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Yes, it was Mortarion who was not alone.

Though for all that his allies did, he might as well have been.

Kind of reminds me of the first scene of this

Durza wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:Its only a short paragraph on this, so we don't know if Draigo was alone or not. Its likely he wasn't.

Matt Ward wrote:Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name on the Daemon's vile heart.

If I'm cooking dinner alone and unaided, does that mean there is no one else in the house?

That sentence doesn't say anything about the presence of other grey knights on the battlefield.

No it means you cooked alone and unaided. Seriously, if "alone and unaided" doesn't mean "alone and unaided" I don't know how else you would indicate that he is alone and not being aided.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No it means you cooked alone and unaided. Seriously, if "alone and unaided" doesn't mean "alone and unaided" I don't know how else you would indicate that he is alone and not being aided.

Right, but in the context of the passage, it doesn't mean Draigo and Geronitan were there alone. It doesn't eliminate there being, say, a bodyguard of Paladins who also lent a hand during the combat. All it says is at the particular moment that Draigo went nuts, there was no one helping him. It doesn't mean there was no-one else there, and it doesn't mean that no aid was given.

To bring it back to the kitchen analogy: I might be cooking alone and unaided, but someone else bought the ingredients for me, and someone else prepared the desert for me. Neither of which changes the fact that at that moment, I'm the only one doing any cooking.

Kaldor wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No it means you cooked alone and unaided. Seriously, if "alone and unaided" doesn't mean "alone and unaided" I don't know how else you would indicate that he is alone and not being aided.

Right, but in the context of the passage, it doesn't mean Draigo and Geronitan were there alone. It doesn't eliminate there being, say, a bodyguard of Paladins who also lent a hand during the combat. All it says is at the particular moment that Draigo went nuts, there was no one helping him. It doesn't mean there was no-one else there, and it doesn't mean that no aid was given.

To bring it back to the kitchen analogy: I might be cooking alone and unaided, but someone else bought the ingredients for me, and someone else prepared the desert for me. Neither of which changes the fact that at that moment, I'm the only one doing any cooking.

alone-definition 1: separated, apart or isolated from others

Those bodyguards of paladins couldn't have been there, because he was ALONE. Meaning apart from others. And those paladins would be OTHERS. Does this make sense to you?

I never thought this thread would go almost as long as the gk hate thread. Color me impressed.

Draigo wrote:I never thought this thread would go almost as long as the gk hate thread. Color me impressed.

Threads can go on pretty long when people refuse to accept basic principles such as 'logic'. Like Kaldor, who doesn't know English but is convinced he does.

LoneLictor wrote:

Draigo wrote:I never thought this thread would go almost as long as the gk hate thread. Color me impressed.

Threads can go on pretty long when people refuse to accept basic principles such as 'logic'. Like Kaldor, who doesn't know English but is convinced he does.

I JUST started listening. He acts like HE invented the defenition of an English-language word. ALONE AND UNAIDED MEANS NOONE HELPED YOU, AND YOU ARE ALL ALONE.


No offence... OF COURSE.

Kaldor wrote:I agree, but I don't think it could have been done without turning the book into Codex: Kaldor Draigo. He's a tough nut, as established by the bitch-slapping, but what makes him interesting is the ultimate failure of his actions, being trapped in the Warp and all. Like a lone saint wandering the streets of hell. In order of things that needed to be fleshed out, that is more important than some fight that only serves to tell us how bad-ass he is. Space had to be cut, and I don't mind that it was cut there.

Oh so we are back to claiming Draigo is a tragic Sisyphean hero then? Delightful.

See, that claim just doesn't hold up, IMO. To be a Sisyphean (Man that is a cool word) hero, a sense of tragedy would have to be conveyed in the writing, and I honestly don't see it. We get two pages of talking about Draigo crushing every obstacle put in his path, then like two lines saying that "Oh but uh I guess he hasn't permanently destroyed Chaos". It is a clumsy attempt at painting Draigo in a tragic light. And is also completely devalued immediately afterwards by emphasizing that he will apparently return.

What is so tragic about a character who is completely unstoppable, a character outright stated to be immune to the will of the Chaos Gods? All sending him to the Warp did was make it easier to get to the Daemons he fights, now he curbstomps Daemons 24/7. Seriously, imagine how burning down the Garden of Nurgle set back forays into realspace. Ditto crushing the Inevitable City.

To tell the truth, I'm not even a huge Draigo fan (despite my username). I don't mind that the beat the snot out of Mortarion. Beating up Daemons is what Grey Knights do. I like that he got stuck in the warp and wanders without end, completely alone. But having him turn up at the right time to help out his Grey Knight buddies seems a bit too deus ex machina for me. Having him stuck in the warp, looking for a way back home but never getting there would make for a cool story, but popping in and out seemingly at will... is just a bit meh. It doesn't ruin the character for me, I can still see it happening, it's just a bit meh.

It is disingenuous to imply a Daemon Primarch and random Greater Daemon number 34 have the same literary signifigance.

Not sure what the rest of this snippet of your post has to do with the topic though. Though I would agree that Draigo's role in any campaign would effectively be that of a Deus Ex Machina.

The only thing that really gets my goat in this thread is people wailing that no one could ever beat a Primarch, so it's completely ridiculous that Draigo did it.

Can you name any other character (Who is not a Primarch) to have bested a Primarch mono el mono? All that comes to mind are Luther and that Imperial Governor, both of whom were blessed by the Chaos Gods for the sole purpose of pwning Primarchs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:Grey Knights are specialised in killing Daemons. If you have a chaos problem, the highest chance that it will be solved, would be by calling in the Grey knights. In order to defeat chaos as and when they encounter it, Grey Knights have to be powerful enough to kill not just some lowly Daemon, but also Greater Daemons, Daemon Princes, and yes, even Daemon Primarchs too.

Which is why Angron was beaten by a single Grey Knight. Oh wait, silly me, it was dozens of Grey Knights combining their power.

Are we saying that a Daemon Primarch is so baddass that it simply cannot be defeated? Then any one Daemon Primarch can just lead his Daemon Host on a one way street straight to Terra and just be done with it. Although they are powerful, they can be killed, just like any other monstrous creature in 40k can. The good thing to killing a Daemon in fluff writing is that it just gets reborn in the warp, so you didn't do anything lasting damage that has to be retconned.

The entire Grey Knights codex devalued Chaos's credibility as a threat, hell, Draigo did it single-handedly. Angron was bested in an epic battle with a hundred Grey Knights on the field. Mortarion was pushed over and pwned by one, without any sense of effort conveyed. Daemon Primarchs aren't completely inassailable, but they shouldn't be so casually Worfed like Mortarion was.

Imagine if the fluff reads that Draigo killed Eldrad, or someone who is not immortal. Then you got an even bigger problem because you can't use that guy anymore cos in the fluff, he has already been killed by Draigo.

Eldrad is dead. Killed by Chaos. Lol. Whoa.

Also your point has no value because no one said Mortarion shouldn't be beatable, the issue is how he was beaten. Not to mention, a character can lose to show the credibility of a character without dying. Belial was nearly torn in half by Ghazghkuull, but is still alive, for example. Calgar was rightly fethed the hell up by the Swarmlord, but still leads his chapter in battle.

In any case, Draigo is one of the most powerful grandmasters ever in the line of Greyknight grandmasters. And Grey knights are supposed to be one level higher than normal space marines. So, in the context, why is it so hard to imagine that he defeated Motarion, and he had help too. Magnus Calgar killed an Eldar Avatar of Khaine, which is equivalent to a Greater Daemon any day.

No. A normal Primarch is stronger than both.

The Chaos gods got loads of Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes. Just because the Daemon Primarchs are famous to the imperium doesn't necessarily mean that when they ascended to become princes, they were granted so much power that they are much more powerful than a Greater Daemon.

Lorgar, the weakest Primarch at the time, without any Chaos nonsense backing him, beat An'ggrath the Unbound in single combat. Aka the strongest or one of the strongest Greater Daemons. Oh, he then went on to get the living gak beaten out of him by Corax, a Primarch.

Primarchs are stronger.

Nowhere in the chaos codex, or chaos daemon codex does it state that wihin the hierachy of chaos, the Daemon Primarchs stand much higher than other Daemon Princes or Greater Daemons. There is also no direct evidence in any of the codex that a Daemon Primarch is much more powerful than a named Greater Daemon like say Fate Weaver or such.

Let's see what Fateweaver himself has to say on the subject, shall we?

"Both wizened heads bobbed in acknowledgement. ‘If you could
banish the Unbound,’ the first said, ‘you could easily banish me,
as well.’
‘Or perhaps I am more than I appear to be,’ the second hissed.
‘Perhaps you are weaker now and you would fall before my sorcery.’"

Depending on which head is lying, either Lorgar weakened as he is would still beat Fateweaver, or Fateweaver only has a chance due to An'ggrath weakening Lorgar.

So, why is it so hard to believe that Draigo could have banished Motarion? If the most powerful of the Grey Knights cannot defeat a Daemon Primarch, then who can?

It is the way it was done, not that it was done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:Its only a short paragraph on this, so we don't know if Draigo was alone or not. Its likely he wasn't. Grey knights usually don't go into any mission alone, unless it was a special case like his curse thingy. We know his previous grandmaster got killed by Motarion. And he most likely wasn't alone either. Its quite possible to imagine that there was a huge epic fight involving many grey knights, and death guard on both sides before the grand master was killed and after that, Draigo avenged him.

Alone and unaided, Draigo beat him.

Besides, looking at how he is able to literally survive for eons in the realm of chaos, killing any daemon that got near to him, banishing a primarch would seem possible, for the likes of Draigo.

I agree that crushing a Primarch in single combat is not Draigo's most impressive feat. That is a problem.

"Draigo did much more ridiculous gak later" is not an excuse for what came before, lol.

I find Matt Ward's fluff entertaining to read. And quite memerable too. I have read lots of codexes and actually, many of the other exploits in the other codexes are more forgettable even though they could be entire pages long. But with one short paragraph on this, it not only makes an impression, but so many of us remember this and see, there is even a thread in this forum arguing about how this is possible.

Yeah I guess it is memorable in the same way CS Goto is.

Kaldor wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No it means you cooked alone and unaided. Seriously, if "alone and unaided" doesn't mean "alone and unaided" I don't know how else you would indicate that he is alone and not being aided.

Right, but in the context of the passage, it doesn't mean Draigo and Geronitan were there alone. It doesn't eliminate there being, say, a bodyguard of Paladins who also lent a hand during the combat. All it says is at the particular moment that Draigo went nuts, there was no one helping him. It doesn't mean there was no-one else there, and it doesn't mean that no aid was given.

To bring it back to the kitchen analogy: I might be cooking alone and unaided, but someone else bought the ingredients for me, and someone else prepared the desert for me. Neither of which changes the fact that at that moment, I'm the only one doing any cooking.

Ah. So your point is that while there were other Grey Knights there, they were too incompetent or lazy to fight either the bodyguard or Mortarion, instead beciding to stand around and discuss how awesome Draigo is. The quote, if you'd care to read it, says that Draigo, alone and unaided, barrels through the bodyguard and carves a name into Mortarion's heart. The fact that the entire battle is given in a single sentence leaves very little room to add in aid of any kind.

@ Void Dragon, what's his name the Bloodthirster beat Sanguinius and broke his back. Sanguinius did the same to him later when he actually knew what he was dealing with.

Kaldor wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No it means you cooked alone and unaided. Seriously, if "alone and unaided" doesn't mean "alone and unaided" I don't know how else you would indicate that he is alone and not being aided.

Right, but in the context of the passage, it doesn't mean Draigo and Geronitan were there alone. It doesn't eliminate there being, say, a bodyguard of Paladins who also lent a hand during the combat. All it says is at the particular moment that Draigo went nuts, there was no one helping him. It doesn't mean there was no-one else there, and it doesn't mean that no aid was given.

To bring it back to the kitchen analogy: I might be cooking alone and unaided, but someone else bought the ingredients for me, and someone else prepared the desert for me. Neither of which changes the fact that at that moment, I'm the only one doing any cooking.

Now maybe I am weak on the English language but Im fairly certain that (Using your kitchen analogy) that the second someone brings you ingredients you are no longer alone and if someone prepares desert you have been aided so you would be cooking, with company and aid.

If he is in a room with several Grey Knights then Draigo isnt alone and if even one Grey Knight uses his weapon even once (even if it was a miss) he has been aided. (Doesnt matter if the aid is incompetant). Now if there was a bodyguard and they all died and Geronitan was the last one to die and then Draigo won the battle, that would be okay. The problem is that the wording makes it sound like Draigo walked in at destroyed some of the most powerful warriors there are without even breaking a sweat when they were at their peaks. Most people just want a simple statment that would say that after Geronitan died, Draigo led a force to avenge him and did just that... Draigo emerged as the only survivor

BOOM, everyone is happy. Draigo seems like a badass, people can use their immagination as people ask "how did he do that? Thats awsome, it must have been an epic battle...." and Mortarion seems powerful because those were stacked odds and he did pretty well considering.



Now maybe Im miss understanding everyone but the impression I got is that people just want even another 1 or 2 sentinces so that we can develop a better picture because with the limited knowledge we have, it just seems to implausable and when we finally can picture it, we realize that there is information that is vitally important missing which is the problem.


Again I prefer to immagine that this is just the Chaos Gods fething with Draigo and that it is all in his dreams. This is why he cant ever truelly win against Chaos or make difference, because he lost a long time ago.

Do you know how much fluff Draigo got? A page and a half of 9 font text. What did Ward do? create a bunch of awesome things, for Draigo to do, then explain only a few with more than a few sentences.

Draigo killing a Daemon Primarch should have been explained more. Ward should have elaborated on this monumentous feat.

It could've added so much to Draigo's character, but since Draigo acts more like a walking cliche (no emotions, just SO HARDCORE) than an actual person, I doubt much more could've been done.

Durza wrote:@ Void Dragon, what's his name the Bloodthirster beat Sanguinius and broke his back. Sanguinius did the same to him later when he actually knew what he was dealing with.

Yeah, Ka'Bhanda, aka the strongest Bloodthirster (He and An'ggrath are the candidates for that title currently).

Sanguinius actually was shown to have the advantage in the stand-up melee with Ka'Bhanda in the first fight, which I should mentioned occurred after months of constant battle for Sanguinius and his Legion.

When a somewhat fresher Sanguinius fought Ka'Bhanda, he had much less trouble and then continued fighting.

Also at some point, according to Aurelian, he kills a Daemon Prince Argel Tal. Yeah.

To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Ronin-Sage wrote:To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Alone text?

TheRobotLol wrote:

Ronin-Sage wrote:To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Alone text?

"Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name on the Daemon's vile heart."

I guess what I meant was the premise of him being alone in the battle.

Ronin-Sage wrote:

TheRobotLol wrote:

Ronin-Sage wrote:To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Alone text?

"Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name on the Daemon's vile heart."

I guess what I meant was the premise of him being alone in the battle.

Aaah! I see.

But was he aided?

KamikazeCanuck wrote:But was he aided?

Draigo or mortarion?

The text from the codex(unless I'm missing something) doesn't provide enough detail on whether or not either Draigo or Mortarion were alone(as in, engaged in a duel).

Ronin-Sage wrote:The text from the codex(unless I'm missing something) doesn't provide enough detail on whether or not either Draigo or Mortarion were alone(as in, engaged in a duel).

I'm pretty sure, Draigo is said to be alone and unaided, while he smashes past Mortarians BODYGUARDS before doing the whole name-heart-incident.

Well, paraphrasing from the codex, it says he became the supreme grand master following the previous one's death at Mortarion's hands, and his first act was to carve his name upon his [Mortarion's] heart.

While I definitely would argue that Draigo wouldn't prevail against Mortarion alone, we can't even draw enough information from the text to determine if the previous chapter lord's death and Draigo engaging Mortarion even occurred in the same 'scene', let alone the conditions of the fight.

Ronin-Sage wrote:Well, paraphrasing from the codex, it says he became the supreme grand master following the previous one's death at Mortarion's hands, and his first act was to carve his name upon his [Mortarion's] heart.

While I definitely would argue that Draigo wouldn't prevail against Mortarion alone, we can't even draw enough information from the text to determine if the previous chapter lord's death and Draigo engaging Mortarion even occurred in the same 'scene', let alone the conditions of the fight.

Hmm, good point.

No it's not. Alone and Unaided!!!!

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No it's not. Alone and Unaided!!!!

To the max!!!!!!!

Ronin-Sage wrote:To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Codex: Grey Knights, Page 15 wrote:901.M41 The Battle of Kornovin

Supreme Grand Master Geronitan is slain at the hands of the Daemon Primarch Mortarion. Grand Master Kaldro Draigo is elevated to the rank of Supreme Grand Master amidst the din of the battlefield and vows vengeance on Mortarion. Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name on the Daemon's vile heart. Though Mortarion ultimately escapes, it is many long years before he can enter the mortal realm once more

That's where we're getting it from, the Codex itself. So, yes. . . according to Matt Ward, Draigo beat down not only Mortarion but also his bodyguards, however many there were,single-handedly. And then carved Geronitan's name on Mortarion's heart, of all things.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Ronin-Sage wrote:To be fair/honest, where is everyone getting the 'alone' text from?

Codex: Grey Knights, Page 15 wrote:901.M41 The Battle of Kornovin

Supreme Grand Master Geronitan is slain at the hands of the Daemon Primarch Mortarion. Grand Master Kaldro Draigo is elevated to the rank of Supreme Grand Master amidst the din of the battlefield and vows vengeance on Mortarion. Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name on the Daemon's vile heart. Though Mortarion ultimately escapes, it is many long years before he can enter the mortal realm once more

That's where we're getting it from, the Codex itself. So, yes. . . according to Matt Ward, Draigo beat down not only Mortarion but also his bodyguards, however many there were,single-handedly. And then carved Geronitan's name on Mortarion's heart, of all things.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

That's...special...

Clearly, Draigo is The Emprah's father.

'Search your feelings.. you know it to be true...

'Nooooooo!!!'

Big E is even missing an arm