Horus Heresy Collected Visions

[RastlinD]

Hello I just got a copy of this book. I was wondering if this is considered to be cannon and when it was written? After flipping through the book it appears to match up closely with the Black Library Horus Heresy novels, is it considered to be connected to these books too or was it written more for the Horus Heresy card game, since a large amount of the artwork comes from these cards? Thanks sorry for the slightly lame question.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Theoretically its canon, as IIRC the HH books are considered canon for that period, but some of the artists took some massive liberties/or the artwork is old.

[Verythrax Draconis]

It's the inspiration for the HH series, actually.

 

I would say that CV is canon as far as it wasn't retconned at HH series. It makes sense?

[Korraz]

Pretty much that. I love that book, you can use it pretty much without limitations.

[RastlinD]

Thanks for the quick responses. Glad to hear that this was not just made to accompany the card game and serves as the basis for the Black library novels. Thanks guys.

[Verythrax Draconis]

Thanks for the quick responses. Glad to hear that this was not just made to accompany the card game and serves as the basis for the Black library novels. Thanks guys.

 

In fact, it was something like this:

 

Sabertooth games: can we use that Heresy background for the card game?

GW: sure.

Sabertooth games: it sold a lot. Tks!

GW: Hmmm... sounds promising. Release an artbook out of it.

GW employee: awesome! It is selling like hot cakes!

GW: so people like the Heresy, heh? How we can use it better?

BL guy: release a book!

GW: Do it! Release SEVERAL books! *evil laugh*

 

voi lá!

[Pacific81]

Haha yeah, think you hit the nail on the head there :)

 

The book itself was co-written by Alan Merrett, who is basically the 'go to guy' for the rest of the Horus Heresy series. The writers meet periodically to put ideas past each other, but I think he holds the power over the actual development of the main plot. For example, reading an interview with Dan Abnett some time ago regarding Legion (guess I should put the next bit in spoiler text :lol: )

 

 

The plot line of the twin brother Primarchs of the Alpha Legion, a pretty monumental development to the Heresy tale, had to be OK'd by Merrett first. Apparently, he had come up with almost exactly the same idea on his own and separately from Abnett!

 

 

The issue of was is strictly cannon can be a bit of a sticky one. There is still that old quote where GW said that BL library material was not cannon, but personally I think that was an effort to stem the tide of new material that was coming from non-career BL writers, such as some of those writing in the Inferno comic (naming captains as Primarchs for instance). At Gencon 2009, a number of the main writers from the Heresy series (Abnett, McNeil etc) made a statement that for the purposes of describing the Heresy only, the events described in the Horus Heresy books should be considered canon.

 

Personally, I think that Collected Visions and the other books have been around for long enough now that they are being accepted by even the most die-hard of background purists. I still get the very occasional look of puzzlement as to why my World Eaters are white and blue (generally from kids who are new to the hobby and don't know much of the background) but Pre-Heresy in general has become far more accepted now than it was a few years ago, where it was viewed as something of a curio.