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MarsNZ wrote:
It's pretty much pointless to try to gauge the strenghts of the Primarchs. I Flight of the Eisenstein we hear about how formidable Mortarion is, then he gets his heart tattood by some mortal random. Horus is second to the Emperor in power yadda yadda but the interex knife laid him low.
!

Draigo isn't really "a random mortal" that was Ollanius Pius, at least before he got repalced by a termie then apprentyl is being re-introduced in the HH series (Not up to date on them atm)
Draigo's fluff is absurd fanboy material

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
It's pretty much pointless to try to gauge the strenghts of the Primarchs. I Flight of the Eisenstein we hear about how formidable Mortarion is, then he gets his heart tattood by some mortal random. Horus is second to the Emperor in power yadda yadda but the interex knife laid him low.
!

Draigo isn't really "a random mortal" that was Ollanius Pius, at least before he got repalced by a termie then apprentyl is being re-introduced in the HH series (Not up to date on them atm)
Spacemarine and Primarch fluff is absurd fanboy material

corrected

What? Wasn't it a Custodian that replaced Pius?

The old WD I have I think says it was one of the IF termies that teleported up with the Emperor

From the end of the 90's? I think I can remember something there, but Pius came first, me thinks.

The daemon primarchs are beholden completely to Chaos Powers (since they are daemons).

Chaos likes the Imperium in its current state, after all, it won the Heresy to make it like this. Even if the daemon primarchs wanted to do something else besides occasionally terrifying a few systems (which they can't, since they're daemons and gave up on free will), their overlords wouldn't allow it.

The current status quo is what Chaos wants.

Abaddon can really only screw things up for them, but given his buffoonery, it's pretty unlikely he'll have any major success.

MarsNZ wrote:
It's pretty much pointless to try to gauge the strenghts of the Primarchs. I Flight of the Eisenstein we hear about how formidable Mortarion is, then he gets his heart tattood by some mortal random. Horus is second to the Emperor in power yadda yadda but the interex knife laid him low.

The fluff is so contradictory these threads will never come up with a clear answer.

I never understood the battles in HH novels. Astartes are such great fighters and train their entire lives and yet when the fighting begins they just randomly spray with bolters, or whenever the story requires it, make impossible semi-auto shots. Contradictions abound!

Just keep in mind that random mortal was a Grey Knight, and Magnus was a Daemon.

The GKs are Kryptonite to Daemons. A primarch is really no different in power to a greater daemon of his particular god.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
From the end of the 90's? I think I can remember something there, but Pius came first, me thinks.

Pius was definitely first, then changed to an IF terminator, it may be reversed when the HH novels finally conclude

Hopefully, or we have a Custodian killed by a harsh glance. :S

 Just Dave wrote:
More of a draw or Abaddon having the upper hand as I recall, but yeah it was pretty close.

And exactly how much of a threat do you expect Eldrad would be to a Primarch in combat?

Eldrad ran from Fulgrim during the Heresy, but that was a long time ago.


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MarsNZ wrote:
It's pretty much pointless to try to gauge the strenghts of the Primarchs. I Flight of the Eisenstein we hear about how formidable Mortarion is, then he gets his heart tattood by some mortal random.

Draigo romps through Chaos's home turf and is explicitly unable to be vanquished by the Chaos Gods, according to that fluff. He isn't some mortal random.

Horus is second to the Emperor in power yadda yadda but the interex knife laid him low.

Current fluff doesn't really portray Horus as second to the Emperor in power. And that is only a contradiction if fatty has showings portraying him as lower than Horus. He doesn't.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Just keep in mind that random mortal was a Grey Knight, and Magnus was a Daemon.

The GKs are Kryptonite to Daemons. A primarch is really no different in power to a greater daemon of his particular god.

Mortarion. Not Magnus.

That's an interesting point of view, considering I am pretty sure that every single solitary time a Primarch has fought a Greater Daemon with the sole exception of Ka'Bhanda in the first fight (And apparently according to new fluff Sanguinius actually won that fight and went on to beat up another Greater Daemon... I guess), the Primarch has won. Ka'Bhanda and An'ggrath, the two mightiest Bloodthirsters? One bested by Sanguinius, the other bested by Lorgar. Fateweaver? Beaten by Lion El'Jonson. Some random Greater Daemon in the Warp? Magnus easily defeated it.

And so on.

The Daemon Primarchs are the mightiest of all Daemons, going by The Emperor's Gift, and the Space Wolf codex's account on the First War for Armageddon pegs Angron as the greatest of all Khorne's servants, further validating that statement.


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 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Pius was definitely first, then changed to an IF terminator, it may be reversed when the HH novels finally conclude

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Draigo isn't really "a random mortal" that was Ollanius Pius, at least before he got repalced by a termie then apprentyl is being re-introduced in the HH series (Not up to date on them atm)
Draigo's fluff is absurd fanboy material

What? I think you're mixing up your fluff. Ollanius intevened in Emperor vs Horus. Draigo wasn't alive back then.

Just keep in mind that random mortal was a Grey Knight, and Magnus was a Daemon.

The GKs are Kryptonite to Daemons. A primarch is really no different in power to a greater daemon of his particular god.

And yet 100 GKs got smashed just to banish Angron for a century? More contradictions

Draigo romps through Chaos's home turf and is explicitly unable to be vanquished by the Chaos Gods, according to that fluff. He isn't some mortal random.

It's ridiculous random fanboy fluff like that which a lot of these contradictions arise IMO

Current fluff doesn't really portray Horus as second to the Emperor in power. And that is only a contradiction if fatty has showings portraying him as lower than Horus. He doesn't.

So because the Emperor isn't ever portrayed as weaker than Horus the contradictions in the fluff obviously do not exist? Because that's what you're implying. The contradiction is that Horus is #1 Primarch, (again, wildly contradictory how powerful ANY of them are - but Horus is #1) But this Xenos knife can bring him to a point where only Chaos has the power to save him?

It's a magical Chaos-imbued artifact that can be tuned to be utterly lethal to its target. Why is that far-fetched?

iirc, wasn't the "random xenos knife" Anathame, a chaos artefact that can be enchanted to be the bane of a certain foe above all others?

MarsNZ wrote:
It's ridiculous random fanboy fluff like that which a lot of these contradictions arise IMO

It is only a contradiction if Draigo by all accounts is not completely fething ridiculous. It's bad fluff, but Draigo beating Mortarion doesn't necessarily contradict Mortarion's previous abilities. Not when beating up a Primarch is one of Draigo's least notable accomplishments.

So because the Emperor isn't ever portrayed as weaker than Horus the contradictions in the fluff obviously do not exist? Because that's what you're implying.

Nowhere did I imply that, you just lack proper reading comprehension.

The contradiction is that Horus is #1 Primarch, (again, wildly contradictory how powerful ANY of them are - but Horus is #1) But this Xenos knife can bring him to a point where only Chaos has the power to save him?

Oh yes, the new fluff contradicts only that Horus is the most awesome Primarch at everything. Not that, as a Primarch, he is really fething powerful. That has not been contradicted.

The Horus Heresy series certainly does not portray him as the tuffest of all the Primarchs.

It was a very powerful Chaos weapon that was blessed for the purpose of laying Horus low. Why is that being able to wound him badly a contradiction?

MarsNZ wrote:

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Draigo isn't really "a random mortal" that was Ollanius Pius, at least before he got repalced by a termie then apprentyl is being re-introduced in the HH series (Not up to date on them atm)
Draigo's fluff is absurd fanboy material

What? I think you're mixing up your fluff. Ollanius intevened in Emperor vs Horus. Draigo wasn't alive back then.

I was just using Ollanius as an example of a 'random' human as compared to Draigo

Void__Dragon wrote:

 Just Dave wrote:
More of a draw or Abaddon having the upper hand as I recall, but yeah it was pretty close.

And exactly how much of a threat do you expect Eldrad would be to a Primarch in combat?

Eldrad ran from Fulgrim during the Heresy, but that was a long time ago.

I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you, just clearing up that Eldrad didn't really beat Abaddon, it was closer to the other way round. And yeah, I expect Eldrad to be very little threat to a Primarch - minus psychic powers at least - and that it's only sensible for him to run.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
iirc, wasn't the "random xenos knife" Anathame, a chaos artefact that can be enchanted to be the bane of a certain foe above all others?

This.

IIRC the blade would kill whatever it's designated target is, which in this case was Horus, and was therefore no reflection on his own person/toughness.

 Just Dave wrote:
I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you, just clearing up that Eldrad didn't really beat Abaddon, it was closer to the other way round. And yeah, I expect Eldrad to be very little threat to a Primarch - minus psychic powers at least - and that it's only sensible for him to run.

I did not mean to imply you were disagreeing with me.

 Compel wrote:
However, there's also the reference in the new Chaos Codex that the Primarches are actively out fighting as part of the 13th Black Crusade.

Presumably, they haven't taken over Abaddon's job because they 'd rather be out crumping heads at the forefront of their armies than sitting on a spaceship plotting the campaign.

Definitely a good point. If I were a 15 foot tall pillar of winged murder and destruction I would want to be tearing it up on the front lines too.

The reason Abbadon is warmaster is because he is not a daemon. He recognized daemonhood for what it really was. Weakness and control. The chaos gods have no power over him so he can command those who have devoted themselves to each of the gods. That is something that the daemon primarchs can't really do.

In a 1 on 1 fight between Abbadon and a daemon primarch it just depends on who the chaos gods want to win. All it takes is for a given god to take away the power they have given to the primarchs and they're suddenly a limp noodle. That's assuming they survive the rapid loss of power and their body hasn't been totally wrecked by chaos already.

 Daedricbob wrote:
Abaddon leads the Black Crusades as he is the the only one who can issue a call-to-arms of sufficient power to unite the legions and daemons under his banner.

The reason his call-to-arms is so powerful is that he's spent several editions of 40K honing this skill by calling to his own arms when they repeatedly fall off within a single battle.

Legend has it that the move to finecast has removed this innate ability, and the Chaos Gods now see several holes in his previously impenetrable armour opening up.
Abaddon knows this, however, and has replaced Drach'nyen with drops of superglue and liquid greenstuff to seal them.

Am I the only one who found this hilarious and so true of the old metal Abaddon?

No, because pinning exists.

 Omegus wrote:
No, because pinning exists.

As does green stuff.

The whole "No Arms" meme is a bit tired.