FW Book 9 "Crusade": Fluff Discussion

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

I was happy with WS and UM getting in the mix

 

In this case I think it makes the universe more believable...would be strange for there to be a legion-scale conflict in Thramas, where there are forge worlds which, together, rival the likes of Mars or Anvilus...and no Astartes but the NL and DA get involved over the course of almost three years.

 

Any reason the NL did not get any non-NL Traitor Astartes support?

 

Also the way I read it was that Horus sent the Night Lords to secure Thramas and the Forge Worlds and once they had succeeded in it they probably would have gotten new orders. Instead what happened was that they secured the three forge worlds rapidly and they started immediately supplying the traitor armies and headed to secure Thramas, but due to Curze's issues they started fracturing. I imagine that Horus looked at all the supplies he was getting from Triplex Phall and Triplex Galatia and thought that that was it, the Night Lords should secure Thramas soon so no need to send them any reinforcements, surely they can handle it on their own. Then the Dark Angels came out of the darkness and the Thramas campaign turned into the grinding bloodbath that it became and Horus had basically 2 options:

1. Trust in the Night Lords. The Dark Angels came from the midst of a war they were fighting in the darkness between galaxies so they should be relatively badly supplied, also there were only 70 000 of them against the 100 000 Night Lords. Surely the Night Lords are favored in this conflict and even in the worst case scenario, we have already received a ton of supplies from the forge worlds and from the Thramas sector in general so we have already achieved what we wanted when we sent Curze out to the sector
2. Send in reinforcements to make victory certain. Separate some of the forces that you currently have fighting in Beta Garmon and in other sectors of war across the galaxy. Since the Night Lords are already heavily outnumbering the Dark Angels, to make a difference, you need to dedicate a substantial amount of troops to have them make a measurable difference to the end result of the conflict, on the order of tens of thousands of Astartes

Just looking at these alternatives I think makes it clear that you might have had some traitor Astartes blunder into the fighting in the Thramas sector, but under no circumstances would it make sense for Horus to take away some of his forces that were fighting in actually meaningful battles to send to assist the Night Lords. You can even argue that with the benefit of hindsight and seeing what the end result of selecting option 1 was, he made the right call, since the victory for the Dark Angels was at least somewhat pyrrhic, the whole of Thramas sector was burnt to the point of being useless to the loyalists and even if he lost the Night Lords as an asset, they were a decidedly untrustworthy asset to begin with (further indicated by the fact that they outnumbered the Dark Angels and were so soundly defeated).

[b1soul]

But I think Horus, if he did get news of the (roughly) 70K vs 100K situation in Thramas, by that time already knew Curze and his Legion were very broken instruments. The numerical advantage kinda only evens it out against the DA, if that.

 

I think Horus and other Legions were simply heavily occupied with other fronts and couldn't spare significant Astartes resources to aid Curze?

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

But I think Horus, if he did get news of the (roughly) 70K vs 100K situation in Thramas, by that time already knew Curze and his Legion were very broken instruments. The numerical advantage kinda only evens it out against the DA, if that.

 

I think Horus and other Legions were simply heavily occupied with other fronts and couldn't spare significant Astartes resources to aid Curze?

 

Again I see two ways to look at it:

• Horus knew of the numerical advantage (since he was the one who sent the Dark Angels to the darkness and the Night Lords into the Thramas sector I find this plausible), but he did not know that the Night Lords were an asset that was rapidly losing value as Curze's sanity declined
  • Smart move is to trust in Curze and no need to send reinforcements, since Curze had the numerical advantage and with Nostromo close by should also be able to resupply if needed (as he did, utilizing the midnight treaties)
• Horus knew both of the numerical advantage and of the fact that Curze was losing his mind
  • Is it worth it to throw good resources to bail out an asset that was declining? Especially in a situation where your resources are needed elsewhere and Curze might still be able to salt the earth enough that the Dark Angels will be heavily delayed / damaged by the fighting (which isn't that far off from what happened, without the Tuchulcha Dark Angels would have been tied in the fighting for a lot longer)

Again in both situations I don't really see there being much sense in Horus intervening heavily. And when you are talking of tens of thousands of Astartes there is very little sense in intervening lightly. I guess he could have sent about a chapter of his Sons of Horus to keep the Night Lords in line and focused on the bigger picture, but would Curze and the Night Lords even listen to them or would they all end up being sidelined or dying in freak accidents?

[b1soul]

I think option 1 gets crossed out as in Warmaster by French, Horus is aware how broken Curze and some other Traitor primarchs are...and sounded like he had possessed this knowledge well before the events of the short.

 

I think if Horus had resources to spare, he would've moved to help Curze win the campaign, but he simply didn't have such resources. It was a case of prioritising.

 

The prizes were mainly Triplex in the region, three forge worlds the largest of which rivaled Mars. Horus' primary concern wouldn't have been to save the deteriorating NL, but to secure the forges once it became clear the DA had entered the arena in their tens of thousands led by the Lion. But apparently there were other greater priorities and schedules needing to be executed. In the end, Horus had to settle for denying both sides the forges and a badly mauled, but still far from annihilated, NL Legion.

[Marshal Rohr]

@B1Soul, I went back and looked and didn’t see the Curze vs Excindio fight in the lore, but several of my pages have been stuck together so that might be happening

[SkimaskMohawk]

@B1Soul, I went back and looked and didn’t see the Curze vs Excindio fight in the lore, but several of my pages have been stuck together so that might be happening

It's at crucible. Must have rolled a bunch of murderous strikes lol.

 

The problem with the horus knowing curze and co weren't reliable but wanting the forgeworlds, is that he sent the Lion to thramas via perturabo in the first place lol. But the knowledge of how unreliable the night lords were may have been soft retconned as well.

Edited September 21, 2020 by SkimaskMohawk

[bluntblade]

But I think Horus, if he did get news of the (roughly) 70K vs 100K situation in Thramas, by that time already knew Curze and his Legion were very broken instruments. The numerical advantage kinda only evens it out against the DA, if that.

 

I think Horus and other Legions were simply heavily occupied with other fronts and couldn't spare significant Astartes resources to aid Curze?

I would've thought so. I mean, there's a pretty lengthy list of things not going Horus' way at this stage:

-Vulkan not dead

-Curze not dead

-Ultramar not destroyed and the Ruinstorm only a temporary fix

-Sanguinius alive

-Jaghatai opposed and actively running interference

[helterskelter]

It's not for Curzes lack of trying with Vulkan mind, Horus couldn't have factored in one of his Brothers being actually immortal

[bluntblade]

It's not for Curzes lack of trying with Vulkan mind, Horus couldn't have factored in one of his Brothers being actually immortal

Oh indeed. My point is just that by this time, Horus is dealing with a lot of sub-optimal circumstances.

[WrathOfTheLion]

So now that I've read more in, we have this planet of Gramarye. After digging, I can find nothing on it. It should essentially be a second homeworld to the 1st legion. What happened to this planet?

 

This has to show up later again at some point.

Edited September 22, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Marshal Rohr]

It doesn’t, it’s a new creation unless it’s in some 1st Edition Space Marine lore no one has access to now

[Cerbero666]

So I'm through the beginning of the book and there's a thing about the Night Lords that I'm questioning. How did Sevatar allowed a guy like Nakrid Thole "an outspoken critic of his Primarch" to roam around for so long as to build a faction of his own? Maybe it's answered further into the book, but right now it seems unlikely that Sev would allow a guy like that with his skin over his flesh for so long. He wiped the whole Kyroptera because they were discussing what to do after Curze's fall on Thramas, but he didn't slay the guy that was openly in revolt against his primarch and his authority, thinking himself above the legion command?

 

By the way, there's some info about Sevatar after The Long Night and the Pharos vision? It's almost 6 years now without any news of him or his fate, except that he's imprisoned. As we are reaching the end of the Siege and he's absent....Will we see an end to his arch? Has ADB said anything about it? It seems frustrating to let a character like that to rot for so long. 

 

PD: I'm seeing that the Night Lords are not organised as Companies as their primary formation, but Chapters. Is that correct or it's an errata? Book 2 stated that they preferred to function as companies instead of chapters. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Cerbero666

[Lucerne]

I do find it amusing that between Guilliman's radical cabal of daemon-summoning librarians that blew themselves up

 

Where was that mentioned?

whoops, sorry, FW book 8 malevolence:

 

With Calth lost for all time, and the threat of ruin hanging over his legacy in Ultramar thanks to the ravages of the Shadow Crusade, the master of Macragge long dwelt upon the theoretical merits of the methods used by the XVII'h Legion. The weaponised use of Warp-based entities became of particular interest to Guilliman who, having overturned the Edict of Nikaea perforce on Calth, was coldly ready to adapt any practical method of defence against the esoteric threats he faced.

 

In secret, Guilliman gathered thirteen senior Librarians of his Legion to his side in the secure Asteria Wing of the Fortress of Macragge and with them formed the Ultima Taskforce, a group of warriors capable of going to war with weapons of an arcane nature to counter the potential use of the same by the enemy. There he set them to researching the creatures unleashed by the Word Bearers on Calth. With their combined understanding of the Warp and arcana derived from the forced confessions of XVII'h Legion prisoners, this new taskforce set about their task with determination, developing a methodology of empyrical experimentation.

 

After a spate of esoteric phenomenon caused widespread disorder within the Magna Macragge Civitas, the Ultima Taskforce was moved to a hidden laboratory on the world of Prandium and given greater resources to pursue their logical goal of weaponising summoned warp entities. The ultimate fate of the taskforce would later be suppressed, and is held in another account.

 

tl;dr daemon summoning on Prandium with Guilliman's express approval

[b1soul]

@ SkimaskMohawk

 

I believe Horus sent the Lion to the Shield Worlds in the outer dark, not Thramas

 

The Lion got word of treachery and made all haste to probe Thramas with fast ships...then the main force followed suit

 

EDIT: OK...just reread some choice bits

 

1. The Lion and 15 of his fastest capital vessels went from the Shield Words to the Tanagra system after hearing word of treachery.

 

2. He pacified the Traitor forge world of Diamat in Tanagra, and left the Ordinatus Engines with a definitely "loyalist" Perturabo.

 

3. Horus did instruct Perturabo to inform the Lion of the Thramas situation and push him in that direction.

 

4. However, this was not at the start of Thramas invasion by the NL. By the time the Lion got there, the NL had all but won the war in Thramas. The NL would've won much earlier had they went easy with all the sadistic tactics to prolong the defenders' suffering.

 

So it appears it was a case of "Curze can get the job done againt a relatively soft Triplex/Thramas...oh dear, the Lion just got wind and is probing...don't want him at Terra do we... have "loyalist" Perturabo find him and push him toward Thramas...the NL should have dug in by now and be able to keep the Lion busy and not get wrecked...I have my hands full elsewhere, need to multi-task"

Edited September 22, 2020 by b1soul

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

The chronological order seems to be:

1. Horus as the Warmaster sends the Lion and the Dark Angels to the Shield Worlds to fight an unnamed Xenos threat
2. The Lion hears that something might be happening with Horus that merits his attention
3. To verify what is happening, he takes the fastest ships that he has with him and goes to Diamat, which he remembers as something of an anomaly
4. He discovers that Diamat has turned and crushes the rebellion as well as the Sons of Horus fleet and army that was there to pick up the Ordinatus machines
5. He hands the Ordinatuses over to Perturabo who is on his way to Istvaan system while securing his promise to support him for the position of warmaster now that Horus has vacated it
6. Perturabo informs him of Curze doing something that should be investigated in the Thramas sector
7. The Lion leaves with the army of Dark Angels he has left to see what is going on
8. At some point he learns that the Triplex Forgeworlds have turned traitor and he sends out an order to the Dark Angels fighting across the Shield Worlds that they should all gather at Triplex Galatia
9. The events depicted in Crusade happen

Writing this down and remembering what we learn of the role that the Dark Angels have as the Emperor's anti-mechanicum force, it is remarkable how often the Dark Angels are known to have been fighting on / against Forgeworlds in the fluff even prior to Crusade, but I never picked up on it as a distinguishing feature of the legion.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Is that shield generator recovered in the compliance of Mykana supposed to be what ends up at Caliban and holding the chunk together that becomes the Rock?

Edited September 23, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Darkwrath121]

Is that shield generator recovered in the compliance of Mykana supposed to be what ends up at Caliban and holding the chunk together that becomes the Rock?

I doubt it. The short story 'Holder of the Keys' mentions that Aldurukh's shields were forged by Ferrus. Since the Mykana conflict happened late in the Crusade, it would have been strange for it to end up back on Caliban and installed. Edited September 23, 2020 by Darkwrath121

[WrathOfTheLion]

Makes sense. I'll need to read that short story, might have it depending on if it's in an omnibus somewhere.

[Darkwrath121]

Makes sense. I'll need to read that short story, might have it depending on if it's in an omnibus somewhere.

The 'Lords of Caliban' omnibus :)

[bluntblade]

The writing in this feels more like AK's established voice than the previous book. Edited September 24, 2020 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

1. I think the Rangda sections are deliberately misleading. I saw a lot of flack directed at these sections on Reddit. I think I can give the FW team some credit here...it's underwhelming on its face because AK is heavily glossing over the campaigns, especially the third one

 

2. I like the DA's Destroyer theme. Their early role was almost like a legion of Destroyer marines, armed with weapons of annihilation. If the SW are the Emperor's internal (supposed) "sanction" against rebels or insubordinates, the DA are the destroyers of terrible, inhuman external threats fit only to be obliterated utterly.

 

3. The flaw of the early First is that they perceived themselves as so elite that they should only assail the "hardest", most horrendous foes (many posing potential existential threats to the Imperium) and therefore suffered heavy attrition across multiple campaigns. They pushed themselves too hard. They overestimated their own abilities. They then lost their edge over other legions, leading them to push themselves even harder...resorting to costly stunts to snatch credit/victories from other legions, choosing, or perhaps compelled, to put on displays of tremendous "heart" at the expense of "brains" to conserve resources.

 

4. AK mentions primarchs forging legends resounding across the galaxy for thousands of years. If AK is writing not too long after The Scouring, this doesn't make sense? Perhaps this is intended to reflect the uncertain provenance of these texts? Or simply a FW oversight?

[bluntblade]

It's actually given me some ideas for playing with the Lightning Bearers' fluff, seeing a Legion designed to wreck the weirdest and most terrible xenos. Edited September 24, 2020 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

I might be oversimplifying quite a bit.

 

The First had a bit of a dual purpose early on:

 

In the light, they were the First Legion...the prototype legion used to develop and test the Principia Bellicosa well before any Codex Astartes, a mighty jack (and semi-master) of all trades

 

In the dark (pun intended), the First functioned as the Destroyer Legion...exterminators of the direst threats so vile and potent that ancient proscribed weaponry was the only way to eradicate them. These threats appear mostly to have been now-eradicated xenos breeds but some may have been Warp-related. Indeed, First had even developed their own psychic warfare division which later helped to inspire Sanguinius, Magnus, and the Khan to push for a Librarius.

 

The fractured legion politics also add quite a bit of depth...they were essentially mutiple competing mini-legions operating under Masters held together by a Grandmaster and highly divergent in military doctrine. The Masters bickered intensely when the first Granmaster died.

 

Speaking of whom, the first Grandmaster even sat on the high council of Terra, almost an equal of the few already-found primarchs.

 

The First also seemed to have cleared the Sol system of certain infestations or xenos colonies and warded off evils attempting to slip into Sol to prey upon the young Imperium. They also seemed to have an obsession with hunting down surviving Thunder Warriors, like how the modern chapter is obsessed with hunting down the The Fallen

 

Note that according to Crusade, it appears that TW replacement had started by the middle years of the Unification Wars. Meaning the force ultimately achieving full Unity and pacification of Terra was likely the First (numbering ten thousand plus or maybe low ten thousands) backed by the nascent legions of other genelines (each only a small fraction of the First's size).

 

There is also an interesting bit about prototype legionaries preceding even the earliest legionaries bearing the First's geneseed. The alpha test to the First's beta test if you will. There is one name surviving from this alpha pool, Abrasax of the fourteenth Ghent intake. There is later mention of an Abraxus [diff spelling] Ghent defending the palace during the Siege. Not sure whether this could be a veiled reference to Leetu...or perhaps one of his comrades.

[WrathOfTheLion]

We can see as well where some of the ways of Jonson counteract the 1st' proclivity to pride and complacency. He is well in tune with his sons and knows how to manage them, hence why they can recover back to one of the largest legions by the Heresy.

 

In the Primarch novel, after serving their duty, some are mind wiped. We can reason that wasn't to protect the secret... but to protect them from their pride. Not only can nobody else know their duty, they themselves need to not know it.

 

This is also why Jonson does not tell them what would make him proud. It makes them constantly have to work and counteract their own proclivities.

Edited September 25, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[b1soul]

I think FW has given us tremendously fertile ground from which further Late Unity/Early GC stories may spring

 

It adds another interesting phase to the Imperial transition from Legiones Cataegis to Legiones Astartes

 

1. Early, early Imperium (more like the Emperor's kingdom) with Custodes being the first and (at the time) only transhuman servants of the Emperor...likely doubled as elite shocktroops supporting the Emperor's earliest mortal troops

 

2. The era of the Legiones Cataegis...still mostly a mystery. Significant enmity among the legions.

 

3. The era of First Legion dominance. Conclusion of Unity, post-Unity suppression of Terran relapses, conquest of Luna, conquest and consolidation of Sol, scouring of the Oort Cloud and other xenos infestations. Other legions numerically minor relative to the First, each maybe numbering hundreds then maybe low thousands (vs. the First which hit and then exceeded the ten thousand mark very early)

 

4. Opening phases of the Great Crusade, still dominated by the First but other legions growing and tapping their potential. Terrans still dominate across the legions.

 

5. Recovery of the likes of Horus, Russ, Ferrus. The preeminence of the First seriously challenged. With the subsequent recovery of primarchs like Guilliman, the First are soon significantly eclipsed.

 

6. The First recapture some of their lost glory with the recovery of the Lion, but this only brings them into the "most esteemed" legions fold. Guilliman has the largest legion supplied by his pocket empire, Horus is clearly the first among equals and groomed by the Emperor.

 

If phases 3 and 4 lasted for many decades, it becomes clear why the First are so incredibly big-headed and why they took the erosion of their preeminence so hard.