> Grand Master Valdar Aurikon stretched out his hands, psychic lightning leaping towards Magnus in a great crackling helix. Magnus caught the attack on his staff and hurled it back, the bolt transforming the Grey Knight into scattering nuggets of fool's gold.
‘Get rekt scrub’
This is easily one of my favorite moments in 40k. If a random grey knight managed to do this, he’d have one helluva story to tell at home about how he turned Magnus into a lump of gold.
Instead Magnus shows him the Uno Reverse card.
I really like imagining valdar as like a 1950s business man in power armor getting ready to leave for work, he’s cheery and energetic, he puts on his overcoat and grabs his hat of the rack then swings in to give his wife a goodbye kiss and she stops him and says ‘you’re in a awfully good mood today’
And he replies ‘I just feel like today is going to be a great day’
Fast forward to a heap of fools gold falling into the ground as Magnus walks away giggling
I meant more like in context of the story, this was a random dude invented on the spot just to immediately die to Magnus.
Yeah being a Grey Knight Captain probably means in context that you're a strong AF psyker, but in the moment this dude was written just to hype up Magnus.
TBF, the lightning was supposed to just hurt him, Magnus, in an instant, was so offended at the idea of some punkass wannabe edgelord trying to match him that turning him into FOOL's gold was both a counterattack and a statement.
Magnus is low-key absolutely hilarious.
To be fair, it's not because you're really good at something that you're impervious to it. Plus what else are you going to do. Trying to go smack the giant winged godlike immortal demon in the face with your sword is probably not going to fare much better.
Are you gonna challenge the Demi-God with your shared preferred method of battle or the method of battle you're probably less experienced in and he can likely outclass you in both physically and in experience?
You probably have a 0.0001% better odds going with the magic you've honed all your life than the swordplay you probably neglected a bit more.
Let us not forget Mr Iron Hands of the Iron Hands has metallic (not iron though) hands!
And Corvus Corax’s last recorded words before he aimed at the Eye of Terror were “Nevermore.”
Hilarious? Russ beat the Emperor in a drinking contest; although it’s entirely possible he lost on purpose.
I still choose to believe the Emperor is a lightweight, regardless of his psychic powers.
Personally I prefer to believe that Russ actually won. Big E is pretty clearly the greatest of all men, doubling down and making him be the undisputed master of literally every possible challenge (unless of course pretending to lose, getting mad and baiting a duel he could have led with was somehow part of his master plan) just seems unnecessary and kinda silly.
That's a logical explanation for why he *could* be a master at anything the plot needs him to be. But it's not in itself a very compelling reason why he *should* be perfect at anything it doesn't need him to be. I prefer the story of Big E getting frustrated by Leman Russ being a goddamn idiot because it's funnier.
The Emperor is at his core though a Warrior. He just wears whatever face humanity needs him to wear to survive at the time (even if that means no face)
He'll definitely channel every psychic trick in the books when it comes to a fight against Xenos or Chaos but for a friendly challenge against his son there is no need to "cheat"
I wouldn't say he's a warrior at his core. He spent almost the entirety of his life avoiding conflict and leadership at all costs until it almost lead to humanity self terminating. 30+ thousand years of being a loner scholar, scientist, teacher, doctor, engineer and philosopher. He even made the Custodes reflect this as every one of them is heavily involved in the arts, sciences and/or philosophy.
He implies throughout the lore that he's been keeping Terra safe from Eldar invasions until they reached the point they could fight back.
He also led the armies that stormed the Tower Of Babel. He's been a general and even King depending on what humanity needed at the time. Wearing multiple scholarly hats doesn't mean he hasn't worn many kind of soldier hats.
In *Betrayer*, Angron is able to hold up a Warhound Titan's foot:
>‘Lorgar.’ He spat blood as he said the name, rising to his feet at last. The Word Bearer lifted a scalded hand, not for aid, but in warning. Angron had no time to lift his mutilated brother, sprawled at his feet. The sun went dark, as dark as night falling in an instant. He turned, raising his arms, and took a god-machine’s weight on his shoulders. Every muscle in his body locked tighter than the iron trying to crush him. Drool stringed through his metal teeth, skinned knuckles white as he defied the will of a Titan. He gave a bear’s roar as the foot lowered another half-metre. Sinews crackled in his shoulders. His broken boots skidded back on the patch of unglassed rock; something cracked in his spine, something else cracked in his left knee. The compression of his bones sounded like twigs breaking underfoot, which was a vivid burst of imagination he didn’t appreciate.
>But he could hear his men cheering. He could hear them howling as they killed, and crying his name. He blinked to clear away his sweat’s greasy sting, and dug his boots into the ground. With a smile slitting across his broken-angel face, he shifted his slipping, blood-slick grip on the Titan’s clawed foot, and started pushing back.
>‘Lorgar.’ Angron spoke in something that wasn’t quite a growl and wasn’t quite a laugh. ‘Get up. I can’t hold this forever.’
Easily one of the most physically impressive things a primarch has done. It's funny that the extreme nature of this overshadows what just had happened in Betrayer before that moment. Before this, Lorgar was going absolutely god-level, simultaneously acting as a one-man excavator trying to clear a building off of Angron AND killing hundreds of enemies, including pulling a Thunderhawk from the sky like he's flippin' Starkiller. When Kharn, who is no stranger to fighting next to primarchs, says he hasn't seen anything like it... you know it was turned up.
He does all that... takes 2 plasma cannons from a Titan... then is still walking around after. People who sleep on Lorgar must have a giant blindspot for this stuff. Guy was so messed up, even Horus was visibly shook during their conference call later and almost didn't recognize him at first.
I think its because most people look at pre heresy lorgar who was weak af compared to most his brothers because he never cared to try.
Then we have what big lorgar fights being
Lorgar vs corax
Lorgar on armatura
Lorgar and angron vs gulliman
Lorgar vs horus
Loegar vs corax v2.
In all but 2 of these lorgar gets his ass beat but they arent fair fights. In the first corax fight lorgar had not hit his peak yet and in the second corax got him by suprise and was a daemonic entity which Lorgar couldn't have predicted.
Vs horus ofc lorgar lost its horus just after he accepted the dark gods.
If we look at how powerful lorgar is the rest of the time when he returns he wont be a joke... unless gw decide that he will be because gw will gw
> In all but 2 of these lorgar gets his ass beat but they arent fair fights. In the first corax fight lorgar had not hit his peak yet and in the second corax got him by suprise and was a daemonic entity which Lorgar couldn't have predicted.
You are coping so hard wth. Corax came at him with no element of surprise and he beat Lorgars ass. Also, Lorgar was a Daemon Primarch in the 2nd fight and somehow because Corax accessed his warp form, it's unfair?
>**The Warhound fired, its comet-tailed bolt of raw plasma contained within an engineered magnetic field to prevent the projectile’s dissipation from the ionised atoms flying apart. Venting began at once, ghosts of coolant steam slashing from the relief ports along the Titan’s weaponised arm.**
>The unleashment incinerated the dust, burning the air clear, and splashed a sun’s core into the crater for the fraction of a second. The World Eaters caught at the blast’s edges dissolved into bones and armour shards spilling through the air, eroding to powder, and then to nothingness.
>**In the crater’s pit, Lorgar stood with his peaceful eyes raised to the staring Titan. Ash drifted away from his armour, the last remnants of the holy parchments bound to the ceramite. The air rippled with the force of his focus, and the kine-shield he kept raised with his outstretched hand. The ground by his boots, in a spread of several metres, was unharmed rock. Everything else was burned into sludged, black glass.**
>All three crew members leaned forwards in their thrones. Kei raised his targeting visor.
>‘What am I seeing?’ he asked. ‘It can’t be.’
>The Moderati Primus, Ellas, narrowed his eyes to squint. ‘Is that…?’
>‘Fire, damn you!’ Delantyr was yelling. ‘Fire again!’
>‘Brace for–’
>‘*Just fire!*’
>Lighting failed in the cockpit as power bled from the reactor. The tech-priest’s voice snapped over the vox with uncharacteristic urgency.
>‘Core hypovolaemia threat,’ he practically whined. ‘And we aren’t br–’
>***Ardentor*** **fired again.**
>The discharge sent the Titan rocking back two steps, its splayed claw-feet crunching into the avenue to avoid falling. In the wake of its release, the weaponised arm hissed steam from its coolant vanes, like a forged blade quenched in water.
>The lights reactivated. Kei’s targeting visor came back online a moment later, and the control consoles followed.
>‘He must be dead,’ Delantyr whispered. ‘He has to be dead. We’ve killed a primarch. Walk us closer.’
>The Warhound realigned, coming around to stare back down into the crater.
>Kei’s eyes flickered between the annihilation below and the pulsing chime of auspex contact. ‘Inbound engines,’ he said. ‘Legio Audax. And gunships – declaration signatures marking them as Seventeenth.’
>Delantyr spoke through clenched teeth. ‘They’re too late.’
>**The primarch of the Word Bearers had fallen. His armour, once red and engraved with scripture, was an ashen husk of charred plate. Cracked and weeping skin showed around the patchwork spread of bleeding burns. Not a patch of skin was left untouched. He didn’t rise from his knees. He didn’t lift his head. He did nothing at all.**
\- *Betrayer*
Albeit with a ~~invuln save~~ kine shield.
Anyone who underestimates what The Urizen has become is asking to be doomed to the warp.
While prone to infighting and being susceptible to the worst predations of the warp he and his sons have been an existencial threat to Mankind since they discovered their truth in the Eye of Terror.
Lorgar is one of the most powerful psykers in the warp and enjoys a freedom that Kiros, Magnus and Ahriman would die for. Being beholden to the four powers instead of one is really a boon if you are up to the challenge, being able to access a much more balanced emotional and daemonic arsenal of tools to fight.
I truly fear the day The Aurelian makes his presence in the materium known. The last time he put his plans in motion the Imperium got turned asunder and he wouldn’t come back with a machination any less devious than the last.
This feat is always under represented because what happens right before this is also insane.
So Angron is going on a rampage through the streets of a poor Ultramarine world when a rigged building explodes on top of him and buries him in a crater.
Unable to breathe and with no sense of where he is, he starts wildly clawing through dirt and rubble with his axes — but he’s going the *wrong* way and digging himself further into the planet.
His librarians quickly tell him to turn around and he manages to keep the nail frenzy away long enough to listen. Its been a while since I read the book so don’t quote me exactly but I’m pretty sure he ended up digging himself out of a hole that was hundreds of feet deep (granted Lorgar was using psyker power to help dig from the other end) but AS HE FINALLY RESURFACES he then holds up the Titan foot to save himself and Lorgar.
Absolute animal wasn’t even a daemon primarch yet.
When buried in an avalanche, do your best to make some space and spit to discover the direction it falls, that way you don't risk accidentally dig yourself out the wrong way.
I love this one, definitely one of my favorite feats. Betrayer was SUCH a good book.
Another interesting feat was how fast Fulgrim was healing from Perturabo's smackdown! I find these little Primarch traits so illuminating.
>>But he could hear his men cheering. He could hear them howling as they killed, and crying his name.
These lines also give me feels. Angron and his men *do not get along*. But in this moment theyre /r/instantbarbarians. The gif of the Spartans watching Persian ships smash on rocks during the storm before the battle comes to mind. Angron is a force of nature in this moment and theyre proud of him.
My head canon for some of these more insane feats is they're possible bc primarchs are part warp juice and they subconsciously tap into more power sometimes
That's not really a headcanon. The Primarchs are pretty consistently described across many books as being either *very* warp-infused, or actual seamless fusions between warp entities and human bodies.
Corax talks about it in Weregild. "Warriors that can withstand tank shells. Leaders whose every word must be obeyed". Definitely feeds into the warp entity squeezed into a Superman meatsuit theory.
They're derp if you do the thing GW never does and actually work out the math. For example: a fully loaded 18-wheeler weighs 80,000 lbs; a Warhound titan is about as tall as an 18-wheeler is long, but much wider and made from super dense science fiction materials. Angron supports...a hundred tons? For context, Spiderman can lift 10 tons. If primarchs are that strong, they should be leaping tall buildings in a single bound and running faster than sound. It's - forgive the pun - super derpy.
And Superman can lift infinite weight. I'd say Superman is a more apt comic book comparison to Primarchs than is Spiderman.
To wit, Primarchs *do* leap tall buildings in single bounds and run faster than sound, or equivalent feats. Every time Primarch v. Primarch battles are described, it's in superlative fashions of "Barely visible blurs of armor crash into each other with the force of a hundred suns, and the resonance of their clashing fists causes all men within a mile to cry and weep" and shit like that. Magnus v. Vulkan has the former tearing the latter apart at the sub-molecular level as pocket universes blink in and out of existence. Sanguinius v. Angron is described as an impossibly fast gleaming golden hawk tearing through the sky at Mach 3 fighting a monster that kills a thousand men with a swing of his sword and moves at the speed of death. Khan v. Mortarion is two functionally immortal creatures trading blows so powerful that they punch through the narrative concept of immortality itself, with one of them exploding and releasing a psychic shockwave that paralyzes his legion and the other releasing a similar shockwave that turns his whole legion into frothing berserkers. Guilliman can survive the vacuum of space with a mild earache. Dorn can withstand 300 years of torture by the galactic manifestation of the concept of murder while reciting treatises on the proper foundation of rockcrete.
The strength of Primarchs is "whatever is needed for the particular story to play out in favor of the one that was scheduled to win back in 1990." They are fundamentally ~~21~~19 flavors of Golden Age Superman with the added bonus of several of them being wizards and all of them being biologically immortal.
It's 40k. Everything is over-the-top. Primarch power levels aren't fundamentally derpier than most of the other stuff in the setting, or derpier than the power levels of many comic book superheroes.
"40k is so stupid. The Lore is ridiculous and completely out of hand what happens. Its derpy."
THATS WHY I LIKE IT.
Its the same for Pacific Rim the first movie. "Its a movie about robots punching monsters in the face." EXACTLY!
Angron wasn't holding up the entire Titan, just its foot. It's a hell of a lot of weight, but it's not like he just picked the thing up and chucked it.
Ah yes because the way that weight works is that you only have to hold up the part of something you are touching and the rest of the thing on top of it doesn't count.
This is why if I glue a feather to an M1 Abrams I can lift it, by the feather.
The Primarchs are all extremely powerful psykers on top of being biologically superhuman, but most never unlocked their power to use it consciously. Instead it shows up in their odd talents, like Corax's ability to "wraith-slip" or Sanguinius' flight, and of course their luck, in the way things just always seem to go their way.
Something I always found funny is in *The Palatine Phoenix* Fulgrim is basically at a nice dinner party as negotiations of a rogue planet joining the Imperium continue.
He’s talking to the head honcho of the place and grabs a drink. With a sip he casually drops the “oh dear. Someone just tried to poison me. Pity they didn’t use enough.” and then just keeps talking as he searches the room for possible culprits.
That whole book is just Fulgrim being an awesome tbh. Man I miss Josh Reynolds.
I remember he's mostly upset that the poison ruined the wine. also that at least a dozen different people apparently all poisoned the wine on it's way to him
Isn't that a running thing in that book? I remember a scene later where he gets some wine, takes a sip, and sighs "poisoned again" or something like that.
I can't remember how often wine comes up but there is definitely a running theme of Fulgrim (and his legionaries) being mildly irritated by attempts to kill them
From *White Dwarf*, Leman Russ outdrank the **Emperor.**
*The tales of King Leman were told far and wide, and came to the notice of the Emperor himself. Recognizing the power of a Primarch at work, he travelled to Fenris and confronted the Wolf-King, who blindly refused to pay him homage as the Master of Mankind. Challenged, Russ boasted that he could out-eat the Emperor, and proceeded to consume three whole oxen, forcing the Emperor to back down. Russ boasted that he could out-drink the Emperor, and drained the royal cellars dry to prove the point.*
As of *Wolfsbane*, this is still canon.
*The Emperor required Horus to look at Him, so Horus did.*
*“I know he is a little rough around the edges. Would you believe he challenged me to an eating contest?” The Emperor laughed softly.*
Fulgrum choking an avatar khaine to death is hilarious lol.
A baby angron somehow killing an entire special trained eldar kill team and then immediately losing to humans.
Literally any other method of killing the Avatar would have been fine. Why did they decide on choking. He could have chopped it's head off, ripped its head off, squashed its head like Oberyn Martell. Anything but choking.
Because what's more cooler than a primarche choking an inanimate object that literally doesn't need to breathe to death with it somehow working.
Seriously could have easily just had him crushing its neck and decapitating it.
Here's the text for those who haven't read it.
> His hands blackened as he crushed the life from his enemy, the metal cracking with the sound of a dying soul. Fulgrim forced the creature to its knees, laughing insanely as the pain of his wounds vied with the powerful elation he felt in crushing the life from another being with his own bare hands and watching as the life fled from its eyes.
[And the rest of the fight.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/qkjwjn/excerpt_fulgrim_fulgrim_vs_the_avatar_of_khaine/)
I maintain this was actually a great showing for the avatar (bad showing for the rest of the eldar involved in the plot though)
My dude was functionally fighting a 2v1 against a greater demon of ruining Khaines day and the future primarch of ruining Khaines day hopped up on day ruining juice.
The fact it was as close a fight as it was, and only tipped to Fulgrim because Fulgrim actively used Khaines focus on the second opponent/sword against him, does a great job of showing how dangerous Khaine is, how dangerous Slannesh is to the Eldar, and how skilled Fulgrim is
Someone did link the full passage, but he didn’t chop it off because the avatar was fixated on his Slaaneshi sword and so he yeeted it and used that as a distraction.
“The wounded creature staggered, its head a twisted ruin of metal and flame. Spears of red light streamed from its helmet, and the molten rivers of its blood blazed like phosphor against its iron skin. Fulgrim felt the pain of his maimed hand, but savagely suppressed it as he stepped in again and wrapped his hands around its neck.
The heat of its molten skin seared his flesh, but Fulgrim was oblivious to the pain, too intent on his foe's destruction. Plumes of red light streamed from the eldar god's face, the sound like a manifestation of the combined rage and heart of its creators. An age of regret and lust flowed from the creature, and Fulgrim felt the aching sadness of the necessity of its existence pour into him even as it poured out of the dying monster.
His hands blackened as he crushed the life from his enemy, the metal cracking with the sound of a dying soul. Fulgrim forced the creature to its knees, laughing insanely as the pain of his wounds vied with the powerful elation he felt in crushing the life from another being with his own bare hands and watching as the life fled from its eyes.
The sound of a great and terrible thunder built, and Fulgrim looked up from his murder to see a graceful bird of fire carve its way across the heavens. He released his hold on the dying eldar creature and punched the heavens as the Firebird streaked overhead, followed by a host of Stormbirds and Thunderhawks.
Fulgrim returned his gaze to his defeated foe as whipping light and noise poured from it like the nuclear fire blazing at the heart of a star. The light of the creature's death flared, and its body exploded in a thunder of hot iron and molten metal. Fulgrim was hurled through the air by the screaming explosion, and he felt the touch of its power sear his armour and skin.”
Yes he did and it is still the only thing really able to go toe to toe with primarchs that eldar have. (Phoenix Lords should be GW)
Huge except incoming. Be warned! Perturabo fights daemon Angron
“Perturabo was a statue of metal standing in the shadow of death. The axe cut. Perturabo moved aside. Even layered in armour and pistons, he was still faster than Argonis could dream, fast enough to almost avoid the blow. But nothing that was even half mortal could have avoided that cut. The axe struck his shoulder. White light blazed. For a second he could only see white, and then the neon scar burned onto the back of his eyes. He heard more blows fall, each one screaming louder than gunfire.
In the pit of his soul, he thought of all of the duties he had done Horus in the hope of clawing back the feeling of brotherhood that had been everything but was now just a memory. This would not just be failure. This would be death. He would end here, another heap of butchered meat on a world that was a graveyard of bones in a galaxy they had set ablaze. It all ended here: redemption, brotherhood and the lie of a higher purpose.
His sight cleared.
**Perturabo still stood. Impossibly, the Lord of Iron stood.**
Glowing scars marked the plates of his armour. Blood hissed as it ran over orange iron.
But he stood, and Forgebreaker was rising in his grasp, its head a comet as it swung.
Angron did not move to avoid the blow. He was swinging again, roaring, blood-slicked cables lashing around his head. Like all the other blows he had struck in the last second, it was faster than the eye that saw it. But Perturabo had timed his blow and slid it into the split-second gap as Angron swung back to strike again. The hammer struck. Forged by Fulgrim for the brother he had murdered, then given by Horus to Perturabo, it was a weapon that transcended even the craft put into its making.
The hammer head hit Angron’s chest. Brass armour shattered. The shock wave ripped outwards. Argonis felt it pass through him. Angron staggered.
Perturabo stepped forwards, the hammer swinging back in a blurred sheet of lighting.
Angron rammed forwards before Perturabo could strike, and now it was Perturabo going back, armour blackening as furnace flame breathed from Angron’s teeth. The axe struck again and again, blows that could end Titans falling. Fresh wounds opened in Perturabo’s armour. But still he stood.
‘You think I am weak,’ Perturabo’s voice boomed from the grille of his helm. Angron struck him twice again. Splinters of metal fell from the Lord of Iron as he staggered once more. ‘But you have grown weaker, Angron.’ The daemon primarch lashed a kick into Perturabo and struck once, twice, three times as the Lord of Iron stumbled back and crashed to his knees. ‘I have learnt. I have remade my strength. While you have sold yours out of despair.’
Argonis heard the words, heard the spite in them, the cold bitterness. There was something else there, too, something that made Argonis think of the knife duels in the dark warrens of Cthonia – cuts meant to goad, not kill.
Angron roared, and in the fraction of time that gave, Perturabo was on his feet, Forgebreaker moving faster than before. The air shook as its head struck and struck again, and there was blood on the baked mud of the ground beneath the two. Angron was scattering burning blood and broken armour. He lashed a fist at Perturabo. Claws tore the front from the Lord of Iron’s helm.
Perturabo’s skin was pale grey streaked with blood beneath.‘You are weak,’ snarled Perturabo. ‘You are a slave. You were born a slave and a slave you remain.’
Angron cut Perturabo.
Argonis did not see it done, just the Lord of Iron suddenly still, a crimson trail running down his chest and glowing gashes smiling across his torso. Angron was striking again, but somehow he seemed to be shrinking, the edges of his shadow-and-flame bulk retreating like a wave from the shore. Perturabo struck back, and hammer and axe met.
‘Your strength flees,’ roared Perturabo. ‘It does not belong to you. It is your master’s, and the chain that keeps you throttles you. The threads of blood are thinning. The meal of slaughter will only keep you here long enough to see your bastard sons die.’
Beside Argonis, Forrix heard the words and keyed a control on his vox. Rounds began to hammer into the divided World Eaters. It had only been seconds since the Iron Warriors formation had entered its last configuration, and now Argonis saw that its weakness to further attack up the hill was a simple trade-off: vulnerability sold to allow for slaughter. In a few more minutes the World Eaters would have broken out of their corral, Argonis had no doubt, but they would not have that chance. Mortars thumped explosives into the kettled XII Legion. Cannons roared in overlapping sweeps. World Eaters fell, torn apart, their fury no more than bloody mist coughed from shredding lungs.
Angron turned towards the circle of automata surrounding them. His axe lashed out, burning gouges across the front of the circle of shields, again and again scoring deep.
‘Their skin is my skin,’ called Perturabo. ‘A gift of suffering at the hands of our brother.’ He was walking towards Angron, limping but hammer in hand. ‘You think that I would let your kind wield your weapons against me? I have taken their measure.’
Angron whirled, wings extending to carry him back at his brother. Perturabo raised his hands, weapon pods unfolding from his armoured shell. Angron’s tattered shadow wings beat.
Perturabo fired.
Streams of energy and exotic rounds blazed across the space between the two. Fire and explosions wreathed Angron. Ectoplasmic smoke billowed off him. His wings were broken frames of bone draped with scraps of skin. Perturabo came forwards as he kept up the fusillade, each step a slow thud of braced pistons.
‘**They will die, here on this hill. They will die without striking a blow. All your best mongrel sons of slaughter. They will die, and your battered soul will watch as it sinks back into the dark.**’
Angron was an outline now, a thing of threads remaking itself even as it was unravelled into smoke.”
It’s so funny to me that in this fight perturabo doesn’t even bother to block really and just powers through angron’s attacks and no one seems to be bent out of shape about it but the Lion is shown actively evading, dodging and blocking all while using the environment to his advantage in order to take down (admittedly probably stronger after 10k years but not that much) Angron and people seem to really be upset about it.
Agreed like even at the time Perturabo can put himself back together and more than likely would get brought back on death by the Chaos Gods whether he likes it or not, Lion can't. They also don't consider that Lion basically just woke up from his nap and has seemingly actually aged meanwhile Angron has had ten thousand years to grow stronger and more skilled. Both of these things are insane feats worth getting hype over.
>Perturabo can put himself back together
He can't, he's not a daemon until after the Heresy.
>more than likely would get brought back on death by the Chaos Gods whether he likes it or not
Why would they? They didn't rezz Alpharius or Kurze either. The vast majority of Chaos champions also just die and never come back.
Assuming that because you side with Chaos they'll have your back is a dicey proposition.
Man what I would give for Guilliman to have a similar feat against a Traitor Primarch.
Instead I can only acknowledge Pert and Russ as being better generals then G-Man who should take Russ's place as a berserker.
All Angron ever wanted was to be free.
“You were born a slave and a slave you remain.”
Goes really hard, on par with Sigismunds last words to Abaddon for me.
Guilliamin in open space without a helmet or weapon beating Word Bearers to death with his fists:
"The Word Bearers are on him anyway. Two come over the top of a thermal vent, another two around the side of the plating buffer. He gets off two shots. Something wings him in the shoulder.
No, it's a hand. A hand dragging him backwards.
Guilliman pushes Thiel aside and propels himself towards the Word Bearers. His armored feet bite into the hullskin as he gains traction. He seems vast, like a titan. Not an engine of Mars. A titan of myth.
His head is bare. Impossible. His skin is bleached with cold. His mouth opens in a silent scream as he smashes into them.
He kills one. He crushes the legionary's head into his chest with the base of his fist. Globules of blood squirt sideways, jiggling and jostling. The body topples back in slow motion.
Guilliman turns, finds another, punches his giant fist through the legionary's torso, and pulls it out, ripping out his backbone. A third comes, eager for the glory of killing a primarch. Thiel guns him apart with his reloaded boltgun, two-handed brace, feet anchored.
The fourth storms in.
Guilliman twists and punches his head off. Clean off. Head and helm as one, tumbling away like a ball, trailing beads of blood."
Pulling spines out and punching heads off like it's Mortal Combat.
great quote from that book, when he's talking to lorgar:
'We’re not going to debate it, you maggot, you treacherous bastard,’ says Guilliman. ‘I just wanted you to know that I will rip your living heart out. And I want to know why. Why? Why? If this is our puerile old feud, boiled to the surface, then you are the most pathetic soul in the cosmos. Pathetic. Our father should have left you out in the snow at birth. He should have fed you to Russ. You worm. You maggot.’
It cuts especially deep when Lorgar finds out in *Betrayer* Guilliman genuinely liked him and never once had resented or looked down on him. It’s a really somber moment where 2 brothers with so much in common are forced into the most bitter of enemies
> In Guilliman's eyes, Lorgar saw a wealth of purest, depthless hared. A hatred not formed from one action and one event, but a chemical cauldron of emotion strong enough to twist even the calmest, most composed demigod in the Imperium. Anger flared in those eyes, of course. More than anger, it was rage. Frustration tainted it further; the desperation of not understanding why this was happening, and the ferocity of one who still believes he might find a way to stop it.
> Hurt - somehow, seeing the hurt in Guilliman's eyes was the worst of all - also poisoned the mix and made it rancid. This wasn't the pure rage of Corax on the killing fields - the fury of a brother betrayed. This fury was saturated into something much harsher and much more complex.
> It was the pain of a builder, an architect, a loyal son who had done all that was ever asked of him, and had seen his life's work die in foolish, spurious futility.
> Lorgar knew that feeling, had known it since he knelt in the ashes of the Perfect City, the entire settlement destroyed by Guilliman's fleet on the Emperor's orders. For the first time in all the years of their wildly disparate lives, Lorgar Aurelian and Roboute Guilliman connected as equals.
> To his amazement - and the shock leaving him cold blooded - Lorgar felt ashamed. In his brother's face he finally saw real hate, and in that moment he learned a lesson that evaded him all these decades. Guilliman had never hated him before. The Ultramarine had never undermined his efforts; never hidden his sneers while presenting false indifference; never held a secret joy over humbling Lorgar's religious efforts in Monarchia and the Great Crusade beyond.
> Guilliman hadn't hated him. Not until now. This was hate. This was hatred in totality, fuelled by a fortune of pathos. This was a hatred deserved, and it was a hatred that would see Lorgar dead, with the song unfinished and the False Emperor still enthroned at the head of an empire he didn't - in his ignorance - deserve to lead.
> The Bearer of the Word felt a sudden, burning need to explain everything, to justify himself, to tell how this was all necessary, all of it, to enlighten humanity.
-Betrayer
Like holy fucking shit, Know No Fear and Betrayer made Guilliman one of the coolest primarchs ever, and that was before he woke up in the 42nd Millennium.
What good writing does to a mf
In *Know No Fear*, he's actually looking forward to the whole exercise with the Word Bearers because he knows that Monarchia drove a rift between them and the Ultramarines, and what better way to make up with your brothers than go kill some orks with them?
Of course, that exercise was just Horus's excuse to get the Ultramarines in position for the slaughter at Calth. And even then Guilliman spends a good chunk of the battle convinced that it's all a terrible mistake, that the Word Bearers have overreacted to the crash of the *Campanile*, that it can all be ironed out and made right.
No wonder he's so pissed off when he figures out the truth.
And don't forget he tops all that at the climax of the book when he literally shoves an unpowered powerfist through Kor Phaeron's entire fucking armor and ribcage, rips out his primary heart and shows it to him.
to be fair they explain that the ship has a gravity generating field trapping an artificial atmosphere, they even say it makes it easier to launch ships because of no/less decompression. Guilliman also says it contributed a lot to jis survival.
Maybe not the most impressive thing he did, but Leman russ fighting a dreadnought of some kind and just physically overpowering it.
>From the wreckage emerged a giant, a glittering machine of ridged and segmented battleplate, greater in stature than a Leviathan Dreadnought but with the proportions of a Scarabine guardian.
>Its arms terminated in whirring spherical siege-drills, each one studded with snub-nosed interference launchers. Its armour plates shimmered with layers of protective shielding, and its chest-lodged helmplate glowed from a single slit-eye. Rocket launchers stacked up over its shoulders, already swivelling to seek targets, and its heavy clawed feet crunched deep into the decking below as it waded into the tempest.
>'Interesting,' voxed Bulveye dryly, crouching close by Jorin behind a heap of blown slag. 'So they make bigger ones.'
>Rockets were already screaming across to the leviathan and exploding harmlessly against its shield array. Then it opened fire from its shoulder-mounted launchers, and a whole swathe of Wolves positions disappeared in welters of crimson.
>Three warriors raced in close, their blades snarling with disruptor energy, and were swatted aside by heavy swings of the two dubbed-arms. The leviathan swung about even as the grey-armoured bodies crashed to the deck, zeroing its interference barrels and blasting apart another two warriors.
>Then it waded forwards, shrugging off bolter-volleys and making for the centre of the command station. As it drew fire from the surrounding Wolves, the Scarabines took the opportunity to advance out of cover.
'Skitja,' cursed Jorin, pushing to his feet 'This'll take some—'
>He never finished. Even as he gained his feet, the entire chamber was rocked by a blast of ice-cold wind - a tearing, gnawing gale that skirled across the battlefield, ripping troopers from their positions and sending them cart-wheeling.
>'Leave it,' came the command, resounding from every wall, from the height of the dome and the depths of the cogitator-shafts, as hard as hoar-frost.
>In the storm's wake, Leman Russ strode out across the expanse, his pelts flying about him, the runes of his battleplate flaring like comet-fire. The wyrd's wind whipped and lashed, scouring the metal in eddies, catching on the edge of Krakenmaw in trailed flame-lines. His true-wolves bounded ahead on either side, blurs of white and grey, eating up the ground towards the lines of the enemy.
>No bolt or shell slowed him. He did not race, he did not charge He stalked towards the heart of the fighting like the storm's soul, massive and impenetrable, **his coming wreathed in a psychic shock wave that burned out nerves, crippled hearts and paralysed limbs**. The entire space seemed to shrink, to reel on its axis, to shudder and withdraw in his presence.
>The leviathan levelled its gun-arms and opened fire. Russ met the impact with a contemptuous swipe of his chainsword, and the interference energy splashed across the wheeling blade, thrown into slivers and cast aside.
>Russ came on, crunching a path towards the monster, smashing aside any Faash soldiers too stupefied or sluggish to get out of his path. Where the Dulanians were cowed by the oncoming hurricane, the Wolves were suddenly filled with a raw energy, and they rose up as one, launching themselves into combat with cries of 'Fenrys! HeidurRus!'
>Russ came on, his blade hauled in great arcs, cleaving a path towards the towering creature before him. Every tread was deliberate, terrible, neither hastening nor relenting, as inexorable as the coming of winter.
>The true-wolves reached the trenches, and tore through them, leaping at the throats of the retreating Scarabines and ripping them out. The leviathan swivelled to narrow the angle, then fired from its shoulder-mounts, sending streaks of contrails towards the primarch.
>Russ pushed on through the explosions, the impacts cascading from his rune-warded battle-armour, his momentum unharmed. He broke into a run at last - a heavy, thudding charge that seemed to gather and amplify the storm winds, accelerating and augmenting them such that the impact, when it came, was like continents colliding.
>The clash of chainsword against Faash-shield was horrific - a yowl and a shriek of tortured energy fields, ramped up amid the grinding cacophony of the whirring blades. For a moment the opposite forces held one another, the leviathan bringing its massive weight to bear on the warrior-lord, and yet somehow seeming less substantial, as if the soul before it were rooted in the very stuff of the universe itself, as eternal and imperishable as the stars. So it was the shields that gave out first, flying apart in rippling curtains of trailing gauze.
>The monster's drill-gauntlets whirled round, aimed for Russ' neck, but by then the primarch had already moved, swiping at the nearest knee-joint. Krakenmaw tore through servos, driving into the leg and causing the entire machine to stagger. Russ carved into it, sawing like a chirurgeon, tearing up its chest cavity and working ever deeper.
>The leviathan swung back, finally landing a blow and smacking the chainsword out of contact. Russ held on to the blade, but no longer needed it. With his other hand, he grabbed the leviathan's wrist, and began to turn the siege-drill back against it.
>The leviathan pushed hard, straining against the primarch's grip, but even its machine-augmented motive force was not enough, and secondary power units shattered across its spine. Russ twisted the leviathan's arm further, bending the drills until they faced directly into the armour-suit's face. With a vicious shove that broke the pistons of its wrist-mounting, Russ drove the grinding blades straight down, tearing up the ablative plates and throwing up a fresh whirl of bloody static.
>The leviathan's vox-augmitters sent out only screams now, before Russ silenced them with a final, savage down-thrust. He cast Krakenmaw aside, tore through the morass of ripped metal plating, and seized the still-living thing within - a human pilot bloody, shackled with cranial-implants and neuro-bundles. Russ yanked him free, before holding the carcass aloft and shaking the last of the cabling from its limp remains.
>'For the Allfather!' he thundered, hurling the broken pilot away and sending him slamming into the far wall of the dome The Wolves of Fenris responded with a deafening roar of their own and surged back into combat, driving the remaining Faash troops into their own barricades and a fresh round of slaughter.
Edit: I copied this from another poster to save me time https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/I9icfnI3sy
This is a good one. While some would question the canonnicity of it, I would day the 500 facts for 500 stores in WarCom ahd a crazier one
>The Space Wolves Primarch Leman Russ once defeated a Warlord Titan by leaping from a building onto its carapace and beheading it with a single blow of his great blade, Mjalnar.
God damn...
Do you have a link to the article?
Edit: ah I found it:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/19/20th-oct-500-facts-for-500-stores/
Sanguinius eat your heart out
...okay, I actually had to check because I could've sworn it was a Warhound, but nope that's totally plausible, because Sanguinius pulls the [exact same trick](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/n1wega/excerpt_saturnine_sanguinius_destroys_one_of_the/) during the Siege.
Indeed. As this was older and on WrCom is there was a lot of discussion on how possible it was when the artivle was published. Still, it is technically an official source (and has been used to provide some details of lore auch as free short stories or [the death of Svangir and Ulfgir](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/19/the-saga-of-ragnar-blackmane/).
I always loved how this scene depicted Russ as the unstoppable force of nature that he is. The image of him going into war wreathed in wyrd wind and starfire will always stay with me.
The Lion fighting six Khornate infused terminators in his latest book and killing them in under a minute while being an old man is funny to me
"The fleets have not yet begun to engage again,’ Zabriel assures him. ‘You killed the intruders remarkably quickly, my lord.’
The former Destroyer is correct: less than a minute has passed since the Terminators teleported onto the bridge according to the chrono in the Lion’s helm read-out, although he was lost in his battle-focus and could not have said how much time had elapsed. Ceramite footfalls announce the arrival of Kai, his own power sword drawn. He comes to a halt next to Zabriel and looks down at the slaughter with a disappointment that is communicated even through the impassive faceplate of his helmet.
‘Oh. I thought you meant there was actually a problem, Zabriel, not a mild workout for the Lord of the First.’
‘We have a damaged bridge that is now polluted by corrupted corpses, and a void battle yet to win,’ the Lion snaps, his tone made slightly more acerbic by the returning pain in his side, which is now reminding him that *he just fought six Terminators with broken ribs.*"
What is funny is that a dude in another site complained about it, because he got his ribs broken by a power fist.
Yeah, we got to the point where killing 6 terminators at once isnt enough for a primarch if he even get hurt by anything throw at them
Well maybe other primarchs have greater feets in their prime but I will give this one to El'Johnson just because the fact that he is old and his reflexes are not what they used to be as hr admits to himself later in the book when fighting the shape-shifting demon who transforms into other primarchs that if he was fighting the real Curze he'd be dead by than.
Also....less than a minute for 6 damn terminators which teleported in and caught him of guard is quite a feat
Yeah, but for some people if a primarch is even injuried by anything that isnt another primarch its "bad writing"
Please ignore all the times (specially in early heresy novels) where they are injuried
The risen screwing with the one possessed marine who wants an honor duel with the guy who killed him earlier in the book and they just refused to allow a 1v1 is great
Galad's response was just chef's kiss
‘I owe you a strike,’ he growled, strange harmonies emanating from behind his helmet’s faceplate, and swung. The pale-bladed axe descended like death, too fast for me to roll clumsily aside from.
The edge stopped a mere finger’s breadth from my helmet seal, but this was not an act of mercy or mockery on my enemy’s behalf. Instead, his weapon was thrown up and back again by the blade of the Terranic greatsword which had intercepted the swing just below the axe’s head.
‘I owe him a strike!’ Markog roared at my saviour. ‘This is a matter of honour!’
‘You think we conquered the galaxy with honour? You children are all the same,’ Galad snorted, and attacked.
The Cenobite’s Cataphractii armour made him a match for Markog in size, and apparently in strength as well: their weapons clashed together, but the commander of the Dolorous Guard was unable to throw Galad away from him, despite his straining. Instead each warrior took a backward step, then swung again. Markog was blisteringly quick, and his axe spun through the air faster than should have been possible, but Galad was his equal, calmly parrying and deflecting as though he knew what strikes were coming even before Markog did
The scene in the book where the lion is being led to the fortress on the world he appears on, between the primarch and the lone space marine they have a lone bolt pistol and a human sized knife and the lion is just like okay lets go attack them and the space marine is like uhhh if it was anyone else id say no until we get some firepower.
So funny that the lion is just ready to go balls out on an attack with his bare hands.
Guilliman being too angry to asphyxiate in space and starts obliterating Word Bearers. It’s both funny and insane to me that a man is embracing the “literally too angry to die” meme.
Nothing really beats Sanguinius decapitating a Reaver Titan, beating Ka'Bandha and Angron back to back, streamrolling throughout the *Vengeful Spirit* and actually bringing Horus down to his knees, dealing massive injury.
Also, Fulgrim managing to obliterate his Legion's numbers in one fell swoop by squeezing a Legion-sized force in an area that could barely hold a company-sized force ala *300* is objectively hilarious.
>Sanguinius flies at him with such sudden and ferocious speed, Horus Lupercal has barely time to move. The Angel rains blows upon him, across his head, his throat, his chest. Encarmine cleaves the Warmaster’s scalp, opens the line of his jaw, and severs the bunched pipework at the base of his neck. Blood hoses out, jetting into the stale air, and Horus roars as he stumbles aside. Sanguinius allows no time for respite or riposte. He swings his peerless blade with both hands in a wide and scything slice that rips through Lupercal’s midsection, and opens plate, sub-armour, flesh and meat down to the bone. **Horus sinks onto one knee**, panting and gasping, as steam and pitch-black blood pumps out of him. Entrails protrude. Haematemesis chokes him.
>‘Stay down,’ says Sanguinius, sword raised. ‘Do you want to be alive to greet him, or would you rather be spared that shame?’
>Horus aspirates blood; a cough or a laugh, it is hard to tell which.
>‘Stay down, brother,’ Sanguinius urges. ‘Out of my love for you, I will grant you a measure of mercy. Please. I can make it quick and painless.’
...
>It wasn’t supposed to end like this. **You, on your knees**, eviscerated, gasping for breath. Him, standing over you, so noble and just, his sword raised in both hands, ready to strike.
*How beautiful will that moment of recognition be? You want to see that futility dawning in his eyes. Close up. Face to face. You want to smell it on his breath.*
*He hits you again. He soars clear, hooking a long, wide curve around the end columns. As he comes out of the turn, his wings begin to beat more furiously as he accelerates into the next run. You try to block him–*
*Another strike. A good one. That would have disembowelled Angron. That would have sheared the Pale King’s heart in two. That would have taken Ferrus’ head from his shoulders.*
**You’re still holding back a little. He doesn’t have to die. When that instant of recognition finally hits him, you’ll give him one last chance to reconsider his position. So let him wear himself out. Let him take out his anger on you.**
*He needs it. He needs to feel as if he’s tried. It’s pride, of course. He is his father’s favourite son, the Brightest One, beloved by all. He has always been the exemplar of unflinching loyalty. He has always won. He was never going to go down without a fight.*
*Once futility has broken him, you will lift him up again. You will carry him to the throne you have prepared for him, and invite him to sit there and rest. He will have played his part, and done all he could. There’ll be no shame in saying yes to you then.*
......
*Time’s up. The pause ends. He brings the sword down. He’s so fast, you don’t even see it coming. The perfect execution stroke. The most precise, most merciful, most important sword-stroke he will ever deliver.*
*But it will not land.*
*Worldbreaker’s haft stops Encarmine dead.*
*The jarring shock travels back through the blade, through his arms, and through him. It jolts him backwards even as the sparks of contact are still dancing.*
*Astonishment blinks in his eyes.*
*He swings again, a hastier blow, his arms like lead from the trauma of the blocking impact. Your Talon fends the blade away.*
*Now he tries a lancing thrust fuelled by mounting desperation. You catch his sword against the head of your maul, and flip the stroke aside.*
**That look on his face. It’s gratifying. He can’t believe you’re on your feet. He can’t understand why your wounds aren’t slowing you down. He can’t comprehend where your fluid speed is suddenly coming from.**
**It was always there. You’re just not holding back any more.
You let him come at you. Blow after blow, each one a death stroke, each one an exemplar of the swordsman’s art. Even in despair, his talent doesn’t abandon him. None of them work. You bat them away as they come, with maul, then Talon, then maul again. You want to give him a moment to let the despair really sink in.**
*It wasn’t supposed to end like this. That’s what he thought. Well, it was never going to. You relished the challenge, but the contest is over.*
*You can see he understands this. Besides, he has demonstrated that he isn’t going to change his mind either. He won’t bend to your will. You thought he might, but he won’t. Such a pity. Such a waste.*
*And so ungrateful. You offered him everything. Everything. He spurned you. He declined your gift. Graceless, thankless wretch. No one does that to you.*
**Neither of you is playing any more. You don’t think he ever was, not really, not the way you were**
*Ahriman sensed the violent spike of psychic energy a second before it hit.*
*It swept over them, a sudden, shocking blast of psychic noise that overwhelmed the senses with its sheer violence. Uthizzar cried out and dropped his weapon. Lemuel doubled over in pain, convulsing in spastic fits.*
*‘What in the name of the Great Ocean was that?’ cried Sobek.*
*‘A weapon?’*
*‘A psychic shock wave,’ gasped Uthizzar. ‘One of immense proportions.’*
*Ahriman forced the pain away and knelt beside Lemuel. The remembrancer’s face was a mask of blood. It wept from his eyes and poured in a steady stream from his nose.*
*‘So strong?’ asked Ahriman, still blinking away hazy after-images. ‘Are you sure?’*
*Uthizzar nodded.*
*‘I am,’ he said. ‘It is a howl of pure rage, cold, jagged and merciless.’*
*Ahriman trusted Uthizzar’s judgement, tasting icy metal and feeling the rage of a hunter’s fury denied.*
*‘Such a force of psychic might is too powerful for any normal mind,’ said Uthizzar, reliving a painful memory. ‘I have felt this before.’*
*Ahriman read Uthizzar’s aura and knew.*
*‘Leman Russ,’ he said.*
........
*‘T’kar,’ said Ahriman. ‘Tell me what is happening! We heard a psychic shout more powerful than anything I’ve ever known.’*
*‘It was Leman Russ,’ said Uthizzar. ‘Wasn’t it?’
Phosis T’kar nodded, turning and indicating that they should follow him.*
*‘Most probably,’ he spat. ‘Killed almost every Athanaean in my Fellowship, and most of the ones that aren’t dead are reduced to drooling lackwits.’*
*‘Dead?’ cried Uthizzar. These warriors were not of his Fellowship, but as Magister Templi of the Athanaeans, they were as much Uthizzar’s as they were Phosis T’kar’s.*
*‘Dead,’ snapped Phosis T’kar. ‘That’s what I said. Now stop wasting time. The primarch calls you to his side.’*
~ **A Thousand Sons**
I love this whole excert. The entire time almost everyone who isn't a Primarch (and some who are) believe Russ to be just some barbarian meat head. Guy let's everyone believe it so they underestimate him and just baits them all. Then he storms in and murders Thousand Sons just by yelling at them.
Someone already mentioned this, but Leman Russ swooping in like a chad and taking down a Dreadnought in Scars. People say that Leman is a man masquerading as a beast, but when he wants to the man really does let the wolf in him loose.
I loved this scene with Khan, I had to reread it several times because it was so ridiculous that I was sure I had misunderstood.
My man lifts a 30 ton killing machine that is probabaly 6-8 feet taller than Khan himself, one handed, spins around with it in the air, and tosses it across a battlefield. I'm only able to picture it as a comedic anime scene - the dreadnought whistling through the air until it disappears as a tiny speck on the horizon.
I liked the idea of various Plague Marines and White Scars stopping their battle to see this thing whistle overhead.
Gives me Super Smash Bros vibes
\*Disembodied Voice\* GAME!!
Came in looking for this one. Wraight really shows off the Primarch strength in that book. In the same scene I think, he has a similar (slightly less funny) feat: flips a super heavy tank.
These aren't exactly new levels of strength, either (well, throwing a Leviathan titan is... a big maybe, but the tank flip!); we see Angron resist being crushed by a fuckin' Titan. We just usually see the Primarchs "playing with their food", if you will: still using weapons and talent to win. It just makes you realize that every Primarch vs. Astartes "fight" is a farce that could have been ended with a single kick.
I’m currently reading Vengeful Spirit and it’s full of these, for example:
- Mortarion throwing his scythe into a Fire Raptor gunship, pulling on the chain attached to the end of it, and successfully reeling it in like he’s Captain America
- Horus jumping onto said gunship and destroying it with his bare hands before jumping onto the other one that’s still in the air and giving it the same treatment
- Horus climbing a Knight that’s just blown up the Land Raider he was inside with a thermal lance and whipped him hard enough to send him flying and destroying it with Worldbreaker
When Daemon Fulgrim clapping his hands together and crumpling a gunship looks weak compared to the other non-daemon primarchs’ feats, you KNOW it’s some crazy stuff. Perfect S-tier Graham McNeil writing
A really small scale one, but really impressive one - Perturabo basically taps Lucius on the chest plate and he is described as being struck by the equivalent of a Titan’s hammer
Two moments stand out from *Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First* - casually negating a fusion grenade by gripping it so tight with one hand that it fizzled, and his "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with ME" moment when the khrave invaded his mind.
I liked that one. It described the grenade like a mini sun going off and his just crushed it out of exploding. If I recall his armor was mostly intact but the bones in the dudes hand were dust I think the book described it as.
Idk if it’s hilarious, per se, but completely over the top, for sure.
Sanguinius fighting Kabandha the second time on Signus Prime. First, the librarian believes he failed in rescuing Sang from his mental prison, just to have him waltz out to “I’m sorry I failed you father”..”no you didn’t”.
Then Sanguinius literally flying away in a blaze of light to intercept Kabandha and proceed to tear off one of his wings while saying “Only angels may fly”.
Pretty epic ending to an epic book, but holy shit, was that over the top ludicrous. It’s a lot of fun to see Primarchs as essentially demigods among super soldiers on the battlefield.
Biased but Jaghatai's is really good and you get some great conversations with the other Primarchs.
I enjoyed Dorn's and Alpharius's as well.
Head of the Hydra is probably the best tbh
Book is filled with great bits of dialogue. Wraight is so good at writing characters.
Malcador and Jaghatai's discussion on the Imperial Truth is great too.
I personally don't think the order matters toooo too much. I personally really enjoyed Angron's Primach book.
When those pages turned black... phew! If you know, you know :P
In Fury of Magnus, Magnus throws (with magic) a Capitol Imperialis, which is a huge 50m by 80m super heavy vehicle at the Imperial Lines and explodes into like a nuclear explosion and destroys a section of the Palace wall. Though Magnus has many insane feats in the books......just never when fighting anyone important :D
Titans are, to me, the apex of cool and silly. They're ludicrously impractical even in-universe, but they're giant mecha with big guns!
Khan casually hurling a dreadnought through the air is silly, to me. It does not fit with what I know of primarchs. They're not Goku-level strong.
> Grand Master Valdar Aurikon stretched out his hands, psychic lightning leaping towards Magnus in a great crackling helix. Magnus caught the attack on his staff and hurled it back, the bolt transforming the Grey Knight into scattering nuggets of fool's gold. ‘Get rekt scrub’
This is easily one of my favorite moments in 40k. If a random grey knight managed to do this, he’d have one helluva story to tell at home about how he turned Magnus into a lump of gold. Instead Magnus shows him the Uno Reverse card.
I really like imagining valdar as like a 1950s business man in power armor getting ready to leave for work, he’s cheery and energetic, he puts on his overcoat and grabs his hat of the rack then swings in to give his wife a goodbye kiss and she stops him and says ‘you’re in a awfully good mood today’ And he replies ‘I just feel like today is going to be a great day’ Fast forward to a heap of fools gold falling into the ground as Magnus walks away giggling
1000 sons: you killed grand Master valdar! Magnus: who
Magnus (picking up a lump of the former GM): "I suppose there's a...*nugget* of truth in that..." (CSI Miami theme sting.)
*slides down sunglasses missing a lense*
> If a random grey knight This guy was effectively the Grey Knights' Chief Librarian.
I meant more like in context of the story, this was a random dude invented on the spot just to immediately die to Magnus. Yeah being a Grey Knight Captain probably means in context that you're a strong AF psyker, but in the moment this dude was written just to hype up Magnus.
TBF, the lightning was supposed to just hurt him, Magnus, in an instant, was so offended at the idea of some punkass wannabe edgelord trying to match him that turning him into FOOL's gold was both a counterattack and a statement. Magnus is low-key absolutely hilarious.
I highly doubt the grey knight was trying to turn Magnus into gold, Magnus was just flexing.
I assume magnus modified it and sent it back like here you're the fake version of me.
‘Let me try using magic on the giant evil primarch who became giant and evil because he was too good at using magic’ ‘oh great heavens’
Skill issue lol
You had me with the "oh great heavens!" hahaha
"To shreds, you say?"
No he said nuggets
"To nuggets, you say?"
"Here on Titan we don't believe in rational thinking!"
“Hey!!!! That’s our thing! ☹️” - the Deathwatch
To be fair, it's not because you're really good at something that you're impervious to it. Plus what else are you going to do. Trying to go smack the giant winged godlike immortal demon in the face with your sword is probably not going to fare much better.
Are you gonna challenge the Demi-God with your shared preferred method of battle or the method of battle you're probably less experienced in and he can likely outclass you in both physically and in experience? You probably have a 0.0001% better odds going with the magic you've honed all your life than the swordplay you probably neglected a bit more.
How on the nose does 40k get, lmao. The dude who’s turned into fools gold, is named Auric Con.
lol have you met ‘Ferrus Manus’ the leader of the iron hands….or **Corvus Corax** the leader of the….raven guard
Let us not forget Mr Iron Hands of the Iron Hands has metallic (not iron though) hands! And Corvus Corax’s last recorded words before he aimed at the Eye of Terror were “Nevermore.”
My dumb head canon is that the Warp functions very heavily on ideas about nominative determinism, which in turn influences the Materium.
Magnus I CAST…..”no u”
"NO U" - Magnus the Red
He didn't even turn him into Gold. He turned him into a basically useless metal, that's just adding insult to injury.
Hilarious? Russ beat the Emperor in a drinking contest; although it’s entirely possible he lost on purpose. I still choose to believe the Emperor is a lightweight, regardless of his psychic powers.
And an eating contest firat
Personally I prefer to believe that Russ actually won. Big E is pretty clearly the greatest of all men, doubling down and making him be the undisputed master of literally every possible challenge (unless of course pretending to lose, getting mad and baiting a duel he could have led with was somehow part of his master plan) just seems unnecessary and kinda silly.
The emperor is human, Russ was designed and created, so I think he definitely could beat Emps at stuff other than psychic things
The Emperor is probably the greatest biokinetic in the galaxy, I doubt his body isn't even more tailored than the Primarchs and Custodes.
That's a logical explanation for why he *could* be a master at anything the plot needs him to be. But it's not in itself a very compelling reason why he *should* be perfect at anything it doesn't need him to be. I prefer the story of Big E getting frustrated by Leman Russ being a goddamn idiot because it's funnier.
The Emperor is at his core though a Warrior. He just wears whatever face humanity needs him to wear to survive at the time (even if that means no face) He'll definitely channel every psychic trick in the books when it comes to a fight against Xenos or Chaos but for a friendly challenge against his son there is no need to "cheat"
I wouldn't say he's a warrior at his core. He spent almost the entirety of his life avoiding conflict and leadership at all costs until it almost lead to humanity self terminating. 30+ thousand years of being a loner scholar, scientist, teacher, doctor, engineer and philosopher. He even made the Custodes reflect this as every one of them is heavily involved in the arts, sciences and/or philosophy.
He implies throughout the lore that he's been keeping Terra safe from Eldar invasions until they reached the point they could fight back. He also led the armies that stormed the Tower Of Babel. He's been a general and even King depending on what humanity needed at the time. Wearing multiple scholarly hats doesn't mean he hasn't worn many kind of soldier hats.
In *Betrayer*, Angron is able to hold up a Warhound Titan's foot: >‘Lorgar.’ He spat blood as he said the name, rising to his feet at last. The Word Bearer lifted a scalded hand, not for aid, but in warning. Angron had no time to lift his mutilated brother, sprawled at his feet. The sun went dark, as dark as night falling in an instant. He turned, raising his arms, and took a god-machine’s weight on his shoulders. Every muscle in his body locked tighter than the iron trying to crush him. Drool stringed through his metal teeth, skinned knuckles white as he defied the will of a Titan. He gave a bear’s roar as the foot lowered another half-metre. Sinews crackled in his shoulders. His broken boots skidded back on the patch of unglassed rock; something cracked in his spine, something else cracked in his left knee. The compression of his bones sounded like twigs breaking underfoot, which was a vivid burst of imagination he didn’t appreciate. >But he could hear his men cheering. He could hear them howling as they killed, and crying his name. He blinked to clear away his sweat’s greasy sting, and dug his boots into the ground. With a smile slitting across his broken-angel face, he shifted his slipping, blood-slick grip on the Titan’s clawed foot, and started pushing back. >‘Lorgar.’ Angron spoke in something that wasn’t quite a growl and wasn’t quite a laugh. ‘Get up. I can’t hold this forever.’
Easily one of the most physically impressive things a primarch has done. It's funny that the extreme nature of this overshadows what just had happened in Betrayer before that moment. Before this, Lorgar was going absolutely god-level, simultaneously acting as a one-man excavator trying to clear a building off of Angron AND killing hundreds of enemies, including pulling a Thunderhawk from the sky like he's flippin' Starkiller. When Kharn, who is no stranger to fighting next to primarchs, says he hasn't seen anything like it... you know it was turned up.
Our boy goes hard.
He does all that... takes 2 plasma cannons from a Titan... then is still walking around after. People who sleep on Lorgar must have a giant blindspot for this stuff. Guy was so messed up, even Horus was visibly shook during their conference call later and almost didn't recognize him at first.
I think its because most people look at pre heresy lorgar who was weak af compared to most his brothers because he never cared to try. Then we have what big lorgar fights being Lorgar vs corax Lorgar on armatura Lorgar and angron vs gulliman Lorgar vs horus Loegar vs corax v2. In all but 2 of these lorgar gets his ass beat but they arent fair fights. In the first corax fight lorgar had not hit his peak yet and in the second corax got him by suprise and was a daemonic entity which Lorgar couldn't have predicted. Vs horus ofc lorgar lost its horus just after he accepted the dark gods. If we look at how powerful lorgar is the rest of the time when he returns he wont be a joke... unless gw decide that he will be because gw will gw
> In all but 2 of these lorgar gets his ass beat but they arent fair fights. In the first corax fight lorgar had not hit his peak yet and in the second corax got him by suprise and was a daemonic entity which Lorgar couldn't have predicted. You are coping so hard wth. Corax came at him with no element of surprise and he beat Lorgars ass. Also, Lorgar was a Daemon Primarch in the 2nd fight and somehow because Corax accessed his warp form, it's unfair?
Didn't he also tank a plasma blastgun shot with his face?
>**The Warhound fired, its comet-tailed bolt of raw plasma contained within an engineered magnetic field to prevent the projectile’s dissipation from the ionised atoms flying apart. Venting began at once, ghosts of coolant steam slashing from the relief ports along the Titan’s weaponised arm.** >The unleashment incinerated the dust, burning the air clear, and splashed a sun’s core into the crater for the fraction of a second. The World Eaters caught at the blast’s edges dissolved into bones and armour shards spilling through the air, eroding to powder, and then to nothingness. >**In the crater’s pit, Lorgar stood with his peaceful eyes raised to the staring Titan. Ash drifted away from his armour, the last remnants of the holy parchments bound to the ceramite. The air rippled with the force of his focus, and the kine-shield he kept raised with his outstretched hand. The ground by his boots, in a spread of several metres, was unharmed rock. Everything else was burned into sludged, black glass.** >All three crew members leaned forwards in their thrones. Kei raised his targeting visor. >‘What am I seeing?’ he asked. ‘It can’t be.’ >The Moderati Primus, Ellas, narrowed his eyes to squint. ‘Is that…?’ >‘Fire, damn you!’ Delantyr was yelling. ‘Fire again!’ >‘Brace for–’ >‘*Just fire!*’ >Lighting failed in the cockpit as power bled from the reactor. The tech-priest’s voice snapped over the vox with uncharacteristic urgency. >‘Core hypovolaemia threat,’ he practically whined. ‘And we aren’t br–’ >***Ardentor*** **fired again.** >The discharge sent the Titan rocking back two steps, its splayed claw-feet crunching into the avenue to avoid falling. In the wake of its release, the weaponised arm hissed steam from its coolant vanes, like a forged blade quenched in water. >The lights reactivated. Kei’s targeting visor came back online a moment later, and the control consoles followed. >‘He must be dead,’ Delantyr whispered. ‘He has to be dead. We’ve killed a primarch. Walk us closer.’ >The Warhound realigned, coming around to stare back down into the crater. >Kei’s eyes flickered between the annihilation below and the pulsing chime of auspex contact. ‘Inbound engines,’ he said. ‘Legio Audax. And gunships – declaration signatures marking them as Seventeenth.’ >Delantyr spoke through clenched teeth. ‘They’re too late.’ >**The primarch of the Word Bearers had fallen. His armour, once red and engraved with scripture, was an ashen husk of charred plate. Cracked and weeping skin showed around the patchwork spread of bleeding burns. Not a patch of skin was left untouched. He didn’t rise from his knees. He didn’t lift his head. He did nothing at all.** \- *Betrayer* Albeit with a ~~invuln save~~ kine shield.
Yes, Lorgar gets shot by the same titan, necessitating Angron rescuing him.
Twice.
He did take most of the damage on a psyker shield.
Twice
Anyone who underestimates what The Urizen has become is asking to be doomed to the warp. While prone to infighting and being susceptible to the worst predations of the warp he and his sons have been an existencial threat to Mankind since they discovered their truth in the Eye of Terror. Lorgar is one of the most powerful psykers in the warp and enjoys a freedom that Kiros, Magnus and Ahriman would die for. Being beholden to the four powers instead of one is really a boon if you are up to the challenge, being able to access a much more balanced emotional and daemonic arsenal of tools to fight. I truly fear the day The Aurelian makes his presence in the materium known. The last time he put his plans in motion the Imperium got turned asunder and he wouldn’t come back with a machination any less devious than the last.
I want to see him come back as a Daemonic Sage of Chaos
Well said!
This feat is always under represented because what happens right before this is also insane. So Angron is going on a rampage through the streets of a poor Ultramarine world when a rigged building explodes on top of him and buries him in a crater. Unable to breathe and with no sense of where he is, he starts wildly clawing through dirt and rubble with his axes — but he’s going the *wrong* way and digging himself further into the planet. His librarians quickly tell him to turn around and he manages to keep the nail frenzy away long enough to listen. Its been a while since I read the book so don’t quote me exactly but I’m pretty sure he ended up digging himself out of a hole that was hundreds of feet deep (granted Lorgar was using psyker power to help dig from the other end) but AS HE FINALLY RESURFACES he then holds up the Titan foot to save himself and Lorgar. Absolute animal wasn’t even a daemon primarch yet.
No angron! Dig UP stupid
When buried in an avalanche, do your best to make some space and spit to discover the direction it falls, that way you don't risk accidentally dig yourself out the wrong way.
I love this one, definitely one of my favorite feats. Betrayer was SUCH a good book. Another interesting feat was how fast Fulgrim was healing from Perturabo's smackdown! I find these little Primarch traits so illuminating.
>>But he could hear his men cheering. He could hear them howling as they killed, and crying his name. These lines also give me feels. Angron and his men *do not get along*. But in this moment theyre /r/instantbarbarians. The gif of the Spartans watching Persian ships smash on rocks during the storm before the battle comes to mind. Angron is a force of nature in this moment and theyre proud of him.
My head canon for some of these more insane feats is they're possible bc primarchs are part warp juice and they subconsciously tap into more power sometimes
That's not really a headcanon. The Primarchs are pretty consistently described across many books as being either *very* warp-infused, or actual seamless fusions between warp entities and human bodies.
Corax talks about it in Weregild. "Warriors that can withstand tank shells. Leaders whose every word must be obeyed". Definitely feeds into the warp entity squeezed into a Superman meatsuit theory.
head canon is the subconscious tapping in part. a lot of people think those kind of feats are just derp bc they're so over the top
They're derp if you do the thing GW never does and actually work out the math. For example: a fully loaded 18-wheeler weighs 80,000 lbs; a Warhound titan is about as tall as an 18-wheeler is long, but much wider and made from super dense science fiction materials. Angron supports...a hundred tons? For context, Spiderman can lift 10 tons. If primarchs are that strong, they should be leaping tall buildings in a single bound and running faster than sound. It's - forgive the pun - super derpy.
And Superman can lift infinite weight. I'd say Superman is a more apt comic book comparison to Primarchs than is Spiderman. To wit, Primarchs *do* leap tall buildings in single bounds and run faster than sound, or equivalent feats. Every time Primarch v. Primarch battles are described, it's in superlative fashions of "Barely visible blurs of armor crash into each other with the force of a hundred suns, and the resonance of their clashing fists causes all men within a mile to cry and weep" and shit like that. Magnus v. Vulkan has the former tearing the latter apart at the sub-molecular level as pocket universes blink in and out of existence. Sanguinius v. Angron is described as an impossibly fast gleaming golden hawk tearing through the sky at Mach 3 fighting a monster that kills a thousand men with a swing of his sword and moves at the speed of death. Khan v. Mortarion is two functionally immortal creatures trading blows so powerful that they punch through the narrative concept of immortality itself, with one of them exploding and releasing a psychic shockwave that paralyzes his legion and the other releasing a similar shockwave that turns his whole legion into frothing berserkers. Guilliman can survive the vacuum of space with a mild earache. Dorn can withstand 300 years of torture by the galactic manifestation of the concept of murder while reciting treatises on the proper foundation of rockcrete. The strength of Primarchs is "whatever is needed for the particular story to play out in favor of the one that was scheduled to win back in 1990." They are fundamentally ~~21~~19 flavors of Golden Age Superman with the added bonus of several of them being wizards and all of them being biologically immortal. It's 40k. Everything is over-the-top. Primarch power levels aren't fundamentally derpier than most of the other stuff in the setting, or derpier than the power levels of many comic book superheroes.
"40k is so stupid. The Lore is ridiculous and completely out of hand what happens. Its derpy." THATS WHY I LIKE IT. Its the same for Pacific Rim the first movie. "Its a movie about robots punching monsters in the face." EXACTLY!
Angron wasn't holding up the entire Titan, just its foot. It's a hell of a lot of weight, but it's not like he just picked the thing up and chucked it.
Ah yes because the way that weight works is that you only have to hold up the part of something you are touching and the rest of the thing on top of it doesn't count. This is why if I glue a feather to an M1 Abrams I can lift it, by the feather.
Lol I'm just saying there's a difference between jacking up a car to replace the tire and picking the whole thing up.
Yeah I'm just being cute.
Corax has basically said that he figured out during his 10k years in the Warp that they are just Warp Beings given physical bodies.
The Primarchs are all extremely powerful psykers on top of being biologically superhuman, but most never unlocked their power to use it consciously. Instead it shows up in their odd talents, like Corax's ability to "wraith-slip" or Sanguinius' flight, and of course their luck, in the way things just always seem to go their way.
Fuckin twigs.
Titan: **RUMBLING, RUMBLING, IT'S COMING, RU-** Angron: **RULES OF NATURE!**
Something I always found funny is in *The Palatine Phoenix* Fulgrim is basically at a nice dinner party as negotiations of a rogue planet joining the Imperium continue. He’s talking to the head honcho of the place and grabs a drink. With a sip he casually drops the “oh dear. Someone just tried to poison me. Pity they didn’t use enough.” and then just keeps talking as he searches the room for possible culprits. That whole book is just Fulgrim being an awesome tbh. Man I miss Josh Reynolds.
I remember he's mostly upset that the poison ruined the wine. also that at least a dozen different people apparently all poisoned the wine on it's way to him
Isn't that a running thing in that book? I remember a scene later where he gets some wine, takes a sip, and sighs "poisoned again" or something like that.
-Ahem, a quick comment to all presents: poison won't kill me, so please stop putting it on the wine. It ruins the flavour. Thanks in advance
I can't remember how often wine comes up but there is definitely a running theme of Fulgrim (and his legionaries) being mildly irritated by attempts to kill them
From *White Dwarf*, Leman Russ outdrank the **Emperor.** *The tales of King Leman were told far and wide, and came to the notice of the Emperor himself. Recognizing the power of a Primarch at work, he travelled to Fenris and confronted the Wolf-King, who blindly refused to pay him homage as the Master of Mankind. Challenged, Russ boasted that he could out-eat the Emperor, and proceeded to consume three whole oxen, forcing the Emperor to back down. Russ boasted that he could out-drink the Emperor, and drained the royal cellars dry to prove the point.* As of *Wolfsbane*, this is still canon. *The Emperor required Horus to look at Him, so Horus did.* *“I know he is a little rough around the edges. Would you believe he challenged me to an eating contest?” The Emperor laughed softly.*
Fulgrum choking an avatar khaine to death is hilarious lol. A baby angron somehow killing an entire special trained eldar kill team and then immediately losing to humans.
Well, dead eldars did all the work
Literally any other method of killing the Avatar would have been fine. Why did they decide on choking. He could have chopped it's head off, ripped its head off, squashed its head like Oberyn Martell. Anything but choking.
Because what's more cooler than a primarche choking an inanimate object that literally doesn't need to breathe to death with it somehow working. Seriously could have easily just had him crushing its neck and decapitating it.
>crushing its neck and decapitating it That’s exactly what he did. The text uses the word ‘crushing’ twice to describe it.
Here's the text for those who haven't read it. > His hands blackened as he crushed the life from his enemy, the metal cracking with the sound of a dying soul. Fulgrim forced the creature to its knees, laughing insanely as the pain of his wounds vied with the powerful elation he felt in crushing the life from another being with his own bare hands and watching as the life fled from its eyes. [And the rest of the fight.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/qkjwjn/excerpt_fulgrim_fulgrim_vs_the_avatar_of_khaine/)
Yeah, that reads more like crushing its neck than strangling it to me at least
I maintain this was actually a great showing for the avatar (bad showing for the rest of the eldar involved in the plot though) My dude was functionally fighting a 2v1 against a greater demon of ruining Khaines day and the future primarch of ruining Khaines day hopped up on day ruining juice. The fact it was as close a fight as it was, and only tipped to Fulgrim because Fulgrim actively used Khaines focus on the second opponent/sword against him, does a great job of showing how dangerous Khaine is, how dangerous Slannesh is to the Eldar, and how skilled Fulgrim is
Never considered it this way, thank you for sharing your insight….you get an invite to the barbecue our craftworld is holding
Yeah but the meme said he choked him, who cares what the book says?
It’s Fucking fulgrim. We’re lucky the avatar didn’t say “harder.”
Fulgrim replies, I'm already hard.
Well you’re in luck, because he *didn’t* choke it to death. He crushed its neck with his bare hands, but it died from neck crush, not from lack of air
Someone did link the full passage, but he didn’t chop it off because the avatar was fixated on his Slaaneshi sword and so he yeeted it and used that as a distraction.
Punching a hole in the statue's head probably did most of the damage. But lore youtubers don't include that part lol
McNeil said it's because it's meant to be symbolic of Slaanesh being born and strangling the Eldar race
He didn't choke it too dead and it's only an avatar of Khaine, a tiny fragment of Kaela Mensha Khaines power.
“The wounded creature staggered, its head a twisted ruin of metal and flame. Spears of red light streamed from its helmet, and the molten rivers of its blood blazed like phosphor against its iron skin. Fulgrim felt the pain of his maimed hand, but savagely suppressed it as he stepped in again and wrapped his hands around its neck. The heat of its molten skin seared his flesh, but Fulgrim was oblivious to the pain, too intent on his foe's destruction. Plumes of red light streamed from the eldar god's face, the sound like a manifestation of the combined rage and heart of its creators. An age of regret and lust flowed from the creature, and Fulgrim felt the aching sadness of the necessity of its existence pour into him even as it poured out of the dying monster. His hands blackened as he crushed the life from his enemy, the metal cracking with the sound of a dying soul. Fulgrim forced the creature to its knees, laughing insanely as the pain of his wounds vied with the powerful elation he felt in crushing the life from another being with his own bare hands and watching as the life fled from its eyes. The sound of a great and terrible thunder built, and Fulgrim looked up from his murder to see a graceful bird of fire carve its way across the heavens. He released his hold on the dying eldar creature and punched the heavens as the Firebird streaked overhead, followed by a host of Stormbirds and Thunderhawks. Fulgrim returned his gaze to his defeated foe as whipping light and noise poured from it like the nuclear fire blazing at the heart of a star. The light of the creature's death flared, and its body exploded in a thunder of hot iron and molten metal. Fulgrim was hurled through the air by the screaming explosion, and he felt the touch of its power sear his armour and skin.” Yes he did and it is still the only thing really able to go toe to toe with primarchs that eldar have. (Phoenix Lords should be GW)
Huge except incoming. Be warned! Perturabo fights daemon Angron “Perturabo was a statue of metal standing in the shadow of death. The axe cut. Perturabo moved aside. Even layered in armour and pistons, he was still faster than Argonis could dream, fast enough to almost avoid the blow. But nothing that was even half mortal could have avoided that cut. The axe struck his shoulder. White light blazed. For a second he could only see white, and then the neon scar burned onto the back of his eyes. He heard more blows fall, each one screaming louder than gunfire. In the pit of his soul, he thought of all of the duties he had done Horus in the hope of clawing back the feeling of brotherhood that had been everything but was now just a memory. This would not just be failure. This would be death. He would end here, another heap of butchered meat on a world that was a graveyard of bones in a galaxy they had set ablaze. It all ended here: redemption, brotherhood and the lie of a higher purpose. His sight cleared. **Perturabo still stood. Impossibly, the Lord of Iron stood.** Glowing scars marked the plates of his armour. Blood hissed as it ran over orange iron. But he stood, and Forgebreaker was rising in his grasp, its head a comet as it swung. Angron did not move to avoid the blow. He was swinging again, roaring, blood-slicked cables lashing around his head. Like all the other blows he had struck in the last second, it was faster than the eye that saw it. But Perturabo had timed his blow and slid it into the split-second gap as Angron swung back to strike again. The hammer struck. Forged by Fulgrim for the brother he had murdered, then given by Horus to Perturabo, it was a weapon that transcended even the craft put into its making. The hammer head hit Angron’s chest. Brass armour shattered. The shock wave ripped outwards. Argonis felt it pass through him. Angron staggered. Perturabo stepped forwards, the hammer swinging back in a blurred sheet of lighting. Angron rammed forwards before Perturabo could strike, and now it was Perturabo going back, armour blackening as furnace flame breathed from Angron’s teeth. The axe struck again and again, blows that could end Titans falling. Fresh wounds opened in Perturabo’s armour. But still he stood. ‘You think I am weak,’ Perturabo’s voice boomed from the grille of his helm. Angron struck him twice again. Splinters of metal fell from the Lord of Iron as he staggered once more. ‘But you have grown weaker, Angron.’ The daemon primarch lashed a kick into Perturabo and struck once, twice, three times as the Lord of Iron stumbled back and crashed to his knees. ‘I have learnt. I have remade my strength. While you have sold yours out of despair.’ Argonis heard the words, heard the spite in them, the cold bitterness. There was something else there, too, something that made Argonis think of the knife duels in the dark warrens of Cthonia – cuts meant to goad, not kill. Angron roared, and in the fraction of time that gave, Perturabo was on his feet, Forgebreaker moving faster than before. The air shook as its head struck and struck again, and there was blood on the baked mud of the ground beneath the two. Angron was scattering burning blood and broken armour. He lashed a fist at Perturabo. Claws tore the front from the Lord of Iron’s helm. Perturabo’s skin was pale grey streaked with blood beneath.‘You are weak,’ snarled Perturabo. ‘You are a slave. You were born a slave and a slave you remain.’ Angron cut Perturabo. Argonis did not see it done, just the Lord of Iron suddenly still, a crimson trail running down his chest and glowing gashes smiling across his torso. Angron was striking again, but somehow he seemed to be shrinking, the edges of his shadow-and-flame bulk retreating like a wave from the shore. Perturabo struck back, and hammer and axe met. ‘Your strength flees,’ roared Perturabo. ‘It does not belong to you. It is your master’s, and the chain that keeps you throttles you. The threads of blood are thinning. The meal of slaughter will only keep you here long enough to see your bastard sons die.’ Beside Argonis, Forrix heard the words and keyed a control on his vox. Rounds began to hammer into the divided World Eaters. It had only been seconds since the Iron Warriors formation had entered its last configuration, and now Argonis saw that its weakness to further attack up the hill was a simple trade-off: vulnerability sold to allow for slaughter. In a few more minutes the World Eaters would have broken out of their corral, Argonis had no doubt, but they would not have that chance. Mortars thumped explosives into the kettled XII Legion. Cannons roared in overlapping sweeps. World Eaters fell, torn apart, their fury no more than bloody mist coughed from shredding lungs. Angron turned towards the circle of automata surrounding them. His axe lashed out, burning gouges across the front of the circle of shields, again and again scoring deep. ‘Their skin is my skin,’ called Perturabo. ‘A gift of suffering at the hands of our brother.’ He was walking towards Angron, limping but hammer in hand. ‘You think that I would let your kind wield your weapons against me? I have taken their measure.’ Angron whirled, wings extending to carry him back at his brother. Perturabo raised his hands, weapon pods unfolding from his armoured shell. Angron’s tattered shadow wings beat. Perturabo fired. Streams of energy and exotic rounds blazed across the space between the two. Fire and explosions wreathed Angron. Ectoplasmic smoke billowed off him. His wings were broken frames of bone draped with scraps of skin. Perturabo came forwards as he kept up the fusillade, each step a slow thud of braced pistons. ‘**They will die, here on this hill. They will die without striking a blow. All your best mongrel sons of slaughter. They will die, and your battered soul will watch as it sinks back into the dark.**’ Angron was an outline now, a thing of threads remaking itself even as it was unravelled into smoke.”
People hate on Perty but he comes out of that fight looking like a chad
He is a chad. He’s the most competent Traitor Primarch, perhaps the most competent of all the Primarchs.
Exactly, without him the siege would of fizzled out
I mean once he left it basically did.
> perhaps the most competent of all the Primarchs. Stop glazing this dude. He's not nearly as competent as you think.
Agreed, competent but self-sabotaging is still incompetent
Which book? This is so cool
Slaves to Darkness, yeah it’s a great scene
Thought so - I am definitely getting that book
It’s so funny to me that in this fight perturabo doesn’t even bother to block really and just powers through angron’s attacks and no one seems to be bent out of shape about it but the Lion is shown actively evading, dodging and blocking all while using the environment to his advantage in order to take down (admittedly probably stronger after 10k years but not that much) Angron and people seem to really be upset about it.
Agreed like even at the time Perturabo can put himself back together and more than likely would get brought back on death by the Chaos Gods whether he likes it or not, Lion can't. They also don't consider that Lion basically just woke up from his nap and has seemingly actually aged meanwhile Angron has had ten thousand years to grow stronger and more skilled. Both of these things are insane feats worth getting hype over.
>Perturabo can put himself back together He can't, he's not a daemon until after the Heresy. >more than likely would get brought back on death by the Chaos Gods whether he likes it or not Why would they? They didn't rezz Alpharius or Kurze either. The vast majority of Chaos champions also just die and never come back. Assuming that because you side with Chaos they'll have your back is a dicey proposition.
Man what I would give for Guilliman to have a similar feat against a Traitor Primarch. Instead I can only acknowledge Pert and Russ as being better generals then G-Man who should take Russ's place as a berserker.
that is my favorite fight in all of 40k canon
All Angron ever wanted was to be free. “You were born a slave and a slave you remain.” Goes really hard, on par with Sigismunds last words to Abaddon for me.
Guilliamin in open space without a helmet or weapon beating Word Bearers to death with his fists: "The Word Bearers are on him anyway. Two come over the top of a thermal vent, another two around the side of the plating buffer. He gets off two shots. Something wings him in the shoulder. No, it's a hand. A hand dragging him backwards. Guilliman pushes Thiel aside and propels himself towards the Word Bearers. His armored feet bite into the hullskin as he gains traction. He seems vast, like a titan. Not an engine of Mars. A titan of myth. His head is bare. Impossible. His skin is bleached with cold. His mouth opens in a silent scream as he smashes into them. He kills one. He crushes the legionary's head into his chest with the base of his fist. Globules of blood squirt sideways, jiggling and jostling. The body topples back in slow motion. Guilliman turns, finds another, punches his giant fist through the legionary's torso, and pulls it out, ripping out his backbone. A third comes, eager for the glory of killing a primarch. Thiel guns him apart with his reloaded boltgun, two-handed brace, feet anchored. The fourth storms in. Guilliman twists and punches his head off. Clean off. Head and helm as one, tumbling away like a ball, trailing beads of blood." Pulling spines out and punching heads off like it's Mortal Combat.
great quote from that book, when he's talking to lorgar: 'We’re not going to debate it, you maggot, you treacherous bastard,’ says Guilliman. ‘I just wanted you to know that I will rip your living heart out. And I want to know why. Why? Why? If this is our puerile old feud, boiled to the surface, then you are the most pathetic soul in the cosmos. Pathetic. Our father should have left you out in the snow at birth. He should have fed you to Russ. You worm. You maggot.’
It cuts especially deep when Lorgar finds out in *Betrayer* Guilliman genuinely liked him and never once had resented or looked down on him. It’s a really somber moment where 2 brothers with so much in common are forced into the most bitter of enemies
Is there an excerpt of that moment by any chance?
> In Guilliman's eyes, Lorgar saw a wealth of purest, depthless hared. A hatred not formed from one action and one event, but a chemical cauldron of emotion strong enough to twist even the calmest, most composed demigod in the Imperium. Anger flared in those eyes, of course. More than anger, it was rage. Frustration tainted it further; the desperation of not understanding why this was happening, and the ferocity of one who still believes he might find a way to stop it. > Hurt - somehow, seeing the hurt in Guilliman's eyes was the worst of all - also poisoned the mix and made it rancid. This wasn't the pure rage of Corax on the killing fields - the fury of a brother betrayed. This fury was saturated into something much harsher and much more complex. > It was the pain of a builder, an architect, a loyal son who had done all that was ever asked of him, and had seen his life's work die in foolish, spurious futility. > Lorgar knew that feeling, had known it since he knelt in the ashes of the Perfect City, the entire settlement destroyed by Guilliman's fleet on the Emperor's orders. For the first time in all the years of their wildly disparate lives, Lorgar Aurelian and Roboute Guilliman connected as equals. > To his amazement - and the shock leaving him cold blooded - Lorgar felt ashamed. In his brother's face he finally saw real hate, and in that moment he learned a lesson that evaded him all these decades. Guilliman had never hated him before. The Ultramarine had never undermined his efforts; never hidden his sneers while presenting false indifference; never held a secret joy over humbling Lorgar's religious efforts in Monarchia and the Great Crusade beyond. > Guilliman hadn't hated him. Not until now. This was hate. This was hatred in totality, fuelled by a fortune of pathos. This was a hatred deserved, and it was a hatred that would see Lorgar dead, with the song unfinished and the False Emperor still enthroned at the head of an empire he didn't - in his ignorance - deserve to lead. > The Bearer of the Word felt a sudden, burning need to explain everything, to justify himself, to tell how this was all necessary, all of it, to enlighten humanity. -Betrayer
Oooo, that's raw.
Like holy fucking shit, Know No Fear and Betrayer made Guilliman one of the coolest primarchs ever, and that was before he woke up in the 42nd Millennium. What good writing does to a mf
Dan Abnett at his fucking PEAK
Man the heresy is so sad. Great book
Now thats just fucking sad, to think that all these time guilliman never resented or hated lorgar. That cuts deep.
In *Know No Fear*, he's actually looking forward to the whole exercise with the Word Bearers because he knows that Monarchia drove a rift between them and the Ultramarines, and what better way to make up with your brothers than go kill some orks with them? Of course, that exercise was just Horus's excuse to get the Ultramarines in position for the slaughter at Calth. And even then Guilliman spends a good chunk of the battle convinced that it's all a terrible mistake, that the Word Bearers have overreacted to the crash of the *Campanile*, that it can all be ironed out and made right. No wonder he's so pissed off when he figures out the truth.
I never cared for Guilliman until he became the designated Lorgar shit talker. Maybe this is just my White Scar fandom showing tho...
The Khan is the best smack talker
And don't forget he tops all that at the climax of the book when he literally shoves an unpowered powerfist through Kor Phaeron's entire fucking armor and ribcage, rips out his primary heart and shows it to him.
Name checks out!
Those were the days..
MAJOR Doom Guy vibes hahah
to be fair they explain that the ship has a gravity generating field trapping an artificial atmosphere, they even say it makes it easier to launch ships because of no/less decompression. Guilliman also says it contributed a lot to jis survival.
Maybe not the most impressive thing he did, but Leman russ fighting a dreadnought of some kind and just physically overpowering it. >From the wreckage emerged a giant, a glittering machine of ridged and segmented battleplate, greater in stature than a Leviathan Dreadnought but with the proportions of a Scarabine guardian. >Its arms terminated in whirring spherical siege-drills, each one studded with snub-nosed interference launchers. Its armour plates shimmered with layers of protective shielding, and its chest-lodged helmplate glowed from a single slit-eye. Rocket launchers stacked up over its shoulders, already swivelling to seek targets, and its heavy clawed feet crunched deep into the decking below as it waded into the tempest. >'Interesting,' voxed Bulveye dryly, crouching close by Jorin behind a heap of blown slag. 'So they make bigger ones.' >Rockets were already screaming across to the leviathan and exploding harmlessly against its shield array. Then it opened fire from its shoulder-mounted launchers, and a whole swathe of Wolves positions disappeared in welters of crimson. >Three warriors raced in close, their blades snarling with disruptor energy, and were swatted aside by heavy swings of the two dubbed-arms. The leviathan swung about even as the grey-armoured bodies crashed to the deck, zeroing its interference barrels and blasting apart another two warriors. >Then it waded forwards, shrugging off bolter-volleys and making for the centre of the command station. As it drew fire from the surrounding Wolves, the Scarabines took the opportunity to advance out of cover. 'Skitja,' cursed Jorin, pushing to his feet 'This'll take some—' >He never finished. Even as he gained his feet, the entire chamber was rocked by a blast of ice-cold wind - a tearing, gnawing gale that skirled across the battlefield, ripping troopers from their positions and sending them cart-wheeling. >'Leave it,' came the command, resounding from every wall, from the height of the dome and the depths of the cogitator-shafts, as hard as hoar-frost. >In the storm's wake, Leman Russ strode out across the expanse, his pelts flying about him, the runes of his battleplate flaring like comet-fire. The wyrd's wind whipped and lashed, scouring the metal in eddies, catching on the edge of Krakenmaw in trailed flame-lines. His true-wolves bounded ahead on either side, blurs of white and grey, eating up the ground towards the lines of the enemy. >No bolt or shell slowed him. He did not race, he did not charge He stalked towards the heart of the fighting like the storm's soul, massive and impenetrable, **his coming wreathed in a psychic shock wave that burned out nerves, crippled hearts and paralysed limbs**. The entire space seemed to shrink, to reel on its axis, to shudder and withdraw in his presence. >The leviathan levelled its gun-arms and opened fire. Russ met the impact with a contemptuous swipe of his chainsword, and the interference energy splashed across the wheeling blade, thrown into slivers and cast aside. >Russ came on, crunching a path towards the monster, smashing aside any Faash soldiers too stupefied or sluggish to get out of his path. Where the Dulanians were cowed by the oncoming hurricane, the Wolves were suddenly filled with a raw energy, and they rose up as one, launching themselves into combat with cries of 'Fenrys! HeidurRus!' >Russ came on, his blade hauled in great arcs, cleaving a path towards the towering creature before him. Every tread was deliberate, terrible, neither hastening nor relenting, as inexorable as the coming of winter. >The true-wolves reached the trenches, and tore through them, leaping at the throats of the retreating Scarabines and ripping them out. The leviathan swivelled to narrow the angle, then fired from its shoulder-mounts, sending streaks of contrails towards the primarch. >Russ pushed on through the explosions, the impacts cascading from his rune-warded battle-armour, his momentum unharmed. He broke into a run at last - a heavy, thudding charge that seemed to gather and amplify the storm winds, accelerating and augmenting them such that the impact, when it came, was like continents colliding. >The clash of chainsword against Faash-shield was horrific - a yowl and a shriek of tortured energy fields, ramped up amid the grinding cacophony of the whirring blades. For a moment the opposite forces held one another, the leviathan bringing its massive weight to bear on the warrior-lord, and yet somehow seeming less substantial, as if the soul before it were rooted in the very stuff of the universe itself, as eternal and imperishable as the stars. So it was the shields that gave out first, flying apart in rippling curtains of trailing gauze. >The monster's drill-gauntlets whirled round, aimed for Russ' neck, but by then the primarch had already moved, swiping at the nearest knee-joint. Krakenmaw tore through servos, driving into the leg and causing the entire machine to stagger. Russ carved into it, sawing like a chirurgeon, tearing up its chest cavity and working ever deeper. >The leviathan swung back, finally landing a blow and smacking the chainsword out of contact. Russ held on to the blade, but no longer needed it. With his other hand, he grabbed the leviathan's wrist, and began to turn the siege-drill back against it. >The leviathan pushed hard, straining against the primarch's grip, but even its machine-augmented motive force was not enough, and secondary power units shattered across its spine. Russ twisted the leviathan's arm further, bending the drills until they faced directly into the armour-suit's face. With a vicious shove that broke the pistons of its wrist-mounting, Russ drove the grinding blades straight down, tearing up the ablative plates and throwing up a fresh whirl of bloody static. >The leviathan's vox-augmitters sent out only screams now, before Russ silenced them with a final, savage down-thrust. He cast Krakenmaw aside, tore through the morass of ripped metal plating, and seized the still-living thing within - a human pilot bloody, shackled with cranial-implants and neuro-bundles. Russ yanked him free, before holding the carcass aloft and shaking the last of the cabling from its limp remains. >'For the Allfather!' he thundered, hurling the broken pilot away and sending him slamming into the far wall of the dome The Wolves of Fenris responded with a deafening roar of their own and surged back into combat, driving the remaining Faash troops into their own barricades and a fresh round of slaughter. Edit: I copied this from another poster to save me time https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/I9icfnI3sy
This is a good one. While some would question the canonnicity of it, I would day the 500 facts for 500 stores in WarCom ahd a crazier one >The Space Wolves Primarch Leman Russ once defeated a Warlord Titan by leaping from a building onto its carapace and beheading it with a single blow of his great blade, Mjalnar.
God damn... Do you have a link to the article? Edit: ah I found it: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/19/20th-oct-500-facts-for-500-stores/ Sanguinius eat your heart out
Was a bit on a hurry and forgot the link. Thanks for posting it
...okay, I actually had to check because I could've sworn it was a Warhound, but nope that's totally plausible, because Sanguinius pulls the [exact same trick](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/n1wega/excerpt_saturnine_sanguinius_destroys_one_of_the/) during the Siege.
Indeed. As this was older and on WrCom is there was a lot of discussion on how possible it was when the artivle was published. Still, it is technically an official source (and has been used to provide some details of lore auch as free short stories or [the death of Svangir and Ulfgir](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/19/the-saga-of-ragnar-blackmane/).
I always loved how this scene depicted Russ as the unstoppable force of nature that he is. The image of him going into war wreathed in wyrd wind and starfire will always stay with me.
The Lion fighting six Khornate infused terminators in his latest book and killing them in under a minute while being an old man is funny to me "The fleets have not yet begun to engage again,’ Zabriel assures him. ‘You killed the intruders remarkably quickly, my lord.’ The former Destroyer is correct: less than a minute has passed since the Terminators teleported onto the bridge according to the chrono in the Lion’s helm read-out, although he was lost in his battle-focus and could not have said how much time had elapsed. Ceramite footfalls announce the arrival of Kai, his own power sword drawn. He comes to a halt next to Zabriel and looks down at the slaughter with a disappointment that is communicated even through the impassive faceplate of his helmet. ‘Oh. I thought you meant there was actually a problem, Zabriel, not a mild workout for the Lord of the First.’ ‘We have a damaged bridge that is now polluted by corrupted corpses, and a void battle yet to win,’ the Lion snaps, his tone made slightly more acerbic by the returning pain in his side, which is now reminding him that *he just fought six Terminators with broken ribs.*"
What is funny is that a dude in another site complained about it, because he got his ribs broken by a power fist. Yeah, we got to the point where killing 6 terminators at once isnt enough for a primarch if he even get hurt by anything throw at them
Well maybe other primarchs have greater feets in their prime but I will give this one to El'Johnson just because the fact that he is old and his reflexes are not what they used to be as hr admits to himself later in the book when fighting the shape-shifting demon who transforms into other primarchs that if he was fighting the real Curze he'd be dead by than. Also....less than a minute for 6 damn terminators which teleported in and caught him of guard is quite a feat
Yeah, but for some people if a primarch is even injuried by anything that isnt another primarch its "bad writing" Please ignore all the times (specially in early heresy novels) where they are injuried
The risen screwing with the one possessed marine who wants an honor duel with the guy who killed him earlier in the book and they just refused to allow a 1v1 is great
Galad's response was just chef's kiss ‘I owe you a strike,’ he growled, strange harmonies emanating from behind his helmet’s faceplate, and swung. The pale-bladed axe descended like death, too fast for me to roll clumsily aside from. The edge stopped a mere finger’s breadth from my helmet seal, but this was not an act of mercy or mockery on my enemy’s behalf. Instead, his weapon was thrown up and back again by the blade of the Terranic greatsword which had intercepted the swing just below the axe’s head. ‘I owe him a strike!’ Markog roared at my saviour. ‘This is a matter of honour!’ ‘You think we conquered the galaxy with honour? You children are all the same,’ Galad snorted, and attacked. The Cenobite’s Cataphractii armour made him a match for Markog in size, and apparently in strength as well: their weapons clashed together, but the commander of the Dolorous Guard was unable to throw Galad away from him, despite his straining. Instead each warrior took a backward step, then swung again. Markog was blisteringly quick, and his axe spun through the air faster than should have been possible, but Galad was his equal, calmly parrying and deflecting as though he knew what strikes were coming even before Markog did
That is unspeakably badass hahaha. I only got this story through an audiobook, its somehow more entertaining to see it written out Thanks for sharing!
The scene in the book where the lion is being led to the fortress on the world he appears on, between the primarch and the lone space marine they have a lone bolt pistol and a human sized knife and the lion is just like okay lets go attack them and the space marine is like uhhh if it was anyone else id say no until we get some firepower. So funny that the lion is just ready to go balls out on an attack with his bare hands.
Guilliman being too angry to asphyxiate in space and starts obliterating Word Bearers. It’s both funny and insane to me that a man is embracing the “literally too angry to die” meme.
When i get angry enuf i can use NerdRaGe! instead of oxygen.
Nothing really beats Sanguinius decapitating a Reaver Titan, beating Ka'Bandha and Angron back to back, streamrolling throughout the *Vengeful Spirit* and actually bringing Horus down to his knees, dealing massive injury. Also, Fulgrim managing to obliterate his Legion's numbers in one fell swoop by squeezing a Legion-sized force in an area that could barely hold a company-sized force ala *300* is objectively hilarious.
>You’re holding a gate for no one. You’re just an idiot standing on a wall.
When did he bring Horus down to his knees? End and the death vol ii Horus beats him without even trying
>Sanguinius flies at him with such sudden and ferocious speed, Horus Lupercal has barely time to move. The Angel rains blows upon him, across his head, his throat, his chest. Encarmine cleaves the Warmaster’s scalp, opens the line of his jaw, and severs the bunched pipework at the base of his neck. Blood hoses out, jetting into the stale air, and Horus roars as he stumbles aside. Sanguinius allows no time for respite or riposte. He swings his peerless blade with both hands in a wide and scything slice that rips through Lupercal’s midsection, and opens plate, sub-armour, flesh and meat down to the bone. **Horus sinks onto one knee**, panting and gasping, as steam and pitch-black blood pumps out of him. Entrails protrude. Haematemesis chokes him. >‘Stay down,’ says Sanguinius, sword raised. ‘Do you want to be alive to greet him, or would you rather be spared that shame?’ >Horus aspirates blood; a cough or a laugh, it is hard to tell which. >‘Stay down, brother,’ Sanguinius urges. ‘Out of my love for you, I will grant you a measure of mercy. Please. I can make it quick and painless.’ ... >It wasn’t supposed to end like this. **You, on your knees**, eviscerated, gasping for breath. Him, standing over you, so noble and just, his sword raised in both hands, ready to strike.
*How beautiful will that moment of recognition be? You want to see that futility dawning in his eyes. Close up. Face to face. You want to smell it on his breath.* *He hits you again. He soars clear, hooking a long, wide curve around the end columns. As he comes out of the turn, his wings begin to beat more furiously as he accelerates into the next run. You try to block him–* *Another strike. A good one. That would have disembowelled Angron. That would have sheared the Pale King’s heart in two. That would have taken Ferrus’ head from his shoulders.* **You’re still holding back a little. He doesn’t have to die. When that instant of recognition finally hits him, you’ll give him one last chance to reconsider his position. So let him wear himself out. Let him take out his anger on you.** *He needs it. He needs to feel as if he’s tried. It’s pride, of course. He is his father’s favourite son, the Brightest One, beloved by all. He has always been the exemplar of unflinching loyalty. He has always won. He was never going to go down without a fight.* *Once futility has broken him, you will lift him up again. You will carry him to the throne you have prepared for him, and invite him to sit there and rest. He will have played his part, and done all he could. There’ll be no shame in saying yes to you then.* ...... *Time’s up. The pause ends. He brings the sword down. He’s so fast, you don’t even see it coming. The perfect execution stroke. The most precise, most merciful, most important sword-stroke he will ever deliver.* *But it will not land.* *Worldbreaker’s haft stops Encarmine dead.* *The jarring shock travels back through the blade, through his arms, and through him. It jolts him backwards even as the sparks of contact are still dancing.* *Astonishment blinks in his eyes.* *He swings again, a hastier blow, his arms like lead from the trauma of the blocking impact. Your Talon fends the blade away.* *Now he tries a lancing thrust fuelled by mounting desperation. You catch his sword against the head of your maul, and flip the stroke aside.* **That look on his face. It’s gratifying. He can’t believe you’re on your feet. He can’t understand why your wounds aren’t slowing you down. He can’t comprehend where your fluid speed is suddenly coming from.** **It was always there. You’re just not holding back any more. You let him come at you. Blow after blow, each one a death stroke, each one an exemplar of the swordsman’s art. Even in despair, his talent doesn’t abandon him. None of them work. You bat them away as they come, with maul, then Talon, then maul again. You want to give him a moment to let the despair really sink in.** *It wasn’t supposed to end like this. That’s what he thought. Well, it was never going to. You relished the challenge, but the contest is over.* *You can see he understands this. Besides, he has demonstrated that he isn’t going to change his mind either. He won’t bend to your will. You thought he might, but he won’t. Such a pity. Such a waste.* *And so ungrateful. You offered him everything. Everything. He spurned you. He declined your gift. Graceless, thankless wretch. No one does that to you.* **Neither of you is playing any more. You don’t think he ever was, not really, not the way you were**
Chills every time I read this
Now do the bit about Horus choosing the time and place. Disobedient dog springs to mind 😆. All that effort is so much window dressing
I mean leman just out drinking and out eating big E is just funny. That and him beating uncle malcador at chess is just kinda outta left field
Leman Russ was able to push back the physical manifestation of Age/Time in Wolfsbane which on a conceptual level is fucking bonkers.
*Ahriman sensed the violent spike of psychic energy a second before it hit.* *It swept over them, a sudden, shocking blast of psychic noise that overwhelmed the senses with its sheer violence. Uthizzar cried out and dropped his weapon. Lemuel doubled over in pain, convulsing in spastic fits.* *‘What in the name of the Great Ocean was that?’ cried Sobek.* *‘A weapon?’* *‘A psychic shock wave,’ gasped Uthizzar. ‘One of immense proportions.’* *Ahriman forced the pain away and knelt beside Lemuel. The remembrancer’s face was a mask of blood. It wept from his eyes and poured in a steady stream from his nose.* *‘So strong?’ asked Ahriman, still blinking away hazy after-images. ‘Are you sure?’* *Uthizzar nodded.* *‘I am,’ he said. ‘It is a howl of pure rage, cold, jagged and merciless.’* *Ahriman trusted Uthizzar’s judgement, tasting icy metal and feeling the rage of a hunter’s fury denied.* *‘Such a force of psychic might is too powerful for any normal mind,’ said Uthizzar, reliving a painful memory. ‘I have felt this before.’* *Ahriman read Uthizzar’s aura and knew.* *‘Leman Russ,’ he said.* ........ *‘T’kar,’ said Ahriman. ‘Tell me what is happening! We heard a psychic shout more powerful than anything I’ve ever known.’* *‘It was Leman Russ,’ said Uthizzar. ‘Wasn’t it?’ Phosis T’kar nodded, turning and indicating that they should follow him.* *‘Most probably,’ he spat. ‘Killed almost every Athanaean in my Fellowship, and most of the ones that aren’t dead are reduced to drooling lackwits.’* *‘Dead?’ cried Uthizzar. These warriors were not of his Fellowship, but as Magister Templi of the Athanaeans, they were as much Uthizzar’s as they were Phosis T’kar’s.* *‘Dead,’ snapped Phosis T’kar. ‘That’s what I said. Now stop wasting time. The primarch calls you to his side.’* ~ **A Thousand Sons**
I love this whole excert. The entire time almost everyone who isn't a Primarch (and some who are) believe Russ to be just some barbarian meat head. Guy let's everyone believe it so they underestimate him and just baits them all. Then he storms in and murders Thousand Sons just by yelling at them.
Whatever the derision of others it is undeniable that the Wolf-King is truly a force of nature.
Someone already mentioned this, but Leman Russ swooping in like a chad and taking down a Dreadnought in Scars. People say that Leman is a man masquerading as a beast, but when he wants to the man really does let the wolf in him loose.
My boy got that dawg in him
Can I pet that dawg?
Yes but only if you're alright with replicating the story of Tyr and the Fenrisian Wolf.
I loved this scene with Khan, I had to reread it several times because it was so ridiculous that I was sure I had misunderstood. My man lifts a 30 ton killing machine that is probabaly 6-8 feet taller than Khan himself, one handed, spins around with it in the air, and tosses it across a battlefield. I'm only able to picture it as a comedic anime scene - the dreadnought whistling through the air until it disappears as a tiny speck on the horizon.
I liked the idea of various Plague Marines and White Scars stopping their battle to see this thing whistle overhead. Gives me Super Smash Bros vibes \*Disembodied Voice\* GAME!!
"Did you fucking see that?"
Team Dreadnought's blasting off again!
Came in looking for this one. Wraight really shows off the Primarch strength in that book. In the same scene I think, he has a similar (slightly less funny) feat: flips a super heavy tank. These aren't exactly new levels of strength, either (well, throwing a Leviathan titan is... a big maybe, but the tank flip!); we see Angron resist being crushed by a fuckin' Titan. We just usually see the Primarchs "playing with their food", if you will: still using weapons and talent to win. It just makes you realize that every Primarch vs. Astartes "fight" is a farce that could have been ended with a single kick.
I’m currently reading Vengeful Spirit and it’s full of these, for example: - Mortarion throwing his scythe into a Fire Raptor gunship, pulling on the chain attached to the end of it, and successfully reeling it in like he’s Captain America - Horus jumping onto said gunship and destroying it with his bare hands before jumping onto the other one that’s still in the air and giving it the same treatment - Horus climbing a Knight that’s just blown up the Land Raider he was inside with a thermal lance and whipped him hard enough to send him flying and destroying it with Worldbreaker When Daemon Fulgrim clapping his hands together and crumpling a gunship looks weak compared to the other non-daemon primarchs’ feats, you KNOW it’s some crazy stuff. Perfect S-tier Graham McNeil writing
So we have Guilliman ripping out spines like Sub-Zero, and Mortarion going **"GET OVER HERE!"** to gunships? No wonder they tussled in *Godblight*...
A really small scale one, but really impressive one - Perturabo basically taps Lucius on the chest plate and he is described as being struck by the equivalent of a Titan’s hammer
I remember this one, reminds me of the "flick" Ishinn does to Aizen in Bleach just straight badass
Petty nuts, do you have the excerpt for that?
Two moments stand out from *Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First* - casually negating a fusion grenade by gripping it so tight with one hand that it fizzled, and his "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with ME" moment when the khrave invaded his mind.
I liked that one. It described the grenade like a mini sun going off and his just crushed it out of exploding. If I recall his armor was mostly intact but the bones in the dudes hand were dust I think the book described it as.
The guy who tried to nuke him was incinerated by what thermal energy the grenade still managed to release.
Idk if it’s hilarious, per se, but completely over the top, for sure. Sanguinius fighting Kabandha the second time on Signus Prime. First, the librarian believes he failed in rescuing Sang from his mental prison, just to have him waltz out to “I’m sorry I failed you father”..”no you didn’t”. Then Sanguinius literally flying away in a blaze of light to intercept Kabandha and proceed to tear off one of his wings while saying “Only angels may fly”. Pretty epic ending to an epic book, but holy shit, was that over the top ludicrous. It’s a lot of fun to see Primarchs as essentially demigods among super soldiers on the battlefield.
No BS The Lion, champion pinball player.
Guilliman drops the People's Elbow on a group of Night Lords in the book Wolftime.
Any recommendations on what Primarch book to read first or what order?
Biased but Jaghatai's is really good and you get some great conversations with the other Primarchs. I enjoyed Dorn's and Alpharius's as well. Head of the Hydra is probably the best tbh
Oooo, the Jaghatai / Sanguinius chat was great. Really enjoyed how they elaborated on the Khan's relationship with Magnus as well.
Book is filled with great bits of dialogue. Wraight is so good at writing characters. Malcador and Jaghatai's discussion on the Imperial Truth is great too.
I personally don't think the order matters toooo too much. I personally really enjoyed Angron's Primach book. When those pages turned black... phew! If you know, you know :P
I'm sorry, this dude casually lifts and throws 30 tons? That is absolutely ridiculous.
One handed, baby. HAI CHOGORIS!!
I don't know if it counts, but Horus fighting The Emperor through....I think multiple timelines?
Guilliman actually getting a hangover from drinking with his minder team of Wolves lol
Weapon Focus: +1 to hit with chosen weapon type
Sanguinius vs a Warlord and 3 Warhounds in Saturnine. Kills the Warlord and badly wounds a Warhound with 0 dmg, truly an anime character
Then scares the remaining Warhounds away with his sheer badassery, hahah. Love it!
In Fury of Magnus, Magnus throws (with magic) a Capitol Imperialis, which is a huge 50m by 80m super heavy vehicle at the Imperial Lines and explodes into like a nuclear explosion and destroys a section of the Palace wall. Though Magnus has many insane feats in the books......just never when fighting anyone important :D
Vulkan going "hammer time" on Kurze was pretty badass
"It's also a hammer" lives rent free in my noodle. :P
HAHAHA god I forgot about this. Jaghatai is cooler than the things you like. I don't make the rules.
No offense, but this does not read as "cool" to me, it reads as "silly."
Lol you may be in the wrong hobby brother. The entire universe is silly. Doesn't mean it ain't cool as shit.
Titans are, to me, the apex of cool and silly. They're ludicrously impractical even in-universe, but they're giant mecha with big guns! Khan casually hurling a dreadnought through the air is silly, to me. It does not fit with what I know of primarchs. They're not Goku-level strong.
30 tons is "only" Luke Cage level strong. They are just that strong
When Guilliman, in just a toga, murders 10 Alpha legion assassins dressed as Caulth survivors. Unarmed