Seige of Terra series news

[LordOfIron]

With regards to "Playing the Hits" I think the Siege is in a good spot. Some plot points, Eternity Gate, Vengeful Spirit Showdown etc we know and are expecting them to play put pretty much as we expect. 

 

But other plot points like the Knights Errant, Vulkan, The spear(s), Narek and the Eldar, hell the perpetuals overall are still unknown quantities in how they play out. We have some ideas (See Grey Knights) but the authors have a lot of other space to play and introduce new and exciting elements and beats we don't expect. Which I think is really important. 

 

While I don't want the big events changed or "Ahh! Just as planned it was another betrayal all along!!" to read 8 books where we know exactly the beat by beat of the battle would be a let down. 

 

But the fact so much has already been setup makes me hopeful. 

[caladancid]

As to the Heresy (bringing it all home a bit) that Short by Goulding? Thats an 'ACTUALLY' and he's got the tweets laughing about it and what it did to shake people up.

 

Thats fine, if thats what he wants to go for. Its not central to my story of the Heresy, so its just like all the 'shattered legion' material, and 99% of the Raven Guard material, and 99% of the Salamander material, and the Knights Errant material.

 

Way too much of the story, is not 'playing the hits' that we signed up for.

 

Thats fine, there is a reason I stopped buying these books.

 

The Siege however, and especially the final, I feel cannot be like that. These need to be the stories, in the back drops, that we expect because times up, there will not be any more after this.

 

You know what I find interesting is that, aside from ADB's posts earlier in this thread, I would have said he and Goulding were among the top candidates to introduce a twist.  The difference with them and other writers is when they write something that spins people up, both of them then take to the internet to tell people they are just interpreting what they wrote incorrectly. Goulding tends to be far more confrontational about it.

[pandion40]

It’s an interesting point, there is a number of companies that have upset a vocal portion of their long term fanbase over the last few years, mainly by chasing the good will of the progressives. There’s also a lot of crossover in fans of these franchises, Hell as someone who despises identitiy politics I’m one of them, though I go more don’t like so don’t buy instead of the rage and insults route. Star Wars is dead to me at this point though a major release involving Ashoka may drag me back.

 

I’ve certainly become more sensitive myself, and I support more inclusion even as I dislike the modern progressive movement.

 

So it’s quite possible maybe even likely that GW is and will face more pushback from fans made paranoid by changes to other franchises they support. I think it’ll be minor and easily ignored unless they really break the fluff. I think It’ll take a lot to break 40k’s fanbase as badly as Star Wars, but Star Wars has a lot more casual and ignorant fans to cushion the pain of a split fanbase. I’d love to ask the authors and the studio if things have gotten more tense over the last few years

 

I think GW has won the battle over Primaris, but a major change to the siege of terra story would be a massive risk. I think there’ll be quite a bit of hidden meanings, in character controversies and just generally keeping it murky to give us fans something to argue about, but no big major golly gee outright changes

[A D-B]

 

As to the Heresy (bringing it all home a bit) that Short by Goulding? Thats an 'ACTUALLY' and he's got the tweets laughing about it and what it did to shake people up.

 

Thats fine, if thats what he wants to go for. Its not central to my story of the Heresy, so its just like all the 'shattered legion' material, and 99% of the Raven Guard material, and 99% of the Salamander material, and the Knights Errant material.

 

Way too much of the story, is not 'playing the hits' that we signed up for.

 

Thats fine, there is a reason I stopped buying these books.

 

The Siege however, and especially the final, I feel cannot be like that. These need to be the stories, in the back drops, that we expect because times up, there will not be any more after this.

 

You know what I find interesting is that, aside from ADB's posts earlier in this thread, I would have said he and Goulding were among the top candidates to introduce a twist.  The difference with them and other writers is when they write something that spins people up, both of them then take to the internet to tell people they are just interpreting what they wrote incorrectly. Goulding tends to be far more confrontational about it.

 

 

Partly it's the Streisand Effect: I draw attention to it a lot by explaining things. Partly it's that some people mistake something new for a retcon. Partly it's a difference in understanding of the lore. I change very little. If it's in an ancient Index Astartes article, then it's probably going to stay the same in my books. One of the things I get accused of most is the Emperor teleporting Angron away from his final battle, which makes the Emperor come across like a jerk and whatever else. But that had nothing to do with me; it's always been the lore that it happened that way, so I just... had it happen that way. And a significant number of times I see myself accused of changing stuff comes down to someone else later in a thread saying "Um, that's old lore... nothing to do with ADB."

 

If you take my three Horus Heresy novels, and three by Dan or Graham or Jim, I'm willing to wager you'll find significantly fewer changes to old lore in my stuff. Sanguinius's vengeance against Ka'bandha (the culmination of his Legion's arc in the Horus Heresy) now happens years before the Siege of Terra, at the end of Fear to Tread. Fulgrim's corruption and course before, during, and after the Dropsite Massacre is miles different from the way it was described in older lore (whereas, say, Angron's wasn't really described at all). And Legion? Prospero Burns? Nothing in Betrayer or The First Heretic changes classic lore like those novels do. Even TMoM changes practically nothing about the established facts of the Webway War. I give it some locations and add a demon, but there's no contradictions between The Master of Mankind and any classic lore. It's almost a beat for beat retelling of the limited published material.

 

My conservatism with the established lore isn't necessarily a good thing, of course; some of the coolest stuff has been a twist or two that the other guys have injected.

 

 I’d love to ask the authors and the studio if things have gotten more tense over the last few years.

 

We talk about this, sometimes. Not just the authors, but the Studio people I know, too. The answer is universally "Nope." 

 

The "pressure" in the so-called culture war is practically entirely on one side. I get zero demands to include X, Y, or Z for the sake of inclusion. I feel no pressure at all to include A, B, or C. No one I've spoken to has ever felt like they're under pressure to include X or had a demand to feature Y. 

 

On the flip side of the coin, some of us get fairly frequent messages brimming with rage about "Don't include X" and "Please don't pander to Y." Even if X or Y would be in the setting, even if it's perfectly valid they'd be there and would be weird if they weren't -- it's this side that insists they know best and that everything must be a certain way. It's also this side that famously takes our quotes massively out of context for monetised YouTube videos that rile people up with scaremongering (for profit, of course...) and this side that insists creators are under endless pressure from the previous side. 

 

But nope. We're not.

 

The pressure and tension comes entirely from one side, and it's not the one you're referring to.

[Old-Four-Arms]

The Horus Heresy has come a long way since it was first mentioned in Slaves to Darkness (1988).

 

With only a three page article to start with, we had to fill in the blanks ourselves and create our own stories. 

 

Personally, I'm glad that this canonical conflict has been fleshed out to its current extent (even though I'm less than 

happy with some of the additions/plot twists we've been shown so far) and I've got high hopes for the closing arc.

 

With regards to the authors, it doesn't surprise me that Dan Abnett gets the final book (since he gave us Oll Persson). 

 

The inclusion of Chris Wraight (hopefully White Scars / Shiban Khan vs. Death Guard at Lion's Gate Spaceport),

Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Blood Angels / Zephon / Sanguinius vs. World Eaters / Khârn / Ka'bandha at the Ultimate Gate ?)

and John French (Imperial Fists / Imperial Army) gives us a very solid half to start with*.

 

Graham McNeill could revisit the Emperor's Children (even though I prefer Mr. Wraight's take on them), Iron Warriors and/or

Thousand Sons.

 

Guy Haley has tackled a couple of Legions in the past, so it'll be interesting to see which part of the story he gets to tell.

 

I'm wondering about Gavin Thorpe though : "his" Legions (Raven Guard & Dark Angels) were not present at the Siege.

 

 

Regards,

 

Old-Four-Arms

 

*not necessarily the first half though

[caladancid]

Partly it's the Streisand Effect: I draw attention to it a lot by explaining things. Partly it's that some people mistake something new for a retcon. Partly it's a difference in understanding of the lore. I change very little. If it's in an ancient Index Astartes article, then it's probably going to stay the same in my books. One of the things I get accused of most is the Emperor teleporting Angron away from his final battle, which makes the Emperor come across like a jerk and whatever else. But that had nothing to do with me; it's always been the lore that it happened that way, so I just... had it happen that way. And a significant number of times I see myself accused of changing stuff comes down to someone else later in a thread saying "Um, that's old lore... nothing to do with ADB."

 

If you take my three Horus Heresy novels, and three by Dan or Graham or Jim, I'm willing to wager you'll find significantly fewer changes to old lore in my stuff. Sanguinius's vengeance against Ka'bandha (the culmination of his Legion's arc in the Horus Heresy) now happens years before the Siege of Terra, at the end of Fear to Tread. Fulgrim's corruption and course before, during, and after the Dropsite Massacre is miles different from the way it was described in older lore (whereas, say, Angron's wasn't really described at all). And Legion? Prospero Burns? Nothing in Betrayer or The First Heretic changes classic lore like those novels do. Even TMoM changes practically nothing about the established facts of the Webway War. I give it some locations and add a demon, but there's no contradictions between The Master of Mankind and any classic lore. It's almost a beat for beat retelling of the limited published material.

 

My conservatism with the established lore isn't necessarily a good thing, of course; some of the coolest stuff has been a twist or two that the other guys have injected.

 

 

I’d love to ask the authors and the studio if things have gotten more tense over the last few years.

We talk about this, sometimes. Not just the authors, but the Studio people I know, too. The answer is universally "Nope."

 

The "pressure" in the so-called culture war is practically entirely on one side. I get zero demands to include X, Y, or Z for the sake of inclusion. I feel no pressure at all to include A, B, or C. No one I've spoken to has ever felt like they're under pressure to include X or had a demand to feature Y.

 

On the flip side of the coin, some of us get fairly frequent messages brimming with rage about "Don't include X" and "Please don't pander to Y." Even if X or Y would be in the setting, even if it's perfectly valid they'd be there and would be weird if they weren't -- it's this side that insists they know best and that everything must be a certain way. It's also this side that famously takes our quotes massively out of context for monetised YouTube videos that rile people up with scaremongering (for profit, of course...) and this side that insists creators are under endless pressure from the previous side.

 

But nope. We're not.

 

The pressure and tension comes entirely from one side, and it's not the one you're referring to.

That’s an interesting explanation. Thanks for the insight.

 

As to the other part of the response, you can see how people might think that BL writers had ‘chosen a side’ as it were?

 

If you hadn’t read a lot of BL from the past (including your work, Dan Abnett’s GG series, or the Shira Calpurnia series (everyone really should read this it’s awesome)), and you saw the rapidly more diverse artwork, stories, or novels you might think it was encouraged. I am not talking about you in particular, but the BL studio edit large.

 

And then if you went and looked at the various writers’ twitter accounts, there is no question which ‘side’ they are on. I don’t think it’s a crazy question to wonder if that might impact the Siege series. As an example, Gav Thorpe clearly identifies his sexual/gender identification on his account and one of his latest novels uses non gendered pronouns for a main character. It is fair, to me, to ask about that in an upcoming series discussion. Gotta be careful and

Respectful of both sides but it should be discussed.

 

There is no need to discuss or bash the different sides here, but I think it’s an interesting question for the tone of the series.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

 

 

Honestly, I didnt mind the Star Wars everyone hated. It was very clear and blunt in its message, but...there was a point to some of that message.

 

As to the Heresy (bringing it all home a bit) that Short by Goulding? Thats an 'ACTUALLY' and he's got the tweets laughing about it and what it did to shake people up.

 

Thats fine, if thats what he wants to go for. Its not central to my story of the Heresy, so its just like all the 'shattered legion' material, and 99% of the Raven Guard material, and 99% of the Salamander material, and the Knights Errant material.

 

Way too much of the story, is not 'playing the hits' that we signed up for.

 

Thats fine, there is a reason I stopped buying these books.

 

The Siege however, and especially the final, I feel cannot be like that. These need to be the stories, in the back drops, that we expect because times up, there will not be any more after this.

You know what I find interesting is that, aside from ADB's posts earlier in this thread, I would have said he and Goulding were among the top candidates to introduce a twist. The difference with them and other writers is when they write something that spins people up, both of them then take to the internet to tell people they are just interpreting what they wrote incorrectly. Goulding tends to be far more confrontational about it.

Partly it's the Streisand Effect: I draw attention to it a lot by explaining things. Partly it's that some people mistake something new for a retcon. Partly it's a difference in understanding of the lore. I change very little. If it's in an ancient Index Astartes article, then it's probably going to stay the same in my books. One of the things I get accused of most is the Emperor teleporting Angron away from his final battle, which makes the Emperor come across like a jerk and whatever else. But that had nothing to do with me; it's always been the lore that it happened that way, so I just... had it happen that way. And a significant number of times I see myself accused of changing stuff comes down to someone else later in a thread saying "Um, that's old lore... nothing to do with ADB."

 

If you take my three Horus Heresy novels, and three by Dan or Graham or Jim, I'm willing to wager you'll find significantly fewer changes to old lore in my stuff. Sanguinius's vengeance against Ka'bandha (the culmination of his Legion's arc in the Horus Heresy) now happens years before the Siege of Terra, at the end of Fear to Tread. Fulgrim's corruption and course before, during, and after the Dropsite Massacre is miles different from the way it was described in older lore (whereas, say, Angron's wasn't really described at all). And Legion? Prospero Burns? Nothing in Betrayer or The First Heretic changes classic lore like those novels do. Even TMoM changes practically nothing about the established facts of the Webway War. I give it some locations and add a demon, but there's no contradictions between The Master of Mankind and any classic lore. It's almost a beat for beat retelling of the limited published material.

 

My conservatism with the established lore isn't necessarily a good thing, of course; some of the coolest stuff has been a twist or two that the other guys have injected.

I’d love to ask the authors and the studio if things have gotten more tense over the last few years.

We talk about this, sometimes. Not just the authors, but the Studio people I know, too. The answer is universally "Nope."

 

The "pressure" in the so-called culture war is practically entirely on one side. I get zero demands to include X, Y, or Z for the sake of inclusion. I feel no pressure at all to include A, B, or C. No one I've spoken to has ever felt like they're under pressure to include X or had a demand to feature Y.

 

On the flip side of the coin, some of us get fairly frequent messages brimming with rage about "Don't include X" and "Please don't pander to Y." Even if X or Y would be in the setting, even if it's perfectly valid they'd be there and would be weird if they weren't -- it's this side that insists they know best and that everything must be a certain way. It's also this side that famously takes our quotes massively out of context for monetised YouTube videos that rile people up with scaremongering (for profit, of course...) and this side that insists creators are under endless pressure from the previous side.

 

But nope. We're not.

 

The pressure and tension comes entirely from one side, and it's not the one you're referring to.

I could not follow that :( Theres people that message you not to include old lore stuff?

[pandion40]

 

The pressure and tension comes entirely from one side, and it's not the one you're referring to.

You misunderstood me, I was referring to pressure from either side but leaning more towards the anti SJW crowd being overly sensitive to normal every day character variety and causing problems due to being burned by other IP’s, or just being awful people.

 

Also I agree your one of the more lore faithfull authors, my impression is you like the mysteries rumour filled side of 40k and like to add to that.

 

The Sanguinius v Ka’ Fight is one of the few changes I want from the Siege, after fear to Tread the old story feels anticlimactic.

[bluntblade]

I believe that was more with regard to the culture wars and inclusivity stuff.

[Marshal Rohr]

Oh wait, never mind. I get what you’re saying know, ADB.

[Scribe]

Jesus, whoever claimed ADB changes things, way off base.

 

Go back and learn the lore folks.

[Knockagh]

The way GW handled it’s turn round a few years back was a wonderful example on how to save a business model before it started to slide.
The seige is another attempt to do this as finishing the Heresy was going to be so difficult with the way it had gone out of control. I was sceptical before we saw details being released but it’s shaping up wonderfully and I’m excited as a terribly excited person who has a really good reason for being terribly excited.

[pandion40]

The way GW handled it’s turn round a few years back was a wonderful example on how to save a business model before it started to slide.

The seige is another attempt to do this as finishing the Heresy was going to be so difficult with the way it had gone out of control. I was sceptical before we saw details being released but it’s shaping up wonderfully and I’m excited as a terribly excited person who has a really good reason for being terribly excited.

I think GW is in a good place their social media team have been killing it lately, they’ve got an IP that has always been very egalitarian between humans at least, they can and slowly have been introducing models and artwork of women and other races without changing the background at all, and changing the background is one of the things that really gets people’s backs up. The only thing I can see that may break the 40k fandom as badly as the Star Wars fandom would be Female Space Marines, but I see no real pressure for that yet at all.

[pandion40]

In an attempt to get vaguely back on topic are there any changes in the background people would like to see in the siege of Terra?

 

Personally I’d like to see the Sanguinius v Ka’bandha changed, after Signus the old fight seems anticlimactic and off especially if the fight is as close as in the old lore, it was never a rivalry that gripped me even as a Blood Angel fanboy and Fear to Tread failed to change this for me. Swapping Ka’bandha for angron is the obvious change, but I’m open to the author getting creative, I just want it to have the impact it should.

[LordOfIron]

I think this the time to bring back Ka’bandha and make that rivalry really matter. He could be Sanguiniuses dark rival, maybe killing someone like Azkaellon to build that resentment as Ka’bandha does need to be the Blood Angels big deamon rival - its very important for the 40k BA's

[DukeLeto69]

Back on Siege of Terra topic, I can't remember if I said this before (sure others have anyway) but I think handling the Siege of Terra as a new "standalone" series or side series (in same way as The Primarchs) was a stroke of marketing genius specifically aimed at people like me...

I stubbornly refuse to buy the HH books in anything other than MMPB format. The positives (for me) are that they cost less and my book shelves look nice and uniform (bit OCD I guess). The negatives are that I have lost the excitement and ability to enter into live debate about newly released books with fellow fans and I have to wait approx 18 months after initial hardback release to get a book. For GW it means they only get their wholesale share of the smaller RRP.

However, releasing SoT books as a side collection means I am very likely to buy these immediately as hardbacks and as they will be branded slightly differently it doesn't offend my OCD self and I get to be part of the excitement and discussion again. For GW/BL it means they get my money now, not in 18 months AND about three times as much as before... GENIUS!

[Scribe]

In an attempt to get vaguely back on topic are there any changes in the background people would like to see in the siege of Terra?

 

Personally I’d like to see the Sanguinius v Ka’bandha changed, after Signus the old fight seems anticlimactic and off especially if the fight is as close as in the old lore, it was never a rivalry that gripped me even as a Blood Angel fanboy and Fear to Tread failed to change this for me. Swapping Ka’bandha for angron is the obvious change, but I’m open to the author getting creative, I just want it to have the impact it should.

Yeah I'm not sure why they allowed Fear to Tread to ruin the BA arc so much. I would leave to one of the 'conservative' aka accurate authors to fix it but I'm not how they can.

 

I don't know, the BA are a huge disappointment in the Heresy, missed the mark badly outside a few instances.

[Indefragable]

I think this the time to bring back Ka’bandha and make that rivalry really matter. He could be Sanguiniuses dark rival, maybe killing someone like Azkaellon to build that resentment as Ka’bandha does need to be the Blood Angels big deamon rival - its very important for the 40k BA's

Azkaellon is known to survive, specicificaly b/c Sanguinius deliberately orders him to stay on Terra while Sanguinius and the remaining Sang Guard go to fight Horus. It is the ultimate humbling experience which leads Azkaellon to be a pillar of wisdom and inspiration as the IX Legion navigates their post-Primarch world and is broken up into the separate chapters.

 

As the sole Sang Guard to survive the heresy, he also goes on for sometime to ensure that unit is rebuilt and exists in some way in most of the 2nd Founding successors.

[hopkins]

One thing I'm utterly stoked at is the prospect of is Graham Mcneill getting his siege on, and hopefully giving us Storm Of Iron turned up to 11

[DarkChaplain]

 

I think this the time to bring back Ka’bandha and make that rivalry really matter. He could be Sanguiniuses dark rival, maybe killing someone like Azkaellon to build that resentment as Ka’bandha does need to be the Blood Angels big deamon rival - its very important for the 40k BA's

Azkaellon is known to survive, specicificaly b/c Sanguinius deliberately orders him to stay on Terra while Sanguinius and the remaining Sang Guard go to fight Horus. It is the ultimate humbling experience which leads Azkaellon to be a pillar of wisdom and inspiration as the IX Legion navigates their post-Primarch world and is broken up into the separate chapters.

 

As the sole Sang Guard to survive the heresy, he also goes on for sometime to ensure that unit is rebuilt and exists in some way in most of the 2nd Founding successors.

 

 

That. He was also rather dejected about the Angel's death, and agreed to the splitting of the Legion, which made Amit kind of hate him.

[Stofficus]

The one challenge I see, above all else, for the Siege is pulling together all the little plot points which have been split across a million and one mediums in some satisfying way. 

 

I kept to the main series, and in many cases found out that several plot points within them would be continued in short story x, y and z split across multiple anthologies - some of which are not eve generally available, nor were they ever. 

I'm not especially concerned about who is covering what - the series as a whole has been at its best when there's a clear plan about what is to be covered, which seems to be the case here, and matching talent to tasks, but I am concerned that all the fluff which has been used to expand the Horus Heresy will weight down this endeavor. 

(I'm also still kind of salty about some of the ret-retcons in the series - I originally really dug the idea of Fulgrim, for instance, being possessed by a greater daemon in his moment of realization that he has made a grave, grave error, and then in a short story somewhere down the road someone didn't like that idea, and effectively undid it, as what I think is the most egregious example, much like resurrecting Loken)

[mc warhammer]

apparently loken was always intended to survive i3. but i’m with you on the fulgrim fumble

 

i also don’t think all the plot points introduced necessarily need to wrap at the siege...that’s a little too tidy. some of those new elements could seed into the rest of the setting and find logical conclusions in follow up series

.

[Stofficus]

apparently loken was always intended to survive i3. but i’m with you on the fulgrim fumble

 

i also don’t think all the plot points introduced necessarily need to wrap at the siege...that’s a little too tidy. some of those new elements could seed into the rest of the setting and find logical conclusions in follow up series

.

 

A fair point on not everything needs to be wrapped up - I don't think any of us are under the impression that the characters created over the course of the HH series will not continue into Scouring-era content. 

 

I doubt we'll see a proper chronological series mind you, but once the Siege is finished, who is left standing, and in what position, will allow that era to be explored freely. We already have seen very slight touches on that, like Sigismund vs Abaddon in the Black Legion books quite a bit further down the timeline, for instance. 

[mc warhammer]

yeah, agreed...some threads could continue well into 40k or whatever other mini series bl produces

[Dam13n]

2nd nudge. This time - back on topic please.