New Lost Legions background by Rick Priestley

[Beta galactosidase]

It looks like part of the story is that we should never know, and that they may have been traitors who turned back to the Imperium, which earned them the erasure of the stain on their good names of being erased completely. Excerpt from a recent interview:

 

BIFFORD: There are two missing Space Marine Legions: the 2nd and the 11th. They have been purged from Imperium records, and Games Workshop has so far not given any details of what they were like. Did you have any vision or plan for an eventual revelation? Did you have any concept of what they should be like?

PRIESTLEY: I always imaged these Legions were deleted from the records as a result of things that happened during the Horus Heresy - and that the 'purging' was a recognition that whatever terrible things they had done had been - in the end - redeemed in some way. So - with the passing of all record of them was also expunged all record of their misdeeds - they are forgiven and forgotten. As opposed to those legions which rebelled and which remain 'traitor' legions.

Of course - I never imagined that the Horus Heresy would even emerge from a mythic past (it was ten thousand years ago after all!) so I fondly imaged we had many thousand of years in which we could create diverse and colourful histories. In fact, the Horus Heresy idea was picked up and became a strong theme for the 'epic' game and later for 40K in other ways - but it was also meant to be mysterious and 'beyond knowing' as I conceived it.

 

BIFFORD: So you never had any details in mind; it was always meant to be a vague mystery to you. You never planned a revelation.

PRIESTLEY: That's right - it was always intended to be something unknown - but had I had the chance to evolve the story of the Horus Heresy for myself I imagine I would have picked up on it. As it was that task was taken up by others and the Horus Heresy developed in ways somewhat beyond my control! But such is the nature of the thing. You can't do everything yourself

 

BIFFORD: I have another question about the Missing Space Marine Legions. It sounds like their purpose was to illustrate the character of the Imperium. The Imperium is a very proud but very insecure culture that doesn't like to confront its flaws and awkward legacies. It prefers to forget them; damnatio memoriae. Is my interpretation correct?

PRIESTLEY: Yes it was to illustrate the character of the Imperium as it was at a certain point in its history - even though perhaps that no longer made a great deal of sense. I always thought of the Imperium as a vast self-serving bureaucracy in which no-one really knew what they were doing but they continue do it out of a sense of tradition and routine - so status and power become bound up with all kinds of half-baked assumptions, received wisdom and superstition. Much like the real world really.

 

BIFFORD: A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions. Is this true?

PRIESTLEY: I left them blank before Horus Heresy games were conceived! I left them blank because I wanted to give the story some kind of deep background - unknowable ten thousand year old mysteries - stuff that begs questions for which there could be no answer. Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting - which rather spoiled the unknowable side of things - but there you go!

 

BIFFORD: Ah, this is going to amaze a lot of people on Reddit

PRIESTLEY: Is it?

 

BIFFORD: Yep, everyone there thinks you left two Legions blank for players to fill in.

PRIESTLEY: Well - I created a thousand Chapters - of which we only gave details of a dozen or so - so there were nine hundred odd Chapters left blank for people to fill in. In the original 40K that is! The Horus Heresy stemmed from a short piece of narrative text I wrote - I think it was in Chapter Approved: The Book of the Astronomican - but I never imagined it would be used for a game setting. The trouble with the Heresy as envisaged by GW is it just feels like 40K - it doesn't have the feel of a genuinely different society that ten thousand years separation would give you. Whenever I wrote anything that referenced back to those times I always wrote in a legendary, non-literal style. It's as if you were dealing with something like the Iliad rather than literal history - and there you're only talking three thousand years - ten thousand years - that takes us back to the end of the last ice-age... and I don't get any sense of understanding about 'deep time' when I look at anything GW have set in the 40K 'past'.

 

BIFFORD: When did you leave Games Workshop, and why?

PRIESTLEY: Well I was made redundant so didn't have much choice in the matter! By that time I think the GW management team had changed a great deal and the business was run by people very disconnected from the hobby. The company had settled down into a very limited product range and a single-minded business model - so there was increasingly little for me to do. There were some aspects of the business that I felt were not being handled well and at that time 'other voices' were in the ascendant. I would point out that immediately after I left the whole 'finecast' project emerged - which is just the sort of thing I would normally have been involved with - but in fact I wasn't involved at all... which tells you something! GW endured seven years of poor results after I had left. They went through the whole saga of dumping WD as a monthly magazine, abandoning all social media, a very messy and controversial AoS/Warhammer relaunch, running stores as one-man affairs, withdrawing their fiction range from the book trade, and a lot of other rather misguided decisions (IMO) which resulted in poor company results, declining sales, and very poor shareholder returns. I have to say they do seem to have seen sense in the last year or so and maybe we can now look forward to 'seven plentiful years' Many of the things that they have done recently are exactly the things I was championing before I left... you do have to wonder. Well good luck to them I say!

 

BIFFORD: You've created a new game called "Beyond the Gates of Antares". What does this game have to offer veteran players of Warhammer 40,000?

PRIESTLEY: Well it's a very different kind of game from the 40K that I remember - but then I haven't played 40K for a long, long time so I'm not really in a good position to say!

Overall - Antares is a game that's built as something I'd enjoy playing - with a strong narrative structure and a coherent background that is closer to classic space-opera than 40K. The game is based on the Bolt Action dice-draw system so it's not IGOUGO - and gameplay is built around manoeuvre and position. It plays very well as a fairly small game with - say - 30 or so troops a side - although you can go bigger if you want. It's D10 based not D6 and - so far - the races are based on humans and human 'morphs' though some are quite 'alien' in character.

You can download a 'free' version of the rulebook from the Warlord site. https://store.warlordgames.com/products/gates-of-antares-base-one-nexus-goa-light-rules

 

 

Personally, I have very little respect for the eventual revelation about who the lost legions were. There are lots of things we'll never know about history, even what a British accent sounded like 400 years ago.

 

Full interview here by BaronBifford

Edited October 13, 2018 by Beta galactosidase

[Bryan Blaire]

Well, let's take into account very much, like Mr. Priestly says, what he had envisioned/had in his mind and whatever eventual official 30K/40K revelation are likely to be very, very different things.

 

I like some of what he had to say, and I definitely agree that the Heresy does feel very 40K, barring some few detail changes, and therefore lost much of its interest to me, barring reading the novels to see what GW is doing with it, but I do wish it had been much more "mythic" than just "different faces 40K."

[Doghouse]

BIFFORD: When did you leave Games Workshop, and why?

PRIESTLEY: Well I was made redundant so didn't have much choice in the matter! 

 

Wow... 

 

I genuinely never knew that they laid the god emperor off, that comes as a big shock to me.

 

 

 

I like some of what he had to say, and I definitely agree that the Heresy does feel very 40K, barring some few detail changes, and therefore lost much of its interest to me, barring reading the novels to see what GW is doing with it, but I do wish it had been much more "mythic" than just "different faces 40K."

 

 

I am 100% behind you there mate. In fact that is exactly how I came up with my terminator method of truescaling to set them apart in a much more ancient Greek hero kind of way. 

 

Although I pretty much stopped reading the novels after First Heretic (because I was only interested in events prior to the Heresy) there are some aspects like the idea of Imperial Truth I do like. Once the Heresy got started for me it was just good marines versus bad marines and I lost interest.

 

As for the two lost Legions I think I agree with Rick in that the less known the better. The Heresy is a double edged sword for me in that it can reveal a little too much for my liking in some cases, guess it's a case of never meet your heroes. The best example of this for me is how it has inspired Fraeter here to do their own versions of the 11th and 2nd, filling in the gaps yourself sometimes can be a very rewarding experience.

[Ficinus]

It looks like part of the story is that we should never know, and that they may have been traitors who turned back to the Imperium, which earned them the erasure of the stain on their good names of being erased completely. Excerpt from a recent interview:

 

 

BIFFORD: A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions. Is this true?

PRIESTLEY: I left them blank before Horus Heresy games were conceived! I left them blank because I wanted to give the story some kind of deep background - unknowable ten thousand year old mysteries - stuff that begs questions for which there could be no answer. Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting - which rather spoiled the unknowable side of things - but there you go!

 

BIFFORD: Yep, everyone there thinks you left two Legions blank for players to fill in.

PRIESTLEY: Well - I created a thousand Chapters - of which we only gave details of a dozen or so - so there were nine hundred odd Chapters left blank for people to fill in. In the original 40K that is! The Horus Heresy stemmed from a short piece of narrative text I wrote - I think it was in Chapter Approved: The Book of the Astronomican - but I never imagined it would be used for a game setting. The trouble with the Heresy as envisaged by GW is it just feels like 40K - it doesn't have the feel of a genuinely different society that ten thousand years separation would give you. Whenever I wrote anything that referenced back to those times I always wrote in a legendary, non-literal style. It's as if you were dealing with something like the Iliad rather than literal history - and there you're only talking three thousand years - ten thousand years - that takes us back to the end of the last ice-age... and I don't get any sense of understanding about 'deep time' when I look at anything GW have set in the 40K 'past'.

 

Personally, I have very little respect for the eventual revelation about who the lost legions were. There are lots of things we'll never know about history, even what a British accent sounded like 400 years ago.

 

Full interview here by BaronBifford

 

 

 

So, Rick Priestly came up with the idea for the Horus Heresy in 1988 in The Book of the Astronomican.  This was apparently written (and published?) before Horus Heresy games were conceived.  The first game set in the Horus Heresy released by GW was Adeptus Titanicus in 1988, quickly followed by Space Marine in 1989.  This raises the question: how long prior to 1988 had Rick Priestly written a small blurb about something called the Horus Heresy?  Probably at least two or three years since he never imagined the Horus Heresy would be used as a game setting despite the fact that it was used as a game setting the same year it was first mentioned in print.  Maybe they just came up with everything for Adeptus Titanicus at the last minute?

Edited October 14, 2018 by Ficinus

[Prot]

I enjoyed the interview and as usual I am torn.

 

Ideally I greatly admire and miss the old age thinking and the humble begins of 40k. But at the same time one of my favourite armies to paint and play (Custodes) is probably far beyond the scope of what he originally envisioned.... someone had to evolve the franchise, and it won’t end here either. I always imagined Disney buying out GW and our little secret here will turn into 30+ movies and a bunch of merchandising.

 

I enjoy these old school guys though. It brings back some really fond memories for me.

[N1SB]

Thanks very much for pointing us to this article. It not only reveals insights, but is a reminder of the founding philosophy 40k is built upon, and how Rick Priestley had such a deep understanding of the tabletop industry. He's talking about IP lawyers legal speak, influenced by many sources but is a wholly original creation, and also manager-speak, you can't do everything (yourself, so delegate it). That is classic Rick Priestley, as he was also a mentor to other designers like Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers, who said Rick taught him:

"It never pays to tie up loose ends too neatly."

The Horus Heresy was one such prime example, and it's really worth thinking about because of 30k's popularity, segueing to this really great question:

So, Rick Priestly came up with the idea for the Horus Heresy in 1988 in The Book of the Astronomican. This was apparently written (and published?) before Horus Heresy games were conceived. The first game set in the Horus Heresy released by GW was Adeptus Titanicus in 1988, quickly followed by Space Marine in 1989. This raises the question: how long prior to 1988 had Rick Priestly written a small blurb about something called the Horus Heresy? Probably at least two or three years since he never imagined the Horus Heresy would be used as a game setting despite the fact that it was used as a game setting the same year it was first mentioned in print. Maybe they just came up with everything for Adeptus Titanicus at the last minute?

A Frater here once said "Rogue Trader (i.e. 1st ed 40k) was really just concept designs for 40k" and I really agree with that, so that's the mentality I'm going with here. I looked at and weighed different references to Horus Heresy from the start to 1988. In the 1st introduction to the Imperium and the Emperor at its centre:

Over ten thousand years ago the Great Emperor of Mankind ascended to the Golden Throne of Earth. Of the wars he waged to get there, of the countless agonies of battling worlds, there is no record. Only the Emperor remembers - if indeed even that strange and ancient creature can recall those distant times.

The idea of there being no record but the God Emperor's own memory explains what Rick calls "deep time", it's the past that was but is unknown and perhaps even unknowable. I remember seeing game design books that advised always introducing some long lost civilisation to your RPG setting, just to have something to draw from later. They didn't name it as the Horus Heresy yet...as that would be a record...but that was the thinking of the time. That would soon change, however.

There were a number of things in the works and released about a year later, including the original Adeptus Titanicus, but also the Realm of Chaos books. Because of lead-lag issues, just because something was published 1st, doesn't mean it was developed 1st. Like they needed to design and churn out models for Titanicus, which took more time. So I don't look merely at dates, but the backgrounds too.

Chaos was not referenced in the original 1st ed 40k Rogue Trader book, but it became a big deal very quickly. There were many reasons for introducing Chaos, but a very practical one at the time was to explain why 2 Space Marine (or Imperial Guard or Dwarf in WhFB) armies would fight one another; one side was clearly worshiping/being controlled by Chaos. This happened A LOT. "Chaos" was just the way to say "I'm the evil twin."

(They anticipated these mirror-matches from the start, like they had the Badab War to explain Marine vs. Marine, but that wasn't as popular as what'd become 30k.)

Like 2 kids go into a Games Workshop, 1 says "I want to play Space Marines," the other says "but I want Space Marines too!" Then they fight, but a red shirt comes in, telling them "you can BOTH play Space Marines...one of you can be CHAOS Space Marines." It was classic Rick Priestley in that he introduced lore/game mechanics to let people to play how they wanted.

The 1st Realm of Chaos book detailed the lore of Horus Heresy that still holds almost entirely true to this day. Ten millennia ago, "General Horus" was being elevated to the rank of "Warmaster", but on the way to get the promotion he visited a warrior lodge...a common practice for that time to recruit new Legion Astartes...but it turned out to be a Chaos cabal. It makes reference to institutions Horus turned to his side, including Titan Colleges.

Which leads to this, the 1st full page illustration (there was previously some sidebar art before this of Marine vs. Marine action) of the Horus Heresy itself:

Early 40k had some crazy art that we wouldn't even recognise as 40k, but this is very recognisable. To go from left to right, Space Marines in their classic Mk 6 Beakie armour, what appears to be a really early prototype of a Mechanicus Onager, a 1st ed robot (I think a Colossus chassis), and what seems to be a Titan, but also resembles what'd become a Dreadknight, because at the time I don't think they had a clear idea of what a Titan should look like yet.

This train of thought makes me imagine the following chain of events, that involved Rick and everyone else at GW brainstorming:

1. 30k was meant to be this "deep time" mysterious age

2. Almost immediately, it became the obvious backdrop for a big civil war, introducing Chaos

3. And once it became the backdrop for a civil war, I think games like Titanicus made use of it, too

TL;DR - I don't think the Horus Heresy was rushed purely for Titanicus, as details were already around, and it was really meant to introduce the Traitor Legions.

I'm not sure this is right, but looking at all the pieces, this is the best way the puzzle fits together. Maybe it's worth a follow-up interview with Rick, but I remember distinctly in the earliest references Chaos was a much more nebulous concept, introduced just to have an excuse for 2 "good guy" factions fight one another, but from that they explored way more things like Daemons and the Traitor Legions and stuff.

Game archaeology is fun.

+++++

I'm really, really intrigued on doing something with the Lost Legions in the new lore, like maybe their remnants were used to create a batch of Primaris or something. Like what's supposed to be an all-Primaris Chapter are seen lead by some sort of traditional Marine in Mk VI, recorded as "Captain Xi" because they only badge they notice on him is one with the letters "XI".

I also leave you this crazy image, in the spirit of this interview:

[m0nolith]

I read that entire interview, fantastic read!

Thank you for sharing this :D

[Closet Skeleton]

So, Rick Priestly came up with the idea for the Horus Heresy in 1988 in The Book of the Astronomican.  This was apparently written (and published?) before Horus Heresy games were conceived.  The first game set in the Horus Heresy released by GW was Adeptus Titanicus in 1988, quickly followed by Space Marine in 1989.  This raises the question: how long prior to 1988 had Rick Priestly written a small blurb about something called the Horus Heresy?  Probably at least two or three years since he never imagined the Horus Heresy would be used as a game setting despite the fact that it was used as a game setting the same year it was first mentioned in print.  Maybe they just came up with everything for Adeptus Titanicus at the last minute?

 

 

I head somewhere that Adeptus Titanicus only became a humans vs humans game when they found themselves low on budget and too close to the planned release date without any xenos robots ready to put into production.

[Irbis]

The 'redemption' take is pretty interesting one, and honestly, something that would make a lot more sense than stupid "we're all raving chaos lunatics now but we dare not break silence oath we made century ago because it would be improper" thing GW authors have going on now. Honestly, one could have stayed 'lost', mysterious one, but the other should have been developed into new, fresh element that would be a real wildcard in HH story. Maybe rebels made so much progress thanks to support of the 'purged' legion, then, when the primarch realized the depths of heresy, he would turn against Horus, winning battle of Terra for loyalists with his heroic self-sacrifice?

 

That would not only provide 'rebel' counterpart to Dark Angels, it would also finally give some grey morality to the traitors, by providing example of primarch who didn't turn into cartoonish clown character once corrupted, but one with enough conviction and strength of will to say 'enough is enough' at some point. This would also give Imperium reason to 'purge' him - primarch could deny chaos in the end, but giving false hope to mortal servants of the Imperium that you can say 'no' at some point if corrupted by Chaos would be really unwise so the story was suppressed and the damned was given the honour of not being vilified for the rest of time like the other traitors were...

 

I'm really, really intrigued on doing something with the Lost Legions in the new lore, like maybe their remnants were used to create a batch of Primaris or something.  Like what's supposed to be an all-Primaris Chapter are seen lead by some sort of traditional Marine in Mk VI, recorded as "Captain Xi" because they only badge they notice on him is one with the letters "XI".

 

I also leave you this crazy image, in the spirit of this interview:

 

Funnily enough, Cawl requested permission to reactivate geneseed of II and XI legions, and while RG denied that, he had a feeling Cawl will do say anyway as an 'experiment'. So, yeah, that is pretty canon. Hell, maybe even Blood Ravens (given their story and not really matching any of the known legions) are offshoot of one of the lost and will be used as an excuse (RG ordered to replenish all chapters, after all) by Cawl?

 

And yeah, that picture is just one of the few mixing examples. You also had Talisman, game vaguely styled after WH Fantasy with expansion obviously based on 40K, or WH RPG games where you could find bolters and power armour in a few adventures...

[Marshal Rohr]

Kind of :cuss to make a snide comment about Alan Bligh making the Heresy.

[Lay]

I don't think it was directed at Bligh in particular. FW only got involved after the novel series, the art books and the card game.

[Marshal Rohr]

Considering he’s being condescending about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is. He’s probably upset the Heresy completely eclipsed 40k as the definitive era of the game. Imagine if you were Tolkien and Peter Jackson came along and made the war against against Morgoth or whatever the original Sauron character was into this epic setting with massive battles, huge fleets, armies of millions and people loved it more than ‘thirty guys in a thunderhawk stop a rebellion’. Edited October 14, 2018 by Marshal Rohr

[Bryan Blaire]

Considering that there is no mention of Alan Bligh, Forge World, etc., and no way to determine tone or anything else, we can only read into raw text what we want to be there.

[Marshal Rohr]

Have you, ever in your life, heard anyone refer to someone as a bright spark in a non-sardonic way before proceeding to express disagreement? Edited October 14, 2018 by Marshal Rohr

[Bryan Blaire]

I've never heard any person singular referred to as a 'bright spark' period. We can't know without further discussion with Rick Priestly exactly what he was talking about with that reference, as it isn't that descriptive and we must infer anything else. I personally didn't even think of Alan Bligh when I read that phrase. I also don't think that he's really worried about the popularity of any particular line from GW any more considering that he didn't work on anything for them in the last 3+ editions. I get the impression he shakes his head over what was done with the game and setting as a whole anyway.

 

And the Horus Heresy setting/concept was definitive for 40K long before the FW game and rules came along. I won't detract from all the hard work and labor of love that was put into FW's game, but it wasn't "eclipsing" to 40K - there are plenty of 40K players who never played and didn't intend to play the HH game rules and have continued on playing 40K to this day. FW HH never became the "main segment" of the business for GW, for their sci-fantasy setting, that was always 40K.

 

The question he was responding to was also poorly worded. "A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions" is not the common, popularly held belief amongst 40K players - it was that the 'Lost Legions' were left blank so that players of 40K could create their own Chapters who might have been descended from those lost Legions for 40K so that they didn't have to have them tied to any of the known gene-lines. That had been the case long before FW made the HH game, heck, I actually heard that expressed directly all the way back during 2nd Edition from players. That it almost became a trope among players and was usually done poorly is why people have cautions against doing so for DIY Chapter projects.

 

Regardless, the personal feelings of Rick Priestly toward Alan Bligh, or any of our feelings toward Rick Priestly, is hardly the topic of the original post.

 

I hope that GW as a whole, including all subsidiaries, will just leave the 'lost Legions' as a mystery not to be told.

[Doghouse]

Considering he’s being condescending about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is. He’s probably upset the Heresy completely eclipsed 40k as the definitive era of the game. Imagine if you were Tolkien and Peter Jackson came along and made the war against against Morgoth or whatever the original Sauron character was into this epic setting with massive battles, huge fleets, armies of millions and people loved it more than ‘thirty guys in a thunderhawk stop a rebellion’.

 

Don't worry he's not having a pop anyone in particular and there is nothing in that to say he is. What you have to remember 40K was his baby, he's moved on and is looking back on how he would have done things compared to the direction they have taken. He's a lot more level headed than that and is focused on his new game.

[Ficinus]

When people talked about the lost legions being kept mysterious so that people could make their own legions, I always assumed they were talking about Adeptus Titanicus or Space Marine, since it was set in the Heresy. Did the original blurb contain information on the original twenty legions (including that two were expunged)? Or was it not until the Heresy was expanded on in Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine that that was developed?

 

But, over all, I found Priestly's attitude towards the Horus Heresy series to be very condescending. He seemed to look down on having a story or game set in the Horus Heresy despite the fact that the Horus Heresy was a game setting from the beginning. Is he upset that Adeptus Titanicus was set in the Heresy? Is he saying that the Heresy wa ruined in 1988 by AT: "Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting."

 

All this said, yes, the legions should remain a mystery.

Edited October 14, 2018 by Ficinus

[Doghouse]

The Heresy exists because of AT, it's the whole reason we have the Heresy in the first place.

 

The Heresy in Adeptus Titanicus and the later Space Marine (which was set after the Heresy in the Scouring) came about purely through the need for coming up for a reason for including two sets of identical miniatures in both games on a design budget.

 

Space Marine went into greater detail but the Legions and Primarchs were not as we know then now, although there were nods to the Heresy to come in other publications these facts were expanded on much much later in the first index astartes articles. Black Library are the ones that went into the actual nitty gritty details with the Visual Guide made to accompany the Sabre Tooth game and then expanded further via the novels and the later FW miniatures that were based off a conversion that later became the Red Scorpions.

 

The original list of the twenty legions was exactly as we see it now.

[Prot]

I thought I knew everything about Cawl (I actually like his character a lot). He's our mad scientist, but we need him... a double edged sword (reading about RG's political discussions with him in Dark Imperium was interesting.) Anyway I did not know Cawl wanted to activate the expunged legions. 

 

If the Imperium gets desperate enough.... I think that could be a very cool story. One goes good, one goes bad, we're back to even terms and it could be an interesting idea if it's well executed. No doubt the community would scream murder, but the best stories often do. :)

[Gederas]

I thought I knew everything about Cawl (I actually like his character a lot). He's our mad scientist, but we need him... a double edged sword (reading about RG's political discussions with him in Dark Imperium was interesting.) Anyway I did not know Cawl wanted to activate the expunged legions. 

 

If the Imperium gets desperate enough.... I think that could be a very cool story. One goes good, one goes bad, we're back to even terms and it could be an interesting idea if it's well executed. No doubt the community would scream murder, but the best stories often do.

Cawl brings up a point in Dark Imperium, iirc, that he has all 20 legions gene-seed, Guilliman says no, just the 9 Loyalists and Cawl responds that it wasn't a flaw in the gene-seed that made the traitors fall.

 

Plus, if we go by gene-seed purity, MOST of the pure, stable gene-seed is on the Traitors anyway. :lol:

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I enjoyed the interview and as usual I am torn.

 

Ideally I greatly admire and miss the old age thinking and the humble begins of 40k. But at the same time one of my favourite armies to paint and play (Custodes) is probably far beyond the scope of what he originally envisioned.... someone had to evolve the franchise, and it won’t end here either. I always imagined Disney buying out GW and our little secret here will turn into 30+ movies and a bunch of merchandising.

 

I enjoy these old school guys though. It brings back some really fond memories for me.

 

I don't think you have to worry about that. 40k has a lot of themes that I don't think most production studios would want to deal with, and the lore and setting are the where the value is. So I think it will stay more on the fringes (which is good)

[N1SB]

 

Funnily enough, Cawl requested permission to reactivate geneseed of II and XI legions, and while RG denied that, he had a feeling Cawl will do say anyway as an 'experiment'. So, yeah, that is pretty canon. Hell, maybe even Blood Ravens (given their story and not really matching any of the known legions) are offshoot of one of the lost and will be used as an excuse (RG ordered to replenish all chapters, after all) by Cawl?

 

And yeah, that picture is just one of the few mixing examples. You also had Talisman, game vaguely styled after WH Fantasy with expansion obviously based on 40K, or WH RPG games where you could find bolters and power armour in a few adventures...

 

Oh...was this in Dark Imperium between RG and the "Cawl Inferior"?  I forgot the details of this conversation, will review.

 

And I love the Blood Ravens idea.  For awhile, I thought they and the Thousand Sons Corvidae Cult were related, until it was pointed out they weren't.

 

Thanks for both these points, and yeah, that picture when WhFB/WhFRP/40k was still finding its identity.  On a D100 roll of 100, a Lascannon drops into the Old World.

[Irbis]

When people talked about the lost legions being kept mysterious so that people could make their own legions, I always assumed they were talking about Adeptus Titanicus or Space Marine, since it was set in the Heresy. Did the original blurb contain information on the original twenty legions (including that two were expunged)? Or was it not until the Heresy was expanded on in Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine that that was developed?

 

IIRC there were 20 legions at first, including the Valedictors and Rainbow Warriors, and the expunging is later invention. That though was in the era where Leman Russ was just Imperial general who was given the honor to create 'Spacewolf' division upon his promotion so canon status of that is kind debatable.

 

The question he was responding to was also poorly worded. "A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions" is not the common, popularly held belief amongst 40K players - it was that the 'Lost Legions' were left blank so that players of 40K could create their own Chapters who might have been descended from those lost Legions for 40K so that they didn't have to have them tied to any of the known gene-lines.

 

Really? I heard 'two blank legions to make your own' theory a lot, together with also popular 'the legions were expunged because two guys who made them left GW and they were erased either out of spite/to not infringe IP', but the 'create both your own chapter and legion' is new to me. Not only I never heard that before, it kind of defies logic as how could be at once expunged and right there out in the open? Weren't the lore pretty clear that by the point of second founding there was no trace of II and XI legions left?

[Bryan Blaire]

 

The question he was responding to was also poorly worded. "A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions" is not the common, popularly held belief amongst 40K players - it was that the 'Lost Legions' were left blank so that players of 40K could create their own Chapters who might have been descended from those lost Legions for 40K so that they didn't have to have them tied to any of the known gene-lines.

 

Really? I heard 'two blank legions to make your own' theory a lot, together with also popular 'the legions were expunged because two guys who made them left GW and they were erased either out of spite/to not infringe IP', but the 'create both your own chapter and legion' is new to me. Not only I never heard that before, it kind of defies logic as how could be at once expunged and right there out in the open? Weren't the lore pretty clear that by the point of second founding there was no trace of II and XI legions left?

It's common enough that DIY Chapter stuff here on the B&C and abroad you can find actually say "It's becoming a trope, just don't, you won't do it justice" or similar. And nothing was ever said about it being "out there in the open," so I have to assume you misread/inserted your own idea, but you must also remember that very few Imperial citizens even knows much of anything about the Heresy, so it's a good bet that next to none know about the Lost Legions, so there would be nothing to be open about. Further, not every Chapter knows what gene-line it's descended from (heck, look at GW's own Marine Codexes), and during 2nd & 3rd Edition, it wasn't uncommon for Marine players to think they were clever and unique by coming from a hidden 2nd or 11th Legion gene-line, but the stories weren't really ever that great. To this day, even here at the B&C, you can find this amongst the DIY Chapters.

 

In the end, it amounts to about the same thing, but IMO, it's still a poorly worded question that relies on the assumption that the person asking the question and the person answering the question have the same definition of "Horus Heresy games," as opposed to specifically saying what the questioner meant by that. If it means AT and Space Marine, it's a bit strange, because those came out in seemingly similar time frame to references to the Heresy (what, a year or two separation at most) and Priestly still would have been at GW when those games were released, and I wouldn't consider a year or two enough time span to think that it wouldn't be used as the basic background of a game (especially if you were there at the time they were written).

[Arganias]

I used to think I was being an old fart when a bunch of kids keep telling me about lore from the HH game. The more they tell me the more I believe that Horus was only ever somewhat competent up until he officially revealed his treachery. Once it was out in the open, and somehow after practically destroying 3 loyalist legions, proceeded to lose every major engagement. I was told Alexis Pollux was ambushed by a vastly superior fleet of IW and he basically proceeded to outmaneuver and embarrass Perturabo. I understand that this is a bit of hear-say, but I'm not a fan of a lot of what I have seen of the setting or the game.

 

I read the first three books of the series, but after the third and Flight of the Eisenstein I couldn't get into it. I like the idea of the Heresy being a barely remembered time of mythology and allegory. I'm not going to tell people to not enjoy it, but I empathize with Priestly here.