HH 53: Titan Death by Guy Haley

[bluntblade]

Also it would've given Russ a chance to show what he's capable of. Like, have him hammer some Traitors, beat Lorgar, Mortarion or Perturabo nearly to a kill.

 

Titan Death feels like it would need a pretty special treatment and a solid through-line.

[Marshal Rohr]

Sanguinius leads the defense at Beta Garmon? Can’t wait for the black book on that.

[Mellow]

He’s not exactly known for his strategic brilliance like Guilliman, Perturabo, Dorn are.

 

I’m expecting him to be out of his depth and start crying saying he wants to “go flap flap my big special wings” before having a psychic vision and fainting like a girl.

[Fire Golem]

He’s not exactly known for his strategic brilliance like Guilliman, Perturabo, Dorn are.

I’m expecting him to be out of his depth and start crying saying he wants to “go flap flap my big special wings” before having a psychic vision and fainting like a girl.

However, Guilliman wasn’t there, Dorn was focusing on Terra and Perty was a traitor, so.

[bluntblade]

But then, Sanguinius does need some hyping in that regard.

[Marshal Rohr]

I hope they use it as an opportunity to shine some light on the brilliant non-Primarch generals in the Mechanicum, Titan Legions, and Auxilia

[Mellow]

 

He’s not exactly known for his strategic brilliance like Guilliman, Perturabo, Dorn are.

I’m expecting him to be out of his depth and start crying saying he wants to “go flap flap my big special wings” before having a psychic vision and fainting like a girl.

However, Guilliman wasn’t there, Dorn was focusing on Terra and Perty was a traitor, so.

Of course. I was merely stating the obvious that every Primarch has a skill set that doesn’t always lend itself to every situation and that ultimately Primarchs eventually restort to just getting on the front lines and killing Astartes in their droves.

 

Violence solves all their problems.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Hopefully this will give Sanguinius some time in the spotlight other than "I'm enigmatic and conflicted about my true nature".

[b1soul]

@Mellow

 

"start crying saying he wants to “go flap flap my big special wings” before having a psychic vision and fainting like a girl."

 

He could dye his hair his favourite colour, to balance his delicate humours

 

@bluntblade

 

I wouldn't trust Haley to hype Sang. His portrayal of Sang in Pharos is underwhelming and fits the hyper-sensitive emo boy Mellow is joking about.

[Indefragable]

Oh boy. I’ve already read too much of this thread while only on Chapter 2.

 

Disengage! Abort! Abort! Abort!

[Marshal Loss]

I think putting Sanguinius at command here is a great idea - if done well, it will help alleviate his (many) bad depictions in the series.

[Roomsky]

Oh boy. I’ve already read too much of this thread while only on Chapter 2.

 

Disengage! Abort! Abort! Abort!

 

Here's the part where we try and figure out if Indefragable posted in the wrong thread, or sold his soul for some kind of 6+ month advanced editor's copy.

[Lucien Eilam]

It's mentioned in the interview that Sanguinius will lead the loyalists and he finds the logistics difficult to deal with however, I feel like this doesn't really make sense as a limitation for a primarch's mental abilities

 

I don't think the implication was that he's not smart enough. More that the situation is too chaotic for anyone to control. Note that he also said Beta-Garmon was a conflict spanning multiple systems, Beta-Garmon itself was just the central world of the cluster. If the Imperial lines of communication and supply are hopelessly disrupted, genius may not be enough to fix it. He can only be in one place at a time, and can't impose his strategic brilliance on officers he can't talk to.

 

I think it being Sanguinius is much more interesting than Russ in this case, because it puts Sanguinius and Horus in command on opposite sides, in the same warzone, before Terra. Although they don't appear to meet, let alone fight, at the moment of Horus' triumph, the wound Russ gave him reopens, he falls into a coma, and then spends weeks having some kind of metaphysical crisis of faith in the warp. Seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

[Indefragable]

 

Oh boy. I’ve already read too much of this thread while only on Chapter 2.

 

Disengage! Abort! Abort! Abort!

 

Here's the part where we try and figure out if Indefragable posted in the wrong thread, or sold his soul for some kind of 6+ month advanced editor's copy.

 

 

Considering I'm a nobody, I'll let you guess which of those 2 options is more plausible

 

Besides, if I'm selling my soul for any HH book it's either Book 524: When we finally get to the actual end of the Siege of Terra (not the anthology version).

 

****

 

Disclaimer: I have not ready anything in advance and am totally judging a book by the cover that has not even been drawn yet. The below is me speculating/thinking-out-loud and not any sort of secret knowledge nor is it wishlisting in any way. It's my own guesswork about what Titan Death may contain.

 

So the strategic idea of Beta Gammon kind of annoys me. If you're going to have a giant all-or-nothing last stand...shouldn't that be you know, an all-or-nothing, do-or-die last stand?

 

It seems kind of strange for Dorn to send so many forces to Beta Gammon to die....I mean, did he really expect them to prevail? If it they were meant to actually, you know, win ...then why didn't almost all the forces on Terra go to Beta Gammon as well to make it an actual last stand? I mean, in LOTR: The Two Towers the most effective part of Rohan's battle against Saruman was when most of the forces went to Helm's Deep and the other 1/4 went to Timmy's Pie Stand on Rte 92....

It just seems like a zero-sum maneuver, a throwaway gesture.

 

Ok....so now that my knee-jerk initial thoughts are out of the way, here's what would make things plausible to me:

 

1. Thermoplyae in spaaaaaaaaaace:

It's about buying time.

The Battle of Pluto in Praetorian of Dorn caused enough damage/sowed enough chaos (both big C and little c chaos) that the Loyalists needed more time to recover/prepare.

Even without Pluto, the loyalists need more time..."we need more time, dammit!" ...hoping for the Lion, Russ, Guilliman, the Shattered Legions, etc... to come in and attack Horus' rearguard. Or for the Emperor to "come back to us."

Perhaps that is the whole strategy: delay, harass, outlast

 

2. Battle for the South Pacific

Spread 'em out.

Beta Gammon is less one planet/system and more of an entire region of the galaxy. It's not Midway, or Guadacanal, or even the Marianas Campaign...it's the South Pacific theater.

Rather than a single planet or engagement, it's an entire campaign and one that is so large that the hope is to further split up Horus' forces and/or whittle them down to the point that the entrenched forces of the Sol System stand a far better chance of defeating Horus if he's rolling in with x% less of his forces.

 

 

3. Beta Gammon was the defensive stand

This is the retcon-y-est of them all, but it's also an intriguing idea. Perhaps Beta Gammon was the last stand, perhaps this is where the traitors' backs would be broken, where the foe would be thrown back into the sea warp. Far more assets than we readers/fans think were committed and --suprise!-- were routed. What Loyalist forces escaped with their lives fell back to the Sol System, meaning Sol was defended not with fresh dedicated troops, but even more battered and bloodied troops. Hence the reason the greatest battle in the history of the species was so dramatic: the battle had already essentially been fought and Terra/Sol was more an act of defiance than a true military maneuver.

It's an intriguing idea, and arguably not as much of a retcon as we may think, considering that we now know that the Heresy was not quite the Isstvaan-to-Terra bullet points that was all previous lore provided us.

 

Now, attempting to put by Blood Angel/Sanguinius fanboyism aside, #3 actually has some interesting implications:

Hidden Content

Beta Gammon is the "winnowing of the IX" that we have not really encountered so far. So Calth/Shadow Campaign was what hurt the XIII so much. Prospero, Alaxxes, Wolfsbane, and Yarant are what really take the VI out of the fight. Thramas and Caliban impact the I, although they are more whole than most others. The events of Scars and Path of Heaven show just how much damage the V take. And so on...

 

...but we are told that the IX exit Signus Prime--which was the plan to knock them out of the fight--mostly intact. As far as we know the entire IX Legion sits around and paints during the entire Imperium Secundus arc (seriously...what the were they doing that whole time?). They certainly get hurt during the course of Ruinstorm, but it seems like they again come out as a mostly whole force, especially compared to the already severely bloodied XIII and I Legions.

 

So, in essence, perhaps Beta Gammon is where the IX get "knocked down" to bring them to #'s proportional to other Legions, save the VII.

 

Likewise, perhaps this could be where Sanguinius' prowess is really demonstrated. If we assume for a moment--this is subjective, after all--that Sanguinius is one of, if not the, most powerful Primarchs, then having him lose in a pitched battle at Beta Gammon adds to the hopelessness of the situation. I don't know...I have trouble coming up with plausible ways this ends up well. Any way you slice it it's either Russ-with-the-spear 2.0 or Sanguinius-vs-Horus-in-the-end the Prequel. Either way it just seems to dilute either idea. And anything other than that is just...lame? I mean, what's the alternative, Sanguinius shows up in command, is overwhelmed and goes home crying? Or says "well gee, Rogal, I gave it my best." Any of which just makes Sanguinius even more of a lame duck than he has already (arguably) been portrayed. I mean, again, I'm a fanboy, so I wouldn't want to see that, but I don't really get what narrative purpose it would serve other than to make him even more than a panzy then his detractor-fans say he is.

 

...unless maybe this is Ka'Bhanda's revenge? This is the "one where the bad guy wins" in the 3-round fight between Sanguinius and Ka'Bhanda? <shrug> Trying to find a way where Beta Gammon works and makes sense.

 

How does up-daemoned Horus get wounded (again)?

• Maybe he pulls a Lorgar and takes a (Imperator) Titan barrage to the face?
• Maybe the wound is the "chink" Sanguinius is widely regarded as having scored into Horus' armor? (It just happened at a different time and place?)
• Sly Marbo goes back in time?

 

It had better be something good b/c Horus is starting to become a Worf right now.  The Bestest and Brightestest and Most Powerfulest Primarch who made a pact with all four Chaos gods to become as powerful as the Emperor is all powerful and only the Emperor himself  can kill him...except that time Russ stabbed him. And a Titan stepped on him. And Sanguinius put two chinks in his armor. And that banana peel was left on the kitchen floor...

 

 

EDIT:

hmmm....maybe the Red Angel (not Sanguinius, not Angron, the other one from the Signus Cluster, the fallen BA formerly known as Meros) plays into this. Horus reveals his secret weapon against Sanguinius and sends the Red Angel against Sanguinius...somehow the Red Angel ends up fighting Horus and gravely wounds him before dissipating, with the implications being that if Sanguinius had embraced the Red Angel, he could have become a god, but instead he resisted to remain pure of heart yada yada yada.

 

 

Anyways, not to be a negative nancy before the summary of this book is even out yet (holy I'm being judgemental!), but so far I am trying to figure out how this one fits into things, and I'm not liking my own rampant speculation.

 

But again, I am fully ready, willing, and able to be pleasantly surprised and will give it every chance it deserves just like with Wolfsbane and Ruinstorm.

[Biscuittzz]

Nobody going the cynical route and suggesting that this book is really just a tie in with the Titanicus release? 

[DarkChaplain]

There's an entire discussion in Wolfsbane about this and the reasoning behind Beta-Garmon:

 

 

'Guilliman's Legion is largely intact,' said Sanguinius. 'And he can call upon the full might of the Five Hundred Worlds. Lorgar and Angron wrought havoc there but Guilliman's realm is large and well organised. His is the largest Legion. Horus' forces have all suffered losses, many of them self-inflicted. Do not overestimate their strength. Horus will move against us soon, when he does not wish to.'

'I do not doubt it,' said Russ. 'Still, we have no opportunity to replenish our fleets. We are not ready to bear the brunt of an assault on Terra. Alpharius' incursion should have taught us that.'

A muscle twinge at the line of Dorn's silver hair betrayed his annoyance at Russ' statement 'You are also correct. We do need to strike back,' said Dorn. 'Now we have provoked him, we have to slow the Warmaster. If fortune is with us, we might even stop him before he gets to Terra. We can decide this strategy. It is now the Warmaster who must react and not us.'

'Facing him before our forces are gathered will cost a lot of blood,' said Russ.

'Where do you propose we make this stand?' said the Khan.

'We have so many Titans here,' said Dorn. 'We cannot unleash them upon Terra. Their kind of war would be the undoing of the Throneworld. My intention is to hold Horus at Beta-Garmon.' The system in question blinked. The hololith zoomed into it at a gesture from Dorn. He pointed at it with his calloused, craftsman's hand. 'Seven major warp routes cross here. It has been contested since the beginning of the war. If we commit the majority of our forces to Beta-Garmon, we can hold Horus and our traitorous brothers there.'

'And grind them out like cinders,' said Sanguinius. 'I do not see a better proposition.'

Russ shook his head. 'It brings us back to attrition. They have the numbers. If we cannot best Horus quickly there, he will overcome us. Once Beta-Garmon is lost, the way to Terra is open. What will we defend ourselves with then?'

'This kind of defensive war is your preference, Rogal,' said the Khan, 'but it is not to my liking. We risk becoming ensnared there. There are other routes to Terra. He could hold our forces in place at Beta-Garmon and outflank us.'

'Our hunting brother is right,' said Russ. 'Beta-Garmon is a hell trap, and one that will too easily divide our forces, for must we not retain a portion of our strength here to fortify Terra? Fight him there, we are divided, fight him here, he has time to gather his strength. Horus has us outmanoeuvred.'

'Any battle at Beta-Garmon will be bloody, there is no doubt of that,' said Dorn. 'The casualty figures I have projected are high, but they are bearable, and they will give us more time to fortify Terra. Guilliman will come from the galactic south-east, and trap Horus either at Beta-Garmon, or if he breaks through, against the wall of iron I have cast about this world.'

Russ set down his goblet. 'You are forgetting something.'

'What am I forgetting, Leman?' said Dorn.

'We are assuming that Horus intends to strike with his full might at Terra. Why should he do so? If I were Horus, I would set the Iron Warriors to guard my back. The warp, though passable, is in turmoil. Horus still has a strategic advantage in travel speed. You can be assured he will not waste it He need only delay Guilliman for a short time, not confront him head on, and he will be able to bring overwhelming force against Beta-Garmon, then Terra, destroying our armies piece by piece.'

'It is plausible, probable even, but I doubt the Warmaster anticipated the destruction of Davin,' said Dorn. 'Reinforcements arrive from all over the Imperium every day, and now the storm abates they come more quickly. We have access to the astrotelepathic network again, and so we exert greater control over loyalist factions. At Beta-Garmon, and at Terra, Horus will face far larger armies than he expected. He will know this, he will rush, and he will make errors. This is the race, to see who will be ready soonest.'

 

Basically, Dorn couldn't keep the Titan Legions on Terra, or risk a full-on Titan battle on the Throneworld because it'd nuke everything in short order. Beta-Garmon was in part intended to tie up those forces and hopefully reduce the non-Legion forces, while at the same time delaying Horus. We also know from Slaves to Darkness that, indeed, Horus had put the Iron Warriors as a rearguard, and they did maintain that position for about 6 months before ordered to catch up.

 

With the Lion attacking traitor worlds and cutting off supply lines, Roboute coming up from behind with a large force, the warp storms abating and more and more loyalist splinters making their way for Terra and fraying loyalties between the traitor Primarchs, Horus was forced to move quickly. We know that he was trying to end it asap and took that shield gamble in the end game because of it. He already has trouble even getting in touch with his brothers, with Angron running around slaughtering, Fulgrim leaving his Legion behind to take a vacation in the Eye, Mortarion being headstrong and so on. Even before Molech, he knew he was struck with broken allies. Even Magnus still isn't fully on his side yet by the end of Beta-Garmon (though some Thousand Sons are mentioned on Yarant, though I can't tell how much time passed between the end of Wolfsbane and that part of Weregeld, in relation to Beta-Garmon)

 

Every month Dorn could hold Beta-Garmon meant another month where the traitor fleets could not breach into Sol as a massed army. It is supposedly the most stable route for large fleet movements. The Alpha Legion made a different kind of incursion, which worked for them, but that wasn't exactly a large fighting force with hundreds of ships across many Legions and auxilia. Every month allowed for Terra to be further reinforced, supplies to be stockpiled, more loyalists arriving in-system, for Guilliman to break through, for the Lion to do more damage, for the Shattered Legions and Russ to harass, for the Emperor to make a move, for Malcador to prepare further for the Grey Knights and Inquisition... There were a lot of things at play that were well-worth stalling Horus for, even if it meant sending all the heavy duty gear to its doom. We've seen what chaos one Titan could provoke on Terra, back in The Binary Succession. Now imagine hundreds...

[Lord_Caerolion]

I was just about to say, Titans aren't something that you want rampaging across Terra. Beta-Garmon allowed both the Imperials a chance to utilise their Titans to their full extent without as much risk of unacceptable collateral damage, and also in doing so to draw out the Traitor Titan Legions to oppose them, sparing the walls of the Imperial Palace the sheer damage they could inflict. Beta-Garmon unleashed one of the Imperials greatest weapons, and blunted one of the Traitors. That sounds worthwhile to me.

[b1soul]

Aye...but wouldn't the Traitors have atomics even absent Titans?

[Marshal Rohr]

Titans will be at Terra in numbers worthy of note. That’s always been in the lore. There just won’t be legions of hundreds of titans like at Beta Garmon.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Aye...but wouldn't the Traitors have atomics even absent Titans?

 

Yes, but Titans can utterly annihilate a section of fortress wall and have Legionnaires secure the breach almost instantly afterwards. Atomics can annihilate a section of fortress wall, and be too tainted for all but the Death Guard/sealed armoured vehicles to immediately follow into the breach.

[Fire Golem]

Nobody going the cynical route and suggesting that this book is really just a tie in with the Titanicus release? :whistling:

It’s not really a tie in if Titanicus is out this month and this isn’t out until December at the earliest.

[b1soul]

@ Lord_Caerolian

 

It seems the Legiones/Adeptus Astartes don't have something equivalent to tactical nukes.

 

Astartes space vessels have weapons approximating or exceeding strategic nukes...but Astartes infantry, ground vehicles, atmospheric craft seem to lack a mid-tier ordinance with, say, one to ten kiloton yield.

[Izlude]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/08/07/7th-aug-adeptus-titanicus-and-the-horus-heresygw-homepage-post-4fw-homepage-post-4/

 

This describes the tie-in with Adeptus Titanicus and Guy's new book coming out later this year. Hopefully it won't be too "gamey." The two book Battle for Calth that came along side the Betrayal at Calth game was too much advertisement and thus were not a good read.

 

Dark Imperium was generally a really enjoyable read but it was obvious the Primaris parts were more to advertise the new space marines. Hopefully Titandeath won't be too much of that.

[Fire Golem]

 

Nobody going the cynical route and suggesting that this book is really just a tie in with the Titanicus release? :whistling:

It’s not really a tie in if Titanicus is out this month and this isn’t out until December at the earliest.

  

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/08/07/7th-aug-adeptus-titanicus-and-the-horus-heresygw-homepage-post-4fw-homepage-post-4/

 

This describes the tie-in with Adeptus Titanicus and Guy's new book coming out later this year. Hopefully it won't be too "gamey." The two book Battle for Calth that came along side the Betrayal at Calth game was too much advertisement and thus were not a good read.

 

Dark Imperium was generally a really enjoyable read but it was obvious the Primaris parts were more to advertise the new space marines. Hopefully Titandeath won't be too much of that.

Well, I take that back!

[Indefragable]

I get the idea that Dorn is concerned about the impact to Planet Earth Terra itself by having so many Titans duke it out, but that still doesn't make as much sense to me. It's like if one country says "you know, we're concerned about the effects of noise pollution from fighter jets over our mainland, so we're not going to fly any warplanes." The other side would be like "thanks!" and get instant air superiority. And that's in the relatively "honorable"/Geneva-Convention-abiding modern times. You can imagine the lack of qualms a conflict as bitter as the Horus Heresy (where....you know...actual daemons are involved) would entail. Especially if Horus's goal is to kill the Emperor. Nuking the planet is the only way to be sure*.

 

But all of that is moot since the recent blurbs about Adeptus Titanicus and Titan Death, as well as comments from Guy Haley himself, are basically GW waving a hand and saying "look, Beta Gammon, ok?" So i'm fine with it in the same sense that I'm fine with warp shenaniganery and all the other illogical things we 40k fans just kind of accept. Willing suspension of disbelief and all that.

 

Long-story-short I'm not being negative about anything and will wait for the book to come out.

 

 

*which is why Titan warfare in general, in my humble persona opionion, is dumb. Considering how ridiculously powerful space naval craft are in 40k, Titans just make themselves prime orbital bombardment targets. "But void shields!" Yea...exactly! Void shields! The same exact thing that naval vessels have dialed up to 40 and are precisely what naval weapons are designed to defeat.

TL;DR: the in-universe WAAC commanders would go all in on excellent infantry and naval vessels and skip the rest