Primarchs-Gods of War?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-09-10 12:31pm

Connor MacLeod wrote: As for "Taking bolt rounds to the face" - well again we get back to the Daemon "TK strengthening" its body - its more of an active defense, somethign that could be bypassed under the right circumstnacecs (the right kind of weapon or delivered in such a way that it cannot be easily defended against - ie by surprise.) In the case of a Primarch, there is probably a case for them having some sort of "blessing/enchantment" on their weapons/gear (if not some inherent warp-derived talent) for bypassing/negating such defenses. Another way to look at it might be some variation of what an untouchable can do (some psykers can generate fields that can nullify other psyker's abilities, and leave their own unaffected, IIRC.)

The game mechanic term is "Daemonic Aura".

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-09-11 02:49am

Ezekyle Abaddon wrote:If it is true that the Primarchs do have warp based luck powers does that mean that on some level they can use Force weapons (Fireblade,Forgebreaker and Horus's Mace) as I think that at one point in Fulgrim Fireblade was wreathed in flame.

Uh, where did you get off claiming that the Primarchs are using Force weapons? Aside from some very limited exceptions, the Primarchs as a rule don't exhibit any "Active" warp-based powers or behave as psykers in any fashion (as opposed, to, say, the Emperor or a Librarian.)

Moreover, the weapons I alluded to above are never mentioned to be Force weapons (which IIRC require psykers to work properly anyhow) - normal Spacee Marines of the right chapter can use them (Soulspear and the Spear of Telesto being prime examples). They aren't Force weapons, they're just very powerful, very exotic technological devices with ingrained abilities. (Archeotech, to be precise.) Some say they were forged (or constructed, probably) by the Emperor himself.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-09-11 03:14am

Wasn't Magnus the Red a bit of a psyker?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2007-09-11 03:53am

Cykeisme wrote:Wasn't Magnus the Red a bit of a psyker?

A very, Very powerful psyker and sorcerer actually.

It's almost certain that all of the Primarchs were "Psykers" of a high degree, but with their powers channeled. (Rather like how Grey Knight's can withstand a Daemon prince's soul flensing due to their psychic "armour"/wardings, Primarch's channel it into their insane "luck", durability, and funkier gifts such as Sanguinius's patented wings O Doom).

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2007-09-11 03:38pm

NecronLord wrote: Can Horus be noticably damaged by Interex weapons? Yes.

Noticeably as in he didn't notice the impact at all, it didn't cause bleeding, didn't penetrate the bone and may even have been stopped by the muscle, while the momentum to throw at least 750lbs several metres did nothing to him.

Can Horus' brain survive the trauma of a Interex weapon entering it? Not that we know of. Presumably not.

Normal humans have survived and let active lives after bullets have entered their brains including one boy who had half his brain destroyed by one, so that is very dependable.
Can the weapon actually penetrate through his skull with any noticeable force remaining? Doesn't look like it from that limited shot.

can Horus be killed by massed fire of the same unenchanted weapons? Yes.

Not if it can't do anymore than stick in his skin.
Note, I'm not denying that 'normal' weapons could kill a Primarch, but when normal includes Lascannons and Multi-meltas a more quantification is required

Then there's the battle between Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus, where Fulgrims blows were"powerful enough to crush the armour of a Titan to paste".
Hyperbole. Graham McNeill is pretty much the master of Hyperbole. He's the one with demons 'older than the universe' when the new chaos codex reiterates that Khorne's oldest demons came into existance when humanity was making war on its homeworld. Do you seriously think he could walk up to a titan, smack it one, and destroy it? Even though, you know, Leman Russ couldn't... even in legend.

Your dislike of the author does not allow you to immediately dismiss narrative descriptions as hyperbole. And since when does destroying some Titan grade armour equal destroying the entire titan? It doesn't, and it was never claimed.

Momentum has to go somewhere. Logically, even if Ferrus were invulnerable to harm, such a blow would have at least him through the floor, which would be turned to paste...

Standard powerfists and thunder hammers generate energy fields which allow unaugmented humans to smash through the armour of a Leman Russ without generating the tank shoving momentums we've seen them survive.

You're telling me that's literal? Even though it's actually self contradictory (the first paragraph, and they are both consecutive, claiming that every one of Ferus' blows was blocked by Fulgrim, the second, claiming that both brothers' armour was damaged) and it claims that they could topple mountains.

It is not necessarily contradictory. The clashing of the weapons were creating blasts of energy, possibly enough to cause damage to armour, (especially if the blows were only just stopped in time) while Fulgim could be scoring slight glancing blows as well.

Yes. McNeill's prose has things like 'turn titan armour to paste' it also has Fulgrim at least having some difficulty (it punches him off his feet, and makes blood come out of his mouth, cracking his breastplate - Fulgrim P.294) with a wraithlord.

Are we expected to believe that a Wraithlord is more formidable than a Titan? That a titan-armou-smooshing blow to the head doesn't wound a Primarch, yet a Wraithlord can? It's a poor lookout for the Imperium if those eldar stop fucking about and send wraithlords into battl- wait...

When did I claim it Fulgrims blow to Ferrus didn't wound him? I didn't, I said it didn't kill him. I'm sure your quite well aware of what damage it did to him.
And your comparison of Wraithlords to Titans is a joke. A titan is far more formidable in what its designed for, which is shooting things, up close the Wraithlord performance against the Pheonix Guard show that it is far more formidable than most things.
Just like a Primarch its ability against a Titan is going to be limited unless its left completely unmolested for a while, which incidently is why Titans operate with ground support, to shoot and stop ground based threats like this which a Titan cannot deal with in close quarters, much like tanks.

As to resistance to being shot at, Angron did an awful lot of running into the Lunar Wolves fire during the battle on Isstvan (and every other battle as I understand), while wearing his less than ideal Gladiator suit, and doesn't get turned into a red smear.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-09-11 04:10pm

I've given you the actual quote. You think that the self-contradictory passage that includes essentially worthless hyperbole about toppling mountains (as Connor says, yes, it could be over a period of time, but by that standard, the 'turning titan armour to paste' could also be over time, which indeed, actually makes sense Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus are both after all, masters of weaponsmithing, and with the right tools could doubtless render quanties of titan armour material molten) is literal and immediate? What next? The necron codex describes the C'tan as 'omniscient' (yes, it actually uses that word) do you think they're actually all knowing?

And yes. They, Angron especially, run into hails of bullets. Have you an actual text about the bullets bouncing off his skin, or is it a fair bet that they don't get directly hit all that much as I suggested? I shall reiterate for you, I did not say they were weak, I said one very lucky shot could potentially kill them, as could hundreds, my exact wording, dozens to hundreds of direct hits from 'conventional' weapons.

Simply put, I disgard anything that's not actually shown in the text as unreliable and subject to conjecture, not just in these cases, but in all 40K books. The Heresy books, for example, are very keen on saying 'no warrior can overcome a space marine, save another space marine' which is blatantly untrue. Mighty as they are, the Phoenix Lords and Primarchs and goddamn armies of custodes existed in the same period.

You are arguing a strawman. Right from my first post, I included references to their extreme toughness and their 'implausible feats of strength.' You know what, they're stupendously fast, as well, not to mention skilled. Now, as far as I can see, you're arguing that there is no hyperbole in these sources. Which is retarded.

My original claim was that conventional weapons can damage them, and that in some cases, their greatest asset appears to be luck; they appear to not get killed because they're lucky. When Angron habitually charges forward, at the head of his legion, howling like a madman, it seems almost certain that he's pretty bloody lucky that no one's ever fired off an artillery barrage that's killed him.

We're talking about an age of mechanised warfare, here. And attacking the most dangerous foes. You'd think, with average luck, in a hundred year campaign, even Primarchs would be hit with a melta or vortex missile now and then by some inventive enemy, and even their tremendous toughness and superb armour shouldn't suffice to deal with everything.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2007-09-11 04:29pm

As an aside and perhaps slightly off-topic, a question on something I've been wondering about lately- is there a difference between being a psyker and being a sorceror?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-09-11 04:39pm

SiegeTank wrote:As an aside and perhaps slightly off-topic, a question on something I've been wondering about lately- is there a difference between being a psyker and being a sorceror?

It seems to be a grey area. Sorcery seems to be a term applied to specific, unsanctioned, psychic practices. Whether you can train an non-psyker to be a sorcerer is unknown. It seems to be implied now and then. It seems otherwise normal people can manifest some psychic powers when following the correct rituals - demon summoning, for example, doesn't seem to always require a psyker...

I'd say all sorcerers are psykers of some sort, but all psykers are definately not sorcerers.

Of course, you could simply interpret it as a perjorative term...

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-09-11 08:03pm

I was reading some of the stuff about Magnus the Red (off Wikipedia, no more), and apparently he upset the Emperor and some of his brothers due to his sorcerous practices.
I'm assuming it also calls on the powers of the warp, but apparently sorcery is something distinct from normal psyker use of the warp.. perhaps something more dangerous, if the Emperor himself forbade it.

Ironically it was his use of sorcery that warned loyal Magnus to the impending treachery of Horus, and it was for his continued use of sorcery that Magnus was branded a traitor, his warnings unheeded. Events forced Magnus and his legion to fall to Chaos..

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-09-11 08:20pm

While the divide between sorcery and psychic power is unclear, there are a few definite differences.

Chaos gods can grant their followers sorcerous abilities. Of course, they can also mutate them into slime, so this isn't inconsistent.

The use of specific abilities that draw upon the warp energy associated with one of the Ruinous Powers is always called sorcery.

Psychic abilities seem to be more along the line of intrinsic abilities and honed skills and sorcery more along the lines of "dark secrets" that are passed along or learned through experimentation. My best guess is that sorcery involves drawing upon powers associated with the Chaos Gods, but that's merely a guess.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-09-15 04:29am

Lost Soal wrote: Standard powerfists and thunder hammers generate energy fields which allow unaugmented humans to smash through the armour of a Leman Russ without generating the tank shoving momentums we've seen them survive.

Well, generally that's true of any power or force weapon, not just power fists or thunder hammers.

The problem, however, is the "mechanism" isn' t neccesarily pure force (or even pure energy.) It seems to vary from source to source.

Marneus Calgar had those unique power fists with the bolters attached which IIRC generated a 1-8 MW powerfield. Some power weapons are described as "exploding" targets. IIRC some do generate heating on contact with materials (melting, cauterization, etc.)

Others seem to be more "exotic" in the sense of technobabble ("disruption/disintegration", etc.)

Even if it WERE force, it really depends on how the weapon applies the force to a target. Powerfists can tear through armor, yes, but that doesn't neccesarily require punching (Tearing/rending or crushing.) Or maybe it utilizes something like vibration. Or the field might just be very good at generating high force/pressure without neccesarily high momentum.

If you add a possible "energy damage" element to it (Megawatts are eaisly enough to shatter/melt most materials eventually) the "force/momentum" issue becomes less key.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-09-15 04:48am

NecronLord wrote:I've given you the actual quote. You think that the self-contradictory passage that includes essentially worthless hyperbole about toppling mountains (as Connor says, yes, it could be over a period of time, but by that standard, the 'turning titan armour to paste' could also be over time, which indeed, actually makes sense Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus are both after all, masters of weaponsmithing, and with the right tools could doubtless render quanties of titan armour material molten) is literal and immediate? What next? The necron codex describes the C'tan as 'omniscient' (yes, it actually uses that word) do you think they're actually all knowing?

Well I was just illustrating the whole "we don't know enough to quantify it and its open to interpretation" bit. I didn't really think it meant that the Primarchs might be capable of smithing down a titan into an inert mass, for example (though its still possible.)

It would also fit if the Primarch could, with the right weapon, just punch a small but powerful hole straight through (titan armour is what, several thousand MM thick on average?) A Primarch could easily do that without doing significant damage to a Titan (even thousands of times.) - "crushing" could simply refer to penetrating it, rather than doing large scale damage. While Titans are big and tough, I have to point out that its the shields that make them tough. Even a bog standard Russ, under the right circumstancecs, can fuck up a Titan.)

That said, depending on the weapon they may or may not have, its quite possible for a Primarch to fuck up a titan. The Spear of Telesto or the Soulspear (which is a directed vortex weapon, the Blood Angels spear is basically a nuke in a spear.) could possibly damage or even destrroy a titan (Although the Primarch isalmost certianly to be destroyed if the Titan hits him even once with its weapons, or even catches it in the proximity of its attack.)

And yes. They, Angron especially, run into hails of bullets. Have you an actual text about the bullets bouncing off his skin, or is it a fair bet that they don't get directly hit all that much as I suggested? I shall reiterate for you, I did not say they were weak, I said one very lucky shot could potentially kill them, as could hundreds, my exact wording, dozens to hundreds of direct hits from 'conventional' weapons.

Again, their extreme "durability" or whatnot may not be just luck. It could be good equipment or or some sorrt of "active" psychic shield (which might appear to function like luck.) Hell, at the Archeotech level the two probably aren't all that different. It might even be that Primarch armour has some super-duper psychic-boosted warp-powered force shield device. Its not as if technological amplifiers or analogues to psyhcic ability haven't been known to exist.

Simply put, I disgard anything that's not actually shown in the text as unreliable and subject to conjecture, not just in these cases, but in all 40K books. The Heresy books, for example, are very keen on saying 'no warrior can overcome a space marine, save another space marine' which is blatantly untrue. Mighty as they are, the Phoenix Lords and Primarchs and goddamn armies of custodes existed in the same period.

Except that therein lies part of the problem with canon that is mostly dialogue based rather than visual - it's all "shown" in the text, more or less. Its more a matter of interpretation and the reliability therof, which unfortunatley suffers from all the drawbacks of "dialogue-based" analysis without any compensating benefits.

My original claim was that conventional weapons can damage them, and that in some cases, their greatest asset appears to be luck; they appear to not get killed because they're lucky. When Angron habitually charges forward, at the head of his legion, howling like a madman, it seems almost certain that he's pretty bloody lucky that no one's ever fired off an artillery barrage that's killed him.

Again, an active defense of some kind would also address that. The beauty is, active defenses aren't usually 100% effective - even shields, so there are always cases where (as you argue) a conventional weapon could harm them.

We're talking about an age of mechanised warfare, here. And attacking the most dangerous foes. You'd think, with average luck, in a hundred year campaign, even Primarchs would be hit with a melta or vortex missile now and then by some inventive enemy, and even their tremendous toughness and superb armour shouldn't suffice to deal with everything.

A melta I could see, or a lascannon, or even a vortex grenade.. but a vortex missile might be pushing the analogy. To be perfectly pedantic, there is very little that COULD protect even a primacrh from a vortex weapon if it hit nearby (including most tanks.) It's kinda like saying "well why didn't the enemy just target the Primarch with an orbital barrage?")

Besides, the sorts of ranges at which vortex weapons (vehicle grade at least) are plausible would be rather impractical for even a Primarch to cross on foot or fight across unless he were capable of supersonic travel (unlikely.) Collateral damage form the enemy would be a danger too.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-09-17 05:41am

Aside from blind luck and psychic shields, what about latent precognition? You know, sort of like the stuff that keeps Jedi alive, only without the lightsabers.

Imperial Overlord wrote:My best guess is that sorcery involves drawing upon powers associated with the Chaos Gods, but that's merely a guess.

Hmm, I'd garner this isn't so. The tragedy of Magnus the Red is great because he dabbled in this "sorcery", but he was not corrupted by Chaos until the Emperor's distrust in him (or rather, too much trust in Horus) fucked shit up for him and his legion.

Lone_Prodigy · Post by **Lone_Prodigy** » 2007-09-17 10:40am

Wouldn't it be more tragic if he was using the powers of the Chaos gods for good ends and not being corrupted by it until the Emperor set the Wolves on him?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-09-20 01:11am

Lone_Prodigy wrote:Wouldn't it be more tragic if he was using the powers of the Chaos gods for good ends and not being corrupted by it until the Emperor set the Wolves on him?

It would indeed.
Is this a possibility? Chaos having their own powers turned against them?

I've heard of an entirely different implementation of the same basic concept known as "daemonhosts" or somesuch, but I don't know much about them.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-09-20 02:22am

Cykeisme wrote:
Lone_Prodigy wrote:Wouldn't it be more tragic if he was using the powers of the Chaos gods for good ends and not being corrupted by it until the Emperor set the Wolves on him?
It would indeed.
Is this a possibility? Chaos having their own powers turned against them?

I've heard of an entirely different implementation of the same basic concept known as "daemonhosts" or somesuch, but I don't know much about them.

It is believed by some factions of the Inquisition (Xanthites and the more radical Horusians) that yes it is possible to use the powers of Chaos against Chaos. Xanthism is a radical faction, but an accepted one (as in you need a better reason to fry an inquisitor than he's a Xanthite). Some Thorians, who Xanthites are philosophically descended from, also study chaos sorcery in order to learn how to embody the Emperor in new flesh when the time comes. Obviously, different inquisitors have different ideas where the line is drawn.