Was Isstvan 5 really that effective?

[eyeslikethunder]

thx hendrik

[Veteran Sergeant]

exactly maybe horus was able to predict( +info from chaos powers?) that RG would sit in ultramar the way he did rather than come to save the emperor. Therefore were very little threat at all

But Guilliman didn't sit in Ultramar... He was sent there by Horus, and the Ultramarines departed for Terra after they had defeated the Word Bearers. You guys are getting your timelines confused. Guilliman couldn't participate in the Battle of Terra because Horus had positioned him too far away to make it there in time. Look at the galactic maps. Terra is almost on the opposite side of the galaxy compared to Ultramar. This wasn't about choosing to sit out of a battle as opposed to just not being around for it. Would be like saying the 101st Airborne chose not to help the Marines on Iwo Jima.

 

The assessment of Guilliman as an A or B type guy who overthinks is absurd, especially given the multitude of quotes we've been given which say the exact opposite. He chastises one of his commanders in Rules of Engagement (a stupid story, but the quotes from the end are still relevant) for taking the Codex too literally: "We must always be adaptable and not too hide-bound in our thinkings" "There must always be room for personal initiative on the battlefield" "I do not wish it to be regarded as a substitute for reason and initiative". Guilliman was not the Warmaster because Horus was a better leader, more charismatic, forceful, etc. Guilliman was the master strategist, logistician, etc. In First Heretic, Kor Phaeron describes Guilliman as "your father's echo, heart and soul. If all else went wrong, he would be heir to the empire" Lorgar comes back later at Magnus saying "I will never understand tactics or logistics with the effortless ease of Guilliman or the Lion." And Lorgar hated Guilliman, and yet places him above all others when it comes to tactics. It isn't biased to call Guilliman the greatest strategist and general of the Space Marine Legions, it's just everything we've ever been told. Trying to portray him as hamstrung by a lack of flexibility or insight into the human variable is silly. It's a closed minded, narrow view constructed by taking certain bits of fluff and ignoring ones that don't support it, in order to sooth some kind of emotional wound suffered by those weird fans of this game that take an unhealthy personal interest in this game when something doesn't glorify their favorite color of Space Marines. But I've gone over that phenomenon before, lol. Take an issue with the idea that Guilliman was the greatest of generals and strategists all you want, but that issue is based on emotion, not on established and supplied fluff. The Ultramarines had individual success on par with the best of the legions, were over twice as big as the next closest legion, and had created the logistical chain to make them the singular most powerful force in the galaxy. That doesn't happen by accident. Guilliman was winning wars with minimal casualties (tactics), reinforcing his legion (logistics), and conquering large portions of the galaxy by himself (logistics and strategy). If his coldness and perceived arrogance made him less liked by his brothers, that's one thing, and further reinforces why Horus was made Warmaster over him. Think of Guilliman like Patton (though without being as outspoken or ostentatious). Really popular with his own troops, but hated by some for his personality, and all the while, he got :( done. But, like Patton is and was as a general, Guilliman is definitely the most often misunderstood and misrepresented Primarch. I think much of it comes from the fact that he's rather bland as a character (the Good Son, as I've taken to calling him), whereas some of the other Primarchs are far more individually appealing.

[Iron Lord]

exactly maybe horus was able to predict( +info from chaos powers?) that RG would sit in ultramar the way he did rather than come to save the emperor. Therefore were very little threat at all

But Guilliman didn't sit in Ultramar... He was sent there by Horus, and the Ultramarines departed for Terra after they had defeated the Word Bearers. You guys are getting your timelines confused.

 

In older fluff, this was indeed the case.

 

In Rules of Engagement, set two years after the Battle of Calth, Guilliman is still engaging in war games with the Ultramarines. And in Savage Weapons (also set two years later- about the same time as Rules of Engagement) the Dark Angels are called on by the Ultramarines at the end of the story, and Jonson says "It seems Horus is not the only who who believes he is heir to the empire"

 

That's why people think Guilliman delayed.

 

On the other hand it's explicitly stated that the Dark Angels couldn't get through the warp storms- which is why they stayed in the Ultima Segmentum fighting the Night Lords. Curze taunts Jonson with this- suggesting that there would be whispers that Jonson was delaying in order to see who won.

 

If the Dark Angels are stuck in this region- maybe the Ultramarines are too.

[Kol Saresk]

Yes Gulliman was a strategist, but he was a strategist bound by logic. It's different from followin one's gut or even combining the two.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I guess you can derive anything you like about of "Rules of Engagement", though it doesn't really say anything about what the Ultramarines did after the Battle of Calth, or for the two years in between that and the start of the story. Look how badly McNeill screws up the timeline in The Outcast Dead. I'll reiterate that "Rules" is a terrible story, being that it suggests that a Space Marine captain with hundreds of battles and perhaps hundreds of years behind him doesn't understand what is going on and suddenly has idiotic "revelations" as Guilliman lights a cigar in the background muttering "I love it when a plan comes together", but that sort of goes without saying any time you put "Graham McNeil" and "Space Marines" together in regards to a work of literature. Doubly so when you put "Graham McNeil" and "Ultramarines" together. It's rather sad that the guy responsible for one of the largest chunks of a Chapter/Legion's fluff is one of its worst authors. McNeil is terrible at writing Space Marines in general though (the best characters in A Thousand Sons are the Remembrancers). Remember, if you want to take any timeline events from Rules of Engagement, remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false. The story really reads like several short stories written at different times put together haphazardly and without any editing or revision. I always hesitate to cite it, but those passages from the end of the story are one of the few pieces of Space Marine fluff McNeil has ever written that make sense, lol. I sometimes think that he didn't write the opening and closing of the story, and that those parts were added by someone else who has ever given a shred of thought about Space Marines and their tactics.

 

Eh, regardless of what the Horus Heresy fluff is eventually retconned too, whether the Ultramarines head to Terra and destroy Horus's reinforcements like they have for the last twenty years, or they were purposefully held back as part of Guilliman's Hannibal Smith grand vision for saving the Imperium, it really doesn't paint him as indecisive and held back by a lack of initiative or ability to improvise (in fact it does the exact opposite). In either case he was able to quickly assess the strategic needs at the moment and make the best decision. Remember, we know how the Heresy ends already, and that the Ultramarines are at the forefront of the Scouring and Guilliman helps forge the new face of the Imperium in the absence of the Emperor's more than a thousand year old autocratic government (the only one it had ever really known) and hold it together.

[Iron Lord]

remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false.

The idea that Thunderhawks are a "new, stopgap, mass-produced design" features in multiple HH books though.

[Lord_Caerolion]

remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false.

The idea that Thunderhawks are a "new, stopgap, mass-produced design" features in multiple HH books though.

 

It does? Where? It mentions that they're a new design, but I don't ever remember the Thunderhawks being mentioned as a stopgap design.

[Veteran Sergeant]

remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false.

The idea that Thunderhawks are a "new, stopgap, mass-produced design" features in multiple HH books though.

But they wouldn't be a "new, stopgap measure" both thirty years before the Heresy when the Ultramarines rode in them in the events at the beginning of First Heretic, and two years after Calth, lol.

[Olis]

remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false.

The idea that Thunderhawks are a "new, stopgap, mass-produced design" features in multiple HH books though.

But they wouldn't be a "new, stopgap measure" both thirty years before the Heresy when the Ultramarines rode in them in the events at the beginning of First Heretic, and two years after Calth, lol.

 

Kinda depends on what timescale they're operating on, doesn't it?

[Veteran Sergeant]

remember that in that story, both Terminator armor is new to Remus and so are Thunderhawks; both ideas that we know are false.

The idea that Thunderhawks are a "new, stopgap, mass-produced design" features in multiple HH books though.

But they wouldn't be a "new, stopgap measure" both thirty years before the Heresy when the Ultramarines rode in them in the events at the beginning of First Heretic, and two years after Calth, lol.

Kinda depends on what timescale they're operating on, doesn't it?

No, it's just bad writing. And bad editing. And shows a general lack of cohesive vision over at the Black Library.

[Olis]

No, it's just bad writing. And bad editing. And shows a general lack of cohesive vision over at the Black Library.

 

How do you propose the seperate authors co-ordinate better than they do now? As far as I'm aware they have pretty regular meetings. As for the editors - I can't really say much for them as I assume they are part of the same office, but still, short of having them all read all the books what can they do? Not everyone is going to obsess over the minutiae to the level we do, are they? To call it bad writing and bad editing is a bit much, I think. There will always be inconsistencies in this sort of enterprise.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The books already have glaring inconsistencies (tell me how Saul Tarvitz died, lol). The Thunderhawk thing seems relatively minor by itself, but it's really just further proof of a systemic problem with the Black Library's coordination between the authors and no fact checking or continuity checking in the editing process.

 

Graham McNeill's bad writing speaks for itself across several novels.

[Olis]

The books already have glaring inconsistencies (tell me how Saul Tarvitz died, lol).

 

Isn't he presumed dead after the second orbital bombardment at the end of the Isstvan III conflict?

 

The Thunderhawk thing seems relatively minor by itself, but it's really just further proof of a systemic problem with the Black Library's coordination between the authors and no fact checking or continuity checking in the editing process.

 

I think you're making the assumption that mistakes and typos made in the series means that the people working on it are slacking. Nobody's perfect, brother, least of all those who write and edit novels to deadlines.

 

Graham McNeill's bad writing speaks for itself across several novels.

 

Bad in what way? He's certainly not the best BL have to offer, but he's by far not the worst.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The books already have glaring inconsistencies (tell me how Saul Tarvitz died, lol).

Isn't he presumed dead after the second orbital bombardment at the end of the Isstvan III conflict?

Referring to how the circumstances of his death are radically and fundamentally different in Fulgrim and Galaxy in Flames. On the level that there is no possible reconciliation between the two stories.

The Thunderhawk thing seems relatively minor by itself, but it's really just further proof of a systemic problem with the Black Library's coordination between the authors and no fact checking or continuity checking in the editing process.

I think you're making the assumption that mistakes and typos made in the series means that the people working on it are slacking. Nobody's perfect, brother, least of all those who write and edit novels to deadlines.

Like I said above, there's no way that errors of that magnitude make it through a good editing process. I don't care about little things like the occasional typo. McNeill should have been sent back to revise or remove that chapter by any competent editor. Or Counter should have been, depending on who submitted their finished novel first, I'm just basing it on the release order. The fact that such a huge blunder could be made doesn't lend a whole lot of forgiveness for smaller things like Terminator armor being new or Thunderhawks being something Remus has never seen before.

Graham McNeill's bad writing speaks for itself across several novels.

Bad in what way? He's certainly not the best BL have to offer, but he's by far not the worst.

The travesties that are the Ultramarines novels, the aforementioned Rules of Engagement, etc. He's not a bad writer in the sense that he can't create effective prose, but his stories are poorly constructed and the narratives poorly framed. His stories are full of self-contradictions (I highlighted a few earlier), show a severe lack of proper research, and in general are just poorly thought out and conceived. McNeill should probably never touch Space Marines. His Remembrancers were decent characters, the best in A Thousand Sons. Hell, he literally just forgets about them too. The Remembrancers were principle characters in the narrative and they just disappear from the novel in a cliffhanger scene, forgotten amongst the battle scene depictions across the last six or seven chapters of the novel, never to be mentioned again. The human captain gets fleshed out, even gets mentioned during the final battle, and then *poofs* as well. But I do agree he isn't the worst. I'm just saying that his track record of mediocre to bad stories is there.

[Lucien Eilam]

Considering their relative publication dates, and the fact that it's an entirely inconsequential detail, I can easily imagine that neither A D-B nor McNeill had any idea the other was planning to introduce the Thunderhawk. Unless the relevant chapter and short story were edited close together by the same person, who had a clear idea of the timeline and was particularly sharp that morning, it's an easy thing to miss, hardly a damning indictment of one of the authors or Black Library's editors.

 

The books already have glaring inconsistencies (tell me how Saul Tarvitz died, lol).

Isn't he presumed dead after the second orbital bombardment at the end of the Isstvan III conflict?

Referring to how the circumstances of his death are radically and fundamentally different in Fulgrim and Galaxy in Flames. On the level that there is no possible reconciliation between the two stories.

Are you confusing him with another character? Nobody witnesses Tarvitz dying in either book, and the descriptions are entirely consistent.

 

 

In Galaxy in Flames, he's in the Precentor's Palace when the final orbital bombardment begins. The explosions are "closing in" on the surviving Loyalists, but the story cuts away to the Traitors planning Isstvan V before they die.

 

In Fulgrim, Lucius assumes he must be dead, because "nothing could live" through the final orbital bombardment, but he was too busy running away from an ass-kicking to see him die.

 

I'm guessing you've mixed Tarvitz up with Solomon Demeter, as Lucius boasts of killing him in the same passage where he tells Eidolon that Tarvitz "must have" died.

 

Ancient Rylanor is also unaccounted for, but we know Tarvitz sent him to guard an underground hangar. Clear case of Chekhov's gun, which wasn't fired when the other Loyalist who lived though the bombardment finally made it off Isstvan III.

 

[Viridia]

Wasn't the Thunderhawk first introduced in Abnett's Horus Rising when the Iterator guiding the group of Remembrancers in the hanger in orbit of 'Terra' that the Luna Wolves were sticking with their Stormbirds over the 'new' Thunderhawks?

 

Or is this argument based on 'on-screen' appearences?

[Lucien Eilam]

Expedition forces were resupplied at different rates, some being a lot farther away from Mars than others. A particular technology could arguably be 'new' to one Legion long after another had been using it for a while. Horus Rising just says "most expedition forces" were "reliant" on Thunderhawks at the time.

 

There's plenty of scope for either First Heretic's "we've been using them for decades" or Rules of Engagement's "they're a stopgap" to be true of the Ultramarines. Or even both - they're a big Legion, after all. There were only 100 Ultramarines on Colchis, and it wasn't even Remus's company. Maybe the 4th was still using Stormbirds exclusively long after the 19th started switching to Thunderhawks. It could still be a stopgap even if Remus had known about them for years. It's not exactly a long time for Space Marines, who routinely live for 400+ years.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Are you confusing him with another character? Nobody witnesses Tarvitz dying in either book, and the descriptions are entirely consistent.

 

 

In Galaxy in Flames, he's in the Precentor's Palace when the final orbital bombardment begins. The explosions are "closing in" on the surviving Loyalists, but the story cuts away to the Traitors planning Isstvan V before they die.

 

In Fulgrim, Lucius assumes he must be dead, because "nothing could live" through the final orbital bombardment, but he was too busy running away from an ass-kicking to see him die.

Actually, I think I did misremember something from the text. It had been a while since I read Fulgrim. That's my bad. However, it was really only one example that I've seen in the books of really bad continuity checking. I didn't go about making a huge list of them though, lol. On the whole, the series has been reasonably coherent, but the quality control still seems to be lacking. It's a big project with a bunch of independent minds working on it. It just seems like there should be an easily accessible resource for the various authors to turn to, and that there should be somebody (or somebodies) who catch a lot of these problems. For example, ADB tells us how GW laid out the newly inflated numbers to them. And yet a lot of the continuity problems with these new numbers aren't addressed. And they are easy fixes too a lot of the time.

[Kol Saresk]

Are you confusing him with another character? Nobody witnesses Tarvitz dying in either book, and the descriptions are entirely consistent.

 

 

In Galaxy in Flames, he's in the Precentor's Palace when the final orbital bombardment begins. The explosions are "closing in" on the surviving Loyalists, but the story cuts away to the Traitors planning Isstvan V before they die.

 

In Fulgrim, Lucius assumes he must be dead, because "nothing could live" through the final orbital bombardment, but he was too busy running away from an ass-kicking to see him die.

 

Okay I would like a source for this. I'm not arguing it I just haven't heard about survivors of Istvaan III until just now and I, as a fan, would like to read it. Please.

[Olis]

Okay I would like a source for this. I'm not arguing it I just haven't heard about survivors of Istvaan III until just now and I, as a fan, would like to read it. Please.

 

Well, the second Garro audiobook has a pretty significant survivor in it.

[Kol Saresk]

Craaap! I don't have any of the audiobooks because I can't focus on them!

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

Are you confusing him with another character? Nobody witnesses Tarvitz dying in either book, and the descriptions are entirely consistent.

 

 

In Galaxy in Flames, he's in the Precentor's Palace when the final orbital bombardment begins. The explosions are "closing in" on the surviving Loyalists, but the story cuts away to the Traitors planning Isstvan V before they die.

 

In Fulgrim, Lucius assumes he must be dead, because "nothing could live" through the final orbital bombardment, but he was too busy running away from an ass-kicking to see him die.

 

I'm guessing you've mixed Tarvitz up with Solomon Demeter, as Lucius boasts of killing him in the same passage where he tells Eidolon that Tarvitz "must have" died.

 

 

Ancient Rylanor is also unaccounted for, but we know Tarvitz sent him to guard an underground hangar. Clear case of Chekhov's gun, which wasn't fired when the other Loyalist who lived though the bombardment finally made it off Isstvan III.

 

110% /agree. There is a 3rd account that i think is relative, In the Collected Visions.

 

Okay I would like a source for this. I'm not arguing it I just haven't heard about survivors of Istvaan III until just now and I, as a fan, would like to read it. Please.

 

Well, the second Garro audiobook has a pretty significant survivor in it.

 

Two of them actually. :tu:

[Brother Captain Kezef]

People are forgetting the main point of Istvan.

 

The elimination of three legions was an important but secondary objective. The main objectives where to get the traitors together and solidify their allegiance in the blood of Brother Astartes and to send a message.

 

The message was the most important objective, Isstvan was Horus' way of letting the Imperium know what was going on, to tell them that the war was on and that taking his side was the only option.