Iron Warrior info from book 3?

[Wade Garrett]

Except that Betrayer explicitly states that thanks to the Conqueror holding the line, Guilliman is only able to land a fraction of the Marines and Titans he wanted to, which means Angron was only able to fight Guilliman mano-e-mano instead of drowning under a blue tide because of a mortal woman outdid the Battle King.

 

As anyone who has actually read the book well knows.

[Scribe]

Yeah, but Guilliman would have (I would think) have been making his way to the surface. Obviously the battle raged for some time, but I dont believe the Conqueror pulled out did it? It was noted that they where to fight to death?

 

And there was, again I would have to reread it, a kingship there, facing down not an ambushing force, not a fresh and united front, but a previously beat up force that Rob was able to pull together out of the jaws of defeat.

 

So really.

 

Fists - Beat up, some ships already lost, ambushed by a fresh, huge fleet of Iron Warriors, with a Primarch in overall command, with the intent to ambush, and destroy, yet the Fists give far better than they should and (again, someone feel free to correct me) almost win.

 

UM - Beat up, coming from a place of already being smashed, where the Primarch and forces should have lost, but didnt (due to twirling mustaches) shows up with a rag tag and damaged force, with numerical superiority and an objective of getting past 3 ships (both capital and the kingship I believe right?)

And Rob succeeds in his goal. Lotara doesnt win they land tons of things she doesnt out do a fresh and vibrant Rob, she holds out (while the Word Bearers ship gets crushed) while Rob fights through.

Its really not even close to the same deal is it? 

[Wade Garrett]

But Lotara's efforts left the forces making planetfall a fraction of what Guilliman's armada had hoped to land.

-Betrayer, p. 374, as the Traitors capture an Imperator class Titan due to the lack of support elements screening it while it powers up.

 

Betrayer explicitly states that the reason Guilliman lost on the ground is because Lotara's efforts in the void screwed up all his plans.

 

Thanks to a mortal woman's actions, the mighty XIII Primarch tasted bitter defeat.

 

Strangely enough, we aren't deluged with Ultramarine fans moaning because Aaron Dembski Bowden ruined their faction forever because "Primarch must defeat Primarch!" or some such tommyrot.

 

As the Emperor said to the Word Bearers at Khur:

"Why don't you try being more like the Ultramarines?"

[Scribe]

Well, I will bow to your greater ability and/or desire to offer quotes. I certainly didnt get the feeling that 'man rob must suck' like I did after reading Crimson Fist and the handling of Perturabo.

 

I dont think ADB made it seem like such a shellacking, since at the end of the day the UM do land, they do take out a flag ship, and somehow are able to both get off world, and escape...

 

EDIT: I think it helps as well that a Primarch, at the end of the day, did defeat Primarch, putting ol' Angron at 2-0 canonically. ;)

[Wade Garrett]

Eh, I had problems with Crimson Fist too.

 

Not so much that Perturabo got outmanuvered tactically, but that he would punch his own captains to death just for bringing him news like "Seems we won't be killing Sigismund today."

 

That's Angron, Curze, or Chaos Fulgrim's style, not the Iron Lord.

[Perrin]

The guy decimated his Legion for not being the best, I think it isn't a massive stretch to have him punishing failure harshly.

Perturabo was my favourite part of the story, that's what a Primarch should be like. Smashing 20-30 IF to pieces without breaking a sweat, that's what a Primarch should be capable of. Not escaping by the hair of your teeth from a 10-man AL hit squad.

I also got the picture that he wasn't commanding the void battle. That he had given his orders to his fleet captains to destroy the Fists and kill Sigismund and left them to it.

Also got the feeling that he had hit Berossus with the exact calculated force to leave him too damaged to live but with enough left to be put into a dreadnought. Who else would have given the order for the internment?

EDIT: Just looked it up, did Perturabo hit Berossus just for telling him that it was Polux in command and not Sigismund? If so, yes it's crazy but if he was sane he wouldn't be fighting for Horus Angron would have torn Berossus apart, Perturabo gave him a second chance to never fail him again.

[Hyaenidae]

Perturabo has always been a cold, distant, abusive father. Crimson Fist and Extermination has simply hammered that home, beyond doubt.

 

I think it fits him well.

[Marshal Rohr]

Also, from my most recent reread of Crimson Fist AND going through the battle page by page today, Perturabo is incredibly prone to bursts of lethal aggression. So where as a normal human being might flip their dinner table when they find their eggs scrambled as opposed to over easy, Perturabo is more likely to hit you with the hammer he always has in his hand. Also by the time Tyr's boarding party breached the Iron Blood's Command deck with the dozen odd Terminators and breachers, Perturabo allowed them to walk up to him before he killed them all without a second thought.

 

 

 

People reading Extermination and the Crimson Fist thinking to themselves Perturabo is a chump that almost lost to regular Space Marines are severely missing the point. He had a plan, and the plan was to wipe out 1/3 of the the Imperial Fists Fleet, 1/3 of their entire legion, AND kill Dorn's second in command. He pretty much achieved all of those goals minus killing Sigismund. 

[Conn Eremon]

Well, and the 1/3 became a 1/4, but that was also due to it not being Sigismund in command.

[Wade Garrett]

My problem with the Berossus incident is that while I can certainly imagine Perturabo pulling a "You have failed me for the LAST time" on his Warsmiths, killing one just for informing him of a fact he does not wish to hear...

[Hyaenidae]

Black rages and god-level tempers are not exactly a controlled event. Dorn nearly led his Legion to it's death in the Cage due to his emotions, and yet folks pat his head and say he was simply strengthening them for codification. Perturabo has a fit and backhands a replaceable Captain into a wall, and he becomes a 'chump'.

 

No.

[Wade Garrett]

'Chump' wouldn't be the word I would use, it's just that I've always viewed Pert as a Primarch driven by ice cold calculation, and never really considered him prone to sudden rages.

 

But that's a good point about Dorn and the Iron Cage re: Stoic and dutiful Primarchs having temporary bouts of SUDDENLY COMPLETELY BONKERS!

[Marshal Rohr]

Dorm amd Sanguius both almost killed Garro and Amit respectively in a fit of rage. The Lion punched Nemiel's head off for arguing with him. Guilliman was personally going to punish Thiel. I don't think it's far out of the ordinary for Primarchs to execute people personally. Dorn killed his friend the remberancer too.

[Wade Garrett]

Dorn executed the last remembrancer after hearing his story, weighing his options, and making his choice with a heavy heart.

 

He did not bellow "ROGAL SMASH!" and put his fist through the poor man's torso three sentences into his tale of woe.

 

And while Thiel was marked for censure, saying Roboute was going to execute him out of hand seems like reaching. Wearing the red was the mark of a death sentence among the Night Lords, not the Ultramarines who borrowed the idea from them.

[Scribe]

The Last Remembrancer is still likely my favorite piece of the series so far....yes yes it is.

[Kol Saresk]

'Chump' wouldn't be the word I would use, it's just that I've always viewed Pert as a Primarch driven by ice cold calculation, and never really considered him prone to sudden rages.

 

But that's a good point about Dorn and the Iron Cage re: Stoic and dutiful Primarchs having temporary bouts of SUDDENLY COMPLETELY BONKERS!

Well, following the line of logic "Angron=The Angry One", then "Perturabo=The Perturbed One", "perturbed" meaning

 

"adjective

adjective: perturbed

1.

anxious or unsettled; upset.

"she didn't seem perturbed about the noises around her""

 

So "driven by cold logic" he is, but his very name says "bad news=bad juju". Hence why he slaughtered his entire planet instead of just killing his adoptive father. Hence why he got such a chip on his shoulder when "perfect little Dorn" was chosen over him. Hence why he almost killed a remembrancer for painting an Imperial Fist flag standing over his fallen sons.

 

Remember why they say "its always the quiet ones". Perturabo is "the quiet one".

[Shuggnuggath]

Exactly, I think Perturabo is one of those people that bottles up their emotions. As a person who likes to view problems logically without being influenced by emotion. Eventually something will trigger those pent up frustrations in a potentially violent outburst. Often the trigger will seem trivial and the reaction will seem excessive and unexpected, These volcanic explosions can take years to build up.

 

I also think the Iron Warriors turning against the Emperor makes logical sense. If the current boss doesn't appreciate your work find a new employer or go self employed.

 

I guess some emotional nostalgia may be required for a post-human to feel some loyalty to his human ancestors.

[Kol Saresk]

Well, it requires a bit more than nostalgia. Due to they age, severe training and hypno-therapy, an Astartes is supposed to rarely remember their past life.

 

Take Talos for example. I think it is in Soul Hunter that he recollects going back to Nostramo, just before it was destroyed and how there was a woman in the parade who kept bugging him and Xarl to the point she was shot by the enforcers to maintain crowd control. It was Xarl who reminded him that the woman was his mother and not some mad raving lunatic who just happened to know their names.

[Visitor13]

For the record, I never claimed that a non-primarch can never beat a primarch. Obviously circumstances come into play.

 

And in Crimson Fist, the circumstances were essentially a non-primarch and a bunch of his buddies finding themselves in a locked room with a hostile primarch and his army.

[Kol Saresk]

Actually Crimson Fist was a non-primarch and a rather substantial fleet finding themselves in a locked room with only one door and something like a month to get ready for whatever was coming through that door. Wouldn't you try an coordinate a defense if you had that long to do so?

[Visitor13]

Wouldn't my opponent try to prepare a good attack plan?

[Kol Saresk]

The opponent had. But something tells me the plan relied on the enemy commander not suspecting he was the enemy and the warp storm doing more damage than it did. Neither of which happened. When you gamble playing with fire, there is always a chance you get burned. Perturabo gambled with a bonfire.

[Nehekhare]

Well, following the line of logic "Angron=The Angry One", then "Perturabo=The Perturbed One", "perturbed" meaning

 

"adjective

adjective: perturbed

1.

anxious or unsettled; upset.

"she didn't seem perturbed about the noises around her""

 

you don't even know how much this physically hurts the brain of someone who deals with (latin) etymology for a living...

 

but you know what? I'd not even be surprised anymore if that actually was the authors intent.

[Conn Eremon]

The opponent had. But something tells me the plan relied on the enemy commander not suspecting he was the enemy and the warp storm doing more damage than it did. Neither of which happened. When you gamble playing with fire, there is always a chance you get burned. Perturabo gambled with a bonfire.

The opponent had also made his plans with an assumption of who was commanding the Fist fleet. That assumption proved wrong, and that can ruin a plan pretty dang easily on its own.

[depthcharge12]

Well, it requires a bit more than nostalgia. Due to they age, severe training and hypno-therapy, an Astartes is supposed to rarely remember their past life.

Take Talos for example. I think it is in Soul Hunter that he recollects going back to Nostramo, just before it was destroyed and how there was a woman in the parade who kept bugging him and Xarl to the point she was shot by the enforcers to maintain crowd control. It was Xarl who reminded him that the woman was his mother and not some mad raving lunatic who just happened to know their names.

 

Sorry for the slight jack, but that scene was probably the most emotional and great scenes in that book.

 

It was one of the few times that the stone faced astartes, cold blooded murders to boot, showed sadness or even a little emotion. I saw that scene with Xarl looking at Talos with his eyes open and full of regret at having the only person that really cared about them die. Not many Astartes see their families after acceptance...so yeah...

 

 

Though astartes quite commonly show open disgust for humans. What did Luther say?

 

"No weapon so savage may be wielded without cost"

 

 

ADB is probably smiling somewhere while I fangasm over his books here