating some of the most obsessed Marines in the Imperium. For some time after Fulgrim took command, the Third Legion wasn't able to take power. part in many of the more glorious and notable campaigns of the Great Crusade as they worked to replenish their numbers. Once they were ready, however, they proved overeager and ended up volunteering for challenges that would stress even the more better equipped legions. This exposed them to the taint of chaos early on, and by the time the heresy was being planned, the Emperor's children and their Primarch had almost been fully taken by the ruinous powers. The Emperor's children and their Primarch were manipulated at almost every step of the way. Horus saw his inexperienced and eager young brother as a useful tool, even leveraging his relationship with Ferus Manus of the Ironhands Legion in an attempt to get yet another Legion on his side. For his part, Fulgrim is depicted as being mostly naive, but we shouldn't forget that he is a Primarch, a superhuman warrior with a huge, wrinkly brain and tons of ambition, and his Legion is... was very much the same, a fact that the Prince of Excess exploited with gusto. Masters of siege warfare, these implacable warriors were often more stubborn than the fortresses they garrisoned. Making matters worse, their Primarch Perturabo was a strict disciplinarian, instituting decimation as a punishment whenever the Legion failed to measure up to his high standards, which thankfully wasn't often. Choosing one out of every ten of your friends to be beaten to death is a strong motivator to not make mistakes, it seems. The real problem for the Iron Warriors was that they were too good at what they did. Long, protracted sieges and trench warfare are difficult for any soldier, and though Space Marines are superhuman in many ways, they're built for quick, decisive strikes, not drawn- out warfare. The Iron Warriors though took these assignments on without complaining so often that they got themselves pigeonholed into the role. Whenever a tough enemy had dug in, the Emperor sent the Iron Warriors to blast them out. Whenever a fortress needed guarding by more than just human infantry, he called on the Iron Warriors. This slowly bred resentment and bitterness in the Legion and especially its Primarch who began to get envious of the praise and honors heaped on his more noteworthy brothers. When the time came and Horus approached him about the possibility of fighting the Emperor and his upstart loyalist brothers, Perturabo and his Legion didn't hesitate to say yes, although they remain to this day one of only two traitor Legions who staunchly refused to worship the Gods of Chaos. The Fifth Legion is one of the very few examples of Astartes forces who operated relatively the same before and after the introduction of their Primarch. Originally called the Star Hunters, these Astartes were not often found in the grand battles of the Unification Wars or the Great Crusade, being instead held back for use as scouts and hunters, tracking down enemies of the Emperor for other legions to destroy. Not that the 5th Legion was incapable of fighting campaigns on their own, as their war record during the Great Crusade would attest, but their hit-and-run tactics were better suited for smaller-scale fights, and while effective, the other legions thought very little of their brothers from the 5th. And while this image of the Star Hunters didn't change much after their Primarch Jagatai was found, the newly renamed White Scars began to pick up more culture and pride than they had ever enjoyed. This is because while Jagatai inherited a legion that was already capable of fighting in a style to which he was accustomed, they were hollow, joyless men in desperate need of something to enrich themselves. Jagatai ordered each Marine to take up a hobby. Calligraphy, painting, storytelling, needlepoint, anything to let the marines of the White Scars feel a little bit less like mindless killing machines, and it worked. The White Scars kept to their duties of scouting and hunting down the enemies of the Imperium without word of complaint, and when the time came for them to choose a side in the heresy, they stuck with the loyalists and hunted down their traitorous former allies. It's even a tradition that has persisted to this day, with the great hunts of the Khans, regularly finding and dispatching some of the deadliest enemies of the throne. The Raut, the Vilca Fenrica, the Space Wolves, the 6th Legion Astartes has had several names across its history, and it's been quite a bloody one. One of the so-called Trefoil Legions, the 6th was made for a very specific purpose, to kill other space marines. The relatively small size of the Legion was due in large part to the volatility of their gene seed. a precaution that the Emperor baked in just in case his favorite executioners ever decided to turn on him, not that it made any difference to their effectiveness. During the Unification Wars and the early Great Crusade, the 6th Legion was only unleashed when the Emperor wanted to make a point, or if he needed a problem dealt with. The warriors of the 6th soon gained a reputation for being some of the most savage fighters in the Imperium, a fact that worked well to keep potential traitors in line. Two very important things happened to the 6th Legion during the Great Crusade. Their Primarch, Leman Russ, was found, the Wolf King renaming his Legion to the Space Wolves. And at some point, the Wolves were called upon to fulfill their intended role as the Emperor's Executioners, killing the Primarchs of the 2nd and 11th Legions and mauling the surviving Marines so badly that none dare speak of the two lost Legions ever again. It was these acts that led to the other Primarchs rightfully fearing Russ and his Legion. It was said, that out of every Primarch, only the Lion could have stood against the Wolf in combat, a thought that was tested in the bitter feuds the two Primarch had over the years. The problem with this reputation, of course, was that the Legionnaires of the Sixth and their Primarch never really gained a close relationship with their peers. It's hard to trust someone who you know would kill you as easily as they would drink with you, should the Emperor command it at least. This was taken to its extreme during the Heresy, when Horus successfully tricked the Wolves into attacking the Thousand Suns with some false orders, which kept them from helping their allies on Terra during the siege. To this day, the Wolves are known for being some of the most incredibly deadly warriors in the galaxy and are not above fighting other Imperials who step out of line. Out of all the Space Marine Legions, only the 7th has claimed to Terra as its official homeworld. The Imperial Fists established themselves early on as excellent defense troops, being proficient in the building of defenses and the nuances of a more aggressive defense style that lent itself very well to the abilities of a space marine force. This changed very little once they were reunited with their Primarch Rogol Dorne. Dorne was staunchly loyal and favored uncomplicated, straightforward approaches to every problem. Under his stewardship, the Imperial Fists Legion became as well known for their heavy assault tactics as they were for their ability to defend. This led them to be used quite often as the Emperor's blunt instrument, either breaking sieges that had held on for too long or defending desperate last stands that the Emperor could not afford to lose. In this way, the Imperial Fists gained a rivalry with the Iron Warriors. the latter of which became very bitter that the Fists often received honors for the daring actions that they were assigned to while they themselves were often relegated to fighting the longer, less exciting parts of those same sieges. For his part, Dorne seemed completely uninterested in that sort of rivalry, thinking only of his duty to the Imperium. It was Dorne who constructed the imposing defenses of the Imperial Palace on Terra, and it was Dorne who accompanied the Emperor onto Horus'battle barge at the climax of the siege. His inability to stop the deaths of both his brother Sanguinius and the Emperor very nearly broke him, and while he very nearly came to blows with his brother Giliman in the aftermath, he eventually decided it was best to keep what was left of the Imperium together. Today, the Imperial Fists and their successor chapters fight as roving armies, crusading from one system to the next, never settling down. So while the Fists claim Holy Terra as their homeworld, Their real headquarters is their ancient mobile battle station called the Phalanx. The Eighth Legion, the Night Lords, are one of the most controversial of the Astartes forces, and that's saying something. The Emperor had his executioners to deal with traitors and his spies and his scouts, all roles useful for warfare on a galactic scale. But the problem is that like any tyrant, the Emperor was worried about the masses of people rising up in revolt. No matter how many marines he made or how many campaigns he fought, the trillions and trillions of people in the new imperium would always outnumber his armies and could force him to spend too much energy putting out the fires of revolution instead of conquering the enemies of humanity. So the Emperor chose to make himself a terror force. The legionnaires of the 8th specialized in scare tactics, not like the space wolves who were so terrifying in combat that other warriors would know that they couldn't win. The Night Lords would cut your power and creep in dark shadows. They would take over the Voxfeeds and blare the screams of the dying to the rest of the populace. They would flay people and leave them to be found in the town square. They fought dirty, ugly. They made the idea of fighting the Imperium terrifying, and it wasn't long before the other Primarchs took a stand. And here is probably the biggest instance of cowardice by the Emperor himself. It's Very clear that the Emperor created the Night Lords to be this way and encouraged them, ordered them to act like this. Just like with Angron of the World Eaters, the Emperor knew that the Primarch of the Eighth, Conrad Kurz, was wracked with mental instability brought on by conditions that might have been curable, but chose to do nothing and disavow the Night Lords when it became known that they committed acts of terror, even and especially upon the citizens of the Imperium. Needless to say that the Night Lords decided to work with Horus and the other traitors when the time came, even though they never accepted worship of the Chaos Gods. Their only goal post-heresy has seemingly been to tear down the rotting edifice of the Imperium that betrayed them. Originally designed as one of a handful of shock troop armies, the Legion that would become the Blood Angels were often deployed either as the very tip of the Emperor's Spear or wherever a stubborn enemy needed to be wiped out wholesale. It was a job the 9th Legion excelled at, often replenishing lost Marines with new stock taken from their enemies, and in this way the Legion gained a reputation for returning from dangerous campaigns with the same number of Marines it had departed with. But that wasn't the only rumor. All Marines are capable of eating flesh to gain information or emergency sustenance, but the 9th Legion became known for ritualistically eating their slain foes after battle, indulging in a red thirst for blood. This reputation pushed them further from the rest of the Imperium, as they were shunned and slowly began to devolve into feral murderers. And then Sanguinius was found. The angelic Primarch had grown up on the world of Baal, and when he was given his legion, the incredibly psychic Primarch instantly felt a connection to his genesons. Instead of demanding they swear an oath to him, Sanguinius swore an oath to them. They would either rise together, or fall together. Under his leadership, the Blood Angels went from pariahs to one of the most decorated assault legions in the Imperium. It's no surprise then that the Marines of the Blood Angels Legion had the strongest bond with their Primarch, only strengthened by his psychic abilities. When Horus slew Sanguinius aboard his ship at the climax of the Siege of Terra, the entire Legion broke, succumbing to an illness which would become known as the Black Rage. As the Rage takes hold, afflicted Marines begin to believe they are Sanguinius, facing down their treacherous brother Horus, and dying. No one knows how or when it will affect a Blood Angels Marine, but the effects are almost always the same. always irreversible, with notable exceptions. Today, the Blood Angels are one of the strongest chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, but the rage still afflicts them, forcing Blood Angels'leadership to place their raving comrades into doomed squads called the Death Company, so that they might seek their end in battle. The Tenth Legion had always been as relentless as their Primarch, even before Ferris Manus was found. Called the Stormwalkers during the Unification Wars, the 10th Legion had a very simple, straightforward approach to warfare, not unlike the warriors of the Death Guard. In fact, by the beginning of the Great Crusade, it was apparent that the Stormwalkers had gained an affinity for using heavy vehicles and mobile artillery pieces to simply advance towards an enemy until it wasn't a problem anymore. This hardly changed when Fares Manus was given the Legion, and it was named the Stormwalkers. the Iron Hands in honor of the Primarch's literal metal hands. What Manus really brought to his legion was a need to purge weakness. The warriors of the 10th became known for using their advanced machinery to turn aside enormous enemy armies, breaking overwhelming forces with their technology. The marines of this legion would also make extensive use of bionic replacements for limbs, as the sort of fighting they were used to often led to mangled soldiers. This led to the Legion having a much stronger working relationship with the tech priests of Mars compared to other Legions. This affinity for machines coupled with their belief that the flesh is weak led to some dire consequences after the heresy began. Fulgrim and Ferus Manus had been some of the closest friends out of all the Primarchs, but when Fulgrim tried to get Manus to join the traitors, the stoic Ironhands Primarch tried to kill him. When they finally met again on the battlefield, neither man could kill the other, until Fulgrim in his grief gave himself to the demon in his sword, and Manus was decapitated. The Ironhands shattered, with different factions following various captains on missions of vengeance. This almost destroyed what was left of the Legion, with factions blaming the traitors for their cowardice, their allies for their lack of strength, and even blaming Manus and the Ironhands captains for indulging in their emotions. Seeking to purge this weakness, the remaining Ironhands became cold, calculating fighters who want nothing more than to purge the weakness of humanity. There has been some pushback against the doctrine recently, but the Ironhands remain ruthlessly emotionless as a whole. Sorry, your Legion is in another castle. What's going on? There can't be two missing Legions, can there? The Twelfth Legion was born as the Warhounds, and immediately established themselves as an effective assault force. Their discipline in training and combat deployments was similar to legions like the Luna Wolves or the early Blood Angels, but their aggression and ferocity once engaged in combat was much closer to the disposition of the Space Wolves. The Emperor even kept the Warhounds in reserve for much of the Unification War in case he needed to keep other legions in line, again, not unlike the Space Wolves. However, early in the Great Crusade, the prison colony on the Asteroid Cerberus rose up in revolt. led by a small group of Thunder Warriors who had somehow survived the purges. Having no other legion nearby, the Emperor sent in the 12th, and the Warhounds went to work. The invasion began at 0300 hours, and by 0808, the all-clear was given by the Warhounds commander. After being asked what the state of the prisoners was, the commander replied that he had not been ordered to take any. And from then on, the Legion was used as the premier assault group of the Imperium, and was embedded in the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, working alongside elements of the Imperial Army. And it was under these conditions that the 12th Legion was reunited with their Primarch, Angron, who was angry about being ripped away from his gladiator family, and decided to kill a bunch of his marines about it. Eventually, they calm down, but the rest of the history of this Legion is centered around them trying and failing to gain approval. of their angry gene father. They changed their name to the World Eaters, they began to act more recklessly in their assault actions, they started getting implants similar to Angron's that drove them insane with rage, and none of it worked. When their Primarch sided with Horus because of his unfair and frankly cruel treatment at the hands of the Emperor, the World Eaters obediently followed him right into damnation. The mighty 13th Legion Astarte The Cicardes began as the Warborn, a legion whose gene seed was noted for its high adaptability, leading to the legion becoming the home of refugees instead of taking its recruits from a specific cultural area of Old Terra. This would be a- reoccurring pattern as they would begin by taking in recruits from the defeated enemies of the Emperor on Earth, and eventually take in the loyal marines of censured or lost legions during the heresy. While suited to the work of a backbone force, the 13th Legion gradually became known as a competent campaigning legion, often taking on whole war zones without support from other legions. This worked well with the leadership style of their Primarch, Rebute Giliman, and who was adept at not only the business of persecuting wars, but administrating afterwards. The Legion's name was changed to the Ultramarines, and so began one of the most successful careers of any Legion during the Great Crusade. Maybe it was Gilliman's excellent organizational mind, or the ease at which his Legion took to things like diplomacy and logistics, but either way, the Ultramarines conquered more worlds than any Legion except the Lunowolves, and their numbers swelled to easily eclipse any of the other Astartes armies. There are rumors that this sudden swell of ultramarine recruits is due to, um, okay, I know I just had the notes for this section, and now they're not here. Okay, we'll move on for now, but if I find that passage, I'll circle back. Being the largest legion by far, Horus knew he had to keep the ultramarines away from Terra or his siege would be stopped easily. So he threw large elements of the wordbearers, World Eaters, Alpha Legion, and even the Night Lords at their home system of Macraj in order to keep them fighting there instead of in Seoul. And the numbers of the Ultramarines is still a huge factor in their operations today, with the chapter having more splinter armies than any other original Legion. The Ultramarines literally wrote the book on the Astartes, and love them or hate them, they are one of the most effective forces in the galaxy. A legion built on resilience, the 14th Legion or the Dusk Raiders as they were called at the beginning were tough even by Astarte's standards. Oddly, they began as an ambush force, striking at dusk as their name implies and making extensive use of heavier armor types so that they could simply walk into enemy fire for maximum intimidation. The Dusk Raiders fought like this for over 8 decades into the Great Crusade before Mortarion, their Primarch, was found. Himself a stoic, tough fighter, Martarion recognized his new legion as agents of the inevitable and renamed them the Death Guard. Their way of fighting subtly switched around this time to attrition-style combat, their already tough physiques lending themselves extra protection in battlefields with harsh environmental conditions. In some places that were poisonous or devoid of atmosphere, the warriors of the 14th were sent to show the enemies of humanity that the Emperor would not be turned aside by anything. This led the Legion to fight mostly as footsloggers, rarely using transports, bikes, or jump packs like other Legions did, and instead, simply advancing on foot in both power armor and Terminator armor. Mortarion only really became close with Horus, and so even before the heresy began, it was very likely that he would have fought for his brother against the Emperor, but it should be noted that not all his Legionnaires felt the same, and if it was not for Nathaniel Garrow and the flight of the Eisenstein, then... The loyal forces of the Imperium would not have known about Horus's treachery until it was too late to stop him. And while Mortarion originally had no intentions of lowering himself to worshipping the powers of Chaos, the Great Unclean One had other plans and marooned Mortarion's fleet in a pocket of the Warp. The Destroyer Plague tore through his marines, maiming and torturing them until Mortarion pledged himself to Nurgle just to stop the pain. When the Death Guard finally arrived at Terra, the bloated forms of the new Death Guard were terrifying and nearly unkillable. Mortarion himself ascended to demonhood and plagues the Imperium to this day. The Thousand Sons are probably one of the most tragic stories in the Imperium. They were originally formed from recruits born inside the Emperor's lands on Terra, and so many hadn't suffered war much before the Unification Wars. They were the sons of nobility already loyal to the Emperor, and many had been educated in some manner before volunteering. They were formed by the Emperor himself as the Unification Wars were coming to a close, and exactly 1,000 carefully picked student aspirants were the foundation of the 15th Legion. Aside from their beginnings, the Astartes of the Thousand Suns weren't particularly notable how they fought or were organized, until they started developing psychic powers. And while the curious Marines of the 15th were at first happy about this development, it very quickly spiraled... out of control. At this point in history, not many people in the Imperium knew about the warp and the chaotic powers within, and that was by design. Starving the chaos gods of attention was an effective way of robbing their power. The warriors of the Thousand Suns did not know this and began to horrifically mutate. As they slowly brought the outbreaks under control, other Primarchs like Mortarion and Rogaldorn became aware of the Psykers in the 15th Legion and pushed to have them censured. No mutant should be allowed in the Emperor's forces. But the 15th Legion couldn't help but learn more, and so continued in secret, especially after being reunited with their Primarch Magnus, whose psychic might was second only to the Emperor's. He stabilized the mutations and reorganized the Legion into chapters, a term which would eventually be used for every Astartes force. Upsettingly, it was Magnus'attempt to warn the Emperor about Horus that got his legion almost destroyed by the space wolves who were forced to deal with the thousand suns for breaking the rules about using psychic powers even if it was to warn the emperor now on the run from the imperium the 15th legion had no choice but to hide in the warp which brought the mutations back desperate chapter leaders attempted a complicated spell the rubric of ariman which stopped the mutations at the cost of turning their bodies to dust most thousand marines are now barely sentient and their forces traveled the galaxy on mysterious missions for their god zinch and to find a cure mirroring the rise and fall of their primarch horus lupercal the 16th legion started out as one of the emperor's most trusted forces the terran recruits were formed from wandering tribes known for pragmatism and independence making the bulk of the original 16th legion into fierce and effective shock troops it was this quality which led the emperor to to choose them from the pacification of Luna, a battle which captured the genetic laboratories that the Emperor needed to complete his space marine program. As a reward, the 16th Legion was named the Lunowolves, and given much of the first batches of gene seed, making them one of the strongest legions even before the Great Crusade started. And that hardly changed when Horus was found on the very nearby world of Chthonia. Horus was actually the very first Primarch to be discovered, and for 30 years was the only one to be discovered. only Primarch, leading him to gaining not only a very strong bond with his Legion, but also the Emperor, and to some extent, the whole Imperium. He was the Emperor's favorite son. We spoke earlier about how being the first Legion gave the Dark Angels a bit of an ego. Imagine being the only Legion with a Primarch for three decades, and that Primarch being the obvious favorite among his brothers. Needless to say, the Luna Wolves were a bit puffed up. During the Great Crusade, the 16th Legion pushed themselves to conquer more worlds, pursue more enemies, fight more glorious wars, and win more accolades than their fellow legions. Only the Ultramarines even came close. Then came Eulanore. The Eulanore Crusade was a defining moment for the Imperium as a whole, but the Lunowolves more than most. The largest Orc Empire was destroyed as the Emperor himself took to the field for the final time during the Great Crusade, leaving for a mysterious project under the Terran surface and proclaiming Horus the War Master, Supreme Commander of Imperial Forces, second only to the Emperor himself. When he left, the Emperor suggested that Horus rename his Legion to reflect his new position, and though he originally refused, he began to think the other Primarchs still saw him just as a peer, and so he relented and the 16th Legion became the Sons of Horus. What happened soon after is a story for another video, but Horus was infected by the powers of Chaos thanks in part to the scheming of his brother Lorgar of the Wordbearers, and the slow slide into heresy began. After the climactic battle with the Emperor during the Siege of Terra, what was left of the Sons of Horus rallied around their former First Captain Abaddon and renamed themselves the Black Legion. The story of the 17th Legion is a strange one, but that's fitting considering they're the most direct cause of the Horus heresy. Originally named the Imperial Heralds, the 17th Legion was made up of the sons of defeated enemies on Old Terra and were raised to understand the crimes of their parents, a connection that no other space marine was allowed to keep during their transition. This had the effect of making the Marines of the 17th much more zealous in their pursuit of their orders and the Imperial truth, the working doctrine of the Imperium which favored logic and reason above all else. To go along with this, the 17th Legion were the official emissaries of the Emperor, delivering his ultimatums to potential enemies by a single marine in black armor, a skull helmet, and a winged mace. That's right, the 17th Legion invented space marine chaplains. Things took a turn, however, when their Primarch was discovered. Lorgar Aurelian was raised to be a devout man, and believed very strongly that religion was a fundamental part of being human. Which would be a nice sentiment if his two most devoted advisors hadn't been worshippers of chaos before they had been made into Astartes. Once reunited with his legion, Lorgar renamed them the Werebears and began twisting the imperial truth into a true religion with the Emperor at its center. Wherever they went, they built shrines to the Master of Humanity, until finally, the Emperor had enough. He was going to sic the Space Wolves on them, removing them from history like the 2nd and 11th Legions, but the other Primarchs convinced him to show leniency, and so the Ultramarines were ordered to level the Wordbearer's capital city, and they were made to kneel in the ash and re-pledge themselves to the Imperial Truth. And that was all that was needed. Lorgar's advisors told him that there were other gods more worthy of his worship, and so the First Primarch slid into Chaos worship and began planning to corrupt his greatest brother, Horus. Today, the Wordbearers continue this sort of work, seeding cults in Imperial territory and furthering the worship of the ruinous powers. The second of the most carefully and secretly made legions, the Eighteenth Legion, had a very specific purpose like the Space Wolves and the Alpha Legion. These marines and the special changes to their gene seed were kept secret even from the other legions for quite some time. For the 18th legion, this purpose was to be the heroes of humanity. Kept in reserve for most of the unification wars, the 18th was suddenly unleashed against one of the emperor's most dangerous enemies. 26,000 Astartes went in and only 1,000 walked out again. But the enemy was defeated and no other lives had been lost. Their Primarch Vulcan saved the day in much the same manner during a desperate fight against a large orc raiding fleet. Vulcan, who had been found but not yet reunited with his legion, suddenly arrived with 3,000 new recruits and master forged equipment for his battered legion, who had been holding the line without him. Too late to save the former commanders of the 18th, Vulcan knelt to the men he had been too late to save, and the legion was his, renamed then to the Salamanders. This is why the 18th Legion was always the smallest. They'd swoop into these desperate situations and hold the line until their charges were safely away, or until they'd won, but always at the cost of many Astartes'lives. As for the heresy itself, the Salamanders did their best to be effective with their small numbers, but were subject to several terrible defeats at the hands of the traitor legions. Vulcan himself was even captured briefly by the Night Lord, but after the Night Haunter admitted that he didn't know how to kill the apparently immortal Salamander's Primarch. The journeys of Vulcan are too complex to voice here, but just know that he's still out there somewhere waiting for his chance to return to his heroic genesons. Until then, they'll continue being the Imperium's shield. In the very beginning, the 19th Legion was a guerrilla force, striking from the shadows at targets that would cause the most disruption for an enemy. They operated quite similarly to the Night Lords in this regard, the intent being to sow terror wherever they went and ensure that the prospect of fighting the Imperium was too frightening to contemplate. Earlier, however, they were often tasked with supporting the larger Lunar Wolves Legion in their campaign, so they never really gained the disgust of their peers in the same way that the Night Lords did. Regardless, after almost a century of the Great Crusade, the 19th Primarch was found. Corvus Corax had been living on a world called Deliverance, and had spent much of that time leading a rebellion against the cruel rulers of that planet. When he saw how his legion made war, he was disgusted and purged the old leadership. He believed there were better ways to make an enemy fall than to terrorize innocent people. Instead, he trained his legion to become expert trackers and assassins, using their already prodigious skills in stealth operations to make them even more effective. against dismantling power structures. Their success led to the newly renamed Raven Guard being requested for many campaigns, including the conflict at East Van 5. Already one of the smallest legions, the Raven Guard were set upon by an ambush as the traitor legions revealed themselves by turning their guns on their former allies. Outnumbered and fighting a straight-out battle, not something the Raven Guard were well-suited for, they were almost completely wiped out. The problems didn't stop there either, with the Ravengard gene seed beginning to deteriorate faster than normal, produce horrible mutations, and forcing recruitment to a crawl. This is a problem that persisted for most of the Legion's existence until the recent introduction of the Primaris Marines, which finally seems to have solved the problem. The Emperor had his wolfish executioners and his draconic heroes, the last thing he needed was a legion of serpentine spies. Kept intentionally at low membership like the other two specialty legions, extremely little is known about the Alpha Legion, originally known as the Ghost Legion. This seems to have been intentional as well, with false records being implanted at the same time as others are simply erased. This is because the special purpose of the Alpha Legion was to run subterfuge operations. Imperial records only confirm their existence with vague reports of small Alpha units operating far ahead of the main battle lines, gathering intel, assassinating key targets, and setting up informant networks among the Emperor's enemies. sometimes years before they even saw an Imperial fleet. From what we know, the standard operating procedure of the Alpha Legion goes like this. A small handful of Alpha Legion operatives, Astartes and mortal humans, arrive at the target location and begin setting up a network. This network begins to destabilize the enemy organizational structure with things like crime rings, political corruption, targeted assassinations, and the spreading of false information and propaganda. Once the enemy has been suitably thrown into disarray, the main Alpha Legion forces arrive, and attack from as many angles as possible, spreading more chaos and finishing the job in a lightning strike. The nature of the Alpha Legion is such that we can never truly be sure of anything about them, but we do know that their Primarch is a man named Alpharius, a name that every Alpha Legionnaire gives to anyone outside the Legion when asked for identification. They also make attempts to look like their Primarch, who is by all accounts one of the smallest Primarchs. Oh, also he's got a twin brother. The biggest secret of the 20th Legion is that their Primarch is actually twins, Alpharius and Omegon. The two have even pretended to be one another to such an extent that while Alpharius is confirmed to have been killed sometime after the heresy, we're still not certain of which one died or even if he actually did die. This cloud of confusion goes so far as to make it completely uncertain whether the Alpha Legion actually sided with Horus or not during the heresy. They certainly fought with him against the loyalists and do the work of the Chaos to this day, but there are whispers that they are working from within to destabilize the efforts of the ruinous powers. Overall, the Space Marine Legions are some of 40k's most discussed areas of lore. they have evolved from simple two-dimensional flavors of combat styles to full-blown characters in an epic space opera. Thank you so much for watching our very first longform video, we hope you'll stick with us as we bring you more lore.

So, welcome to our breakdown of the 20 legions of the Adeptus Astartes from Warhammer 40k. We might as well start at number one. The First Legion Astartes is also coincidentally one of the most celebrated despite their habit of secrecy. Often tasked with some of the most important and high-profile missions, the Dark Angels enjoyed much of the spotlight during the Great Crusade. Their first recorded deployment was the defense of the Imperial Palace during the Palace Coup attempt during the Unification Wars.

Many of the first Legionnaires of what would eventually become were used to experiment fighting styles and organizational techniques to be used in the other legions. This led to an air of superiority that hung over the First in every encounter with their fellow legions, leading to the unofficial nickname, the Uncrowned Princes. Many First Legion warriors started taking names of epic heroes from Terran myth as they slowly started believing their However, this led them to start believing that there was nothing they could learn from the rest of the Imperium, or even their brother Space Marines.

And so, by the time their Primarch Lionel Johnson was found, the first was a legion of secretive and superior traditionalists, ruled by a circle of pseudo-nobility called Hosts. Oddly, the prideful leaders of the Legion did not at first enjoy the presence of their Primarch like other legions did, and it took quite a few duels for the Lion to beat some sense into this group of Astartes. And unfortunately, This feeling of bitterness and wounded pride became a festering undercurrent of heresy that came to a head when Horus attacked the Imperium. The Legionnaires that had still shown resistance to the Lion and his new tactics had been sent to guard their homeworld of Caliban and were very upset about the perceived slight against their honor. In a final act of rebellion, these Marines would become the Fallen, turned against the Imperium, forcing the Lion to destroy most of Caliban and fighting his former best friend Luthor.

Heavily wounded, the Primarch slept for over 10 millennia until waking up during the Indomitus Crusade. Currently, the Dark Angels are one of the strongest Space Marine chapters, working in concert with their successor chapters better than any other Legion, all while hunting down what remains of their fallen brothers in secret. That's weird, all it says here is Error 404, Legion Not Found. Well, onto the next one I guess.

A Legion diminished by the near total loss of its gene seed, the Emperor's children were a faint echo of the other Legions by the time Fulgrim was found and given command. Driven by his personal need to prove himself as the perfect son of the Emperor and his compulsive need for efficiency, Fulgrim drove his Legion to never waste resources or energy, creating some of the most obsessed Marines in the Imperium. For some time after Fulgrim took command, the Third Legion wasn't able to take power.

part in many of the more glorious and notable campaigns of the Great Crusade as they worked to replenish their numbers. Once they were ready, however, they proved overeager and ended up volunteering for challenges that would stress even the more better equipped legions. This exposed them to the taint of chaos early on, and by the time the heresy was being planned, the Emperor's children and their Primarch had almost been fully taken by the ruinous powers. The Emperor's children and their Primarch were manipulated at almost every step of the way.

Horus saw his inexperienced and eager young brother as a useful tool, even leveraging his relationship with Ferus Manus of the Ironhands Legion in an attempt to get yet another Legion on his side. For his part, Fulgrim is depicted as being mostly naive, but we shouldn't forget that he is a Primarch, a superhuman warrior with a huge, wrinkly brain and tons of ambition, and his Legion is... was very much the same, a fact that the Prince of Excess exploited with gusto.

Masters of siege warfare, these implacable warriors were often more stubborn than the fortresses they garrisoned. Making matters worse, their Primarch Perturabo was a strict disciplinarian, instituting decimation as a punishment whenever the Legion failed to measure up to his high standards, which thankfully wasn't often. Choosing one out of every ten of your friends to be beaten to death is a strong motivator to not make mistakes, it seems. The real problem for the Iron Warriors was that they were too good at what they did. Long, protracted sieges and trench warfare are difficult for any soldier, and though Space Marines are superhuman in many ways, they're built for quick, decisive strikes, not drawn- out warfare.

The Iron Warriors though took these assignments on without complaining so often that they got themselves pigeonholed into the role. Whenever a tough enemy had dug in, the Emperor sent the Iron Warriors to blast them out. Whenever a fortress needed guarding by more than just human infantry, he called on the Iron Warriors. This slowly bred resentment and bitterness in the Legion and especially its Primarch who began to get envious of the praise and honors heaped on his more noteworthy brothers.

When the time came and Horus approached him about the possibility of fighting the Emperor and his upstart loyalist brothers, Perturabo and his Legion didn't hesitate to say yes, although they remain to this day one of only two traitor Legions who staunchly refused to worship the Gods of Chaos. The Fifth Legion is one of the very few examples of Astartes forces who operated relatively the same before and after the introduction of their Primarch. Originally called the Star Hunters, these Astartes were not often found in the grand battles of the Unification Wars or the Great Crusade, being instead held back for use as scouts and hunters, tracking down enemies of the Emperor for other legions to destroy. Not that the 5th Legion was incapable of fighting campaigns on their own, as their war record during the Great Crusade would attest, but their hit-and-run tactics were better suited for smaller-scale fights, and while effective, the other legions thought very little of their brothers from the 5th.

And while this image of the Star Hunters didn't change much after their Primarch Jagatai was found, the newly renamed White Scars began to pick up more culture and pride than they had ever enjoyed. This is because while Jagatai inherited a legion that was already capable of fighting in a style to which he was accustomed, they were hollow, joyless men in desperate need of something to enrich themselves. Jagatai ordered each Marine to take up a hobby.

Calligraphy, painting, storytelling, needlepoint, anything to let the marines of the White Scars feel a little bit less like mindless killing machines, and it worked. The White Scars kept to their duties of scouting and hunting down the enemies of the Imperium without word of complaint, and when the time came for them to choose a side in the heresy, they stuck with the loyalists and hunted down their traitorous former allies. It's even a tradition that has persisted to this day, with the great hunts of the Khans, regularly finding and dispatching some of the deadliest enemies of the throne. The Raut, the Vilca Fenrica, the Space Wolves, the 6th Legion Astartes has had several names across its history, and it's been quite a bloody one.

One of the so-called Trefoil Legions, the 6th was made for a very specific purpose, to kill other space marines. The relatively small size of the Legion was due in large part to the volatility of their gene seed. a precaution that the Emperor baked in just in case his favorite executioners ever decided to turn on him, not that it made any difference to their effectiveness. During the Unification Wars and the early Great Crusade, the 6th Legion was only unleashed when the Emperor wanted to make a point, or if he needed a problem dealt with.

The warriors of the 6th soon gained a reputation for being some of the most savage fighters in the Imperium, a fact that worked well to keep potential traitors in line. Two very important things happened to the 6th Legion during the Great Crusade. Their Primarch, Leman Russ, was found, the Wolf King renaming his Legion to the Space Wolves. And at some point, the Wolves were called upon to fulfill their intended role as the Emperor's Executioners, killing the Primarchs of the 2nd and 11th Legions and mauling the surviving Marines so badly that none dare speak of the two lost Legions ever again. It was these acts that led to the other Primarchs rightfully fearing Russ and his Legion.

It was said, that out of every Primarch, only the Lion could have stood against the Wolf in combat, a thought that was tested in the bitter feuds the two Primarch had over the years. The problem with this reputation, of course, was that the Legionnaires of the Sixth and their Primarch never really gained a close relationship with their peers. It's hard to trust someone who you know would kill you as easily as they would drink with you, should the Emperor command it at least.

This was taken to its extreme during the Heresy, when Horus successfully tricked the Wolves into attacking the Thousand Suns with some false orders, which kept them from helping their allies on Terra during the siege. To this day, the Wolves are known for being some of the most incredibly deadly warriors in the galaxy and are not above fighting other Imperials who step out of line. Out of all the Space Marine Legions, only the 7th has claimed to Terra as its official homeworld. The Imperial Fists established themselves early on as excellent defense troops, being proficient in the building of defenses and the nuances of a more aggressive defense style that lent itself very well to the abilities of a space marine force.

This changed very little once they were reunited with their Primarch Rogol Dorne. Dorne was staunchly loyal and favored uncomplicated, straightforward approaches to every problem. Under his stewardship, the Imperial Fists Legion became as well known for their heavy assault tactics as they were for their ability to defend. This led them to be used quite often as the Emperor's blunt instrument, either breaking sieges that had held on for too long or defending desperate last stands that the Emperor could not afford to lose. In this way, the Imperial Fists gained a rivalry with the Iron Warriors.

the latter of which became very bitter that the Fists often received honors for the daring actions that they were assigned to while they themselves were often relegated to fighting the longer, less exciting parts of those same sieges. For his part, Dorne seemed completely uninterested in that sort of rivalry, thinking only of his duty to the Imperium. It was Dorne who constructed the imposing defenses of the Imperial Palace on Terra, and it was Dorne who accompanied the Emperor onto Horus'battle barge at the climax of the siege.

His inability to stop the deaths of both his brother Sanguinius and the Emperor very nearly broke him, and while he very nearly came to blows with his brother Giliman in the aftermath, he eventually decided it was best to keep what was left of the Imperium together. Today, the Imperial Fists and their successor chapters fight as roving armies, crusading from one system to the next, never settling down. So while the Fists claim Holy Terra as their homeworld, Their real headquarters is their ancient mobile battle station called the Phalanx.

The Eighth Legion, the Night Lords, are one of the most controversial of the Astartes forces, and that's saying something. The Emperor had his executioners to deal with traitors and his spies and his scouts, all roles useful for warfare on a galactic scale. But the problem is that like any tyrant, the Emperor was worried about the masses of people rising up in revolt.

No matter how many marines he made or how many campaigns he fought, the trillions and trillions of people in the new imperium would always outnumber his armies and could force him to spend too much energy putting out the fires of revolution instead of conquering the enemies of humanity. So the Emperor chose to make himself a terror force. The legionnaires of the 8th specialized in scare tactics, not like the space wolves who were so terrifying in combat that other warriors would know that they couldn't win.

The Night Lords would cut your power and creep in dark shadows. They would take over the Voxfeeds and blare the screams of the dying to the rest of the populace. They would flay people and leave them to be found in the town square.

They fought dirty, ugly. They made the idea of fighting the Imperium terrifying, and it wasn't long before the other Primarchs took a stand. And here is probably the biggest instance of cowardice by the Emperor himself.

It's Very clear that the Emperor created the Night Lords to be this way and encouraged them, ordered them to act like this. Just like with Angron of the World Eaters, the Emperor knew that the Primarch of the Eighth, Conrad Kurz, was wracked with mental instability brought on by conditions that might have been curable, but chose to do nothing and disavow the Night Lords when it became known that they committed acts of terror, even and especially upon the citizens of the Imperium. Needless to say that the Night Lords decided to work with Horus and the other traitors when the time came, even though they never accepted worship of the Chaos Gods.

Their only goal post-heresy has seemingly been to tear down the rotting edifice of the Imperium that betrayed them. Originally designed as one of a handful of shock troop armies, the Legion that would become the Blood Angels were often deployed either as the very tip of the Emperor's Spear or wherever a stubborn enemy needed to be wiped out wholesale. It was a job the 9th Legion excelled at, often replenishing lost Marines with new stock taken from their enemies, and in this way the Legion gained a reputation for returning from dangerous campaigns with the same number of Marines it had departed with. But that wasn't the only rumor. All Marines are capable of eating flesh to gain information or emergency sustenance, but the 9th Legion became known for ritualistically eating their slain foes after battle, indulging in a red thirst for blood.

This reputation pushed them further from the rest of the Imperium, as they were shunned and slowly began to devolve into feral murderers. And then Sanguinius was found. The angelic Primarch had grown up on the world of Baal, and when he was given his legion, the incredibly psychic Primarch instantly felt a connection to his genesons.

Instead of demanding they swear an oath to him, Sanguinius swore an oath to them. They would either rise together, or fall together. Under his leadership, the Blood Angels went from pariahs to one of the most decorated assault legions in the Imperium.

It's no surprise then that the Marines of the Blood Angels Legion had the strongest bond with their Primarch, only strengthened by his psychic abilities. When Horus slew Sanguinius aboard his ship at the climax of the Siege of Terra, the entire Legion broke, succumbing to an illness which would become known as the Black Rage. As the Rage takes hold, afflicted Marines begin to believe they are Sanguinius, facing down their treacherous brother Horus, and dying. No one knows how or when it will affect a Blood Angels Marine, but the effects are almost always the same. always irreversible, with notable exceptions.

Today, the Blood Angels are one of the strongest chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, but the rage still afflicts them, forcing Blood Angels'leadership to place their raving comrades into doomed squads called the Death Company, so that they might seek their end in battle. The Tenth Legion had always been as relentless as their Primarch, even before Ferris Manus was found. Called the Stormwalkers during the Unification Wars, the 10th Legion had a very simple, straightforward approach to warfare, not unlike the warriors of the Death Guard. In fact, by the beginning of the Great Crusade, it was apparent that the Stormwalkers had gained an affinity for using heavy vehicles and mobile artillery pieces to simply advance towards an enemy until it wasn't a problem anymore.

This hardly changed when Fares Manus was given the Legion, and it was named the Stormwalkers. the Iron Hands in honor of the Primarch's literal metal hands. What Manus really brought to his legion was a need to purge weakness. The warriors of the 10th became known for using their advanced machinery to turn aside enormous enemy armies, breaking overwhelming forces with their technology. The marines of this legion would also make extensive use of bionic replacements for limbs, as the sort of fighting they were used to often led to mangled soldiers.

This led to the Legion having a much stronger working relationship with the tech priests of Mars compared to other Legions. This affinity for machines coupled with their belief that the flesh is weak led to some dire consequences after the heresy began. Fulgrim and Ferus Manus had been some of the closest friends out of all the Primarchs, but when Fulgrim tried to get Manus to join the traitors, the stoic Ironhands Primarch tried to kill him. When they finally met again on the battlefield, neither man could kill the other, until Fulgrim in his grief gave himself to the demon in his sword, and Manus was decapitated.

The Ironhands shattered, with different factions following various captains on missions of vengeance. This almost destroyed what was left of the Legion, with factions blaming the traitors for their cowardice, their allies for their lack of strength, and even blaming Manus and the Ironhands captains for indulging in their emotions. Seeking to purge this weakness, the remaining Ironhands became cold, calculating fighters who want nothing more than to purge the weakness of humanity. There has been some pushback against the doctrine recently, but the Ironhands remain ruthlessly emotionless as a whole.

Sorry, your Legion is in another castle. What's going on? There can't be two missing Legions, can there?

The Twelfth Legion was born as the Warhounds, and immediately established themselves as an effective assault force. Their discipline in training and combat deployments was similar to legions like the Luna Wolves or the early Blood Angels, but their aggression and ferocity once engaged in combat was much closer to the disposition of the Space Wolves. The Emperor even kept the Warhounds in reserve for much of the Unification War in case he needed to keep other legions in line, again, not unlike the Space Wolves.

However, early in the Great Crusade, the prison colony on the Asteroid Cerberus rose up in revolt. led by a small group of Thunder Warriors who had somehow survived the purges. Having no other legion nearby, the Emperor sent in the 12th, and the Warhounds went to work.

The invasion began at 0300 hours, and by 0808, the all-clear was given by the Warhounds commander. After being asked what the state of the prisoners was, the commander replied that he had not been ordered to take any. And from then on, the Legion was used as the premier assault group of the Imperium, and was embedded in the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, working alongside elements of the Imperial Army.

And it was under these conditions that the 12th Legion was reunited with their Primarch, Angron, who was angry about being ripped away from his gladiator family, and decided to kill a bunch of his marines about it. Eventually, they calm down, but the rest of the history of this Legion is centered around them trying and failing to gain approval. of their angry gene father.

They changed their name to the World Eaters, they began to act more recklessly in their assault actions, they started getting implants similar to Angron's that drove them insane with rage, and none of it worked. When their Primarch sided with Horus because of his unfair and frankly cruel treatment at the hands of the Emperor, the World Eaters obediently followed him right into damnation. The mighty 13th Legion Astarte The Cicardes began as the Warborn, a legion whose gene seed was noted for its high adaptability, leading to the legion becoming the home of refugees instead of taking its recruits from a specific cultural area of Old Terra. This would be a- reoccurring pattern as they would begin by taking in recruits from the defeated enemies of the Emperor on Earth, and eventually take in the loyal marines of censured or lost legions during the heresy.

While suited to the work of a backbone force, the 13th Legion gradually became known as a competent campaigning legion, often taking on whole war zones without support from other legions. This worked well with the leadership style of their Primarch, Rebute Giliman, and who was adept at not only the business of persecuting wars, but administrating afterwards. The Legion's name was changed to the Ultramarines, and so began one of the most successful careers of any Legion during the Great Crusade. Maybe it was Gilliman's excellent organizational mind, or the ease at which his Legion took to things like diplomacy and logistics, but either way, the Ultramarines conquered more worlds than any Legion except the Lunowolves, and their numbers swelled to easily eclipse any of the other Astartes armies.

There are rumors that this sudden swell of ultramarine recruits is due to, um, okay, I know I just had the notes for this section, and now they're not here. Okay, we'll move on for now, but if I find that passage, I'll circle back. Being the largest legion by far, Horus knew he had to keep the ultramarines away from Terra or his siege would be stopped easily.

So he threw large elements of the wordbearers, World Eaters, Alpha Legion, and even the Night Lords at their home system of Macraj in order to keep them fighting there instead of in Seoul. And the numbers of the Ultramarines is still a huge factor in their operations today, with the chapter having more splinter armies than any other original Legion. The Ultramarines literally wrote the book on the Astartes, and love them or hate them, they are one of the most effective forces in the galaxy. A legion built on resilience, the 14th Legion or the Dusk Raiders as they were called at the beginning were tough even by Astarte's standards.

Oddly, they began as an ambush force, striking at dusk as their name implies and making extensive use of heavier armor types so that they could simply walk into enemy fire for maximum intimidation. The Dusk Raiders fought like this for over 8 decades into the Great Crusade before Mortarion, their Primarch, was found. Himself a stoic, tough fighter, Martarion recognized his new legion as agents of the inevitable and renamed them the Death Guard. Their way of fighting subtly switched around this time to attrition-style combat, their already tough physiques lending themselves extra protection in battlefields with harsh environmental conditions.

In some places that were poisonous or devoid of atmosphere, the warriors of the 14th were sent to show the enemies of humanity that the Emperor would not be turned aside by anything. This led the Legion to fight mostly as footsloggers, rarely using transports, bikes, or jump packs like other Legions did, and instead, simply advancing on foot in both power armor and Terminator armor. Mortarion only really became close with Horus, and so even before the heresy began, it was very likely that he would have fought for his brother against the Emperor, but it should be noted that not all his Legionnaires felt the same, and if it was not for Nathaniel Garrow and the flight of the Eisenstein, then... The loyal forces of the Imperium would not have known about Horus's treachery until it was too late to stop him. And while Mortarion originally had no intentions of lowering himself to worshipping the powers of Chaos, the Great Unclean One had other plans and marooned Mortarion's fleet in a pocket of the Warp.

The Destroyer Plague tore through his marines, maiming and torturing them until Mortarion pledged himself to Nurgle just to stop the pain. When the Death Guard finally arrived at Terra, the bloated forms of the new Death Guard were terrifying and nearly unkillable. Mortarion himself ascended to demonhood and plagues the Imperium to this day.

The Thousand Sons are probably one of the most tragic stories in the Imperium. They were originally formed from recruits born inside the Emperor's lands on Terra, and so many hadn't suffered war much before the Unification Wars. They were the sons of nobility already loyal to the Emperor, and many had been educated in some manner before volunteering. They were formed by the Emperor himself as the Unification Wars were coming to a close, and exactly 1,000 carefully picked student aspirants were the foundation of the 15th Legion. Aside from their beginnings, the Astartes of the Thousand Suns weren't particularly notable how they fought or were organized, until they started developing psychic powers.

And while the curious Marines of the 15th were at first happy about this development, it very quickly spiraled... out of control. At this point in history, not many people in the Imperium knew about the warp and the chaotic powers within, and that was by design. Starving the chaos gods of attention was an effective way of robbing their power. The warriors of the Thousand Suns did not know this and began to horrifically mutate.

As they slowly brought the outbreaks under control, other Primarchs like Mortarion and Rogaldorn became aware of the Psykers in the 15th Legion and pushed to have them censured. No mutant should be allowed in the Emperor's forces. But the 15th Legion couldn't help but learn more, and so continued in secret, especially after being reunited with their Primarch Magnus, whose psychic might was second only to the Emperor's. He stabilized the mutations and reorganized the Legion into chapters, a term which would eventually be used for every Astartes force.

Upsettingly, it was Magnus'attempt to warn the Emperor about Horus that got his legion almost destroyed by the space wolves who were forced to deal with the thousand suns for breaking the rules about using psychic powers even if it was to warn the emperor now on the run from the imperium the 15th legion had no choice but to hide in the warp which brought the mutations back desperate chapter leaders attempted a complicated spell the rubric of ariman which stopped the mutations at the cost of turning their bodies to dust most thousand marines are now barely sentient and their forces traveled the galaxy on mysterious missions for their god zinch and to find a cure mirroring the rise and fall of their primarch horus lupercal the 16th legion started out as one of the emperor's most trusted forces the terran recruits were formed from wandering tribes known for pragmatism and independence making the bulk of the original 16th legion into fierce and effective shock troops it was this quality which led the emperor to to choose them from the pacification of Luna, a battle which captured the genetic laboratories that the Emperor needed to complete his space marine program. As a reward, the 16th Legion was named the Lunowolves, and given much of the first batches of gene seed, making them one of the strongest legions even before the Great Crusade started. And that hardly changed when Horus was found on the very nearby world of Chthonia. Horus was actually the very first Primarch to be discovered, and for 30 years was the only one to be discovered. only Primarch, leading him to gaining not only a very strong bond with his Legion, but also the Emperor, and to some extent, the whole Imperium.

He was the Emperor's favorite son. We spoke earlier about how being the first Legion gave the Dark Angels a bit of an ego. Imagine being the only Legion with a Primarch for three decades, and that Primarch being the obvious favorite among his brothers.

Needless to say, the Luna Wolves were a bit puffed up. During the Great Crusade, the 16th Legion pushed themselves to conquer more worlds, pursue more enemies, fight more glorious wars, and win more accolades than their fellow legions. Only the Ultramarines even came close. Then came Eulanore.

The Eulanore Crusade was a defining moment for the Imperium as a whole, but the Lunowolves more than most. The largest Orc Empire was destroyed as the Emperor himself took to the field for the final time during the Great Crusade, leaving for a mysterious project under the Terran surface and proclaiming Horus the War Master, Supreme Commander of Imperial Forces, second only to the Emperor himself. When he left, the Emperor suggested that Horus rename his Legion to reflect his new position, and though he originally refused, he began to think the other Primarchs still saw him just as a peer, and so he relented and the 16th Legion became the Sons of Horus.

What happened soon after is a story for another video, but Horus was infected by the powers of Chaos thanks in part to the scheming of his brother Lorgar of the Wordbearers, and the slow slide into heresy began. After the climactic battle with the Emperor during the Siege of Terra, what was left of the Sons of Horus rallied around their former First Captain Abaddon and renamed themselves the Black Legion. The story of the 17th Legion is a strange one, but that's fitting considering they're the most direct cause of the Horus heresy. Originally named the Imperial Heralds, the 17th Legion was made up of the sons of defeated enemies on Old Terra and were raised to understand the crimes of their parents, a connection that no other space marine was allowed to keep during their transition.

This had the effect of making the Marines of the 17th much more zealous in their pursuit of their orders and the Imperial truth, the working doctrine of the Imperium which favored logic and reason above all else. To go along with this, the 17th Legion were the official emissaries of the Emperor, delivering his ultimatums to potential enemies by a single marine in black armor, a skull helmet, and a winged mace. That's right, the 17th Legion invented space marine chaplains. Things took a turn, however, when their Primarch was discovered. Lorgar Aurelian was raised to be a devout man, and believed very strongly that religion was a fundamental part of being human.

Which would be a nice sentiment if his two most devoted advisors hadn't been worshippers of chaos before they had been made into Astartes. Once reunited with his legion, Lorgar renamed them the Werebears and began twisting the imperial truth into a true religion with the Emperor at its center. Wherever they went, they built shrines to the Master of Humanity, until finally, the Emperor had enough.

He was going to sic the Space Wolves on them, removing them from history like the 2nd and 11th Legions, but the other Primarchs convinced him to show leniency, and so the Ultramarines were ordered to level the Wordbearer's capital city, and they were made to kneel in the ash and re-pledge themselves to the Imperial Truth. And that was all that was needed. Lorgar's advisors told him that there were other gods more worthy of his worship, and so the First Primarch slid into Chaos worship and began planning to corrupt his greatest brother, Horus.

Today, the Wordbearers continue this sort of work, seeding cults in Imperial territory and furthering the worship of the ruinous powers. The second of the most carefully and secretly made legions, the Eighteenth Legion, had a very specific purpose like the Space Wolves and the Alpha Legion. These marines and the special changes to their gene seed were kept secret even from the other legions for quite some time. For the 18th legion, this purpose was to be the heroes of humanity. Kept in reserve for most of the unification wars, the 18th was suddenly unleashed against one of the emperor's most dangerous enemies.

26,000 Astartes went in and only 1,000 walked out again. But the enemy was defeated and no other lives had been lost. Their Primarch Vulcan saved the day in much the same manner during a desperate fight against a large orc raiding fleet.

Vulcan, who had been found but not yet reunited with his legion, suddenly arrived with 3,000 new recruits and master forged equipment for his battered legion, who had been holding the line without him. Too late to save the former commanders of the 18th, Vulcan knelt to the men he had been too late to save, and the legion was his, renamed then to the Salamanders. This is why the 18th Legion was always the smallest.

They'd swoop into these desperate situations and hold the line until their charges were safely away, or until they'd won, but always at the cost of many Astartes'lives. As for the heresy itself, the Salamanders did their best to be effective with their small numbers, but were subject to several terrible defeats at the hands of the traitor legions. Vulcan himself was even captured briefly by the Night Lord, but after the Night Haunter admitted that he didn't know how to kill the apparently immortal Salamander's Primarch.

The journeys of Vulcan are too complex to voice here, but just know that he's still out there somewhere waiting for his chance to return to his heroic genesons. Until then, they'll continue being the Imperium's shield. In the very beginning, the 19th Legion was a guerrilla force, striking from the shadows at targets that would cause the most disruption for an enemy. They operated quite similarly to the Night Lords in this regard, the intent being to sow terror wherever they went and ensure that the prospect of fighting the Imperium was too frightening to contemplate.

Earlier, however, they were often tasked with supporting the larger Lunar Wolves Legion in their campaign, so they never really gained the disgust of their peers in the same way that the Night Lords did. Regardless, after almost a century of the Great Crusade, the 19th Primarch was found. Corvus Corax had been living on a world called Deliverance, and had spent much of that time leading a rebellion against the cruel rulers of that planet.

When he saw how his legion made war, he was disgusted and purged the old leadership. He believed there were better ways to make an enemy fall than to terrorize innocent people. Instead, he trained his legion to become expert trackers and assassins, using their already prodigious skills in stealth operations to make them even more effective.

against dismantling power structures. Their success led to the newly renamed Raven Guard being requested for many campaigns, including the conflict at East Van 5. Already one of the smallest legions, the Raven Guard were set upon by an ambush as the traitor legions revealed themselves by turning their guns on their former allies. Outnumbered and fighting a straight-out battle, not something the Raven Guard were well-suited for, they were almost completely wiped out.

The problems didn't stop there either, with the Ravengard gene seed beginning to deteriorate faster than normal, produce horrible mutations, and forcing recruitment to a crawl. This is a problem that persisted for most of the Legion's existence until the recent introduction of the Primaris Marines, which finally seems to have solved the problem. The Emperor had his wolfish executioners and his draconic heroes, the last thing he needed was a legion of serpentine spies.

Kept intentionally at low membership like the other two specialty legions, extremely little is known about the Alpha Legion, originally known as the Ghost Legion. This seems to have been intentional as well, with false records being implanted at the same time as others are simply erased. This is because the special purpose of the Alpha Legion was to run subterfuge operations.

Imperial records only confirm their existence with vague reports of small Alpha units operating far ahead of the main battle lines, gathering intel, assassinating key targets, and setting up informant networks among the Emperor's enemies. sometimes years before they even saw an Imperial fleet. From what we know, the standard operating procedure of the Alpha Legion goes like this. A small handful of Alpha Legion operatives, Astartes and mortal humans, arrive at the target location and begin setting up a network.

This network begins to destabilize the enemy organizational structure with things like crime rings, political corruption, targeted assassinations, and the spreading of false information and propaganda. Once the enemy has been suitably thrown into disarray, the main Alpha Legion forces arrive, and attack from as many angles as possible, spreading more chaos and finishing the job in a lightning strike. The nature of the Alpha Legion is such that we can never truly be sure of anything about them, but we do know that their Primarch is a man named Alpharius, a name that every Alpha Legionnaire gives to anyone outside the Legion when asked for identification.

They also make attempts to look like their Primarch, who is by all accounts one of the smallest Primarchs. Oh, also he's got a twin brother. The biggest secret of the 20th Legion is that their Primarch is actually twins, Alpharius and Omegon.

The two have even pretended to be one another to such an extent that while Alpharius is confirmed to have been killed sometime after the heresy, we're still not certain of which one died or even if he actually did die. This cloud of confusion goes so far as to make it completely uncertain whether the Alpha Legion actually sided with Horus or not during the heresy. They certainly fought with him against the loyalists and do the work of the Chaos to this day, but there are whispers that they are working from within to destabilize the efforts of the ruinous powers.

Overall, the Space Marine Legions are some of 40k's most discussed areas of lore. they have evolved from simple two-dimensional flavors of combat styles to full-blown characters in an epic space opera. Thank you so much for watching our very first longform video, we hope you'll stick with us as we bring you more lore.

Transcript for:Overview of the Space Marine Legions

Transcript for:
Overview of the Space Marine Legions