Why did the siege of Terra fail ?

[IhateSpaceMarines]

Greetings, gents.

 

A Certain thought has occured to me, how is it that The siege of terror really failed ? Based on what I know, The active Chaos legions that were fighting on terra were the : A fraction of the Iron warriors, Sons Of Horus, World Eaters, Deathguard, Emperors Children, Thousand Sons and a fraction of the word bearers no ? . And on the loyalists side there was the : Imperial fists, White Scars, Blood Angels, Small amounts of Salamanders, Raven Guard and Iron Hands. Oh and the emperor's preatorian guard.

 

I know that the ultra marines weren't present and neither were the dark angels, however i am not too sure over the space wolves.

 

Now considering how Horus is the greatest tactician and alongside the legions who have been blessed by the chaos gods, how could they really fail the siege of terror ? I mean considering The Iron warriors were the siege masters, the world eaters brutal frontline troops, the power of sorcery from the tsons and the new found extreme resiliance of the deathguard, how could the imperialists really overcome such power ? Ah yes I know that considering Horus was slain, SO was the emperor (in some sense)... So both leaders were both very much dead but the Chaos Primarchs were still outnumbering the Loyalists so their leadership should not have faltered. Is this based on the legion sizes of the imperialists to be far greater than the Chaos Legions ?

 

Mind you this is not a thread to flame, im just curious as to why the real reasons why the Chaos legions failed the siege of Terra.

[Brother Styphus]

It failed because Horus was sloppy. He was not the greatest tactician (that was Lion el'Jonson), and he died trying to pull off a risky maneuver. Emperors Children were actually attacking the cities of terra, beating and pillaging all in the name of fun. Iron Warriors are the masters of fortification, Imperial Fists were siege masters (a little reverse role play).

 

Legion sizes did indeed make a difference. At Istavaan a good proportion of EC, SoH, DG, and WE were virus bombed and slaughtered because they were loyalist. Imperial Fists were in full force, and I assume the same for the other 2 major defenders.

 

Space Wolves weren't there, they were with the Dark Angels returning to terra. That is the reason Horus lowered the shields to let the Emperor teleport aboard his ship. After having one of their space ports taken by White Scars the chaos boys were starting to falter (lack of supplies and reinforcements are always huge factors in war). If Lion and Russ had made it home, the loyalists would have slaughtered the chaos heretics.

[Julius Firefocht]

The Lion and the Wof are factors, but I imagine having the vast bulk of the Ultramarines Legion bearing down on Terra also made Horus reconsider his position, forcing him to go for all or nothing.

 

The Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and White Scars did well, delaying the traitors long enough for the threat of loyalist reinforcements to come to bear on Horus. I have no doubt they were outnumbered, but their kill ratio against the Chaos Marines has got to be something fierce for them to achieve the results they did.

[spawnovchaos]

lets not foget of course, the death of Horus. With many of the legions delving into chaotic exhuberance, and each legion now free to prusue its own goals, Horus managed to be the glue that gathered all the traitors, assembled this grand heresy, and perpetrated it...at least in the military sense. As silly as it may seem, once you nick off Horus, the binding factor that held the legions together was broken. And as others mentioned, alot of the legions were just beating and pillaging for their own gain at this point.

[Grond]

Also, don't forget, the Imperial palace is one of the most, if not the most fortified structure in the galaxy ( and if i recall correctly, roughly the size of Asia )

The fact that the chaos powers managed take a good share of it in 55 days, despite the defense, shows that they did not so much fail as run out of time, as previously pointed out. Sieges, by their very nature, take a long time to pull off successfully, and they were doing more or less a good job of it ( minus the pre-victory partying ;) )

[IhateSpaceMarines]

Does anyone have any data for the numbers in each legion at the time of the heresy ?

 

I can understand how the chaos forces were close to destroying the imperial palace which is quite massive and in the 55 days and the chaos forces just doing thier thing rather than working together to pwn the emperor. So what do recon the Chaos forces should've done to succesfully own Terra ?

[Sons of Horus]

it failed because Horus died. they were actually winning already but the moment Horus died they fled back to the eye of terror. they new that without the leadership of Horus they wouldn't be able to complete their mission. and besides, if GW let them win where would all the loyalists be? the loyalists make up the biggest part of GW's fan base. :P

[fore_Russ_and_The_Wolftime]

imo i think that hourus as warmaster realy had no chance at the siege of terrra and would have succeded if he had sent more chapters farther away from terra

 

just my opinion

[Weiss]

I believe that there is mention that the Blood Angels went bezerk for the second time when Sanguinius was killed, so they probably ushered the traitors' retreat along...

[battle captain corpus]

It was still an extremely close battle in the end. The walls were breached as far as I know, the outer ones anyway. the only ones that were not were the actual Palace ones. The inner circles.

Siege statistics also play a vital role. A man can hold around 3 feet of room at the top of a wall. The numbers soon add up. An attacker not only has to get to him, but scale and then kill him. Hundreds can fend off thousands, overlapping fields of fire, bastions that protrude enough to rake the walls free of besiegers etc.

Lets not also forget that it was not just Astartes holding the palace. The Imperial Army was also present lending their fire power.

 

Also, the nature of the defences themselves need to be taken into account. We're talking pallisades, ravelins, false trenches, mines, false walls, etc.

[Weiss]

Iron Warriors are the masters of fortification, Imperial Fists were siege masters (a little reverse role play).

 

I presume you were joking? The Imperial Fists and the Iron Warriors were both very good at engineering. The impression that I have had from all the fluff that I have read (including Storm Of Iron) is that the Iron Warriors are very good at besieging a place and the Imperial Fists are immovable in defence...

[Ju'kosian]

it failed because Horus died. they were actually winning already but the moment Horus died they fled back to the eye of terror. they new that without the leadership of Horus they wouldn't be able to complete their mission. and besides, if GW let them win where would all the loyalists be? the loyalists make up the biggest part of GW's fan base. :P

 

This is the real reason :D :P No more no less, would be a small disaster if t Horus would have won the war. :lol:

[ironloki]

So both leaders were both very much dead but the Chaos Primarchs were still outnumbering the Loyalists so their leadership should not have faltered

 

It could have been an issue of 'too many cooks spoil the broth'. With Horus dead there was now no single person in charge of the forces of Chaos and with no clear heir to that title there would probably have been confusion. Also, it was Horus' last throw of the dice and im sure the Legions must have known that now leaderless and with the Loyalists rushing to Terra they were going to become squished themselves so they decided to save their own legions. I guess you could also argue that they had done their job - The Emperor was essentially dead.

 

I believe that Horus would have won the day if the seige of Terra existed in a vacuum. By that I mean he did not have the threat of the Dark Angels, Space Wolves and more importantly the Ultra Marine's rushing to Terra. It was their speed that forced Horus to act, not because the seige was going badly but because it was slower than expected. It was a tall order of any man to do - take Holy Terra. Most would not have considered it, but Horus thought big and I guess dared to dream. To take Terra you need a loooong time or at least the largest and most experienced force in existence, and I believe that Horus thought he could take Terra rather quickly. Why not? He had afterall smashed before him.

 

I'm not sure if he calculated what legions would be present on Terra (He appears to have planned the attack so that the Ultramarines were kept busy) but the presense of Dorn and the Imperial Fists - The best defenders in the realm of man - would have been a major problem. Taking down the hardest defences in the Imperium is hard enough without having it's builders standing right behind them. The valiant defence of the Loyalists must have added on a few extra days on Horus' plan and the fact that the Emperors Children went AWOL meant that he lost one of his legions, again adding on a few extra days.

 

Horus did not have days to play with. He was already working within a tight schedule and I believe that those two factors reduced his time significantly to force his hand.

 

Had he previously destroyed the Ultra's, Wolves and Dark Angels or tied them up more efficiently then he might have been able to reign the Emperor's Children back in and work with his plan.

 

All conjecture though! :D

[Renik]

ironloki summed it up pretty well the heresy basically failed as the defender brought enough time for reinforcements to be close and horus knew he couldn't win a prolonged battle on terra so had to risk the ultimate gamble take out the emperor and he would win but if he lost he knew he would die.

 

During the actual siege you had various points which affected the outcome

 

1) the emperors children going of butchering the local population

 

2) The white scars taking one of the space ports limiting how many troops could get down onto terra

 

3) and prob other heroic bits as well which happened that i cant remember of the top of my head

[Brother Dienekes]

Legion sizes did indeed make a difference. At Istavaan a good proportion of EC, SoH, DG, and WE were virus bombed and slaughtered because they were loyalist. Imperial Fists were in full force, and I assume the same for the other 2 major defenders.

 

 

The Fists were not actually in full force as you put it, a large section of the legion was sent to the istvaan system to help releive loyalist defenders and ended up getting ambushed by Perturabo and his Iron warriors fleet, also those closest to terra spent plenty of blood attempting to stop mars's machine shops falling to chaos forces and were eventually pushed back to terra itself. It is even noted at one point that Dorn was deeply concerned about the state of his legion

 

If you ask me, with Dorn in charge of the defences... Im very suprised the defenders held for so long. Lets face it, he has made some absolutely rubbish orders:

 

Sending the bulk of his fleet halfway accross the galaxy to fight a collective of space marine legions of unknown strength in an attempt to do what exactly?

 

After knowing that 4 legions had turned traitor he sent 7 more to meet them in battle without even checking to see whose side they were on first.

 

Sending more marines to stop rebellion on mars without support... Cmon, Dorn... They build titans there for petes sake

 

He fell for the iron cage incident.

 

IMHO Its a shame perturabo turned traitor as he wouldve blunted everything the traitors threw at terra.

[battle captain corpus]

He fell for the iron cage incident.

How so?

Following a vision whilst in the pain glove of the Emperor Dorn led the most die-hard veterans to attack a Legion now Primarch-less. They assaulted and bested the Iron Warriors at every point virtually and Gulliman helped extraction. The Iron Warriors were left decimated. And this is post Heresy, following the Emperors enthronement.

Its not even a relevant arguement IMHO as it has no bearing on the siege of Terra either... ;)

[Weiss]

Sending the bulk of his fleet halfway accross the galaxy to fight a collective of space marine legions of unknown strength in an attempt to do what exactly?

 

I thought he sent them to support the punitive strike against Horus? You can't blame Dorn for the warp being unhelpful....

 

After knowing that 4 legions had turned traitor he sent 7 more to meet them in battle without even checking to see whose side they were on first.

 

So what, he's going to ask them, all nice like and they're going to hold up their hands and say "You got me...". Please...

 

Sending more marines to stop rebellion on mars without support... Cmon, Dorn... They build titans there for petes sake

 

I thought they were going to support the adepts that had stayed loyal?

 

He fell for the iron cage incident.

 

What Corpus said...

 

IMHO Its a shame perturabo turned traitor as he wouldve blunted everything the traitors threw at terra.

 

Dorn was the master of defence, Perturabo was the master of pulling fortifications down (though both legions were very good combat engineers).

[Brother Dienekes]

He fell for the iron cage incident.

How so?

Following a vision whilst in the pain glove of the Emperor Dorn led the most die-hard veterans to attack a Legion now Primarch-less. They assaulted and bested the Iron Warriors at every point virtually and Gulliman helped extraction. The Iron Warriors were left decimated. And this is post Heresy, following the Emperors enthronement.

Its not even a relevant arguement IMHO as it has no bearing on the siege of Terra either... <_<

 

He boasted he was going to bring Perturabo back to Terra in an iron cage, but Perturabo wasnt even there. Perturabo had led Dorn into a wasted conflict resulting in the dead geneseed of hundreds of Imperial Fists and whilst they took a heavy toll on the iron warriors at the end of the seige there was no traitor primarch to show for it. Dorn had allowed himself to be fooled by Perturabo, and in doing so dented his legion/chapter again.

 

Perturabo was even elevated to daemonhood for it.

 

And yes, the Ultramarines had to help extract them, in short they were soundly getting their @sses handed to them.

 

Ha ha I know it doesnt have any bearing on the seige of terra, couldnt resist having a dig at Dorn :P

[battle captain corpus]

Dorn was the master of defence, Perturabo was the master of pulling fortifications down (though both legions were very good combat engineers).

 

According to Index Astartes the Imperial Fists excel at Siege warfare as a whole, not just in the defence. They are perfectly capable of ripping down fortifications as they are at building them. Indeed, they are known for there in depth planning and swift operations designed to come out of nowhere at the enemy.

This, coupled with the fact that Dorn was incredibly close to his Father was one of the many reasons why he was chosen to help man the Palace.

[FireHawk]

Hi, been ages since I posted on the B+C.........

 

With Horus dead there was now no single person in charge of the forces of Chaos and with no clear heir to that title there would probably have been confusion.

 

Indeed the primarchs (loyalist and traitor) even before the heresy had power struggles. Little groupings of primarchs formed and even though they all (pre-heresy) acknowledged horus as the warmaster- in effect the emperors proxy, they still must have only seen him as the oldest and most experinced of a group of equally good leaders. Without a natural figurehead, old quarrels amongst the primarchs (now traitors) must have begun anew.

 

A possible suggestion for a leader of the chaos space marines has been abaddon, but as good a warrior and leader abaddon was he was still a mortal space marine at the time. Indeed he's really only the current leader of the CSM's because the surviving daemon prince primarchs cant be bother to leave their daemon world lairs.

 

Therefore it seems horus was the only one able to marshall enough support for the heresy, the only one capable of holding the traitor faction together, the only one with the authority to command the legions to act in the interests of the wider heresy stragegy. Once he was lost the traitors remained a credible threat to terra and the palace, but they knew imperial reinforcements were on the way and without the single-minded drive of horus to destroy the imperium at it's heart they instead were motivated by self-interest and chose to save themselves by withdrawing. A soldier driven by duty and loyality will fight to the last, but a rebel who has renounced all ties and oaths of service and is leaderless, is no longer bound by any idea of duty and fighting to the death if survival is possible.

 

Horus acted in typical luna wolves/sons of horus style by gambling on a quick strike on the enemy's headquarters to throw the enemy into disarray and decisively defeat the enemy (for example, the terminator attack in the ullanor crusade). The surgical strike techniques he used are very effective, but are also very risky because once attacks lose momentum the enemy can regroup, reinforcements can arrive and cause heavy casualties. Rather than a war of attrition through the imperium horus chose the quick strike against the isolated terra, assuming it would be a repeat of previous battles against non-astartes opponents.

 

Horus had fought many sieges before but had never fought a siege action against an astartes force, let alone one manned by elements of three legions, backed up by titans, imperial army and custodes- this was a fundamental reason for the siege being broken. Horus and the other primarchs had fought orks, humans, aliens and so on but never engaged astartes in well designed defences (Istvaan III and V were fought against marines in makeshift defences and in the open field), warmaster horus underestimated the defenders, he of all people should have realised marines cannot be broken, will fight to the death and are even inspired to greater feats by a seemingly impossible cause. These factors increased the time the defenders could hold out to such an extent that the usual quick strike tactics of horus failed as reinforcements could be brought in before the astartes defenders were whittled down.

 

Question- Did the chaos add or detract from the overall army's effectiveness? Of course individually chaos powers/mutations did make better soldiers, but in terms of the overall army did the ill-discipline and lack of standards of quality weaken overall stragegy? E.g. WE berserkers compared to the ill-discipline of the ECs

 

Think Roman legions (not as good individual fighters as 'barbarians', but more organised) being turned back into 'barbarian' hordes (better fighters, but lack of co-ordination of stragegy)

[Sons of Horus]

i think the 4 largest reasons that led to the failure of the siege of terra were

 

1.the death of Horus

 

2.the re-capturing of the lion gate space port by Khan

 

3.the time the loyalists had to prepare after being informed by nathaniel garro.

 

4.the lack in numbers of the traitor legions.

[Vodunius]

I know at least one version of the fluff held that the Inner Palace did in fact fall shortly after the Emperor teleported out to attack Horus, isnt there some old fluff that had the Sons of Horus being persecuted by the other legions for several centuries as the other traitors felt that had they would have won despite Horus' death had the Sons of Horus not fled Terra like headless chickens?

 

He fell for the iron cage incident.

How so?

Following a vision whilst in the pain glove of the Emperor Dorn led the most die-hard veterans to attack a Legion now Primarch-less. They assaulted and bested the Iron Warriors at every point virtually and Gulliman helped extraction. The Iron Warriors were left decimated.

 

You might want to check that, even the IF IA concurs that it was the Imperial Fists who were decimated.. Also, if the IF bested them at every point.. why did they need extracting? <_< Your right about Dorn not falling for it tho, he knew it was a suicide mission, and deliberaly led his die-hards into it so as to whittle them down to a more manageable level.

 

addedum: where are you getting 'primarch-less' from? both IF and IW IAs say Perturabo was there

[battle captain corpus]

I know at least one version of the fluff held that the Inner Palace did in fact fall shortly after the Emperor teleported out to attack Horus, isnt there some old fluff that had the Sons of Horus being persecuted by the other legions for several centuries as the other traitors felt that had they would have won despite Horus' death had the Sons of Horus not fled Terra like headless chickens?

 

He fell for the iron cage incident.

How so?

Following a vision whilst in the pain glove of the Emperor Dorn led the most die-hard veterans to attack a Legion now Primarch-less. They assaulted and bested the Iron Warriors at every point virtually and Gulliman helped extraction. The Iron Warriors were left decimated.

 

You might want to check that, even the IF IA concurs that it was the Imperial Fists who were decimated.. Also, if the IF bested them at every point.. why did they need extracting? <_< Your right about Dorn not falling for it tho, he knew it was a suicide mission, and deliberaly led his die-hards into it so as to whittle them down to a more manageable level.

 

addedum: where are you getting 'primarch-less' from? both IF and IW IAs say Perturabo was there

 

Index Astartes says

"The Iron Warriors had rebelled and lost. Thier master was dead and the Emperor still ruled. Yet they still dared to raise their flag over an Imperial world as if they had some right to be there. Dorn would not tolerate this."

 

Yes we lost a lot of marines. Gulliman only intercepted as Dorn was so head strong at the time their may have been a point were he went to far and over reached.

And why on Terra would he want to whittle down his own men? He took the most hardened vets as he NEEDED them. Dorn wasnt won over by the whole Codex idea either, so he wouldnt commit mass suicides of his own men would he?

 

Note: Apologies to OP this is off topic.

[Weiss]

I think the idea is that the vast majority of his die-hards would not countenance being split from their Legion, and there were too many of them to apply to the codex, so he put them through a version of the pain glove...

[Dvil666]

I know at least one version of the fluff held that the Inner Palace did in fact fall shortly after the Emperor teleported out to attack Horus, isnt there some old fluff that had the Sons of Horus being persecuted by the other legions for several centuries as the other traitors felt that had they would have won despite Horus' death had the Sons of Horus not fled Terra like headless chickens?

 

He fell for the iron cage incident.

How so?

Following a vision whilst in the pain glove of the Emperor Dorn led the most die-hard veterans to attack a Legion now Primarch-less. They assaulted and bested the Iron Warriors at every point virtually and Gulliman helped extraction. The Iron Warriors were left decimated.

 

You might want to check that, even the IF IA concurs that it was the Imperial Fists who were decimated.. Also, if the IF bested them at every point.. why did they need extracting? ;) Your right about Dorn not falling for it tho, he knew it was a suicide mission, and deliberaly led his die-hards into it so as to whittle them down to a more manageable level.

 

addedum: where are you getting 'primarch-less' from? both IF and IW IAs say Perturabo was there

 

Index Astartes says

"The Iron Warriors had rebelled and lost. Thier master was dead and the Emperor still ruled.

 

I think it means Horus rather than Perturabo.