What are you hoping for from Talon of Horus?

[incinerator950]

Well, you can always use the BL supp and just use the novels to fill the gaps.

[Conn Eremon]

That's for sure.

But isn't Abaddon supposed to be in Pilgrimage ? He would've come to Lupercalios, took it and that's it ?

 

I haven't read any of this, so this may not apply, but:

 

Just because Abaddon left it there doesn't necessarily mean that it remained there. However he got it back, it's possible that it might not have happened at the same place he left it.

[Vesper]

Yeah, possibly. That's what I'm trying to know, I want to know how the hell he did .

[Trevak Dal]

I think that the formation of the Black Legion is perhaps the most important event within the Warhammer 40k universe after the Horus Heresy.

 

One thing I've always disliked about the Legions specifically, was their Daddy Issues (which is why I suppose I like the Alpha Legion the most...but you can't really know if it was really Alpharius who "died" or not so it's kind of a tease).

 

Abaddon pretty much gets past that-says we were born of a broken man-but we're not broken men, and manages to turn the Sons of Horus' franchise into a new winning tradition as (arguably) the most consistently successful Chaos faction period end of line.  By it's nature, Chaos is always going to fight itself and fracture when there isn't an immediate enemy.

 

Abaddon manages to mitigate the Bull:cuss of Chaos and get them focused onto an enemy-he's got the biggest Gang in town, and you do not drop flags on Abaddon without there being a reckoning.

 

The bits about how he dealt with fractious Emperor's Children/Slaanesh Marines and World Eaters/Khornate Marines was pretty awesome.

[Lucien Eilam]

But isn't Abaddon supposed to be in Pilgrimage ? He would've come to Lupercalios, took it and that's it ?

Yeah, I guess. There's a rich tradition of heroes setting aside a "significant" weapon at the start of their journey, only taking it up for a climactic battle. In that sense the key moment with the Talon is when Abaddon chooses to wield it, not when he retrieves it.

 

It's a novel, not an exhaustive documentary of everything Abaddon ever did. As far as the narrative is concerned, the important points to establish are that Abaddon didn't wield the Talon immediately after the Heresy was over, and the moment he took up his father's sword (literally and figuratively).

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

But I really want to read a snippet when amidst the battle a jaded, cynical, chaos apothecary recovers the geneseed in a conventional way, with the Narthecium and then goes on to cultivate the organs to create a chaos space marine.

Angel Exterminatus:

 

 

The HONourable SOUlaku gets killed and his organs harvested in the usual way by the Emperor's Children. It's essentially battle, even if the Honourable didn't know he was fighting.

 

 

OK, I haven't read AE, but this confused me.

Are you suggesting that this particular Marine was the provider for the gene-seed used to create Honsou? But doesn't Storm of Iron specifically say Honsou was the result of captured Imperial Fist gene-seed. I thought AE was Istvaan survivors vs IW and EC, so the engagements of that book can't result in the seizure of Honsou's gene-seed.

 

[Balthamal]

I think that the formation of the Black Legion is perhaps the most important event within the Warhammer 40k universe after the Horus Heresy.

 

One thing I've always disliked about the Legions specifically, was their Daddy Issues (which is why I suppose I like the Alpha Legion the most...but you can't really know if it was really Alpharius who "died" or not so it's kind of a tease).

 

Abaddon pretty much gets past that-says we were born of a broken man-but we're not broken men, and manages to turn the Sons of Horus' franchise into a new winning tradition as (arguably) the most consistently successful Chaos faction period end of line.  By it's nature, Chaos is always going to fight itself and fracture when there isn't an immediate enemy.

 

Abaddon manages to mitigate the Bull:cuss of Chaos and get them focused onto an enemy-he's got the biggest Gang in town, and you do not drop flags on Abaddon without there being a reckoning.

 

The bits about how he dealt with fractious Emperor's Children/Slaanesh Marines and World Eaters/Khornate Marines was pretty awesome.

 

Except you're missing the fact that the SoH don't become the Black Legion. The SoH are dead. Abaddon himself states as much. If the Soh were indeed the building blocks of the BL, do you think their sense of superiority would allow them to recruit anyone out side of their bloodline? Both among the fallen Legions and those who turned their colours through the later centuries

[Lucien Eilam]

 

 

OK, I haven't read AE, but this confused me.

 

 

Honsou had mixed gene-seed, from both the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists.

 

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

 

 

But I really want to read a snippet when amidst the battle a jaded, cynical, chaos apothecary recovers the geneseed in a conventional way, with the Narthecium and then goes on to cultivate the organs to create a chaos space marine.

Angel Exterminatus:

 

 

The HONourable SOUlaku gets killed and his organs harvested in the usual way by the Emperor's Children. It's essentially battle, even if the Honourable didn't know he was fighting.

 

 

OK, I haven't read AE, but this confused me.

Are you suggesting that this particular Marine was the provider for the gene-seed used to create Honsou? But doesn't Storm of Iron specifically say Honsou was the result of captured Imperial Fist gene-seed. I thought AE was Istvaan survivors vs IW and EC, so the engagements of that book can't result in the seizure of Honsou's gene-seed.

 

 

Read Angel Exterminatus.  It'll all add up............

 

I'm really looking forward to buying my copy of The Talons of Horus in the next few weeks.  As always no doubt have ton of conversion idea after reading ToH :D

 

IP

[Kol Saresk]

WARNING: SPOILERS

 

SERIOUSLY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. CEASE AND DESIST IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO PROCEED.

 

FOR THE LAST TIME,

http://mundanecstasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/spoilers.jpg

 

 

Other than hoping it was something that would blow my socks off, I came to this book with no expectations. It did not blow my socks off.

 

It annihilated them.

 

No seriously. like I'm sure many others have, my opinion of the Black Legion was nonexistent. They were there, but not worth my time as they didn't evoke my interest. Like Incinerator and many others, my knowledge extended only to the Imperial's point of view of Failbaddon and how the strongest of the Traitors continually failed the most. At least until just before 6th Edition. Around that time I started seeing posts by A D-B about how the failures were not victories. With the advent of 6th Edition, I began to look deeper at the old lore that I hadn't been indoctrinated in, sort of like an outsider looking in. Everything before 4th Edition was new to me. Heck, mot os 4th an 5th was still new to me. No, new isn't the right word. Unknown.

 

So I looked at the old fluff with the indoctrination of the new, I looked with hindsight. And I saw the paths connecting the two. I saw where certain things could lead from a past mention to a current truth.

 

Why is this important? Because that is this book. It connects the bridges. Shows what the old fluff says, and then it begins to show how that bridges to what many consider to be "retcons".

 

And it does an amazing job of it. It takes the time to point out the old fluff an then the new fluff and the connections in between.

 

As Vesper and I discussed elsewhere, in the Heresy thread I believe(could be wrong), 40K is rare in that it possess no true omnipotent narrator. It takes a true historian's view, meaning that you see the history as it is known to the "author". Which is vastly different from any other comparable fiction, like the Silmarillion which is a true omnipotent narrator's account.

 

This book is like finding a war diary. Imagine hearing how a war went one way, according to your country's bias. Now imagine reading the war diary of a soldier from the other side of the war.

 

That is this book.

 

We see the death of the XVI Legion. We see the birth pangs of the Black Legion. We see the legends and myths turned to reality. Or at least, reality as Khayon sees it. And that is important to remember. This is not an almighty, omnipotent revelation. This is Khayon's account. This is Khayon's "truth". In standard 40K fashion, the greatest lie ever told was the truth, and the most convincing truth is the simplest lie.

 

I think my favorite part of the novel was actually all the warp talk. It was just..... I don't have a word for it. Saying it sated some of my curiosity just doesn't seem to cut it.

 

But seriously, this book is yowzah. I cannot compare it to the Night Lords series for the same reason I cannot compare A d-B's Heresy works with the Night Lords series. Each individual series has a different angle and style. Trying to compare them is like trying to compare a sword and an axe by how well both weapons stab. Its a worthless attempt as the axe was never made to stab. That's this.

 

Tenebris, I know you were looking forward to a how to manual on how to build a warband. Nope. This book is essentially A D-B's (in)famous Maybe post rendered in novel format.

 

I know this is a rambling review. And I apologize for that. I plan to imitate Balthamal in reading it a few more times before tryin to organize a coherent review, this is just my first impression. But at the moment, it is wow.

 

I am sure that many will be disappointed because it doesn't give them what they want. Irregardless of that, this is a well-written novel. Props to A D-B. And seriously, I'd love copies of your research notes, especially anything relating to the warp and the Possessed.

 

 

And Vesper

if I read Extinction correctly, it ends with Abaddon at Lupercalios during the last battle. I believe that is when he picks up the relic and takes it back to the Vengeful Spirit. I know "time is meaningless in the warp" and all that, but IIRC, Khayon and the others experience something in the neighborhood of a year before they even reach the Radiant Worlds so there's plenty of time for him to boogy from one location to the next.

 

[Tenebris]

Damn you Kol, you made me salivate. I am so interested in this book that I cannot wait to get my copy. I know that in it I will find many answers and even more questions. On account I read Extinction yesterday and just as you people suggested it is an eye opener, at least for me. The short story was so well done and sweet that I have read it two times in a row, to avoid any minuscule detail to slip. I think that the introduction short stories placed a perfect stage for Talon of Horus... soon, soon.   

[incinerator950]

I'm offended by being roped into "Imperial opinion."

 

Also, just to redesignate the Legion debacle, Abbadon still has ten thousand years to become Darth Vader again.

 

Romantic spike Mccneilism aside.

[Vesper]

WARNING: SPOILERS

 

And Vesper

if I read Extinction correctly, it ends with Abaddon at Lupercalios during the last battle. I believe that is when he picks up the relic and takes it back to the Vengeful Spirit. I know "time is meaningless in the warp" and all that, but IIRC, Khayon and the others experience something in the neighborhood of a year before they even reach the Radiant Worlds so there's plenty of time for him to boogy from one location to the next.

 

Indeed, could be !

But is it obvious or speculation ? I don't remember there was any hint of it.

And do you catch anything that let us know about the fate of the captain of the Fleshmarket ? Because I don't.

[Kol Saresk]

 

Speculation based on at the end of Extinction, Abaddon comments about how he left the Talon at Lupercalios, where he was currently watching the Emperor's Children slaughter some of the last Sons of Horus(if I read it correctly. Would have to go back to make sure). And then it shows up on the Vengeful Spirit. Just seems like a logical train of thought, but without explicit statement there is every chance I am wrong.

 

The captain, Sardus(can't look up his name at work, but I think that was it), I don't believe we have anything mentioning him. Unless he encountered the Justaerin and the one hundred Rubricae on their way from where Khayon opened the portal to Fabius's lab, he should still be alive. Unless the Fleshmarket was destroyed.

 

[Vesper]

Nah,

 

I was talking about the captain of the Fleshmarket, Fabulous Bill. He had been taken by two Justaerin, and then, no mention of him at all. You got the same feeling or I missed something ?

 

[Lucien Eilam]

 

Speculation based on at the end of Extinction, Abaddon comments about how he left the Talon at Lupercalios, where he was currently watching the Emperor's Children slaughter some of the last Sons of Horus(if I read it correctly. Would have to go back to make sure). And then it shows up on the Vengeful Spirit. Just seems like a logical train of thought, but without explicit statement there is every chance I am wrong.

 

 

 

Abaddon isn't on Lupercalios in Extinction:

 

He smiles, but not because of the battle. What world is this? He realises he doesn't even know. His wandering takes him from planet to planet, avoiding his former brethren when he can, yet now he stands upon a world watching hundreds of his brothers dying, without even knowing the planet's name or what they sell their lives to defend.

 

He knows exactly where he left the Talon. If this world was Lupercalios, he'd know what it was called and what his brothers were defending. He's just happened to run into them on his way to check out some Warp-spawned pyramids:

 

He looks to the horizon, where seven vast stepped pyramids rise into the sky, shaped by hands neither human nor alien, but wrought solely by divine whim.

 

[…]

 

Ezekyle Abaddon, no longer First Captain, no longer a Son of Horus, keeps walking. He'll reach the first great pyramid before the first of the three suns sets.

 

He's still exploring the Eye, not retrieving the Talon from Lupercalios.

 

[Kol Saresk]

Nah,

 

I was talking about the captain of the Fleshmarket, Fabulous Bill. He had been taken by two Justaerin, and then, no mention of him at all. You got the same feeling or I missed something ?

 

Same feeling. Would have to go through and double check, but that is the last we seen of him for the moment.

 

 

@Lucian

Ah, okay. I admit, I breezed through it so that's why I kept leaving the "if I read it right". Still, there is time in between the end of Extinction and Talon for Abaddon to pick it up, but as I said earlier, no explicit mention, just a logical train of thought.

 

[Sception]

I am hoping only for a printing I can afford to purchase.

[Clone]

Gotta say that I'm really happy with this book. The amount of detail on life in the eye is astounding and exactly what I had hoped for. Most of the way through the book at the moment.

 

the vengeful spirit has just attacked the III legion and I assume is about to destroy the Horus clone. I was really impressed with the changes to Abaddon from the heresy series. I much prefer the wise pilgrim with golden eyes to the angry captain. One thing I really liked was the avatar of the astronomican and the benevolent daemon that was mentioned to have taken away people's pain while they were dying. It really does show there is a lot more to the warp than malign daemons.

 

[Conn Eremon]

So someone posted in the Fleets thread that there are Fallen references during the Legion Wars arc.

 

Needless to say, the desire to know more is seriously intensifying.

[Kol Saresk]

There is one. Not a very big. I don't have the book with me at work so I'll recollect as best as I can.

 

 

After an ambush by the EC, Khayon goes to Gallium, a daemon forgeworld, for refueling and rearming. Already docked is a ship in the colors of the I Legion and Khayon comments that it isn't unusual to see some of the Traitor Ist ships in the Empire of the Eye.

 

[Conn Eremon]

Thanks. Might want to close the spoiler though!