In modern warfare, unless you were a Magnetic Field Martial God, an individual's strength was rendered almost irrelevant. Even beings as exalted as Chaos Gods needed countless daemons to throw themselves into the fray, serving as candidates for the Warp's "employee benefits."
The Primarchs might have been absurdly powerful, but they weren't meant to serve as frontline grunts. They were gene-seed repositories, the seeds from which the legions' armies could be grown, and gene-seed was the link that let them command this Imperial blade from top to bottom.
Every Primarch was a polymath. Though each had different areas of expertise, their presence alone revealed a world-shaking intellect. They all knew a little about battlefield command, logistics, research and development—in short, just about everything.
Take Lorgar's Word Bearers, for example. They might have liked dabbling in religion, but in terms of versatility, they could easily be called the strongest of all the legions. When it came to running an organization and cultivating its resources, they might even have outdone ambitious Guilliman. The City of Perfection was no joke!
But because of his personality, a certain unnamed Primarch—Guilliman, if you were wondering—had a particular fondness for challenging people to duels on the battlefield. It ended with him beaten to his knees, making him the laughingstock of all the Primarchs.
To handle unexpected situations, every legion had positions comparable to a deputy commander. The Luna Wolves had the Mournival, the Dark Angels had their Inner Circle, and the Blackwatch actually had five members, though they claimed to have the Four Heavenly Kings. They all followed the same principle.
When Hogg heard Gabriel talking like a career officer eager to become a Chapter Master, he seriously wondered if the kid's bloodline was pure. Maybe he had some of Jonson's blood in him. Otherwise, there