If Horus could have chosen the legions that sided with him..

[daveNYC]

On the World Eaters/BA, specifically Signus Prime, Erebus wants to turn the Angel, Lorgar thinks it's useless and Horus turns the mission into one of assassination since he fears the Angel's charisma and abilites would make him the new Warmaster of Chaos.

.

 

Lorgar knows it's useless.  It seems that Lorgar is plugged in to the highest quality futurecast that the Warp can provide.  However, unlike Erebus, who also seems to be getting the same feed, Lorgar actually knows the people whose possible futures he's viewing so he's able to apply that knowledge and his general Primach awesomeness to ignore futures that the Warp throws out as probabilities, but he can intuit won't happen.  Interesting conundrum, on the one hand,  Lorgar seems to truly care about humanity and his brothers, on the other hand, he has a funny way of showing it.

 

I think you'd definitely want AL on your side (in as much as you can figure out what side they're on), as opposed to being against you.  Same for the Sons.  AL have the best spy network, and have demonstrated their ability to infiltrate basically every institution except the custodes.  You'd want them on your side just because having them not on your side massively increases the odds that you'll be found out ahead of time, and actions like the Drop Site Massacre won't work.  Similar thing for the Sons, even flaky precognition would have been a heck of a crimp in Horus' game plan.

[Kol Saresk]

Actually it was Lorgar taking what he knows and then comparing it to the likely futures to see if they are possible or not. As he said, Sanguinius' greatest weakness, the mutation, was also what ensured his loyalty to the Emperor because it made him feel inadequate, and therefore had to prove himself.

 

Erebus believed that with enough coordination, any of the futures can be brought to the fore. What he didn't realize was that he was a few decades late on laying the brickwork for more than a few futures.

 

That and Erebus only saw Ten Thousand. No one ever said those Ten Thousand were not lies. Lorgar saw all of the potential futures, the lies and the truths. And he was smart enough to figure out which were which when Erebus thought they could all come true.

[Greyall]

Exactly, Lorgar, apart from having taking +1 in badasseness, has learned how to use his talents for seeing through people for something else other than telling them uncomfortable truths and almost getting kicked in the chin. He now uses it to manipulate said people without announcing it. Also for noticing when one of his brothers has been replaced with a daemon and exorcizing him via morning-star to the brain. It's no big deal for him, then, to see Sanguinius is an adamantium-sheathed papa's boy who is forced to deal with very delicate subjects like his sons' bloodthirst and another, more discreet one - WINGS!

 

A much better way to deal with Sanguinius would've been to tell on him to the Emperor before The Man knew about the Heresy. But since Erebus has to do his 100 kisses to the divine butts every morning, a stupid plan is hatched. Now Horus has to deal with a pissed-off angel who'll probably open his armour to the Emperor's Widowmaker Bolt (sounds awesome, so dibs on the copyright).

 

Horus' musings about wanting different friends to play 'Murder' with sounds a lot like the last sane man thinking about his crazy party. Except he's already crazy, as well (I don't think he truly acknowledges the Chaos Gods' influence). Part of what helped him break was having to deal with his brothers' jealousy and tempers. And does he do? Turn against the most level-headed ones. Of course he ended up with the loonies, the others were too pissed-off since Horus was seen as the sane bridge between them and said loonies. Now he's the last sane man...a cool-headed lead - let me just skin this guy's face off, there you go - as I was saying, the last...

[Wade Garrett]

Pull back the World Eaters, Kol? Can you see where the flaw in this plan is?

 

If you slot the World Eaters in as a loyal Legion at the dropsite, you're pretty much guaranteeing Angron goes the way of Ferrous Manus. "Victory or death!" may be the Raven Guard warcry, but to the Eater of Worlds its a way of life.

 

I think that if Horus could have, he'd dump the World Eaters, Night Lords, and Alpha Legion for any three loyalists you can name.

 

Not because those three are weak, but because they're almost impossible to control. It's hard to run a war when a third of your own troops are likely to run off and do their own thing.

 

Now, how long a Legion like the Ultras or Ravens would keep being team players once Chaos got their hooks into them (see Emperor's Children) is a good question.

[Kol Saresk]

No, not really. If the World Eaters can restrain themselves to the point that the fleet above can launch a danger close orbital strike on at least one earlier occasion, then they can do it again. And out of all the Legions, they are the most willing to do such dangerous, illogical, irrational and insane tactics.

[Greyall]

The World Eaters don't seem too capable of restraining themselves, though. Betrayer makes it clear that the minute they spot the enemy, they begin to charge, the nails gradually taking over.

 

They're still immensely useful. Angron is actually very ok with following orders. And while the Eaters have a tendency to go all Buzz Killington on the battlefield, they can be trusted to deploy at the right one - even when it wasn't asked of them, so they do more than their share. And, like Kol said, they'll go on any mission, since the outcome is death and that's only slightly worse than tea with Angron.

 

Plus, once they're up close, few Marines can stand up to them.

[Kol Saresk]

True, they are hard to control. But like I said, there is one example of them performing a similar maneuver. If they can do it once and work, no reason they can't do it again.

 

But I digress. The moral of the story is that Horus would rather fight with thee Legions than against them because these are the insane Legions. Fighting them isn't fighting against just unpredictable foes, but foes that would do things that wouldn't make sense. That innocent world over there that originally turned Traitor because Horus threatened it with the World Eaters? Now, the loyalist Night Lords aren't giving it a chance. An entire mining world has just been devastated by several barrages of orbital bombardments and no it will not supply valuable fuel and metal resources to either side of the war. Istvaan V? Forget about it being an organized massacre. That requires organized foes. The World Eaters and Night Lords almost specialize in being disorganized. And the Alpha Legion? They're too organized.

 

The Emperor's Children might fall into something like Istvaan V. But if they have their wits about them, they might be able to recognize the easy orbital battle and that the Traitors only pull back when the "Loyalist" reinforcements have finished setting up and begin to "relieve" the first wave. Might not do them much good, but they'll probably have a more coherent response than the others.

[Greyall]

Isstvan is too horrifying to be preventable or even made less of a massacre by anyone not crazy or paranoid. Which, yeah, does add up a bit in the case of the Emperor's Children.

 

None of the so-called "unpredictable" seem to be doing that badly. The World Eaters ravaged the Ultramarines empire. Same for the Word Bearers, though they keep a lot of hidden agendas. But Lorgar's as commited as they come. The Night Lords only lost the Thramas crusade because of the goddamned thingamagig the Lion found. Perturabo is in a good mental spot, getting fiercer by the day. Fulgrim is the only truly unreliable one, he'll actively destroy the traitor's cohesion if it means a new scale for his tail. The Alphas are extremely efficient. Sure they're very obscure, but they sow confusion and that's an invaluable asset. They contribute to the Ravens' fall, if I recall. Mortarion is a great soldier and probably the best ally Horus has, also one of the few to remain the Warmaster's brother, along with Perturabo.

 

Unpredictability is awesome. No one sees it coming, which in wartime means no one sees anything else.

[DuskRaider]

I'd have to agree, having the World Eaters and Night Lords as allies is something Horus would have been ill-advised to decline. The ironic part is, if it weren't for Dorn, the Night Lords WOULD have been Loyal. That was definitely a mistake that would come back to bite him. Also, as much as the Alpha Legion are hard to read and keep under your microscope, they're the only Legion that can, will, and has actively infiltrated not only other Legions, but the Imperial Army, the Administratum, and eventually even the Inquisition. I'm even convinced that in the current timeline, AT LEAST one High Lord is an Alpha Legion operative / sleeper agent / Alpharius.

[Gree]

So assuming that Horus could have hypothetical his pick of any Legion?

 

I'd say the following-

 

Ultramarines

Word Bearers

Iron Warriors

Blood Angels

Raven Guard

Space Wolves

White Scars

Thousand Sons

 

All in addition to the Sons of Horus.

 

The Ultramarines and the Word Bearers as the largest legions are par for course, especially with Guilliman's large empire backing up Horus's war efforts. Horus also apparently wanted the Raven Guard and White Scars if able. The Space Wolves and Thousand Sons were apparently a winning combination going by Prospero Burns. Iron Warriors as the siege guys are a given.

 

After reading Betrayer, I'm not really sure why anyone would willingly pick the World Eaters, given how uncontrollable and tactically insane they are. And that's not insane in a good way, for example, Angron ruining Horus's battle plan at Istvaan III for example.

 

Fortunately we have the Blood Angels, who are like the World Eaters...except better overall. Plus having Sanguinius as Horus's side will probably help in terms of legitimacy, since evidently everybody liked Sanguinus.

[Kol Saresk]

Isstvan is too horrifying to be preventable or even made less of a massacre by anyone not crazy or paranoid. Which, yeah, does add up a bit in the case of the Emperor's Children.

None of the so-called "unpredictable" seem to be doing that badly. The World Eaters ravaged the Ultramarines empire. Same for the Word Bearers, though they keep a lot of hidden agendas. But Lorgar's as commited as they come. The Night Lords only lost the Thramas crusade because of the goddamned thingamagig the Lion found. Perturabo is in a good mental spot, getting fiercer by the day. Fulgrim is the only truly unreliable one, he'll actively destroy the traitor's cohesion if it means a new scale for his tail. The Alphas are extremely efficient. Sure they're very obscure, but they sow confusion and that's an invaluable asset. They contribute to the Ravens' fall, if I recall. Mortarion is a great soldier and probably the best ally Horus has, also one of the few to remain the Warmaster's brother, along with Perturabo.

Unpredictability is awesome. No one sees it coming, which in wartime means no one sees anything else.

Yeah, but compare the Traitors to the Loyalists. The Traitors are heavily organized. Meanwhile, the Loyalists are just... everywhere. There is no coordination or organization. Imagine if the World Eaters and Night Lords suddenly found themselves with no boss higher than their Primarch. Up to the Heresy, these Legions actually had some(relatively speaking) control. And even in the Heresy, I'll bet money that Horus is keeping a tight leash on those same Legions. Or at least as tight as possible. Notice how both were sent to the places where there are no Traitor-aligned planets.

DuskRaider, why would they want a High Lord? Rather, it will be his(or hers) consort-on-the-side they'll infiltrate as well as his closest advisors. They need not the King when they have his Queen and Bishops.

[Wade Garrett]

Being unpredictable to the enemy is awesome in warfare. Not being able to predict your own subordinates, on the other hand...picture it. Horus wants to pull off a double envelopement, with his Legion going up the middle while the Night Lords and World Eaters come in from the left and right.

 

 

Except the World Eaters are already going up the middle, the Night Lords are scattered all over the warzone looting the dead and torturing the wounded, and then he realizes he isn't talking to Abaddon and Little Horus, he's talking to members of the Alpha Legion.

 

No wonder the Cabal was sure a victorious Horus would flip out and kill everybody.

[Greyall]

Horus doesn't see it that way, Gree, no matter how sound it is. He thinks Sanguinius will become Chaos' favourite champion.

 

Also, the Angels are only better in their current state. After Sanguinius was rendered unconscious on Signus, they went on a spree that was about to spiral into a Last Man Standing bloodbath - and saw a squad of Space Wolves torn to shreds.

 

So you can see what hanging close to Khorne would've done to the Blood Angels, right? They go past World Eater territory and down Killbrother Lane.

 

Regarding Isstvan III, the Warmaster ended up capitalizing on it and having each remaining member of the traitor Legions fight his brothers. Sure, it cost him a lot in lives, but also prevented any future dissidense. And while that wouldn't have been likely, it's one thing to agree to the majority of your 50.000 traitor brothers and 'go with it'. It's another to bathe yourself in your best friend's blood to prove you're with the traitors. Look at Horus Aximand...second thoughts were creeping even after he killed Torgaddon. I'm not saying Angron's move paid off. I'm saying it'd be 100% plausible to see a few stories about members of the traitor Legions having regrets and trying to sabotage the whole thing if Isstvan III had ended with the firestorm.

 

@Garrett: The 'flip out' prediction by the Cabal is interesting. And ties to Horus fooling himself into believing there's a good reason for his treason rather than the far truer "Bit by the Chaos bug". Literally, since it was a Nurgle daemon who cut him.

[Gree]

Isstvan is too horrifying to be preventable or even made less of a massacre by anyone not crazy or paranoid. Which, yeah, does add up a bit in the case of the Emperor's Children.

 

None of the so-called "unpredictable" seem to be doing that badly. The World Eaters ravaged the Ultramarines empire. Same for the Word Bearers, though they keep a lot of hidden agendas. But Lorgar's as commited as they come. The Night Lords only lost the Thramas crusade because of the goddamned thingamagig the Lion found. Perturabo is in a good mental spot, getting fiercer by the day. Fulgrim is the only truly unreliable one, he'll actively destroy the traitor's cohesion if it means a new scale for his tail. The Alphas are extremely efficient. Sure they're very obscure, but they sow confusion and that's an invaluable asset. They contribute to the Ravens' fall, if I recall. Mortarion is a great soldier and probably the best ally Horus has, also one of the few to remain the Warmaster's brother, along with Perturabo.

 

Unpredictability is awesome. No one sees it coming, which in wartime means no one sees anything else.

 

Except the World Eaters aren't unpredictable. The World Eaters are very predictable. They have one main tactic that they almost always use and Angron doesn't even actually ''lead'' his Legion, so much as charge screaming while his men try to pick up the pace behind him. The World Eaters merely have the good fortune to have great superiority in numbers and allies in pretty much every time they fight in the Heresy.

 

I'm rather amused as people trying to present the World Eaters and Night Lords as these unpredictable mavericks, when they're really not. They both have their rather predictable methods of war and temperaments, while lacking in discipline, good leadership and trust.

 

I mean, historically, disorganized and ill-disciplined troops are generally rather crappy troops. If anything, the WE and Night Lords being loosely organized lunatics would make them easier to outmaneuver and defeat.

Regarding Isstvan III, the Warmaster ended up capitalizing on it and having each remaining member of the traitor Legions fight his brothers. Sure, it cost him a lot in lives, but also prevented any future dissidense. And while that wouldn't have been likely, it's one thing to agree to the majority of your 50.000 traitor brothers and 'go with it'. It's another to bathe yourself in your best friend's blood to prove you're with the traitors. Look at Horus Aximand...second thoughts were creeping even after he killed Torgaddon. I'm not saying Angron's move paid off. I'm saying it'd be 100% plausible to see a few stories about members of the traitor Legions having regrets and trying to sabotage the whole thing if Isstvan III had ended with the firestorm.

A soldier than cannot be controlled is in general, a worthless soldier in the end, no matter how ferocious or unrelenting he may be.

[Kol Saresk]

IIRC, was it not the disorganized, ill-disciplined Barbarian hordes who sacked Imperial Rome? Twice, I believe. First by the Gauls, and then the Goths, was it not? Something is to be said of barbarians and their hordes and rabbles.

[Greyall]

True enough on the last part, though you should be careful when comparing 40K to real war.

 

Of course the Eaters lose more men, but that's also how the Imperial Guard fights. Once the fight gets up close, the body count starts ticking the other way. It's not like Angron's boys hide behind their allies, they're the first ones to go in. Sure, they're massacred in droves, but it's undeniable that they've honed their martial skills. If they hadn't specialized in melee combat, reaching the enemy lines would do them little good.

[Gree]

IIRC, was it not the disorganized, ill-disciplined Barbarian hordes who sacked Imperial Rome? Twice, I believe. First by the Gauls, and then the Goths, was it not? Something is to be said of barbarians and their hordes and rabbles.

In general, I said. In the end, it was the Romans who conquered all those barbarians most of the time. I'm sure you can cite a few examples, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. I can provide many more examples demonstrating otherwise if you would like.

[Gree]

True enough on the last part, though you should be careful when comparing 40K to real war.

 

Of course the Eaters lose more men, but that's also how the Imperial Guard fights. Once the fight gets up close, the body count starts ticking the other way. It's not like Angron's boys hide behind their allies, they're the first ones to go in. Sure, they're massacred in droves, but it's undeniable that they've honed their martial skills. If they hadn't specialized in melee combat, reaching the enemy lines would do them little good.

 

I would seriously rate a well-prepared, well-equipped and well-led Guard force over the World Eaters. A well-prepare force of Leman Russes, Basilisks and mechanized troops would do a bloody number on the World Eaters. Sure the World Eaters might close in and wipe out the Guard, but Guardsmen are far easier to replace than Astartes. I would happily trade a dozen Guardsmen for a single World Eater killed.

 

The World Eaters way of warfare is a highly wasteful and inefficient form of fighting, especially when Astartes as so hard to replace in compared to mortals. Orks and Tyranids can get away of it because they have such huge numbers. The World Eaters really can't.

[Conn Eremon]

IIRC, was it not the disorganized, ill-disciplined Barbarian hordes who sacked Imperial Rome? Twice, I believe. First by the Gauls, and then the Goths, was it not? Something is to be said of barbarians and their hordes and rabbles.

Poor example. The Gauls and Goths were very well organized and disciplined. The whole 'barbarian' thing is a misnomer, like the 'Dark Ages.'

[Gree]

 

IIRC, was it not the disorganized, ill-disciplined Barbarian hordes who sacked Imperial Rome? Twice, I believe. First by the Gauls, and then the Goths, was it not? Something is to be said of barbarians and their hordes and rabbles.

Poor example. The Gauls and Goths were very well organized and disciplined. The whole 'barbarian' thing is a misnomer, like the 'Dark Ages.'

 

IIRC, the Gauls sacked Rome when Rome was just a bunch of tribal city-states who banded together. The Goths sacked Rome after Rome's Golden Age, when the Romans were reduced to hiring barbarian mercenaries to defend them. And even then the Goths were actually quite well organized and disciplined.

[Greyall]

Of course, Gree, but that's why I mentioned historical examples shouldn't be brought to the table. In 40K, those Eaters could've had an artillery barrage dropped on them and still come out laughing (actually, roaring and asking for your skull for a guy's chair).

 

Which is why, until now, the Eaters have worked pretty well. In 40K, the unreliable soldier sometimes gets to kill the enemy demigod in his wandering madness.

[Gree]

Of course, Gree, but that's why I mentioned historical examples shouldn't be brought to the table. In 40K, those Eaters could've had an artillery barrage dropped on them and still come out laughing (actually, roaring and asking for your skull for a guy's chair).

 

Which is why, until now, the Eaters have worked pretty well. In 40K, the unreliable soldier sometimes gets to kill the enemy demigod in his wandering madness.

I'm not sure why historical examples shouldn't be brought to the table. Is it because they prove your points wrong? 40k has an element of the fantastical certainly, but things such as conventional military wisdom are also applied, even in 40k fiction.

 

Even in 40k, Basilisk shell would have reduced said World Eaters to bloody shreds. Yet we don't often read about that happening in 40k. Yet your worlds only prove my point. The World Eaters only survive because of authorial fiat and plot armor, not because they are actually good soldiers or even that effective compared to the Wolves or Blood Angels.

 

And no, the World Eaters haven't worked pretty well. I would rate them the worst of the Legions in terms of casualty ratios and performance overall, except for perhaps the Word Bearers. The only reason they survived as an semi-effective military force was because of the apparently awesome recruitment and implantation system.

 

Of course they lost that when they splintered into individual warbands, now merely reduced to shock troops in the service to various Chaos Lords.

 

Anyway getting back to the point. I would rate the Blood Angels as superior. Maybe they might fall to Khorne and go crazy later on, but at least in those early days they would be more efficient. All speculation of course, since the Blood Angels never really fell to Khorne.

[Kol Saresk]

And yet the Goths are still considered a barbarian horde.

 

Meanwhile, we have the World Eaters. An entire Legion of "barbarians" that brought to compliance an entire sector of the space the rest of the Imperium was leaving alone, by themselves. And when it came to the last planet, this "disorganized" and "ill-disciplined" force broke through an orbital blockade, landed a first wave, destroyed the fleet, launched a danger close orbital bombardment with pretty scary precision(coming from these disorganized, ill-disciplined, mindless killing machines) and then pacified an entire planet against a horde of mutants, abhumans, orks and who knows what else that literally covered the entire surface. And they have an entire armored regiment. That works. And receives praise. From Ferrus Manus. They might not be the most sane of the Legions or the most tactically brilliant, but they have proven time and time again that they are a force to be reckoned with and that it is better to fight with them, than against them.

 

In the case of the Night Lords, it'd be General William Tecumseh Sherman's rampage through the South magnified tenfold, if not more. Both sides would suffer. The VIII Legion would destroy entire supply lines without mercy or second thought. But where Sherman only cut off supply lines that went to Confederate prison camps and helped cause situations like the one at Andersonville, the Night Lords would disrupt supply lines that would hurt the Loyalists' war efforts, rather than just their prisoners.

[Wade Garrett]

You know, I'm starting to wonder if I'm not doing the Night Lords a disservice.

 

Sahaal was able to plan a guerilla war that broughta whole Hive to its knees. Talos and Tenth Company have used many nasty tricks and cunning stratagems in their battles with the Mechanicum and the Marines Errant.

 

Of course, then they double crossed the Black Legion and the Red Corsairs, so maybe not.

[calgar101]

Unpredictablility can be great in certain situations. Let us look at the Siege of Terra, the most important event of the whole Heresy.

 

The Alpha Legion may not have even been there - Great a portion of your force doesn't play ball in a battle where numbers is key.

Night Lords may not have been there or been there as a legion - Once again doesn't help you.

World Eaters were there - They threw themselves in to battle, like waves against a rock. This can help or hinder you depending where exactly they are fighting. Are they needlessly expending men for bloodshed or trying to push through the breaches created by Perturabo and his legion?

 

Now if I was Horus (knowing that the Siege will be the decider for my Heresy) I'd rather have Guilliman with his legion and Empire to back me up. Why would I not want Guilliman? What disadvantage would he bring to my force?

 

Rogal Dorn and his Fists. Another reliable Primarch with a legion who's record is almost as good as mine. Clashes with Perturabo probaby inevitable but will be managable. Stuggling to see a down side here.

 

Raven Guard. Corax will follow orders. I like that.