Horus Heresy: Living Primarchs

[Volt]

 

Also, the warp would be unlikely to do anything to a Primarch given that Sanguinius himself was tearing apart daemons constantly while protecting the gate, and Primarchs themselves are born of the warp.

 

 

That's... a reach. I mean, those are the kinds of things that appear true to some characters, and are laughable to others. Is it an intrinsic truth of the setting? Does anyone know for certain? 

 

 

Also, Abaddon killed

a weak, young clone of Horus we have no reason to believe even closely resembled the original in power considering the feats of Primarchs in the Horus Heresy outshine everything else. Plus IIRC Index Astartes mentioned stuff like Primarchs breaking apart mountains. They've always been hideously OP. Even going by TT they'd probably curbstomp Abaddon, as I'm fairly certain the Primarch special rule provides immunity to instant death.

 

 

Every single sentence in this is assumption and guesswork, or based on rules (never wise, in a lore debate) to the point I can't even begin to debate it on individual points. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's the kind of thing we have to work with when discussing the setting, but we also have to acknowledge we're working with it. Joking aside, play Devil's Advocate with yourself there. Take every single one of your assertions, flip them the other way around, and they all make sense and seem likely. The Horus clone absolutely did die like a primarch can die, given that Dorn is overwhelmed by cultists and Curze is killed by a single Assassin. You can assume the clone was weak, but the evidence of the fight you see him in, and Khayon's reaction, offers more evidence to the opposite. And there are countless arguments, given Abaddon's M41 levels of quite literal unkillable-ness, that make it much less black and white about "He could never kill a primarch".

 

Primarch Wow Factor can go too far. They're not gods. Horus is almost killed by a magic sword. Lorgar and Sanguinius are almost killed by a Bloodthirster. Mortarion is humbled by a Grey Knight. Dorn is killed by cultists. Curze is murdered by an Assassin.   

 

Context is everything, and nothing is ever, ever as simple as "No, primarchs are just better." 

 

Dorn was never overrun by cultists, not to mention that the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex actually retconned his death to simply being MIA like Corax or Russ.

 

And no, context doesn't matter. Hell, you yourself wrote in Curze's death that he was willingly decapitated by an assassin commonly known for using phase weapons that completely ignore the durability of anything. No Primarch has ever been felled short of what is either a metaphysical weapon that would even threaten to kill the Emperor's biological body, or a crazy powerful force. The Bloodthirster that Sanguinius fought was one of Khorne's top dogs and the absolutely most powerful Greater Daemons in existence, and Sanguinius still broke its spine. Draigo only manages to beat Mortarion by poking him in the eyeballs and using the painful distraction to gleam Morty's daemon name and banish him to the warp.

 

As for the Horus' clone, Primarchs are of the warp and probably more or less daemons themselves of the Emperor going by how the Emperor stole knowledge from Chaos to create them. The Horus Clone wasn't a copy, it was a knockoff and nothing close to the original as Horus' soul was destroyed by the Emperor with mind bullets.

 

Not to mention there's the simple math. If a Primarch can dish out blows that sunder Terminator armor and in turn only get merely bruised by them, that translates into them being able to ROFLSTOMP everything short of a Titan with barely any effort. IIRC the old Index Astartes fluff even pegged them moving mountains of mass and what-not, them being nigh invincible gods of war is simply expected.

 

As someone of your stature in the community I really would expect you to not be so disingenuous. The sword that wounded Horus was a cursed blade that came into the Interex and could put down practically anything it was used against and still made of flesh and blood- it can even permanently kill Perpetuals. Every single Primarch that we know to be 100% for certain as KIA was put down by incredible levels of hax weapons or incredibly powerful enemies (other primarchs), and even then it's still possible that they may not have been put down for good, like the theory of the Sanguinor being a reincarnation of Sanguinius or the weird stuff in the Iron Hands supplement by Matt Ward that implies Manus on some level had a part of him become a daemon or created one and it's a personification of his emotions or something (WAAAAARD!).

 

In other news, let us take a moment of silence to rejoice that Matt Ward stopped working for GW a long while ago, and thus we no longer have to worry about him mucking up the Iron Hands any further. Or the Ultramarines.

 

And again, we haven't a single bloody idea if Dorn is even dead. Latest Codex changed it to him being MIA with only his hand being found. Given his biology it's entirely possible he got spaced and went into hibernation with magical space marine/primarch infinite energy hibernation abilities that break thermodynamics.

[Vesper]

Dorn was never overrun by cultists, not to mention that the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex actually retconned his death to simply being MIA like Corax or Russ.

 

And again, we haven't a single bloody idea if Dorn is even dead. Latest Codex changed it to him being MIA with only his hand being found. Given his biology it's entirely possible he got spaced and went into hibernation with magical space marine/primarch infinite energy hibernation abilities that break thermodynamics.

 

Retconned ? Isn't it only the Imperial point of view ? I guess the crew of the Sword of Sacrilege has a better understanding of what actually happened.

 

IIRC the old Index Astartes fluff even pegged them moving mountains of mass and what-not, them being nigh invincible gods of war is simply expected.

Yeah, that's the myth surrounding Primarch power level. People probably believe so, and to a certain extent they aren't false, but we know, by now, that it's quite exagerated and that a few people with the right cards in their sleeves, enough preparation and a bit of luck can fell a Primarch

 

like the theory of the Sanguinor being a reincarnation of Sanguinius or the weird stuff in the Iron Hands supplement by Matt Ward that implies Manus on some level had a part of him become a daemon or created one and it's a personification of his emotions or something (WAAAAARD!).

The Sanguinor is also M. Ward's baby, IIRc.

[A D-B]

 

 

Also, the warp would be unlikely to do anything to a Primarch given that Sanguinius himself was tearing apart daemons constantly while protecting the gate, and Primarchs themselves are born of the warp.

 

 

That's... a reach. I mean, those are the kinds of things that appear true to some characters, and are laughable to others. Is it an intrinsic truth of the setting? Does anyone know for certain? 

 

 

Also, Abaddon killed

a weak, young clone of Horus we have no reason to believe even closely resembled the original in power considering the feats of Primarchs in the Horus Heresy outshine everything else. Plus IIRC Index Astartes mentioned stuff like Primarchs breaking apart mountains. They've always been hideously OP. Even going by TT they'd probably curbstomp Abaddon, as I'm fairly certain the Primarch special rule provides immunity to instant death.

 

 

Every single sentence in this is assumption and guesswork, or based on rules (never wise, in a lore debate) to the point I can't even begin to debate it on individual points. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's the kind of thing we have to work with when discussing the setting, but we also have to acknowledge we're working with it. Joking aside, play Devil's Advocate with yourself there. Take every single one of your assertions, flip them the other way around, and they all make sense and seem likely. The Horus clone absolutely did die like a primarch can die, given that Dorn is overwhelmed by cultists and Curze is killed by a single Assassin. You can assume the clone was weak, but the evidence of the fight you see him in, and Khayon's reaction, offers more evidence to the opposite. And there are countless arguments, given Abaddon's M41 levels of quite literal unkillable-ness, that make it much less black and white about "He could never kill a primarch".

 

Primarch Wow Factor can go too far. They're not gods. Horus is almost killed by a magic sword. Lorgar and Sanguinius are almost killed by a Bloodthirster. Mortarion is humbled by a Grey Knight. Dorn is killed by cultists. Curze is murdered by an Assassin.   

 

Context is everything, and nothing is ever, ever as simple as "No, primarchs are just better." 

 

Dorn was never overrun by cultists, not to mention that the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex actually retconned his death to simply being MIA like Corax or Russ.

 

And no, context doesn't matter. 

 

 

Here's the problem. Context does matter. That's a fact. There's no changing that, and no amount of calling me disingenuous will change that fact.

 

I said it before, and I'll say it again, hoping it'll stick. You're taking what you perceive from the setting, and insisting it's absolute truth. This is not one of those rare areas where you can make that claim and expect to be right. It's just not, and the thread is full of evidence why. The only disingenuous thing I could do here would be to agree with you and say you're dead right.

 

Even stuff like:

 

As for the Horus' clone, Primarchs are of the warp and probably more or less daemons themselves of the Emperor going by how the Emperor stole knowledge from Chaos to create them. The Horus Clone wasn't a copy, it was a knockoff and nothing close to the original as Horus' soul was destroyed by the Emperor with mind bullets.

 

 

How do you know that? These things you're taking as objective absolutes are things no one actually knows for certain, and are left vague for a squillion reasons. That claim alone (as just one among many) is something there's basically no absolute answer to - just suggestions and possibilities. Yet you're throwing it at me like it's fact. 

 

Are you starting to see why it's impossible to agree with you? That it's not "disingenuous"? How do you know these things, f'rex, as 100% fact when no one I know does?

 

Do you see?

[A D-B]

There's no need to be so aggressive and defiant about this, Volt. Discussing the setting's variables and possibilities is fun. Insisting you know better than literally everyone else is kinda jerky. I can't agree with you because what you're presenting is just one perspective, in a setting where great care is taken to present multiple perspectives. There's evidence for what you're saying, and evidence that it's entirely untrue. 

 

That's the point. That's 40K. Taking one perspective on something this untouched and nebulous (shrouded as it is in multiple presentations and the setting's mythology) is never going to end well. Look at the bigger picture, rather than insisting everyone else is wide of the mark.

[Loesh]

 

 

 

Also, the warp would be unlikely to do anything to a Primarch given that Sanguinius himself was tearing apart daemons constantly while protecting the gate, and Primarchs themselves are born of the warp.

 

 

That's... a reach. I mean, those are the kinds of things that appear true to some characters, and are laughable to others. Is it an intrinsic truth of the setting? Does anyone know for certain? 

 

 

Also, Abaddon killed

a weak, young clone of Horus we have no reason to believe even closely resembled the original in power considering the feats of Primarchs in the Horus Heresy outshine everything else. Plus IIRC Index Astartes mentioned stuff like Primarchs breaking apart mountains. They've always been hideously OP. Even going by TT they'd probably curbstomp Abaddon, as I'm fairly certain the Primarch special rule provides immunity to instant death.

 

 

Every single sentence in this is assumption and guesswork, or based on rules (never wise, in a lore debate) to the point I can't even begin to debate it on individual points. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's the kind of thing we have to work with when discussing the setting, but we also have to acknowledge we're working with it. Joking aside, play Devil's Advocate with yourself there. Take every single one of your assertions, flip them the other way around, and they all make sense and seem likely. The Horus clone absolutely did die like a primarch can die, given that Dorn is overwhelmed by cultists and Curze is killed by a single Assassin. You can assume the clone was weak, but the evidence of the fight you see him in, and Khayon's reaction, offers more evidence to the opposite. And there are countless arguments, given Abaddon's M41 levels of quite literal unkillable-ness, that make it much less black and white about "He could never kill a primarch".

 

Primarch Wow Factor can go too far. They're not gods. Horus is almost killed by a magic sword. Lorgar and Sanguinius are almost killed by a Bloodthirster. Mortarion is humbled by a Grey Knight. Dorn is killed by cultists. Curze is murdered by an Assassin.   

 

Context is everything, and nothing is ever, ever as simple as "No, primarchs are just better." 

 

Dorn was never overrun by cultists, not to mention that the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex actually retconned his death to simply being MIA like Corax or Russ.

 

And no, context doesn't matter. 

 

 

Here's the problem. Context does matter. That's a fact. There's no changing that, and no amount of calling me disingenuous will change that fact.

 

I said it before, and I'll say it again, hoping it'll stick. You're taking what you perceive from the setting, and insisting it's absolute truth. This is not one of those rare areas where you can make that claim and expect to be right. It's just not, and the thread is full of evidence why. The only disingenuous thing I could do here would be to agree with you and say you're dead right.

 

Even stuff like:

 

As for the Horus' clone, Primarchs are of the warp and probably more or less daemons themselves of the Emperor going by how the Emperor stole knowledge from Chaos to create them. The Horus Clone wasn't a copy, it was a knockoff and nothing close to the original as Horus' soul was destroyed by the Emperor with mind bullets.

 

 

How do you know that? These things you're taking as objective absolutes are things no one actually knows for certain, and are left vague for a squillion reasons. That claim alone (as just one among many) is something there's basically no absolute answer to - just suggestions and possibilities. Yet you're throwing it at me like it's fact. 

 

Are you starting to see why it's impossible to agree with you? That it's not "disingenuous"? How do you know these things, f'rex, as 100% fact when no one I know does?

 

Do you see?

 

 

I mean personally, I don't think Fabius Bile got all his titles and infamy by being bad at his job. Whatever method the Emperor used to create the Primarchs I feel confident in saying that Fabius Bile probably knows how to do it. We're talking about a man who was so insanely intelligent that the Dark Eldar, despite his still very real contacts with the Emperors Children even in the 41st millennium, allowed him into their city and trained him personally. The man is not dumb, and woe betide the person who doubts what he can accomplish if he puts his mind to it.

[mc warhammer]

This reminds me of a certain acting technique that instructs the reader to divide all the text on the page into either “fact” or “possibility”. What you find, after underlining all the facts, is that they are in the minority.

A character walks through the door- fact.
A teacup on the desk- fact.
Ext-daylight- fact.

Everything else, any dialogue, any relationship, any motivation is only a possibility. Essentially any human thing. Until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, they’re only inferred.

“I love you.” - maybe.
“I killed him.” - maybe.
He angrily slammed the teacup onto the desk- maybe.

You are not allowed to make any guesses (educated or otherwise) to draw any conclusions. The idea is to explore options. All options. Even counter-intuitive ones. That’s it. I suppose that applies here somewhat in that the reader should allow themselves to explore the possibilities of 40k rather than try to nail it to the floor.

In a wider context, even in the cases where an author outright states their intentions, it can and will be interpreted differently across an audience. It’s as unavoidable as we are individual. There’s an example used in post-modern studies that (from memory) goes like this:

Three men approach an escalator with a sign at the entrance which reads:

DOGS MUST BE CARRIED ON ESCALATOR
The first man reads it and thinks “If I have a dog with me and wish to use the escalator, then I must carry that animal.”
The second reads it and thinks “Damn. If I want to take the escalator then I need to have a dog. Where do I find a bloody dog.”
The third reads it and thinks “How very true.”



You can add your own fourth snarky response at will.

[tgjensen]

Three men approach an escalator with a sign at the entrance which reads:

 

DOGS MUST BE CARRIED ON ESCALATOR

 

The first man reads it and thinks “If I have a dog with me and wish to use the escalator, then I must carry that animal.”

 

The second reads it and thinks “Damn. If I want to take the escalator then I need to have a dog. Where do I find a bloody dog.”

 

The third reads it and thinks “How very true.”

 

 

 

You can add your own fourth snarky response at will.

 

"I bet a dog put that up."

[mc warhammer]

"I bet a dog put that up."

made me actual lol

[Loesh]

Just recovering from a horrible head cold, and remembered what I wanted to say: Ferrus Manus during Istaavan basically slaughtered his way to Fulgrim, the guy was a human tornado right up until he reached the Emperor's Childrens Primarch, and re-reading the text I feel that...despite some people saying it was the daemon who let him win that fight...he won it largely on his own merits, but on the other hand Fulgrim himself was subdued by...what? twenty marines, admittedly powerful marines, lying in wait. What does that say about Primarchs? That Primarchs can slaughter opposition wholesale, or that it depends largely on circumstance?

 

For me, it's the latter. If a lot of humans had enough of an advantage, like ambushing him for example, it's a no brainer to me that they could down one.

[Wade Garrett]

If you're talking about Reflection Crack'd, Fulgrim and Lucius both claim the Phoenician deliberately threw that fight just so he could have the experience of being tortured in a perversely homoerotic way by his gene sons.

 

I think Guilliman against the Alpha Legion in Unremembered Empire is a more valid showing of low end Primarchs.

[Loesh]

If you're talking about Reflection Crack'd, Fulgrim and Lucius both claim the Phoenician deliberately threw that fight just so he could have the experience of being tortured in a perversely homoerotic way by his gene sons.

 

I think Guilliman against the Alpha Legion in Unremembered Empire is a more valid showing of low end Primarchs.

 

Admittedly I haven't read that in awhile, so point conceded.

 

I have not read Unremembered Empire at all, but to be fair to Robute, the Alpha Legion are apparently godlike invisible killing machines according to the Seventh Serpent thread. :p

[Chapter Master Valrak]

Are Imperial Fists ever going to get a full novel dedicated to themselves in the Heresy actually being awesome? I deserve it, I deserve it for all the insults I get for being a yellow power armoured meatshield, I deserve justice be done, I deserve my RECKONING.

[Loesh]

Are Imperial Fists ever going to get a full novel dedicated to themselves in the Heresy actually being awesome? I deserve it, I deserve it for all the insults I get for being a yellow power armoured meatshield, I deserve justice be done, I deserve my RECKONING.

 

Really? With Sigismund being the enormous badass that he is and the founder of the Black Templars, i'v never seen people turn up their nose at the fists.

 

That's not to say you don't deserve a book, just that there are other factions that need a badass injection...arguably factions that have had quite a few pieces on them but have just been executed poorly.

[Wade Garrett]

My theory is that the Imperial Fists novel will cover the Siege of Terra, which will put it at the tail end of the Heresy releases. Which is a bit of a raw deal for fans of the praetorians of Terra, but what can you do?

[Vesper]

Didn't they alrealy have the Pollux thing where he holds against the whole IW fleet because "tactics" ?

[DarKnight]

Didn't they alrealy have the Pollux thing where he holds against the whole IW fleet because "tactics" ?

That was just a short as opposed to a entire novel but yeah lol

[Loesh]

Didn't they alrealy have the Pollux thing where he holds against the whole IW fleet because "tactics" ?

 

I haven't read that, but I assume the tactic he used is what's referred to in gaming circles as 'turtling'.

[tgjensen]

Going off hazy memory - so I might be wrong - he was actually quite aggressive. What made victory possible was that Perturabo was certain it was Sigismund who was in charge of the IF fleet and had made his plans to fit Sigismund's temperament and tactical style. Pollux took a different approach that put victory, and the death of Perturabo, within their grasp, though at heavy losses.

Edit: Oh, and to relate this to the previous discussion: You should see what happens when Imperial Fists boarding party goes up against Perturabo on his own

[daveNYC]

Regarding Dorn's fate, I prefer to think that he didn't end up dead at the hands of a bunch of cultists.

 

1) Primarch vs. cultists is pretty long odds for the cultists, no matter how frothing at the mouth they are.

2) Only his hand was found, which is a strange state of affairs since it would mean that they not only killed him but managed to lug both him and his armor off of a ship that was being stormed by a heap of angry Imperial Fists.  I can accept that maybe there were enough well armed cultists on the bridge to kill him, but I doubt that they also had a forklift and were able to load his corpse on it and then drive it to the nearest escape pod / landing bay.

 

So consider this.  Dorn shows up on the bridge and starts punching everyone into mush, the head cultist or some chaos sorcerer sees things are going poorly and opens a portal to a place that has 100% less angry Primarch on tap, Dorn sees people scooting through the portal and gives chase, the portal closes just as he's going through with him on one side and his hand on the other.  His hand is severed and left behind for his forces to find, and he's stuck off in who knows where (most likely not someplace happy).

 

That gets the same end conditions as him getting krumped by cultists, but with less weak performance in combat and more potential for an interesting comeback story.

[Conn Eremon]

Isn't his whole skeleton encased in amber on the Phalanx? The whole hand thing is just because it's the Imperial Fist's lord's imperial fist, making it special. So they carve their Chapter Master's names onto it, and keep it separate.

[Chapter Master Valrak]

 

Are Imperial Fists ever going to get a full novel dedicated to themselves in the Heresy actually being awesome? I deserve it, I deserve it for all the insults I get for being a yellow power armoured meatshield, I deserve justice be done, I deserve my RECKONING.

 

Really? With Sigismund being the enormous badass that he is and the founder of the Black Templars, i'v never seen people turn up their nose at the fists.

 

That's not to say you don't deserve a book, just that there are other factions that need a badass injection...arguably factions that have had quite a few pieces on them but have just been executed poorly.

 

 

Sigismund is amazing, I loved the Templar audio released a few months back. Loved the Crimson Fist, I just want a book similar to others that delves more into the Legion itself, its inner workings and motivations.

[daveNYC]

Isn't his whole skeleton encased in amber on the Phalanx? The whole hand thing is just because it's the Imperial Fist's lord's imperial fist, making it special. So they carve their Chapter Master's names onto it, and keep it separate.

 

I dunno, thought it was only his hand.  

[Chapter Master Valrak]

 

Isn't his whole skeleton encased in amber on the Phalanx? The whole hand thing is just because it's the Imperial Fist's lord's imperial fist, making it special. So they carve their Chapter Master's names onto it, and keep it separate.

 

I dunno, thought it was only his hand.  

 

 

 

If I remember correctly, the new Space Marine Codex states no body was found, the Imperial Fists found only one hand of Dorn after his assault, retconning both the old versions

 

They also changed about the Iron Cage, the new version says that if the Ultramarines didn't jump in, the Imperial Fists Legion and the Iron Warrior Legion would have utterly destroyed each other.

 

But in the codex supplement for 'Sentinels of Terra' we have this piece:

 

"...to commemorate the death of Rogal Dorn, who perished outnumbered and alone upon the bridge of the Chaos cruiser, Sword of Sacrilege..."

 

---

 

Would anyone actually like something like what fantasty has done, a campaign story that brings everything crashing down? The Lion waking up would IMO be very interesting IMO :)

[Slave to Darkness]

They did have Daemon primarchs running round in the old epic game, so technically they are still doin their thing. 

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

Regarding Dorn's fate, I prefer to think that he didn't end up dead at the hands of a bunch of cultists.

 

1) Primarch vs. cultists is pretty long odds for the cultists, no matter how frothing at the mouth they are.

2) Only his hand was found, which is a strange state of affairs since it would mean that they not only killed him but managed to lug both him and his armor off of a ship that was being stormed by a heap of angry Imperial Fists.  I can accept that maybe there were enough well armed cultists on the bridge to kill him, but I doubt that they also had a forklift and were able to load his corpse on it and then drive it to the nearest escape pod / landing bay.

 

So consider this.  Dorn shows up on the bridge and starts punching everyone into mush, the head cultist or some chaos sorcerer sees things are going poorly and opens a portal to a place that has 100% less angry Primarch on tap, Dorn sees people scooting through the portal and gives chase, the portal closes just as he's going through with him on one side and his hand on the other.  His hand is severed and left behind for his forces to find, and he's stuck off in who knows where (most likely not someplace happy).

 

That gets the same end conditions as him getting krumped by cultists, but with less weak performance in combat and more potential for an interesting comeback story.

What's wrong with being killed by Cultists/random Marines? What if his legs were crushed under a giant beam as the ship was falling apart and he managed to go through a thousand cultists before being shot in the head despite having to crawl? That to me is more bad@$$ than getting annihilated by your brother and only putting a scratch on him.