The "best" siege warfare specialists: IF vs IW

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Right and Wrong has and will always be written from the PoV of the winner... You say he was weak because he broke his vows and rebelled?

Is that also how you see your Founding Fathers' character? They went all poopy-faced about how the nasty brits were treating their brothers instead of sucking it up like big guys would have?

Betraying your father as compared to betraying a regime who does nothing but take is not the same thing at all. Uniting all of humanity was the emperors goal, the imperium in its original form would have been glorious after the crusade ha the Horus heresy not happened.

 

And besides what oaths did the colonials make to the Brits? I have never heard that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin or Revere ever were agents of the king and had sworn oaths of loyalty to him.

 

John Adams was a Massachusetts Council Member and a recognized member as a practicing lawyer, who actually defended the guys soldiers who got attack by the mob during the Boston Massacre. George Washington was a commissioned officer, swore oaths to the crown and all that. 

 

The AR is as poor a comparison to the Horus Heresy as Occupy Wall Street is to the Red Revolution. Not even apples and oranges, more like apples and hamburger. Or apples and iron. 

[Wade Garrett]

[ The emperor had a grand vision, but human nature will always win and there will be haves and have nots.

The Emperor's grand vision?

Ein fueher, ein volk, ein reich, no more, no less.

The same subjugation or destruction ultimatum offered by Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Attila or a thousand other warlords, carried out on a galactic scale. The Horus Heresy novels have shown us dozens of functioning cultures that didn't need to crush their citizens into dystopian ghettos like Terra became. The reason they aren't around anymore is that the "lesser evil" eradicated them from existence for the audacity of refusing to accept his boot on their neck.

 

The Heresy is him reaping what he sowed.

[Marshal Rohr]

As an aside. No one gives a :cuss about liberty in 40K best not try to apply it for the discussion. Its like a marxist and a realist talking about power. 

[Kol Saresk]

How did Angron put it? "You're only free as long as you obey the laws of those above you?" Yeah, that pretty much sums up the entire universe.

[Wade Garrett]

As an aside. No one gives a :cuss about liberty in 40K best not try to apply it for the discussion. Its like a marxist and a realist talking about power. 

Well, those deluded planets that try to secede from the Imperium do, it's just that they always turn out to be pawns for Chaos, the Eldar, the Tau, or occasionally Tyranid genestealers.

[Kol Saresk]

A slave in the forces of Chaos has just as much of a chance to become a daemon prince as even the most vaunted of Chaos Space Marines. What is liberty but the will and power to shape one's own destiny?

[Hyaenidae]

A Night Lord and a Word Bearer discussiong the finer points of ideology, faith, freedom and liberty.

 

This is how the world ends, ladies and gents.

[Emperor's Furor]

There's only so much you can do before freedom turns into anarchy,

[Marshal Rohr]

That's like saying a Chinese worker in the iPhone factory might one day run apple. Wealth/Power doesn't accumulate in one life time often.

 

There's only so much you can do before freedom turns into anarchy,

Anarchy isn't a bad thing. Chaos is a bad thing. The two are not the same thing.

[DarkGuard]

This current conversation bears no resemblance to the topic and the OP. Back on topic now gentleman, or risk posts being removed.

[jeremy1391]

Another reason the imperial fists were probably chosen is because the marines of the legion were more likable I mean Sigusmund, Siegfried, and Pollux were much more likable than say Kroeger, Forrix and Barban Falk.... Think about it from a propoganda standpoint, Champions of humanity resplendent knights of honor and virtue as opposed to the col demeanor of the iron warriors. Don't get me wrong they are one of my favorite legions but to Joe Imperial it will be easier to idolize an imperial fist than an iron warrior.

[Kol Saresk]

Maybe. But IIRC The Outcast Dead correctly, the purpose of the Crusader Host was to be the propaganda machine and it had at least one World Eater who had the Nails implant in it. No offense to the World Eaters, but if you're willing to have someone like that right on your front door, then you can't exactly be too concerned with having a loveable appearance.

 

Counter-proposal: Cormac and I were sort of discussing it in the Terran Salamanders thread I believe. Or it was something about recruiting Terrans even after the Primarchs were found. Anyway, one of Cormac's proposals were that maybe there were sector defense fleets that had Astartes contingents. What if that's why the Imperial Fists were pulled back?

 

I mean, we know that at one time, that role belonged to the War Hounds. They were the "Reserve Legion"(kind of weird when you have at least three other Legions suffering from disasters, but hey). Not only that, but the Imperial Fists didn't have any kind of true specialty. As Legatus pointed out way back when, accordin to the IA article, their specialty in siege defense was just a happy coincidence from their knack in urban warfare. But when 17 other Legions have no problems fighting in cities, urban warfare doesn't exactly account for much. So what if they were actually pulled back to Terra to serve as the second "Reserve Legion" because the other Legions "had more to contribute" and they were given the building of the Palace as a consolation prize? I know this relies on the Emperor being rather calloused, but we have more than enough evidence to prove he was.

[calgar101]

That is exactly why they were recalled was it not? To act as a strategic reserve. The War Hounds were not so much a reserve legion as more a Brutal Assault force ( recruits specifically chosen if they showed high aggression levels..) and were directed at certain targets.

[jeremy1391]

The fists may have been a strategic reserve but to quote magneto from the third x men movie "the pawns go first" ;)

[Kol Saresk]

That is exactly why they were recalled was it not? To act as a strategic reserve. The War Hounds were not so much a reserve legion as more a Brutal Assault force ( recruits specifically chosen if they showed high aggression levels..) and were directed at certain targets.

Not so originally. Originally they would be deployed in bits and pieces to reinforce campaigns as they were needed to. It wasn't until the Cerberus installation that they started becoming a Javelin missile.

@Jeremy:True, but depending on how you play chess, the pawn can be the most dangerous piece on the board. Just saying

[calgar101]

Ahhh in their early days yeah. The Fists were recalled around Ullanor right?

[Kol Saresk]

Yes, IIRC the "official" reason was so they could build and "fortify" the Imperial Palace. Although that in itself raises a different question.

[calgar101]

I would have thought the Palace would have begun to have been fortified as soon as Earth was under Imperial rule or maybe it was just not to a great extent. I can see the need for a legion to be placed in to strategic reserve though although I'd have changed the legion placed in reserve after a certain time length.

[Kol Saresk]

Well, IIRC it wasn't built yet, notuntil after Ullanor. The entire Himalayas were flattened just to make room I believe. And true enough. Although two years isn't exactly a long time for an Astartes though.

[calgar101]

An impressive engineering project, I just don't get the time scale; waiting nearly 200 years seems a bit strange to me. I'd have rotated the legions ever 7 years or so, as well as making sure that the legion held in reserve gets to keep combat fresh it also allows time for the reserve legion to rebuild any lost strength. Also since it could take a year or so for the legion to actually regroup and arrive at Terra, having only 2 years of 'guard' duty would make that effort sort of pointless. Although you'd still have the reserve legion operate but in a limited capacity.

[Conn Eremon]

The Palace had been built when Terra was unified under the Emperor. The Fists were called back to fortify it. Which I think was their true purpose, however not because of an external threat. The Emperor returned to Terra to, secretly, work on the Webway Gate. The Fists were ordered to return and fortify the Palace, which happens to be over the Gate, with the same breath. I think the two were connected. The Heresy, however, changed things. Created an external threat.

 

However, it does make sense that the less need there was for eighteen Legions at the front, some might have been pulled back into reserve. It might even have been the first steps of their retirement.

[GhostMalone]

I like to think of the palace not just as a fortress to keep people out but to be a prison to keep something in :)

[Spinsanity]

I like to think of the palace not just as a fortress to keep people out but to be a prison to keep something in

Ah, that would actually make sense, since I otherwise couldn't see why the Emperor, after all these years, finally decided "hey, I think I should fortify our homeworld here on Earth, who knows when someone might come barging in with deadly intent" when every xenos race out there is clearly outmatched by the Imperial war machine...

So the fortification of the palace could be assumed to have taken place because he was working into breaching the Webway (or activating/controling a Webway portal already present on Terra) ? That's an interesting idea, so the IF would have ended up being the equivalent of the WE in the alternate Guilliman Heresy (I'm not mixing up my heresies here, am I?) ?

[GhostMalone]

I also believe the emperor foresaw the heresy as a possible outcome so in a worst case scenario idea called the fists back.

 

At the end of visions of heresy he talks that he saw many outcomes and that his injuries weren't as bad as he could have had.

 

To me it's almost like he just couldn't discern which future would play out

[Kol Saresk]

The Palace had been built when Terra was unified under the Emperor. The Fists were called back to fortify it. Which I think was their true purpose, however not because of an external threat. The Emperor returned to Terra to, secretly, work on the Webway Gate. The Fists were ordered to return and fortify the Palace, which happens to be over the Gate, with the same breath. I think the two were connected. The Heresy, however, changed things. Created an external threat.

 

However, it does make sense that the less need there was for eighteen Legions at the front, some might have been pulled back into reserve. It might even have been the first steps of their retirement.

Huh. It just seems weird that if they were already fortifying the palace, that build crews designing hallways and galleries would have to change gear and tear down so much just to build fortifications that should have already been built. I'm using what I remember of the short story, Blood Games, I think it was called. I admit, I am relying on Memory, on of the most fickle of mistresses so I can very easily be wrong.