Better siege engineer Perturabo or Dorn ?

[Pariah Mk.231]

One thing that grabs my attention as far as the idea of the Imperial Fists leaving 400 battle brothers in the Iron Cage being an indication of only chapter sized attack force.  What if the 400 weren't casualties in the sense of dead people but 400 captured?  Siege of Iron implies that using Imperial Fist gene seed is a known practice in the Iron Warrior's repertoire.  And how much more painful would it be for Dorn to know that he left some men behind.

 

That is exactly how I read it, that after the evacuation 400 Fists were abandoned on the planet, still alive, unable to escape. Having read the entire discussion, I was surprised that no one else had considered this possibility. This leaves us with a vision that Perturabo managed to trick Dorn into walking into a trap, leaving him unable to bring his quarry to heel, ignoring his officer's advice to break out, made to look incompetant and unstable in the eyes of his brother and finally forced to abandon a portion of his own men after taking heavy casualties. I'd say that means Perturabo got what he wanted out of the entire incident, while Dorn failed in his objective to capture Perturabo.

 

As for why Dorn was chosen to fortify the palace instead of Perturabo, another simple fact has been ignored. The Fists were free to be withdrawn, since they were mostly held in strategic reserve, available to redeploy to any warzone that needs support, but not getting bogged down in protracted actions. The Iron Warriors however were thrown at every bulwark that needed their skills, requiring Perturabo's expertise to be constantly on the frontlines, preventing him from being recalled to fortify the palace. When you have your foremost siege master perpetually busy, and another one only working casual shifts, you take the guy who can be spared from the frontlines.

 

Of course, the question of this thread is who was the better siege engineer, not who was better at attacking and defending during a siege. Perturabo is the undisputed master of designing, building and finding/exploiting weaknesses in fortifications (he also had the greatest natural affinity with technology of any Primarch, but that's not the topic of this thread), making him the better engineer. Dorn was uncompremisingly stubborn and tenacious, holding ground that others would abandon and emerging victorious despite horrific casualties, making him the better warrior. If you were to have Perturabo design the ultimate fortress and Dorn defend it, it would likely be impossible to breach, even if Perturabo were the one laying siege to it (provided of course he didn't know beforehand that he'd be sieging it, and thus building a flaw only he could exploit into the design).

If both of them had split of entirely from both sides of the Heresy and formed their own little gang and found a section of the galaxy to defend, I doubt anyone could have dug them out.

[Wade Garrett]

Alternatively, the Emperor continues to deny the existence of the Chaos Gods even after everything, refuses to rescind the Nikea Edict, strangles the Ecclesiarchy in the cradle, and long term the Primordial Annihilator consumes the galaxy.

[jeremy1391]

They have two innately different roles and personality. Dorn was a fortress builder without peer, Perturabo was a siege master, a fortress breaker without peer. Different sides to the same coin.

One is a hammer, the other an anvil.

[Marshal Rohr]

I've got a crazy idea.

 

Wait for the novel.

 

I know, I know. Hold your applause. It's a gift.

[Hyaenidae]

This is a debate?

 

I'll answer by asking a question of my own... who held Terra, and who ran like a punk?

 

Bam.

[Vesper]

Hey Heathens, long time no see. :)

I'll answer your question by laughing a little bit at the word "held", and ask the real question :

Who ended up like a dog in an iron cage ?

 

:p

[Blacksad]

the tramp from lady and the tramp.

[Excessus]

the tramp from lady and the tramp.

And he still ended up better than Dorn did in his cage...

[Hyaenidae]

Hey Heathens, long time no see.

I'll answer your question by laughing a little bit at the word "held", and ask the real question :

Who ended up like a dog in an iron cage ?

Which world was more important to their seperate causes?

[Legionator]

Rogal Dorn won the final match of the UEFA Champions League, Perturabo won a friendly match.

[Nehekhare]

Perturabo lives, Dorn is dead. end of argument.

[Excessus]

Obviously an IF player would be bias towards Dorn, hehe ;)

 

 

The loyalist side had the favorable position of being defenders, which requires much less personel in comparison to assaulting. In addition, the traitors had lost quite a few marines and equipment during istvaan III and V, and more during the long slog towards terra. A third of each legion at Istvaan III was sent down to die, and more perished in the battle after, then even more died at Istvaan V. Thousand Sons were just around a thousand marines, and WB/NL/AL had a miniscule/no presence at the battle(as it is now at least). Further more, the defenders had Custodians, Sisters of silence and most likely tons of mechanicus evacuees and retreating troops from all over the imperium to swell their ranks with. The IF only sent a third(I think it was) of their numbers to Istvaan, the BA were still mostly intact and WS were almost completely untouched.

 

 

The battle of terra is a poor measurement of who was the better siege specialist because we have too little information about it atm. The Iron Cage is just plain stupid. Dorn should have known that in siege warfare being equal numbers would mean his loss as an attacker...but it's a cool story...

[Vesper]

Hey Heathens, long time no see.

I'll answer your question by laughing a little bit at the word "held", and ask the real question :

Who ended up like a dog in an iron cage ?

Which world was more important to their seperate causes?

I highly doubt the Eternal Fortress had any purpose other than tricking Dorn.

Perturabo wasn't trying to defend a world, he was proving a point.

[Marshal Rohr]

Or we could all keep talking about it and look like jackasses when the novel is released and we find out Guilliman and the Space Wolves held Terra and the Death Guard won the Iron Cage.

[Marshal Rohr]

These are black library authors guys. We are going to end up with Gav Thorpe writing about how Alpharius and Omegon were both Dorn AND Perturabo at the Iron Cage and the Imperial Palace was actually a magical illusion and the real battle never took place aside from in the mind of a sorcerously ensnared alpha legionnaire posing as a raven guard who has infiltrated the world eaters who's actually three levels deep in a dream of Horus' while he was sick at Davin.

[Legionator]

These are black library authors guys. We are going to end up with Gav Thorpe writing about how Alpharius and Omegon were both Dorn AND Perturabo at the Iron Cage and the Imperial Palace was actually a magical illusion and the real battle never took place aside from in the mind of a sorcerously ensnared alpha legionnaire posing as a raven guard who has infiltrated the world eaters who's actually three levels deep in a dream of Horus' while he was sick at Davin.

And Horus was actually not Horus, but the triplet of Alpharius/Omegon posing as the Warmaster since the real Horus died in Ullanor.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

And then Leonardo DiCaprio shows up out of nowhere, screaming and running from his bat:cuss insane wife played by Marion Cotillard.

[Legatus]

The Siege of Terra doesn't matter. The Iron Cage doesn't matter.

 

Perturabo is the siege Primarch who leads the siege Legion in siege after siege.

 

Dorn is the determined knight Primarch who leads the determined knight Legion. It just so happened that their traits were more suitable in siege situations than in a lot of other scenarios.

[Nehekhare]

Dorn is was

fixed & agreed.

[lokkorex]

+1 to Legatus statement/post.

 

and damnit Nehekhare, stop making me like you so much!

[Marshal Rohr]

Aside from all the role play and loyalist vs traitor genital measuring, you've got to admit after Angel Exterminatus, if those stories are true and his dreams were truly what he wanted to build, Perturabo takes the cake for primarchs who shouldn't have been generals. Even Lorgar wanting to be a scholar doesn't compare to the description of the perfect Olympia.

 

I don't think anything written so far in the series has tugged at my unmanly emotions like those snippets about Pertuarbo.

[Marshal Rohr]

All in all the HH team does a damn good job on some of these Primarchs. A D-B made Lorgar the troubled pilgrim who finds his god. Swallow made Sanguinius so much like he should be. Abnett made Guilliman the genius.

 

It's great to finally see the best part of the universe so explored. Apart from a few stretches and inconsistencies I don't know why The Horus Heresy took so long to come to light. It really is the best part of 40K