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Forget the Scouring...


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From checking up on Thunder Warrior details...just use Codex:Chaos Marines. Low numbers so low squad size. Lack of unity like in the legions. Bloody minded and stubborn. Seems simple enough. Then use Codex:Guard for Imperial Army for now, and the Legion Astartes list for the first marines active.

 

The rub is figuring out an army list for the other tyrants, though the Tyrant's Legion list from Badab War books fits the bill perfectly. Apart from that...we could just make it a community project but I don't know how much interest there would be in such a thing...

Neither the unification wars nor the Great Crusade make a good setting for a series of novels. All they would consist of would be faction after faction being defeated by the far superior Thunder Warriors/Space Marines. No drama, no nothing. It would be interesting to get more information about who did what during those times, but there is no need for a novel about how Legion Z defeated puny enemy #3298.

 

At least during the Scouring we have Legions fighting other Legions.

From checking up on Thunder Warrior details...just use Codex:Chaos Marines. Low numbers so low squad size. Lack of unity like in the legions. Bloody minded and stubborn. Seems simple enough. Then use Codex:Guard for Imperial Army for now, and the Legion Astartes list for the first marines active.

 

You do realize that Thunder Warriors are generally bigger and stronger than Astartes. Their weakness was physical and mental instability. They were prone to mental and/or physical failure, i.e. suddenly losing sanity or physically collapsing in the middle of battle

Well Outcast Dead supports them being typically stronger but having the mental and a built in expiry date kill switch, the Thunder Warrior in that kicked the World Eaters ass, also in the War Hound article it's noted the ocassional thunder warrior corpse they came across was surrounded by three or four marine corpses.

The problem is the limitations of a game engine. You can show all that in an RPG sure, but in a tabletop wargame...mental degradation doesn't really come down to it.

 

In which case, use Fabius Bile's experiment's rules? Since those kinda work on the same way, Marines+ but liable to die right after the battle?

 

Also, I disagree about the Unification Wars being a poor novel setting. Firstly, there WOULD be set backs. The Caucaus Waste Ethnarchs for one hurled the Emperor's Armies back several times before the Salamanders were called in and even then they were nearly wiped out. We are told the Emperor conquered Terra yes, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a struggle. There were saboteurs everywhere, hence the tragedy of the III Legion. Threats in the shadows, hence Custodes.

Granted, it wouldn't be much different from the Horus Heresy series - a known outcome but very little known about the bits leading up to it. For example, why weren't the Tyrants executed? Why imprisoned? Granted, if we get to the invasion of Terra and they're let loose in the midst of it to set up some dangerous non-Astartes for the Scouring...as well as the Thunder Warrior subplot from Outcast Dead...

But there are a lot more stories than merely military. Imagine a novel dealing with citizens of the Yndonesic Bloc trying to flee Tang's pogroms, or the warp infused battles between the Nord Afrik Conclaves and Ursh...

I'd say there's a lot more to the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade than "And then the Emperor's forces effortlessly curbstomped Enemy X-13-N-6, bringing system 45-H into compliance, and then everyone made the sign of the aquila and posed for the victory portrait."

 

These are the sieges that ground the Iron Fourth down into hateful madness. These are the wars that the Emperor created monsters like the World Eaters and Night Lords to fight and win.

 

Until the Heresy the closest the Emperor ever came to dying was on the forefront of the Crusade at Gorro. To pooh-pooh all possibility of dramatic tension of such wars seems a bit short sighted to me.

I'd like to see a bit more pre heresy rather than heresy if that makes sense. I have been a bit disappointed that it hasnt been covered as much as I'd have liked. I had hoped that most of the books would be about the legions without primarchs with them being reunited with the primarch at the end. I'd much rather have read a book about the self destruction of the sallies before vulkan than a full book of vulkan dying. Even some astartes taking on some of the lesser known xenos species would have been good rather than the boring bolter on bolter action we get now.

There's some stories from the unification era I wouldn't mind reading, for example the way the Emperor ended up having to negotiate with the guys from Albia, and the one where he lets a tyrant become a rogue trader overseen by the "Crimson Sons" Night Lords company.

 

Their weakness was physical and mental instability. They were prone to mental and/or physical failure, i.e. suddenly losing sanity or physically collapsing in the middle of battle

Since when?

 

 

Since the Forgeworld Horus Heresy books, Betrayal in particular

 

I'm a bit surprised that you're ignorant of this

 

 

 

Their weakness was physical and mental instability. They were prone to mental and/or physical failure, i.e. suddenly losing sanity or physically collapsing in the middle of battle

Since when?

 

Since the Forgeworld Horus Heresy books, Betrayal in particular

 

I'm a bit surprised that you're ignorant of this

The only place I know of a kill-switch being mentioned is the Outcast Dead, according to a Thunder Warrior who admits he isn't exactly the most sane individual but also portrays that the only reason he's survived until then was because he was a student of the Emperor's sciences, thus making him uniquely equipped. So as much as I hate to say it, could you provide a quote? Because it seems weird that they have such a glaring battlefield weakness that during conflict they just go stupid and yet on average, each one was surrounded by three to four War Hound corpses on Cerberus-Prime.

"Go stupid" and "be less dangerous" are not exactly the same thing. I'm not arguing that there was such a thing (because I honestly don't remember reading anything about it), just pointing out that such a thing would not invalidate the War Hounds' losses at Cerberus Prime. It could be a leading cause for it, in fact.

 

And delicious grimdark, too. The battle that was their first blood, fighting an enemy that they would, in a way, become.

"Go stupid" and "be less dangerous" are not exactly the same thing. I'm not arguing that there was such a thing (because I honestly don't remember reading anything about it), just pointing out that such a thing would not invalidate the War Hounds' losses at Cerberus Prime. It could be a leading cause for it, in fact.

 

And delicious grimdark, too. The battle that was their first blood, fighting an enemy that they would, in a way, become.

True, but there is no mention of the Thunder Warriors having such an instability that I recall, other than The Outcast Dead, which can be taken as a biased opinion. And if I recall correctly, the only two times the Thunder Warriors are mentioned in Betrayal are there and in an earlier bit where it lists the Emperor's genetic experiments from fixing humanity to making the Thunder Warriors to making the Astartes.

One problem with the Unification Wars and the Crusade: how does Forgeworld represent the vast variety of opponents? There would need to be techno barbarians, several kinds of isolated humans, multiple xenon. Really a model range and list for every planet in the Crusade. The Horus Heresy, for all its scope, is actually quite confined, from a game design perspective. There's one list (the legion list) and some minor variations, and one model range: the legions. So every rule and model gets multiple replay value, and is economic to produce. Not so, the huge variety of an earlier period.

 

Plus, it loses the great appeal of the driving plot of the 30/40k universe: the menace of Chaos. It just becomes a sci if setting with big hair and shoulder pads. Plus chainsaws. A more limited appeal, I think...

The only place I know of a kill-switch being mentioned is the Outcast Dead, according to a Thunder Warrior who admits he isn't exactly the most sane individual but also portrays that the only reason he's survived until then was because he was a student of the Emperor's sciences, thus making him uniquely equipped. So as much as I hate to say it, could you provide a quote? Because it seems weird that they have such a glaring battlefield weakness that during conflict they just go stupid and yet on average, each one was surrounded by three to four War Hound corpses on Cerberus-Prime.

 

 

Well, think about it. The incidence of insanity/physical failure wasn't high enough to render the Thunder Warriors useless...but it was enough to motivate the Emperor to create the Astartes. I'm thinking the risk was significant but still manageable albeit at high cost. It's also quite likely that the augmented warriors of Terran warlords had similar problems (mental and physical instability)

 

Betrayal (pages 26-27):

 

Despite their many victories during the Unification Wars, the Thunder Warriors were far from perfect. Some were mentally unstable, others suffered catastrophic biological failure after an unpredictable span of years, their own superhuman physiques turning against them in the end.

 

I suppose the passage doesn't mention the onset of sudden insanity, rather it mentions "mental instability", which might be milder [?]

The catastrophic biological failure after an unpredictable span of years would be a HUGE weakness though...a major drawback for the Emperor when sending Thunder Warriors into battle. The "unpredictable span of years" is what makes it really bad. You can't don't know when a Thunder Warriors is going to collapse "catastrophically".

Techno barbarians could be done by making a series of interchangeable kits. Sets of legs, torsos heads etc that can be built to show different styles of techno barbarianism, plus lots of different weapon options.

 

Xenos is harder, but even in 40k they only focus on major xenos races.

Foolishness.

 

Guilliman does what he can to prop up a dead state into a state of perpetual unlife, until a scratch prevented him from doing anything more than that.

 

You mistake propaganda for history, brother.

 

Figures an author of the Guilliman Heresy (heresy) would say that. You're just... not right..

Neither the unification wars nor the Great Crusade make a good setting for a series of novels. All they would consist of would be faction after faction being defeated by the far superior Thunder Warriors/Space Marines. No drama, no nothing. It would be interesting to get more information about who did what during those times, but there is no need for a novel about how Legion Z defeated puny enemy #3298.

 

At least during the Scouring we have Legions fighting other Legions.

The Souring would be awsome. It would be great to see the White Scars, Space Wolves, and Ultramarines leading the hunt for traitors who are slipping ever further into damnation. Maybe even see the start of the split into chapters and warbands (except for the Wolves and the Alphas of course).

There's only so much legion vs legion combat can do. As seen in the early books of the series fighting unique species and human societies can be really awesome, I'd like to see more of that mixed in with further development of the primarchs relationship with each other.

I want a book about the Ullanor Crusade, just to read this mythic scene:

 

"We've been foolish, Father. We were wrong to assume the warboss would be felled by our steel."

 

"Perhaps not, Horus. I refuse to believe an ork cannot be defeated through the power of METAL"

 

*guitar riff*

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