FW Book 9 "Crusade": Fluff Discussion

[bluntblade]

I still have some reservations about the Rangdan Wars as The Great Threat To The Imperium, just on the basis that it would seem to devalue what Horus, Ferrus and all the others were up to around that time by comparison.

Edited September 13, 2020 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

I'm fine with the Rangdan Wars being the greatest existential threat a younger, weaker Imperium had ever faced...to be almost equalled by the massive Orks empires later broken by the combined might of Horus and the Emperor Himself (Gorro, Gyros-Thravian, Ullanor)...and then utterly eclipsed by the Horus Heresy.

 

As for the inconsistencies among the Black Books, it is possible the original set of historical volumes was actually written by one individual with initials AK. This original set or series formed an original "Set 1" so to speak.

 

Subsequent generations of Imperial historian-propagandists may have revised Set 1 into a Set 2, Set 3, Set 4 over, say, three millennia. What we are reading is a mix-and-match of different volumes from different Sets. Perhaps Volumes 1-3 from Set 1, Volume 4 from Set 3, Volume 5 from Set 2, etc. This Frankenstein-esque collection is the body of work a modern Inquisitor Lord managed to stitch together in his quest for ancient knowledge. This could explain the changes in tone and even certain factual claims throughout "our" Black Book series, i.e. what us B&C fraters are reading in the Inquisitor's personal library.

Edited September 13, 2020 by b1soul

[Marshal Rohr]

Not sure if you guys remember, but Laurie G once said there was also the possibility nothing in the Black Books was accurate.

[helterskelter]

Is there any chance titan legions loyal to the Night Lords were mentioned with colours?

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

I still have some reservations about the Rangdan Wars as The Great Threat To The Imperium, just on the basis that it would seem to devalue what Horus, Ferrus and all the others were up to around that time by comparison.

 

I am fine with that purely from the PoV that even if the Rangda were the single greatest threat, if everyone else stopped doing what they were doing the Imperium would have fallen just as surely from a thousand little cuts. The way I see it, the moment Great Crusade started, it either had to keep conquering and advancing across the galaxy until it was mostly conquered or it would collapse and the Imperium would collapse with it, similar to how Alexander the Great had a burgeoning empire up to the moment the momentum was lost and within a few years it had collapsed. While the fighting against the Rangda led to a giant chunk of the Crusade basically stopping in their tracks for decades to crush their armies and eventually destroy their homeworlds, what the rest of the Astartes were up to was critical to maintaining the momentum of the Crusade and preventing it from collapsing in on itself.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Not sure if you guys remember, but Laurie G once said there was also the possibility nothing in the Black Books was accurate.

Yea he's said a few things that are basically there to just troll the community. Hasn't earned him a ton of fans.

[b1soul]

It's more fun to come up with theories based on the material and in-universe circumstances we have

[RedFurioso]

Any Titan Legions (except Victorum and Solaria) mentioned?

[Blood-worm's Master]

Any Titan Legions (except Victorum and Solaria) mentioned?

Seconded. Also is there anything more about Solaria's participation in the Battle of Crucible than the mention of their charge against Victorum on page 46 (I only saw a picture of that one)? Is House Procon Vi mentioned at all?

[SkimaskMohawk]

I think my favorite part of crusade (aside from the competent night lords playing babysitter and getting everything done properly) is the predator forgeworld. Love some almost cosmic horror threat.

[bluntblade]

 

I still have some reservations about the Rangdan Wars as The Great Threat To The Imperium, just on the basis that it would seem to devalue what Horus, Ferrus and all the others were up to around that time by comparison.

 

I am fine with that purely from the PoV that even if the Rangda were the single greatest threat, if everyone else stopped doing what they were doing the Imperium would have fallen just as surely from a thousand little cuts. The way I see it, the moment Great Crusade started, it either had to keep conquering and advancing across the galaxy until it was mostly conquered or it would collapse and the Imperium would collapse with it, similar to how Alexander the Great had a burgeoning empire up to the moment the momentum was lost and within a few years it had collapsed. While the fighting against the Rangda led to a giant chunk of the Crusade basically stopping in their tracks for decades to crush their armies and eventually destroy their homeworlds, what the rest of the Astartes were up to was critical to maintaining the momentum of the Crusade and preventing it from collapsing in on itself.

Fair points there. I just feel like that sort of nuance easily gets lost in the Discourse.

[b1soul]

You mean the competent NL babysitting the gutter-trash, Skraivok-like NL?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, does the book explain why the DA call their assassination division the "Firewing"?

Edited September 14, 2020 by b1soul

[WrathOfTheLion]

I think because of the terran knight order it is the successor of the Host of Fire.

 

A lot of the hosts are elemental in a way, Iron, Fire, Bone, Stone, Wind and Void, with Crowns, Pentacles and Blades being a bit different.

 

Fire may symbolize blood and war in their case.

 

It handles infiltration, assassination, dueling, etc. In a way, the firewing is like a mix of the Raven Guard and Emperor's children from the brief bit I have read, but trying to mostly read in order and I am not at DA lore yet.

Edited September 14, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[SkimaskMohawk]

You mean the competent NL babysitting the gutter-trash, Skraivok-like NL?

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, does the book explain why the DA call their assassination division the "Firewing"?

More like curze as he moped about or damaged around battles.

 

That being said, the very brief summation of thramas in Savage Weapons had corswain reflecting that it was a stalemate with the night lords and the Lion sharing that sentiment. This makes it clear that night lords screwed around for a while and were only held up due to the lack of cooperation before the Lion ever showed up and then started to lose ground. The turning point was Crucible, which happened before savage weapons, in fact the night lords lose almost as many marines at crucible as the dark angels do during their entire campaign. The following section is called " the slow road to victory". Feels like maybe that's something corswain would have reflected on.

 

Idk, obviously I'm a night lord fan, but I like consistency more. Thramas was supposed to be unwinnable as long as a primarch lived according to the Lion. But it seemed pretty winnable as soon as they won at crucible to me.

[SchultzChaos]

*Cough*

 

So... Anyone ready to spill all the beans about Night Lords from the book? Like... everything mentioning them? Pretty please with sugar on top? 

[Astartes Consul]

Have only had time to read a small portion of the fluff so far, but I do wish they'd actually done *less* on the Rangdan Wars. Might have been frustrating for everyone in the wider community, but I think it would have kept in with the running theme of the Rangda as an existential threat and some sort of eldritch horror from the edge of the galaxy.

[b1soul]

Savage Weapons was a while ago.

 

I recall the idea was that the Lion couldn't pin down Curze and force a decisive battle (the Lion's objective)

 

...and Curze's objective was simply to distract and divert the DA, rather than to break the them.

 

So as long as Curze kept evading, the situation was "unwinnable" for the Lion. It would've carried on for a really long time if no outside factors had entered the equation. That outside factor was Tchulcha[?]

 

Does Crusade soft retcon this?

[SkimaskMohawk]

Savage Weapons was a while ago.

 

I recall the idea was that the Lion couldn't pin down Curze and force a decisive battle (the Lion's objective)

 

...and Curze's objective was simply to distract and divert the DA, rather than to break the them.

 

So as long as Curze kept evading, the situation was "unwinnable" for the Lion. It would've carried on for a really long time if no outside factors had entered the equation. That outside factor was Tchulcha[?]

 

Does Crusade soft retcon this?

Sure, it was a while ago. But it was non-conflicting and 33% of the narrative of thramas. It's like saying Scars was written a while ago.

 

Corswain's reflection;

 

Neither side gave ground without taking it back elsewhere. Neither side charged without leaving a vulnerable flank open to assault. Neither Legion lost a battle when their progenitors led them to war.

And then the Lions take on thramas

 

‘Two years of void skirmishes, two years of planetary sieges, two years of global invasions and worldwide retreats, orbital assault and shipboard evacuation... and we have a chance to end it at last.’.......' For twenty-six months I have chased him. For twenty-six months, he has fled from me, burning worlds before we arrive, crippling supply routes, annihilating Mechanicum outposts. Every ambush we plan, he slips from our fingers, wriggling away unseen. For every victory we claim, Curze gifts us with a loss in return. It is not a hunt, Alajos. If a primarch does not fall, this will be war without end. And neither he nor I will fall without death bestowed by a brother’s hand.’

So while there is talk of pursuing curze, theres more talk of mass battles and that the status quo could go on indefinitely. It's explicitly not a hunt.

 

As for various goals, there is a soft retcon. The night lords were sent to secure the population of the multiple sectors and the production of the three forgeworlds of triplex. They're initially half successful, as they get the forges, but fail to secure the population centers and army units (though it's presented as an inevitability for the latter). But then the dark angels show up, having been mislead by horus via perturabo at diamat. So you could say their goal was implicitly changed to delay the dark angels, who wanted to reclaim the sectors and deny them to the traitors.

 

Now, the problem is by the events of Savage Weapons the Night Lords have already lost a critical battle where their casualties are close to the total the DA suffer across the entire war. This is followed by losing a couple more critical battles that free up more Solar auxilia forces to be reassigned, really tilting the favour towards the DA. Tchulcha more just accelerated their victory than being the decisive factor now.

 

That being said, the end results have everything basically ruined as the lion enacts some extremely brutal scorched earth campaigns to match the night lords. So you could say the night lords did achieve more of a victory as they delayed the DAs after they showed up and the sectors weren't capable of helping the imperium with material.

[b1soul]

Scars was 2013 and Savage Weapons was what...2011? So they kinda both got soft "retconned" by FW's in-universe texts.

 

According to Malevolence, after breaking through the Alpha Legion cordon in a blaze of speed, the WS had a layover at Phemus to fight a relatively large ground battle there. This did not happen in Scars.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Scars was 2013 and Savage Weapons was what...2011? So they kinda both got soft "retconned" by FW's in-universe texts.

 

According to Malevolence, after breaking through the Alpha Legion cordon in a blaze of speed, the WS had a layover at Phemus to fight a relatively large ground battle there. This did not happen in Scars.

For sure they did. And I don't think relative age should be a factor, especially if the stories are of high quality and didn't conflict with anything before these books. It's not hard to make a story that complies with either, they just chose not to.

[b1soul]

Yeah, but retcons, intentional or not, typically become more likely the farther you move away from the source material in time. In this case, I think they could've handled it with more finesse, especially the WS "retcon". I use quotation marks as the BL novels don't read like in-universe texts whereas the Black Books obviously do. I like the idea of expanding upon BL work in a non-contradictory way. Maybe have the Khan dispatch a secret force to Phemus to investigate and have that force get the drop on, and beat, the AL harrying the WS Phemus survivors struggling there, with no Primarch buffs on the field, so to speak. The Thramas "retcon" sounds unnecessary, but, rather childishly, I always root for DA against NL, so I would object to it less than a NL fan. Still, the number of inconsistencies between BL and FW and sometimes within FW itself can be a tad frustrating. I guess we just have to pick the version we prefer.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I do like the section where AK ponders about Luther and his disappearance from records, erroneously concluding that he may have sided with the Warmaster.

[Astartes Consul]

IMO people are missing the point a little trying to compare lore from Black Library v. Forge World books. They're different formats, intended for different purposes and headed up by different teams. Fairly sure this has been addressed by some authors in the past as well? 

[SkimaskMohawk]

IMO people are missing the point a little trying to compare lore from Black Library v. Forge World books. They're different formats, intended for different purposes and headed up by different teams. Fairly sure this has been addressed by some authors in the past as well?

It's the same lore, from the same timeline. The only reasons it should be different is "broader scope" than what the reader is given in a novel or "in-universe authorisms" where AK has to extrapolate, consider causal links or deal with confirmation bias.

 

The point was that the scars didn't fight the alpha legion in Scars. They didn't know what was going, who to listen to and wanted answers on their own terms.

 

What's the point we're missing

[bluntblade]

 

IMO people are missing the point a little trying to compare lore from Black Library v. Forge World books. They're different formats, intended for different purposes and headed up by different teams. Fairly sure this has been addressed by some authors in the past as well?

It's the same lore, from the same timeline. The only reasons it should be different is "broader scope" than what the reader is given in a novel or "in-universe authorisms" where AK has to extrapolate, consider causal links or deal with confirmation bias.

 

The point was that the scars didn't fight the alpha legion in Scars. They didn't know what was going, who to listen to and wanted answers on their own terms.

 

What's the point we're missing

Thiiiiiiis.