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Traitor Primarchs - book recommendations?


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Hi all,

 

This might be a slightly odd request. I'm looking for books that show the strengths of the traitor Primarchs - or at least why their legions followed them and looked up to them.

 

Something like Horus Rising for the other traitor Primarchs, basically.

 

Any suggestions?

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Lorgar: The First Heretic, Aurelian, Betrayer. Three of the best books in the HH - no other Traitor Primarch gets as thorough and compelling a treatment.

 

I'd also add Scars, Daemonology and Path of Heaven for Mortarion, avoiding Swallow's work; Slaves to Darkness for Horus, Perturabo, and Lorgar; and Praetorian of Dorn for Alpharius.

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Honestly, the Perturabo Primarch novel is probably my favorite depiction of the character. It humanizes him and his legion, while also showing what they are good at. It also shows very well why Perturabo's fall is a product of both internal as well as external factors and actions.
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Dark Compliance within the Heralds of the Siege anthology is an excellent depiction of Horus as the Arch-Traitor. He's not being played as a dog-kicking villain, but something more lowkey and all the scarier for it, clinically spending lives and burning worlds to make a point to others without a hint of remorse.

 

Prince of Crows also gets right into Kurze's head and does it wonderfully, as well as showing the mingled disdain and loyalty his Legion regards him with.

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Lorgar: The First Heretic, Aurelian, Betrayer. Three of the best books in the HH - no other Traitor Primarch gets as thorough and compelling a treatment.

 

I'd also add Scars, Daemonology and Path of Heaven for Mortarion, avoiding Swallow's work; Slaves to Darkness for Horus, Perturabo, and Lorgar; and Praetorian of Dorn for Alpharius.

what Marshall said. Nailed it.

 

I would also add the Primarchs novel Fulgrim for sure. Heck of a spotlight on what he was and could have been before the fall. Magnus gets some cool stuff in his novel as well, though I have issues with the narrative as a whole.  

 

Lorgar’s and Angron’s both give some interesting insights into the characters, but don’t necessary let you see what their followers see in them (Angron does have one of the single greatest hidden moments in all of the HH). 

 

Perturabo and Curze both have very interesting novels that likewise give good insights (Perturabo’s ending is worth the read alone, one of the best moments in the HH as well)...but I don’t know if there’s anything in there that would show how they inspired their followers in any way, even in the loosest use of the word “inspire” and applied to the kinds of psyches in the IV and XIII Legions. 

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I'd second Fulgrim, the primarch novel rather than book 4 of the heresy series, as probably the only good or complex depiction of the primarch. Quite a bit of nuance there about his philosophy without actually making him less of a peacock. It also digs into his hopes for his legions and why they follow him.

 

Lorgar received one of the best portrayals with The First Heretic and Betrayer but don't sleep on his primarch novel by Gav Thorpe. Some other primarch novels, traitor and loyalist, kind of just summarise the themes of the main heresy books but this one is complementary and pretty radical in how it just doesn't ever let you see Lorgar's interiority. Keeps him mysterious, alien, semi-unknowable, all of which is appropriate for a primarch. The Word Bearers themselves never feature but you can get a lot out of seeing why his mortal followers look up to him and how some others try to fit him into their plots.

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