The Scouring (Series)

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

That being said in the preview article it mentions 

 

"We’ll meet a new cast of characters, including bitter Iron Warrior Ortag Theokon, zealous Word Bearer Adraharsis and Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, Prayto"

 

 

They also told me the siege of terra would be 8 books in total. So pinch of salt is what i am saying. 

 

 

[Mordred]

I think it’ll be more than just the 8 novels, it doesn’t have to be a huge number like the main HH but I think maybe low double digits, with substantial novellas to fill in the little branches of the main arc.

 

I think that could work well, see The stores the McNeill wrote about the crew of Sisypheum. I think that worked well, the could have done that in the main series as a whole. With multiple novellas about side characters, key battles and so on, which they did with Tallarn and the like. It keeps the main arc focused but then shows wider stories within the setting. And if they do it as a novella then most people will pick them up. 

[DarkChaplain]

I just wonder if they remember Azkaellon exists, and that him, Amit and Raldoron were in a bit of an argument in the aftermath of Sanguinius's death about what to do...

[Mordred]

Three very different attitudes to what the legion should be, and this would make a compelling Novella to the series a 200 page deep down of what the blood angels do and the decisions they come too, post Sanguinis's death but importantly, outside of the main arc of the scouring series.

 

So, its there if you want to read about it and it is given the attention it needs and deserves, but it doesn't bog down the main series - reducing the importance of these things and whatever is going on in the main story line. 

 

Lets be honest, the pressure coming on the blood angels post heresy would be massive, with different factions from outside trying to pull them one way or the other for one thing or another externally and then internally, decisions on what they should do now as a legion.

[akex08060]

14 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

I'm not that convinced. I think the Scouring is the era that begins setting up the 2/3rd Ultramarine successor situation that we have in modern 40k

 

The Sons of Sanguinius have the Black Rage now. Echoes of Eternity mentions that Zephon becomes Chapter Master of the Charnel Guard, which according to old Bligh-era lore used gene-seed hybridization, hinting at an attempt to breed out traits from Blood Angel gene-seed.

 

An attempt will be made at Blood Angel Successors, same as with the Space Wolves, but it will prove non-viable at a large scale.

 

At least that's where I think the story is heading to.

Need to remember to what happen to the 13th during the HH, 200,000 were at Calth with the rest at the 500 worlds or other locations and then the Word Bearers did their thing. The 200,000 at Calth turn into 80,000 and then during the battle another 28k had to be evacuated or force to stay in bunkers. 

 

Another but of bad news for the 13th was when the 200,000 were at Calth the rest of the 50,000 were attack by the the Shadow Crusade further reducing their numbers. The worst part is that in Lore many worlds were conquered by Lorgar and Angron with only some defense being successful which means that maybe half or most of the 50,000 were destroyed. That means there could be 90,000 to 105,000 marines left after the shadow crusade and the worst part is that the shadow crusade destroyed their primary recruitment center. We then had to add in battle attractions during the later battles and finally the Scouring. So many marines would be further reduce, I speculate by the time the Scouring is over they would be at 50,000 to 80,000 marines left without Guilliman to lead them anymore which puts it in question how would the Ultramarines be 2/3 of the marines left after the Scouring in the old lore looking at the Dark Angels who the Lion has largely kept his legion intact by splitting it up and Blood Angels with their quick space Marine creation. 

 

Now it is possible that 2/3rd Ultramarine successor could happen in 40k but I suspect that could happen if some other legions gene seeds would be mislabel as Ultramarine even with traitors gene seeds.  Take for instance an 'Ultramarine' successor Chapter is having some weird gene flaws that they can't explain until Astorath the Grim showed up and told that Chapter that they are not Ultramarine stocks but actually Blood angels.    

 

The 3 Shattered legions from the drop site massacre are basically almost destroyed so they are almost a non factor in the Scouring, Space Wolves are also shattered so they are a non factor as well and going to have to borrow space marines. Imperial fist and White Scars are certainly battered in the siege with low numbers of space marines left so all they can do is play support to the Ultramarines and Dark Angels. As stated the Blood Angles has quick space marines creations so the loyalist are certainly going to make hundreds of thousands of blood angels to cover up the looses especially since the Alpha legion did not took part in the siege and there are still a large part of the imperium that is under Chaos, rebels and Xenos controls. Also the Blood Angel's flaw wasn't well know by the time of the end of the siege and the Lion and Guilliman would just assume the Blood angels are just in great anger with the lost of their Primarch and didn't think much of it. 

 

[Karhedron]

The thing to remember is that the UM's had an efficient recruitment program from across the 500 worlds. That means they were busy rebuilding even during the Imperium Secundus timeframe. So we can't simply take the starting value of 250,000, subtract losses during the Heresy and come up with a final number. You can bet Guilliman ramped up recruitment across Ultramar just as Dorn did on Terra.

[Mordred]

Yeah, you could definitely see a potential PoV from a newly transitioned Marine - post heresy. Mass recruited, and when the indoctrination comes in over the allowance to remember there life prior to joining an Astartes training program.

 

[darkhorse0607]

4 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

I just wonder if they remember Azkaellon exists, and that him, Amit and Raldoron were in a bit of an argument in the aftermath of Sanguinius's death about what to do...

 

 

Who? We can't afford more than two Blood Angel characters at the same time

 

We don't have the technology 

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

 

 

Who? We can't afford more than two Blood Angel characters at the same time

 

We don't have the technology 

 

They could bring back all the new exciting characters we got from Fear to Tread....or the other BA hh books....oh my god its just Zephon and Echoes all the way down isnt. 

 

[darkhorse0607]

2 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

They could bring back all the new exciting characters we got from Fear to Tread....or the other BA hh books....oh my god its just Zephon and Echoes all the way down isnt. 

 

 

Azkaellon who? Raldoron who? Amit who? Alepheo (because I'll never pass on bringing up The Passing of Angels) who?

 

HERES ZEPHON!

[Roomsky]

Zephon is only frustrating because 1: Abnett can't write him for ship, and 2: Swallow completely bungled making interesting Blood Angels back in Fear to Tread. Exciting new characters? That book had none. It's no wonder nobody wants to write Azkaellon or Raldoron, the only compelling thing either has done since their introduction is Raldoron nonchalantly kicking Skraivok off a wall. Amit has had decent pagetime because he has a personality.

 

But Wraight is Wraight. He can turn a boring character into an interesting one in the time it takes for us to blink. Azkaellon rehabilitation arc incoming?

Edited Thursday at 06:29 PM by Roomsky

[darkhorse0607]

20 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

Zephon is only frustrating because 1: Abnett can't write him for ship, and 2: Swallow completely bungled making interesting Blood Angels back in Fear to Tread. Exciting new characters? That book had none. It's no wonder nobody wants to write Azkaellon or Raldoron, the only compelling thing either has done since their introduction is Rladoron nonchalantly kicking Skraivok off a wall. Amit has had decent pagetime because he has a personality.

 

But Wraight is Wraight. He can turn a boring character into an interesting one in the time it takes for us to blink. Azkaellon rehabilitation arc incoming?

 

 

I mean I'd rate Azkaellon telling the Lion to come back with an appointment, responding with "I do not fear death, lord—by your hand, or any other. Duty demands I do far worse than hurl myself at oblivion" when threatened by the Lion higher than Raldon/Skraivok, but still

 

I think it circles back to a point we have discussed to death. We saw over the course of the Heresy authors trying to flesh out factions and characters that were neglected early on (or were their own personal characters i.e. Zephon) and were successful, but some were never touched outside of maybe some short stories or side plots (as is the case with Azkaellon). The editors/steering committee could've used a little foresight and thought "oh, gee golly, these characters are important after the Heresy, maybe we should do something with them"

[DarkChaplain]

As far as I remember (which could be badly, as it's been forever), as per the Andy Smillie books, Azkaellon is gonna be in a big slump after Sanguinius's death. He's not taking it well and supposedly very apathetic about the Legion-breaking. He's crushed. Basically the perfect sample of the Blood Angels' trauma after their Primarch got slain. Between him, Amit and Raldoron, they form a triangle of versions of coping and grieving, and it'd be a mistake to ditch him yet again.

 

But damn, I'm still supremely pissed that they forgot about Azkaellon and instead Dan invented somebody new and uninteresting to be with Sanguinius aboard the Vengeful Spirit.

[Roomsky]

I think it's long been established that all the Sanguinary Guard who accompany Sang onto the Vengeful Spirit get killed. I don't recall if Abnett actually wrote it that way, but the assumption for a while was that Azkaellon didn't get to go for whatever reason.

 

Still silly we didn't get more of his on-the-ground POV in TEatD though, that's grade-A angst material.

[Mordred]

I think quite a few of them survived, they got trapped behind a bulkhead when Sang plunged ahead. But that was only one of like 4 companies(?) Azkaellon was part of another of these companies, that tried to link up. It was a ship show at the end wasn’t it. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

Speaking of forgotten Blood Angels characters: Meros, anyone? 

[Roomsky]

1 hour ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Meros, anyone? 

 

Who?

 

There's only one red angel, and his name is Angron.

[akex08060]

14 hours ago, Karhedron said:

The thing to remember is that the UM's had an efficient recruitment program from across the 500 worlds. That means they were busy rebuilding even during the Imperium Secundus timeframe. So we can't simply take the starting value of 250,000, subtract losses during the Heresy and come up with a final number. You can bet Guilliman ramped up recruitment across Ultramar just as Dorn did on Terra.

Didn't the Shadow Crusade wiped out the 500 worlds main training and recruitment world ? They can still create Ultramarines but it is going to be small and slow without that world as a result and will take many years.   Could probably add 4,000 to 14,000 Ultramarines before the Legion gets broken up if they use the Genestock from death Ultramarines from the 28,000 they evacuated from Calth and if they managed to salvage some from the 120,000 dead although they are very disorganise when the World Bearers started their attack so they probably didn't take much.   

 

6 hours ago, Roomsky said:

I think it's long been established that all the Sanguinary Guard who accompany Sang onto the Vengeful Spirit get killed. I don't recall if Abnett actually wrote it that way, but the assumption for a while was that Azkaellon didn't get to go for whatever reason.

 

Still silly we didn't get more of his on-the-ground POV in TEatD though, that's grade-A angst material.

Wasn't there only a handful of them left after Konrad attacked them ? Would be easy if they all got KIA off in the ship and only Azkaellon survived because he didn't came along. As for who did him in lore wise, it is probably be Chaos or the Custodians if he figures out that the Emperor everyone saw is actually a Decoy so...... 

 

3 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

Who?

 

There's only one red angel, and his name is Angron.

He kind of got written out although he does appears in some of the HH books, he might show up again in The Scouring books. 

[Alpharius902]

1 hour ago, akex08060 said:

Didn't the Shadow Crusade wiped out the 500 worlds main training and recruitment world ? They can still create Ultramarines but it is going to be small and slow without that world as a result and will take many years.   Could probably add 4,000 to 14,000 Ultramarines before the Legion gets broken up if they use the Genestock from death Ultramarines from the 28,000 they evacuated from Calth and if they managed to salvage some from the 120,000 dead although they are very disorganise when the World Bearers started their attack so they probably didn't take much.   

 

Siege of Cthonia established that the Ultramarines ended up with a net gain of Astartes during the Heresy as a result of Guilliman instituting martial law across Ultramar alongside forced conscription in concert with new Inductii production. They should have no problem maintaining the high number of progenitors - their main issue is that the Scouring is going to be the need to slaughter enough of them that there aren't 250 Chapters being created.

 

1 hour ago, akex08060 said:

Wasn't there only a handful of them left after Konrad attacked them ? Would be easy if they all got KIA off in the ship and only Azkaellon survived because he didn't came along. As for who did him in lore wise, it is probably be Chaos or the Custodians if he figures out that the Emperor everyone saw is actually a Decoy so...... 

 

At least one Guard survived the Anabasis operation, Taerwelt Ikasati. He's one of Abnett's creations for the End and the Death, so no clue what happens to him

[akex08060]

6 hours ago, Alpharius902 said:

 

Siege of Cthonia established that the Ultramarines ended up with a net gain of Astartes during the Heresy as a result of Guilliman instituting martial law across Ultramar alongside forced conscription in concert with new Inductii production. They should have no problem maintaining the high number of progenitors - their main issue is that the Scouring is going to be the need to slaughter enough of them that there aren't 250 Chapters being created.

 

 

At least one Guard survived the Anabasis operation, Taerwelt Ikasati. He's one of Abnett's creations for the End and the Death, so no clue what happens to him

I read that book where does it say the Ultramarines ended up with a net gain of Astartes during the Heresy ? They kind of lost close to 120,000 at Calth and then Lorgar and Angron destroyed their main training world in the Shadow Crusade which that book pretty much stated it makes it impossible for the Ultramarines to restore their pre HH numbers back.  

[Alpharius902]

1 hour ago, akex08060 said:

I read that book where does it say the Ultramarines ended up with a net gain of Astartes during the Heresy ? They kind of lost close to 120,000 at Calth and then Lorgar and Angron destroyed their main training world in the Shadow Crusade which that book pretty much stated it makes it impossible for the Ultramarines to restore their pre HH numbers back.  

 

From Campaigns of the Age of Darkness: The Siege of Cthonia, Legiones Inductii, A Generation Apart (Page 123 - Bolding my own):

 

Quote

The extent of deviation from traditional methods varied widely between Legions; causality can be drawn between the measure of losses suffered by a force and greater instances of bypassed safeguards and rapid implantation methods. Legions established in more stable regions of the galaxy, such as those garrisoned upon Terra, Ultramar or within subjugated regions of the Warmaster’s Dark Empire in the northern galactic reaches, serve as an ideal baseline for implantation deviations; ready access to materiel and recruitment pools facilitated only minor alterations to established process. Records provided by the apothecaries of the Ultramarines describe a programme of accelerated recruitment and induction, involving the implementation of mass recruitment and genetic screening across the Five Hundred Worlds on the orders of Roboute Guilliman. Administration records note the establishment of martial law over planets within Ultramar, each overseen by several XIIIth Legion warriors designated as Consul Lanist, or ‘Overseer of the Enlisted’, whose responsibility lay with the conscriptions of militia regiments from the population. In concert, Legion apothecaries were tasked with genetic screening programmes upon both the conscripted and their families, to identify those with viable genetic markers for induction; those discovered were dispatched to Legion training facilities within more stable regions of Ultramar. This provided the Ultramarines with a steady, stable flow of aspirants, with conservative estimates stating the XIIIth likely experienced a net gain of Legionaries over the course of the Horus Heresy despite the numerous fronts on which its forces fought, estimates reinforced by the strength and size of the XIIIth Legion at conflict’s end. Higher quantities of recruits enabled the Ultramarines to rely solely on hypno-indoctrination as a means to shorten Legionary production, with no recorded deviations to implantation techniques.

 

[DarkChaplain]

On 7/31/2025 at 11:33 PM, Roomsky said:

 

Who?

 

There's only one red angel, and his name is Angron.

 

Ironically, the Red Angel is part of the old Collected Visions tome. Like, the original one. Right there on the big traitor host group picture that also shows Ingethel, Ahriman, Fulgrim and co, with Horus at the center. So it's not like the Red Angel is a new invention. It might even be that Angron got that title later, irl-wise.

 

 

[Roomsky]

1 hour ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

Ironically, the Red Angel is part of the old Collected Visions tome. Like, the original one. Right there on the big traitor host group picture that also shows Ingethel, Ahriman, Fulgrim and co, with Horus at the center. So it's not like the Red Angel is a new invention. It might even be that Angron got that title later, irl-wise.

 

 

Oh, probably. I'm just being a :cuss: because despite it's central appearance in that one awesome piece of art, Black Library seems to have been mind-wiped regarding its existence.

[Jareddm]

On 8/1/2025 at 7:08 AM, Alpharius902 said:

 

From Campaigns of the Age of Darkness: The Siege of Cthonia, Legiones Inductii, A Generation Apart (Page 123 - Bolding my own):

 

The Inductii really throws a wrench in the plans of all the people trying to suss out the number of successors based on the old legion numbers. I consider this a good thing. I personally would've gone even further with the presentation during the Siege. Even if the loyalist legions mass recruited, the traitor legions had even fewer restrictions. I could easily see the World Eaters or SoH or Death Guard coming into the Siege with 500k each. If we think about just how many casualties were taken on all side and yet for their still to have been so many traitor forces left to flee even after Horus's death, the old legion numbers just don't work if you want to account for Inductii.

[Mordred]

It makes sense, the traitor legions would have been steam rolling planets and garrisons on the way to Terra and would have had a steady stream of recruits, plus with the knowledge of what they had to capturing the labs on Luna in the early stages they would have put the recruitment into over drive, if they were still commanded by capable individuals. Which the SoH, Iron Warriors were at least, Alpha Legion too.