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Cythereal posted:The battle that gave Kharn the Betrayer his nickname might also be it. I forget what exactly it's called, but it was a giant battle between the World Eaters and Emperor's Children that ended the existence of both Legions as organized forces and shattered them into roving warbands. The battle for Skalathrax, it's mentioned in The Talon of Horus too. Just finished reading it too, by the way. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and there's a thing that bugged me (aside from the eldar character): A perfect pure clone of Horus, really? Even with all the talk about it having a possibility of success I never fully believed it until it happened. Fabius, you're a beast, but even better than the Big E at genetics magical bullshit?
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Sep 23, 2014 00:02
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Yeah its pretty dumb, also for him to be fairly easily killed too..
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Sep 23, 2014 00:44
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Angry Lobster posted:The battle for Skalathrax, it's mentioned in The Talon of Horus too. Just finished reading it too, by the way. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and there's a thing that bugged me (aside from the eldar character):
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Sep 23, 2014 01:18
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Pyrolocutus posted:Hypothetically...the Cadian Gate? I can see a Black Crusade thrown against Cadia being bigger than the Siege of Terra, if we assume that while a large fight and *the* turning point in the Heresy, the Siege represented what was left of both Horus and the Imperium's forces after battering each other throughout the Heresy, then it might be smaller compared to a fresh Black Crusade plus a fully fortified Imperial Cadia. This entire portion of the book is taking place well prior to any Black Crusades, and the battles that demons fight amongst each other in Warp space might as well happen in ones imagination for all it effects the rest of the galaxy. Cythereal posted:The battle that gave Kharn the Betrayer his nickname might also be it. I forget what exactly it's called, but it was a giant battle between the World Eaters and Emperor's Children that ended the existence of both Legions as organized forces and shattered them into roving warbands. This would also occur later since the Emperor's Children still seem to be an organized fighting force that is winning the Legion Wars.
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Sep 23, 2014 02:11
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Uroboros posted:This entire portion of the book is taking place well prior to any Black Crusades, and the battles that demons fight amongst each other in Warp space might as well happen in ones imagination for all it effects the rest of the galaxy. Obviously the Warp threw the dude in question back in time. (Ok, yeah, now that you've reminded me about the timeframe, I have no idea either).
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Sep 23, 2014 05:26
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Uroboros posted:This would also occur later since the Emperor's Children still seem to be an organized fighting force that is winning the Legion Wars. It's explicitly stated that the book occurs after the battle. It's just a throw away line about some bad poo poo that goes down in the eye, nothing to focus on.
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Sep 23, 2014 06:50
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Cythereal posted:The battle that gave Kharn the Betrayer his nickname might also be it. I forget what exactly it's called, but it was a giant battle between the World Eaters and Emperor's Children that ended the existence of both Legions as organized forces and shattered them into roving warbands. Skalathrax, I think. Edit: My bad, didn't even see there was a new page
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Sep 23, 2014 14:39
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Angry Lobster posted:The battle for Skalathrax, it's mentioned in The Talon of Horus too. Just finished reading it too, by the way. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and there's a thing that bugged me (aside from the eldar character): No indication he was "perfect". Just that his face wasn't crazy like those in the tank. Who knows what was going on under the armor, in his head, or if he was anywhere close to being as strong and tough as the original. That this one died to a stab wound would suggest he isn't as tough as a real primarch IMO
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Sep 23, 2014 16:21
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Fried Chicken posted:
Welp, everybody in that scene thought it was the real deal, it appeared to have the strength, speed and resistance of the uncorrputed original, Fabius thought so too, that's why he gave it the armor and the mace. Also, I think everyone underestimates the kind of opposition Horus faced, there was more than a hundred rubricae, thirty possessed Justaerin terminators, a squad of World Eaters and a group of miscellaneous named characters, including Failbaddon himself. It's a loving small elite army all by itself, true that clone Horus had the surprise on his side but it had to bear a terrifying amount of firepower, I doubt a mortal uncorrupted non-psykic primarch could have won against that all by itself. Heck, Roboute nearly got nailed by a single squad of alfa legion assassins. IMO, the whole purpose was to show Abaddon murdering his own father with his own weapon to symbolize the death of the Sons of Horus and the beginning of the Black Legion. The rest it's the usual routine of "lone Badass, throw tons of elite mooks at him to debilitate it enough for the relevant plot character to give the killing blow with the relevant item".
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Sep 23, 2014 17:04
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The Alfa legion, come to sell you unreliable italian sports cars.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:23
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The Alfalfa legion, come to feed your livestock.
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Sep 23, 2014 20:21
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Pyrolocutus posted:The Alfalfa legion, come to feed your livestock. Tell me about the Rabbits again...
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Sep 23, 2014 21:03
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Nagash is a pretty cool dude in his books. Why can one lich get more poo poo done than four gods and all their minions?
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Sep 24, 2014 04:30
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Finally finished Talon of Horus, I enjoyed it, so in the spirit of being a big baby I'm going to list some things that annoyed me. Forgive me for not spelling out the names properly. Khayon is an enormous Mary Sue who's powers border on the silly. He goes on and on about how their superior sense of purpose allowed them to destroy the Canticle City against overwhelming opposition, but all they did was break out of the warp and ram a spaceship into it from orbit. This is beginning to get old, as a strategy, since we already saw it done in a much cooler fashion in Know No Fear. Hell, no one should be impressed, and it hardly ranks as some brilliant battlefield move. In the old fluff it was common Imperial practice to divert asteroids into the orbits of alien worlds they deemed to advanced for direct conflict. You're telling me the Vengeful Spirit didn't have any cyclonic warheads on board that can do the same thing without wasting an entire ship? Of course not, ADB's new character has to have a chance to shine, because binding demons to your service, animating dead dark eldar, and being able to turn Space Marines to dust with a mere thought just isn't enough. It occurs to me that Chaos followers are essentially Space Libertarians. ADB is almost to good at making you forget we are reading a book about really really really bad people. Khayon feels bad about mind loving the Emperor's Children swordsman, but isn't above killing millions of people on the regular because he doesn't see anyone who isn't as talented or useful as himself as being worth anything. He regularly gives loyal crew over to his dark eldar companion to be tortured to death. I suppose this sort of behavior is a good way to understand how someone like Hitler could be so loved by some and still order millions to their deaths, but khayon's little speeches between chapters about how the Warp is misunderstood starts to get old when you factor in what he has done up to that point. It is mentioned that aliens are even more reviled in The Eye than within the Imperium, which is just bullshit. The forces of Chaos collude with alien powers on the loving regular. I can understand the other characters not liking Neiteri, but saying it is because she is a dirty xenos is dumb.
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Sep 24, 2014 08:34
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Uroboros posted:It is mentioned that aliens are even more reviled in The Eye than within the Imperium, which is just bullshit. The forces of Chaos collude with alien powers on the loving regular. I can understand the other characters not liking Neiteri, but saying it is because she is a dirty xenos is dumb.
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Sep 24, 2014 11:24
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I just got done with "Know No Fear" and I have to say it turned me around on the Ultramarines. Abnett did a great job of making them actually interesting. The only thing that was off to me was at one point one of the marines uses the phrase "Throne Knows" which doesn't really make much sense since I don't even think the throne was fully constructed at that point, and even if it was, it isn't really relevant enough to merit that phrase.
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Sep 24, 2014 12:34
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Cream_Filling posted:In older editions you'd even get small bonuses for taking units in multiples of sacred numbers. Nazi engineers were obsessed with the number 88. Shells were 8.8 cm and variations there-of. H is the eight letter of the alphabet. They built "Heil Hitler" into their gear. \/ Oh... Shame. It was a good "look at how crazy they were"-story. Attack on Princess fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 13:38
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Donnerberg posted:Nazi engineers were obsessed with the number 88. Shells were 8.8 cm and variations there-of. H is the eight letter of the alphabet. They built "Heil Hitler" into their gear. The 8.8 cm cannon was actually developed years before Hitler even came to power and has literally nothing to do with him, and the whole "88= Heil Hitler" wasn't really a big thing until after the war, either.
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Sep 24, 2014 14:10
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amuayse posted:Nagash is a pretty cool dude in his books. Why can one lich get more poo poo done than four gods and all their minions?
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Sep 24, 2014 14:37
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berzerkmonkey posted:Because he has focus and can influence things directly. The Chaos gods have to rely on their followers to get the job done, are constantly fighting amongst each other, as well as having their power influenced by human emotion. I guess that's why they are called the CHAOS gods, and not the gods of discipline, planning, and logistics.
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Sep 24, 2014 16:27
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jadebullet posted:I just got done with "Know No Fear" and I have to say it turned me around on the Ultramarines. Abnett did a great job of making them actually interesting. Doesn't hurt that Gulliman doesn't come off as stupidly overpowered as the other Primarchs, and almost has died twice to non-primarchs. You get into his thought process and why he does what he does as opposed to the others who are always insufferably mysterious about how they always seem to know what's going on around them.
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Sep 24, 2014 16:33
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Angry Lobster posted:
Well yeah, that's absolutely the point of the scene, I'm just saying there is enough grey area in the scene setup that it isn't necessarily "better scientist than the emperor!" wank. Uroboros posted:Finally finished Talon of Horus, I enjoyed it, so in the spirit of being a big baby I'm going to list some things that annoyed me. Forgive me for not spelling out the names properly. he has a lot of power because he is within the eye, sure. But he is also so drat empty as a human being that he can't even relate to his mentor anymore, no matter how much the albino reaches out to him. His companions are all constructs - he is so lonely he has forced two entities into perpetual service just so he has someone around. His sister is subsumed and he is desperate to convince himself she isn't. He forces the dark Eldar to remain alive because he doesn't want to lose her, even though in life she hated being kept in the eye and let herself be killed to free herself from his control. He has demons forcibly bound to his service as companions. He has full conversations with ruberics to pretend he is socializing. He compels his worst enemy to be his friend. Guy is so absolutely pathetically desperate for any kind of affirming interaction, it's no wonder he joins up with Abaddon as soon as the pitch is "brotherhood" quote:It occurs to me that Chaos followers are essentially Space Libertarians. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 16:58
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Uroboros posted:It occurs to me that Chaos followers are essentially Space Libertarians. Libertarian owner of a meat-packing plant: "There's nothing wrong with a thumb in a package of hamburger!" Emperor's Children Champion: "There's nothing wrong with entire rendered-down humans in my perfume!"
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Sep 24, 2014 17:18
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I definitely see where someone would describe Chaos as libertarian, maybe not in the rigorous way a political scientist would define it but certainly in common usage on SA and other places. You've got the benchmarks of promised freedom from tyranny that in practice often just creates a new system of subjugation, one of private interests rather than a governmental body. You've got the valorization of individual agency and the success of hard work and talent, whereas in reality it's often as not just a just-world fallacy laid over a system that is pretty arbitrary with its favors (being chosen by the Chaos gods is the new lucking into a financial windfall by birth or right-place-right-time). 40k is amazing because it presents an array of lovely systems and asks you to choose one to sympathize with. It's double amazing because in tyool 2014, so many people decide their answer is 'yup, imma go with theocratic fascism' without much appearance of irony or second thoughts. Not that the other options are strictly better but that's the point; it's sort of an informal (but nonetheless telling) personality test.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:20
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Pyrolocutus posted:Libertarian owner of a meat-packing plant: "There's nothing wrong with a thumb in a package of hamburger!" Fixed that for you.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:23
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Uroboros posted:Doesn't hurt that Gulliman doesn't come off as stupidly overpowered as the other Primarchs, and almost has died twice to non-primarchs. You get into his thought process and why he does what he does as opposed to the others who are always insufferably mysterious about how they always seem to know what's going on around them. I definitely agree with that. Someof the things the Primarchs have done in other stories just makes them seems kinda silly at times. So far, Guiliman is actually the Primarch that I like the most, which is pretty surprising to me because I never really found him, or the Ultramarines, to be interesting before, but between their depiction in Know No Fear, and their depiction in Betrayer, they have definitely been shown to be a really cool legion. (Hell yeah shield walls)
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Sep 24, 2014 21:30
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JerryLee posted:I definitely see where someone would describe Chaos as libertarian, maybe not in the rigorous way a political scientist would define it but certainly in common usage on SA and other places. You've got the benchmarks of promised freedom from tyranny that in practice often just creates a new system of subjugation, one of private interests rather than a governmental body. You've got the valorization of individual agency and the success of hard work and talent, whereas in reality it's often as not just a just-world fallacy laid over a system that is pretty arbitrary with its favors (being chosen by the Chaos gods is the new lucking into a financial windfall by birth or right-place-right-time). This is pretty much what I am getting at, not saying that Libertarians would be the first to worship Chaos Gods, but more that The Eye is essentially some nightmare libertarian dreamworld since you can literally bring things into existence through willpower alone. People who can't do these things are less than trash in this world, which is so eerily similar to what you hear from libertarians, its uncanny. jadebullet posted:I definitely agree with that. Someof the things the Primarchs have done in other stories just makes them seems kinda silly at times. So far, Guiliman is actually the Primarch that I like the most, which is pretty surprising to me because I never really found him, or the Ultramarines, to be interesting before, but between their depiction in Know No Fear, and their depiction in Betrayer, they have definitely been shown to be a really cool legion. (Hell yeah shield walls) Admittedly, I wasn't a Space Marine fanboy from the start. I found out about 40K back when StarCraft was released, so I associated them with the much less interesting Terran Marines from the game. Once I read a bit and became interested the Ultramarines quickly became my favorite simply because they seem the most plausible out of all the Chapters. You're telling me that 1,000 Marines can conquer an entire solar system? They must be the galaxies most organized and efficient fighting force...then you get treated to pages about blood-thirsty Space Wolves and fanatical Black Templars who charge with axes and swords into battle, and I was like "how the gently caress are these guys supposed to win a war??". Contrast this to Ultramarines which are all about strategy and discipline, working together to create that optimal fighting force. Having been in the military myself they just appeal to me more, I totally get that the other Chapters are "cooler" in a setting that very much plays by the Rule-Of-Cool, but at the end of the day Matt Ward making them out as "the best" makes sense. They go "By The Book, No Mistakes"...that's how you win wars. Guilliman, gets almost frustratingly self-aware in Unremembered Empire, because he is looking to find someone to replace the Emperor in the event that Horus has already won, and knows he is the best candidate, but realizes that would make him look like a giant rear end in a top hat and a usurper, so he pushes it off on one of his brothers. Also, his adoptive mother is still alive, which is pretty cool. TheArmorOfContempt fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 01:51
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Aren't the wolves and the black templars ignoring that only 1k marines rule?
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Sep 25, 2014 11:05
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Sandweed posted:Aren't the wolves and the black templars ignoring that only 1k marines rule? Yup. Black Templars are abusing the 'crusading chapters don't follow the 1k limit' rule by always being on a crusade of some kind against something and the Space Wolves ... well, we know what happened last time someone told Logan Grimnar to obey orders (aftermath of the 1st Armageddon War I believe).
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Sep 25, 2014 11:10
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I thought the Ultras themselves broke the rule. That's why they were (barely) able to stop a Tyranid invasion on their own.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:30
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The ultramarines do it by having all the successor chapters that are really just the ultramarines with a slightly different shade of blue but they all still follow the same orders and everything.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:37
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Basically, every 1st Founding Legion has it's own little way of circumventing it, in one manner or another.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:55
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I always figured that most of the loyalist first founding legions had a green light to keep at least tens of thousands of Space Marines, and I always saw the Wolves and Ultramarines like 100kish. It all depends on the story though.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:08
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Both the Dark Angels and Ultramarines unoffcially lead the majority of their successor chapters, Space Wolves ignore the limit, Black Templars are constant crusading which keeps their numbers from being audited and there's at least a couple other chapters that have similar loopholes. I'm not sure about the White Scars, Raven Guard, Blood Angels or Salamanders but I think the successors to the Iron Hands are very independent from the IH becuase ofthe whole competative clan thing they have going on. IIRC the Exorcists have 2 or 3 extra scout companies because the ritual to become a full marine kills most of them.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:25
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Demon Of The Fall posted:I always figured that most of the loyalist first founding legions had a green light to keep at least tens of thousands of Space Marines, and I always saw the Wolves and Ultramarines like 100kish. It all depends on the story though. No chapter has a green light to keep over 1000 Marines, but they are really answerable to no one, save the Emperor, so they can get away with things. Of course, when you're dealing with the Inquisition, it's in your best interests to at least be politic - just ask the Celestial Lions...
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Sep 25, 2014 13:45
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I just assumed it was 1,000 "official" battle brothers, and they just have huge numbers of trainees and petitioners who have yet be inducted as actual Space Marines. Like in Brothers of the Snake, Priad's squad has three combat deaths, and two he decides to replace with fresh recruits, and they have something like 20 petitioners show up for their training. If every Squad has twice its number in men who have been implanted with geneseed then that would be quite a few guys. This doesn't even begin to get into how many unaugmented humans they would have to keep nearby who are genetically compatible and have already passed whatever rigorous physical trials are required to even have a shot at being a Space Marine. Given the lethality of the transhumanization process I just assumed they always had thousands of guys running around constantly training who are somewhere between 13 year old kid who just passed the trials to 20 year old man who has had his geneseed implanted years ago, and is now ready to get a suit of power armor once someone dies.
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Sep 25, 2014 14:28
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berzerkmonkey posted:No chapter has a green light to keep over 1000 Marines, but they are really answerable to no one, save the Emperor, so they can get away with things. Of course, when you're dealing with the Inquisition, it's in your best interests to at least be politic - just ask the Celestial Lions... Though the Inquisition is for the most part ruthlessly pragmatic so you'd probably just spin some bullshit about how they're not "fully ordained brothers" like above and also promise to send a few squads next time the Inquisitor calls and really needs someone dead.
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Sep 25, 2014 15:37
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Improbable Lobster posted:Both the Dark Angels and Ultramarines unoffcially lead the majority of their successor chapters, Space Wolves ignore the limit, Black Templars are constant crusading which keeps their numbers from being audited and there's at least a couple other chapters that have similar loopholes. I'm not sure about the White Scars, Raven Guard, Blood Angels or Salamanders but I think the successors to the Iron Hands are very independent from the IH becuase ofthe whole competative clan thing they have going on. Blood Angels are barely 1000, they have nearly been wiped out 3 times and their flaw shows up more often in their successor chapters so they are rare and tend to be assholes who don't support the Blood Angels
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Sep 25, 2014 15:53
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Jut finished reading Angel Exterminatus and Betrayer. It's actually weird to see how different two books with more or less the same ultimate plot goal manage to be in terms of quality. The whole two rebellious Primarchs working together with the end goal of one of them becoming a Daemon Prince Betrayer manages to pull this off while doing a good job of characterising the legions in them, Angel Exterminatus feels ridiculously ham fisted and filled with plot 'twists' you can see a mile away while not really doing anything to add any depth to the traitor legions. Also props to whoever linked the Dornian Heresy thing, that's fun reading and an interesting take on a possible Ultrasmurf future with Guilliman looking to actually achieve something with his reforms rather than furthering the breaking into separate cells of the Imperium designed to prevent any one figure from holding power that the Codex Astartes was.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:05
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Uroboros posted:I just assumed it was 1,000 "official" battle brothers, and they just have huge numbers of trainees and petitioners who have yet be inducted as actual Space Marines. Like in Brothers of the Snake, Priad's squad has three combat deaths, and two he decides to replace with fresh recruits, and they have something like 20 petitioners show up for their training. If every Squad has twice its number in men who have been implanted with geneseed then that would be quite a few guys. This doesn't even begin to get into how many unaugmented humans they would have to keep nearby who are genetically compatible and have already passed whatever rigorous physical trials are required to even have a shot at being a Space Marine. Yeah - sorry, I assumed that everyone was on the same page when referring to a chapter of Marines. 1000 SMs is the official limit, but you could have thousands of menials, aspirants, servants, whatever. I'm not sure if Scouts count toward the limit, or they are exempt since they aren't "complete" Marines yet.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:49
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