If i was the warmaster. ida won.

[esinhorn]

Well what do you think of this plan of attack

When the bulk of the traitors were at the walls,get every Astartes and VIP in the Palace and...

Virus Bomb Terra!

The bulk of the traitors are soup and unleash 3 whole Legions for clean up.

Then ship in a few trillion of the best and brightest from the rest of the universe to repopulate Terra.

[Brother Rathul]

Well what do you think of this plan of attack

When the bulk of the traitors were at the walls,get every Astartes and VIP in the Palace and...

Virus Bomb Terra!

The bulk of the traitors are soup and unleash 3 whole Legions for clean up.

Then ship in a few trillion of the best and brightest from the rest of the universe to repopulate Terra.

There is much folly in this plan.

The Emperor won because he is the Emperor, and his loyalsit Space Marines are defending their home turf, turning what would be a normal Space Marine into an impenetrable fortress.

Enough said.

[jaxjace]

I got another plan of attack from years of RTS games and a healthily dangerous teenage obsession with war. also the history Chanel.

 

 

Turn around.

 

-divide-

 

go and seek out the loyalist remaining legions, kill them all one at a time saving the ultras for the last using the steam roller of your force and wiping them out, not to mention just showing up at their respective homeworld or homeworlds and cyclonic bombing the lot of them not virus bombing mind you because they can survive that. kill them all. Then just for good measure go find the salamanders, iron hands, and raven guard. Finish them.

 

turn back toward terra.

 

Blow every piece of starship not sporting an 8 pointed star out of the void and land your entire force in the suburbs, Kill EVERYONE. (dont worry clean up the evidence later when you ask for re-population fleets - if they ask they did it and the emperor is evil dont worry i got em.) slaughter every last man woman and child, take pics and vids of you killing children and torturing them in front of the camera. send them to the emperor all the while blasting to the populace "WHERE IS YOUR EMPEROR NOW?? I KILL YOU ALL AND YOUR FALSE GOD SITS INSIDE HIS PALACE, SURRENDER AND DIE!" or something along those lines. thereby forcing the emperor to leave the safety of his palace and confront you. its kinda ok you have the entire traitorous force behind you, you kill them all and with the imperium falling all around him you kill your father in a bout of serious pent up rage that only a son can feel.

 

-and conquer-

 

congratulations jaxjace, you are now the one true emperor. *does not play well with others* :P :D

 

:P

[esinhorn]

Well what do you think of this plan of attack

When the bulk of the traitors were at the walls,get every Astartes and VIP in the Palace and...

Virus Bomb Terra!

The bulk of the traitors are soup and unleash 3 whole Legions for clean up.

Then ship in a few trillion of the best and brightest from the rest of the universe to repopulate Terra.

There is much folly in this plan.

The Emperor won because he is the Emperor, and his loyalsit Space Marines are defending their home turf, turning what would be a normal Space Marine into an impenetrable fortress.

Enough said.

 

Do tell,you can't say there is Folly and then do not ellaborate,when has the Emp or the Imperium ever shyed away from killing trillion to ensure victory

When Horus dropped the Shields he had them on the ropes so they could not of been too impregnable.

With my plan it never got even gets close IMO

[Ubermensch Commander]

Exactly. The fact that the Ultras, Angels and Wolves were on the way was a moot point. All Horus wanted to do, all that he could think of, was killing his father. Frankly, I have a funny feeling he had no true plans past that. The Death of the Emperor would have been enough to kill humanity. That he's on life support just means that the Gods have gotten a chance to draw out the suffering of mankind much longer...tasty tasty.

 

@Gaius: Yep, Dorn was the man when it came to defense...And perturabo was his polar opposite. And both were dang good at what they did. Now add in the rest of the traitor primarchs, plus the two additional loyalist primarchs. Horus's men were no 'hired men' bro. They were ridiculously devouted to ending the False Emperor's reign, vicious warriors twisted into monsters each. Also, saying that Horus had to deal with tactics from two different Primarchs is moot...they had to deal with as many as eight, man. Each of 'em experts at what they do. That the Blood Angels, Fists and Scars held out as long as they did is super-awesome credit to them, but the fact was that if Horus hadn't dropped the shields, the loyalists were boned by attrition.

 

Actually if Horus had not dropped the shields, the traitors were boned by attrition. There was no gurantee they would have made it through before they were gonna get squished between a heavily defended position loyalists putting the boots to them.

 

Horus plan was to rule the Imperium, not nuke all mankind, and to do that he needed legitimacy, as per his discussion in The First Heretic. We will have to wait and see

 

On a similar note to Gaius point, I would contend that Horus worst enemy was, in many ways, his own band of nutjobs not the loyalist forces. While dedicated to overthrowing the Emperor, they were deeply divided.

Even at their less corrupted moments, such as the Istvaan Dropsite Massacres, we see fratricidal actions with relatively callous disregard. Throw in a deep spiral decadence for Fulgrim's forces, bloody bloodfilled blood raging of blood for Angron, Night Lords sadism, and you have a big ol' mess to command. having experts does not matter if they won't obey your commands or get distracted through pride or indulgence. Sure, the Iron Warriors are great at siegework, but then Dorn paints a side gate with "Your bolters fire hamsters and your flamers smells of Elderberries" and suddenly the Iron Warriors are rushing over there in a tiff. Fulgrim's forces sure did not listen to Horus in the standard siege, off indulging themselves. World Eaters...well they are the World Eaters. Nuff said. So depleted Death Guard, Sons of Horus, and the Word Bearers are the most reliable and effective Legions Horus has to throw at the well stocked well entrenched Loyalist forces. That Horus had such success at all is a testament to his abilities.

 

@ bombing the planet from orbit suggestions

I am fairly certain if nuking the planet from orbit was an option, Horus would have done that.

 

@Jaxjace

I am also pretty sure the "kill everyone" suggestion, while not even feasible, was part of Horus plan to spread fear and panic. It did not end the Heresy in Horus' favor in the normal storyline. Fairly certain we are going to see that turn against him in later events.

[Hyaenidae]

To each their own, I guess, bro. I'm not trying to get into an arguement about it, since this is just a 'what would you have done differently?' question, and you seem pretty convinced the whole attack was doomed from the beginning. Personally, I think you give the Traitors and their Primarchs far too little credit (maybe not Fulgrim, he was a bit of a moron), but hey, whatever.

 

This does raise the question though, man. Just out of curiousity, suppose now you're Warmaster Ubermensch, defiler of worlds, standing on the cusp of ending your Father's reign, just now entering the Sol system. How would you have done it?

[Brother Rathul]

Gladly,

 

esinhorn-Simply Virus bombing the tratior legions was an absolute no. One, the Imperial Palace isn't an air tight bunker, so the gas would get in and kill the loyalists, traitors, civiian population, and the ecosystem entirely. The Emperor cares about his troops. Why do you think he would try and unite all humanity if he didn't care for the human populace of the Imperium? All the best and brightest were on Terra in the first place, or part of one of the crusade fleets, so they'd all be dead anyways. Also, you'd have to have a fleet in space to do that. While I believe he did, Horus's traitior fleet outnumbered his fleet and would have shot all the bombs in the first place before they could even reach Terra. They were impregnable, why else would it have taken the tratiors so long to take the Imperial Palace if they werent? AND, nobody knows why the shields on the Vengeful Spirit dropped in the first place.

 

jaxjace-You can't just focus on one legion becasue all then YOU'D be attacked by the other loyal legions, Imperial troops, titan legions, and the whole brady bunch. It would have taken too much time if he did and the Dorn could've fortified Terra even more. Also, the Emperor could've seen sooner that Horus was evil and changed the outcome possibly even more, he was holding back when he was fighting Horus, no father ever wants to kill his son. War is not as simple as a RTS, or the History channel which dosen't get a lot of things right in the first place (sometimes though, it does). There's logistics, moral, supply and demand, trasportation, and time. Something the traitor legions did'nt have a lot of. Plus, the whole kill eveyone is a bad idea if your trying to overthrow/rule an Empire. Only kill the ones who resit, and reward the ones who don't. War is an unhealthy obsession, you should get a new one.

[Ubermensch Commander]

To each their own, I guess, bro. I'm not trying to get into an arguement about it, since this is just a 'what would you have done differently?' question, and you seem pretty convinced the whole attack was doomed from the beginning. Personally, I think you give the Traitors and their Primarchs far too little credit (maybe not Fulgrim, he was a bit of a moron), but hey, whatever.

 

This does raise the question though, man. Just out of curiousity, suppose now you're Warmaster Ubermensch, defiler of worlds, standing on the cusp of ending your Father's reign, just now entering the Sol system. How would you have done it?

 

Not "doomed" exactly, I am just unconvinced that "nuking it all" would be the brilliant tactical solution to switch all around. :P

While the Siege itself was not a terrible move, it did not go as quickly or well as Horus planned, or so it seemed. The lowering of the shields was the best option he had at the time because the Warmaster's forces were stuck in a bad position since they couldn't break through quickly enough.

Also, not trying to argue, just throwing out speculative scenarios. Yknow, someone says they would do X and I think "well maybe but Y would probably happen or there is Z reason why the Warmaster did not try that to begin with." I just saw it as a mental excerise. Sorry if it came out more aggressive than intended. I am completely dismissive of the "blow it up from orbit" scenario, regardless. One of those "if it coulda been done, probably woulda" things.

 

As for the fractious nature of the Traitor Legions, that is well noted. These are mostly the guys who "didn't play well with others." They killed one another even when working together before demonic corruption sets in, the years of the Heresy did nothing to engender brotherhood amongst them. Angron's bunch got even crazier, the Bearers more corrupt, the Death Guard pus filled, the Iron Warriors more callous, etc.

 

Myself? Hell, I think I would have trusted the Emperor's bloody plan and ruled over the most powerful interstellar empire yet seen...and all I would have had to do was wait and not mess things up. I highly doubt I could have matched Horus' level of planning and command. Lorgar, sure, but not Horus. :)

-Will edit or post later with my own likely flawed plan of action just to see all the terrible things that could go wrong. :)

[jaxjace]

I dont think we read through my plan clearly enough, when i say drop down away from the imperial palace and kill everyone i also state that after horus already had victory he could erase all evidence of this happening and frame the emperor for killing everyone thus convincing the whole imperium that HE was the rightful emperor.

 

 

also yes you could send the whole traitor legions and traitor armies at each individual loyalist crusade fleet that has not already been taken care of, it would be easy. and if that gave dorn more time to fortify who cares? no fortress is impregnable and we arent taking it head on anyway. we coax him OUT of his shiny fortress of awsomeness with a no traitors allowed sign on the front and THEN you kill him,

 

the rts and history channel was a joke btw

 

also... Its Divide and conquer one of alpharis's favored tactic and it WORKS...

[Brother Rathul]

I dont think we read through my plan clearly enough, when i say drop down away from the imperial palace and kill everyone i also state that after horus already had victory he could erase all evidence of this happening and frame the emperor for killing everyone thus convincing the whole imperium that HE was the rightful emperor.

 

 

also yes you could send the whole traitor legions and traitor armies at each individual loyalist crusade fleet that has not already been taken care of, it would be easy. and if that gave dorn more time to fortify who cares? no fortress is impregnable and we arent taking it head on anyway. we coax him OUT of his shiny fortress of awsomeness with a no traitors allowed sign on the front and THEN you kill him,

 

the rts and history channel was a joke btw

 

also... Its Divide and conquer one of alpharis's favored tactic and it WORKS...

But how would he validate that? Just say, oh yeah, he did it (Points finger at defaced portrarit of the Empeor) If it was soo easy, then why didn't he do it? He probaly didn't even know where they all were. In war, your eye is on the prize, Terra was the prize. Just like in LOTR where Sauron tries to take ove Minas Tirith, Horus tries to tak over Terra. All effective resitance would be neutralized because Space Marines go to chop off the head of an enemy command structure remember? Terra and the Emperor were the unifying point of resistance, without that the loyal legions would fall. He tried to do just that but he didn't have the time. Once vitory was achieved, he could divide and conquer the rest of the Legions and resistance. A fortess can be impregnable if it's built by the Emperor, and fortified by Rogal Dorn. master of offence and defense. the tratiors did take it on head on by the way. Why else would they have needed the Titan Legions? The Emperor is smarter than that. Horus wasn't Alpharius, explaing why he didn't do any of what you have just mentioned. It works, but these are Space Marines, not just regular humans. Divide and conquer only works in certain cases, which is why it's not used all the time.

[Candleshoes]

Frankly, I have a funny feeling he had no true plans past that.

 

I think your doing Horus a great injustice. He is the living embodiement of ambition in the 30k universe, someone who chose to burn everything he had to gain his father's realm, I am sure a driving factor in what/why he did what he did was because he knew exactly how he would rule. Though, the tragedy in it introduced by the HH series (and driven by the Sanguinius-Warmaster quote) was that Horus was not capable of holding and keeping what his ambitions had granted him. He above any other would have plans, but is incapable of bearing the quiet after the storm.

[Hyaenidae]

My fault, I should have elaborated a bit past that, I got caught up too much in the rest of the topic. I feel that it might be quite possible that he was beyond clinically insane at this point in the heresy. He definetly had plans at first, but I feel he may very well have been so consumed by the Gods at this point that his only focus was the death of his Father, this insanity could very well explain some of the more serious tactical mistakes he may have made as well. Not being of sound mind and running the war to end it all generally doesn't mix, lol. Like I said though, it's more of a funny feeling, with really no evidence pointing that way. Way too early on to tell, you know what I mean? I totally hear what you're saying, and you're most likely right...just a funny feeling, is all.

[Gree]

This does raise the question though, man. Just out of curiousity, suppose now you're Warmaster Ubermensch, defiler of worlds, standing on the cusp of ending your Father's reign, just now entering the Sol system. How would you have done it?

 

I were Horus……….

 

First of all I issue orders that the Sons of Horus go all-black with gold trim since the sea green color scheme just looks stupid IMO. I pretty much then proceed as Horus did with taking out the outer planets and defenses and achieving orbital superiority over Terra. Then I go retrieve the Fulgrim painting with Fulgrim’s soul in it.

 

I make an attempt to take the Gates and coordinate the siege as Horus did in the OTL. Except I’ll have foreknowledge of the White Scar’s little raid and of the Emperor’s Children slacking off. I’ll keep daemon-Fulgrim on a tight leash.

 

Now assuming we manage to breach the Palace and fight all the way to the Emperor before the cavalry arrives I obviously make steps to kill the Emperor. However in true villain fashion I don’t go and fight the Emperor one-on-one. No sir. I take out my Evil Overlord list and swamp dear old dad with as many mooks and daemons as possible before attacking in simultaneously with the rest of the Primarchs.

 

Casualties will be massive taking out three Legions and the Custodes, but with my advanced foreknowledge I should be victorious. (Note to self, If I find the corpse of Dorn, Sanguinius or Khan, carve ‘’KAOS 4 LYFE’’ into their hearts, Just for the irony.)

 

Failing that and I’m still stuck outside the walls while the Ultramarines, Space Wolves and Dark Angels approach then I Virus bomb the palace quite thoroughly. I’m pretty sure there is nothing on the planet that is absolutely essentially to my plans and I can always set up a new capital on Pluto or something.

 

Failing that then I get a bunch of servitor crewed ships to ram directly into the planet at FTL speeds. Ships going at that velocity should reduce the entire planet to space rubble.

 

Anyway, with the end result of the Emperor dead, my Legions might be bruised and battered, but the loyalists have no leader and in the end I still outnumber the arriving Legions with daemonic help and support. (The BA, WS and IF being virus bombed or blown to smithereens on Terra.)

 

Once Russ and co. arrive I offer them to join me. Obviously they will refuse in true hero fashion and we engage in epic battle. Since the Emperor is dead I have the advantage. I probably have the advantage.

 

Actually I’ll probably challenge Russ or the Lion to one-on-one combat. It sounds like something they would do. Given that I have four Chaos Gods empowering me I’ll probably curbstomp them into the ground. After I take care of the reinforcements I should be set for life. I declare myself Emperor and rename the date of the Seige ''Horus awesome day.''

 

Then I break down in tears as I realize that I can never be an Ultramarine for my geneseed is not that of Roboute Guilliman.

[Jim Shady]

First of all I issue orders that the Sons of Horus go all-black with gold trim since the sea green color scheme just looks stupid IMO. I pretty much then proceed as Horus did with taking out the outer planets and defenses and achieving orbital superiority over Terra. Then I go retrieve the Fulgrim painting with Fulgrim’s soul in it.

 

Horus didn't know that is where Fulgrim was/is. He swore he'd free him but he was a little busy with organising the Siege of Terra etc and it wouldn't help his cause to take/steal the picture and not, in some way, anger Slaanesh.

[Gree]

First of all I issue orders that the Sons of Horus go all-black with gold trim since the sea green color scheme just looks stupid IMO. I pretty much then proceed as Horus did with taking out the outer planets and defenses and achieving orbital superiority over Terra. Then I go retrieve the Fulgrim painting with Fulgrim’s soul in it.

 

Horus didn't know that is where Fulgrim was/is. He swore he'd free him but he was a little busy with organising the Siege of Terra etc and it wouldn't help his cause to take/steal the picture and not, in some way, anger Slaanesh.

 

Horus did't know that, but I do. Which is the entire point of my post. 1000heathens was asking what I would do.

 

Foreknowledge if a wonderful thing isn't it?

 

Plus it's not like the Emperor's Children did much anyway.

[Hyaenidae]

Horus did't know that, but I do. Which is the entire point of my post. 1000heathens was asking what I would do.

 

Foreknowledge if a wonderful thing isn't it?

 

*facepalm* You should quit 40k for a while and focus entirely on becoming a defense lawyer. No criminal would ever be convicted again.

 

 

Smartarse.

 

 

B)

[Gree]

Horus did't know that, but I do. Which is the entire point of my post. 1000heathens was asking what I would do.

 

Foreknowledge if a wonderful thing isn't it?

 

*facepalm* You should quit 40k for a while and focus entirely on becoming a defense lawyer. No criminal would ever be convicted again.

 

 

Smartarse.

 

 

B)

 

My apologies, I assumed anyone could jump in and put forth their own idea on how to win the seige.

[Hyaenidae]

My apologies, what I said was meant in jest, and wasn't meant as an insult in any way. I just wasn't expecting the 'Foresight' aspect of your idea, and was expressing humour at your response. I should have expected someone to take my question as a literal translation, loopholes and all, and adjusted my question accordingly so as to be taken in context, as well as leaving my answers devoid of humour. As the Wolves say, I recognize my failing and will be sure to correct it.

[jaxjace]

you could always just not go to terra and pull a black crusade out of your ass. i mean hey abbadon did it, thirteen times, and he did get large amounts of space without going to terra, just go around conquering and as a former imperial force you know where EVERYTHING is... and you outnumber the loyalists. if you kill all the space marines the loyalist guard will surrender to me

[Tutteman]

you could always just not go to terra and pull a black crusade out of your ass. i mean hey abbadon did it, thirteen times, and he did get large amounts of space without going to terra, just go around conquering and as a former imperial force you know where EVERYTHING is... and you outnumber the loyalists. if you kill all the space marines the loyalist guard will surrender to me

 

Correction, you know where everything stationary is. Personally I'm assuming that Imperial Forces didn't just sit down, draw up a chair and sip tea while watching My Family repeats when the news of the Heresy came in. So you know where, for example, Ultramar is. But you have no idea where the bulk of the Ultramarine forces are unless your scouts run into them and let you know. This is a war lasting almost a decade. Much changes. And also I rather doubt all of these Loyalists are going co-operate with this plan and simply allow themselves to be slaughtered...Especially after the Drop Site Massacre.

 

And also consider the sheer SCALE you are operating across. Apparently the volume of the Milky Way is (approx) 7.85 trillion cubic light years...That is a truly Staggering amount of space to run around trying to hunt down enemies when you don't even know where these enemies are! You know their starting point, from 5 years ago and that's all you have to work with.

 

Basically your "plan" consists of KILL ALL THE ENEMY! Now while this works for Orks... <_<

[jaxjace]

no i mean you know where all the planets are you can simply reverse the great crusade and conquer all the planets into chaos BOOM imperium is well not.

[Codicier Lucion]

no i mean you know where all the planets are you can simply reverse the great crusade and conquer all the planets into chaos BOOM imperium is well not.

 

Yeah, that worked when the great crusade had twice the number of forces fighting within it,

the planets were not all united under a single banner against you,

your legions were not under strength as a result of fighting loyal elements

and the worlds you were attacking did not have space marines of their own to defend them.

 

Plus it would have given time for the legions you ambushed to rebuild and mobilise against you.

[Tutteman]

However again you must think about the sheer scale of the Galaxy. Its massive, it took the Emperor something like 200 years to take it all. And during this time the Loyalist forces aren't just going to be sat there waiting for you. They're going to trying to hunt down your forces, they're going to be hitting at the worlds you already control. Not simply sitting there watching you chipping away at their territory and forces.

[Mattias]

I kind of agree with jaxjace, Horus had the advantage in a protracted war, the loyalists were down to six combat effective legions whilst Horus had eight combat ready legions, even if you argue that casualties would have reduced the chaos legions the forces have to be at least even.

 

However the loyalists had the disadvantage of having to garrison Terra which further reduces the forces they have available for the rest of the galaxy. Given that Horus also had the massive advantage of the Chaos gods making warp travel more difficult for the loyalists a divide and conquer strategy should have been possible.

 

The loyalist legions were his main threat so I would have gone after them systematically, focusing all eight chaos legions against each of their homeworlds in turn to try and get the loyalists to commit to battle. I would have thought that most of the loyal Primarchs would have had a hard time abandoning their homeworlds to be destroyed. If they tried to defend their homeworlds then the combined strength of eight legions would have destroyed them, if they managed to resist the temptation then their lines of supply and reinforcement would have been destroyed which is also a good result.

 

Once the loyalists ability to replenish their numbers had been removed (along with those legions foolish enough to be drawn into battle) you could then head for the Sol system, destroy any fleet assets and beseige Terra (Virus/Firebomb planet to deplete enemy resources and then just bombard them into submission), using Mars as your resupply for the duration of the seige.

 

As long as you have made sure that there will not be a relief force who cares if the seige lasts years.

[Olis]

The loyalist legions were his main threat so I would have gone after them systematically, focusing all eight chaos legions against each of their homeworlds in turn to try and get the loyalists to commit to battle. I would have thought that most of the loyal Primarchs would have had a hard time abandoning their homeworlds to be destroyed. If they tried to defend their homeworlds then the combined strength of eight legions would have destroyed them, if they managed to resist the temptation then their lines of supply and reinforcement would have been destroyed which is also a good result.

 

Once the loyalists ability to replenish their numbers had been removed (along with those legions foolish enough to be drawn into battle) you could then head for the Sol system, destroy any fleet assets and beseige Terra (Virus/Firebomb planet to deplete enemy resources and then just bombard them into submission), using Mars as your resupply for the duration of the seige.

 

Although I see sense in this and ganging up on opponents is a sound strategy, there's a little voice in the back of my head insisting that attacking eight heavily defended locations one after another is not such a great idea, strategically. For one you'd be telegraphing your punches by the time you attack planet number three and, for two, eight tough nuts that need cracking will only be kind on your (ground) forces if you exterminatus each world. Your naval forces would be another matter entirely, however. It'd be much easier and far quicker to go for the jugular, which Horus did (it did take seven years, mind you).