Ferrus Manus=lame?

[KingDeath]

I assume that getting your ships into low orbit for an extended orbital bombardment is somewhat unwise when the entire hostile fleet is just waiting for a good moment to strike.

[KingDeath]

I assume that getting your ships into low orbit for an extended orbital bombardment is somewhat unwise when the entire hostile fleet is just waiting for a good moment to strike.

[c-wrex]

I assume that getting your ships into low orbit for an extended orbital bombardment is somewhat unwise when the entire hostile fleet is just waiting for a good moment to strike.

 

What hostile fleet? Where are they hiding? They make no appearance until after the traitor reinforcements arrived. Or Ferrus could have ordered a few of the smaller capital ships be emptied out of personnel and then packed with explosives and simply flown into the traitors positions.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

props c-rex, i havent seen this much firestorm over a debate in a long while...i think you were part of the last one also!

 

and to give my opinion, i am not a fan of manus, i think a more rational minded commander would have been preferred for command of the soon to be drop-site massacre.

and the disporax thing i just found retarded to be honest...they did it to make the Emp. Children looke more awesome, but the collective dunce caps worn by the iron hands was just not cool.

 

WLK

[Donkey Kong]

I am fully aware of what happened during the Emperor's Children's final push over the edge into Chaos, and I still feel that you are wrong. If they can't close their mouth, whatever, lockjaw won't stop someone from putting on a full helmet. A malformed head won't either, the marine would probably get more pleasure out of the pain from it anyway. All of the Legions present probably have an equal number of marines without helmets. And a helmet or no, a nuke or virus bomb won't be stopped by someone in full armor anyway.

 

Concerning a hostile fleet, the Warmaster had a fleet that brought him to Isstvan III and Isstvan V. He had the fleets of the Emperor's Children, the Death Guard, the World Eaters and his own. He probably had his own mass of traitor navy vessels as well. Dismissing the entire fleet to Ferrus' "reinforcements" is laughable.

 

What can be done with an all out bombardment in thirty minutes won't really change in an hour. Turning the ground into radioactive, glowing muck isn't a great strategy for a ground assault.

 

You're concentrating on the what-ifs of the situation, not the whats. What did Ferrus do?

 

He had three legions with him, he had four legions he thought were coming to support him. He had Imperial army forces, and a sizable fleet.

 

His goal was to capture a beach head and assault the traitor fortress, with the beach head, the other four legions could land safely and aid the Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard in exterminating the four traitor legions.

 

Ferrus not only accomplished his goal, he took out a pretty nice chunk of the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children and World Eaters. Furthermore, he engaged Fulgrim in single combat, his own personal goal, and while he didn't win, he got there and that counts for something.

 

If you also noticed, the battle didn't really start going balls up until Ferrus' reinforcements arrived, basically catching him in a vice. If the four additional legions were loyalists, Ferrus would have been a hero, capturing the beach head on the world which put down the Warmaster's treachery.

 

So, he did what he set out to do, he was turned around by a trick that no one saw coming.

 

Ferrus may not have had enough orbital munitions for sustained bombardment, he may not have had virus bombs, Horus' fortress may have had a shield that could defend against them, he may have had bomb shelters, if the fortress isn't penetrated, the armor of his forces doesn't matter.

 

Finally, just to throw it out there, starting a debate for your own personal amusement, giving poor answers and not answering everything asked (especially in a written debate) is very childish and annoying.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Ferrus Manus didnt have the entire strength of the Iron Hands with him, he only had his Morlocks.

The rest of the Iron Hands were stranded with their fleet and were told to play catch up.

 

WLK

[Donkey Kong]

I don't recall this detail, but if you say so, fair enough. To be fair, I don't really count having a ship being stranded. Being told to catch up, sure, but definitely not marooned on an island style stranded.

 

Ferrus Manus had his own assets.

This may be limited to his Morlocks (the Iron Hand elite, mind), the Salamanders Legion and the Raven Guard Legion, each headed by their own Primarch.

Ferrus had elements from the Imperial Army, most mentioned are their tanks.

 

Just to add to his list of assets are four legions he believes are coming to reinforce him. Ferrus wanted to get a beach head, a landing zone, someplace where the other legions could land with relative safety and they could proceed to walk all over the traitors.

 

Let me just put the bombs simply, I tell you to break a brick wall with your fists. You can punch the wall until your hands are bleeding, but by that point you've tired yourself out (ie exhausting munitions) and you've *maybe* put a dent somewhere in the wall, nothing radical. Alternatively, you could get a machine of sorts (representing the weight of seven legions on the ground) and take it out using that.

 

Vervunhive was breached by ground assaults, not bombardments. The Emperor's Palace was not breached from orbit, but by the Iron Warriors on the ground. The Iron Cage wasn't torn open from orbit, but, once again, from the ground.

 

Ferrus accomplished everything he set out to do, but failed because of a trap that no one saw coming. He lost a great deal for his own Legion and his leadership damaged the Salamanders and the Raven Guard. Regardless, if his plan fell through and if the Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Night Lords and Word Bearers were loyalists, Ferrus would be a sung hero and even if he was headless, the strength of seven Legions would have brought the Emperor's Children's fortress to its knees. Especially with the Iron Warriors laying waste to the whole ordeal.

 

I ask you, aside from theoretical chemical bombardments, what could Ferrus have done differently, the only real answer would have been to wait for the other four legions and (apparently) the rest of the Iron Hands. We all know how that would have turned out, bloody murder for the loyalists. They were outnumbered 4 to 3 on the ground and they would have been outnumbered 4 to 3 in orbit.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

yes, the damage to the Iron Hand fleet occured when Fulgrim came to persuade him to join Horus's rebellion. It is said that in "Fulgrim", the Emperor's Children fleet moved into position to cause massive destruction to the Iron Hands fleet while the two Primarchs talked. When the talks failed, Fulgrim uttered on word (I am thinking "Phoenix", but not sure), and the Emperor's Children single handidly dispatched the Morlocks in the room, allowing Fulgrim to escape, while his fleet ravaged the unprepared Iron Hands fleet (who thought there was going to be violence here?)

 

the end result, ferrus got his face smashed in, the morlock lost quite a few of their number, and the Iron Hands fleet had ben savaged. Fulgrim fled the scene before this turned into a fight.

by the time the fleet had even a few ships battle ready, the message came from Dorn telling Ferrus what to do. Ferrus took his surviving Morlocks, transferred his command to the warp capable ships, and headed towards the mustering point.

 

all occured in Fulgrim.

 

WLK

[Skoby]

Ferrus Manus not only flat out refused to listen to Fulgrim, his closest friend, from the descriptions close even for primarchs, close enough that Fulgrim, and Horus, thought that it was a sure thing that Fulgrim could convince him, but he fought him in the first proper primarch vs primarch fight, had his closest veterans killed and his fleet severely crippled. He then has a long warp jump to stew over this and arrives to find Fulgrim and his trator buddies locked up in a fortress, thinking he has 4 other legions arriving soon to back him up, someone tell me which Primarch would go through all this, then think "you know what, I don't care about getting even with Fulgrim, let's sit back and bombard it some more before we land". I don't buy the whole virus bomb situation either, Horus as warmaster should know for certain which fleets have virus bombs, if the loyalists did have any, I am sure Horus would be well and truely sealed in. Not to mention that Istavan V is a dead world, the virus bombs would surely burn out far faster than on the other world. Nukes, as everyone has said, aren't a siege weapon, they will cause devestation for decades, and enough will make the area utterly unsafe to live in, but again, even in such a short space of time I'm sure they would be well dug in and too much bombardment will hinder any efforts once the loyalists land. The main point tho, is that this is a story, like has been said before, who would want to read a book that ended with "and in a cold calculating manner the loyalists spent weeks bombarding the planet, went down cleaned up any survivors, before heading back and toasting their victory".

 

Lets not forget, without the dropsight massacre, Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders lose a huge part of their background. The Iron Hands especially, would they still blame the weakness of flesh for their failure and start using bionics? Raven Guard wouldn't have to rebuild their legion and wouldnt have the whole mutants thing, and their primarch never would have fled and well I'm no expert on Salamanders but I'm sure something would be different :D. Not to mention that this was the time where the scale of the rebellion is realised and it becomes apparant Horus is a real threat. Besides, "The Dropsite Massacre" sounds a lot better than "The Tactical Victory".

[Phoebus]

The Battle for Isstvan V was poorly written. Period. I enjoy Graham McNeill's stories, but there's just no other way to put it.

 

When you read fictional novels and the protagonist does something out of character or "dumb" for that situation, it's rather likely that this is because the author is not a subject matter expert where that situation/activity is concerned. Everything else I'll say after this comes with that little bit of context in mind.

 

First off. Ferrus Manus: incompetent or not intelligent? Not in any way. Every single one of the Primarchs was created, heck, engineered, to be exponentially more intelligent than the average human being. Read Matt Farrer's blog (the gentleman who wrote "After Desh'ea"), and check out his take on Angron: a brilliant man, meant to be a brilliant commander, whose cerebral implants (which were never designed to interact with a Primarch's brain) ruin any chance he has of being able to maintain control, temper, or a coherent train of thought without getting spikes of pain and rage.

 

So, is Ferrus Manus emotional? Absolutely. Sure. And so is virtually every other Primarch, at some point or another. Does that cloud his judgement? Sure. Would it cloud his judgement insofar as to execute the assault on Isstavn V as he did? No. That's on the author.

 

I mean, if we really want to get to brass tacks, guys, Horus demonstrates far less tactical acumen than Ferrus. Ferrus Manus showed up with less than three Legions' fleets (remember, most of his Legion has been left behind; he's only accompanied by his Veteran Companies), and the Salamanders and Raven Guard were undersized Legions to begin with! Horus, on the other hand, has FOUR Legions' fleets at his command. He might have lost up to a third of his, Angron, Fulgrim, and Mortarion's Astartes in weeding out and killing the Loyalists, but he still has ALL of his ships! And he doesn't even TRY to give him a space battle...

 

Graham McNeill makes no bones about it: Horus suffered great losses by allowing the Loyalists to engage him in great battle. Whatever morale booster he thinks he got, I ASSURE you he missed those thousands of Astartes come the Siege of Terra. Had he arrayed his fleets for battle, Ferrus Manus would absolutely have had to wait for the other four "loyalist" Legions to arrive. The end result would have been the same, minus the pointless losses suffered by the Traitors. So right there, you can't possibly criticize Ferrus Manus without wondering just what in the blue hell Horus was thinking to begin with.

 

Secondly.

 

Yes, orbital bombardments would have ABSOLUTELY had an effect. Forget virus bombs and all that. We're talking about bombardment cannons aboard Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers that are meant to destroy fortifications--and even if it somehow made a difference, it's not like they had Dorn with them designing their fortifications. Fortifications that were oh-so impregnable, mind you, that vastly numerically outnumbered Loyalists managed to reach on foot. But again, questioning why Ferrus Manus failed to do this is pointless unless we first question why Horus Lupercal decided to abstain from defending his orbital front to begin with! Neither of the Primarchs in question are morons, and we know that their starship-borne weaponry would have had an effect.

 

Thirdly.

 

While on Isstvan, the thing that struck me as incredibly odd was the utter lack of airpower employed by either side. Ferrus Manus enjoyed the use of uncontested airspace... why on Terra did he not use his Stormbirds, Thunderhawks, fleet-based fighter-bombers etc., to support his ground advance? But again, this isn't on Ferrus--he shouldn't of had aerial supremacy to begin, as he shouldn't have been able to take control of the planet's orbit without a fight.

 

Thus, any questions of "what should Ferrus have done differently" are moot. The real question that should be asked is "How could the Battle for Isstvan V been written more realistically while still maintaining the drama needed for the Dropsite Massacres?"

 

Cheers,

P.

[Phoebus]

Double post...

[Tutteman]

^ this is probably all true, at the end of the day we cannot argue that so on so is an idiot, but we can argue author wrote his actions. Something to point out, Ferrus may have only had Three legions, but the WE were at half strength, the other traitor legions were horendously maimed too. And another error to add to Horus' list, what the heck was he up to down on Istvaan 3. I know he talks of the psycological benefits but come on Horus! You've got about six years to blood your men! All because he couldn't control one blood desiring killer, he even notes, "I should have seen this coming". To be fair to Horus had he offered space battle Ferrus might have retreated and waited for reinforcement, but yes, the battle is hardly written realistically. Perhaos we should re write it ourselves, would that breach copywrite?

[Sir Caverstein]

Well I inspired something

Now I can die a happy man

In my opinion he wasn´t precisely lame but still he wasn´t really all that much covered in the HH books soo we really don´t know that much about ferrus.

But still a terminator with plasma hands is cool

[pingo]

Don't forget that The Drop Site Massacre was only covered briefly in Fulgrim, and only done so to detail

Fulgrim slaying Ferrus

. I'm sure it will be revisited later on, particularly as many things were left open or not explored (such as

how Vulkan escaped and how Corax was wounded

).

 

The book was about Fulgrim, not about the Drop Site Massacre after all.

 

Perhaps all these questions will be dealt with in later books.

[Allerka]

I'm no expert on Salamanders but I'm sure something would be different ;).

Vulkan went missing during the battle, so yes, their history would have been quite different without the battle. ;)

[Starblayde]

Graham McNeill makes no bones about it: Horus suffered great losses by allowing the Loyalists to engage him in great battle. Whatever morale booster he thinks he got, I ASSURE you he missed those thousands of Astartes come the Siege of Terra.

Not so much a morale booster, more a confirmation of loyalty. The point of it was, bar taking a third of the remaining loyalist forces/Primarchs out of the equation, was that his Marines would then be used to killing their former brothers, giving them an advantage when they attacked Terra of a determined, purposed army against one unsure if they should even take up arms against their brothers, never mind a battle to the death to decide the fate of the galaxy.

 

Yes, orbital bombardments would have ABSOLUTELY had an effect. Forget virus bombs and all that. We're talking about bombardment cannons aboard Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers that are meant to destroy fortifications--and even if it somehow made a difference, it's not like they had Dorn with them designing their fortifications. Fortifications that were oh-so impregnable, mind you, that vastly numerically outnumbered Loyalists managed to reach on foot. But again, questioning why Ferrus Manus failed to do this is pointless unless we first question why Horus Lupercal decided to abstain from defending his orbital front to begin with! Neither of the Primarchs in question are morons, and we know that their starship-borne weaponry would have had an effect.

Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children presided over the construction of the fortress' defences and, allegedly, they were the most cunningly designed ever and designed to stand up to that sort of attack. No mention is made of the traitor fleet or orbital defences, so we don't know if this would have been viable or not. We can assume it's not mentioned because either the author isn't capable of fitting - or the reader not capable or holding it all together - an orbital battle into the massacre, or because the important bit that really made the difference was on the ground. Same goes for the aerial superiority that may or may not have been present for either side. Did Ferrus actually have enough 'planes' to make any sort of difference, did the traitors have any themselves? As neither are mentioned, we can either assume they cancelled each other out, weren't present, or simply weren't used for whatever reason.

 

Thus, any questions of "what should Ferrus have done differently" are moot. The real question that should be asked is "How could the Battle for Isstvan V been written more realistically while still maintaining the drama needed for the Dropsite Massacres?"

Personally, I was perfectly happy with the Massacre. It may just be dramatic rule of cool outweighing properly military strategy without enough pretext, but I was gripped for the whole battle, which was excellent.

 

 

 

Oh and didn't Vulkan go missing because of

being caught in a massive explosion and not being seen since?

Not like he just slipped out the back door mid-fight:

 

"Look behind you, Horus, a three-headed monkey!" cried the Salamander Primarch before whispering to his Astartes, "right, boys, cheese it!"

[Phoebus]

Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children presided over the construction of the fortress' defences and, allegedly, they were the most cunningly designed ever and designed to stand up to that sort of attack.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, I guess. I just can't reconcile the description of the fortifications in "Fulgrim" with a capability to stand up to orbital bombardments. We're talking about the firepower of dozens--perhaps hundreds--of vessels, each of which would have been capable of levelling a city. And again, when warriors on foot can advance on said fortifications, I just start losing my suspension of disbelief as to how bombardment cannon-proof they can really be.

 

No mention is made of the traitor fleet or orbital defences, so we don't know if this would have been viable or not. We can assume it's not mentioned because either the author isn't capable of fitting - ...

I believe this is the case. I seriously hope the author in question didn't think the reader incapable of absorbing these concepts. We're not talking advanced strategy, here. :P

 

If Ferrus Manus had two Legions' worth of fleets (in addition to their supporting assets), then, yes, he would have had airpower available. This is just a glaring omission, much like the absence of space-borne combat preceding it.

 

Oh and didn't Vulkan go missing because of

being caught in a massive explosion and not being seen since?

Not like he just slipped out the back door mid-fight:

Prior to this novel, the fluff had him disappearing to quest for some artifacts. I seriously doubt he died here, but I suppose we can't leave out this possibility.

 

Pingo brought up that this was only supposed to cover the battle briefly, with the real emphasis being on the eponymous Primarch himself. I hope that's the case, but it's still shady (IMHO) that they failed to mention any of the above even in passing.

 

Cheers,

P.

[Tutteman]

I re-read the battle of Istvaan 5 and noticed some things. Firstly Fulgrim actually looks at the defences and thinks that if the loyalists wanted to come and get them, they'd have to do a ground assault...go figure, basically both sides make bad errors...because them doing the smart thing would result in a short battle that wasn't very exciting to read. :P Shame, the rest of Fulgrim is brilliant, I was depressed for days after reading that. Really involved me :P :)

[c-wrex]

Yes, this is going so well, guys! Keep going!

 

I like how the discussion has evolved so far into the fact that the battle and its set up was done poorly. I wonder if Graham consults with people who are familiar with siege situations before he writes them? Or any situation? I'm sure he does, but then again? How can anybody know how to properly write about a situation that has never occured?

[Phoebus]

Obiovusly no one would ever nail down all the nuances of such a battle; it was waged by seven superhuman super-geniuses, after all. Even an excellent writer would struggle to properly portray the mindset of such creatures, never mind their brilliance at waging war. Ultimately, though, the writer just has to offer the most honest and researched approximation. The only way to really do that is to spend a few days' worth of time researching different battles from different eras. Think about what tools your characters have, and how thse would affect their battles and tactics.

 

Some parallels already exist. Without getting into political discussions, when the US went into Iraq, our armed forces didn't just land 50,000 soldiers and Marines and go to town. Their assaults were preceded with cruise missiles and standoff bombings meant to take out their major defenses, followed by a more compherensive aerial campaign that advanced ahead of ground forces to deplete the enemy prior to actual man-on-man combat.

 

So you take considerations like that, and you think. "What tools does Ferrus Manus" have at his disposal? How might his 30k-ish mindset (as opposed to that of a 21st century US general) affect his choice of tactics? How does the specific situation at hand influence his decisions?

 

Anyone who writes decent stories for a living (and I think Mr. McNeill writes good ones more often than not) could answer those questions, if pressed. Honestly, I simply don't think the Black Library stable of authors is pressed to do so, more often than not.

[pingo]

McNeill only had limited space at this point in the book. Fulgrim is over the normal 416 page size of the normal BL novels, so he had already been given some slack with the page count. Besides, going into too much detail about the exact tactical situation might be a bit dull and tedious unless you're into that kind of thing.

[Phoebus]

Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating for extraneous detail or for pages upon pages of information on this stuff. I'm talking, at most, for four-five pages worth of sanity, and a little extra drama.

 

The presence of the fleets, for example, allows for an extra wrinkle to be thrown in, one that I think was sorely missed: the escape of the Loyalist survivors.

 

The way the story stands, we were given a throw-away, casual mention boiling down to "a handful of stalwarts managed to escape under fire".

 

Really?

 

Four Traitor Legions' worth of starships are in orbit, and the survivors just casually galivanted out of there? I think it would have been really neat to get at least a glimpse of the desperate, heroic stand the Hands, Ravens, and Salamanders made--desperately trying to hold off the superior number of enemy starships while their massacred brethren tried to make their way to them.

 

That's just me, though. :)

[c-wrex]

Four Traitor Legions' worth of starships are in orbit, and the survivors just casually galivanted out of there? I think it would have been really neat to get at least a glimpse of the desperate, heroic stand the Hands, Ravens, and Salamanders made--desperately trying to hold off the superior number of enemy starships while their massacred brethren tried to make their way to them.

 

That's just me, though. ;)

 

No, it's not just you. I find myself in total agreement.

[pingo]

Four Traitor Legions' worth of starships are in orbit, and the survivors just casually galivanted out of there? I think it would have been really neat to get at least a glimpse of the desperate, heroic stand the Hands, Ravens, and Salamanders made--desperately trying to hold off the superior number of enemy starships while their massacred brethren tried to make their way to them.

 

That's just me, though. :(

 

No, it's not just you. I find myself in total agreement.

 

The reason, I'm sure, is that these things will be covered in later titles. In which case, it was probably decided to leave things vague for now.

[Lord Russ]

The issue is not with hot headedness as most of them were to a some degree. This said they are beyond human and have some entitlement to think this based on prior performances.

 

As anyone reading the books knows the chapter primarchs were not beyond making mistakes as there passion was high for most things. It was pride that caused this loss, they were angered about the Warmaster turning trator and rushed to take there revenge.

 

Also Horus and the others were equally excellent and one side had to lose. The Primarchs were not above making mistakes or showing emotions as it was these 2 things (usually from pride) that enabled Chaos to infiltrate the Marines.

 

Glory and Pride is what all of them craved.