Traitor route to Terra

[Ratboy1664]

After Isstvaan which route did the traitors travel to Terra? Did the loyalists try to stop them anywhere or just wait for them to turn up at the Emperors Palace? Is there a list of planets where action took place?

 

Much love

 

Ratboy

[Týr]

I believe they mostly went to the left. Maybe a little to the right.

Other than that i'm not certain

[Kol Saresk]

Well, the Night Lords went to the Eastern Fringe and the Word Bearers and World Eaters were last seen leaving Ultramar. Oh and the Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors were last around the Eye of Terror. That's all I can remember off the top of my head but looks like the Traitors are take a sort of "Hive Fleet Leviathan Route" by moving in Terra's general direction while conquering vast swathes of territory while consolidating it.

[Ratboy1664]

Did the loyalists make a big stand anywhere?

[Raven Angel]

From what I have put together after Istvaan V Horus seams to have tried to deal with the other loyal legions at large. Logar and Angron where sent to deal with the Ultramarines, Kurze was sent to stop the Lion. The Blood Angels where suppose to turn and join him and I think he is trying to recruit the White Scars as well. The Raven Guard, Salamanders, and Iron hands are all but destroyed and so don't really factor into his plans at this stage.  Only the Wolves are completely incommunicado right now and we know at some point Horus gives Alpha Legion the job of dealing with them. It will only be after the Loyal Legions have been hurt or delayed as much as possible will Horus move to take Terra.

[Vesper]

Did the loyalists make a big stand anywhere?

Istvaan V and Terra are the main battles of the Heresy.

Then, depends what you mean by "big stand".

[Legionator]

 

Did the loyalists make a big stand anywhere?

Istvaan V and Terra are the main battles of the Heresy.

Then, depends what you mean by "big stand".

Battle of Calth, Signus Prime, Tallarn were major victories for the true sons of the Emperor. These battles (also some low intensity conflicts like the Thramas Crusade) can be considered as big stands.

[A D-B]

Did the loyalists make a big stand anywhere?

 

Mhm, but very few have been shown yet. Think of it in terms of Warhammer 40,000 as an analogue to war in the Ancient World, as well as World Wars I and II, with naval combat being reminiscent of the Age of Sail. That's Warhammer, rather than any notion of modern warfare or traditional science-fiction. That's not a definitive statement, but it's a good foundation. F'rex, the Allies didn't just march on Berlin. They'd have loved to, absolutely, but it took a lot of bombing first, and the overland armies having to physically walk/drive there, through war-torn Europe, with plenty of trench moments and massive battles on the way. Think of something like the D-Day Landings, only in 40K. Think of whole worlds that are rebelling or staying loyal, while the Imperium and the Traitors fight it out over that world's armies and resources, or simply to deny them to the other side. 

 

That's the stuff we've not seen yet, because the Heresy overview in the old lore was always so brief. The seven years of open warfare involve half the Imperium's worlds catching fire, and the Traitors needing to fight their way there.

[[TA]Typher]

They took a right turn at albuquerque

[Veteran Sergeant]

I don't think we know the answer to this question, to be honest. The Black Library is completely rewriting the Horus Heresy, and nothing from the current series is compatible with the "original" (or just older) fluff.

 

So it was originally a beeline. Horus knew he had a limited amount of time to take out Terra. The Ultramarines were way off on the Eastern Fringe and too far away to intervene. That took care of the biggest Loyalist force (the Battle of Calth originally took place after the Heresy). The Sallys, RG and Iron Hands had been neutralized, and effectively destroyed. The Dark Angels were fighting themselves. So Horus and company were trying to get to Earf and eliminate the Emperor while they had the upper hand. Battle of Terra happens. Big Terran moshpit, Horus dies, the end. Ultramarines, Space Wolves and Dark Angels show up just after it ends so the Battle of Terra is the seven traitor Legions versus Fists, Scars, and Blood Angels. In the meantime, apparently the whole galaxy went crazy, scattered traitor forces make trouble, The Scouring happens. But, keep in mind, the Scouring took 7 years, the Crusade took 200. So the forces of Chaos didn't cause too much trouble.

 

The current fluff, which is designed to sell as many books as possible, has the traitor forces doing all kinds of bizarre and nonsensical things as they wander in big squiggly lines all across the galaxy instead of just going to Terra like they probably should. They're up 8 Legions to 6, the Space Wolves are probably badly mauled their frontal assault on the 2KSons, the Dark Angels are still fighting themselves (eventually. I guess Dark Angels books don't sell because they haven't made many recently) and the Ultramarines' fleet was crippled. So technically they are up 7.5 to 3 since all they've lost is about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the Word Bearers, who were the most expendable of the traitor legions anyway from all appearances.

 

Well, I'll addend that. After Betrayer, they've probably lost a significant percentage of the World Eaters too, lol. All the more argument they probably should stop dilly dallying and get to Terra. 

[Ratboy1664]

@A D-B: I understand that but to use a WW2 analogy, how can you have a battle of Midway if you never leave Pearl Harbour? At the moment the greatest military minds in the Imperium have come up with build a bigger wall on Terra and wait for Horus to rock up. The Imperium's best military assets the space marines are either in varying degrees of limited capability or are heading back to Terra. THIS should be ret-conned with the Imperium trying to halt the traitor advances, eventually falling back to Terra to set up a big Stalingrad esque siege. Just my thoughts, 

 

much love,

 Ratboy

[Leonaides]

Stop them where??? There are no stop-lines when your opponent can simply fly thru the warp straight past your expensive and now completely pointless defences that you've just wasted time and manpower on and all the troops stationed there are out of position and of absolutely no use to you any more. In order to cover ALL the potential strike routes, the loyalist marines would have been to spread out to actually stop any significant traitor forces using ANY of them, so they chose the only viable option left - defend the target.

 

The BA's are, i recall, noted as being the Emperors Blade when the IF's are recalled to Terra to fortify the palace, running interference on the Traitors and trying to deny them wherever they can. However, that was only ever going to be a delaying action to buy the IF's more time to prepare for the siege which everyone knew was coming...

[Balthamal]

Bear in mind Know No Fear where it's stated that Erebus' Ruinstorm would render large chunks of the Imperium impassable to space travel for centuries. That puts the loyalists on an immediate back footing. Yes it's likely the traitor legions would have a nice easy pass through that but as ADB says, you can't just pick a target and rock up with the entirety of your forces. If all 9 Traitor Legions had made the run straight to Terra, they'd still have had to face down the Fists, Scars and Blood Angels. Plus the potential of the Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Ultramarines following them along with the remnants of the three "broken" legions. It might sound believable but actual war would never play out that way imo

[Haranin]

DA conflict didn't start until after the siege of Terra. The bulk of the legion was fighting in the Thramis Crusade, then unknown, then relieving the siege of Terra. The conflict between the lion and luther was post Terra.

[Kol Saresk]

It depends on how you define "major battles" in all honesty. If you mean a battle that changes the outcome of the war, there are probably a few but they were left out of the IA articles. But they were most likely either Traitor victories or blockade runs by the Dark Angels, Space Wolves and/or Ultramarines trying to get to Terra.

 

If you just mean a battle that involves a serious number of Traitors vs Loyalists, I'd imagine so. The Astartes aren't the only ones to turn Traitor and nothing said the entirety of the Traitor Legions went to Terra, only a big enough portion to say "Legion A went there." So you could easily have a Word Bearers Chapter garrison fight a roaming Blood Angels Chapter. Or an Emperor's Children Millenial run into a Space Wolves' Great Company and so on so forth. You could even have another Istvaan III scenario somewhere else like the battle in Iron Within. The list can go on.

[oddball570]

DA conflict didn't start until after the siege of Terra. The bulk of the legion was fighting in the Thramis Crusade, then unknown, then relieving the siege of Terra. The conflict between the lion and luther was post Terra.

 

I was going to say, I thought the Dark angels spent most of their time in the Thramas Crusade with the Night Lords.  There was a recent book full of short stories that seemed to end this conflict, and not to give too many spoilers ended it in a way in which the Lion seemingly could have been back to Terra in a very timely fashion.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Stop them where??? There are no stop-lines when your opponent can simply fly thru the warp straight past your expensive and now completely pointless defences that you've just wasted time and manpower on and all the troops stationed there are out of position and of absolutely no use to you any more. In order to cover ALL the potential strike routes, the loyalist marines would have been to spread out to actually stop any significant traitor forces using ANY of them, so they chose the only viable option left - defend the target.

This is the biggest takeaway. Combat in a universe where there is the possibility of extra-dimensional travel is going to be non-linear. There's two possible reasons why the old fluff makes the Heresy so brief. 1: They understood this concept. 2: They just didn't think much about it and the Heresy fluff was deliberately vague and incomplete because it was just a framework for a game of plastic and metal toy soldiers.

 

We'll roll with "1" for the sake of discussion.

 

Heading more or less directly to Terra made sense because ultimately, the Imperium is constructed around a single figurehead, the Emperor. Taking out the Emprah is the single most important goal for Horus (well, the Chaos Gods pulling his strings at least). Ultimately, that pitches the Imperium of Man into an unrecoverable downward spiral and Chaos would be able to run rampant. Horus wouldn't know that, obviously. Horus would have perceived taking out the Emprah as the first part of a multi-step plan to take control of the Imperium militarily. Destroy Unicron, Kill the Grand poobah, Eliminate even the toughest stains. Wait, no. Kill the Emprah, eliminate the three Legions protecting Terra, consolidate your position, and then eliminate the remaining three loyalist Legions, profit.

 

It's a gamble since a frontal assault on Terra was going to be brutal despite the numerical advantage, but ultimately the lynchpin for the Imperium is the Emperor.

[Kol Saresk]

True, you can just bypass defences in such a manner. However, if you win, your army is worn, tired and in one place while there is a fresh army standing right at your back. That's why there's so much push towards a consolidation effort. Otherwise Horus could have gone straight from Istvaan III to Terra, not worry about the Dropsite Massacre and completely obliterate Dorn before the defenses were even complete. But then he'd have most of the Imperium left to fight.

[A D-B]

True, you can just bypass defences in such a manner. However, if you win, your army is worn, tired and in one place while there is a fresh army standing right at your back. That's why there's so much push towards a consolidation effort. Otherwise Horus could have gone straight from Istvaan III to Terra, not worry about the Dropsite Massacre and completely obliterate Dorn before the defenses were even complete. But then he'd have most of the Imperium left to fight.

 

That's one of the principal problems, yeah. It takes several years to get to Terra at the best of times. Once the Emperor's dead, you then have a million worlds intensely annoyed with you - worlds that you should've conquered; Primarch brothers that are now furious with you and whose Legions weren't destroyed; and the fact that you needed half the galaxy's forces to take Terra - now you have the entire galaxy's forces, which outgun you by about a billion times, coming right for you. 

 

The reason it's not a race to Terra is because it's a war of liberation, conquest, and raising armies as you go. It's a war of ideologies as well as two kings wanting to tip the other guy over.

 

And several years of Warp flight isn't just something you can do. Entire fleets will go missing, and need time to catch up or reappear. Coordination in 40K is an absolute beast. There is no "just running to Terra", that's not how the setting works. Warp flight for three years costs time, power, fuel. Stopping to resupply. Stopping to wait for fleets to recombine. Stopping to prepare logistics before the last push. And so on.

[No Foes Remain]

I would go so far to say that the Warp and the time-distortion effects it has due to traveling in it would be a large factor as well. If Horus were to take all eight Legions to Terra, their arival would probably be scattered by several hours, allowing Dorn and the ships defending the system as well as the Imperial Fists own ships to eliminate those ships as they arrive before they could become a unified force. That and some ships may even be lost to the Warp, which would further damage Horus' force.

 

 

 

Also, A D-B when you explained the effects on the Warp in Soul Hunter (when Septimus was explaining how only a century had passed for the Covenant of Blood since the Siege of Terra to Octavia) you gave me a headache trying to understand it and get my head around it. Good work, as thats what explaining the Warp should do.