Lion El Jonson , Second finest general

[Brother Keyaetus]

Good post, now we just need people/fans all around to read it so they understand, its so simple.

 

Infact its a bit surprising that it even needs to be explained.

[DarKnight]

I believe this is part of the fanservice A-D-B mentioned.

 

It is a bit. But fan service is, in the sense I'm using it, "incorrect" to the point of being gratuitous. Say, for example, I was writing a massively popular Legion like the Space Wolves - and this is not a reference in any way to Dan and/or Prospero Burns. The answer works as well as with the Blood Angels, Dark Angels or Ultramarines, who are almost as popular. The easiest way to secure incredibly favourable reviews among the fanbase is to manipulate the lore so that they are objectively the best, and their primarch is "better" than the others.

 

This is incredibly easy to do. Like, crazy-easy. And, sometimes, it's hard to tell from just a decent presentation of a Legion, as many fans of the faction that looks great will resist any argument that they're being shown as unfairly awesome. But it's easy; let me show you.

 

F'rex, I could have knowledgeable, reliable characters referring to how the Space Wolves were better at another Legion's method of fighting than the Legion was already famous for. I could show another primarch fearful of Russ's prowess in a position that the other primarch was already famous for. Like if I made the Wolves better at the drop-podding speartip attack than the Luna Wolves, or the berserk fury of the World Eaters, or the terrorism of the Night Lords. That's fan service. That's gratuitous pandering to make a faction look awesome, at the expense of other factions. It's changing the lore, or misrepresenting it, to win over a popular faction's fans. Those Legions are already famous for those styles of attack, so making the Wolves better at them would be essentially bending the lore to make Space Wolf fans happier, to see their Legion as even better than another faction. Fans love that stuff. Not all, of course. But the ones most invested in seeing "their guys" win, and getting to grin about new-found lore showing their faction as The Best.

 

You should never need to lie to make a faction look good, nor give them someone else's job, nor should you make other factions look bad to do it. Yes, one side may have to lose in a conflict, maybe even humiliatingly, but it doesn't need to be unrealistic, or at the expense of making the victorious faction look strangely weak. (Of course, some fans see the setting differently, so any loss might be difficult for them to believe, depending on the circumstances).

 

Now, I think Dan avoided this (beyond a little awesome hype in his video trailer) by having it be in doubt if Russ really is the executioner; nothing was stated in absolute terms; and all the "The Wolves are the best" stuff was in-character hyperbole. So I don't consider Prospero Burns all that guilty of fan service, really.

 

So that's what I mean with Horus. I think the series could do with a touch of showing that the Luna Wolves were the most honoured, proud, elite Legion (even if it was only in "only slightly better" terms), and that Horus really was the best. That's what the lore has always stated. There's a reason he was the one Chaos chose, and it wasn't because he was the silver medal.

What'd you think of the quote from 'A 1K Sons' where the demon tells Magnus that it should of been him. Adding insult to injury? The truth to an already vanquished foe?

[Kol Saresk]

I believe this is part of the fanservice A-D-B mentioned.

 

It is a bit. But fan service is, in the sense I'm using it, "incorrect" to the point of being gratuitous. Say, for example, I was writing a massively popular Legion like the Space Wolves - and this is not a reference in any way to Dan and/or Prospero Burns. The answer works as well as with the Blood Angels, Dark Angels or Ultramarines, who are almost as popular. The easiest way to secure incredibly favourable reviews among the fanbase is to manipulate the lore so that they are objectively the best, and their primarch is "better" than the others.

 

This is incredibly easy to do. Like, crazy-easy. And, sometimes, it's hard to tell from just a decent presentation of a Legion, as many fans of the faction that looks great will resist any argument that they're being shown as unfairly awesome. But it's easy; let me show you.

 

F'rex, I could have knowledgeable, reliable characters referring to how the Space Wolves were better at another Legion's method of fighting than the Legion was already famous for. I could show another primarch fearful of Russ's prowess in a position that the other primarch was already famous for. Like if I made the Wolves better at the drop-podding speartip attack than the Luna Wolves, or the berserk fury of the World Eaters, or the terrorism of the Night Lords. That's fan service. That's gratuitous pandering to make a faction look awesome, at the expense of other factions. It's changing the lore, or misrepresenting it, to win over a popular faction's fans. Those Legions are already famous for those styles of attack, so making the Wolves better at them would be essentially bending the lore to make Space Wolf fans happier, to see their Legion as even better than another faction. Fans love that stuff. Not all, of course. But the ones most invested in seeing "their guys" win, and getting to grin about new-found lore showing their faction as The Best.

 

You should never need to lie to make a faction look good, nor give them someone else's job, nor should you make other factions look bad to do it. Yes, one side may have to lose in a conflict, maybe even humiliatingly, but it doesn't need to be unrealistic, or at the expense of making the victorious faction look strangely weak. (Of course, some fans see the setting differently, so any loss might be difficult for them to believe, depending on the circumstances).

 

Now, I think Dan avoided this (beyond a little awesome hype in his video trailer) by having it be in doubt if Russ really is the executioner; nothing was stated in absolute terms; and all the "The Wolves are the best" stuff was in-character hyperbole. So I don't consider Prospero Burns all that guilty of fan service, really.

 

So that's what I mean with Horus. I think the series could do with a touch of showing that the Luna Wolves were the most honoured, proud, elite Legion (even if it was only in "only slightly better" terms), and that Horus really was the best. That's what the lore has always stated. There's a reason he was the one Chaos chose, and it wasn't because he was the silver medal.

Okay, I think I get it now.

[Captain Idaho]

Excellent explanation A D-B. Of course, it needs to come from the likes of you or else people won't accept it ;)

[Chengar Qordath]

What'd you think of the quote from 'A 1K Sons' where the demon tells Magnus that it should of been him. Adding insult to injury? The truth to an already vanquished foe?

Not A D-B obviously, but I'd personally say that one should always assume that anything a daemon says is a lie, intended to manipulate whoever they're talking to, or both. Kinda goes with the territory of being a demon.

[Kol Saresk]

The best lie ever told was the truth.

[DarKnight]

Chegnar & Kol's responses both make sense and I suppose in the ultimate sense it doesn't really matter if the demon was truthful, but I wonder if Lorgar is aware of the propensity of warp entities to lie?

[Brother Ambroz]

Snip

 

Yeah for the most part they didn't use the others strategies but, they were definitely able to utilize them if they'd needed. The reasoning behind not utilizing their brothers' strategies was probably likely their respective egos as you've already mentioned.

[Brother Ambroz]

Snip

 

Yeah for the most part they didn't use the others strategies but, they were definitely able to utilize them if they'd needed. The reasoning behind not utilizing their brothers' strategies was probably likely their respective egos as you've already mentioned.

[Chengar Qordath]

The best lie ever told was the truth.

Even if a demon's telling the truth, it's only doing so because that's the best way to manipulate you into doing what it wants. Not to mention that demons have a bit of a knack for telling "the truth" without being entirely honest (Like the demon that used glimpses of the 40k universe to turn Horus).

[Veteran Sergeant]

I agree with Hellios. The Primarchs were easily able to adopt others strategies.

 

That thing with Alpharius kinda suprises me. Seems like he'd be one to learn everything he could about the way other people fought in order to improve his legion and learn to better infiltrate the others.

The whole "We specialize at this" fluff behind the Legions has never really made any sense. When you consider the vastness of the galaxy, and the number of different kinds of campaigns, terrains, environments, enemies, etc that would be encountered, the Space Marine legions would have had to, out of necessity, be the most specialized of generalists. As in, good at pretty much everything. There's no room for a Legion that specializes in unconventional warfare, or in armored assaults, or terror tactics, because it isn't like they were being dispatch on specialist missions across the galaxy. It was more like "Here's your slice of the galactic pie, I want all this area conquered by 1000 Tuesdays from now, let me know how it goes." Now, a Space Marine Chapter that has a general goal? Maybe. That's a relatively small organizational unit. But they're still going to be good at everything, and everyone else is going to be really good at what they do too. The problem with saying "These guys are specialists at X" is because to the average layperson, that's going to read as "These guy are way better at this" or worse "The other Chapters/Legions aren't any good at this".

 

but Guilliman and Horus were better at the "big picture" of campaign warfighting whereas primarchs like Lion and Russ were far more suited to the prosecution of individual actions.

I would disagree with this in that I don't think the Lions strength is related to individual actions but running campaigns. I would say he is more strategic than tactical. Where RG trumps him is logistics. So everything behind the scenes so to speak goes well for RG which then means his battles go fairly well and if they don't he can compensate anyway. Although RG may see the bigger pictures in terms of what happens once the fighting is over, while I doubt the lion cares much beyond doing his duty.

I think you misunderstand me. Remember, Galactic warfare is on a whole different scale than any modern equivalent. Logistics is part of strategy. An army fights on its stomach, so to say. Shoots with bullets, moves with ships, etc. When I say that the Lion was suited to individual actions, I'm talking about prosecuting an attack on a planet. That's going to require an immensely skilled commander who understands and has mastered battle strategy. In fact, being a Primarch is hardly about tactics at all. Tactics is the worry of the Sergeant, not the General. However, the Warmaster has to be thinking about all of the planets that are being attacked, and the ones that will be attacked next, and how to get the troops there, and to make sure that there was ammunition and fuel etc to do it.

 

Guilliman was so successful, and the Ultramarines so successful and able to quickly outpace the other Legions in size, because he had mastered not just the concepts of winning individual wars, but of winning THE war. It can hardly even be stated adequately just how overwhelmingly imperative that logistics would have factored into the Great Crusade. So obviously, Horus shared a lot in common with Horus when it came to logistics. Heck, who knows? If Horus hadn't been so proud and had not fallen to Chaos, perhaps he would have written his own competing Codex Astartes eventually. But if Guilliman was so distinctly and repeatedly noted for being the best at what would have been absolutely the most important thing to winning the Great Crusade, there's no doubt that if Horus was chosen over him, it was because he had also mastered the concept and was slightly better, or more favored, for other reasons. Guilliman was a master strategist, a general with almost no peer. He just happened to also be really good at the administrative side of things. Like most famous historical generals, you'll find that some were better than others at certain things, but few of them became famous for only being good at one or two. ^_^

[Legatus]

The whole "We specialize at this" fluff behind the Legions has never really made any sense. When you consider the vastness of the galaxy, and the number of different kinds of campaigns, terrains, environments, enemies, etc that would be encountered, the Space Marine legions would have had to, out of necessity, be the most specialized of generalists.

Maybe that is why the generalists (Horus, Jonson, Guilliman, Dorn) had been the more successful of the Primarchs. (The Imperial Fists are often cited as siege specuialists, but that was not really their focus. Their attitude was simply very well suited for that kind of action.) Russ is perhaps the odd one out, but even the Space Wolves could be seen as not really focussing on one particular fighting style but more as just being really agressive (each individual great company focuses on a particular MO, and there are armoured and heavy weapon focused great companies. So while the great companies themselves are focused, the CHapter/Legion as a whole is not so much).

[DarKnight]

Very good explaination Vet Sarge. Can't imagine Angron bothering with the small details of a campaign, just get us there and get us to killing. The ability to balance the macro with the micro are what separate the good generals from the great.

[Brother Ambroz]

I agree with Hellios. The Primarchs were easily able to adopt others strategies.

 

That thing with Alpharius kinda suprises me. Seems like he'd be one to learn everything he could about the way other people fought in order to improve his legion and learn to better infiltrate the others.

The whole "We specialize at this" fluff behind the Legions has never really made any sense. When you consider the vastness of the galaxy, and the number of different kinds of campaigns, terrains, environments, enemies, etc that would be encountered, the Space Marine legions would have had to, out of necessity, be the most specialized of generalists. As in, good at pretty much everything. There's no room for a Legion that specializes in unconventional warfare, or in armored assaults, or terror tactics, because it isn't like they were being dispatch on specialist missions across the galaxy. It was more like "Here's your slice of the galactic pie, I want all this area conquered by 1000 Tuesdays from now, let me know how it goes." Now, a Space Marine Chapter that has a general goal? Maybe. That's a relatively small organizational unit. But they're still going to be good at everything, and everyone else is going to be really good at what they do too. The problem with saying "These guys are specialists at X" is because to the average layperson, that's going to read as "These guy are way better at this" or worse "The other Chapters/Legions aren't any good at this".

 

That's great and all but what does that have to do with what I'd said? They were all space marines, that's true but each respective legion had their own preferred method of prosecuting a war. I think that's where the specialist idea comes from.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Easy Tiger. I was expanding on what you said, not disagreeing with it.

 

The fact that I then went beyond the boundary of your original argument isn't an attack on your ideas. However, if you take issue with the expansion, it's perhaps a better idea to address the parts you don't like, since they're pretty well supported. IMHO, the specialist idea comes from poor fluff writing 20 or so years ago, not from any reasonable explanation.

 

If the Night Lords, for example, prefer to use terror tactics because they're the Galaxy's biggest and most awesome :cusss, that's cool. But what happens when they encounter an enemy that can't be frightened? That's the problem with pigeonholing Legions with a certain type of tactic. But the Night Lords aren't really the best example, because you can adapt being an :confused: to all kinds of situations. (I love the Night Lords, and I'm an :cuss, so please don't take this as criticism against them) A better example would be the Imperial Fists, who apparently specialize at defense.

 

Wut?

 

Space Marines, by their very nature, would hardly ever defend anything. They are too small. The Imperial Guard.... guards things. I mean, yeah, maybe Dorn would have probably been pretty good at coming up with sweet ideas fortifications or overlapping fields of fire for orbital defense, and that's why he was put in charge of Terra's defenses. Why is that specialty being translated to the 40K Imperial Fists, a battalion sized unit in a planet sized war? They aren't going to be digging a lot of trenches and drawing up too many fire plan sketches. It's almost an insult to the Imperial Fists to call them the masters of defense. :cuss are they doing sitting around defending :cuss while everyone else is actually out being a Marine and stomping heads in the name of the Emprah? ;)

 

The poor Black Templars are the saddest example. Those poor dumb bastards have to keep a Chapter size of around 6K because they fight like Doritos. Crunch all you want, we'll make more. At some point, sadly right around 3rd Edition when 40K was at its most Fantasy point, somebody came up the idea of a Space Marine Chapter that specializes in assault and close combat and took away all of their artillery and heavy weapons squads. What exactly do the Black Templars do when confronted with an enemy that can't be assaulted by Drop Pod or massed armored spearhead? The answer is apparently run forward and die in droves.

 

And there's the rub. Space Marines can't, and wouldn't, become specialists in any style of fighting. With Chapters, it's somewhat believable that they might gain a reputation for being good at something and be sent all around the Galaxy to do one thing over and over. A Legion was a massive formation, tens of thousands strong, conquering just about any poor bastards who got in their way and didn't have the good graces to be human and politically tractable. One Legion may take preference to a style of warfare and choose it whenever even remotely feasible. However, they're still going to have to be experts at fighting in every other way because the battlefield rarely conforms to your desires or expectations. War is kind of an :cuss like that. But that's no surprise. I mean, what kind of :cuss rides a red horse?

[Arkangilos]

Easy Tiger. I was expanding on what you said, not disagreeing with it.

 

The fact that I then went beyond the boundary of your original argument isn't an attack on your ideas. However, if you take issue with the expansion, it's perhaps a better idea to address the parts you don't like, since they're pretty well supported. IMHO, the specialist idea comes from poor fluff writing 20 or so years ago, not from any reasonable explanation.

 

If the Night Lords, for example, prefer to use terror tactics because they're the Galaxy's biggest and most awesome :cusss, that's cool. But what happens when they encounter an enemy that can't be frightened? That's the problem with pigeonholing Legions with a certain type of tactic. But the Night Lords aren't really the best example, because you can adapt being an :confused: to all kinds of situations. (I love the Night Lords, and I'm an :cuss, so please don't take this as criticism against them) A better example would be the Imperial Fists, who apparently specialize at defense.

 

Wut?

 

Space Marines, by their very nature, would hardly ever defend anything. They are too small. The Imperial Guard.... guards things. I mean, yeah, maybe Dorn would have probably been pretty good at coming up with sweet ideas fortifications or overlapping fields of fire for orbital defense, and that's why he was put in charge of Terra's defenses. Why is that specialty being translated to the 40K Imperial Fists, a battalion sized unit in a planet sized war? They aren't going to be digging a lot of trenches and drawing up too many fire plan sketches. It's almost an insult to the Imperial Fists to call them the masters of defense. :cuss are they doing sitting around defending :cuss while everyone else is actually out being a Marine and stomping heads in the name of the Emprah? ;)

 

The poor Black Templars are the saddest example. Those poor dumb bastards have to keep a Chapter size of around 6K because they fight like Doritos. Crunch all you want, we'll make more. At some point, sadly right around 3rd Edition when 40K was at its most Fantasy point, somebody came up the idea of a Space Marine Chapter that specializes in assault and close combat and took away all of their artillery and heavy weapons squads. What exactly do the Black Templars do when confronted with an enemy that can't be assaulted by Drop Pod or massed armored spearhead? The answer is apparently run forward and die in droves.

 

And there's the rub. Space Marines can't, and wouldn't, become specialists in any style of fighting. With Chapters, it's somewhat believable that they might gain a reputation for being good at something and be sent all around the Galaxy to do one thing over and over. A Legion was a massive formation, tens of thousands strong, conquering just about any poor bastards who got in their way and didn't have the good graces to be human and politically tractable. One Legion may take preference to a style of warfare and choose it whenever even remotely feasible. However, they're still going to have to be experts at fighting in every other way because the battlefield rarely conforms to your desires or expectations. War is kind of an :cuss like that. But that's no surprise. I mean, what kind of :cuss rides a red horse?

 

Well, like you said, all chapters are good at basic combat. They are all adaptable, and can all fight in almost any condition with various tactics and strategies.

 

But specializing does not take any of that away. An assault specialist can still do normal combat, it is just that they are better at assaulting than a defense specialist, who can also still do regular combat.

You can specialize, and still be good at regular fighting.

 

For example, the Imperial Fists. They are defense specialists (or at least during the Great Crusade). Why would a Astartes Legion need to defend? Well, lets say Horus is leading a campaign against the Orks of the Alcath Stars. While fighting them, they learn that a massive Waagh from another area is about to set off, and hit the legions' flanks. So Horus can either build his own defenses, OR he can look at Dorn, who is known for having exceptional defenses, and specializes in it, and say, "Hey, these Orks are about to hit our flanks, I want you to fortify it and hold these orks while we make this final push, and then we will come back around and join you."

 

I'll let someone else defend the Templars. Maybe Marshall will be in here ;)

[Brother Ambroz]

Forgive me brother, I wasn't offended or anything I just wasn't quite getting what you meant. It's been a long week.... :confused: but I got you now. :cuss

[Artein]

Got some problems with the Machine Spirit of my Personae Computeres.

[Artein]

So that's what I mean with Horus. I think the series could do with a touch of showing that the Luna Wolves were the most honoured, proud, elite Legion (even if it was only in "only slightly better" terms), and that Horus really was the best.

Then go and write some Luna Wolves / Sons of Horus / Black Legion stuff.

 

Horus is awesome in Horus Rising. Probably awesome as well in False Gods, I don't remember that well. Not that awesome in Galaxy in Flames. Awesome in Fulgrim. Pretty bad in Nemesis and Deliverance Lost. Oh, also kinda awesome in Aurelian.

[Bearingtheword]

Chegnar & Kol's responses both make sense and I suppose in the ultimate sense it doesn't really matter if the demon was truthful, but I wonder if Lorgar is aware of the propensity of warp entities to lie?

 

 

I think Lorgar is coloured by his upbringing. On Colchis, before Lorgar began having his visions of the Emperor as a God that was coming to the planet, he was raised in an ultra religious society that already worshipped the "Big 4" in different guises. So after being let down, betrayed in his eyes, by a being he considered a god, he went in search of the "old" gods and found them. Thanks to his upbringing he already viewed them as gods and with all the things that he witnessed and experienced he embraced them as such. It's no different from any other religious zealot. Their faith is solid, their god(s) don't lie to them, and their way is the only way....

 

Sorry if it's not well worded, battling a massive headache atm, but I think I touched on the basics of my thinking...

 

 

~BtW

[Legatus]

For example, the Imperial Fists. They are defense specialists

The Imperial Fists were not specialised in defensive warfare. They were just very good at it.

[Vesper]

For example, the Imperial Fists. They are defense specialists

The Imperial Fists were not specialised in defensive warfare. They were just very good at it.

 

Agreed. Iron Warriors are the defensive warfare masters. Hence the Iron Cage.

[Legatus]

The Iron Warriors are specialised in siege warfare, which is of course very static. But they excel on both the attacking and the defending side, so it doesn't quite fit to call them "defensive". Though if they arrived on a world that was about to become a massive warzone they would most likely start digging in and fortify the hell out of their beachheads.

[Kol Saresk]

I'd give the Iron Warriors the offensive side of the tactics. Even in the Heresy, they were the ones with the big guns. Meanwhile the Fists were so good at defense they were charged with the building and eventual fortification of the Imperial Palace.

[Artein]

I'd give the Iron Warriors the offensive side of the tactics. Even in the Heresy, they were the ones with the big guns. Meanwhile the Fists were so good at defense they were charged with the building and eventual fortification of the Imperial Palace.

But during the Great Crusade the Iron Warriors were garrisoning planets and defending stuff while Imperial Fists were kinda crusading with Sigismund and all.... It reversed only for the Horus Heresy. I think so....