Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa

[TheRealMcCagh]

What are the specifics on Vulkan getting shot in the face? It's from his Primarch novel right?

[bluntblade]

If Vulkan can just shrug that off and be perpetual, that feels like someone overcranked him. Bit too comic-ish

[Indefragable]

...then again Sanguinius was hit by the full blast of an Eldar psy-titan, a blow that "would have fell any other creature" and lived to tell about it (and still look good!) so Primarchs in general are pretty nuts.

 

From HH VII: Inferno:

...though it is said that the Angel Sanguinius destroyed one of their number himself, tearing open its head with his bare hands and sending it crashing to destruction before being struck a grievous blow by the Warlock's psi-lance from which none other would have survived.

 

Thanks @Marshal Loss

[Slan Drakkos]

What are the specifics on Vulkan getting shot in the face? It's from his Primarch novel right?

actually, it's from The Beast Arises series. He kept getting hit with the full force of an ork gravity weapon. I'll see if I can find the quote.

 

Found it. This:

Vulkan advanced. His armour’s interior temperature rocketed upward. He was inside an active volcano. A mortal’s flesh would have started to burn. He marched on, implacable, a continental plate on the move. He passed between the immense coils. He was midway towards the pillar. He realised the ork engineer was not shouting. It was laughing. The beast pulled a lever. The weight of a planet fell on his shoulders. He withstood the crushing force for several seconds, and then it brought him to his knees. The ork had turned the gravity weapon against him. The greenskin hurled mountains at the sky, and now it forced Vulkan down. His lungs flattened. Drawing a breath was an act of supreme strength. He growled, denying the force that sought to grind his bones to dust. He would not capitulate. He would rise. He would advance.

 

In conjunction with this:

‘What is it, captain?’ he managed. ‘Look, sir.’ She pointed to the auspex screen on his right. Rodolph looked. The sensor array had picked up another mass rising from the planet towards the moon. Rodolph blinked. The mass was coming far too fast. He grinned. The mass became visible through the oculus a few moments later. It had risen with such velocity it was heated to red by its passage through the atmosphere. It spun end-over-end, thousands of metres long, trillions of tonnes of rock, a missile hurled at the exposed heart of the ork base. Rodolph watched it disappear into the uncompleted face of the assault moon.

 

Makes Vulkan the primarch with the single best strength/durability feat of them all.

[TheRealMcCagh]

Where does you second quote tie in with Vulkan? Does that meteor hit him?

[Slan Drakkos]

Where does you second quote tie in with Vulkan? Does that meteor hit him?

he was getting hit by the gravity weapon. The ork that used it on him was even damaging the machine with the amount of force being put out.

 

When Vulkan used the device to destroy the ork moon (the second quote), it gives us a ballpark measurement of how much weight was being thrown at him only a few minutes ago.

[bluntblade]

Yep, that does indeed seem over the top to me.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yeah, that's a little insane. 

[bluntblade]

Especially given that the same guy has died to mass bolter fire before.

[Slan Drakkos]

Especially given that the same guy has died to mass bolter fire before.

when did he die from bolter fire?

[TheRealMcCagh]

Maybe he is referring to when Damon unloads his Shuriken pistols into him in Unremembered Empire. 

 

How does Vulkan get free from the gravity weapon? Just rallies and pushes through?

[Mellow]

Yes, don’t forget that Vulkan had his entire head blown off by those pesky Perpetuals that were hunting him.

 

I mean he regenerated and all but it must have been embarrassing seeing as other Primarchs have taken bullets to the head with only minor wounding. I thought their skin, muscle, bone was meant to be incredibly tough after all!

[bluntblade]

I'm referring to Isstvan V.

[Slan Drakkos]

Maybe he is referring to when Damon unloads his Shuriken pistols into him in Unremembered Empire.

 

How does Vulkan get free from the gravity weapon? Just rallies and pushes through?

he waits till the ork reverses gravity, slams his hand into the ground to stay where he is, and then throws his hammer with enough force to kill the ork and damage the machine.

 

Yes, don’t forget that Vulkan had his entire head blown off by those pesky Perpetuals that were hunting him.

I mean he regenerated and all but it must have been embarrassing seeing as other Primarchs have taken bullets to the head with only minor wounding. I thought their skin, muscle, bone was meant to be incredibly tough after all!

....angron has also been badly injured by shuriken guns...horus and mortarion have both been injured by thunderhawks....ferrus has nearly been knocked out by a powersword blowing up in his hands..... Guilliman got wrecked by getting his throat slit and almost died against some alpha legionaries...

 

40K is like any other fictional universe. There are high showings and low showings.

 

There's really no embarrassment to be had. Especially since Damon nearly killed Eldrad (and we all know how eldrad did againt Abaddon).

I'm referring to Isstvan V.

didn't vulkan also get hit by a macrocannon blast at Istvaan?

[Mellow]

Yeah but they just got injured by shuriken weapons. Vulkan got his head vaporised!

[Slan Drakkos]

Yeah but they just got injured by shuriken weapons. Vulkan got his head vaporised!

once again, I just chalk it up to being a low showing. He straight up tanked an explosion that completely incinerated numerous firedrakes, shrugged off a macrocannon blast, etc.

 

Seriously, the lowest showing of any primarch makes them seem hilariously weak in comparison to what they actually are. Hell, horus got impaled on a piece of metal in the second book.

[Demus Ragnok]

Ignore

[Fedor]

Primarch power displays are all over the place in BL books and the lore, trying to make sense of them and fit the primarchs into a strict heirarchy is a losing game, regardless of if you discount lower or higher showings of might.

 

Vulkan has probably the most wide variance between the near comic book superman stuff in Beast and getting stabbed to death with a kitchen fork or unable to hold up a concrete block for long to stop some humans getting crushed in Vulkan lives, or getting gibbed with a sniper rifle\shuriken pistols in Unremembered Empire which suggests a physiology that would have seen all of the Primarchs that led from the front likely being killed over the course of the crusade.

 

Then you have psychic resistance where sometimes they shrug things off with ease like Russ on Prospero, Sanguinius with the titan etc on one end to Guilliman getting brought low with a few psychic blasts from Kor Phaeron and Ferrus seeming to have no resistance to psychic manipulation at all until the human psyker tries to create an illusion with big E in it.

 

It's best just to roll with it and go with what the author is doing at that point in time, trying to match most of these guys up as if they were real life boxers\MMA fighters just doesn't work for the most part. It's mostly all speculation and often conflicting.

 

For instance even the physically strongest primarch idea. It looks to me like BL\GW\FW want to go towards Vulkan, Ferrus and Mortarion as the tanks, but that's mostly just due to some inner thoughts from primarchs(who could be wrong), emphasising strength in lore descriptions\tabletop stats etc It's fairly subtle and open to debate, we don't have description of a big primarch strongest man competition with specific ranking

 

The same with the melee combat prowess thing.I see that discussed so often on the 40klore group and 90% of it is pure speculation often taken as inviolable rankings and tiers. Maybe i'm wrong but i've always thought BL in particular wanted for the most part to be more subtle, varied and situational about things(while still allowing for different niches and specialities)and weren't working from hard dictates like "Rogal Dorn ranks as 10th best in Melee" " you're not allowed to let anyone beat Angron in close combat under any situation" 

 

Alpharius\Omegon seemed to suffer from the rigid rankings\specialisation way of thinking for a long time from large sections of the fanbase and were pigeonholed as physically weaker, poorer fighters LONG before any evidence actually was shown, just due to their Legion lore emphasis being elsewhere. I was a bit let down when Forgeworld came out with stats for them that seemed to confirm that line of thinking, it seemed so obvious and uninteresting. Though tbf i can't think of anything else that went down that route yet, including POD duel, so it's still mostly fandom speculation taken as fact that they are the  non-frontline spy that couldn't match any of the others in direct confrontation.

[bluntblade]

Alpharius came close to winning that duel on the basis of his speed and cunning, mind.

[nagashnee]

As other have said, comparing power levels based on acts is pointless, as BL does not in any way try and stay consistent within their own works. The best we got are the general in universe agreed upon vague rankings, and even these are suspect.

 

Much like comic book the answer is who is writing it and whose story is it 99% of the time. 

[Mellow]

Although for me I have always stood by the impression that Angron is the most brutal close combat specialist of all the Primarchs. He was a gladiator for nearly all his life so it would stand to reason he was very much at the top of the “ranking” for close combat ability. Although I am aware that Guilliman managed to defend himself against him but defending and managing to break Angrons attacks and turn it into victory are two different things.

[bluntblade]

I think the course of the battle spoke for itself. Guilliman managed one telling blow, and otherwise managed to simply stay alive.

[Slan Drakkos]

Although for me I have always stood by the impression that Angron is the most brutal close combat specialist of all the Primarchs. He was a gladiator for nearly all his life so it would stand to reason he was very much at the top of the “ranking” for close combat ability. Although I am aware that Guilliman managed to defend himself against him but defending and managing to break Angrons attacks and turn it into victory are two different things.

Roboute Guilliman isn't exactly the best gauge for skill though. He almost died against alpha legion infiltrators and only managed to stalemate Lorgar. Granted, Angron did leave Russ choking on his own teeth. Then again, Russ almost loses to everyone.........

[Fedor]

Yeah, obviously someone like Angron has to be given a certain focus and respect on his close combat ability when writing him considering the implications and focus of his background story.

 

But i see him more as an exploration of the  barely controllable/mentally compromised berserker idea with all the strengths and weaknesses that kind of thing brings to someone who was meant to be so much more, rather than just straight up meant to be the unbeatable close combat man of the primarchs in the same way as Magnus is the naturally strongest psyker or only sanguinius has wings, which are some of the few more obviously set in concrete attributes.

 

I'd find it interesting to hear from some of the authors just how much leeway they are given in Primarch depictions. Clearly there are certain long established traits of each character that have to be adhered to, and lore to be broadly followed, but when it comes to things that have never really been specifically laid down or aren't as important to the real meat of the characters like close combat ability/speed/strength i'd like to think there aren't too man strict rankings or tiers for stuff like that being laid out behind the scenes. Having to write from briefs like " no one other than Sanguinius can ever be depicted beating Angron "  or you can't have  any other primarch get the better of Horus or the Lion strategically " would limit potential characterisation avenues imo. I doubt there is though, but maybe a few years back when GW were more involved with BL it's the kind of thing that could have crept in, especially with Primarchs getting tabletop rules.

 

Also,don't get me wrong, i don't want the primarchs to all be from the exact same cookie cutter template, but i also think the basic idea of them all being made with a very practical goal in mind as gene ehanced warlords with mostly similar potential capabilities and prowess is preferable to going too marvel/dc with strict power levels and loads of big gaps/specialities in abilities being emphasised. That doesn't fit the universe imo.  it's mostly the different personalities that really shape the primarchs and make them standout as characters, not that some do have more specific powers like flight or regeneration.

[Mellow]

It’s also a good point that Russ never beats anyone. Other than beating Magnus he’s been all brag no action.

 

I also don’t think Sanguinius is “all that” in close combat. I mean he had real difficulty in even hitting Curze. That puts Curze way up there in the close combat league as far as I’m concerned.