Leman Russ top of the Primarchs in CC

[WrathOfTheLion]

Is Luther the top of the Primarchs? Interesting observation.

[b1soul]

Russ was also unsure about Horus in Angel Exterminatus...different authours different takes, I suppose. Russ is also absolutely full of himself...so a number of primarchs he never mentions could potentially give him more than he could handle, depending on battlefield circumstance.

 

Regardless, Russ' actual record against Angron and the Lion is mixed at best.

 

I note that Angron, despite his berserker reputation, did not try to "murderise" Russ as he was crawling away on all fours beaten and bloody. Angron still had his axe in hand and it would've been a great time to try if ending Russ were truly his desire.

Yes, Russ' army definitely outmanoeuvred Angron's mob, but when Russ tried to fight the ultimate fighter, he got his teeth kicked in in humiliating fashion.

Edited October 13, 2020 by b1soul

[Gore Crow]

Well, until Luther turned him into a vegetable anyway.

 

 Russ picking Curze and Sanguinius and giving the reasons he did for being unsure of them (he didn't say he absolutely couldn't beat them) was more an insight into how steeped in Fenrisian culture he is, than an excuse for fans to start ranking power levels imo. It's similar to his distaste for Magnus and ties into the typical outlook of cultures at that stage of development...wariness of the mad/unknown/unpredictable being a big deal. He senses something dark under the surface of Sanguinius and it unnerves him...and well Curze with his visions of doom and the like, explains itself.

 

Great point, I like that a lot. 

 

I brought up that quote as I was just making fun - It's more interesting to think that on any given Sunday any primarch could beat any other - just like sports. If you're dealing in absolutes you've probably just cherrypicked evidence.

[TorvaldTheMild]

Russ himself didn't think he could beat Sanguinius or Curze in combat - as the top of the Primarchs in CC we have to take his word that he is not the top of the Primarchs in CC. 

Wrong he literally said the only one that could was Horus.

Let's look at the data:

• Lion (Durant): Hard, famous loss for Russ. Started a fight he couldn't win and then flattened with a single punch. How embarrassing. Loss
• Curze: Never actually duelled, but openly admitted that Curze would win. Predicted Loss
• Sanguinius: The same, very accepting that he would lose this duel. Predicted Loss
• Angron (Night of the Wolf): Devastating loss. Literally sent home crawling through the mud, humiliated. Again we see a trend of starting fights he cannot finish. Claims that he won the battle are irrelevant, because he absolutely 100% lost the duel. Loss
• Magnus (Battle of Prospero): A win! Sure he brought his dogs to work, and some Sisters of Silence, and his opponent had already resigned to his death. But a win is a win. Win
• Horus (Battle of Trisolian): Strong early start, but flubbed his lead and again sent home in disgrace. Was left so close to death that Corax had to save him. Once again, starting fights that he cannot finish. Loss
• Alpharius (Battle of Alaxxes): Never concluded but both parties seemed up for it. Given Russ' history of starting fights and losing them, it seems pretty reasonable that he would have lost this one as well. Unknown
• Lost Primarchs: Who? No data, nothing canon, no named winner. Can't even confirm that Russ was involved, much less that he won.
• All others: Unknown. As far as I am aware, there is no data on the other Primarch's having a fight with him.

 

So we have 3 confirmed losses, 2 predicted losses, a draw, and a win.

As such I think it is fair to place him above Magnus, roughly equal with Alpharius, and comfortably above Lorgar. Putting him joint 15th among his brothers.

The lion sucker punched him and Russ let Angron win.  Also the Russ beat a Chaos supped up Horus, the same Horus that beat the Emperor.  I know Dark Angels like cowardly wins and Angron can't see past his nails but FACTS.  Angron could probably beat Russ but anyone that thinks he did when they did fought hasn't read the lore or is as dense as Angron and I'm a World Eater player and Angron is my favourite Primarch.  Check my profile, some of you can't see past your favourites.

Edited October 13, 2020 by TorvaldTheMild

[WrathOfTheLion]

Russ beat Chaos Horus, Jonson beat Russ and Luther beat Jonson.

 

Clearly the Horus Heresy was just a distraction for the true Lord of Chaos, Luther, to rise. This is evident.

 

Luther has now returned. The galaxy shall tremble.

[TorvaldTheMild]

Jonson sucker punched Russ.

[Karhedron]

I brought up that quote as I was just making fun - It's more interesting to think that on any given Sunday any primarch could beat any other - just like sports. If you're dealing in absolutes you've probably just cherrypicked evidence.

Yup, the Primarchs are all derived from the same base genetic template. They all have their specialisations and blind spots but I think it is worth remembering they are closer in capabilities than some people like to think. The fact that the Primarchs don't agree between themselves who is the best duelist hints at this, as does the fact that a few of the fights we see don't necessarily go the way we might expect from a simple linear power ranking.

 

There are a few outliers like Magnus but he was built for s specific purpose and his presence in the GC was very much secondary to that (even if he didn't know it at the time). Given how crucial he was to the webway project, I am kinda surprised the Emperor let him go trotting around the galaxy risking his life. It would have made more sense to bring him back to Terra, particularly after the Nikea ruling took the wind out of his sails.

[Monkeychunks]

Jonson sucker punched Russ.

Maybe if Russ was a better fighter, he would have known to punch first.

[Karhedron]

 

Jonson sucker punched Russ.

Maybe if Russ was a better fighter, he would have known to punch first.

 

That was the point though, he did throw the first punch. After knocking each other about for the best part of a day, he then saw the funny side and started to laugh. Johnson didn't and floored him. The fight is intended to tell you more about the difference in their personalities than martial prowess.

[Scribe]

Amusing that this was all solved in the early posts.

 

Its what the plot decides. The any given sunday approach works as well.

 

Outside of that, you have to look at the text, if you really care to start splitting hairs.

[Scribe]

 

Angron could probably beat Russ but anyone that thinks he did when they did fought hasn't read the lore or is as dense as Angron and I'm a World Eater player and Angron is my favourite Primarch.  Check my profile, some of you can't see past your favourites.

 

Your reading is incorrect. I doubt we need to bring up the posts, you can search them here if you need to, but.

 

Russ was Trolled.

Russ attacked Angron.

Russ crawled away from Angron, beaten.

 

In no reading can you say.

 

1. Russ let Angron win.

2. Russ was not the aggressor.

3. Russ was literally not verbally undone by what the rest of the series has demonstrated was a mentally broken, deficient, irreparably damage, berzerker.

 

A Primarch with an self inflated sense of purpose, picked a fight with a Primarch and Legion that have a completely alien world view, and he got bloodied for his hubris when he was verbally outwitted by a 'dumb berzerker'.

 

Thats what the text illustrates.

 

Angron 4 life.

[StrangerOrders]

A more productive excercise is probably to account for which Primarchs are better dispositionally suited to best other specific Primarchs and vice versa.

 

To give a somewhat hilarious example, I sort of think that Alpharius can probably kill Sanguinius 9/10.

 

Not due to combat abilities or willingness mind you.

 

Just that as written, Sangi is remarkably easy to mind-game and black mail. I sort of feel like you can send him an anonymous clip of a Red Thirst incident and you then pretty much have him.

 

Meanwhile, Dorn is so relentlessly ambivalent to outside factors that you can't really trip him up pre-Siege, making him the worse mismatch against Alpharius of the lot (I sort of feel like Angron, Kurze and the like have more buttons than a piano to push). 

 

Or hilariously enough, alot of rumors and assumptions insetting are hilariously wrong.

 

Take Guilliman and let go of that somewhat antiquated 'screw smurfs' mindset for a minute. He has an ample track record which hilariously enough shows that he is several times more effective against other Primarchs when berserk than when he is playing in his 'cold and logical' mindset.

 

Or we can account for the fact that Pert is more or less hand-crafted to shut berserkers like Angron (and hilariously, Guilliman) down due to his absolute willingness to just shoot them and have his Legion rain artillery on them. But he again has so many buttons that we circle back to him being a mismatch against logical types.

 

Or, to pick on the Lion a little bit, he is more or less unstoppable in a duel or a battle but he has nearly been killed twice by explosives and has a long-running habit of not accounting for opponent set-ups. Which you could argue is Dorn's 'immutable' strength upped to the point of a weakness.

 

If we want to get really hilarious, Russ's weakness to me from seeing Angron, the Lion and even Horus is precisely that whole 'pretending to be a savage' bit. He really seems to have a long-running problem of either holding back or coming to his senses at a god-awful time. The fact he got mopey about Magnus afterwards compared to Dorn, Fulgrim and other fratricides seeming to not give much a frick is actually sort of damning. 

 

There is a discussion to be had on these things I think, but 'objectively better' is a doomed starting point and more telling about having an obsession with a particular Legion than anything else really. We should really aim to be a bit less fanboyish than Khârn as a group.

 

By my standards, I tend to think that a more interesting debate is who gets fairer treatment and more nuanced writing, in which case I think we should all raise a toast to poor Vulkan and Ferrus.

Edited October 13, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Scribe]

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

[TorvaldTheMild]

 

 

Angron could probably beat Russ but anyone that thinks he did when they did fought hasn't read the lore or is as dense as Angron and I'm a World Eater player and Angron is my favourite Primarch.  Check my profile, some of you can't see past your favourites.

 

Your reading is incorrect. I doubt we need to bring up the posts, you can search them here if you need to, but.

 

Russ was Trolled.

Russ attacked Angron.

Russ crawled away from Angron, beaten.

 

In no reading can you say.

 

1. Russ let Angron win.

2. Russ was not the aggressor.

3. Russ was literally not verbally undone by what the rest of the series has demonstrated was a mentally broken, deficient, irreparably damage, berzerker.

 

A Primarch with an self inflated sense of purpose, picked a fight with a Primarch and Legion that have a completely alien world view, and he got bloodied for his hubris when he was verbally outwitted by a 'dumb berzerker'.

 

Thats what the text illustrates.

 

Angron 4 life.

 

Yeah ask Lorgar and the guy that wrote the novel.  because what you are doing is 'facts don't matter'  Angron was mentally broken and deficient etc. but none of that applied to his fighting ability, it applied to his strategy, tactics ect. but it only helped his CC ability.  Do you know not what the butchers nails are.  You have very limited lore knowledge.

Edited October 13, 2020 by TorvaldTheMild

[StrangerOrders]

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

That cognitive thing actually just gave me something of an epiphany as to why these discussions pop up so often.

 

The problem might be the bolterporn.

 

Hear me out, the problem is that alot of BL books have alot of their wordcount consumed by one or two big battles which usually devolve into fellaciating the main PoVs on a pretty micro-scale. Thats not really a critique as such because thats most action-fiction but its a big problem in a setting like HH.

 

Because for alot of Legions and Primarchs, they dont really have alot of 'we are good at this' deals beyond 'we fight extra hard and ferociously' with maybe a bit about honor being thrown in. So you naturally end up in these debates with Wolves, BAngels, DAngels, WE and the like going in circles because thats pretty much all we really get to see with them.

 

Its not like Roboute where his characterization is mostly as an Admin or Pert as a craftsman where you dont really dwell that much on where they stand with this. Its not their 'thing' so you are not that committed. 

 

But what else do the 'we fight extra hard' Legions have to really brag about if we dont devolve into these silly flexing contests?

 

Just thinking because I actually think the Black Books actually do an excellent job at articulating war and combat to the point where it isnt just a flexing contest on a single battlefield. I do think that the Wheel of Fire is a shining and distinct moment of awesome where the Wolves came through in a way few Legions could, I think that the liberation of Sarum and the Golgotha region show you the sheer brutality of Angron and the XIIth without making them idiots or the 'well, my dad can beat yours up' club.

 

Frankly, Russ's strength as a social engineer or Angron's supposed talent for picking out promising officers, or the fact that the Lion really should have a more wholistic knowledge-base (or at least have some marginal pattern-recognition) are angles that would be fun to dwell more on. But hooray for the flexithan I guess.

 

Granted, this might just be an indictment on BL writers not really knowing how to write battles beyond pissing matches in the norm but I think there is potential in showing different ways of excelling in the melee Legions and Primarchs beyond who wins in a cage match. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[TorvaldTheMild]

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

Not in CC.  Also should is the key word there.  

Edited October 13, 2020 by TorvaldTheMild

[Scribe]

 

 

 

Angron could probably beat Russ but anyone that thinks he did when they did fought hasn't read the lore or is as dense as Angron and I'm a World Eater player and Angron is my favourite Primarch.  Check my profile, some of you can't see past your favourites.

 

Your reading is incorrect. I doubt we need to bring up the posts, you can search them here if you need to, but.

 

Russ was Trolled.

Russ attacked Angron.

Russ crawled away from Angron, beaten.

 

In no reading can you say.

 

1. Russ let Angron win.

2. Russ was not the aggressor.

3. Russ was literally not verbally undone by what the rest of the series has demonstrated was a mentally broken, deficient, irreparably damage, berzerker.

 

A Primarch with an self inflated sense of purpose, picked a fight with a Primarch and Legion that have a completely alien world view, and he got bloodied for his hubris when he was verbally outwitted by a 'dumb berzerker'.

 

Thats what the text illustrates.

 

Angron 4 life.

 

Yeah ask Lorgar and the guy that wrote the novel.  because what you are doing is 'facts don't matter'  Angron was mentally broken and deficient etc. but none of that applied to his fighting ability, it applied to his strategy, tactics ect. but it only helped his CC ability.  Do you know not what the butchers nails are.  You have very limited lore knowledge.

 

 

The World Eaters lost. Not Angron.

[Scribe]

 

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

Not in CC.  Also should is the key word there.  

 

 

Why would you chose to get into CC with a living blender, that does not care if it lives or dies if it wins the fight?

[StrangerOrders]

 

 

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

Not in CC.  Also should is the key word there.  

 

 

Why would you chose to get into CC with a living blender, that does not care if it lives or dies if it wins the fight?

 

Ngl, my favorite bit in the Betrayal BB is when Horus just considers Exterminatus-ing Istvaan with Angron still on it and just holds off because he realizes the Conqueror and the rest of the fleet are parked next to him and maybe aiming guns at him.

 

Shining moment that makes Horus smarter, Angron smarter and has someone remember that ships dont just freeze in time when there is no ongoing orbital fighting despite the surface being active. 

[TorvaldTheMild]

I have the power of grayskull you are all wrong.

[Scribe]

 

Granted, this might just be an indictment on BL writers not really knowing how to write battles beyond pissing matches in the norm but I think there is potential in showing different ways of excelling in the melee Legions and Primarchs beyond who wins in a cage match. 

 

 

And honestly this. Fact is though, there are very few if any 'melee' legions. The only, purest, one is World Eaters. Thats why it matters.

 

If we want to have 'well they could have been X if not for the nails' discussions, there's little that is well written to support it, it is all just conjecture.

 

If we want to get into the weeds of unreliable in-universe narration, we can dance ALL DAY over these things but its been done to death. Betrayer was written how long ago? LOL 2012!!

 

The discussions have been had. On this very forum.

 

I'll take my broken Legions and their broken Primarchs, and enjoy that they are broken.

 

Russ lost to Angron though, anyone that has fought or spared knows what it means if you are on your knees, crawling away from someone.

 

Ya lost, and on the mat or in the ring, thats one thing. If it's in an alley or on in a warzone? If the person NOT CRAWLING wills it, you are dead.

[TorvaldTheMild]

 

 

Honestly, any cognitively functional Primarch should wipe the floor with Angron. As Pert displayed to an EMBARRASSING degree.

Not in CC.  Also should is the key word there.  

 

 

Why would you chose to get into CC with a living blender, that does not care if it lives or dies if it wins the fight?

 

Because it would be incredibly fun.  Blood for the blood God.

[TorvaldTheMild]

I also have the power of the God Emperor of Mankind and if you argue with me you are a heretic and should feel really really bad about yourself.  

[TorvaldTheMild]

The CIA had Horus pushing too many pencils.  

[Robbienw]

This the same Russ that got slapped silly in close combat with Angron, and was knocked out by a single punch from The Lion? :lol: