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w1zard wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Magnus is the easy choice if you assume he can just "do anything at any time," without consequence. Assuming he has the ability to just snap his fingers and both locate & instantly destroy all the other primarchs is ridiculous. If he had these powers, he would have done so at any point post-heresy. When he showed up and faced off against Guilliman, he was winning, but Guilliman was also out of ammo and had been fighting like crazy for some time. There is simply not enough evidence to suggest Magnus has the powers you say he does. It's highly likely that if he were encountered by someone like Angron or Russ early on, he would lose.

It's not an assumption. Magnus has been canonically stated in multiple sources to be almost as powerful, or as powerful psychically as the emperor himself. Considering that the emperor erased Horus from fething EXISTENCE with a mere thought (the pumped up chaos version of Horus no less, AND did it while mortally wounded) it is not a stretch to say that Magnus could do something similar. I recall in one of the Thousand Sons novels, when Magnus was squaring off against Russ on Prospero he wasn't trying to kill him, he was just trying to hold him back so that he could complete his spell.

So, canonically... Magnus fought Russ to a stalemate WHILE channeling one of the most powerful spells a (roughly) human psyker has ever cast in the history of the galaxy, and STILL had to take special care not to accidentally kill him. Yeah... I think Magnus would win this one out of sheer OPness.

Magnus almost died to a broken Eldar Titan. He's not all that. Being seconds from death and living only because of literal divine intervention is not a stalemate.

pm713 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Magnus is the easy choice if you assume he can just "do anything at any time," without consequence. Assuming he has the ability to just snap his fingers and both locate & instantly destroy all the other primarchs is ridiculous. If he had these powers, he would have done so at any point post-heresy. When he showed up and faced off against Guilliman, he was winning, but Guilliman was also out of ammo and had been fighting like crazy for some time. There is simply not enough evidence to suggest Magnus has the powers you say he does. It's highly likely that if he were encountered by someone like Angron or Russ early on, he would lose.

It's not an assumption. Magnus has been canonically stated in multiple sources to be almost as powerful, or as powerful psychically as the emperor himself. Considering that the emperor erased Horus from fething EXISTENCE with a mere thought (the pumped up chaos version of Horus no less, AND did it while mortally wounded) it is not a stretch to say that Magnus could do something similar. I recall in one of the Thousand Sons novels, when Magnus was squaring off against Russ on Prospero he wasn't trying to kill him, he was just trying to hold him back so that he could complete his spell.

So, canonically... Magnus fought Russ to a stalemate WHILE channeling one of the most powerful spells a (roughly) human psyker has ever cast in the history of the galaxy, and STILL had to take special care not to accidentally kill him. Yeah... I think Magnus would win this one out of sheer OPness.

Magnus almost died to a broken Eldar Titan. He's not all that. Being seconds from death and living only because of literal divine intervention is not a stalemate.

It only got to that point because Magnus was holding back the entire time. He very much did NOT want to kill Russ, even though he hated his guts, all he wanted was for the wolves to stop killing his men. You wouldn't say Horus was a match for the emperor even though Horus mortally wounded him would you?

w1zard wrote:

pm713 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Magnus is the easy choice if you assume he can just "do anything at any time," without consequence. Assuming he has the ability to just snap his fingers and both locate & instantly destroy all the other primarchs is ridiculous. If he had these powers, he would have done so at any point post-heresy. When he showed up and faced off against Guilliman, he was winning, but Guilliman was also out of ammo and had been fighting like crazy for some time. There is simply not enough evidence to suggest Magnus has the powers you say he does. It's highly likely that if he were encountered by someone like Angron or Russ early on, he would lose.

It's not an assumption. Magnus has been canonically stated in multiple sources to be almost as powerful, or as powerful psychically as the emperor himself. Considering that the emperor erased Horus from fething EXISTENCE with a mere thought (the pumped up chaos version of Horus no less, AND did it while mortally wounded) it is not a stretch to say that Magnus could do something similar. I recall in one of the Thousand Sons novels, when Magnus was squaring off against Russ on Prospero he wasn't trying to kill him, he was just trying to hold him back so that he could complete his spell.

So, canonically... Magnus fought Russ to a stalemate WHILE channeling one of the most powerful spells a (roughly) human psyker has ever cast in the history of the galaxy, and STILL had to take special care not to accidentally kill him. Yeah... I think Magnus would win this one out of sheer OPness.

Magnus almost died to a broken Eldar Titan. He's not all that. Being seconds from death and living only because of literal divine intervention is not a stalemate.

It only got to that point because Magnus was holding back the entire time. He very much did NOT want to kill Russ, even though he hated his guts, all he wanted was for the wolves to stop killing his men. You wouldn't say Horus was a match for the emperor even though Horus mortally wounded him would you?

Then Magnus should have stopped them. Which is very much within what you claim he can do.

pm713 wrote:

Then Magnus should have stopped them. Which is very much within what you claim he can do.

You are being facetious. Magnus can't just snap his fingers and destroy the entire space wolf fleet in orbit as well as the hundreds of thousands of wolves who invaded Prospero. I am not claiming Magnus has that strength, because not even the emperor has that kind of strength. I am claiming that INDIVIDUALLY, Magnus is the most powerful primarch due to his ridiculous psychic power.

The fact is, psychically at least, Magnus was close to, or on par with the emperor himself. This is an indisputable fact stated multiple times in the lore across many different sources. It is also a fact that the emperor psychically destroyed Horus with ease after he realized he was a lost cause. It stands to reason then that Magnus, having comparable psychic power to the emperor, is capable of a similar feat. So unless you are claiming that somehow Russ was stronger then Horus at the peak of his power with all of the powers that chaos gave him, then Magnus was perfectly capable of exploding Russ' head with a flick of his finger at the Battle of Prospero. He CHOSE not to because of his own guilt. This was all explained in the Thousand Sons novels.

No but he can easily erect barriers, or freeze them, or teleport his men elsewhere or any number of other things.

The fact is that Magnus is nowhere near as strong as people say. Either he lacks the strength to do these feats or he lacks the intelligence to think of doing them. His guilt would do nothing to stop him saving his people. You can say the lore says he's that good all you like but the lore shows he's not. You can't argue he can do all these things but then ignore that he doesn't. A being like Magnus as presented by you should easily deal with a Titan yet he's nearly killed by a broken one.

You have to take into account what happened with Propero to begin to understand what could/couldn’t have happened in regards to Magnus’ power. He single handily clouded the psychic vision of his entire legion and all psykers on the planet to ensure the Space Wolves could approach and land without “issue”. Along with disabling the void defences. Magnus wanted Russ to see that he was capitulating and was prepared to not fight and atone for his mistakes. The difference was, that Russ and his fleet were under new, false orders.

Also, the Thousand Sons (roughly a thousand of them…) along with the Prosprine Guard forces were inflicting insane losses on the HUGE combined Space Wolf forces, which contained small aspects of forces from other legions, Custodes and Sisters of Silence. All without the support of Magnus.

Magnus certainly had the power to perform huge, insane, feats of power at the cost of making him basically fall into a coma. One example is in the Crimson King Primarch book, where he prevents a surface to void transport ship carrying tens of thousands of people from crashing back to the planet and killing everyone – he then had to be carried by Perturabo cos he couldn’t walk.

As for nearly dying to an Eldar titan – I’m pretty sure all the Primarchs would have died if they got struck dead on by an Eldar Phantom? Titans “D” weapon blast at essentially point blank range. You also have to take into account, he’d pretty much single handily killed the 2nd of the Titans just before as well.

In regards to a Space Hulk style fight, I think Corax or Cruze would come out the victor, simply because of their abilities in regards to stealth. Both were also incredible fighters and both knew how to fight when at an advantage. They would simply use their abilities and strike when they had clear advantages.

If we are looking at an open continent with no restrictions, it’d have to go to Magnus 95% of the time, but, there could still be instances of another winning.

Mortarion could also be a bit of a wildcard in some situations. He is extremely resilient, a decent fighter and had the use of extremely potent toxins and chemical weapons. Sure, they might not be able to kill a Primarch on their own, but, they will certainly incapacitate in some regard.



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pm713 wrote:
No but he can easily erect barriers, or freeze them, or teleport his men elsewhere or any number of other things.

The fact is that Magnus is nowhere near as strong as people say. Either he lacks the strength to do these feats or he lacks the intelligence to think of doing them. His guilt would do nothing to stop him saving his people. You can say the lore says he's that good all you like but the lore shows he's not. You can't argue he can do all these things but then ignore that he doesn't. A being like Magnus as presented by you should easily deal with a Titan yet he's nearly killed by a broken one.

You do realise the reason why Prospero fell in the first place was because Magnus pretty much took zero part in it and didn’t want to help/survive. He only came out to fight in the end because he pretty much had no choice. He was deep in one of the infamous “Primarch baby rages” at the time. By the time he did go to fight, he gathered all his remaining Sons inside the Temple behind him and bore the full brunt of Russ and the remaining anti-psyker force alone.

As was also said, he didn’t fight to win and (I believe) had various points within the combat with Russ to end the fight, but didn’t. His priority, at the time was simply on other things. You also have to take into consideration that hypocritical Russ was also using a form of psychic power during the assault.



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And, if you didn’t notice, he did teleport his men out in the end, all whilst still fighting and dealing with the fact that Russ had just broken his back. Magic, which was stated as having been worked during the entire duel.

As for the titan, what are you referring to as “broken”? If I remember correctly, at the point where it blasted Magnus he’d only crumped one of the arm weapons, leaving the other fully functioning? Also, he was dealing with a 2nd titan at the same time just before, whilst holding back the full extent of his powers because he didn’t know how the Space Wolves present would react to them and didn’t want them to become common knowledge. All of which had made him weary in terms of energy due to the nature of the fight.

In other words Magnus is so emotionally unstable he's not going to fight his brothers unless someone gets tortured to death in front of him or something.

He hardly bore the full brunt of anything. He fought Russ and did some background magic while the Wolves circumvented him.

Plus all the stuff done on Prospero is done after Magnus gets mega buffed by Tzeentch.

The broken Titan was on some planet with a webway portal, it had a load of broken wraith constructs in general. It's in Thousand Sons I think.
The Titan blasted Magnus with one weapon and the second shot would have killed him but another Son jumped in the way a shield and died instead.

I have a question. Why all the hate for Russ? People seem to enjoy making him the villain of Prospero when at worst he's as bad as Magnus. The way some people act you'd think Magnus was perfect.

How is he *not* a villian on Prospero?

He gets told "go arrest your brother". On his way, he gets told that the orders are now "go kill your brother". He shows up. HIs brother's fleet isn't present. HIs brother's defense forces are stood down. His brother is clearly not resisting. His brother is not fighting back.

What does he do? Investigate? Ask a flipping question? Consider gaining the upper hand then get clarification?

Nope. The Emperor's dog follows his "orders", with no thought or consideration if (1) he should have and (2) assume he should follow orders, if he can accomplish it without wholesale slaughter, or with verification.

That's why he's the bad guy. Thats not 'as bad as Magnus' in that situation. Magnus willingly sacrificed any protection he might have to avoid getting IoM legionaires - Sons and Wolves alike - from getting killed. Russ willingly sacrified Wolves to kill Sons.

Russ, especially at Prospero, is a villian. Magnus is debatable in several ways at several points in "history", but is clearly a hero up until the end.

Magnus is not the hero of Prospero at all. He was a self centred egotist who destroyed a plan for mankind's survival and protection 30,000 years in making, because he thought he knew better than the one person he knew was smarter than him. Not piling on to his disgrace by resisting Russ' arrival hardly makes him the hero of the hour.

Of the day, no, but hour, yes.

By Propsero, I thought we were talking about the battle itself, not the events leading to it. He was boneheaded. Many times.

Being stupid and warning your father of a plot via the best way you can think of is clearly less evil than being stupid and trying to kill everybody on a planet because you think your father wants it.

My point isn't that Magnus isn't evil, or that he didn't do stupid things. It's that Russ was certainly worse than Magnus, at least as far as the battle of Propsero is concerned.

pm713 wrote:
No but he can easily erect barriers, or freeze them, or teleport his men elsewhere or any number of other things.

Which he does. He is the one who wrought the spell that transported all of the remaining thousand sons to the planet of sorcerers within the eye of terror. He was channeling the entire time while fighting Russ. If I recall correctly, he intended to stay behind and let Russ kill him, but Tzeentch had other plans.

pm713 wrote:
In other words Magnus is so emotionally unstable he's not going to fight his brothers unless someone gets tortured to death in front of him or something.

Plus all the stuff done on Prospero is done after Magnus gets mega buffed by Tzeentch.

You are being facetious again. Also, Magnus didn't get "mega buffed" by Tzeentch until after Prospero, at which point he was turned into a demon prince and became more insanely powerful then he already was.

pm713 wrote:

I have a question. Why all the hate for Russ? People seem to enjoy making him the villain of Prospero when at worst he's as bad as Magnus. The way some people act you'd think Magnus was perfect.

Because mostly he is an enormous hypocrite. He was one of the loudest ones calling for psykers to be banned, but even after Nikea when the emperor laid down the law he still used psykers *ahem* "rune priests" in his own legion. On top of that, his entire basis for the animosity towards the thousand sons was because they fought in a manner that he believed was "cowardly". FFS when he met the Lion for the first time, the Lion was reading a book under a tree, Russ came up and knocked the book out of the Lion's hand and called him a pansy for doing something as unmanly as reading. Russ was proud of the fact that he was illiterate. On top of that he absolutely jumped at the opportunity to kill his brother and dismantle the Thousand Sons. Almost every other loyalist primarch would have considered it a solemn duty and would have taken no joy in it, but Russ was actually excited at the prospect and was salivating over drowning Prospero in blood.

Magnus had good intentions, but they were twisted to do great harm by the machinations of a chaos god. He is most certainly a tragic hero that was played like a fiddle by the changer of ways from the very beginning.

Russ was just a loud, arrogant, attack dog kept on a short leash by the emperor who bit at anyone who came close to him. His relationship with the Lion is a perfect example of that.

Magnus got buffed by Tzeentch in order to burst through the webway, which was before the battle of Prospero.

And yet he can't defeat Guilliman after he resurrects - before Guilliman has the emperor's sword, and is also out of ammo in his mounted gun.

If he's as strong as you say he could just snap his fingers and destroy Guilliman. Without the ability to fly he would have lost this fight in seconds.

There is no consistent definition of his power, both before he was +1'd by Tzeentch, and after. There is no reason to believe he can simply locate and delete people though, regardless of what book you're looking at. You are absolutely exaggerating his power.

Pre-Tzeentch there is more evidence that Guilliman could beat him than not, based on their duel post-Tzeentch in the crusade to terra. And Guilliman is not the strongest in single-combat of the pre-chaos primarchs.

 Marmatag wrote:
And yet he can't defeat Guilliman after he resurrects - before Guilliman has the emperor's sword, and is also out of ammo in his mounted gun.

You aren't new enough to 40k to need me to explain ultramarines plot armor to you.

Now who's being facetious?

Back on topic. OP, if you are going to keep eliminating parameters that effectively eliminates primarchs from your hypothetical scenario why don't you just skip forward and tell us who you want picked?

This thread now has more facets then d100, mine included.

 JamesY wrote:

Guilliman in Know No Fear when Kor Phaeron repeatedly blasts him
Perturabo having his essence stolen in Angel Exterminatus
Angron's mind killing the psykers who try to communicate with him in Betrayer
Sanguinius resisting warpfire (I want to say in Ruinstorm? Might be wrong there)
That's off the top of my head.

They were all made with the help of warp sorcery, so they are all going to have a base level of resistance. Again, I'm not saying Magnus wouldn't wreck some carnage, nor that he isn't a strong contender for the win. Just that he isn't a guarantee based on his abilities. The only primarchs so far that have canonically killed another primarch are Fulgrim and Dorn, so that should count for something.

Bringing up Guilliman in Know No Fear is honestly the last thing you should have done, since Kor Phaeron near-effortlessly dominated and subdued Guilliman, and was only stopped from killing him due to his arrogance in attempting to corrupt him.


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 SeanDavid1991 wrote:

How about, battle royal, on a space hulk, each Primarch starts at a random point and the space hulk is currently in the Warp where psyker effects are nullified/nerfed.

First of all, you aren't the thread creator, you can't change the stips of the thread when you want.

Second of all, that is literally the opposite of how a psyker being in the Warp works. In the Warp a psyker is at their most powerful.


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pm713 wrote:

Magnus almost died to a broken Eldar Titan. He's not all that. Being seconds from death and living only because of literal divine intervention is not a stalemate.

By comparison, that Eldar Titan (which was explicitly larger than a Warlord) would have easily killed his brothers, considering Angron (arguably the most powerful physical combatant) could only barely restrain the foot of a Warhound Titan and nothing else.

The other Primarchs aren't even playing the same game. Angron slaughters armies, Vulkan destroys tanks, but Magnus incinerates titans and stops twelve kilometer ships from destroying cities.


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pm713 wrote:
No but he can easily erect barriers, or freeze them, or teleport his men elsewhere or any number of other things.

He did do that last one though. He teleported them to the other side of the galaxy, a spell he was channeling while fighting Leman Russ and his Legion.

Have you read the story, or just skimmed a synopsis on lexicanum?

The fact is that Magnus is nowhere near as strong as people say. Either he lacks the strength to do these feats or he lacks the intelligence to think of doing them. His guilt would do nothing to stop him saving his people. You can say the lore says he's that good all you like but the lore shows he's not. You can't argue he can do all these things but then ignore that he doesn't. A being like Magnus as presented by you should easily deal with a Titan yet he's nearly killed by a broken one.

Magnus has easily dealt with Titans. He incinerated the giant Ork Gargant with little fanfare, and in fact did kill one of the two Eldar Titans. Oh, you didn't know there were two of them, and that it was only after destroying the first that he was compromised? You really might want to actually read the stories you're discussing my friend. Then you might also know they weren't broken, just daemon-possessed.


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pm713 wrote:

He hardly bore the full brunt of anything. He fought Russ and did some background magic while the Wolves circumvented him.

He was directing his powers to the Space Wolf force assembled against him, the two giant wolves fighting alongside Russ (which had each wounded his legs btw), Russ himself, and the greatest spell cast by a sorcerer in the Heresy all at once (with the only real competition being the ascension spells of Fulgrim and Angron), with the energies of the latter being so potent that they were tearing the veil asunder and destroying the surface of Prospero.

And your conjecture that Magnus was amplified by Tzeentch is just that, purely conjecture. Magnus borrowed some power that was probably Tzeentch's lying in the Warp for the final push to break through the Emperor's wards in the Webway. There is as far as I recall no indication that he retained that power, considering he depleted it for that sole act.


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 Marmatag wrote:
And yet he can't defeat Guilliman after he resurrects - before Guilliman has the emperor's sword, and is also out of ammo in his mounted gun.

If he's as strong as you say he could just snap his fingers and destroy Guilliman. Without the ability to fly he would have lost this fight in seconds.

There is no consistent definition of his power, both before he was +1'd by Tzeentch, and after. There is no reason to believe he can simply locate and delete people though, regardless of what book you're looking at. You are absolutely exaggerating his power.

Pre-Tzeentch there is more evidence that Guilliman could beat him than not, based on their duel post-Tzeentch in the crusade to terra. And Guilliman is not the strongest in single-combat of the pre-chaos primarchs.

Interesting, because I recall Guilliman spending most of that fight desperately on the run and trying to stay alive before the Sisters of Silence came to help nullify Magnus' powers. And keep in mind this is an amped Guilliman, enhanced by technology.

Guilliman got blown the feth out by Kor Phaeron one on one. Guilliman couldn't touch him due to Kor Phaeron's sorcerous power. And you think he'd beat Magnus? Interesting.

@void_dragon you have missed my point, which was that surviving the attack at all shows that he must have had some natural resilience against psychic attack. If he didn't Kor Pheron wouldn't have needed to draw his anatheme knife to finish him off.

w1zard wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
And yet he can't defeat Guilliman after he resurrects - before Guilliman has the emperor's sword, and is also out of ammo in his mounted gun.

You aren't new enough to 40k to need me to explain ultramarines plot armor to you.

So it's plot armour when Guilliman does it, but perfectly fine when Magnus does?

Double standard much.

Guilliman was hardly one of the best CQC Primarchs, but if he could survive as long as he did against some of these depictions of Magnus people are making, that must mean Guilliman is pretty incredibly strong - OR people are overhyping Magnus, and it's easier to assume that he was poorly written with certain abilities so as to literally Deus-Ex-Machina certain things.

Seriously, Magnus' psychic powers are as powerful as the plot needs them to be - they're not quantifiable. Needs to blot out the minds of his entire Legion so the Thousand Sons don't kill the Wolves in orbit and stop Prospero happening? Done. Need to create some kind of way for the Thousand Sons to escape nearly being slaughtered? Psychic powers! Need to have Magnus singlehandedly turn the tide so that your last stand can be resolved without the Thousand Sons dying? Psychic powers!

Magnus' abilities, like nearly ANY Primarch, are tied to the plot. We have Angron who can shrug off mountains falling on him and getting shot in the head, but we also have Primarchs like Vulkan being killed with a fork, and Guilliman being nearly killed by a single squad of Alpha Legionnaires with regular bolters. We have Lorgar, the "weakest" Primarch, killing An'ggrath, the most favoured Bloodthirster of Khorne, but gets his ass handed to him by the other Primarchs.

The problem with the Primarchs is that they have no consistent power scaling. I severely doubt Magnus could do all the things people in this thread say he can, purely because if that were so, then he could have effectively ended ANY conflict in the Horus Heresy.

Also, about Guilliman and Kor Phaeron? Note that Guilliman has been fighting in a vacuum without a helmet and killing entire squads of Word Bearers in SPACE. He's been fighting for hours in adverse conditions. Kor Phaeron's been sitting pretty in his flagship this whole time. Considering we actually SEE Guilliman engaging Tzeentch powered Magnus, without the Sisters of Silence, I don't think he was just running away from him.

Why is this even a question? The last man standing will always be Alpharius.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Why is this even a question? The last man standing will always be Alpharius.

Magnus lives, but Magnus is actually Alpharius and all he has done is kill himself to reveal that he is actually Alpharius.

Bharring wrote:
How is he *not* a villian on Prospero?

He gets told "go arrest your brother". On his way, he gets told that the orders are now "go kill your brother". He shows up. HIs brother's fleet isn't present. HIs brother's defense forces are stood down. His brother is clearly not resisting. His brother is not fighting back.

What does he do? Investigate? Ask a flipping question? Consider gaining the upper hand then get clarification?

Nope. The Emperor's dog follows his "orders", with no thought or consideration if (1) he should have and (2) assume he should follow orders, if he can accomplish it without wholesale slaughter, or with verification.

That's why he's the bad guy. Thats not 'as bad as Magnus' in that situation. Magnus willingly sacrificed any protection he might have to avoid getting IoM legionaires - Sons and Wolves alike - from getting killed. Russ willingly sacrified Wolves to kill Sons.

Russ, especially at Prospero, is a villian. Magnus is debatable in several ways at several points in "history", but is clearly a hero up until the end.

Magnus killed thousands of people, destroyed his entire species future purely from his own arrogance and threw a tantrum about it. He's the villain.

And yes Russ did try and ask questions and investigate via Kasper Hawser who everyone believed was a Thousand Son spy. Russ was doing the correct thing in the context of the situation. Russ was told that Prospero was to be destroyed, he attempted to find an alternative and failed then followed the orders. Magnus is undeniably a Traitor and rather than using his immense powers to stop the conflict he sulked. If that's not the villain then what is?

Do we have any sources about how well Magnus's powers work without Tzeentchian intervention *after* someone has put some lightning claws into his back? Because I'm pretty sure Curze or Corax would start a fight with Magnus *after* he's worn down with another Primarch and with a hearty first strike.

Also, does everyone voting for Vulkan realize that Vulkan needed both divine intervention from Emps *and* Curze wanting to die to escape the maze?

Vulkan loses this game when he's killed enough to lose his sanity and tries to swim away because the voices in his head tell him to.

Much of 40k lore is bolter porn or Malice style edgy, but every once in a while, there are interesting points to debate.

The Russ vs Magnus: Who was more evil at Prospero is one of them.

I'd start a seperate thread on that, but I shoudln't get drawn into it right now.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So it's plot armour when Guilliman does it, but perfectly fine when Magnus does?

Double standard much.

It's plot armor because in earlier novels, Guilliman was easily defeated in a 1v1 duel by Kor Phaeron who isn't even a primarch, as was stated by another user here. Unless you are claiming Kor Phaeron is stronger than a demon prince Magnus which is ridiculous. In fact, I'd say Guilliman was one of the weaker primarchs combat wise. What he was though was an extremely able strategist, logistician, general, and statesman which are his strengths, far more than any of the other primarchs with the possible exception of Perturabo on the logistician part and the Lion on the strategist part.

Whenever two lore sources conflict sometimes it is hard to reconcile which one is "accurate". But, I put very low stock in some of the ultramines stuff because the massive Wardian fanwank over them in 5th spawned countless ultramarine black library novels that are entirely ridiculous. I vaguely remember reading something about a nameless ultramarine tactical taking on a demon prince in 1v1 and killing him, and the book making it seem like that was par for the course for ultramarines, at which point I absolutely stopped reading.

It's different then what you call Magnus' plot armor because Magnus was established to have these abilities we are talking about across MANY books and a lot of source material. If Guilliman took on Angron and Fulgrim 1v1 and survived in other books I would definitely revise my view about Guilliman's power level relative to the ascended traitor primarchs. Until then, that one moment where Guilliman squares off against demon prince Magnus remains a sadly plot-armory one-off in my mind.

 JamesY wrote:
@void_dragon you have missed my point, which was that surviving the attack at all shows that he must have had some natural resilience against psychic attack. If he didn't Kor Pheron wouldn't have needed to draw his anatheme knife to finish him off.

He has some natural resistance against psychic attack in the sense that he's a Primarch, a superhumanly durable demigod able to survive being hit by a Titan's gun. Per Leman Russ, his own resistance to psychic powers is uniquely formidable, and he outright states that Magnus' psychic attacks would have killed his other brothers.

And Kor Phaeron didn't need to use the anathame. He chose to relent his psychic assault because he wanted to corrupt Guilliman to their side like they had Horus using it.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So it's plot armour when Guilliman does it, but perfectly fine when Magnus does?

It's not really plot armour. Guilliman was running for his life against Magnus, barely able to survive, much less fight.

Double standard much.

Guilliman was hardly one of the best CQC Primarchs, but if he could survive as long as he did against some of these depictions of Magnus people are making, that must mean Guilliman is pretty incredibly strong - OR people are overhyping Magnus, and it's easier to assume that he was poorly written with certain abilities so as to literally Deus-Ex-Machina certain things.

Guilliman as of his ressurection has had his natural Primarch abilities technologically enhanced.

Also, frankly, Guilliman is one of the better Primarchs in combat, as shown when he fought Lorgar and Angron in quick succession, and though he ultimately lost, by Lorgar's admission Angron looked scarcely better than Guilliman by the end of the fight.

I severely doubt Magnus could do all the things people in this thread say he can, purely because if that were so, then he could have effectively ended ANY conflict in the Horus Heresy.

You ever wonder why Magnus is spending the majority of the plot sitting around at the Planet of the Sorcerers, rather than directly participating in the plot? It's because he actually can effectively end many conflicts with his presence alone. He's the wizard that did it. Look at Deathfire. When he shows up (technically a shard), he proceeds to banish Daemons, Death Guard, and Word Bearers from Charybdis and drop the ship into the Sol system.

Also, about Guilliman and Kor Phaeron? Note that Guilliman has been fighting in a vacuum without a helmet and killing entire squads of Word Bearers in SPACE. He's been fighting for hours in adverse conditions. Kor Phaeron's been sitting pretty in his flagship this whole time. Considering we actually SEE Guilliman engaging Tzeentch powered Magnus, without the Sisters of Silence, I don't think he was just running away from him.

Primarchs have nearly limitless stamina, nor do they need to breathe. You can argue he might not have been top shape, but the story doesn't portray him as particularly weakened. And frankly, Kor Phaeron isn't half the psyker Ahriman is, much less Magnus.

And have you read the fight? I have, though I can't find it online anymore. IIRC Guilliman spends the vast majority of the fight up to that point avoiding Magnus' assault, getting ragdolled, and trying to take potshots at Magnus when he can, with Magnus only barely taking the fight seriously.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:

Magnus killed thousands of people, destroyed his entire species future purely from his own arrogance and threw a tantrum about it. He's the villain.

Are you referring to his breach of the Webway Gate? That was an accident, he didn't even know it existed, and he was deeply mournful over it, so ashamed of his actions he left immediately and initially chose to accept the execution headed his way.

You seem to have some real trouble remembering the events of these books. Are you sure you've read them?

And yes Russ did try and ask questions and investigate via Kasper Hawser who everyone believed was a Thousand Son spy. Russ was doing the correct thing in the context of the situation. Russ was told that Prospero was to be destroyed, he attempted to find an alternative and failed then followed the orders. Magnus is undeniably a Traitor and rather than using his immense powers to stop the conflict he sulked. If that's not the villain then what is?

If by "everyone" you mean "the Space Wolves" then yes, the entirely Legion was bamboozled and fooled by a lone Daemon into believing Magnus had Kasper as a spy. Russ isn't actively evil or malicious, he's just stupid, I'd agree. And his stupidity made him the villain.


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 EmpNortonII wrote:
Do we have any sources about how well Magnus's powers work without Tzeentchian intervention *after* someone has put some lightning claws into his back? Because I'm pretty sure Curze or Corax would start a fight with Magnus *after* he's worn down with another Primarch and with a hearty first strike.

His powers were working fine after Russ broke his arm. To stop Magnus' psychic assault it's best to go for the eye.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
It's not really plot armour. Guilliman was running for his life against Magnus, barely able to survive, much less fight.

It was plot armor that he even managed to survive at all. Even with Cawl's boosts.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Also, frankly, Guilliman is one of the better Primarchs in combat, as shown when he fought Lorgar and Angron in quick succession, and though he ultimately lost, by Lorgar's admission Angron looked scarcely better than Guilliman by the end of the fight.

I actually disagree with you here. None of the primarchs were weak, every one could have stood up to any of the others in a fight and give a good scrap, but to compare Guilliman's combat abilities to the likes of Angron, the Lion, or even Russ is seriously stretching things. To say that "Guilliman is one of the better primarchs in (personal) combat" is flat out wrong. Almost every time he has fought one of his brothers he has lost.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Primarchs have nearly limitless stamina, nor do they need to breathe. You can argue he might not have been top shape, but the story doesn't portray him as particularly weakened. And frankly, Kor Phaeron isn't half the psyker Ahriman is, much less Magnus.

On this I absolutely agree with you. Even the Eldar are terrified of Ahriman, and Ahriman freely admits that Magnus is far more powerful than even him.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
...Russ isn't actively evil or malicious, he's just stupid...

He's both. He was very loyal to the emperor, but he had serious aggression issues towards his brothers, worse than even Angron. Not only that, his unadulterated hatred toward Magnus and his legion for being "mutants" and using "witchcraft" in battle was seriously bewildering considering the rate of mutation within his own legion, and his own refusal to follow the Emperor's judgement at Nikea by continuing to use rune priests. It's also really hard to like a guy who is proud of the fact that he is illiterate.

For me its either between Lion El'Johnson or Horus Lupercal. My reasoning behind this is their tactical supremecy. If you look at each primarchs victories Lion comes in second to Horus throughout the great crusade.
They would simply trick the others into fighting one another until they were to tried to fight anymore then finish them off. Lion does have an advantage in a hunger games setting as its usually in the woods.
The dude survived alone as a baby and killed corrupted warp beasts I repeat AS A BABY.

We have to take into consideration that in this instance either Vulcan isn't a perpetual or that once he is down he would be considered out as if you cant die then it defeats the purpose of being there in the first place.

pm713 wrote:

 Orodhen wrote:
I'd say Vulkan, due to him being a Perpetual and also since the Emperor created him as the strongest physical Primarch.

How is he the strongest physical Primarch?

In "Vulkan Lives", durring a flashback, Vulkan dead-lifts a Baneblade in order to make room for civilians being crushed by their own number.

In "Promethean Sun", two Salamanders recover Vulkan's helmet after the drop site massacre. One dons the helm and repalys the recorded footage, showing a first person view of Vulkan rampaging through the Death Guard and World Eaters. At one point he punches through the FRONT armor of a Vindicators and rips out the pilot, and then proceeds to squish and cast him aside. All with one arm.

In "The Beast Must Die" Vulkan Duels and defeats an Ork the size of an Imperial Knight.

Theres also a nice little image of Vulkan catching a gigantic slab of ferrocrete that was falling towards some scattering humans from the newer novel "Old Earth"


Vulkan has an element of raw strength that is inhumane even when compared to the lunacy that is the Primarchs. If he gets his hands a hold of you, or Terra forbid lands a strike with one of his hammers, the only outcome is someone scooping your paste up off the battlefield. And you may think this power comes with a large drawback in speed. Nah, hes able to keep up with any of his brothers reaction wise.

I'll admit, I'm a bit behind on my Horus Heresy, but is there a time where the Lion ever beat one of his brothers in a fair fight? I only know about his fights with Konrad, which go 4) Held off Konrad together *alongside* Girlyman (and still just held him off as he lured the two into a trap) 3) Konrad fled into the ship (where Lion failed to hunt him down even having home field advantage) having just woken up from a coma 2) Beat Konrad although we have no idea how fair the fight may have been and 1) stabbed Konrad in the stomach with a cowardly sucker-stab and proceeded to still lose to Konrad, having only survived the encounter due to the intervention from his bodyguards.

Seems like he has an awful lot of votes if he has a mixed record against a Primarch not known for his effectiveness in a straight fight.

Also, didn't Vulkan once die from being stabbed with a fork? Strong and durable are two very different things.

Well Konrad did also hold his own against not just the Lion but also Sanguinious both of whom had precognition and Sanguinious realizing he wouldn't be able to defeat Konrad. Konrad also killed Vulkan multiple times not just in capture but also on Maccrage. Corax was about to kill Lorgar but made a hasty retreat when Konrad came to the rescue knowing he couldn't win that fight. He's not necessarily top dog but Konrad is a vicious dog that other primarchs don't underestimate.