Literal Vampire Potbelly Goblin

It’s my blog and I can talk about what I want to! So I want to talk about Warhammer.

Been trudging through the Horus Heresy recently (I’m on book 22) and boy howdy is the difference in size between regular humans and Primarchs silly. I wonder how they manage tables, or chairs, or food portions, or railings on walkways, since there are so many walkways over chasms and shit. Are there multilayered railings? What’s the toilet situation like out there? Do they have bespoke silverware and pens, or are they using hilariously undersized shit every time they want to eat? It’s sort of vague in the books so far, where they either don’t tell you that the humans are sitting in very serious grimdark high chairs, or they do tell you that the primarch is using basically a playskool cup to drink wine at a formal dinner.

I dislike most of the Primarchs, especially the traitor ones. Part of this is because the books are, by and large, not spectacular. The first handful were pretty decent, there are a mix of good ones sprinkled in, but Horus’s fall to chaos was stupid. Anything that deals with Alpharius/Omegon is a slog. Mortarion hasn’t been touched much yet, so he comes off as the edgiest poison type pokemon trainer. Kurze is just shitty Batman and I hate him - the most sympathetic he’s come off is through the eyes of Corax. The worst Batman. Angron should have been put down, honestly. Perturabo also hasn’t come up yet much, but he seems like a chore as well. Magnus is the most pretentious shitbird and it’s hard to pity him because of how much he huffs his own farts.

Lorgar is a bitch. I don’t know if he’s meant to appear sympathetic in any capacity, he’s just awful. I hate him to the point that any primarch that speaks ill of him becomes more likeable for it. Corax shot up in my regard when he tore ass across Istvan talking about how badly he was going to fuck that idiot up. I had no opinion on Guilliman until he went “Lorgar is a bitch,” At which point I said “okay, maybe he’s chill.”

The only traitor primarch I have any sympathy for is Fulgrim, because his was the only fall to chaos that seemed sympathetic. I know the “cursed sword lol” meme is rampant, but at least it made sense; they didn’t know about curses, or warp spawn, or anything like that which could taint them. The book Fulgrim is not great, but it paints the most believable and sympathetic fall to chaos of any primarch so far. The short story where he says “actually I took my body back from the demon and am just horny for torture now” is… hysterically over-the-top, but it’s still a more interesting point in the overall story, whether it is actually a Slaanesh monstrosity lying about its identity, or a truthful-but-tainted Fulgrim.

As for the loyalists, I don’t care about Ferrus Manus. There is a point that a lot of Primarchs reach where it’s just a sharp-tongued, gruff authoritarian with no other personality, and that is all Ferrus seems to be for me. His death held no emotion other than through the eyes of Fulgrim, which again, made Fulgrim the sympathetic one. I suppose this is also why I don’t care about Perturabo - he just seems like… a ranking official on the Death Star? No personality other than “icy British government worker.”

And so many of the Primarchs come across as only being “imposing and strict and also caring about their legion,” with nothing else going on. Some authors write them as just a sharp-tongued and unyielding brick wall (see Dorn in Flight of the Eisenstein) and others write them as strangely warm and affable (see Dorn in basically everything else). Sanguinius is a bit boring because of this. Oh, we get it, he’s enigmatic and serene and powerful and also tortured. It’s not even tortured in a sexy way. I’m not going to be sad to see him die, I think.

Corvus I do like, partially because of how badly he fucked up Lorgar, but also because he has some of the most positive and interesting lore so far. I like a guerilla freedom fighter. I like it when you make them a bit goth. He may be one of my favorite Primarchs, simply because he has only appeared in two books, in which he 1. Absolutely fucked Lorgar’s shit up, and 2. Loved his mutant sons.

I don’t dislike Russ. I particularly enjoyed that infamous wet leopard growl book about the skald. Despite all the wet leopard growls, it was a very good book about the culture of the Vlka Fenryka. He has come off as interesting, just not as interesting as many individual Space Wolves. Theres something about the constant allusion to him being smarter than people think he is, but putting on a dumb front that feels silly. Maybe I’m a contrarian who is only pushing against liking Russ more fully because the Space Wolves are so popular. I don’t know. I like him well enough, just am not attached.

Guilliman is about the same. He called Lorgar a little bitch and I liked that. He basically stood there on comms and went “I’m going to fuck your shit so bad” in several dumb angry ways, and I liked that. He doesn’t come off as unpleasant; if anything, he seems almost reasonable, as Primarchs go. Same with Russ. It’s just. Eh. You will never get me to care about Ultramarines, no matter how hard you try. Maybe once I get to the end of the Heresy I’ll give a little more of a shit, maybe I’ll like him in the 40k books, I’m not there yet.

I went in thinking I would be kicking my feet and twirling my hair about Lion El’johnson. He’s an ex-feral child who grew up killing monsters in the woods and then became a knight, and he turns into a dilf after a really fucked up nap. But he sucks. He’s the lawful good paladin that’s ruining your dnd campaign. He’s boring, and weird about women in such a way that it’s hard to tell if he’s a raging misogynist or just your stereotypical Warhammer fan. I wanted to like him! I wanted to like the Dark Angels! I do not. All of their books and short stories have been, aside from the one where they have to debate against a Luna Wolf while espionage is happening, incredibly dry and uninteresting.

Vulkan memes also make him seem chill, but he simply has not shown up yet. I’m annoyed about it, because I want to see what Vulkan is actually like, outside of being the poster child for nice Primarchs, despite the whole burning children alive thing.

Now, Rogal Dorn… I was not expecting to like at all. I fear he has become my favorite primarch. When he was first introduced, he came across as very hostile, aggressive, and entirely unreasonable. Granted, this was after the Eisenstein materialized in real space far away from where it was meant to be, after everything the fuck that happened then, before Horus was even known to be a traitor. It is excusable, for matters of security. One other time it was mentioned that he sent a transmission that was very curt. Every other time he has appeared, though? He has been downright gentle. He was the one who proposed the remembrancer presence with the fleet, and experiences such guilt over it. He has an appreciation of art and aesthetics, quietly mourning the obstruction of ancient design as he fortifies a castle. He gently wipes the tears from an astropath’s cheek as she weeps. He makes jokes. I have accidentally become so fond of him, and hope he’s the next primarch that comes back in current lore. I keep going, “really? Dorn? Are we sure?” Because he’s Dorn, who is in charge of security. Also, his name is goofy as hell. Rogal Dorn. Yeesh.

Anyway, the Adeptus Mechanicus stories have been terrible, I hate John Grammaticus with my entire heart, and all the Silent Sisters stories are interesting and good, and mostly narrated by Minthara from Baldur’s Gate, which I’m wild about.