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Now that all of the Primarchs rules, with the exception of Lion El Johnson, have been released who do we think is the most point efficient option, dare I say even competitive. There are some who seem like it would be a real struggle to earn their points back with for various reasons or at least difficult to use effectively such as Angron with his 3+ save and lack of force multiplication and others like Corax, Alpharius or the Khan who buff their legions nicely and can still zip around the board in relative safety slaughtering everything in their path. What are peoples thoughts on this? Are there some who are destined for the display shelf forever?

I don't see Jaghatai on the FW webstore. Did he get a model and rules?

Not to sure about all their points costs. Like many OP and OC HQs, perhaps with certain army builds they are more efficient and effective than in others.

Mortarion seems solid and provides some good army wide benefits, and he's actually fast with his shadowy redeployment trick. Only 425 isn't bad.

Alpharius also looks good. And love that model!

I've been thinking about Perturabo (cuz I'm resolved to being in the IVth Legion now) and I think he's actually good for taking a bunch of Reserves units since they can roll starting turn 1, and for giving Terminators Deep Strike. He's definitely a little pricy, especially with Forgebreaker, but I think still viable with enough cold calculating logic behind him.

He can also help make artillery more accurate including his own, and handle himself in melee if needed. To use his teleport homer, (I think those need to be on the table at the start of the turn) perhaps a Vigilator and a Primus Medicae attached to some Cataphractiis would do the trick, to Scout them up into good position.

I also like him making all Iron Warriors Stubborn. Since he's Master of the Legion from being the Primarch, he could take the Pride of the Legion ROW and make those Cataphractiis Troops too.

I usually only take Perturabo in larger games, but he does shine as a Army buffing lord, although the way I use him is stick him in a unit of Tyrants, DS him turn 1 and let his +1 BS + tank hunters + 20 Krak Missiles turn something big and superheavy to slag. Almost always works!

I think that all Primarchs have something to give, but some are certainly (on paper) more under whelming. Dorn for instance doesn’t look like much to me, but I’ve seen him pull off surprises on the table top.

Honestly, most of them are pretty viable in games, but it depends on what you want from them.

Angron is sadly dated and in desperate need of an update.

I run Ferrus pretty much every game due to him buffing my armour for me and he also makes one hell of a beat stick that people avoid like the plague.
He also draws strength D fire away from my more vulnerable units.

In the odd event I use my salamanders, Vulkan comes out now and then.
I tend to throw him and a firedraik unit in a Spartan just to eat shooting and keep the rest of my army alive.


If you want to piss players off though, run Magnus.
Short of the odd occasion where you see sisters of silence, deny the witch is pretty rare.
This means he’s free to terrorise the board at will and start evaporating units like mad.
He will also cost you friends in friendly games too as he’s everything but friendly.

Alpharius is incredibly useful in almost any size of game; the high-BS preferred-enemy plasma blaster gives him firepower beyond that of most Primarchs, between Instant Death and Armourbane he can take almost anything short of another Primarch in melee, the hidden deployment lets you pick your battles really well, and granting Preferred Enemy (Everything) to the whole army is stupidly good.

I find Magnus suffers from high cost and the fact that most of the psychic disciplines have a mix of strong powers and dud powers to balance random power generation. He's useful but hard to get the most out of, requires a lot of support from his army to get enough psychic dice, and can be kind of random.

I don't know if any of the Primarchs are straight-up duds; even Angron has a place and a function (chewing through large numbers of enemies that aren't protected by hardcore duelist characters). Some are definitely better than others but even the worst have nightmarish statlines/weapons and can batter through most of the things you could park in front of them.

I thought Magnus got a balance faq ? He is still overpowered or he is just powerful ?

Define "point efficient" and "viable".

You either take your Primarch in a game for the "Cool Factor" or because your opponent has a Primarch. It's very, very difficult in most games to deal with a Primarch if you don't have one. Even the most bland, non-special rule, cheapest point value Primarch can readily wipe the floor of just about any non-Primarch unit in the game, and at the very worst, can tie up the top three (or four?) Primarchs in the game (1. Horus, 2. Sanguinius, 3. Russ, 4. Magnus- if he rolls the right powers). The other factor is outside of one Rite of War, Primarchs are a Lord of War choice, and if you are playing with Lords of War, their are some very... interesting choices besides Primarchs.

I look forward to using my custom bashed Perturabo on the table top.....eventually, hopefully this year?!?! I'll wear a mask.

I also look forward to a huge 4000 point game so I can take the Tormentor, just because. If can make it so it actually transports the models, then I will feel like it's worth the what, 600 points?

I see they kinda nerfed his reserves effect to only him and his attached unit now. Meh, MEH I SAY!

So most of the lions rules are out, and he seems pretty fearsome. He mostly ignores invis and other tricks that modify the hit roll, always wounds on a 2+ against other primarchs, and has better than primarch normal WS and Int. They even tossed in a john wick reference in his rules.

 Grimgold wrote:
So most of the lions rules are out, and he seems pretty fearsome. He mostly ignores invis and other tricks that modify the hit roll, always wounds on a 2+ against other primarchs, and has better than primarch normal WS and Int. They even tossed in a john wick reference in his rules.

Point of note, fleshbane bounces off Mortarion and Alpharius, and is mitigated by Dorn. Unless there's a vested point difference, the Wolf Blade seems superior to the Lion blade in most situations (S10 shred is often better or equivalent to fleshbane anyway).

 obsidiankatana wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
So most of the lions rules are out, and he seems pretty fearsome. He mostly ignores invis and other tricks that modify the hit roll, always wounds on a 2+ against other primarchs, and has better than primarch normal WS and Int. They even tossed in a john wick reference in his rules.

Point of note, fleshbane bounces off Mortarion and Alpharius, and is mitigated by Dorn. Unless there's a vested point difference, the Wolf Blade seems superior to the Lion blade in most situations (S10 shred is often better or equivalent to fleshbane anyway).

That's fair, though the wolfblade doesn't have master crafted, and the three that can ignore fleshbane are probably not the ones he would worry about in a fight. Still the extra strength and reroll wounds probably make the wolfblade the better mathhammer weapon, which is weird and a bit disappointing. Still there might be some rules we are missing, and with either weapon he is more than a match for most other primarchs.

The power creep is now real in 30K. I can't believe they made The Lion easily in the top 5 of Primarchs. Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse, and I have no idea where they get this idea that he was some kind of melee powerhouse and one of the best Priamarchs in close combat. Yes, he fought Russ to a tie before sucker punching him. That's called a Plot Mechanism and used to drive a story forward. Forge World has taken this to mean the Lion was somehow one of the most powerful Primarchs when he really didn't do anything during the Heresy- being effectively sidelined by the Night Lords and by his poor choice in a second in command who was able to effectively split his Legion in half. The Grand Strategist didn't see the Heresy coming, didn't manage to get to Earth to defend the Emperor, and ended up blowing up the Dark Angels home world. At a time when the Imperium needed him the most, he was absent and decided to take a nap after being wounded by his second in command during a duel.

I expected Lion el'Johnson to be a "support" Primarch, more behind his Legion offering buffs and advantages in battle. Not some kind of melee powerhouse. Ah well. Happy for all the Dark Angels players and I'm still going to get this book! Just disappointed that Forge World went this route.

As a side note: It's clear Forge World doesn't understand it's own rules or fluff anymore by making the Wolf Blade so clearly better then the Lion Sword.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse.

He is described as both. The Lion defeats Curze, who Russ doubted he himself could defeat.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Yes, he fought Russ to a tie before sucker punching him. That's called a Plot Mechanism and used to drive a story forward.

Russ attacked him in a fit of childish pique, couldn't beat him for the three days the pointless fight lasted, and was surprised when the Lion didn't find it funny. By your measure, every other combat outcome could also be described as a plot mechanism.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Forge World has taken this to mean the Lion was somehow one of the most powerful Primarchs when he really didn't do anything during the Heresy-

His ability to do anything meaningful in the HH is irrelevant to whether he was powerful or not. His absence is described in the HH novels; he is again a victim of "plot mechanisms".

 Tamwulf wrote:
....his poor choice in a second in command who was able to effectively split his Legion in half.

Yes, it was poor judgement, but again nothing to do with whether he was powerful or not.

 Tamwulf wrote:
The Grand Strategist didn't see the Heresy coming..

Yet again, irrelevant to his power. Who else saw the heresy coming? In fact The Lion seizes some vital siege weapons right at the begining of the conflict. Taht he ultimately gave them to Perturabo speaks to The Lion's poor judgement of people, not a lack of foresight.

 Tamwulf wrote:
At a time when the Imperium needed him the most, he was absent and decided to take a nap after being wounded by his second in command during a duel.

Hardly worth dignifying this with a response. He was badly injured in the fight with Luther, and lapsed into unconciousness. No choice about it. Where was Russ by the way, other than sniffing backsides and pissing on lampposts in The Warp, obviously?

 Tamwulf wrote:
The power creep is now real in 30K. I can't believe they made The Lion easily in the top 5 of Primarchs. Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse, and I have no idea where they get this idea that he was some kind of melee powerhouse and one of the best Priamarchs in close combat. Yes, he fought Russ to a tie before sucker punching him. That's called a Plot Mechanism and used to drive a story forward. Forge World has taken this to mean the Lion was somehow one of the most powerful Primarchs when he really didn't do anything during the Heresy- being effectively sidelined by the Night Lords and by his poor choice in a second in command who was able to effectively split his Legion in half. The Grand Strategist didn't see the Heresy coming, didn't manage to get to Earth to defend the Emperor, and ended up blowing up the Dark Angels home world. At a time when the Imperium needed him the most, he was absent and decided to take a nap after being wounded by his second in command during a duel.

I expected Lion el'Johnson to be a "support" Primarch, more behind his Legion offering buffs and advantages in battle. Not some kind of melee powerhouse. Ah well. Happy for all the Dark Angels players and I'm still going to get this book! Just disappointed that Forge World went this route.

As a side note: It's clear Forge World doesn't understand it's own rules or fluff anymore by making the Wolf Blade so clearly better then the Lion Sword.

They don't even understand their own rules, the Lion gets better as he takes wounds from the Talon of Horus. So when his tendons are destroyed and his body dismantled he improves against Horus. Seems absolutely ridiculous to me

The Lion gets more attacks, but still loses strength per wound. I'm sorry, is having one Primarch that's not auto-losing to the Talon such a problem for you?

 BroodSpawn wrote:
The Lion gets more attacks, but still loses strength per wound.

The strength loss is irrelevant, he has fleshbane. He loses nothing.

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'm sorry, is having one Primarch that's not auto-losing to the Talon such a problem for you?

Yes, in this instance. It makes absolutely no sense, I understand the Lion is your special snowflake but this is ridiculous. Horus's talon combined with his fighting style is deliberately destructive. He cuts tendons, incapacitates combat effectiveness and generally disables his opponents and you're arguing its rational for anger to overcome this? No, theres a reason IWND doesn't effect the disabling strike rule. Even Primarchs, hell even the Emperor himself is vulnerable to this fighting style. Even the Primarch's superlative skill and strength is degraded, blademasters such as Sanguinus and Fulgrim, powerhouses like Angron who lift titan-legs and survive collapsing mountains, all of them are degraded in the same way by this targetted combat perfection. Are you seriously arguing that the Lion's bad temper is a more powerful force than these factors, a more valid reason for completely ignoring the effects? Yes his strength and ws technically do decrease but there is absolutely no reflection of that in the models performance which is absolutely nonsensical. I'm afraid no matter how hard you wish anger doesn't overcome severed tendons.

 BroodSpawn wrote:
The Lion gets more attacks, but still loses strength per wound. I'm sorry, is having one Primarch that's not auto-losing to the Talon such a problem for you?

You miss the part where the Lion never gets worse then a 4+ to hit, so WS is irrelevant. The Wolf Blade has fleshbane- so The Lion always wounds on a 2+ making his strength irrelevant. He also has a 4++ rerollable save, and gets more attacks as he gets wounded. In other words, in a fight against Horus, the Lion could win, and probably does I'd say 50% of the time without mathhammering it. There is NOTHING in the fluff AT ALL to indicate that The Lion could take Horus in a fight, and yet here we are. Thanks FW and your ridiculous power creep that started after Alan Bligh passed away and how much you screwed up Book VII: Inferno.

edited to replace shred with fleshblane. Also, the Wolf Blade has +3 S, giving The Lion an effective S9 in close combat with an AP2 weapon. WTF.

The strength of the wolf blade is utterly ridiculous. Why does it hit as hard as Sanguinius charging with the spear of telesto. Thats the weight of a primarch descending from the sky with momentum, striking with the concentrated point of a spear vs the lion swinging a big chainsword. How is that in any way comparible. As you say, mindless power creep

I've run through the maths of Horus vs Lion, and am fairly confident in my numbers. It is not a particularly close fight; Horus walks away with 2W by the end of it.
I'll save a line-by-line analysis, but as a narrative:

First round, both take a big chunk out of each other. Almost a dead tie. Horus' extra attacks, thicker armour and shredding talon make a very nice match to Lion's defensive bladework.
However, the Lion walks away maimed. This means that the second round is a WS8 Horus vs WS7 Lion, at which point Horus starts taking a significant lead. Every round, Horus takes a bigger and bigger chunk. Even as Lion gets angrier, he cannot close the gap.
By the 5th round, Lion is so maimed that Horus' Sire rule kicks in and it becomes an absolute stomping. Lion dies in the 6th round.

To me, that feels about right. Lion maintains absolute focus despite the pain and becomes progressively more reckless as the fight goes on, but ultimately the maiming cuts prove the difference.

It's also worth remembering that a 6-round bout is not a normal thing to see in a game and that in a real-life scenario, they would just lock each other out of the game. It's purely a fun exercise to flex on rival Primarch's and I don't begrudge Lion being as good as he is.

It *does* feel very strange that his focus rule seems to only make a difference in fringe cases like Russ or Horus, especially since it's not enough to let him actually win those fights. Seems very much like a non-rule, negligible in the vast majority of cases and irrelevant in the ones where it does apply.

 harlokin wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse.

He is described as both. The Lion defeats Curze, who Russ doubted he himself could defeat.

Doesn't Kurze strangle the Lion and is only saved by one of his officers stabbing Kurze in the back?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse.

He is described as both. The Lion defeats Curze, who Russ doubted he himself could defeat.

Doesn't Kurze strangle the Lion and is only saved by one of his officers stabbing Kurze in the back?

In a story written by ADB that has heavily favours the Night Lords... where the only other fiction for the Lion, really, had included him going toe-to-toe with a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch (or was that fight after this, I cannot remember)

 BroodSpawn wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Johnson was known as a Grand Strategist, not a melee duelist powerhouse.

He is described as both. The Lion defeats Curze, who Russ doubted he himself could defeat.

Doesn't Kurze strangle the Lion and is only saved by one of his officers stabbing Kurze in the back?

In a story written by ADB that has heavily favours the Night Lords... where the only other fiction for the Lion, really, had included him going toe-to-toe with a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch (or was that fight after this, I cannot remember)

By that same logic, the Gav Thorpe stories could be argued to be biased towards the Dark Angels though.

Yes, very much. A book that has a focus on one Primarch over another will often portray them as the stronger/better/winner. My point is, whenever anyone is talking about the Lion's ability against another Primarch it's always the 'was choked out by Kurze so he can't be that good'. And if that's not the intent, then why is it always brought up when used to justify the Lion being weaker than 1/3rd (if not more) of them?

Now yes I am a DA fan so let's get that out the way now. I find the 'Heretic/Traitor' jokes to be mildly insulting at this point, read a LOT of DA focused fiction, grabbed the special edition Primarch book, been in this hobby near 20yrs, etc. I feel justified in the following statement:
The Lion was the 1st Primarch (the one they're all based upon, much like the DA was the template for the rest of the Legions), and an absolute beast that was one part feared and one part respected by the rest of his brothers. He absolutely could win against most of them (Russ is considered one of the best fighters amongst them and the Lion wins that fight). Horus planned to remove the DA (and by extension the Lion) from the Heresy for as much as possible because he realised just how dangerous he was.
We have very few records of the sparring matches between them. GW/FW absolutely do have that information, and by the sounds of it have decided that the Lion is one of the stronger of the bunch. Maybe it's bias but I can live with him being better than Angron, Mortarion, Guilliman, etc and only really being bested by Sanguinius & Horus, with Russ being his direct equal.
As a fan, sure the Wolf Blade seems stupidly good and I wish the Lion Sword was the better of the two for dueling because I know if I put that version on the table people are going to be giving me looks and questioning my intelligence (or at least make me feel that's what they're doing for taking the apparently sub-par option). Do I think he's in the upper 3rd of the bunch? Absolutely.

Mozzamanx wrote:
I've run through the maths of Horus vs Lion, and am fairly confident in my numbers. It is not a particularly close fight; Horus walks away with 2W by the end of it.
I'll save a line-by-line analysis, but as a narrative:

First round, both take a big chunk out of each other. Almost a dead tie. Horus' extra attacks, thicker armour and shredding talon make a very nice match to Lion's defensive bladework.
However, the Lion walks away maimed. This means that the second round is a WS8 Horus vs WS7 Lion, at which point Horus starts taking a significant lead. Every round, Horus takes a bigger and bigger chunk. Even as Lion gets angrier, he cannot close the gap.
By the 5th round, Lion is so maimed that Horus' Sire rule kicks in and it becomes an absolute stomping. Lion dies in the 6th round.

To me, that feels about right. Lion maintains absolute focus despite the pain and becomes progressively more reckless as the fight goes on, but ultimately the maiming cuts prove the difference.

It's also worth remembering that a 6-round bout is not a normal thing to see in a game and that in a real-life scenario, they would just lock each other out of the game. It's purely a fun exercise to flex on rival Primarch's and I don't begrudge Lion being as good as he is.

It *does* feel very strange that his focus rule seems to only make a difference in fringe cases like Russ or Horus, especially since it's not enough to let him actually win those fights. Seems very much like a non-rule, negligible in the vast majority of cases and irrelevant in the ones where it does apply.

I hate to say it, but I think your math is wrong. The Lion never gets worse then a 4+ to hit in combat, no matter what modifiers.
Turn 1: Lion goes first (I7 vs. Horus I6). Has He has 5 attacks. He hits with 4 (it's master crafted, so reroll one miss). Next, he wounds on 2+ (Fleshbane). He'll wound all 4. Horus has a 3++ save. Horus takes a wound. Horus back at Lion: Horus has 5 attacks. He can divide them between World Breaker (S10, AP2, Master-crafted, Concussive, Unwieldy), or The Talon (S7, shred, disabling strike). Worldbreaker allows Horus to reroll one miss, wounds on 2+, and if the Lion fails a save, he'll strike at I1 next turn. The Talon allows for rerolls on wounds, and, if the Lion takes a wound, he'll be -1 WS and -1 S, that is cumulative round to round. Horus will want to make sure he gets that disabling strike in, so he'll do 4 attacks with the Talon, and 1 with Worldbreaker. Worldbreaker: Hits due to reroll, 2+ to wound, and the Lion has a 4++, so he makes the save. Next, 4 attacks by the talon: Three hit, now he needs a 3+ to round, and reroll failed wounds, so we'll say all 3 wound. The lion saves all three thanks to his one per turn rerollable save. But for this argument, let's say he takes a wound. End of turn 1: Horus: 1, Lion: 1

Turn 2: The Lion goes first (I7 yo! and he isn't concused). He is now fighting at WS 7 vs, Horus WS 8, but the Lion always hits on a 4+. And he always wounds on a 2+ thanks to Fleshbane. Horus takes a wound. Now that there is no reason for Horus to continue using the Talon (the best he can get to hit is a 3+), he switches over exclusively to Worldbreaker, meaning he will always strike at I1. Hits on 3+ (one rerollable), wounds on 2+. Let's say 5 attacks hit, 4 wound, the Lion takes another wound. The Lion attacks, Horus: 2 Lion 2.

Turn 3: The Lion gets +1 attack (getting angry!), so 6 attacks- more than Horus. Doesn't matter much, end of this turn: Horus 3, Lion 3

Turn 4: The lion is now really angry, and has 7 attacks. Horus 5 wounds, Lion 4

Turn 5: Last round, Horus goes down with the Lion having 5 wounds (1 remaining). This would be with statistically average dice rolls. Again, a couple swingy dice rolls and it could go either way, and I'm sorry, but the Lion should NOT be able to do this to Horus. Now, as a game is only 5-7 possible turns, there is no real way for the combat to go 5 rounds. We are also ignoring the rest of the armies and what they may or may not be doing.

TLDR; This match should not even be this close.

 Tamwulf wrote:

I hate to say it, but I think your math is wrong.

At the risk of this turning into a maths-fight...



My maths has Lion losing to Russ, Horus, Angron and Fulgrim. He draws with Guilliman and they kill each other after a long 10-round bout. Which seems pretty much perfect tbh.
The 'reroll a failed save' effectively acts as a damage-reduction, in much the same way that IWND does. This means that Primarch's need a certain 'floor' of damage just to keep up with Lion's regen and defensive work, while he in turn delivers extremely consistent damage output every turn and just wears the target down.
It's an extremely similar fighting style to Guilliman, which is why their fight is so close. Both 'power up' during the fight, Lion with his Attacks and Guilliman with WS, and they have extremely similar defensive focus.

Mozzamanx wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:

I hate to say it, but I think your math is wrong.

At the risk of this turning into a maths-fight...

[spoiler]

Lion is using the Lion Sword because Master-Crafted > Shred in a Primarch battle. Horus is using the Talon for all attacks for simplicity.
Round 1
Lion goes first, and will continue to go first in every round.

Round 5
Lion is now WS4 and hence Horus gets a bonus 2 Attacks. Horus is now beating Lion to a bloody paste. It is a good idea to switch to the Worldbreaker for the killing blow, but it is not necessary.

My maths has Lion losing to Russ, Horus, Angron and Fulgrim. He draws with Guilliman and they kill each other after a long 10-round bout. Which seems pretty much perfect tbh.
The 'reroll a failed save' effectively acts as a damage-reduction, in much the same way that IWND does. This means that Primarch's need a certain 'floor' of damage just to keep up with Lion's regen and defensive work, while he in turn delivers extremely consistent damage output every turn and just wears the target down.
It's an extremely similar fighting style to Guilliman, which is why their fight is so close. Both 'power up' during the fight, Lion with his Attacks and Guilliman with WS, and they have extremely similar defensive focus.

Opps. I forgot about the Sire of the Sons of Horus rule and Horus gaining +d3 attacks when fighting something with a WS of 4 or less. But to get that far, you'd have to be fighting for over four rounds- which seems unrealistic. What I see happening in a game between these two is that they get locked into combat, one or the other challenges, then they fight for the rest of the game, basically nullifying each other while the rest of their armies continue to fight. If that was the design intention for the Lion to be able to fight the best Primarchs to a stand still for several turns, then good job FW! However, there is a lot about the Lion that doesn't make sense- like how the Wolf Blade is so much better then the Lions Blade, and how/why the Lion is in the top three for combat ability when he's really not represented that way in the fluff.

Anyways- thanks man! Been too long since I've delved into 30K, and really want to get back into it! Stupid Pandemic! **shakes fist at Nurgle**

Of course, that's pretty typical of most Primarch duels I think. They are a fun way to flex on your opponent and completely irrelevant in an actual game. I think the best you can hope for is to remove your opponents from the game if you think you can survive it, but that's hardly the fun way to do it.

In answer to the original post, I think the best in a practical scenario is pretty clearly Alpharius, just because army-wide Preferred Enemy is absolutely ridiculous and he is perfectly capable of bonking a Praetor off.
Funnily enough, I don't think Russ is particularly worthwhile because he is so specialised in a job that doesn't really need doing, even if he is very good at doing it.

Mozzamanx wrote:
Of course, that's pretty typical of most Primarch duels I think. They are a fun way to flex on your opponent and completely irrelevant in an actual game. I think the best you can hope for is to remove your opponents from the game if you think you can survive it, but that's hardly the fun way to do it.

In answer to the original post, I think the best in a practical scenario is pretty clearly Alpharius, just because army-wide Preferred Enemy is absolutely ridiculous and he is perfectly capable of bonking a Praetor off.
Funnily enough, I don't think Russ is particularly worthwhile because he is so specialised in a job that doesn't really need doing, even if he is very good at doing it.

I agree on Russ! He is a massive points sink to be able to take out another Primarch, which he can do, but it's going to take a few rounds (three or more I think). He does literally nothing for his army. Well, I mean +1 LD army wide is good when you consider no one has the ATSKNF rule, but Space Wolves as an army can always regroup. So... it's like if you use Russ, it's Rule of Cool, or you are using him to specifically target and take another character out- and if it's not a Primarch, then it's massive overkill and there are better units/models for that. FW really up the Space Wolves rules. And then in the same book, they gave us the Thousand Sons (**cough cough BORKEN cough cough)- no, it's not the Coronavirus. Just had something stuck in my throat. Followed by the Custodies with wargear that had no rules, and an some even more borken rules, including their "Primarch". I think they learned from their lessons though and book 8 with the Blood Angels and White Scars was actually a good book, even though a good chunk of it was devoted to fixing the Custodes. Now, we come to Book 9... I suddenly have some apprehension about this book...

I think Dorn is actually probably one of the best Primarchs for his Legion. His Legion already has some great special units, wargear, and rules (+1 BS with bolt weapons! Nice!). Dorn adds army wide LD 10, and +d3 to assault results in close combat. Combine that with his points cost of 385 points and he's a steal. He may not be the best fighter, but if he gets into a close combat with another Primarch (except for the top dawgs), it's going to be a slug fest for several rounds, maybe even until the end of the game.

Curze is another great Primarch for his Legion. First turn Night Fight, and give all his units Fear with a -1 penality to enemy LD for the Fear Check. Combine that with the Night Lords other special rules and that he's pretty good in close combat, yeah.

Horus is fantastic, but you pay for it (500 points!!!).

Alpharius is probably the best at buffing his Legion, but it's a lask-luster Legion whose special ability is to mimic another Legion's special ability. So you can throw down the Alpha Legion and suddenly, I'm fighting the Sons of Horus, or maybe next game Blood Angels, or... so, fluffy for their Legion and background, but really lacks Legion identity if you ask me. And that's only if they pick that Rite of War. They also pick a special rule at the beginning of the game. In other words, I find the Alpha Legion to be full of tricks, but if they make any mistakes... they'll probably lose the game.

In the end, we play 30K for the Rule of Kewl, and because we get to use Primarchs, and it allows us to play the ultimate "What if..." game during the Horus Heresy. I will say this about Lion El' Johnson though: He's got a sweet model!

BroodSpawn wrote:Yes, very much. A book that has a focus on one Primarch over another will often portray them as the stronger/better/winner. My point is, whenever anyone is talking about the Lion's ability against another Primarch it's always the 'was choked out by Kurze so he can't be that good'. And if that's not the intent, then why is it always brought up when used to justify the Lion being weaker than 1/3rd (if not more) of them?

It's still just as relevant to bring up as any quote that also suggests that the Lion is incredibly powerful. All depictions need to be taken into account, and this is where "ranking" the Primarchs is difficult, because it's often not as simple as just X beats Y.

Now yes I am a DA fan so let's get that out the way now. I find the 'Heretic/Traitor' jokes to be mildly insulting at this point, read a LOT of DA focused fiction, grabbed the special edition Primarch book, been in this hobby near 20yrs, etc. I feel justified in the following statement:
The Lion was the 1st Primarch (the one they're all based upon, much like the DA was the template for the rest of the Legions)

Source on him being the template? He was definitely the "first", but that doesn't mean he was the template all the others were based on. In fact, I get the impression all the Primarchs were bespoke.

and an absolute beast that was one part feared and one part respected by the rest of his brothers.

He *was* an absolute beast, but so were many other Primarchs. Hardly unique there, and I'm not sure how much he was respected widely. A lot of his authority came from being simply 1st, which didn't really mean much at the end of the day. Feared? More just distrusted and kept at arms length. While Primarchs like the Khan and Alpharius were certainly not widely loved and respected, they had close friends in places (mostly in Horus). Conversely, did the Lion have any close allies or brothers? Not really - he was very much isolated and alone, which makes sense for his upbringing.

Basically, I only think he was respected in so far as his good combat record, and him being a Primarch. He wasn't exactly socially gifted.

He absolutely could win against most of them

Most? Possibly. He's certainly in the upper half.

(Russ is considered one of the best fighters amongst them and the Lion wins that fight).

Because Russ gives up. I don't count that fight for anyone's record, because it's not really a fight.

Horus planned to remove the DA (and by extension the Lion) from the Heresy for as much as possible because he realised just how dangerous he was.

Horus also did the same for the Ultramarines and Blood Angels. In fact, he sent TWO Legions after the Ultramarines, as well as his own fleets to slow the Ultramarines when the other two Legions couldn't. That doesn't mean that Guilliman was the best Primarch. In fact, I don't think Horus really ignored any Legion, save maybe the White Scars, who he hoped would join him instead.

We have very few records of the sparring matches between them. GW/FW absolutely do have that information, and by the sounds of it have decided that the Lion is one of the stronger of the bunch.

I think it's more likely that they've just introduced a great deal of power creep/bad rules writing.
Or do you trust GW/FW rules to be considered accurate to their lore depictions?

Maybe it's bias but I can live with him being better than Angron, Mortarion, Guilliman, etc and only really being bested by Sanguinius & Horus, with Russ being his direct equal.

Fulgrim and Angron should be higher, and the Khan too. The Lion's definitely in the top half, but top 5? Not sure about that. Upper third (aka, 6th best)? Quite possibly.

Tamwulf wrote:In the end, we play 30K for the Rule of Kewl, and because we get to use Primarchs, and it allows us to play the ultimate "What if..." game during the Horus Heresy. I will say this about Lion El' Johnson though: He's got a sweet model!

No lies here.

 Tamwulf wrote:
The Grand Strategist didn't see the Heresy coming, didn't manage to get to Earth to defend the Emperor, and ended up blowing up the Dark Angels home world.

Akchiually, it was the imminent arrival of Russ and Johnson with their Legions that caused Horus to try his final gambit of letting the Emperor teleport aboard so he could (try to) kill him.
At least, it was before the travesty that's the HH series.