Editing Magnus the Red (section)

==On the tabletop==
===As a son of the Emperor===
[[File:Magnus the Red-FW Model.png|right|thumb|300px|Magnus, back before he was a red giant. Well, a redder giant.]]
{| class=wikitable
! Points || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| 495 || 7 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 4 || 10 || 2+/4++
|}
With his decent statline, Magnus has the Primarch rule in all of its goodness, '''Arch Sorcerer''' (ML 5 psyker that harnesses on a 3+, needs three 6's to roll perils and re-rolls 1's if he does) plus he randomly generates his powers from any of the 5 main disciplines plus Sanctic (E.G. 2 biomancy, 2 telepathy, 1 divination). now think about rolling all 5 on biomancy! with '''The Eye of the Crimson King''', which gives him line of sight to anything in range while also giving his powers Ignores Cover. '''Phantasmal Aura''' makes him [[Jaghatai Khan|harder to hit]] by forcing anyone in melee or shooting at him (and the ''infantry'' unit he joined) -1 to hit while also forcing Barrage weapons aimed at him to add +1 Scatter. He's also a decent army buffer, boosting his legions leadership, making his attached unit Fearless ([[Forgeworld|even though the Primarch rule already did that]]), allowing Sehkmet Terminators as troops and letting you re-roll reserves.

*'''The Horned Raiment''' is your standard 2+ 4++ armour made of warp energy that lowers the number of wounds taken from the D by 1
*'''Psyfire Serpenta''' is an S8 AP2 Assault d3 gun with Soulblaze(that could be argued to be a plasma weapon and thus weakened by the sallies)
*'''The Blade of Ahn-Nunura''' is an S+2 AP1 two handed '''force''' blade.

The February 2019 FAQ <s>nerfed</s> balanced Magnus heavily. Making '''Mind Wrath''' a power he has to buy separately along with '''Infernal Bargain'''. This increases his cost by 175 points, bringing his total to 670 and making him the most expensive of the Primarchs. Mind Wrath lets him double the range of any witchfire and add a single d6 strength to a maximum of 10 at a penalty of his powers needing +2 Warp Charges to cast. His witchfires still do not need line of sight and ''Ignore Cover''. His ''Infernal Bargain'' rule allows his army to cancel out a single Perils of the Warp anywhere on the table once per game, which is a safety net in the event a low level Psyker fluffs his casting roll and subjects the entire army to a potential pinning check. Magnus is still powerful and he is clearly still the best psyker in the game, but not quite the Destroyer [[Cheese]] of his first incarnation.

[[File:RussMagnusDiorama.jpg|left|thumb|300px|Magnus and Russ having a civilised chat on the philosophy of the Warp. Also, Magnus doesn't have his nipple horns anymore. Maybe Magnus got tired of losing another eye every time he sneezes.]]
''Biomancy'' so far seems to be the most powerful for him to roll on, as Iron Arm makes him an unkillable juggernaut of S10 T9, Warp Speed let him out-dance Fulgrim and out-rape Angron at 7 attacks on I9, with both combined allowing him to take on Horus or even Russ in a challenge, Enfeeble and Endurance being generally great powers in any situations. Haemorrage sadly continues to be useless, though, and five times out of six you'd roll it instead of some useful power.

Hilariously Biomancy-powered Strawberry can mindbullet most Primarchs from distance in just 2 or 3 turns. Angron, Fulgrim and Corax could even go down in one turn with some luck. Although Lorgar's superior deny and Horus's armor of "fuck your psychic powers on a 3+" may pose a problem, and them hiding in a transport or a unit (probably both) counters this tactic completely - then again forcing your enemy's Primarch to hide just by deploying yours is a victory on it's own (unless it's Alpharius, who's straight up ''designed'' to hide in a unit).

You can go for support monster with ''Divination'' or supercheese with ''Telepathy'', but those disciplines lack boostable witchfires (Psychic Scream while awesome on its own don't have strength value). ''Pyromancy'' is on the other end of the spectrum, with all the witchfires all the time everywhere, potentially with re-rolls to wound from fiery form, but it can't increase his survivability or close combat prowess.

Magnus is THE straight-up best Primarch for his points. The reason for this is his sheer flexibility. While you may not be able to [[Lorgar|choose your psychic powers,]] you can tailor him to different roles at the start of any game just by picking a discipline. Up against a melee Legion and need a buffer for your gunline? Divination, motherfucker. Enemy brought a Warhound/Spartan/Primarch who isn't Horus or Russ? Biomancy to fly up and smash it. Up against Admech with those 4+ armour MCs? Say hi to Pyromancy. If there were only a few psychic powers that Magnus' rules could turn into OP nastiness it'd be okay, but with Biomancy in particular, there are an absurd number of such powers. Pray to the Emprah Forgeworld nerfs him.

Just keep him away from sisters of silence... even they might struggle though. Especially since, Psyker or not, this is still a Primarch designed to tear apart anything and everything. A Culexus Assassin hiding behind a unit will also royally fuck him over.

====Vs Other Primarchs====

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Primarch fighting, while fun to see, isn't a very competitive thing to do as it'll usually tie up both Primarchs for the entire game without either of them dying. With that in mind this section is all about how Magnus fares against other Primarchs mathhammer wise. Please note that all the various abilities, with the exception of Blind, are taken into account (Blind is ignored because it is just too random and unreliable to come into play) and the match-ups assume the Primarchs are the only ones involved in the fighting, so various abilities like Angron's "The Butcher's Nails" and Rampage do not provide any bonuses. As with Lorgar, psychic powers are not accounted for, which is a slightly false choice given that if you're sending Magnus in for a Primarch duel you probably will buff him but a necessary one if this is to be doable and fair.
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*Magnus vs Angron
** Angron first round: hits 4.5 times, wounds 3.75 times and 1.875 after saves which IWND will take down to 1.542 at the start of next turn
** Angron second round: hits 3 times, wounds 2.5 times and 1.25 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.917 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which FNP and IWND will take down to 0.5 at the start of next turn
** Unsurprisingly Magnus loses this one pretty badly

*Magnus vs Fulgrim
** Fulgrim (Fireblade): hits 3.5 times, wounds 2.333 times and 1.167 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.834 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Again unsurprisingly Fulgrim wins comfortably even without taking into account Child of Terra or Mastercrafted

*Magnus vs Mortarion
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.278 at the start of next turn
** Mortarion: hits 1.667 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Magnus actually out-endures Mortarion as his negative modifier to hit balances out Mortarion's superior regen and extra wound. Not that it matters because it will take several lifetimes before either of them actually die.

*Magnus vs Ferrus Manus
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 time and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 at the start of next turn
** Ferrus: hits 1.333 times with Forgbreaker and 0.333 times with his Servo Arm, wounds 1.111 times and 0.278 respectively which after saves becomes a total of 0.695 wounds after saves which IWND will take down to 0.362 wounds at the start of next turn
** Another ridiculously long fight but Ferrus' Servo Arm and better invulnerable save just tip the fight in his favour

*Magnus vs Konrad Curze
** Konrad: hits 3 times, wounds 2.25 times and 1.125 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.792 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 at the start of next turn
** Konrad wins this one without having to use his hit and run + HOW combo which turns this into a bloodbath

*Magnus vs Vulkan
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0 wounds at the start of next turn
** Vulkan: hits 1.333 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Vulkan wins because Magnus can't hurt him

*Magnus vs Lorgar
** Magnus (round 1): hits 2.222 times, wounds 1.728 times and 0.576 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.242 wounds at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2.667 times, wounds 2.222 times and 0.741 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.407 wounds at the start of next turn
** Lorgar: hits 2 times (Master-crafted and +1A for pistol), wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 wounds at the start of the next turn
** In spite of WS6 and 5 wounds, Lorgar's save is increased to 3++ against attacks from Force Weapons, giving him a mutual kill or narrowly win if he concusses Magnus in the penultimate round.
*** '''Happy psychic fun:'''
*** Magnus with Iron Arm and Warp Speed: hits 4.667 times, wounds 3.889 times, [[FAIL|0.432 after saves]] and IWND will take down to 0.099 wounds at the start of next turn
*** Lorgar with Precog: hits 2.778 times, wounds 1.543 times, 0.772 times after saves and IWND will take down to 0.439 wounds at the start of the next turn
*** Lorgar with Precog crushes Magnus (after a long time), the rerolls to hit and wound more than makes up for Magnus' aura and boosted Toughness, and [[Shield-Captain|rerollable 3++]] completely neuters Magnus' damage. Magnus needs Iron Arm, Warp Speed ''and'' Endurance to outlast him. Or roll Precognition himself with any Bio-blessing.

*Magnus vs Perturabo
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.556 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Magnus (Blinded): hits 1.333 times, wounds 1.111 times and 0.37 after saves which IWND takes down 0.037 wounds at the start of next turn
** Perturabo: hits 1.333 times with both, wounds 0.889 times with his hands and 1.111 times with Forgebreaker and 0.444 and 0.556 times after saves respectively, which becomes 0.111/0.222 wounds at the start of next turn
** Perturabo (with Magnus Blinded): hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 times after saves
** Another victory for Magnus comes when Perturabo doesn't have Forgebreaker. When he does this becomes a walkover in the other direction as Magnus won't kill him before he becomes blinded and then he becomes essentially unable to hurt Perturabo.

*Magnus vs Alpharius
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.667 times and 0.833 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.5 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Alpharius: hits 1.944 times, wounds 1.512 times and 0.756 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.423 at the start of next turn
** As usual, Alpharius loses

*Magnus vs Rogal Dorn
** Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.33 times (Dorn cannot be wounded on more than 3+ thanks to his armour) and 0.67 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.44 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Dorn: hits 2 times, wounds 1.5 times and 0.75 after saves which IWND will take down to 0.417 wounds at the start of the next turn
** Magnus loses this one

*Magnus vs Corvus Corax
** Corax: hits 2.667 times (Scourge)/ 2 times (Shadow-walk), wounds 2 times (Scourge)/ 1.5 times (Shadow-walk) and once or 0.75 times respectively after saves which IWND will take down to 0.667/0.417 at the start of next turn
** Magnus: hits 2 times (Scourge)/ 1.333 times (Shadow-walk), wounds 1.667 times (Scourge)/ 1.111 times (Shadow-walk) and 1.111/0.741 times after saves which IWND will take down to 0.778/0.408 wounds at the start of next turn
** Corax's superior initiative means that if he uses Shadow-walk he can kill Magnus just before he can strike on turn 15. If he uses Scourge he loses, however. As usual Blind and Hit and Run could turn the fight more in his favour

* Magnus VS Jaghatai Khan.
**Jaghatai: hits 2.666 times, wounds 1.333 times, 0.666 wound after saves with IWND bringing this down to 0.333
**Magnus: hits 2 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.555 times after saves with IWND bringing this down to 0.222
**Magnus loses this one too

* TLDR:
** Magnus leads the back of the pack when it comes to fighting primarchs. His WS is only average (for a primarch) and he can't pile on the attacks to make up for it. He isn't particularly tanky either, so any of his melee-focused brothers will knock him over and sit on his dumb ginger head.
** But hulked out with biomancy he stands a decent chance against anyone but Horus and the Wolf King.

</div></div>

===As a Daemon Primarch===
[[File:Magnus-revealed.PNG|right|thumb|300px|Exactly as planned!]]

{| class=wikitable
! || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Magnus''' || 7 || 7 || 8|| 7 || 7 || 7 || 6|| 10 || 4+R1/4++R1
|}

Rules-wise, he's a beast with 7s across the board barring strength (8) attacks (6) and ld (10). He rocks a 4++ and can re-roll ones (so yeah, throw in the grimoire of names to have a 2++ re-rollable and guy becomes unkillable when combined with the fact that he's an FMC with EW), as well as Daemon of Tzeentch, Deep Strike, VotLW, Fearless, Fleet, IWND, and the WT Lord of Flux: Enemy units within 12″ of your Warlord treat all terrain, even open ground, as difficult terrain; any enemy units that run, turbo-boost, move flat out, or charge within that radius must take dangerous terrain tests. He has what is by far the best psychic output in the game: Mastery level '''5''', AW (so he DTWs on 3+ against everyone), manifests his WCs on a 2+, has LoS to all units on the table for the purposes of using his powers, and '''''never''''' suffers Perils of the Warp. He knows every spell in the Tzeentch and Change disciplines. With the expansions brought in the new rulebook, this means Magnus can bring to the table 2 D attacks (One of which is an 18" Beam?!) per psychic phase with relative ease, all while still being able to murderize anything that he comes across, and in melee he uses a sword that uses his strength, AP2, Soulblaze, Force, and Transmogrify (a 6 to wound causes Instant death and turns the slain model into a [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Sp... you know this stupid gaOHGODWHYBLAGRABAH]]). He's 650pts, so use him wisely.

Model-wise, he appears to take minor inspiration from his EPIC monkey form (which is a good thing.) He has multiple head options, including a cyclops head, which is incredibly fluffy as his face has been described as constantly changing. His armor appears to be to have changed from golden to silver (but it still has its nipple horns. Sexy, sexy nipple horns), and the motif of a bird skull appears everywhere. He has bird wings, and is posed on a Space Wolf Dreadnought arm. Ah, and he's so FUCKHUEG that he rivals an Imperial Knight.

====8th Edition====

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Magnus''' || 445 || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 7 || 18 || 7 || 10 || 3+
|}

Naturally, Magnus was some of the small slither of cheese that Chaos had access to in 7th, so GW casually nerfed him to ensure their precious space marines didn't have too hard a time (if this was hard to see, don't look at what has become of poor Ahriman). Don't let this hit fool you too much though as Magnus is still a force to be reckoned with. Gone is the all seeing eye, immunity to perils and ease of power casting. In its place we still get the best psyker (still significantly weaker than before as he has now forgotten most of his spells and how to give people the big old D). With 18 wounds, he can take more hits than a Land Raider and Bloodthirster and with 7 strength 8 attacks (*16 with his X2 S blade*), he can still bend over most things in the game with his fancy blade. His new force multiplier effects make him a more balanced command unit but unless you want him to sit at the back as a big fire magnet and hope his measly 3 powers can make up for his enormous cost over his combat hitting power, a Thousand Sons army isn't going to benefit from these too much. Apparently, Magnus has changed his devotion to Khorne judging by the obvious strategy GW have currently geared him to.

Oh, and don't let Thunder Hammer/Stormshield Terminators charge him. They obliterate him, even with Weaver of Fates up to give him a 3++R1; besides, you easily have the manoeuvrability to ensure they virtually never manage to pull this off.

*In all truth while his insane strength and 7 attacks are brutal, especially when adding prescience you probably want to stay away from anything with an invulnerable save higher than a 4, use him with warptime for mass hit and run and bolstering or intimidating important areas. Smite anything rocking Stormshields or other intimidating saves, and hope he rolls an overall 10, for a juicy 2d6 mortal wounds.

* Obviously Mortarion was not better enough when compared to Big Red, so GW fixed that by nerfing the cyclops (and boy did they hit him hard). No more invul rerolls, 2D6 mortal wound Smite only goes off on 12+ now, transmogrify from his blade is still not free, if you manage to even pull it off (funnily most characters hide from Magnus) all for 30 MORE points. On the plus side he allows rerolls of 1 for both him and his sons within 9" when making a psychic test, he adds his psychic phase bonus to DtW tests now, he also gets full access to 3 psychic disciplines for a total of 18 spells to chose from and he ignores any mortal wounds caused by perils on a 2+. He's less tanky than he used to be, but he is much more psychically focused than before.

====9th Edition====

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Magnus''' || 450 || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 7 || 18 || 8* || 10 || 3+
|}

====Magnus' Terrible Weakness====
Unfortunately not everything is awesome for the Daemon Prince, aside from getting his ass kicked by the Space Wolves and Grey Knights [[Angron|(though he's hardly alone in that regard)]], Magnus has a terrible weakness in the form of three completely normal humans carrying Thunder Hammers. This is all 7th edition only, but check it out anyway:

Seriously, three Inquisitors (all of which have 3's and 4's where Magnus has 7's and 8's) can kick his ass. One of them just needs to be carrying a Null Rod and Thunder Hammer, another carries the Grimoire of True Names, Empyrean Brain Mines, and a Nemesis Daemon Hammer, while the third also carries Empyrean Brain Mines and a Nemesis Daemon Hammer. All of this makes for a combination that Magnus simply cannot win against. He is incapable of ''targeting'' the unit with his sorcery; while he can and should hit the unit with Wrath of Magnus on the approach if possible, as Beams do not target, this won't help him in melee, where he is reduced to using '''Boon of Flame''' to summon support (which will not be able to charge on summon turn) and '''Boon of Mutation''', which is extremely unlikely to help in any meaningful way. If they charged him, the Psyk-Out grenades mean he's I1 for testing against the Mines; if they didn't, why didn't Magnus just get the hell out of there instead of getting into close combat with these guys? On subsequent Inquisitor turns, the bearer of the Grimoire will challenge him; Brain Mines and Challenges happen at the same time, so per the sequencing rules, the Inquisitors can choose to use the Mines second. Magnus must now take an I test on I2 (typically two tests, of course), so with odds ''at best'' 1/3 (at worst, 1/9) he can still swing - otherwise, he can't swing at all. If he ''does'' swing, it's at WS 2 (so he hits on 5s and is hit on 3s). Mathwise the three Inquisitors beat him to death in 3 rounds (another Triumvirate of the Imperium?). Even if it wasn't for dropping his Leadership down to 5 for Daemonbane tests, the second the Inquisitors Wound him he's Concussed, meaning it's even easier for them to paralyze him with the Mines and spend the second round wailing on him. If you really wanted to fuck him over then you could also ally in a Culexus Assassin, as they (simply by standing near him and not actually getting into the fistfight) combine with the Grimoire to drop his Leadership to 2, making him incredibly likely to die if a Nemesis Daemon Hammer rolls a 6 to wound. That all said, remember that Magnus ''does not'' have the Daemonic Instability special rule, so he's not going to take a bajillion extra wounds after losing combat with nerfed Leadership. You could also add to the hilarity with an Inquisitor with Rad and Psychotroke grenades (the Psychotroke grenades especially have a 1/3 chance of either reducing Magnus to I1 or LD 2 for the phase, which will make all of the other effects in the unit even worse for him).

Of course this relies on them actually getting into combat with Magnus, and so long as the player's smart (and your opponent doesn't load up his Inquisitors in something ridiculous like a Corvus Blackstar) you should be able to get around the board without having them ever get into combat with him. The Lord of Flux WT helps in this respect by messing up charges.

Funnily enough too his 30k incarnation is incredibly weak against Sisters of Battle, mainly because they can load up on combi-crossbows and two squads armed with these things will kill him in a single shooting phase while being either more annoying to kill thanks to Adamantium Will, or impossible to hurt with his Psychic powers if they're joined by a Hereticus Inquisitor carrying a Null rod (as they should be). Obviously the solution here is just to make him invisible and take them on in combat, but there's still the rare chance you won't get it (especially if you want other powers for bigger threats).