Which was/were the most important loyalist legion(s) in the Horus Heresy?

[Valkyrion]

The Space Wolves royally screwed the pooch throughout most of the heresy - failing to kill Horus instead of reinforcing Terra, failing to destroy the Thousand Sons when ordered to by Horus, listening to Horus instead of the Emperor, disobeying the Emperor's orders to bring Magnus to heel, sending Magnus and the Thousand Sons to the traitors cause, keeping either daemons, xenos or mutants as pets, ignoring Nikaea on a nonsensical technicality, being sent to keep an eye on the remaining loyalist primarchs only to have a company turn traitor....they are the worst of the loyalists by miles, getting by with specious reasoning to support their hypocritical ideals. 

 

I think the Imperial Fists are the face of the Loyalists. Dorn killed one primarch, his defence was so good he forced another to withdraw, and sent a third packing on the battlefield. 

Plus - Imperial. Imperium. Empire. Emperor. It's pretty much in the name. 

 

[Razorblade]

3 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

That your opinion is that he 'just threw resources at the enemy' suggests you shoud have a read of the SoT series. That's precisely what Dorn did not do, instead using the precise amount and application of manpower to slow Horus and gain days to reinforce terra. The books go into a lot of detail about exactly how Dorn managed the war, how he was orchestrating the fighting of a thousand different battles simultaneously for months on end withour break, and in an unwinnable situation. I'd argue that Dorn was more important than the fists, however Archamus, other subcommanders etc proved invaluable in slowing traitors.

He manages a bad situation well but with Valdor, Sanguinius, Khan, Malcador and the Fists very capable Captains all present on and around Terra they don't have a shortage of commanders decent enough to manage a defensive siege. Dorn does nothing to significantly disrupt the Traitors plans (stuff like the saturnine ambush doesn't really change the grand scale of things) and in an absolute best case scenario (He has two extra Legions the Traitors didn't account for at terra and reinforcements coming in much quicker than expected) he still gets big E killed on his watch. Ferrus does more to hurt the traitor effort by simply not flipping.

 

3 hours ago, Xenith said:

The question was which was the most important legion in the heresy - and as the DA did little, we can't claim it was them. I agree that they were a big threat and needed to be removed, however Horus eveidently believed that Johnson could be turned, and the fact that Horus went for total annihilation of the SW, TS, UM and BA, means they were all ranked as higher threats than the DA. By choosing to get bogged down in a protracted game of cat and mouse, with the master of cat and mouse, the Lion greatly hampered the loyalist efforts, and effectively removed the DA from th heresy. We can argue the Leigon under Corswain had a great, and pivotal role to play, however this was maybe 10% of the legion overall, and directly disobeying the lions orders as I recall. 

That depends on your definition of importance, if it's about how influential their actions are in the way the events play out I agree, the Dark Angels and Ultramarine don't really do all that much* and the wolves likely end up doing more harm than good. 

However I think it's more interesting to look at how important they are to their sides overall strength/how important it is for the traitors not to fight them/how much damage they could do in the right place at the right time. 

If Horus isn't juiced up on Molech, Russ ends the Heresy before it ever reaches Terra. If the Ultramarines are destroyed at Calth and the Dark Angels don't destroy the Night Lords, the Loyalists just flat out loose, no matter what they do.

The Blood Angels are easily the most important with either definition because the traitors want to fight them under no circumstances *and* they actually manage to disrupt their plans and show up at Terra on time. 

*I'd still argue they're more important than Dorn and the Fists because they actually do something the traitors didn't plan for

[Noserenda]

If you think Russ did nothing but screw up during the heresy you probably need to check it over again :)

1. "He drove a loyal legion to the enemy" On the surface sure, but not really. Magnus sold the Ksons to Tzeentch years before the heresy was a twinkle in Lorgars eye. If you think they would have ever ended the heresy on the anathemas side you dont understand the changer of ways, lord of treachery, very well.

Sure, what went down on Prospero was undoubtedly tragic, but in some alternative reality where Russ showed restraint i think we almost certainly have a much bigger tragedy when the Ksons change sides at some decisive moment, the main difference being whether they do it willingly or as a legion of gribbly flesh monsters with the odd sorcerer, or worst of all some kind of monumental warp portal/overlap from exploding that many psykers all in one place. Grim.

2. "Failing to Kill Horus" I dont think ultimately killing Horus was the actual point of that attack (I mean it was Russ' plan yes) the entire point is the chink in Horus' mental armour/control the Spear of Russ opened up. He may have been playing it up for camouflage but i think its pretty clear in the text that it hindered Horus and the invasion to a significant degree overall. Possibly enough to squeak the win? Noone will ever know for sure. 

Plus its not a small thing that the Wolves got to stab Horus. The knock to the confidence and the losses amongst the Sons of Horus' elite cadres arent nothing. Maybe the Saturnine gambit worked in a time this never happened?

3. Just getting out there, killing Traitors, disrupting their plans and pulling more of them away from Terra to kill the Wolves, in combination with the above factors was probably more useful during the siege than the actual wolves being there overall, lets face it, Russ and his mob probably would not have been playing particularly well with Dorn, especially not with Sanguinius and even the Khan has some problems there. Its probably the worst set of Loyalists for the Wolves to fight with. Buggering off was probably the best actual choice.

Sure the watch packs were dumb, but they were also utterly minimal numbers of troops.


So yeah. I still think trying to rank the legions is silly (But a classic forum timewaster :D )  but some real shaky assumptions out there. Especially with the poor neglected Iron hands to accurately pick on! 

[darkhorse0607]

While I'm late on the reply (moving is a pain)

 

Circling back to the "Horus was nervous enough about the Dark Angels he sent a whole legion to delay them"

 

He sent the Night Lords. I'm a fan of our Midnight Clad friends as much as the next person who likes Midnight Clad space marines, but it wasn't exactly the same thing as sending the Wolves to stop the Thousand Sons or the Word Bearers to Calth

 

He sent a legion that he knew would probably be crushed in an open conflict with the Dark Angels, and at the bare minimum drastically reduced from the engagements they'd have outside of the main conflicts of the campaign

 

I'm not disputing that Horus considered the Dark Angels a threat, I just feel like he assumed the Calibanite faction of the legion that was working with Typhon would end up leading to the downfall of the Dark Angels after the Heresy was finished. Otherwise he would've sent a legion with more stopping power