Horus Heresy: Difference between revisions
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===Extermination=== | ===Extermination=== | ||
Set to be released around Easter 2014. Will focus on the second half of Istvaan V, as well as the Battle of Phall between the [[Iron Warriors]] and [[Imperial Fists]]; and on that note, it'll include rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]]. | Set to be released around Easter 2014. Will focus on the second half of Istvaan V, as well as the Battle of Phall between the [[Iron Warriors]] and [[Imperial Fists]]; and on that note, it'll include rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]]. | ||
===Conquest=== | ===Conquest=== | ||
Revision as of 21:48, 25 April 2014
The Horus Heresy is the single biggest event in Warhammer 40,000 fluff. The only real competition is the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the Necrons and maybe the creation of Slaanesh by the Eldar.
In the Horus Heresy, the Emperor's favorite son, Horus Lupercal, formerly Warmaster of the Imperium, rebelled against the Emperor, taking eight Space Marine Legions, their respective Primarchs, and a large part of the Imperial Army and Mechanicum with him. After waging war across the galaxy, Horus and his traitors eventually reached Holy Terra itself, hoping to murder the Emperor himself. He beat the Emperor within an inch of his life but was killed in turn. The Chaos gribblies he had been allied with disappeared and the now Chaos Marines that had followed him sulked back to the Eye of Terror, starting the Long War.
Because the Emperor was fucked up to the point where he had to be permanently attached to a life-support machine known as the "Golden Throne" just to survive, logic within the Imperium gradually decreased, eventually turning into the Grimdark empire it is today. And it was already pretty damn grimdark.
Warhammer 40,000 Fluff
The Horus Heresy screwed almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course, but they always win) and changed the flavour of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a word about religion, we rape you with knives" to Catholic Inquisition "if you breathe a word about the wrong religion, we rape you with knives" unless you can find an Ecclesiarch to come and say nope, that's just another aspect of the Emperor. Don't count on this happening without hefty "donations".
The heresy lasted for several years (somewhere between seven and ten) and was fought all over the galaxy. The following are the most important battles and campaigns during the Heresy:
- Battle of Isstvan III
- Burning of Prospero
- Drop Site Massacre
- Battle of Calth
- Shadow Crusade
- Thramas Crusade
- Signus Campaign
- Battle of Phall
- Siege of Terra
The Board Game
First published in 1993 by Game Designer's Workshop, it was the Emprah versus his evil bastard of a son in the scorched earth of Terra. Units include titans and Chaos spawn. *GLARBLBLBLBLBLBL*
The more recent edition (2010) is published by Fantasy Flight Games. Also a two-player war game, it includes over 100 sculpted minifigs, sculpted buildings, and even Horus and the Emprah themselves are units on the board. It also adds more territory, as the fight can be pushed back onto the traitor's flagship Vengeful Spirit. Combat is less dice-y and more card-y.
(Not to be confused with the lame Horus Heresy card game, who's only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway)
The Book Series
For the last few years, Black Library has been publishing novels that explore the events of the Horus Heresy, looking at the rivalries among the Primarchs and exploring just why everything went down the tubes. The novels are by a selection of different authors, which is a total pain if you like to organise your books alphabetically by author. The reception to the series has been somewhat... mixed; books generally considered to be good include the first trilogy, Betrayer, Scars, and the short story The Serpent Beneath (generally considered to be the best story in the series).
Of course, like we mentioned, there's some that are... um...
Well, let's just say that the worst of the worst is a cause of much debate, but here are some that most readers don't much like.
- Fear to Tread: Despite being Black Library's most financially successful book ever and hitting thirteen (!) on the New York Times bestseller list (without Oprah's recommendation, even), many fa/tg/uys find it a bit ridiculous. Why? Well, there's planets with giant frowny faces inhabited by garbage monsters, ships getting blown up by city-sized rocks launched from the aforementioned planets, a nearly-stereotypically-gay Slaaneshi daemon that doesn't actually serve much of a purpose in the story, and a villain named the Red Angel, despite the fact Angron already claimed that as a nickname (although he was first introduced in Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, so it's not James Swallow's fault). Oh, and Sanguinius acts like an idiot about Chaos the whole time, which fits the fluff, but come on, how many freaky supernatural signs do you need to see before you decide it's not just foul xenos?
- In all fairness, of course, Fear to Tread does have quite a few good moments, especially when it comes to Warp-related terror. It also has a priceless bromance between Horus and Sanguinius, not to mention Sanguinius and his Legion get characterized very well.
- Descent of Angels: This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on Lion El'Jonson's time on Caliban. It also portrays the Lion as having Aspergers.
- Deliverance Lost: The Alpha Legion infiltrates the Raven Guard and out-Just As Planneds Corvus Corax. This is, of course, ridiculous; how could a non-existent Legion infiltrate a Legion that does exist?
- Battle for the Abyss: The book is so bad that other authors tried to retcon it out of existence. This book is so bad that you would have it was cobbled together from Wardian fluff stitched together by C. S. Goto. Reading this book may, in fact, cause brain cancer so you should avoid it if at all possible. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much.
- The Outcast Dead: A mess of continuity errors, at least when compared with the rest of the series, the other authors later claimed all the errors were absolutely intentional and a result of the messed-up nature of Warp-based communication. Riggggghhhhtttt.
- The Reflection Crack'd: Lucius Anally Rapes Fulgrim. Yeah.
The Tabletop Wargame
Forge World is producing a new line of books and models (in addition to Imperial Armour and Warhammer Forge) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy in Warhammer 40,000. This includes rules and models for the Primarchs (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors) as well as ancient vehicles. No xenos, unfortunately. Presumably this came about because GW felt that they just weren't making quite enough money from die-hard marine/chaos players and figured they could literally buy a dump-truck full of gold plated cocaine each if they made a version of the game that requires only Forge World minis AND thousands upon thousands of them. Still worth it, though.
Betrayal
Forge World starts big, as their first book covers the battles on Istvaan III, in which Horus sent the remaining loyalist elements of the Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, Death Guard, and World Eaters to the surface, ostensibly to rout the anti-Imperial resistance that had taken hold in the capital city, and then fired Exterminatus torpedoes (of the life-eater virus bomb variety) onto the city to wipe them out.
Unfortunately for Horus, not everything went as planned; not only did the loyalist Death Guard frigate Eisenstein escape to the Phalanx with word of Horus's betrayal, but loyalist elements on other ships were able to disrupt the bombardment and warn the loyalists on the ground that it was coming. Between the disruption, the warning, and good old-fashioned Space Marine toughness, only a third or so of the landed force had actually died. Horus would have fired another bombardment, but Angron and his traitor World Eaters jumped the gun and made planetfall; the other traitors were left with no choice but to deploy themselves and destroy the remaining loyalists personally.
Betrayal contains a Great Crusade Legion army list (for which we have a tactica), and rules for special characters and units from the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, and World Eaters Legions, including their Primarchs (even Fulgrim, who was not actually at the battle) and several major characters from the book series such as Garviel Loken.
Massacre
The infamous Drop Site Massacre is the focus of the next book, where seven Legions are sent to crush Horus’ rebellion, only for four of those to turn on the other three and crush them utterly.
Massacre contains additional rules for special characters and units from the Iron Hands, Night Lords, Salamanders and Word Bearers Legions including their Primarchs and several more major characters from the book series make their debut such as Sevatar, Eidolon, Erebus and Kharn.
Extermination
Set to be released around Easter 2014. Will focus on the second half of Istvaan V, as well as the Battle of Phall between the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists; and on that note, it'll include rules for those two Legions, as well as the Alpha Legion and the Raven Guard.
Conquest
Horus Heresy Volume four has been revealed to be entitled 'Conquest'. It will feature Horus' Conquest of the Imperium and the major battles of this time.
See Also
- Alternate Heresy, for a discussion of other possible outcomes of the (not necessarily Horus) Heresy.
External Links
- Horus Heresy (1993) at BoardGameGeek
- Horus Heresy (2010) at BoardGameGeek