Now, 10,000 years later, in the 41st millennium, there are thousands of Space Marine chapters active across the galaxy, but among the mightiest remain the so-called ‘First Founding’ chapters – formed from the original Legiones Astartes who stayed loyal. This event, called the Second Founding, created a whole range of brand new ‘Successor’ Chapters, split off from their parent legions, with their own leaders, livery, and insignia. In a decree titled the Codex Astartes, Guilliman ordered that the legions be reformed into much smaller ‘Chapters’, with a maximum of 1000 Space Marines in each, and prescribed codes of combat to guide them.
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Some Space Marine Chapters follow Guilliman’s Codex Astartes - some do not Shortly after the Horus Heresy ended – with the traitor Warmaster’s death, and the enshrinement of the mortally wounded Emperor upon the Golden Throne – Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman dissolved the Space Marine Legions, intending to ensure that never again could such a vast force of Adeptus Astartes turn, as one, against the Imperium. We’re going to give you a bit of a spoiler here: the loyalists won. The Emperor killed Horus aboard the Warmaster’s attacking flagship, the Vengeful Spirit the traitor forces splintered and fled and the loyalists chased the routed remainders of the invading fleet right into the dreaded Eye of Terror. If you want to know what happened to them, read our guide to Warhammer 40k’s Chaos Space Marines.įor now, though, we’re interested in what happened next for the Space Marines who remained loyal to the Imperium of Man. Thanks largely to the cunningly laid schemes of Erebus, of the Word Bearers legion, Horus Lupercal was turned to the service of the Chaos gods, and launched a civil war against the Emperor’s rule (later known as the Horus Heresy).įrom the Heresy’s initial, devastating ambushes at Istvaan III and V, and for all time thereafter, the 18 Space Marine legions were to be split by Imperial historians into two camps: they were loyalists, or they were traitors. Several times.įor the Four: Our guide to Warhammer 40k Chaos factions Then, tragically, the nefarious forces of Chaos intervened. The Primarchs and their Space Marine legions fought alongside one another for many years in the Great Crusade, successfully expanding the Imperium of Man far and wide throughout our galaxy – latterly under the leadership of Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the XVI Legion, named ‘Warmaster’ by the Emperor himself. Each legion was many thousands strong, and each bred exclusively from the genetic material of one of his extraordinary Primarchs – highly advanced primogenitor marines made from the Emperor’s own ‘geneseed’, who were to act as the Emperor’s crusading generals. Intending to breed an army with which to reconquer humanity’s lost holdings across the galaxy in a Great Crusade, the Emperor created 20 vast legions of these warriors – the Legiones Astartes. Space Marines are a fantastic way into the Warhammer 40k hobby, and we’ll explain everything you need to know.Įach Space Marine legion was created from a single Primarch In Warhammer 40k 9th Edition, after 30 years of development, the Space Marines are a huge, varied, and versatile army, with nearly 100 different units in the core Space Marines codex alone, not to mention stacks of Space Marine Chapters with their own rules and ways to play – but never fear.
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WARHAMMER 40K DARK HERESY WEALPOANS TV
They’ve been the public face (or rather faceplate) of Warhammer 40k almost since its inception in 1987, and, now more than ever, play its starring role – from the vast, lore-rich Horus Heresy novel series, right through to Angels of Death, the headline TV show of GW’s new Warhammer+ subscription service. Let’s not mess about – even if this is your very first step into Warhammer, you probably already know a bit about the Space Marines. Here’s our comprehensive guide to the Space Marine legions, chapters, tabletop tactics, codex, and lore. Arguably Games Workshop’s most successful creation, the power-armoured, Imperium-protecting super-soldiers of the Adeptus Astartes are not only Warhammer 40k’s best known characters they’re also at the centre of some of its best storytelling, and a perpetual favourite tabletop army. Warhammer 40k’s Space Marines are undoubtedly the veteran sci-fi wargame’s most famous, popular, and prominent army.