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The Daemon Primarchs are amongst the greatest servants of chaos but some doubt they are THE greatest. Many place that title to the greatest of daemons such as Aetaos'Rau'Keres and An'ggrath. It's always been my belief that the traitor primarchs are the greatest servants of thier gods.
Here's what we know:
-Lorgar, commonly called the weakest primarchs, beat An'ggrath in a long and drawn out fight. Ole' Anggy being one of the strongest bloodthirsters.
-Sanguinius brutalized Ka'Bandha who was at that point the single greatest bloodthirster of Khorne. I personally don't think Sanguinius would win against a raging Angron in full health and regalia. Pre Ascension. Post Ascension he'd get crushed outright.

Considering how Sanguinius brutally murdered Greater Daemons after his first encounter with An'ggrath, Primarchs certainly are more powerful then the other daemonic extensions of the gods. I also didn't really think this was something disputed given how Primarchs thrash Daemons consistently.

Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

While the Deamon Primarchs are able to beat Greater Deamons in combat, the greaters still look down upon them as lesser beings. This may be what you are talking about.

That's because Greater Daemons, with the exception of the Lords of Change who blinded by insanity, are blinded by arrogance.

If it's just a question of "can a demon primarch kill a demon lord," well, we'll be able to answer that ingame when Forgeworld gets around to doing Demon Fulgrim and the others.

 Rippy wrote:
While the Deamon Primarchs are able to beat Greater Deamons in combat, the greaters still look down upon them as lesser beings. This may be what you are talking about.

I don't think this is true.

Angron had a retinue of twelve Bloodthirsters under his command during the first war of Armageddon. Twelve of the strongest Bloodthirsters.

Greater Daemons might look down on Daemon Princes in general, but they don't dare do so to the Daemon Primarchs.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

The primarchs arent entirely mortal, they have some of big E in them.

The line between demon Prince and just demon is also very murky in the 40k universe. We know from the daemon coded that demons are just shards of power split from one of the chaos Gods. Demon princes are mortals elevated to demonhood which is as ambiguous as it sounds.

There is conflicting fluff on if someone has to die, primarch included, to reach that stage or if they still keep their body just with new power.

There's probably a degree of transmogrification when a mortal ascends to Daemon Princedom, which probably also includes something that most medical personnel would say "that killed the hell out of them!" but, of course, they don't actually die. Think of whats-his-nuts from DOW descending into a lake of lava before rising out of it all huge and pumped up.

Exergy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

The primarchs arent entirely mortal, they have some of big E in them.

I'm using mortal to designate living creatures of the material plane as opposed to immaterial creatures of the warp.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Exergy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

The primarchs arent entirely mortal, they have some of big E in them.

I'm using mortal to designate living creatures of the material plane as opposed to immaterial creatures of the warp.

Then the Primarchs would still not be entirely mortal, they're brimming with Warp energies, it's how they were created.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

Also, greater daemons are like Avatars of Khaine.

They exist only so Space Marines can beat the gak out of them to show how awesome they are.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:

Then the Primarchs would still not be entirely mortal, they're brimming with Warp energies, it's how they were created.

You know exactly what I mean, stop being a pedantic little sod.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

Also, greater daemons are like Avatars of Khaine.

They exist only so Space Marines can beat the gak out of them to show how awesome they are.

No, Greater Daemons have a pretty good record for thrashing space marines in combat. It's Daemon Princes that get ganked by single Astartes fairly often.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
While the Deamon Primarchs are able to beat Greater Deamons in combat, the greaters still look down upon them as lesser beings. This may be what you are talking about.

I don't think this is true.

Angron had a retinue of twelve Bloodthirsters under his command during the first war of Armageddon. Twelve of the strongest Bloodthirsters.

Greater Daemons might look down on Daemon Princes in general, but they don't dare do so to the Daemon Primarchs.

I remember reading about it in one of the codices, though it might have been retconned now.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:

Then the Primarchs would still not be entirely mortal, they're brimming with Warp energies, it's how they were created.

You know exactly what I mean, stop being a pedantic little sod.

I meant that they can't really fall into the same category as other mortals, as they were something else to begin with. They were always bordering on something greater. Prime example is in Vengeful Spirit when

 Wyzilla wrote:
Considering how Sanguinius brutally murdered Greater Daemons after his first encounter with An'ggrath, Primarchs certainly are more powerful then the other daemonic extensions of the gods. I also didn't really think this was something disputed given how Primarchs thrash Daemons consistently.

I'm.pretty sure it was Ka'Bandha, not Anngrath. Angrath has only been successfully summoned twice, neither of them during the Heresy, IIRC.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Exergy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Daemon Princes have always been potentially stronger than Greater Daemons, and a Daemon Primarch is nothing more than a Daemon Prince made from a particularly powerful mortal. If the mortal could destroy a Greater Daemon or Daemon Lord before ascending to daemonhood, it's only natural that they would continue to be able to do so afterwards.

The primarchs arent entirely mortal, they have some of big E in them.

I'm using mortal to designate living creatures of the material plane as opposed to immaterial creatures of the warp.

yes but there is something fishy abotu the primarchs and big E. They exist as some sort of daemon+man. One that can be killed(although some say some cant) but that is none the less somewhat supernatural.

I think the primarchs as some sort of fusion of man and daemon(and ferrus: man daemon and machine)

Ferrus wasn't Machine. Only his hands were metal but he was born with flesh.

From hints in the HH series it sounds like the Big E bargained with the Dark Gods for souls (re: can't create life from nothing concept popular in fantasy) to make the Primarchs, but then betrayed them and as a result they sent Argel Tal to scatter them and mess up the great plan.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Considering how Sanguinius brutally murdered Greater Daemons after his first encounter with An'ggrath, Primarchs certainly are more powerful then the other daemonic extensions of the gods. I also didn't really think this was something disputed given how Primarchs thrash Daemons consistently.

I'm.pretty sure it was Ka'Bandha, not Anngrath. Angrath has only been successfully summoned twice, neither of them during the Heresy, IIRC.

He's featured in ADBs Aurelian. It's also in the Eye of Terror so he hasn't actually been summoned, he turns up on his own accord. Well, I say own accord, it was likely ordered by Khorne to interfere. I think it even says that the agreement is broken by one of the four, something along those lines.

I would imagine, that since the Daemon Primarchs cannot really manifest in the material universe that well, due to being daemons, that the transformation process involves basically the maturation and development of the soul apart from the body. Also since daemons are shards of the gods given form by their will, then it could also be assumed that the apotheosis to daemon hood involves an investiture of the power of the god in that being. So the power would be directly proportional to the amount of power/will/essence the chaos god invested in it. So Jimmy the Chaos champion that ascends to daemon princedom probably has a fraction of the essence imparted to the Primarchs. so the variance in power levels would be reflective of the amount of power the gods invested in that individual.

 GKTiberius wrote:
I would imagine, that since the Daemon Primarchs cannot really manifest in the material universe that well, due to being daemons, that the transformation process involves basically the maturation and development of the soul apart from the body. Also since daemons are shards of the gods given form by their will, then it could also be assumed that the apotheosis to daemon hood involves an investiture of the power of the god in that being. So the power would be directly proportional to the amount of power/will/essence the chaos god invested in it. So Jimmy the Chaos champion that ascends to daemon princedom probably has a fraction of the essence imparted to the Primarchs. so the variance in power levels would be reflective of the amount of power the gods invested in that individual.

I was going to comment along the same lines earlier but it was one of those posts that you write out and then say .... nahhhh.

Along the same lines I would also assume that if they willed that Daemon/Prince to be stronger than they could do so, much like with Luthor and Horus when they feed them moar power. The Codex says on Daemon Princes.

Yet a Daemon Prince is just as much a tool of the Gods as his Mortal followers; if anything, he becomes even more an extension of his Master's will {snip} one who ascends to Daemonhood can look forward to an eternity of servitude at his patron's behest. Even death is no respite.

So Angron might be able to beat up Ang'grath, or vice versa, but if Khorne doesn't will it, it won't be so. Much like how Skarbrand and Ang'grath are never to cross paths and how the Masque is doomed to dance.

On the subject of Primarchs being "more than mortal":

... there's a whole lot of dead Primarchs, Horus included (and is noted for being a particularly-permanent shade of dead). For all their super-human gifts, immortality and invulnerability don't seem to be two of them.

 Psienesis wrote:
On the subject of Primarchs being "more than mortal":

... there's a whole lot of dead Primarchs, Horus included (and is noted for being a particularly-permanent shade of dead). For all their super-human gifts, immortality and invulnerability don't seem to be two of them.

Agreed, But many of them have different essence and components. Vulkan is an Eternal. also non of the dead primarchs died of old age, so we don't know what the uninterrupted lifespan of a primarch would have been. If they are genetically close to the emperor and have alot of his warpstuff/soulstuff they may have been capable of immortality but not invulnerability.

An aspect people seem to be missing is that Sanguinius didn't just kill A Bloodthirster....but instead the King of Bloodthirsters. The greatest Bloodthirster of Khorne. And he didn't just win by a hair either, he brutalized him. Sanguinius isn't the most powerful HTH fighter among the primarchs either. That'd be Angron,
The power of Daemons wanes and waxes with what they do, but we do know that at THAT POINT in time, Ka'Bandha was the strongest bloodthirster. My guess is Khorne wasn't very happy with him getting thrashed in a completely fair fight and thus gave him the Nerfbat really, really hard. Making An'ggrath the strongest 'Thirster.


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 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
While the Deamon Primarchs are able to beat Greater Deamons in combat, the greaters still look down upon them as lesser beings. This may be what you are talking about.

I don't think this is true.

Angron had a retinue of twelve Bloodthirsters under his command during the first war of Armageddon. Twelve of the strongest Bloodthirsters.

Greater Daemons might look down on Daemon Princes in general, but they don't dare do so to the Daemon Primarchs.

Not only did he have a retinue of twelve of the strongest bloodthirsters as basically meatshields but they were honored to be meatshields. That was the biggest honor those bloodthirsters had ever recieved.

First, Ka'bandha defeated Sanguinius, and then Sanguinius won in the rematch. I think it's fair to say that they were not that far apart.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Not only did he have a retinue of twelve of the strongest bloodthirsters as basically meatshields but they were honored to be meatshields. That was the biggest honor those bloodthirsters had ever recieved.

Where do you source all this from?

 Ashiraya wrote:
First, Ka'bandha defeated Sanguinius, and then Sanguinius won in the rematch. I think it's fair to say that they were not that far apart.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Not only did he have a retinue of twelve of the strongest bloodthirsters as basically meatshields but they were honored to be meatshields. That was the biggest honor those bloodthirsters had ever recieved.

Where do you source all this from?

From the description of the Battle of Armageddon in that infamous White Dwarf mag. As well as other descriptions. There was also a book dealing with the whole Angron and his posse vs 100 grey knights in beautiful detail (I hate that some random grey knight broke Angron's sword even if he was basically giving him bee-stings with his pyschic onslaughts) His posse died off pretty quickly in that book, leaving him to kill the majority of the knights.

Although, it can be argued Ka'Bandha only won due to the psychic backlash of killing 500 BA at once. It hit Sanguinius like Obi-Wan in A New Hope ("Its like millions of voices cried out at once). In the rematch Sanguinius brutalised both him and the Keeper of Secrets though. However in round 3 on Terra, from what I hear, the battle went on for like a day and a night, Sanguinius had his pegs broken and the like, before breaking the Daemon over his knee.

Jimmy The Daemonprince - Lord of Terror.