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Whatsup fello WH40k nerds!

Last night my best friend and I were discussing who the best Primarchs were in regards to fighting. This turned out to be a very fun 2 hour conversation over drinks and smokes. We ultimately decided that Russ was the best... But of course I know everyone here will disagree and rip into me with their reason why hahah

SOOOOOOOOO

I decided to do a fun Bracket of the primarchs just like in March Madness...

We have to seed the Primarchs 1-18 and then pair them off into a final battle.

Feel free to rank your Primarchs based on a 1on1 hand to hand combat. This includes weapons, just not physic activity (Magnus)

Enjoy and nerd out

What kind of "arena" would they get? I imagine some environments would benefit certain primarchs more than others.

At peak of powers, Horus.
Theres just no debate on that.

You mean like the FW stats?

 Ratius wrote:
At peak of powers, Horus.
Theres just no debate on that.

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back. All we know is that he bested an exhausted Sanguinius who just took out an army of Daemons.

Although in terms of shear damage, Magnus can probably kill everyone by doing something like dumping the planet they're currently on into the warp.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
At peak of powers, Horus.
Theres just no debate on that.

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back. All we know is that he bested an exhausted Sanguinius who just took out an army of Daemons.

Although in terms of shear damage, Magnus can probably kill everyone by doing something like dumping the planet they're currently on into the warp.

No psychic stuff, OP even pointed out magnus when he said it

Thatguyhsagun wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
At peak of powers, Horus.
Theres just no debate on that.

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back. All we know is that he bested an exhausted Sanguinius who just took out an army of Daemons.

Although in terms of shear damage, Magnus can probably kill everyone by doing something like dumping the planet they're currently on into the warp.

No psychic stuff, OP even pointed out magnus when he said it

I ignored it on grounds of it being completely stupid. You don't decide who is the best by tying their arms behind their backs and telling them to headbutt each other to death. Especially when psychic powers is how ALL of the Primarchs draw their strength and general absurdity from. Primarchs without any psychic mojo get pasted like that clone of Horus by Abaddon before he even became the Warmaster of Chaos.

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back.

This pops up every so often. There is zero evidence whatsoever that the Emperor was somehow holding back hoping Horus would see the errors of his ways. Horus was able to stand toe to toe with the single most powerful entity in the Galaxy at the time. Whether they were doing Queensbury rules or firing pewpew lasers at each other is irrelevant. In addition depending on which version of the fluff GW decide to make cannon, the only reason the Emperor was able to defeat Horus in the end was because either a Custodian or Olius opened a chink in his armor.
There is no other Primarch that could have stood against that. Magus psychically perhaps but I believe Horus had eclipsed him at that point too having all 4 chaos Gods backing him.

 Ratius wrote:

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back.

This pops up every so often. There is zero evidence whatsoever that the Emperor was somehow holding back hoping Horus would see the errors of his ways. Horus was able to stand toe to toe with the single most powerful entity in the Galaxy at the time. Whether they were doing Queensbury rules or firing pewpew lasers at each other is irrelevant. In addition depending on which version of the fluff GW decide to make cannon, the only reason the Emperor was able to defeat Horus in the end was because either a Custodian or Olius opened a chink in his armor.
There is no other Primarch that could have stood against that. Magus psychically perhaps but I believe Horus had eclipsed him at that point too having all 4 chaos Gods backing him.

Except Horus has demonstrated no impressive combat feats at all, we have zero evidence on his duel with the Emperor (meaning it's useless), and the only explanaiton for him say, beating Sanguinius is that Sanguinius was weakened. Otherwise, as Sanguinius has demonstrated the ability to fly at supersonic/hypersonic speeds, he could have simply slammed into Horus at such speeds that Horus may have even been launched over the channel.

I agree there is no concrete evidence of his powers yet. But if one extrapolates from the older fluff pre BL HH series, he was essentially fighting a God in a duel. Yes it could have been handbags at dawn but realistically it was truely titanic.

I'd be surprised to say the least if when BL write the final scene its not of fairly epic proportions and should give us a more concrete feel for Horus powers and abilities.

 Ratius wrote:
I agree there is no concrete evidence of his powers yet. But if one extrapolates from the older fluff pre BL HH series, he was essentially fighting a God in a duel. Yes it could have been handbags at dawn but realistically it was truely titanic.

I'd be surprised to say the least if when BL write the final scene its not of fairly epic proportions and should give us a more concrete feel for Horus powers and abilities.

I'd have expected the Emperor not holding back to have probably rekt Horus' battle barge.

However if I recall the Emperor wanted to face him face to face no?
To see what he had become.

Besides its possible the Barge had some sort of super shielding or warding.

If we are doing 1 on 1 battles giving horus the assistence of 4 gods seems a bit unfair.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Although in terms of shear damage, Magnus can probably kill everyone by doing something like dumping the planet they're currently on into the warp.

Magnus "lacks feats" for anything on that scale.

He doesn't, however, "lack feats" for getting his butt handed to him by a non-psychic Primarch, in spite of all his supposed might.

So either way he is clearly out of the running for the top spot.

 Ratius wrote:

Horus lacks any feats that make him impressive. We don't know if there was an actual contest between him and the Emperor or if the Emperor was just holding back.

This pops up every so often. There is zero evidence whatsoever that the Emperor was somehow holding back hoping Horus would see the errors of his ways. Horus was able to stand toe to toe with the single most powerful entity in the Galaxy at the time. Whether they were doing Queensbury rules or firing pewpew lasers at each other is irrelevant. In addition depending on which version of the fluff GW decide to make cannon, the only reason the Emperor was able to defeat Horus in the end was because either a Custodian or Olius opened a chink in his armor.
There is no other Primarch that could have stood against that. Magus psychically perhaps but I believe Horus had eclipsed him at that point too having all 4 chaos Gods backing him.

There is evidence that the Emperor was holding back. Whichever version of the story you read, Ollanius Pius or a Custodes, it is depicted as the Emperor immediately seeing that Horus was truly lost. At which point he obliterates Horus with a single attack.

Besides, if we're going to hamstring Magnus' psychic powers then we should also only be looking at Horus without his Chaos empowerment.

 Ratius wrote:
However if I recall the Emperor wanted to face him face to face no?
To see what he had become.

Besides its possible the Barge had some sort of super shielding or warding.

I was referring to Asura's wrath esque collateral damage as the battle barge gets torn to shreds by the power wielded by the two as they slam fists into each other with atomic bomb like force and mind bullet spam like gods.

 Ratius wrote:
the only reason the Emperor was able to defeat Horus in the end was because either a Custodian or Olius opened a chink in his armor.

I thought Sangy opened that chink in his armour.

tgjensen wrote:


Magnus "lacks feats" for anything on that scale.
He doesn't, however, "lack feats" for getting his butt handed to him by a non-psychic Primarch, in spite of all his supposed might.

Except smacking around a couple of Eldar titans around like little babys. Or was that the legion that did that? I dont remember.
Yes Russ is a non Psyker, in the same way a rune priest isnt a psyker.

To be fair, when Russ showed up at Magnus' homeworld, Magnus sat back and watched at the beginning because he felt he deserved it, but once his libraries of vast knowledge got leveled, then he went onto the attack. Russ still would have won the fight, but Magnus let him do a bit of damage at first. (Russ then preceded to break Magnus' back after Magnus decides to fight)

In a single fight... one on one... russ that is role. Beat the others up and get them back into line.


In an endurance fight? Vulkan.... If your immortal that is one of the best weapons you can have.

the ancient wrote:

Except smacking around a couple of Eldar titans around like little babys. Or was that the legion that did that? I dont remember.

That is orders of magnitude from dropping a planet into the warp, which was the claim in question.

Yes Russ is a non Psyker, in the same way a rune priest isnt a psyker.

Russ is a non-psyker compared to Magnus. Russ is no more psychic than many of his brothers. The point is, Magnus has a huge psychic advantage over his brothers - including Russ - and still lost to him. Or, if you want to be charitable, it was a close match and almost kinda a draw. Either way Magnus' psychic abilities are clearly not the magic win-button it is described as. By feats.

Bassline wrote:
In a single fight... one on one... russ that is role. Beat the others up and get them back into line.


In an endurance fight? Vulkan.... If your immortal that is one of the best weapons you can have.

Except that we know that Angron beat Russ. Corax believes that only Horus and Sanguinius have a chance against Angron, and Horus believes only Angron has a chance against Sanguinius. That puts Angron and Sanguinius together at the top of the list, with Horus either with them or close behind.

tgjensen wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Although in terms of shear damage, Magnus can probably kill everyone by doing something like dumping the planet they're currently on into the warp.

Magnus "lacks feats" for anything on that scale.

He doesn't, however, "lack feats" for getting his butt handed to him by a non-psychic Primarch, in spite of all his supposed might.

So either way he is clearly out of the running for the top spot.

All Primarchs are psykers, they use it to different degrees in different ways, but all twenty were warp spawned creatures similar to Greater Daemons, only more fleshy. Plus Russ has a natural psyker dampening ability, and Magnus can do things like freeze time. Also, given that Malcador was able to kick Titan into the warp, I'm pretty certain Magnus could do the same as Magnus should at least be just as powerful as Malcador, if not more so.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratius wrote:
However if I recall the Emperor wanted to face him face to face no?
To see what he had become.

Besides its possible the Barge had some sort of super shielding or warding.

Regular old psykers far weaker than the Emperor can fling multi kilometer objects like they're a stone. If Horus' Battle Barge had some protection from the Chaos Gods preventing it from being punted into Sol, the Emperor could have just as easily chucked another war-ship at it with little fuss. He definitely was holding back when looking at other psykers.

(For example, Betas and Alphas have chucked a starship and flown to space and cleaved capital ships in half [Khayon and Dak'ir])

As far as pure combat potential goes, it's definitely Sanguinius in terms of raw power. I remember somebody calcing his flying speed in one book as hypersonic (based off the time it took him to fly the distance of a capital ship), meaning he's tossing hypersonic haymakers at people.

 Orblivion wrote:

Bassline wrote:
In a single fight... one on one... russ that is role. Beat the others up and get them back into line.


In an endurance fight? Vulkan.... If your immortal that is one of the best weapons you can have.

Except that we know that Angron beat Russ. Corax believes that only Horus and Sanguinius have a chance against Angron, and Horus believes only Angron has a chance against Sanguinius. That puts Angron and Sanguinius together at the top of the list, with Horus either with them or close behind.

Why should I care what Corax thinks?

 Great White wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

Bassline wrote:
In a single fight... one on one... russ that is role. Beat the others up and get them back into line.


In an endurance fight? Vulkan.... If your immortal that is one of the best weapons you can have.

Except that we know that Angron beat Russ. Corax believes that only Horus and Sanguinius have a chance against Angron, and Horus believes only Angron has a chance against Sanguinius. That puts Angron and Sanguinius together at the top of the list, with Horus either with them or close behind.

Why should I care what Corax thinks?

Why should I care whether or not you care?

 Wyzilla wrote:

All Primarchs are psykers, they use it to different degrees in different ways, but all twenty were warp spawned creatures similar to Greater Daemons, only more fleshy.

The Primarchs were made in a laboratory. They may certainly all have been exposed to the Warp, and that may certainly be the source of the mutations and psychic powers some of them exhibit, but that is not the same as being warp spawned. Dorn, Guilliman, Vulkan, Mortarion, Ferrus etc. never displayed any kind of psychic abilities that I am aware of.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Plus Russ has a natural psyker dampening ability, and Magnus can do things like freeze time. Also, given that Malcador was able to kick Titan into the warp, I'm pretty certain Magnus could do the same as Magnus should at least be just as powerful as Malcador, if not more so.

Well, then Magnus should have thought of that when the Space Wolves were running rampant on his home planet. It's not like Russ' natural psychic dampening covered the entire planet. He's only one man, and can only be in one place at a time. Unless of course it isn't as simple as just throwing out a magic spell willy-nilly.

tgjensen wrote:
The Primarchs were made in a laboratory. They may certainly all have been exposed to the Warp, and that may certainly be the source of the mutations and psychic powers some of them exhibit, but that is not the same as being warp spawned. Dorn, Guilliman, Vulkan, Mortarion, Ferrus etc. never displayed any kind of psychic abilities that I am aware of.

The Emperor took knowledge from the Chaos Gods to actually give the Primarchs life though. They could very well be daemons given permanent host bodies for all we know. What we do know however, is that the warp was used in their making.

tgjensen wrote:
Well, then Magnus should have thought of that when the Space Wolves were running rampant on his home planet. It's not like Russ' natural psychic dampening covered the entire planet. He's only one man, and can only be in one place at a time. Unless of course it isn't as simple as just throwing out a magic spell willy-nilly.

IIRC, Magnus was using his psychic powers to assist his woefully outnumbered legion while physically fighting with Russ at the same time.

tgjensen wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

All Primarchs are psykers, they use it to different degrees in different ways, but all twenty were warp spawned creatures similar to Greater Daemons, only more fleshy.

The Primarchs were made in a laboratory. They may certainly all have been exposed to the Warp, and that may certainly be the source of the mutations and psychic powers some of them exhibit, but that is not the same as being warp spawned. Dorn, Guilliman, Vulkan, Mortarion, Ferrus etc. never displayed any kind of psychic abilities that I am aware of.

They're warp spawn made with knowledge stolen from the Chaos Gods. The God Emperor cut a deal with the Chaos Gods to get knowledge on how to create souls that would fuel each of his twenty sons, only to never pay the Chaos Gods back in return. Thus, cue the Horus Heresy.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Plus Russ has a natural psyker dampening ability, and Magnus can do things like freeze time. Also, given that Malcador was able to kick Titan into the warp, I'm pretty certain Magnus could do the same as Magnus should at least be just as powerful as Malcador, if not more so.

Well, then Magnus should have thought of that when the Space Wolves were running rampant on his home planet. It's not like Russ' natural psychic dampening covered the entire planet. He's only one man, and can only be in one place at a time. Unless of course it isn't as simple as just throwing out a magic spell willy-nilly.

 Wyzilla wrote:
They're warp spawn made with knowledge stolen from the Chaos Gods. The God Emperor cut a deal with the Chaos Gods to get knowledge on how to create souls that would fuel each of his twenty sons, only to never pay the Chaos Gods back in return. Thus, cue the Horus Heresy.

Say the Chaos daemons. And why would they ever lie?

I mean, the Horus Heresy caused a war on a scale scarcely ever seen before (Khorne) and great political upheaval, scheming and change (Tzeentch). Wars, and their aftermath, invariably cause a great deal of famine, crime and desolation, which is a fantastic breeding ground for diseases (Nurgle), and as a result we are pretty much cutting across the spectrum of emotions (Slaneesh). And then of course they each got a fancy Daemon Primarch in the deal. The Heresy in and of itself may well have been the goal of the Chaos Gods. They had every reason to say whatever lies they had to in order to cause it.

the answer is Russ. Assuming that this is a fist-fight, and Horus is not at the 'Infused-with-the-power-of-all-the-chaos-gods' stage.

We know that it is Russ because that was always his role - the Emperor's executioner. He had to be able to defeat the most powerful enemies the emperor could envision. Logically the Emperor created the primarchs to be as powerful as he could. Therefore the one he created to kill the toughest things must be the best fighter.

Others are smarter, bigger, psychicer, better tacticians, nicer, sneakier, more creative etc etc but Russ was the hard bastard.

Let's look at what we know (or is inferred) about Primarch vs Primarch.

Three primarchs have been killed, all by other primarchs.

2 by Russ
1 by Fulgrim

Curze has a good record, having defeated Dorn, Vulkan, Corax, and the Lion in fights, but he was also beaten by Lion too IIRC

Russ also beat Magnus in a fight. Magnus could probably have beaten him if he'd used psychic powers though - but the most powerful psychic abilities need time and space to cast - sacrifices, rituals etc etc that so probably not that useful in a one on one.

Horus was scared of Sanguinius as he thought that S was the only one who could beat him (and everyone liked him better). Given that a weakened S was no match for chaos Horus, we can assume that Horus's fears were based on his pre-chaos strength. Perhaps S is a challenger to Russ?

Who won the legendary fight between Russ and Lion though?

Russ beat Angron in a fight too, I am sure.

I mostly agree with that, though you forgot to mention Curze was killed by M'shen, so not every primarch was killed by another primarch.