Rumoured Salamanders vs Iron Warriors box theme

[apologist]

A slight tangent from the broader discussion in the News and Rumours section here, the idea of a Salamanders versus Iron Warriors box piqued my interest*. Thought I'd start a thread as somewhere to scribble down some idle thoughts. Apologies if it's a bit unfocussed and discursive, but hope it prompts some discussion.

 

Background

The current Age of Darkness box serves as a faction-neutral entry point to the game itself, but is also themed around the Siege of Cthonia, in the sense that the Imperial Fists and Sons of Horus were how the featured models were painted. The box was also followed up by a book themed around it, and a small deluge of upgrades for these two factions.

 

It struck me as interesting because, as far as I'm aware, the Siege of Cthonia was not an famed existing battle (like, say, Tallarn, Calth – or the Siege of Terra itself). I had assumed this was a cross-departmental decision to allow for the greatest flexibility in releases, to present an exciting clean sheet for players new and old, and to ensure that the story itself was not pre-resolved (and, of course, present two strikingly different colour schemes to help distinguish identical models).

 

Am I right in that? Was the Siege of Cthonia mentioned anywhere previously?

 

If it was, I'm wondering if we can find similar existing snippets that mention Iron Warriors and Salamanders fighting. It might give a little insight into what this rumoured new box will be named or themed around.

 

 

Releases

It's become something of a community in-joke that the Iron Warriors and Salamanders (and the Iron Hands, for the record), have received scant releases in terms of characters. If the rumour is true, it rather slots into place that we'll see the various Praetors/commanders/new special characters emerge for these two Legions.

 

It also struck me that accompanying the release of the first box were the Mark VI head/helmet upgrades.  Mark VI is amongst the least iconic mark of armour for both the Iron Warriors and Salamanders, whereas both are commonly depicted in Mark II and III. Again assuming the rumours are true, are we going to see an accompanying range of Mark II and III head/helmet upgrades kicked off with those for these two Legions?

 

 

   

 

* Mostly because two of my projects have involved the Salamanders and Iron Warriors.

 

 

[lokkorex]

My money is on Tallarn, wasn't there shattered legion forces during that conflict?

[WAR]

Yeah Tallarn would be the best guess

[Mandragola]

Could be taller or Istvaan 4. I’m not sure if sallies were especially present at Tallarn. I’d expect a Tallarn box to have mostly tanks in it. 

[lokkorex]

2 hours ago, Mandragola said:

Could be taller or Istvaan 4. I’m not sure if sallies were especially present at Tallarn. I’d expect a Tallarn box to have mostly tanks in it. 

Ooh, hadn't thought of Istvaan! That makes even more sense, especially as the Iron Warriors opened fire point-blank on the retreating Salamanders!

[apologist]

While Tallarn's a possibility – and lent weight by the upcoming Legions Imperialis expansion – my guess above is that it'll be something newer, so the team have more freedom. 

 

Had a further dig around for existing battles between these factions and found the Mezoan Campaign, but while involved Salamanders and Iron Warriors, they're not really the primary movers and shakes; but rather some factions among many. More interesting (to my theory, at least) is the Foricaan Campaign:

 

 

 

Quote

A loyalist fleet of reconstituted fragments of the Salamanders and Iron Hands arrive in the Foricaan System, having abandoned any hope of breaking the traitor blockade of Terra. The loyalists found the system under the control of the Iron Warriors, who were scouring it of resources. However the Iron Warriors were now largely distracted by the imminent Siege of Terra, and their stronghold on Foricaan III was more lightly defended. The loyalists thus struck first, penetrating Foricaan III's orbital defenses by using their fleet led by the Iron Hands Battle Barge Asteronia to run a gauntlet of fire. Due to the automated nature of the orbital defenses, the Iron Hands and Salamanders were able to rapidly make planetfall and establish a beachhead.

 

Initially, the loyalists encountered little resistance, and the Iron Warriors resorted to setting their own fuel depots ablaze to deny them to the Salamanders and Iron Hands. It also served to shield his forces and create a barrier of pyroclastic hell in order to stall the loyalist advance. Nonetheless, the vengeful sons of Vulkan and Ferrus Manus launched an armored spearhead across a hundred-kilometer wide front, engaging in a brutal and costly battle against the fixed Iron Warriors defenses.

 

In the tumult of Horus' defeat at Terra, the fate of the Foricaan was forgotten. Whatever side claimed victory there had so few survivors left that it was deemed irrelevant. No banners of either allegiance remained on the world by the time the last fuel depot finally burnt out.

 

 

Here, we get Salamanders and Iron Hands attacking the Iron Warriors, and a 'honours-even' stalemate result. Strikes me that this would be a great backdrop for some releases of these three Legions.

 

Secondly, it only seems to have been mentioned in one source – which is Siege of Cthonia...

 

*Dons tinfoil hat*

Edited June 19 by apologist

[WAR]

4 hours ago, Mandragola said:

Could be taller or Istvaan 4. I’m not sure if sallies were especially present at Tallarn. I’d expect a Tallarn box to have mostly tanks in it. 

 

And Tallarn was Iron Hands not Salamanders (I want battle of Tallarn!) 

 

1 hour ago, apologist said:

While Tallarn's a possibility – and lent weight by the upcoming Legions Imperialis expansion – my guess above is that it'll be something newer, so the team have more freedom. 

 

Had a further dig around for existing battles between these factions and found the Mezoan Campaign, but while involved Salamanders and Iron Warriors, they're not really the primary movers and shakes; but rather some factions among many. More interesting (to my theory, at least) is the Foricaan Campaign:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Here, we get Salamanders and Iron Hands attacking the Iron Warriors, and a 'honours-even' stalemate result. Strikes me that this would be a great backdrop for some releases of these three Legions.

 

Secondly, it only seems to have been mentioned in one source – which is Siege of Cthonia...

 

*Dons tinfoil hat*

 

My friend @The_Oni_of_Hindsight said the same thing that it makes sense for it to be a lesser know battle for the freedom 

[calgar101]

I would say Istvaan as that is the easiest to do but a new battle would be great and interesting.

[sarabando]

Istvaan is ruled out as the timeline of armour in the heresy shows Saturnine being a late war deployment. 

[Corswain]

7 hours ago, sarabando said:

Istvaan is ruled out as the timeline of armour in the heresy shows Saturnine being a late war deployment. 

Maybe, but once upon a time so was MKVI. 

 

Based on absolutely nothing I am going to say the theme will be the Vanaheim Space Drop from the rulebook timeline - Iron Warriors taking Mechanicum resources and then defending them against Space Wolves and "elements of several loyalist legions."

 

Got mechanicum in there to do any rules for new units like they did with the SA sentinal in Beta Garmon and both campaign books so far have been based on battles in the rulebook timeline.

 

Or it could be something completely new. 

[No Foes Remain]

11 hours ago, Corswain said:

Maybe, but once upon a time so was MKVI. 

 

Based on absolutely nothing I am going to say the theme will be the Vanaheim Space Drop from the rulebook timeline - Iron Warriors taking Mechanicum resources and then defending them against Space Wolves and "elements of several loyalist legions."

 

Got mechanicum in there to do any rules for new units like they did with the SA sentinal in Beta Garmon and both campaign books so far have been based on battles in the rulebook timeline.

 

Or it could be something completely new. 

I think Badno was refering to the armour timeline in the rule book, which shows Saturnine after Mk VI.

 

[lansalt]

The problem with that reference is that FW has already retconned or willingly forgotten their own fluff in the AoD rulebook. It mentions a SoH inductii cohort Ambix and na IF marshall Amalric in the Siege of Cthonia, but those didn't appear at all in the SoC supplement.

The Beta-Garmon supplements contradict a lot of what was writen about the battle previously, to the point of completely changing the characterization of primarchs, revive dead characters, and changing the order of events.

Whoever is now in charge of writing FW fluff doesn't seem to care about anything written before.

[Petitioner's City]

I think those mistakes are easy to make, though, and some are even stylistic or genre differences. Clearly there is a lot of concern for the past, and the head of the studio co-wrote the original black books - but it's also time and changes. But are you really going to say that (for example) Iron Hands Fanatic doesn't care about what was written before, for example?

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 hours ago, Petitioner's City said:

I think those mistakes are easy to make, though, and some are even stylistic or genre differences.

 

It depends. Mistakes made in an environment where you can reference previous written materials (like to use as a precedent or maintain continuity) are very easy to make when you're overworked and decide to guestimate instead of doing research. They're very hard to make when you have the time (and inclination) to do due diligence. We know their 30k team has two games on the go and is making supplements for both, and has a relatively low amount of staff, so ya, could be very easy in that context. It's still frustrating to see weird ass retcons being inserted after the whole novel series is done and buried. 

 

6 hours ago, Petitioner's City said:

Clearly there is a lot of concern for the past, and the head of the studio co-wrote the original black books - but it's also time and changes. But are you really going to say that (for example) Iron Hands Fanatic doesn't care about what was written before, for example?

 

I mean, clearly not enough concern to hire more staff to function as a proper editor; it's clearly in the "it's making profit so it's good enough" zone. 

 

I think it's also obvious to see the quality of writing go down as bligh and french got less involved and the system meandered. It's clear who was in the front seats of the car, and hoare...wasn't. Looking just on the mechanical side of things, a lot got changed once Hoare had full control to do a reset. A lot of his statements in the exemplary battle articles are just contradictory to the reality of the mechanics he talked about, like the whole fearless horde thing with militia. So ya, him "co writing" is kinda worthless as a selling point of continuity, especially since we're talking about the fact that stuff has changed. Characters are getting resurrected and being weird, the ruinstorm is oddly active leading up to the siege, tallarn was a loss for the loyalists, etc... 

 

It's not fear mongering about potential changes, it's going through the stories of 2nd and pointing out the contradictions that have happened already lol.

 

This is my take away. The team is understaffed doing both 30k and LI. The executives aren't going to grow the team because profits are in the proper place with the current level. They have a ton of dumb expansions to fill with lore, but probably have a mandate to make it late heresy, and are tied to what models are being released in each particular expansion. The drones don't have enough time to properly double check the lore for contradictions as they're grinding it out, and it's not a priority to management. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Pretty sure it will be Vanaheim. There’s a named Warsmith and Salamander Captain. 

[Noserenda]

Id actually be surprised if Hoare is too hands on with the Heresy team these days, he is managing the whole of SGS, several teams and a whole bevvy of games, one of which is his darling Necromunda. You have to imagine that absorbs most of his time?

[Marshal Rohr]

2 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Id actually be surprised if Hoare is too hands on with the Heresy team these days, he is managing the whole of SGS, several teams and a whole bevvy of games, one of which is his darling Necromunda. You have to imagine that absorbs most of his time?

By some accounts Necromunda and some as of yet unannounced projects or expansions are taking up his time. 

[Petitioner's City]

Yeah I wasn't suggesting he's hands on, but that it's clear there is good continuity. He plays heresy, epic and munda regularly - and his three heresy armies continue to grow too, with terra blood angels in mk7 down the line - but it does seem that the team leads on the games (Rob for Munda, even - rather than Andy himself?). Andy is the senior for all of SDS now; that's a very different role from Alan or John - closer to Tony - a decade ago?

Edited June 26 by Petitioner's City

[Eskaton]

I for one would welcome an Iron Warrior Praetor and even a Salamander Praetor.  Each of these Legions have arguably the least going for them.  Neither have a Praetor in Terminator or Power Armor.  Though each have 1 terminator special squad and the Salamanders have 1 special squad in power armor.  The Iron Warriors have a special domitar in the Iron Circle.  It would be nice if they were shown some love from GW in the form of a bitz pack for $35 USD where you get some strapnel bolters for the Iron Warriors and some of their HtH weapons and something unique for the Salamanders that included some braziers.

[Mr Farson]

On 7/5/2024 at 9:43 PM, Eskaton said:

I for one would welcome an Iron Warrior Praetor and even a Salamander Praetor.  Each of these Legions have arguably the least going for them.  Neither have a Praetor in Terminator or Power Armor.  Though each have 1 terminator special squad and the Salamanders have 1 special squad in power armor.  The Iron Warriors have a special domitar in the Iron Circle.  It would be nice if they were shown some love from GW in the form of a bitz pack for $35 USD where you get some strapnel bolters for the Iron Warriors and some of their HtH weapons and something unique for the Salamanders that included some braziers.

Iron warriors have the lowest unique model count in 30k asides from sisters of silence haha

 

8 sculpts total which is mind boggling for a full "faction"

[Lord Marshal]

I'm wondering if the box will even have a theme to it. If you squint you could say Age of Darkness was Cthonia themed, but aside from the tie-in novel having the Sword/Axe Praetors on the cover there isn't any other reference to it and even the trailer is just a vague "there are a lot of SoH and IF in MkVI fighting in the galaxy right now."

 

Similarly the MkIII Battle Group didn't have any theme, beyond a few MkIII colour plates populating The Battle for Beta-Garmon.

 

It's probably fair to assume a 28mm Tallarn book is coming after The Martian Civil War, but since they've already shown us photos from the LI book of the Iron Warriors depicted rocking MkVI I wonder if it won't just be a coincidence rather than deliberately thematic that a box with Sallies and Iron Warriors will be appearing around the same time? 

 

Edited July 9 by Lord Marshal