The Iron Within

[Kol Saresk]

Maybe Honsou is a hero, of sorts. Despite his not being the typical Iron Warrior. Think about it, the Iron Warriors are known for being able to get through all kinds of crap that has been shoved off on them. The fact that someone like Honsou who is polluted by the gene-seed of an enemy(and not just any enemy either) is able to prove himself that he not only becomes a captain in a Grand Company but goes on to become a Warsmith who is the first Traitor Astartes to bring Ultramar to the flame in forever. The guy persevered through things most people wouldn't have been allowed to survive and then went on to exceed all expectations. And the best part? The little terd is still kicking. For an atypical Iron Warrior, he is going farther and doing more than most Warsmiths even glimpse.

 

I mean yeah, there's plenty of reason to hate the guy so I'm not going to say that you have to stop. Just that sometimes there is a forest behind the trees.

[Nehekhare]

he is going farther and doing more than most Warsmiths even glimpse.

That's the point. moral of the story? IF geneseed (which is known for stubbornness) is better than yours (or IW alone, for that matter) -.-

 

i liked Angel exterminatus for it's depiction of Perturabo and the Triarchs. didn't like it for the emphasis on how MUCH everyone was humbled by Phall, the heroism of cassander and the hon-sou- bit. McNeill doesn't seem to be able to write about IW without mentioning at least twice how lacklustre they are compared to IF. but maybe that's his way of keeping the IV fans' hate up and running?

[Kol Saresk]

Actually it would be more of "It's the man who makes the warrior, not the weapon."

 

And yes, i would say that Angel Exterminatus was the "origin" story for the Iron Warriors betrayal although it was seen in flashbacks and explained that their hate for the Imperial Fists wasn't the Emperor picked the Fists over the Warriors to build the palace but more of the fact that every campaign the two Legions did together, the Fists took all of the glory while the Warriors bled and died in the muck and despite that, they kept on going forwards. And in a way, the Iron Warriors were always lackluster. They have no thirst for glory to speak of. They are grim and efficient, putting the biggest bullet in the smallest hole to cause the most damage. They seek only to crush those in front of them. It isn't truly glory they seek, just power and victory and you don't need glory for those.

[Legatus]

With Nicodemus' offer, Dantioch is less a hero, more a traitor to his primarch. that may be of no importance to you if you have no particular interest in IW, of course.

Without Nicodemus, there would not have been a story. The traitor Warsmith would simply have told Dantioch that his Primarch has summoned him, and he would have gone with them. It was only because Nicodemus had informed him about the events that had happened that Dantioch even so much as thought of questioning and then refusing the traitor Warsmith's request.

[KarkassBC]

he is going farther and doing more than most Warsmiths even glimpse.

That's the point. moral of the story? IF geneseed (which is known for stubbornness) is better than yours (or IW alone, for that matter) -.-

 

i liked Angel exterminatus for it's depiction of Perturabo and the Triarchs. didn't like it for the emphasis on how MUCH everyone was humbled by Phall, the heroism of cassander and the hon-sou- bit. McNeill doesn't seem to be able to write about IW without mentioning at least twice how lacklustre they are compared to IF. but maybe that's his way of keeping the IV fans' hate up and running?

 

Sincerely I can't follow in this line. In the lore that I have read IF made worse actions than the IW. First of all the Iron Cage.

A complete disaster for Dorn and also the main reason was his stubborness. So I wouldn't use the idea of his geneseed was better than the IW, but more on the opposite.

 

I think the greatest result made by Hounsou (if he is really a mix IW-IF) came from his knowledge about his past. He belongs to a second rate caste of Iron Warriors and also his geneseed was mixed with the worst enemy of his Legion.

 

Probably he made every possible efforts to win despite his "hated ancestor".

[Kol Saresk]

@Nehekhare: Look at it this way. You are seeing stubbornness and seeing Imperial Fists because of the stuff brought up in Angel Exterminatus by Fabius Bile. But let's look at the IV Legion. Out of all the Legions, they are the only Legion that had to put down their homeworld because it rebelled. They are the only Legion that had to purge its ranks across the breadth and width of the galaxy. They are the only Legion that was constantly being overlooked and trod on by its brothers. It was the Legion that had to face betrayal after Istvaan V, not only from without but from within as well. It was the Legion that went on to breach the walls of the Imperial Palace. It has gone on to do many things. Such as the Iron Cage and leading the Second Black Crusade, which saw the death of Dorn IIRC. When the garrison at Olympia was under siege by the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines, it took two years for a garrison that had no Primarch leading it to be defeated by two Legions, one of which was the largest in the galaxy. There was also the Scouring of Makenna VII in which the Iron Warriors played a role. It was the Warsmith Barban Falk who brought Hydra Cordatus to its knees, not Honsou. There is plenty the Iron Warriors Legion has done. More than some. At least the IV hasn't had one of its characters completely rewritten like the Night Lords did with Periclitor right?

[Legatus]

Not to forget that the siege tactics of Perturabo have been retained in the Codex Astartes...

[Nehekhare]

@Legatus: At the very least, the information came from the iron warriors themselves summoning him. Dantioc wouldn't have chosen otherwise without the UM and he wouldn't have been less prepared knowing who was tasked to get him - or he wouldn't have been the one he is.

 

@karkassbc: worse choice often lead to more odds to be faced, thus more heroism. i don't think IF are better, just that they are described as better (which i critizise and which is what Perturabo himself critizised).

 

@kol: i don't know the NL story and yes, there is much the IW have achieved - without taking due credit for it! The IW are visionaries and master architects, gifted with an instinctive knowledge of stone, metal, gravity and the mechanics and mathematics governing them. Perturabos "gift" of always seeing the eye of terror (the weak point of the galaxy, featuring a massive black hole) IMO is a consequence of his ability to discern the structural integrity of everything, allowing him to apply the perfect amount of force to unhinge it. This nature of genius being denied, wasted and used as a battering ram was what alienated him from the emperor, the shame of the olympian rebellion (not only of the genocide, but of the rebellion itself being possible in the first place, thus needing to be wiped out not to loose face) marking a point of no return.

 

need to read siege of castellax.

[Kol Saresk]

The NL story is that there was a daemon prince called Periclitor. He was first introduced in the 3.5 Codex with no clear allegiance to any Legion. During. The EoT campaign, there was an event card that never got played that had him as a Night Lord. When Forgeworld came out with the Badab War IA volumes, Periclitor became a Word Bearer, and I'm paraphrasing Forgeworld's response here, Periclitor killed several Ecclesiarchy members and assassinated a Chapter Master of the Howling Griffons so he was most obviously a Word Bearer and anyone who thought otherwise was either wrong or misinterpreted the information.

[Wade Garrett]

Maybe Honsou is a hero, of sorts.

 

The daemonculaba. No. He. Is. Not.

[Kol Saresk]

Maybe Honsou is a hero, of sorts.

 

The daemonculaba. No. He. Is. Not.

A hero for the IV Legion.

[daveNYC]

spu00sed: You do recall that the surface of the planet was so inhospitable that even Titans had a hard time on it? Mining the entrances would have been rather hard. Maybe further in the cave but there's no guarantee that you got all of the entrances since they weren't able to properly view the surface of the world.

 

Also, ignoring it was out of the question. The other Warsmith was there specifically to either claim the garrison in the name of the Iron Warriors, or to destroy it. Never leave an enemy at your back who can pick up a sword when you have the oppurtunity to kill them.

 

WWII's island hopping campaign in the Pacific is a very good example of not running around and wasting resources trying to kill or capture every single enemy asset. The IW should have just blasted any space assets, bombarded the planet for a while and just rolled on. Instead they wasted thousands of marines and a few titans on a fortress that couldn't even control the local orbital space.

[Kol Saresk]

In the situation in question, they couldn't. Their orders were to bring Dantioch back, either dead or alive. There were no space assets and since the fortress was built inside the planet to avoid the hazardous surface environment, bombing the surface would have been completely pointless.

[daveNYC]

In the situation in question, they couldn't. Their orders were to bring Dantioch back, either dead or alive. There were no space assets and since the fortress was built inside the planet to avoid the hazardous surface environment, bombing the surface would have been completely pointless.

 

In any other setting being located a few KM below the surface would be an issue, but in 40k (and 30k) more dakka solves everything. Or you just make a command decision that it's not worth the resources to take him out. Perturabo does seem to have a bit of Darth Vader's employee relations skills, but by any measure the campaign to take the fortress was a total waste.

[Wade Garrett]

It is possible to come up with reasons why Dantioch's garrison needed to be winkled out of its giddy hole that don't revolve around Krendle and his Primarch being Saturday Morning Cartoon Bad Guys.

The story specifically states that the Schaedenhold and the IV garrisons like it were built to watch over the systems conquered in the Great Crusade. If we apply anything like sane military planning to this picture (not always a wise in 40k, admittedly) it becomes easy to imagine these garrisons as listening posts and communication centers, probably with sophisticated equipment to keep track of what's going on in the systems around them.

 

It has to be neutralized, not just to soothe Perturabo's pride, but because leaving a hostile intelligence gathering center at one's flank is a spectacularly bad idea. As to why, if they're a listening post, they haven't heard of the Heresy yet...Warp Storms rendering all forms of long range

communication unstable after Isstvan, remember.

 

This theory could also account for Dantioch's line about worlds being

destroyed by what is probably the hrud, something he wouldn't be

aware of if the Schaedenhold, where he's been stationed ever since his

disgrace, is just a hole in the ground without powerful auspex and astropaths.

[Lupe]

It is possible to come up with reasons why Dantioch's garrison needed to be winkled out of its giddy hole that don't revolve around Krendle and his Primarch being Saturday Morning Cartoon Bad Guys.

 

Yes. For one, we're not told anything about Greater Damantyne, or any of the surrounding worlds around the garrison. Perhaps these worlds are important manufactories, research stations, rare resource suppliers, etc.

Maybe fortress was established on LD specifically so it would be able to maintain control on multiple nearby worlds of great importance, without actually interfering with the activities of any single one. If that were the case, and several high value worlds could be kept on a tight leash from there, the traitors would actually want to maintain the fortress and continue using it to its current purpose, under a new master.

 

The story specifically states that the Schaedenhold and the IV garrisons like it were built to watch over the systems conquered in the Great Crusade. If we apply anything like sane military planning to this picture (not always a wise in 40k, admittedly) it becomes easy to imagine these garrisons as listening posts and communication centers, probably with sophisticated equipment to keep track of what's going on in the systems around them.

 

Remember that this is civil war, so paranoia would be rife, and information would be tightly guarded. There's certainly a shadow war going on in the field of intelligence (as Liar's Due in the same anthology clearly shows). A lot of information concerning the actual development of the Heresy might be suppressed by both sides. If you're not actively looking for signs of information being removed, a listening post wouldn't be that useful anyway.

 

It has to be neutralized, not just to soothe Perturabo's pride, but because leaving a hostile intelligence gathering center at one's flank is a spectacularly bad idea. As to why, if they're a listening post, they haven't heard of the Heresy yet...Warp Storms rendering all forms of long range communication unstable after Isstvan, remember.

 

Possibly the same artificial Warp Storms created by Erebus and other sorcerers to keep the loyalist legions in the dark. Although I assume these warp storms would have been localized around major loyalist worlds, which means Lesser Damatyne needs to be within a short distance of Ultramar (which would also explain how a Tetrarch reaches the garrison).

 

This theory could also account for Dantioch's line about worlds being destroyed by what is probably the hrud, something he wouldn't be aware of if the Schaedenhold, where he's been stationed ever since his disgrace, is just a hole in the ground without powerful auspex and astropaths.

 

Wasn't that less of a theory and more of a memory, since Dantioch himself had led a campaign against the Hrud (possibly the same campaign where he's earned his disgrace?)