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How long did the HH last?


Joe

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Title is pretty much self-explanatory. I've seen a few sources state that it took Horus a good few years of constant, bitter fighting to push towards Terra, however there's a few sources inc. the Battle of Calth that suggest otherwise. Just the usual inconsistencies when it comes to the fluff?

 

I'm mostly curious as I'm starting a Sons of Horus army, and was wondering much I could change the armour/iconography on the models to suit mid-to-late stage HH.

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From what I recall the Heresy actually started once lorgar found daemons...and altered his legion and started the lodges within the other legions.

 

The horus heresy began at Davin when the warmaster turned.

 

The age of darkness was seven years which was from istvaan up to the siege.

The horus heresy began at Davin when the warmaster turned.

 

I suppose it boils down to a matter of opinion. I think the Horus Heresy starts at Isstvan. The seeds of the HH certainly come from Lorgar's dabbling in the powers of the Warp (40 years earlier) and the events upon Davin where Horus turns (which is a year or two before Isstvan iirc) but to me, really, the birth of the civil war that is called the Horus Heresy belongs to Isstvan. 

Basically, the Horus Heresy was seven years long. How is it that Calth makes you think it didn't take a few years, brother?

 

At first glance it seemed as if Calth started not long after the Heresy kicked off, resolved in a short period of time and the Smurfs set off for Terra. I must have gotten a bit confused by that.

 

Cheers for the links guys. \o That clarified what I needed to know.

 

Forge World has a timeline for the Heresy:

http://battlebunnies.blogspot.de/2014/05/horus-heresy-book-4-conquest-details.html

It's more than 7 years in the current fluff.

 

Sooo.... eight and a half years. Not too much of a change.

 

well, 7 years were the age of darkness (which starts after istvaan, around the time of phall/paramar^^)

Originally Horus immediately moved against Terra after Istvaan V, so the entire "heresy" from Istvaan V to the Battle for Terra lasted about a year. However, the fighting after Horus had been killed lasted another seven years, and the entire struggle was referred to as the "Horus Heresy" back in 1st Edition. After 2nd Edition the period after Horus' death became known as the "Scouring", and the Horus Heresy was the period between the first infighting and the Battle for Terra.

 

Perhaps someone read the description of the seven years and assumed that referred to the initial fighting. Or perhaps BL/GW just wants to draw out the initial campaign for maximum exploitation.

 

The Battle for Calth originally happened right before the Battle for Terra, and the Ultramarines immediately moved to reiinforce the EMperor after defeating the Word Bearers. But presumably because that would have meant that the Ultramarines could not have participated in the (now drawn out) seven years of the new Heresy narrative, GW decided to instead relocate it to the beginning of the campaign.

If you think about it, The Scouring was just an extension of the Heresy (the Imperium rising up and reclaiming those worlds sworn to Horus). It's the same conflict, just swung in the opposite direction.

 

If I remember correctly, the Scouring was another seven years (believable, as the Imperium most likely had taken off the kid gloves at that point, and you either surrendered or burned, to hell with Compliance), which would bring the whole conflict to 14 years, give or take. 

 

I could buy into that, though I'm cool with it being longer. I prefer the more 'traditional' warfare we're seeing from FW with the Heresy so far, compared to Black Library's more character-driven 'Adventure/Saga'. If Mr. Bligh can convince the bigwigs to stretch out the war, I'm down with that retcon.

If I remember correctly, the Scouring was another seven years (believable, as the Imperium most likely had taken off the kid gloves at that point, and you either surrendered or burned, to hell with Compliance), which would bring the whole conflict to 14 years, give or take. 

 

I was under the impression that the Scouring had been retconned to twenty years long. Can't recall where I got that from, though, so it's not like I'm making a firm statement. 

That'd be cool, but I haven't heard about that. If someone knew a source for that, I'd be a happy camper. smile.png

Agreed, the business of rooting out, and sorting through the aftermath of such a massive internecine conflict is gonna take some time. Hell practically every legion had it's moments of questionable loyalty. As a side note, that's one of the things I love about the re-tooling of the heresy, how everything is now shades of gray instead of black and white.

But to build off the point from earlier, with the portrayal of conventional warfare we keep seeing in the novels, it would take a lot more than 7 years to conquer the galaxy. Especially since it seems like they've gone away from Horus making a spear thrust for Terra, and instead consolidating power, maneuvering allies, and conquering systems. Hell all of the 4th Horus Heresy book was devoted to the Warmaster conquering and subduing planets through force, diplomacy, or bribery. The way they've been painting it the heresy sounds more like a dark negative to the great crusade than lightning coup.

Not to mention the fact that not all of the traitorous legions up and fled straight away; a handful of them were still raiding and being generally disruptive for some time after. Then there's having to bring the Adeptus Mechanicus back to heal, exterminating the homeworlds of the traitor legions, suppressing general revolt by opportunistic planets, and so on.

 

Realistically it makes sense for the Scouring to have lasted the better part of twenty years, at a minimum. As Heinrich just said it would equally be sensible if the HH itself was retconned to be ten to fifteen years in length from Horus' declaration of war.

I really hope that the Scouring is an opportunity for the Legions which played a smaller role in the Heresy to re-organise and mobilise once the Traitors are on the back foot - the opportunity for the RG, Sallies & IH to finally marshall in considerable numbers would be nice, but also examining the differences between the factions they fragmented into during the Heresy, which would lead to their individual characters as individual chapters.

I was under the impression that the Scouring had been retconned to twenty years long. Can't recall where I got that from, though

 

After the scouring, the Imperial Fists took two decades to reorganize and recuperate from the heavy losses before they took action full strength again. Perhaps that's where that time frame is coming from?

It makes sense that the Scouring would take longer - the Traitor Legions would have dug in deep and made every effort to repel the Loyalists. I'd also like to see what IHF mentioned too (quite aside from the fact that the Loyalists went through the breaking of the Legions, can't wait to see what details come from that) smile.png

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