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Oh boy it's one of these threads again
Assuming both primarchs are fighting with their commonly used wargear, are undamaged or otherwise molested before the fight begins.

Obviously straight off the bat fluff wise we can narrow this down to the really big hitters: Horus, Sanguinius, Angron (Magnus? With such monsterous psychic potential-the ability to rip apart an ork Gargant with his mind- he may stand a chance)

It is implied in several instances and even stated directly by corax/Magnus that Angron is (aside from Horus) the only Primarch capable of defeating the Angel. A fight between the two of them seems pretty close but I'm edging towards Sanguinus taking it through sheer rationality and swordsmanship. Although if Betrayal is anything to go by Angron is quite the force to be reckoned with-easily defeating Papa Smurf while wielding chainsword (a weapon that is explicitly stated to perform poorly vs the disruption field of his enemies weapons) yet his massive strength and rage carries the fight. He also survives being buried 20 miles below the ground after carving a hole with his chain axes, being crushed under thousands of tonnes of rubble that killed hundreds of his men and being stamped on by a warhound Titan. Let's not forget he also effectively defeats Leman Russ while unarmed-his sword breaks whereupon he disarms russ and beats him into submission.

The Angel on the other hand doesn't have quite such a gleaming record although my knowledge of his fluff is limited. Getting beaten down on his first meeting with Ka'Bandaha and being slain by Horus. Admittedly Sanguinius does take revenge banishing the bloodthirster, a keeper of secrets and again defeats Ka'Bandaha (although narrowly as he is knocked to the ground first).

The victor of that fight is most likely the one who could challenge Horus. Horus post warp eternity travel nonsense is obviously far beyond any of the other primarchs capabilities as he shows when he wastes sangy. Prior to this he seems to be on fairly even ground with Sanguinus and Angron with Lorgar saying that only Angron and Horus are capable of defeating the Angel when he fights with nothing held back. (It is implied that part of the reason for Lorgar keeping Angron alive is to use him to counter Sanguinius although he himself objects to this). Much of Horus' abilities are unknown however since he doesn't seem to personally commit to the fight often (except when he gets wounded by Temba which is less than impressive).

Magnus is a strange one, obviously in a close combat fight he has very little chance with any of the above as shown when he is defeated by Russ (although in the fluff Russ is having his ass royally handed to him before a blind sweep of his sword while reeling back in pain catches Magnus in the eye, the source of his power, which allows him to win). Horus states directly that he fears Magnus and his legion as his greatest threat. If given time to unleash his full psychic potential (we are assuming he doesn't hold back at all) I feel that Magnus has a credible chance at coming out on top, after all if his power is enough to unmake a Titan and blunt the whole space wolf attack on Tizca then it most likely has a good chance of crippling a single Primarch.

Tabletop wise Horus flattens all the current primarchs due to his nasty talon (which he somehow uses far better than Abbadon despite Abbadon having 10k years of practice with it), with Fulgrim coming in second and interestingly enough Perturabo third (although this is only if he uses forge breaker which he uses faaaaar more effectively than ferrus manus and is primarily due to the blinding effect).
Although with all that being said an ex-convict psycho Lord of the dark mechanicum statistically defeats every single Primarch-including Horus!! In a 1v1.

What are your thoughts?

On the table top - Angron with his buff rules up beats most of them reliably due to sheer volume of attacks but also is quite likely to die in the process. Interestingly Guilliman is also a real threat if the combat drags out more than a turn or 2.

Its commonly thought of Sanguinius and Angron as the top dogs in single combat and that's collaborated from multiple points of view in the books. Angron even gets the edge from most viewers as the only one capable of defeating the angel.

Russ sits high in the mix as well - top 5 at least.

Fluffwise:

In straight-up physical fights, I don't think I could definitively choose between Horus (before his Chaos upgrade), Sanguinius, and Angron - it would be too close to call.

If the rules of engagement are less... restrictive... I'd guess Corax or Kurze could probably take the field (though even then, Sanguinius could still end up on top - his precognition would allow him to avoid falling prey as easily) if Magnus doesn't decide to utterly annihilate his foe before they can take a step.

In the rules, you've basically summed up the fights, though I believe Transfigured Lorgar is very much a top-tier contender (Can't he get the Invisibility power?), and I would be surprised if Magnus was any less a beast due to the raw potency of Psykers in this edition.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Fluffwise:

If the rules of engagement are less... restrictive... I'd guess Corax or Kurze could probably take the field (though even then, Sanguinius could still end up on top - his precognition would allow him to avoid falling prey as easily) if Magnus doesn't decide to utterly annihilate his foe before they can take a step.

We've got pretty hard evidence that when the rules of engagement are pretty open, the Lion stomps the piss out of Kurze.

I'd put him near the top. Maybe just below Sanguinius and Horus. The issue is that there is only one Primarch he's fought, as far as I'm aware in the fluff, in a real fight at least. All he needed was a single punch to put the Puppy down.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
though I believe Transfigured Lorgar is very much a top-tier contender (Can't he get the Invisibility power?)

Not anymore since they nerfed him; he now gets to pick from Divination, Telekinesis or Malefic Demonology. Still, that gives him guaranteed access to Precognition which he casts on a 3+. Meaning he's hitting other Primarchs on a re-rollable 4+ at I6, re-rolling To Wounds at S8 and has a re-rollable 4++ saving throw. A re-rollable 4+ is actually statistically better than 3+, so technically he's hitting, wounding and saving better than almost every other Primarch when he has Precognition up. And since his weapon, Illuminarum, is basically a souped-up Power Maul (thanks Ferrus!) it also has Concussive and Smash meaning he can drop his opponent to I1 for the next round if he gets a Wound through or drop to a single S10 Attack if needed.

Lorgars issue is a comparatively low volume of attacks and only 5 wounds

 djones520 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Fluffwise:

If the rules of engagement are less... restrictive... I'd guess Corax or Kurze could probably take the field (though even then, Sanguinius could still end up on top - his precognition would allow him to avoid falling prey as easily) if Magnus doesn't decide to utterly annihilate his foe before they can take a step.

We've got pretty hard evidence that when the rules of engagement are pretty open, the Lion stomps the piss out of Kurze.

I'd put him near the top. Maybe just below Sanguinius and Horus. The issue is that there is only one Primarch he's fought, as far as I'm aware in the fluff, in a real fight at least. All he needed was a single punch to put the Puppy down.

We have evidence from a single fight - useful, but not conclusive, in my mind. Kurze also now has a better idea of how his brother fights - given Kurze is batman-as-a-primarch, I'd imagine a rematch may not be quite as much in the Lion's favor.

But yes, the Lion is definitely among the top... I just don't think he's good enough to compete with the top 3 (in the same way that Russ is among the top, but doesn't compete).

And didn't the Lion/Leman fight take place over a long period of time - something like days of dueling? I know everyone loves to hate Russ, but hyperbole like that doesn't really help your argument's credibility...

Fluff-wise, I think that Fulgrim comes out on top. After 1v1 Ferrus Mannus, he still wins. Then, he cuts Papa Smurfs throat with a poisoned blade. That's two primarchs right there. A close second would be Russ as he did crack Magnus's back and then proceeded to kill him. However, I do think that we are over looking Mortarion and Khan. Mortarion could easily hold out against most loyalist primarchs by sheer weapon skill and attrition alone. Maybe if you got too near, he could use bio-chemicals to gas the other primarchs. The Great Khan could just run you over with his bike....

Anacharis Scoria. Period.

 Massaen wrote:
Lorgars issue is a comparatively low volume of attacks and only 5 wounds

Angron gets my vote. I'm a bit biased since I have him on my shelf. Assembled but not yet painted.

 GoonBandito wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
though I believe Transfigured Lorgar is very much a top-tier contender (Can't he get the Invisibility power?)

Not anymore since they nerfed him; he now gets to pick from Divination, Telekinesis or Malefic Demonology. Still, that gives him guaranteed access to Precognition which he casts on a 3+. Meaning he's hitting other Primarchs on a re-rollable 4+ at I6, re-rolling To Wounds at S8 and has a re-rollable 4++ saving throw. A re-rollable 4+ is actually statistically better than 3+, so technically he's hitting, wounding and saving better than almost every other Primarch when he has Precognition up. And since his weapon, Illuminarum, is basically a souped-up Power Maul (thanks Ferrus!) it also has Concussive and Smash meaning he can drop his opponent to I1 for the next round if he gets a Wound through or drop to a single S10 Attack if needed.

Lorgar transfigured is still handily beaten by Horus on the tabletop


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Fluffwise:

If the rules of engagement are less... restrictive... I'd guess Corax or Kurze could probably take the field (though even then, Sanguinius could still end up on top - his precognition would allow him to avoid falling prey as easily) if Magnus doesn't decide to utterly annihilate his foe before they can take a step.

We've got pretty hard evidence that when the rules of engagement are pretty open, the Lion stomps the piss out of Kurze.

I'd put him near the top. Maybe just below Sanguinius and Horus. The issue is that there is only one Primarch he's fought, as far as I'm aware in the fluff, in a real fight at least. All he needed was a single punch to put the Puppy down.

I don't think there is any realistic way the lion could match Angron or Magnus. Corax also believes he could have easily defeated the night haunter as he is "easy to exploit" but realises he wouldn't have a hope against Angron. I don't think beating a weaker Primarch is evidence of a particularly strong warrior


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Fluffwise:

If the rules of engagement are less... restrictive... I'd guess Corax or Kurze could probably take the field (though even then, Sanguinius could still end up on top - his precognition would allow him to avoid falling prey as easily) if Magnus doesn't decide to utterly annihilate his foe before they can take a step.

We've got pretty hard evidence that when the rules of engagement are pretty open, the Lion stomps the piss out of Kurze.

I'd put him near the top. Maybe just below Sanguinius and Horus. The issue is that there is only one Primarch he's fought, as far as I'm aware in the fluff, in a real fight at least. All he needed was a single punch to put the Puppy down.

We have evidence from a single fight - useful, but not conclusive, in my mind. Kurze also now has a better idea of how his brother fights - given Kurze is batman-as-a-primarch, I'd imagine a rematch may not be quite as much in the Lion's favor.

But yes, the Lion is definitely among the top... I just don't think he's good enough to compete with the top 3 (in the same way that Russ is among the top, but doesn't compete).

And didn't the Lion/Leman fight take place over a long period of time - something like days of dueling? I know everyone loves to hate Russ, but hyperbole like that doesn't really help your argument's credibility...

I simply don't think that Russ can be counted among the top, he is beaten into submission by a weaponless Angron and crushed in the mud.
Although I may be biased as I really do hate the guy


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Celestialpainting wrote:
Fluff-wise, I think that Fulgrim comes out on top. After 1v1 Ferrus Mannus, he still wins. Then, he cuts Papa Smurfs throat with a poisoned blade. That's two primarchs right there. A close second would be Russ as he did crack Magnus's back and then proceeded to kill him. However, I do think that we are over looking Mortarion and Khan. Mortarion could easily hold out against most loyalist primarchs by sheer weapon skill and attrition alone. Maybe if you got too near, he could use bio-chemicals to gas the other primarchs. The Great Khan could just run you over with his bike....

Again I don't think you can take evidence of Primarch defeating a weaker Primarch as him being the best. Fulgrim was a daemon when he beat Smurf and was wielding the poison anathema, this is the only reason a single cut to the throat would have put him down so fast whereas Angron completely annihilated him during their encounter.
Against Ferrus Fulgrim was actually about to be killed after having his stomach cut open before he was empowered by the daemon in the laer blade and managed to kill ferrus.

Also mortarion is never credited with any particular weapon skill, in fact he is often specifically noted as best at mass troop killing which his rules reflect with his scythe. A powered scythe would be a very inefficient duelling weapon.

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

This. Anacharis Scoria beats up the Primarchs on the tabletop hands down.

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

Yeah, you're breakdown is pretty wrong. You used the wrongs stats with him when you were math hammering.

On the tabletop fulgrim can take most primarchs except from Peturabo and Horus.

 djones520 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

Yeah, you're breakdown is pretty wrong. You used the wrongs stats with him when you were math hammering.

What stats were wrong? I checked them over too...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

Yeah, you're breakdown is pretty wrong. You used the wrongs stats with him when you were math hammering.

What stats were wrong? I checked them over too...

He had Scoria with T6, when he's only T5. That scewed a ton.

my theory is each Primarch can defeat other Primarchs but no one Primarch can defeat all Primarchs.

I only have seen 4 primarchs on the tabletop: Horus, Angron, Curze and Ferrus.

In one vs one Angron is very fearsome but Ferrus could kill him easily, Ferrus can smite Angron with his hammer and he stunns the other.

Curze needs to engage in favorable situations, hitting and running thanks to being the only primarch with "Hit and Run". He doesn´t have enough strenght (6) to be a god killer so he needs to take profit of his movility to only fight when he can make the final strike.

Horus, well, Horus is very lethal and he has deep strike. But you can misdirect him and force him to kill an horde of cheap militias making useless the 1000 points unit of Horus and his Justaerin.

My favourite primarch in the fluff is Curze and I think that the rules captures his essence very well, as Sevatar said, the Night Lords lost the Thramas War because they fought a fair war, they engaged directly with the angels and they payed the consequences. Since Thramas they are fractured and they learn an important lesson, you can not win playing as a an honorable knight, they are murders, they fight when the enemy is weak, they must to chose the war, the conflict and the circumstances.

May be Curze is not the strongest, but he has enough aces in the sleeve and cunning to kill Johnson and Guilliman in Macrrage.

 djones520 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

Yeah, you're breakdown is pretty wrong. You used the wrongs stats with him when you were math hammering.

What stats were wrong? I checked them over too...

He had Scoria with T6, when he's only T5. That scewed a ton.

Scoria is T6. His profile is 5 but his wargear includes a Machinator Array which, among other things, makes him T6.

This is in line with every other Archmagos.

Scoria defeats every Primarch handily except Horus who he beats unless he is wounded in the first round by the talon


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Justycar wrote:
I only have seen 4 primarchs on the tabletop: Horus, Angron, Curze and Ferrus.

In one vs one Angron is very fearsome but Ferrus could kill him easily, Ferrus can smite Angron with his hammer and he stunns the other.

Curze needs to engage in favorable situations, hitting and running thanks to being the only primarch with "Hit and Run". He doesn´t have enough strenght (6) to be a god killer so he needs to take profit of his movility to only fight when he can make the final strike.

Horus, well, Horus is very lethal and he has deep strike. But you can misdirect him and force him to kill an horde of cheap militias making useless the 1000 points unit of Horus and his Justaerin.

My favourite primarch in the fluff is Curze and I think that the rules captures his essence very well, as Sevatar said, the Night Lords lost the Thramas War because they fought a fair war, they engaged directly with the angels and they payed the consequences. Since Thramas they are fractured and they learn an important lesson, you can not win playing as a an honorable knight, they are murders, they fight when the enemy is weak, they must to chose the war, the conflict and the circumstances.

May be Curze is not the strongest, but he has enough aces in the sleeve and cunning to kill Johnson and Guilliman in Macrrage.

Ferrus will beat Angron due to sheer tankieness on the tabletop, if Angron is fully powered by the butchers nails he stands no chance though. The fluff doesn't reflect this at all however, Angron would destroy ferrus with relative ease. Forge world have made him far too squishy imo, he is shown to take more punishment than any other Primarch and comes out of everything (except the butchers nails implants themseleves) with no lasting damage. It's for balance purposes he is made so squishy since he chews through units and most primarchs in moments . Realistically on the tabletop he's rarely going to go up against one of his brothers without the butchers nails effect at least being partially stacked I'm which case the odds swing back into his favour.

And yeah curze has very apt rules imo and a kickass model. He's always seemed like a low tier Primarch at best to me though

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Anacharis Scoria. Period.

Yeah, you're breakdown is pretty wrong. You used the wrongs stats with him when you were math hammering.

What stats were wrong? I checked them over too...

He had Scoria with T6, when he's only T5. That scewed a ton.

Scoria is T6. His profile is 5 but his wargear includes a Machinator Array which, among other things, makes him T6.

This is in line with every other Archmagos.

Edit: Correction, my Mechanicum player was feeding me bad information.

I have to say also before 7th edition Perturabo was one of the top 3 1v1 primarch. With his hammer and the combo: concussive, strikedown, and blind.
Sadly with strikedown nerf in close combat he lost mutch of his power, i think Horus, Guilliman Fulgrim and Angron are the top 4 primarch in 1v1 right now.

Unfortunately, Angron (and his legion, for that matter) weren't quite what they should have been in Book 1. FW played it conservatively when they started this thing. The WE have had a number of patches to correct them, but Angron hasn't.

Fluffwise, Angron should easily be in the top 3 with Horus and Sanguinius. Beyond his natural skill set, one-on-one fights are *what he did* for years on Nuceria. As the Night of the Wolf showed, where other primarchs are more leaders and generals, single combat is his thing.

On the tabletop, he's kind of an "it depends." Having said that, Angron is still a rolling ball of murder and hate. It's not a bad representation, it's just maybe a notch below what he should be. I expect that his rules 'patch' will come with daemonhood. I often wonder what THAT'S going to look like on the tabletop.

 gorgon wrote:
Unfortunately, Angron (and his legion, for that matter) weren't quite what they should have been in Book 1. FW played it conservatively when they started this thing. The WE have had a number of patches to correct them, but Angron hasn't.

Fluffwise, Angron should easily be in the top 3 with Horus and Sanguinius. Beyond his natural skill set, one-on-one fights are *what he did* for years on Nuceria. As the Night of the Wolf showed, where other primarchs are more leaders and generals, single combat is his thing.

On the tabletop, he's kind of an "it depends." Having said that, Angron is still a rolling ball of murder and hate. It's not a bad representation, it's just maybe a notch below what he should be. I expect that his rules 'patch' will come with daemonhood. I often wonder what THAT'S going to look like on the tabletop.

Indeed, Angron has so much raw attack power though. Making him anywhere near as survivable as other top tier primarchs would probably push him over into overpowered. If you do the mathhammer for Angron vs say Curze, Corax, Alpharius or Lorgar the speed at which he kills them is brutal. The others, with the exception of Horus and that evil talon, beat him solely on survivability.

IMO, without ruling out psychic powers: Magnus. To be frank, he's the only primarch who has literally ripped a gargant in half. and he's one of the only 2 primarchs to "successfully" solo a titan.

In a top 3/5 of sorts, I'd go:
1) Horus (probably)
2) Sanguinus and Magnus
3) Russ or Angron

I'm interested, why Russ? Many people seem to rank Russ highly and I can't understand why. Angron defeated him while unarmed and beat him into submission. I can't imagine his reckless duelling style would go up to well again swords masters like fulgrim or sanguinius and Horus would murder him

BaconUprising wrote:
I'm interested, why Russ? Many people seem to rank Russ highly and I can't understand why. Angron defeated him while unarmed and beat him into submission. I can't imagine his reckless duelling style would go up to well again swords masters like fulgrim or sanguinius and Horus would murder him

Though I hate the guy, the reason I put him high is mostly experience: It's implied that he dealt with the 2 previous legions, the whole "night of the wolf" debacle, and then the burning of prospero could mean that he's pretty used to fighting primarchs.

True, however fulgrim has killed 2 primarchs-Ferrus and Guiliman yet very few people would put him in the top 5. Personally I never believed the wolves were exceptionally good at fighting other marines, if the Night of the Wolf is anything to go by they were actually losing to the World Eaters. The other primarchs often say that the wolves assumed the name "the emperors executioners" and were so named as they were the only ones willing to attack other space marine legions.

The book "Thousand Sons" somewhat supports this, initially the wolves had success on prospero as Magnus shrouded them from his sons sight meaning they were able make planetfall and attack unmolested, they were also supported by blanks-the sisters of silence. Without the support of the sisters nullifying effect, disrupting the thousand sons whole fighting style the wolves were getting their assess royally handed to them. That's 2 accounts of fighting fellow legions, and 2 accounts of them having their butts kicked

I'd say Sanguinius, he would have beat ka'banda first time if he hadnt shocked him by revealing Horus betrayal, then he came back and beat ka'banda and a keeper of secrets bare handed without fully healed legs.

Then at terra he fought the duration of the siege, banished a blood thirster then managed to wound a chaos enhanced Horus after all that.

Curse gets a good mention for almost choking the Lion to death while having the Lions sword impaled through his chest. And he would have succeeded if it hadn't been for the Lions first captain intervening.

Well, he killed one primarch and put the other one on a life support stasis chair.