The Scouring (Series)

[wecanhaveallthree]

Nobody's getting back up after being so thoroughly stomped on during the Great Crusade. Anyone smart enough to avoid it isn't going to stick their neck out now that the Imperium has finished their civil war and the vengeful loyalists are sweeping back through the galaxy looking for people to punt. I'd definitely be interested in seeing what happened with the worlds that surrendered to Horus' Dark Compliance (Not Appearing In This Heresy) or saw the chance to break away, and now have to figure out what they're gonna say when someone turns up to ask them why they stopped paying their taxes. 'We always supported you morally' might not cut it!

[Griefbringer]

3 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 I'd definitely be interested in seeing what happened with the worlds that surrendered to Horus' Dark Compliance (Not Appearing In This Heresy) or saw the chance to break away, and now have to figure out what they're gonna say when someone turns up to ask them why they stopped paying their taxes.

 

Worlds that officially declared independence might end up seeing a quick change of leadership, once somebody from the Imperial side has time to show up and remind the locals of their earlier decision to join the Imperium.

 

Those that merely tried to maintain low profile (not declaring independence, but not actively supporting either side) might be able to get away if they get lucky. The Imperial taxation was sort of a new thing at the beginning of Heresy, and the Imperial tax collectors might have simply been unable to show up at many worlds due to issues with the warp storms, traitor interdiction, shortage of interstellar transport (required to directly support the war effort and probably lost in great numbers). But they better appear really cooperative when the Imperium makes new contact.

 

As for the worlds that ended up going over to Dark Compliance, I would expect pretty harsh treatment - but not to the extent that the traitor homeworlds received.

Edited Friday at 01:14 PM by Griefbringer
Typo.

[grailkeeper]

I wonder if we'll see s mention of Vostroya? Not looking for a book but a reference might be nice.

[Griefbringer]

Vostroya is certainly a great example of how merciful the post-Heresy Imperium could be to a world that had failed in achieving its duties during the war. It is also interesting in the sense that Adeptus Mechanicus has a role in running the place.

[Marshal Rohr]

5 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

We didn't see much of the orks or xenos in general in the heresy. Think we'll see some in the Scouring? Orks got krumped at ullanor but surely some are making the most of humanities troubles. Maybe we might see some Eldar observers there to see what humanity is going to do next with the warp. Maybe there's some minor xenon species that gets too big for its boots during the heresy and gets eliminated during the Scouring to send a message.

The Imperium actual expands beyond Great Crusade borders during the Scouring. 

[DarkChaplain]

At the very least, we got an Ulthwé Interlude with Eldrad Ulthran in The End and the Death, and we know he sends Harlequins to Terra after the Scouring, during the War of the Beast, which happens just before the 2nd (iirc) Black Crusade. 

 

So we KNOW Eldrad at the very least is watching, so... there might be something. 

 

There's also the chance to have something related to the Silent King somewhere, considering they never followed up on Dante meeting with the bloke or his emissary, and being told that he knew that mask/face (of Sanguinius). While Sanguinius is dead now, they could still at least flashback it or retrofit it to the Sanguinor or Azkaellon (if they remember his existence long enough to make him matter).

 

Speaking of the Sanguinor, we seriously haven't seen him since Ruinstorm. It's about time for him to show up and bring some hope to the Blood Angels as they're at their lowest.

 

I'd also like to get a novel dealing with the Raven Guard and their not being there at the end - while they made the correct decision in choosing a different strategy than as defenders of walls, it's clear that there must be some regrets once they learn of the outcome and losses. There's still a gap to fill for Corax before he enters the red level and goes all Nevermore, leaving to hunt for Lorgar (who again we had an Interlude of in The End and the Death that barely mattered and felt more like setup).

 

I also very much want to have the Grey Knights show up at some point in the not too distant future of the Scouring, dealing with Pythos and the Damnation Cache, which is supposed to be one of if not the first major engagement they took part in. They gotta close the Cache and stop the daemon flood into realspace, and in turn set up both the later Pandorax campaign and bring Ianius/Janus onto the scene, pre-War of the Beast; we know his identity from the Heresy shorts, but it's time to see him and the Grey Knights react to their time distortion and having to deal with the Emperor's AND Malcador's (mostly) deaths

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, DarkChaplain said:

I also very much want to have the Grey Knights show up at some point in the not too distant future of the Scouring, dealing with Pythos and the Damnation Cache, which is supposed to be one of if not the first major engagement they took part in. 

I, once again, make my pitch for a duology or trilogy of novellas covering the Grey Knights as they deal with the mental/emotional fallout of missing the Siege, standing up the chapter, and emerging after everything has gone wonky with the Imperium

 

Also +1 for the Raven Guard (beyond Ultramarines, they've been what I've been painting most for the last few years). I enjoyed their portrayal in Dropsite Massacre, especially after not being touched for so long by the authors (and having literally nothing of mention in 40k for 10+ years). I'd be interested in seeing what role they decide to take during the rout of the Traitors from realspace. Do they act as a scouting force, basically hunting/marking targets for the other legions, falling back into their more natural role, or does Corax yeet everything else and make a beeline for Lorgar?

 

Would assume that they're finally going to finish Sevetar's arc as well, but you know what they say about assuming things

[Nagashsnee]

On 10/30/2026 at 11:48 AM, wecanhaveallthree said:

Nobody's getting back up after being so thoroughly stomped on during the Great Crusade. Anyone smart enough to avoid it isn't going to stick their neck out now that the Imperium has finished their civil war and the vengeful loyalists are sweeping back through the galaxy looking for people to punt.

 

You have to remember 3 key things, 1) The great crusade followed stable and usable warp routes, 2) the great crusade conquered a pretty tiny % of the galaxy, 3) not all races rely on the warp for travel.

 

This is one of the parts of warhammer where the miniature side restrains the lore. Because there is no reason that MAJOR galactic powers the Imperium had never encountered cant exist.  Xenos races rulings over thousands/millions of worlds living their best lives unware of the Imperium should be out there. The Imperium of a million worlds quote was great when we thought that the galaxy was ALLOT smaller, these days the estimates are a galaxy of 100s of billions of planets.  And its not like xenos have to have earth like conditions either.  In galactic terms once again warhammers eternal weakpoint is numbers. 

 

Every now and then 40k remembers this and gives us a cool race like the Qorl, holding dominion over many worlds (for real like actual empire), tech that can go toe to toe with the imperium, existing for thousands of years, now they lack the ability for warp travel so are self contained in their expansion. But even there the story threads for the Quorl getting faster travel exist, and the Imperium is worried.  But Qorl like species should exist in their thousands, growing, expanding and dying without humanity ever knowing of them. Never in the lore spotlight because this game exists to sell miniatures and they are not a playable race. But thats what makes 40k truly great, or it did before it started hyper focussing on primarchs and special characters. You COULD HAVE gigantic wars with entire xenos empires and it would be minor news on a imperium wide scale.  All you need is a name, a cool xenos idea and a source book and suddenly  maybe there was a massive xenos invasion from the Bargarian Confederaty that required 222 billion lives and half a segmentums output to eradicate. It would still in the imperium history books be small news compared to the codex astartes, the primarchs going missing and the rise of the church, 

 

GW could (dont get me wrong, i dont think the scouring needs xenos) if they want introduce any number of major xenos foes, the imperium at its absolute height was NOTHING in galactic terms. Its one of the humorous parts of 30k, everyone is sad cause the crusade is over, but they have are not even 5% done and have explored NOTHING.  They are waxing about there being no major enemies left, but a entity twice the imperium size could be in any single segmentum alone.  The imperium is the biggest and most powerful (tho Necrons would challenge this) player in warhammer that the setting allows to exist...untill GW wants to introduce a new faction of course.

 

But so much of warhammer history is left empty you could have gigantic xenos empires crashing into the imperium or the orks, or anyone really and it would not even be that noteworthy.   Like golden age humanity wasnt big news for the eldar, the Imperium of the crusade might not have been big news for any number of other powers, which again dont exist, because it is a mini game made when 1 million worlds sounded stupid big.  Its also why its so frustrating when GW never EXPLORES IT. 

[Felix Antipodes]

To touch on a few points raised:

Xenos - I also don’t think the Scouring needs any new species introduced to distract the Imperium.  However, there are plenty of existing ones in the lore who could be used (sparingly) to show that there were plenty of other worries for the Imperium than just the traitor legions.  The lore has always mentioned there were battles against encroaching xenos races, independence minded systems/sectors, etc.  I would like to see the discovery of the discovery/subjugation of races like the Barghesi and the setting up of the embargoes set up to control them.

 

As pointed out the Imperium, post Heresy, became a bigger beast.  I put this down to the loyalist forces, in their zeal, persuing the traitors fleeing off the main Warp routes as they fled retribution.  Expansion by accident in a way.

[Nagashsnee]

11 minutes ago, Felix Antipodes said:

As pointed out the Imperium, post Heresy, became a bigger beast.  I put this down to the loyalist forces, in their zeal, persuing the traitors fleeing off the main Warp routes as they fled retribution.  Expansion by accident in a way.

 

One of the fun side affects of the chaos gods being in hiding/wounded and the warp being very still is that a ton of NEW stable war routes will logically now be open for use. And systems previous cut of because of warp storms now being again open. 

 

This could also lead to the stable solid imperium we know comes to be post scouring up the beast. Suddenly its literally easy sailing. 

 

[Karhedron]

16 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

There's also the chance to have something related to the Silent King somewhere, considering they never followed up on Dante meeting with the bloke or his emissary, and being told that he knew that mask/face (of Sanguinius). While Sanguinius is dead now, they could still at least flashback it or retrofit it to the Sanguinor or Azkaellon (if they remember his existence long enough to make him matter).

 

Speaking of the Sanguinor, we seriously haven't seen him since Ruinstorm. It's about time for him to show up and bring some hope to the Blood Angels as they're at their lowest.

 

My assumption was that the Silent King became aware of Sanguinius during his use of the beacon on Sotha to send messages during the Imperium Secundus period. That works a lot more easily narratively than trying to fit in a face-to-face encounter. I agree about the Sanguinor though.

[Karhedron]

14 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I, once again, make my pitch for a duology or trilogy of novellas covering the Grey Knights as they deal with the mental/emotional fallout of missing the Siege, standing up the chapter, and emerging after everything has gone wonky with the Imperium

 

The Grey Knights were established as a sort lifeboat project in case the Imperium survived. I don't think they ever expected to take part in the Siege. In fact Loken and Garro declined the order to go to Titan and help establish the GKs specifically because they wanted to face their respective fathers during the Siege.

[DarkChaplain]

They were a contingency, yes. But they would still need to fully grasp the extent of it all, particularly the semi-death of the Emperor himself, whose gene-seed they now carry. The Emperor actually turning into a husk certainly wasn't what they expected - they might've feared his death, or the loss of Terra perhaps, but most assuredly not this limbo-state. Heck, we might even see Ianius/Janus as Supreme Grand Master trying to make psychic contact or something.

 

There are plenty of things they could do with them, especially on the Malcador / Agents of the Sigillite plotline. They were Malcador's chosen before they even met the Emperor, anyway. Plus, the Terminus Decree needs to be established at some point, with the Talisman being handed over; I'd expect the whole Basilio Fo virus thing will be saved for Pandaemonium instead.