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Imotekh the Stormlord

2022-04-11T13:10:10Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Campaigns */

{{Topquote|Order. Unity. Obedience. We taught the galaxy these things long ago, and we will do so again.|[[Imotekh the Stormlord]]}}
{{Topquote|I am 4 Parallel Universes ahead of you.|Speedrunner Mario}}
[[File:Stormlord.jpg|200px|right|thumb|In all his ego-maniacal glory]]
[[File:Imotekh Goes Forth.jpg|200px|left|thumb|"Look at all my Monoliths! I've got so many fucking Monoliths, it's great!"]]
'''Imotekh the Stormlord''' is the [[Phaeron|Phaeron]] of the [[Sautekh Dynasty]] and has fluctuated between being the obligatory "costs more than a [[Land Raider]]" character for the [[Necron]]s and having an actually sensible point price. [[Fluff]]wise, Imotekh was the greatest general of the Sautekh Dynasty pre-biotransference, and is today a commander rivaled only by [[Creed]]. His plans are, in fact, so clever and hyperlogical (this is the actual word [[Matt Ward]] uses) that the enemy must [[Ork|abandon all logic]] to fight him.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg9KxGNeJY| To be played on repeat whenever Imotekh is on the field.]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpqct1zMqTE| To be played on repeat whenever Imotekh is fighting leman russ.]

==Storm-Lore==
===Imotekh Does Not Serve===
Imotekh's rise to power began in M41 when the Sautekh Dynasty's phaeron was found to have perished in the Great Sleep, so the resident Necron Lords and Overlords decided they'd turn the Sautekh crownworld Mandragora into Game of Thrones in SPAAAAACE trying to pick a new one. This infighting went for some time until Imotekh was raised by one of the nobles hoping to use him to win the war. After hearing about what was going on Imotekh killed the noble who rez'd him, raised his own army and proceeded to bitch and dick slap the rest of the nobility back into line and crowned himself regent. Since then, he has devoted all his time and effort into GETTING. SHIT. DONE.

[[Settra the Imperishable|If this sounds familiar to you, good, you're paying attention.]]

===Campaigns===
As phaeron, Imotekh commands the full might and resources of over 100 tomb worlds, plus the extra 500 or so slave planets forced to offer up tribute for their Necron masters. Turns out he scares the fuck out of the [[Eldar]], since he's apparently completed their checklist for the Prophecy of Doom Arising out of the Book of Mournful Night (the big book of prophecies that was warning the Eldar since forever that they'd better do something or the Necrons would come back and murder everything). Unfortunately though, after literally millions of years of procrastination and just general [[Dick|dickery]], the Eldar have made an awful lot of enemies, but they never quite got around to eliminating them. Consequently, their enemies list has really only grown longer, so now the Eldar have a [[Orks|whole lot]] [[Tyranids|more]] [[Imperium|than just Necrons]] [[Slaanesh|to]] [[Chaos|worry]] [[C'tan|about]]. That being said however, the Eldar know better than anyone else living the unparalleled threat the Necrons pose, and that a fully-awakened Necron Empire would curbstomp literally every other faction. Whatever that means concerning the Stormlord's future is unknown, because the Eldar, as usual, haven't shared this critical information with anyone besides their Seer Council circlejerk.

A particularly popular battle in Imotekh's campaigns was when he led a small and greatly outmatched force of Necrons defending an awakening tomb world from the panicking Eldar trying to stop whatever important, critical event that other people should really know about from happening involving Imotekh. He instantly turned the tables on them and killed every last one, except for their leader, [[Eldorath Starbane]] (basically an Eldar version of [[M'kar]]), who he let go crying back to his craftworld after he took his hand. Thus was the first recorded instance of Imotekh's hand collection. While it's been said Imotekh will take whatever limb he feels like chopping off (he'd probably cut a leg off a White Scars Space Marine, if anything), he has a particular affinity for hands, probably because he needs to show off how superior his giant fireball hand is. This is just another reason [[Trazyn the Infinite|Trazyn the Infinite]] is banned from Mandragora, the first being Trazyn's past attempt to loot Imotekh's pimp cane/staff.
Because Mr. Collector is often forced to use counts-as models and proxies in his dioramas, having at least a hand would add a bit more authenticity to the display. Imotekh has denied him this, but that doesn't stop Trazyn from showing up whenever he wants.

Imotekh has also conquered a number of Imperial worlds. During one of these invasions, whilst fighting against the [[Black Templars|Black Templars]], he met Marshall [[Helbrecht]], whom he beat up, Disarmed, told off, and threw from a building. Unfortunately for Imotekh, he learned that Black Templars tend not to be the most forgiving types and Helbrecht proceeded to wreck Imotekh's flagship in response. Helbrecht is now ''High'' Marshall, and thus has command over the entire second most fuck-ass mad Space Marine Chapter in existence to hunt down the Stormlord ([[Angry Marines|first place goes to you-know-who]]). Helbrecht also got a badass cybernetic replacement hand, which makes losing the original not all that bad.

===Personality===
Imotekh's aforementioned fight with Helbrecht brings us to the first of Imotekh's two big flaws: pride. While he could easily obliterate an enemy without ever having to put a metal foot on the field, Imotekh has decided that he needs to beat them in close combat for no other reason than to prove how superior he is. This wouldn't be so bad if he actually killed them. Rather he humiliates them (usually by taking their hand) as a lesson and lets them survive so that they can come back as a challenge. While this seems like it would lead to death by Thunder Hammers to the face, he has a Phase Shifter, and can potentially self-repair after a hit from a Demolisher cannon due to being a Necron (in fact, that's kinda how he beat Helbrecht; he just took all the hits and repaired himself until Helbrecht got tired). It should be noted that Matt Ward has stated that Imotekh isn't a close combat killing machine, but he sure as hell ''thinks'' he is. This is backed by the fact his staff works better as a gun than a melee weapon and has phantom pain from a busted knee which happened when he was still flesh and blood (since his new knee works fine and, like the rest of him, can go incorporeal and self-repair after being hit by an anti-tank weapon).

Imotekh's other big flaw is that his impossibly brilliant plans can all be foiled by a single Ork. While he tries to account for everything, Orks [[What|are too random and illogical to plan ahead for and always ruin his plans.]] To this end he desires to see every single Ork in the galaxy vaporized. Exactly why he can't account for Orks is a little unclear; nobody else in the galaxy seems to have much problem with figuring them out: they want to smash stuff up. Then again, it’s actually possible that the [[Old Ones]] designed them specifically with Imotekh in mind, since he was presumably leading the Necrontyr/Necron forces against them in the [[War in Heaven]]. Thankfully [[Nemesor Zahndrekh|Imotekh's replacement]] Nemesor has no such problems, and happily mops up greenskins that piss his Regent off, in no small part because he's not much saner himself.

===The Spookening===
[[File:901F5A1F-35FF-446D-B552-70E59DC3DEB7.jpeg|thumb|This guy is too mean to mess with!]]

Recently Imotekh realized that fear is just as potent a weapon as his troops' disintegration beams. To this end he will let terrorized enemy troops escape capture, letting them run back to their buddies and spread panic and fear, while also infecting them with bloodswarm nanoscarabs so that any Flayed Ones nearby can hone in on a finely seasoned meal, pop out of the ground, and rip them to pieces. As if that wasn't scary enough, this mofo carries around his own personal Lightning Storm into battle. Yup. Through some powerful Necron technology or sheer badassery, Imotekh can summon a dramatic lightning storm in battle. Now, as if fighting genocidal, self-repairing robots with lasers while your buddies are rambling about how scary they are while more and more are coming to [[Necron Warrior|vaporize you]], [[Lychguard|recreate Fruit Ninja]], or [[Flayed Ones|make you the unfortunate object of an episode of "Will It Blend?"]] wasn't bad enough, you also have to worry about getting struck by fucking lightning.

===Imotekh and The Silent King===

According to the 9th edition Necron codex Imotekh ain’t too happy about the return of ‘ol Szarekh. Imotekh, with good reason, sees himself as ‘the great uniter of the Necron people’ and so having his thunder (get it) stolen is mildly aggravating for the guy. Throw in the fact that the thunder-stealer is someone he rightly blames for screwing things up and then leaving the Necrons with a fractured empire, one might say that Imotekh is peeved, irritated and maybe even slightly ticked-off. How this bodes for the future of the Necron story is unknown; after all, Imotekh is not a stranger to rising up against his superiors for what he believes to be the right thing.

== On the Tabletop ==

[[File:Imotekh Model.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The boss takes to the field.]]

{| class=wikitable
! || pts || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Imotekh the Stormlord''' || 145 || 6" || 2+ || 2+ || 5 || 5 || 6 || 4 || 10 || 2+
|}

Like last edition, Imotekh is more focused around making the most of his special rules instead of singlehandedly massacring hordes of enemies. With a point drop all the way down from the 200 he started with in 8th edition to 145, the true challenge in working Imotekh into an army nowadays is that [[Fail|he's still made of]] [[Finecast|fucking finecast]]. Aside from that, he's practically a must-have for Sautekh Necron lists.

His equipment is a bit better than your standard Overlord, trading the option to take a Resurrection Orb to being ''the only'' Necron with a [[Gauntlet of Fire|Flamer that can cast Dnd Fireballs that automatically hit,]] and getting what's basically an upgraded [[Staff of Light]] with some more range and -AP called appropriately enough, the [[Staff of the Destroyer]].

Now onto the ''real'' good stuff. First, having Imotekh as your Warlord in a Battle-Forged Army activates his Grand Strategist ability, giving you two extra command points (and you'd better know Imotekh likes his command points). Thanks to the Sautekh Warlord trait Hyperlogical Strategist, every time you spend a Command Point, Imotekh has a chance of performing a Jimmy Neutron brain blast, getting it back on a 5+ roll. Because of this, Imotekh can potentially take even just one or two command points in smaller lists and turn them into three, four, or more with some good rolls. In larger games, give him a Battalion or Brigade and [[Rape|watch him go.]]

Another plus Imotekh has over a standard Overlord is the ability Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty, letting him cast not one, but two My Will Be Done abilities in a single turn (meaning you can cast it on two core Infantry units.) When charging into battle alongside his Warriors or Immortals, Imotekh also has some abilities to tank that extra damage he'll inevitably receive, getting a 4+ invulnerable save and the normal 1 wound regeneration from Living Metal. Unfortunately, in 9th edition, Imotekh no longer receives 1D3 wound regeneration and loses his Bloodswarm Scarabs ability.

Of course, Imotekh is called the Stormlord for a reason. Once per battle, during the shooting phase, he can invoke the spirit of Emperor Palpatine (the fleet destroying Legends version, of course) upon some poor enemy (non-character) unit within 48". On a 4+ D6 roll, [[Rape|that unit suffers 3 Mortal Wounds. As if that weren't bad enough for the enemy, you then roll a D6 for every other unit within 6" of the first target, and getting a 4+ for any of them causes the unit rolled for to take 1D3 mortal wounds.]] Of course, you could always roll less than 4 and have this awesome ability just [[Fail|decide to not work.]]

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

{{Necrons-Characters}}

Long War

2022-04-08T12:45:32Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

{{Topquote|We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot here in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades.|Ezekyle Abaddon}}

It's called the Long War because it truly is loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggg. That is not taking the mickey either. It has been going on for 10,000 years and sees no signs of abating. Well, sort of anyway.

It is the ongoing conflict within [[Warhammer 40k]] between the forces of the [[Chaos]] [[Traitor Legions]] who turned to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] and the mess of a super empire that is the [[Imperium]]. According to the traitors the war is still on going (hence ''long''), but as far as the Imperium is concerned they won when they killed the traitor leader, routed his forces and pushed them back to the Eye of Terror, though even before the opening of the [[Great Rift]] they had suffered significant losses to the Traitor Legions' forces. However, this was offset by the subsequent return of [[Roboute Guilliman]] to help stabilize the Imperium, and for all the big mess caused by the Rift, it also resulted in [[Emperor|Big-E]] [[Not as Planned|receiving a massive fuckoff power boost strong enough to literally burn down a large part of Nurgle's Garden]], which doesn't exactly bode well for the Ruinous Powers. How exactly does [[Abaddon|Disappointmaddon]] [[Plot Armor|keep his job, again]]?

It is a rather confusing term since no one is quite clear who is and isn't part of the conflict, what battles are covered under it and various other details about it. Do the [[Space Marines]] that have turned to Chaos since the heresy count as being part of the Long War? Do the [[Lost and the Damned]] and the [[Daemon]]s of Chaos count as taking part as well? Does every conflict fought between Chaos and the Imperium automatically count as part of the Long War? It tends to be one of those terms that people toss around casually without referencing it further. This could be GW's stubborn refusal to let too much fluff out of its forbidden depths. Then again, it's very much possible that, in universe, they aren't really sure what they mean when they use the term either. It's...well, the Chaos Marines buzzword for how much they hate the Imperium.

Actually there is likely a very good reason the Long War has gone on as long as it has: the leadership of a certain armless failure....

Another point is that the Chaos Gods are more interested in war itself as a process rather than its final result. Especially given that according to the [[Cabal]] the ultimate Chaos victory would be their undoing. I mean eternal war spreads eternal [[Khorne|bloodshed and carnage]], [[Nurgle|massive death tolls and epidemics]], [[Tzeentch|struggles for power and epic level mind games between the leadership of opposing factions]] and [[Slaanesh|leads warriors involved into new peaks of sensual experience]]. So they subtly undermine their servants' plans if they come too close to ultimate victory. [[Just as Planned]].

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Imperial]]

Long War

2022-04-08T12:44:45Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

{{Topquote|We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot here in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades.|Ezekyle Abaddon}}

It's called the Long War because it truly is loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggg. That is not taking the mickey either. It has been going on for 10,000 years and sees no signs of abating. Well, sort of anyway.

It is the ongoing conflict within [[Warhammer 40k]] between the forces of the [[Chaos]] [[Traitor Legions]] who turned to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] and the mess of a super empire that is the [[Imperium]]. According to the traitors the war is still on going (hence ''long''), but as far as the Imperium is concerned they won when they killed the traitor leader, routed his forces and pushed them back to the Eye of Terror, though even before the opening of the [[Great Rift]] they had suffered significant losses to the Traitor Legions' forces. However, this was offset by the subsequent return of [[Roboute Guilliman]] to help stabilize the Imperium, and for all the big mess caused by the Rift, it also resulted in [[Big-E|Emperor]] [[Not as Planned|receiving a massive fuckoff power boost strong enough to literally burn down a large part of Nurgle's Garden]], which doesn't exactly bode well for the Ruinous Powers. How exactly does [[Abaddon|Disappointmaddon]] [[Plot Armor|keep his job, again]]?

It is a rather confusing term since no one is quite clear who is and isn't part of the conflict, what battles are covered under it and various other details about it. Do the [[Space Marines]] that have turned to Chaos since the heresy count as being part of the Long War? Do the [[Lost and the Damned]] and the [[Daemon]]s of Chaos count as taking part as well? Does every conflict fought between Chaos and the Imperium automatically count as part of the Long War? It tends to be one of those terms that people toss around casually without referencing it further. This could be GW's stubborn refusal to let too much fluff out of its forbidden depths. Then again, it's very much possible that, in universe, they aren't really sure what they mean when they use the term either. It's...well, the Chaos Marines buzzword for how much they hate the Imperium.

Actually there is likely a very good reason the Long War has gone on as long as it has: the leadership of a certain armless failure....

Another point is that the Chaos Gods are more interested in war itself as a process rather than its final result. Especially given that according to the [[Cabal]] the ultimate Chaos victory would be their undoing. I mean eternal war spreads eternal [[Khorne|bloodshed and carnage]], [[Nurgle|massive death tolls and epidemics]], [[Tzeentch|struggles for power and epic level mind games between the leadership of opposing factions]] and [[Slaanesh|leads warriors involved into new peaks of sensual experience]]. So they subtly undermine their servants' plans if they come too close to ultimate victory. [[Just as Planned]].

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Imperial]]

Long War

2022-04-08T12:43:19Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

{{Topquote|We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot here in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades.|Ezekyle Abaddon}}

It's called the Long War because it truly is loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggg. That is not taking the mickey either. It has been going on for 10,000 years and sees no signs of abating. Well, sort of anyway.

It is the ongoing conflict within [[Warhammer 40k]] between the forces of the [[Chaos]] [[Traitor Legions]] who turned to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] and the mess of a super empire that is the [[Imperium]]. According to the traitors the war is still on going (hence ''long''), but as far as the Imperium is concerned they won when they killed the traitor leader, routed his forces and pushed them back to the Eye of Terror, though even before the opening of the [[Great Rift]] they had suffered significant losses to the Traitor Legions' forces. However, this was offset by the subsequent return of [[Roboute Guilliman]] to help stabilize the Imperium, and for all the big mess caused by the Rift, it also resulted in [[Not as Planned|Big-E receiving a massive fuckoff power boost strong enough to literally burn down a large part of Nurgle's Garden]], which doesn't exactly bode well for Ruinous Powers. How exactly does [[Abaddon|Disappointmaddon]] [[Plot Armor|keep his job, again]]?

It is a rather confusing term since no one is quite clear who is and isn't part of the conflict, what battles are covered under it and various other details about it. Do the [[Space Marines]] that have turned to Chaos since the heresy count as being part of the Long War? Do the [[Lost and the Damned]] and the [[Daemon]]s of Chaos count as taking part as well? Does every conflict fought between Chaos and the Imperium automatically count as part of the Long War? It tends to be one of those terms that people toss around casually without referencing it further. This could be GW's stubborn refusal to let too much fluff out of its forbidden depths. Then again, it's very much possible that, in universe, they aren't really sure what they mean when they use the term either. It's...well, the Chaos Marines buzzword for how much they hate the Imperium.

Actually there is likely a very good reason the Long War has gone on as long as it has: the leadership of a certain armless failure....

Another point is that the Chaos Gods are more interested in war itself as a process rather than its final result. Especially given that according to the [[Cabal]] the ultimate Chaos victory would be their undoing. I mean eternal war spreads eternal [[Khorne|bloodshed and carnage]], [[Nurgle|massive death tolls and epidemics]], [[Tzeentch|struggles for power and epic level mind games between the leadership of opposing factions]] and [[Slaanesh|leads warriors involved into new peaks of sensual experience]]. So they subtly undermine their servants' plans if they come too close to ultimate victory. [[Just as Planned]].

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Imperial]]

Long War

2022-04-08T12:42:50Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

{{Topquote|We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot here in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades.|Ezekyle Abaddon}}

It's called the Long War because it truly is loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggg. That is not taking the mickey either. It has been going on for 10,000 years and sees no signs of abating. Well, sort of anyway.

It is the ongoing conflict within [[Warhammer 40k]] between the forces of the [[Chaos]] [[Traitor Legions]] who turned to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] and the mess of a super empire that is the [[Imperium]]. According to the traitors the war is still on going (hence ''long''), but as far as the Imperium is concerned they won when they killed the traitor leader, routed his forces and pushed them back to the Eye of Terror, though even before the opening of the [[Great Rift]] they had suffered significant losses to the Traitor Legions' forces. However, this was offset by the subsequent return of [[Roboute Guilliman]] help stabilize the Imperium, and for all the big mess caused by the Rift, it also resulted in [[Not as Planned|Big-E receiving a massive fuckoff power boost strong enough to literally burn down a large part of Nurgle's Garden]], which doesn't exactly bode well for Ruinous Powers. How exactly does [[Abaddon|Disappointmaddon]] [[Plot Armor|keep his job, again]]?

It is a rather confusing term since no one is quite clear who is and isn't part of the conflict, what battles are covered under it and various other details about it. Do the [[Space Marines]] that have turned to Chaos since the heresy count as being part of the Long War? Do the [[Lost and the Damned]] and the [[Daemon]]s of Chaos count as taking part as well? Does every conflict fought between Chaos and the Imperium automatically count as part of the Long War? It tends to be one of those terms that people toss around casually without referencing it further. This could be GW's stubborn refusal to let too much fluff out of its forbidden depths. Then again, it's very much possible that, in universe, they aren't really sure what they mean when they use the term either. It's...well, the Chaos Marines buzzword for how much they hate the Imperium.

Actually there is likely a very good reason the Long War has gone on as long as it has: the leadership of a certain armless failure....

Another point is that the Chaos Gods are more interested in war itself as a process rather than its final result. Especially given that according to the [[Cabal]] the ultimate Chaos victory would be their undoing. I mean eternal war spreads eternal [[Khorne|bloodshed and carnage]], [[Nurgle|massive death tolls and epidemics]], [[Tzeentch|struggles for power and epic level mind games between the leadership of opposing factions]] and [[Slaanesh|leads warriors involved into new peaks of sensual experience]]. So they subtly undermine their servants' plans if they come too close to ultimate victory. [[Just as Planned]].

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Imperial]]

Horus Heresy

2022-04-08T12:31:17Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Warhammer 40,000 Fluff */

[[File:zbrothers.jpg|500px|thumb|right|It was pretty much ''this''.]]
{{Topquote|1=[[Fulgrim|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me.]] [[Magnus the Red|Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.]] [[Angron|They will be of iron will and steely muscle.]] [[Perturabo|In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed.]] [[Mortarion|They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them.]] [[Alpharius|They will have tactics, strategies and machines]] [[Omegon|so that no foe can best them in battle.]] [[Konrad Curze|They are my bulwark against the Terror.]] [[Lorgar|They are the Defenders of Humanity.]] [[Horus|They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.]]|2=The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], [[Not as planned|getting exactly what he wanted.]]}}
{{Topquote|The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.|Karl Popper}}

The '''Horus Heresy''' also known as '''Horus Humbug''', '''Cosmic Scale Daddy Issues''', '''That time [[Erebus]] fucked everyone over forever''', '''Paradise Lost IN SPACE''', '''[[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Jimmy Space]] and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Decade''' and (in-universe) as '''The Great Heresy War''' is one of the single biggest clusterfuck of events in [[Warhammer 40,000]] fluff, alongside the [[Eldar]]'s creation of a new [[Slaanesh|Chaos God]] and the [[War in Heaven|rampage and fall of the]] [[C'Tan|star gods]]. Needless to say, this heresy derailed the Emperor's plan and himself, and gave the Chaos Gods their most prominent armies to carry out their will in realspace.

In the Horus Heresy, the Emperor's favorite son, [[Horus| Horus Lupercal]], formerly Warmaster of the Imperium, was corrupted by Chaos and rebelled against the Emperor, taking nine [[First Founding|Space Marine Legions]] (Including [[Luna Wolves|his own]]), their respective Primarchs, and about half 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 cut the head off the proverbial snake by killing the Emperor and winning the war.

Things went [[Not as Planned]] however, as he was eventually surrounded by loyalist forces at the height of the siege on Terra. As a final gambit, he dropped the shields of his flagship which allowed the Emperor to beam up and challenged him to a duel for the fate of humanity. Horus beat the Emperor within an inch of his life but was killed in turn after the Emperor put his foot down and obliterated Horus' soul from existence (as in it didn't go to the warp to be resurrected by daemons, it was literally erased from existence) when it finally became clear to him that Horus was beyond forgiveness. 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==
[[File:HHMap.jpg|600px|right|thumb|The Clusterfuck in motion. If this map reminds you of the Syrian Civil War, consider getting a gold star.]]
The Horus Heresy screwed with almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course) and changed the flavor of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a positive word about religion, we rape you and your family with knives" to Catholic [[Inquisition]] "if you breathe a word about the ''wrong'' religion, we rape you [[Exterminatus|or your whole planet]] 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|Burning]] [[Magnus_the_Red#Horus_Heresy|of Prospero]]
*[[Drop Site Massacre]]
*[[Battle of Calth|Battle of Calth]]
*[[Shadow Crusade]]
*[[Thramas Crusade]]
*[[Signus Campaign]]
*[[Battle of Phall]]
*[[Battle of Tallarn]]
*[[Battle of Trisolian]]
*The TitanDeath at [[Beta Garmon]]
*[[Siege of Terra]]

Following the Siege of Terra, Horus was permakilled, Konrad allowed himself to be assassinated, Ferrus Manus had already died in the Drop Site Massacare, Sanguinius was KIA, Big-E was interred onto the Golden Throne, the surviving loyalist Primarchs freaked out trying to figure out what do now that daddy was in a coma, the surviving traitors fucked off into the Eye of Terror, and overall the galaxy slowly and collectively lost their minds now that their wise and all-powerful ruler was no longer around to tell them what to do.

==The Board Game==
First published in 1993 by [[Game Designer's Workshop]], it was the Emprah versus his [[Horus|evil bastard of a son]] in the scorched earth of Terra. Units include [[Titan#Warhammer_40k|titans]] and [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Spaw-]] oh shiARHGRBLLYRBGRDEWUODHGRYEB.

Ahem. As he was saying, the more recent edition (2010) was published by [[Fantasy Flight Games]]. Also a two-player [[wargame|war]] [[board game|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 [[heresy|traitor's]] flagship ''Vengeful Spirit''. Combat is less [[dice|dice-y]] and more card-y.

(Not to be confused with the lame Horus Heresy card game, whose only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway.)

==The Main Book Series==
{{Spoilers}}
For the last decade, [[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 [[Dan Abnett|the first trilogy]], The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Fear To Tread, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|Betrayer]], [[White Scars|Scars]], and the short story [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]].

Of course, like we mentioned, there's some that are... um... Well, let's just say that the worst are a [[skub|matter of much debate]]. And there a couple that are just objectively bad (Battle for the Abyss).

===Books I - X===
*'''''Horus Rising:''''' A prologue story, introducing us to the series and Garviel Loken who will grow into a very significant and popular character, the 'Jim Raynor from Starcraft' of the heresy. Black Library needed a killer opener and they succeeded, Dan Abnett handling it pretty well. An Emperor (not [[Emperor|Him]]) is killed at the beginning and some bugs are killed on a planet called Murder for no reason other than they were there. The [[Interex]] show up and ask "whadya do that for?". Negotiations with them go sour when [[Erebus]] steals the '''MURDER SWORD''' from them. It is worth noting that if the Interex had some goddamn CCTV set up in their museum of awesome and valuable weapons then the whole heresy could possibly have been avoided.
*'''''False Gods:''''' Horus falls at Davin when wounded by the '''MURDER SWORD''' and gets a crash course in the chaos gods from [[Erebus]] & [[Magnus]]. After getting shown a few "truths" that WILL HAPPEN in the future (like the Emperor being worshipped as a god and Horus being reviled and forgotten) he decides to make war on the Imperium to [[FAIL|prevent]] all this from happening. Actually a rather weak and rushed affair when it comes to detailing the Horus Heresy's origin story. Until this point, we've been exploring Horus' character in great detail for 1.5 books, but then he has a nasty fever dream, sees a few bad prophecies and boom, he wakes up as a traitorous Saturday morning cartoon villain, after which point his machinations to create the Isstvan III event and Dropsite Massacre or any other bits of the heresy go completely undetailed and left behind the scenes. The really cool shit in this book is the battle on Davin, as the Sons of Horus and the Imperial Army fights against a massive horde of chaos zombies in a foggy swamp and the wreck of a space ship.
*'''''Galaxy in Flames:''''' Isstvan III happens and the traitors send the loyalists down to the planet without reinforcements and proceed to bomb them to fuck. Things don't go to plan when [[Angron]] decides to invade, turning it into a [[Not as Planned]] drawn out conflict that the Warmaster can't really afford - Loken is presumed dead after a duel with Abaddon. While it's good to have a whole book detailing a key event in the Heresy, there isn't actually any important or interesting dialogue to read that would make you glad you didn't just read a synopsis. There's also an embarrassingly written sequence towards the end, where a large number of loyalists survive an Exterminatus event by fleeing to some magical and super convenient bunkers. They see virus bombs entering the planet's atmosphere with the naked eye and somehow have enough time to run deep enough underground to survive one of the Imperium's most effective superweapons.
*'''''Flight of the Eisenstein:''''' the other side of ''Galaxy in Flames''. Nathaniel Garro escapes and gets marooned in the warp fighting daemons, eventually gets saved (and mega-bitchslapped) by [[Rogal Dorn]], who does not take the news from Isstvan [[Rage|very well]]. The first bit of the novel is so far 'the Death Guard's novel'. There is also the very first canonical appearance of Plague Marines, Euphrati Keeler being all mystical and shit, and Malcador recruiting Garro as the first Knight-Errant.
*'''''Fulgrim:''''' A divisive entry that is either forgettable to some or pretty interesting depending on who you ask - depends how much you like the Emperor's Children. Tells the story of the III Legion from the Great Crusade all the way up to the [[Drop Site Massacre]] in one book. In short Fulgrim finds a sword, gets possessed, kills Ferrus Manus - the end. It is written by Graham McNeill though, and it has an awesome quote from Fulgrim: "My Emperor's Children. What beautiful music they make." The second plot of this book is about some human, but it is so forgettable the writer has it dropped halfway through the book. The human plot also explains where [[Lucius]] get his self-scarring habit from: a painter woman told him it will make his face perfect (ugly) again, because he wouldn't shut up about how Loken ruined his perfect beauty with a sucker punch.
*'''''Descent of Angels:''''' This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on [[Zahariel]]'s time on [[Caliban]]. It portrays [[Lion El'Jonson]] having to deal with some social awkwardness (he cannot read people at all, so he comes off as 'do what I say or die!') and having Luther to handle the small talk. Hints that the Great Crusade <s>does more harm than good</s> {{BLAM|is bringing the lost colonies of mankind together into a united future!}} Luther gets sent home with Zahariel to hustle up more Dark Angels. Another divisive book, but could definitely have used some more time with the editor. Be aware that this book was published long before GW had decided what to do with the Lion's loyalty and personality, so its descriptions of the Lion are outdated and do not match his current status.
*'''''Legion''''' introduces [[the Cabal]], the [[Perpetual]]s and [[Omegon]]. READ THIS BOOK. Or don't, as this is where those things that would eventually take over the Heresy series and according to many completely ruin it (Cabal, Perpetuals) are introduced. I still would recommend reading it since when the novel introduces these ideas they are very fresh and interesting. Don't blame ''Legion'' when the rest of the novels were what ruined it. The [[Alpha Legion]], along with the Geno Chiliad, a regiment of genetically engineered supermen-yet-not-Astartes lead by anime lolis called ''uxors'' (High Gothic for "wives") is trying to bring some Chaos cultists in <s>space Afghanistan</s>[[Nurth]] into compliance. The cultists activate planetary self-destruct blood sacrifice; as this goes down, the Alpha Legion meets with the [[Cabal]], gets a glimpse of their vision of the future ("the Alpharius gambit"), agrees to work with them, then kills off all non-legion bystanders & ships with "FOR E-MONEY"! This book is still 100% canon, but in later books GW seems to have changed their mind on the Alpha Legion so they abandoned most of the plots from this book.
*'''''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 thought it was cobbled together from [[Matt Ward|Wardian fluff]] stitched together by [[C. S. Goto]]. Reading this book, in fact, causes mind cancer, which is to say, that it does not create brain tumors, but hurts the ideas of the reader. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much (as in anything). The only thing you need to remember is [[Lorgar]] built a fuckhueg space ship and filled it with Dreadnoughts, and it failed miserably. The book's adherence to canon is an atrocity, but it does contain some decent depictions of ship-to-ship combat as a mildly redeeming quality.
*'''''Mechanicum:''''' Easily one of the best novels in the series, it explores many hidden/forbidden aspects and lore of the Mechanicum. Techpriests turn renegade after Horus tells them they can do whatever they like with technology, so they release forbidden viral scrapcodes and screw everything up. Also turns out that [[Emperor|Big E]] invented the Machine-God by sealing a C'Tan on Mars back during the Saint George era, giving everyone visions of technology. Also more subtle hints that the Emperor is a god himself as he uses divine golden light to heal machines and instant access super wikipedia. Contains a lot of Titan awesomeness and [[Imperial Knight|Knights]] badassery. And for extra Grimdark, a tech priestess discovers that the Dark Age era humans stored a backup copy of Wikipedia in the warp and <s>with a giant psyker powered terminal accesses said Wikipedia and restores all the knowledge of mankind</s> floods her forge with lava to deny the traitors access. A psyker tech savant meets up with the gaoler of the Void Dragon and takes over his fuck long shift.
*'''''Tales of Heresy:''''' short story collection, including [[The Last Church]]. Has a lot of twist endings.
** '''''Blood Games:''''' An assassin tries to kill the emperor. The Adeptus Custodes go to kill a traitor on Terra. The assassin was a Custodes probing the palace defences. The traitor was a triple agent working for Dorn. The bodyguard of the triple agent turns out to be an Sons of Horus assassin who detonates a bomb that kills the triple agent and nearly accomplishes a suicide run to destroy a bunch of reactors controlled by the triple agent.
** '''''Wolf at the Door:''''' The Space Wolves kill some Dark Eldar and are the defenders of everyone who does not defy the Emperor. When the liberated planet chooses freedom over the Emperor, the Wolves invade it, of course.
** '''''Scions of the Storm:''''' The Word Bearers destroy a human civilization that has crystal cities, crystal robots, and lots of lightning. They worshiped the Emperor, but Lorgar no longer does. This is also later a chapter of ''The First Heretic'', but they're narrated from a slightly different point of view .
** '''''The Voice:''''' A squad of Sisters of Silence investigate a Black Ship that became derelict in the Warp. Turns out [[Blank|the youngest of the squad]] in the future [[Wat|used sorcery]] to beam back her consciousness through time onto some psykers on the Black Ship. She <s>successfully warns the squad about Horus's Rebellion </s> is executed by a hard-core Sister for breaking her vow of [[Psyker|no funny stuff]].
** '''''Call of the Lion:''''' Half of the Dark Angels are dicks, the other half are not. Totally not foreshadowing.
** '''''[[The Last Church]]:''''' A story about the Emperor destroying one of the churches on Terra during the reunification era in his effort to wipe out religion. The Emperor and the priest of the church have an enlightening conversation about what the Emprah's trying to accomplish. The conversation ends up with the priest accusing the Emperor of being a hypocrite, with him decrying that he's no different from the old warlords who waged crusades and holy wars in the past to push their own agendas on other people. The Emperor reveals himself as the very god the priest was worshiping, and nearly convinces him to stand by his side while his soldiers destroy the church. Priest gets cold feet and walks back into the church while it collapses. An end-times alarm clock starts ringing in the ruins.
** '''''After Desh'ea:''''' The War Hounds meet their Primarch. Angron defeats the War Hounds. More specifically, the Emperor just beamed up Angron away from his last stand (rather than, you know, intervening with his Custodes or his fleet), leaving Angron pretty pissed. [[Kharn]] is a pretty great guy to be around, and pulls his femurs out of his lungs quickly enough to establish himself as Angron's best buddy ''after everyone above him in the War Hounds chain of command calmed Angron down as fleshy squeeze balls''.

===Books XI - XX===
*'''''Fallen Angels:''''' this sequel to Descent of Angels is actually two stories rolled into one book that never converge. The Lion heads to a strategically important forge world only to find that the magos has turned traitor, then fights a war to reclaim some Ordinatus devices only to hand them to Perturabo to gain his trust, not realising that his brother has already turned. He's really spergily awkward with people throughout. Meanwhile, [[Zahariel]] and Luther encounter a daemon cult on Caliban and get into shennanigans with [[Cypher]], setting the stage for the rise of the [[Fallen]] as they reject the Lion and the Emperor due to misplaced patriotism for Caliban and butthurt over feeling abandoned by their primarch.
*'''''A Thousand Sons:''''' Part 1 of the Battle for Prospero. Runs through the Great Crusade where Magnus discovers the webway, but his Father already knew about it. Then the Edict of Nikaea where Magnus gets all passionate about not restricting psychic powers, then to Horus's vision quest where Magnus fails to keep his brother on the right path, then does the WORST thing possible by forcing himself through the palace psychic spam filter, breaking the Golden Throne in the process. Space Wolves come knocking shortly after. Tragedy ensues and the Thousand Sons become a thousand sons all over again. Ahriman starts writing his Rubric.
*'''''Nemesis:''''' [[Malcador the Sigillite]] invents the [[Officio Assassinorum]] Execution Task Force and sends six assassins to kill Horus. They fail because Horus sent a look-a-like, but in the process slay a shapeshifting daemonic counter-assassin sent by Erebus. While it is a decent book and we learn a lot, it didn't contribute much to the overall plot. On the more [[rage|vitriolic side]], the writing is a bit underwhelming in places; highlights include calling a pariah a psyker, another pariah with a contrived possession, and Horus uttering one of the most cliche one liners out there.
*'''''The First Heretic:''''' [[Lorgar]]'s turn to get a backstory and generally considered one of the better books in the series. While you may never sympathize with them, this book really lets you understand why The Word Bearers fell to Chaos, rather then being the "CHAOTIC EVIL MONSTERS" they are portrayed in the rest of the series. Feels less rushed than ''[[Fulgrim]]''. Goes from Monarchia to a bit of soul searching in the Eye of Terror and discovers Cadia. Leads up to Istvaan V and the immediate aftermath. Significant subplots revolve around the inception of Possessed Marines, and what happens to the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] babysitters watching over the Word Bearers, and how the protagonist [[Argel Tal]] gets into a tragic bromance with the Custodes leader.
** '''''Aurelian:''''' A limited release short story until an ebook was published. The plot bounces around in between a number of moments in Lorgar's history up to the prelude of the Shadow Crusade. One narrative involves how Lorgar's brothers still treat him like shit, especially when he's the only one who sees through Fulgrim's possession, and ends with Horus sending him to fuck up Ultima Segmentum and handing him Angron's (figurative, [[/d/|not literal]]) leash. The other narrative takes place in the 40 year gap in ''The First Heretic'', where Lorgar makes a pilgrimage into the Eye of Terror with a Daemon Princess as his guide. They come to a dead Crone World where he puts a dying [[Avatar of Khaine|Avatar]] out of its misery and he's told that the Eldar panicked rather than embrace Chaos during the birth of Slaanesh, which is what caused them to nearly die out; the daemon prince(ss) tells Lorgar the same thing is happening with humanity during the Heresy, how Chaos really wants a [[A Game of Pretend|symbiotic relationship with humanity rather than to conquer it]]. In the middle of this, Khorne decides he's had enough of this talky wordy shit and sends [[An'ggrath]] to make things more exciting, and Lorgar narrowly beats him. Then Kairos Fateweaver comes and "tells" him about Calth and his relationship with Guilliman and his upcoming war with him in the most confusing as fuck discussion ever. The truth of most of the things told to Lorgar are left ambiguous, because, well, Fateweaver; but also Chaos has a lot riding on the Heresy coming to fruition for reasons left not entirely explored.
*'''''Prospero Burns:''''' Part 2 of the Battle for Prospero. A civilian archaeologist named Kasper Hawser (as typical for GW authors flexing obscuring knowledge, not very subtle given that the real Kaspar Hauser was a liar from 1820s Germany, who thrived on getting public attention and [[Derp|accidentally killed himself]] when public attention faded) hangs out with a company of the Space Wolves, where we learn a lot about their culture and attitudes. Turns out that Chaos infiltrated everything, so the outcome of Nikaea was practically rigged. The civilian himself even turns out to have been an unwitting spy for Chaos, but the Wolves knew anyway and didn't give a shit (they thought he worked for Magnus).
* '''''Age of Darkness:''''' A short story anthology.
** '''''Rules of Engagement:''''' Roboute lets one of his commanders lead in a series of wars that didn't really occur, and we get the best line ever said in regards to the [[Codex Astartes]]: despite the fact it does cover a lot, it's not meant to be followed biblically <s>which is a load of bull given that the Codex lets said commander win all the wars in the most efficient way possible while blindly following it and only failed in the last battle because he was in a war game against Girlyman</s>. (See the quote on the page on the Big Book of Astartes). The Imperium Secundus shows up, making for another bizarre plot element that ruins the series without adding anything.
** '''''Liar's Due:''''' You know those memes on how the [[Alpha Legion]] causes mass paranoia without actually involving any Astartes? Those aren't just memes. An Alpha Legion serf arrives on a agri-world and turns its allegiance to Horus just by hacking all their interplanetary communications.
** '''''Forgotten Sons:''''' A [[Salamanders|Salamander]] and a grumpy ol' [[Ultramarine]] are sent in opposition to one of Horus' iterators to convince an industrial-militant world which side to side with. They almost side with Horus before the Warmaster's agents [[Exterminatus|wreck shit]] for the lulz and to send the message that neutrality will be punished. The [[Iron Warriors]] were doing weird shit on that world for years beforehand and were probably a bigger factor than the lulz.
** '''''The Last Remembrancer:''''' Horus sent the one last remembrancer he had stored up as a gift to Dorn. Instead of in a box (or eight or some shit like that), it was the [[Dan Abnett]] of his day telling Dorn that the grimdark galaxy was grimdark. Also that the Emperor's vision of a galaxy of peace, unity, prosperity, and fluffy bunnies built up without any more grimdark attached than was strictly needed probably wasn't very likely before any shit hit any fan either way. Also, Iacton Qruze makes his first appearance since forever, but nobody gives a shit. Dorn says it's all lies and enemy propaganda before executing said remembrancer and torching all his ramblings.
** '''''Rebirth:''''' Magnus's absent fleet from the Burning of Prospero comes home and shits a brick. The last known surviving squad of Thousand Sons outside of the Planet of the Sorcerers gets beaten up and they slowly figure out it was the Space Wolves who shit on Magnus's <s>parade</s> world and is stalking them. One plot twist later, most of them are dead, the last one decides he's gonna rebuild everything, with a few scant hints that his flesh-change genetic flaw will [[Blood Ravens|shift into kleptomania]].
** '''''The Face of Treachery:''''' The tie-in and conclusion of the audiodrama featuring the Raven Guard after Istvaan and the prequel to Deliverance Lost. After getting fed up with Corax [[troll]]ing Perturabo for a bit too long, Horus sends Angron in to finish the job but Corax's cavalry arrives to troll Angron by getting the loyalists the fuck out of there. We also learn that Corax has a supersekrit psyker ability which lets him roll a natural 20 on stealth checks no matter how ridiculous it would be, and that the Alpha Legion ''once again'' can out-troll everybody when they fuck things up for the World Eaters (they let the World Eater commander think he was in command then blew his brains out when he tried to actually command). Ends with an transitory bit into ''Deliverance Lost''.
** '''''Little Horus:''''' Little Horus Aximand is struggling with the PTSD he got when he killed Loken and Torgaddon with [[Abaddon|Abby]]. Abby and Little Horus have a discussion (we mean Horus Aximand, not when Primarch Horus was sodomizing Abaddon again) about restoring the Mournival. A couple war scenes later, Little Horus learns the hard way that the White Scars are pretty badass, but his PTSD starts acting up again and he gets his face shaved off before the White Scars are driven off. Little Horus realizes the PTSD he has ultimately stems from that time he helped kill Loken and Torgaddon, and gives a diatribe about how things like "change", "mood swings", and "hallucinations" are suited to his melancholic nature, saying things like "it's perfectly natural", "I'm fine, everything's fine. Everything is perfectly, absolutely fine", and "Therapy is for the weak. I'm fine". After the Mongolian shave, he gets his face reattached and ends up looking even more like Big Horus in the deal.
** '''''The Iron Within:''''' Some pretty bro-tier loyalist Iron Warriors build a fortress hanging from a cave over an ocean of promethium in a hellhole of a world (giant cavern system & acidic atmosphere), and one of Perturabo's traitor Grand Companies come knocking to demand that they hand over the house keys. The loyalists give them a fuck-you in the form of a Dreadnought. A few melodramatic and horrific but generic war scenes later, and they get overrun (after a full year of siege thanks to the genius of a certain [[Barabas Dantioch]]), drop the fortress from the ceiling onto a Titan, and get the hell out of there by hijacking one of the Iron Warriors warships via teleportation. An Ultramarine bigwig was there to bring the loyalists home, informing them that [[Skub|Guilliman was fortifying Terra]] and he needed good siege workers to stall the traitors then to fortify Terra. While loyalist Iron Warriors were pretty cool, the story itself was pretty forgettable and left some open questions like whether the continuity errors were the result of "faulty astropathic communications" (see Outcast Dead) or if the Ultramarines were trolling the Iron Warriors to join with the Imperium Secundus; also why the Iron Warriors were determined to take a hellhole at an immense expense of people and materiel, including Titans, while they could have just said "fuck yo shit!" and left a fortress with no space or warp conveyance and arguably little strategic value in itself in the middle of nowhere alone. It mentions a few times that it looks really bad for a rebellion trying to gain initiative when a mere captain of their Legions tells their Primarch "fuck off, imma keeping this fortress & resources for the Emperor!" The message behind it being if you can't even control your own men, maybe this rebellion thing needs a rethinking, because hearing Horus can't even take this shitty outpost in the middle of nowhere might be bad press when he's going to Terra.
** '''''Savage Weapons:''''' A good story written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|ADB]]. Dark Angels are hunting down the Night Lords who are fucking with Forge Worlds, but the Night Lords are staying a step ahead of them, much to [[Rage|the Lion's frustration]]. After being advised by Horus to pass along a message, Curze asks the Lion to meet up face-to-face on Tsagualsa. When they talk, while what they say to each other is offscreen, it's implied Curze told Lion about the Fallen Angels and that Horus knew about their impending betrayal. Lion decides nobody is going to give him shit about being a rumored closet traitor, and the ensuing fight proves that Jonson is a <s>badass among primarchs</s> cheating bitch (he initiated the fight, ending the parlay, by getting in a cheap shot when he plunged his sword into Curze's heart), until Curze, ignoring a terrible wound even by Primarch standards, whoops that ass and goes to his old fallback of strangling a fucker. Their respective honor guards go at it in the meantime, showing [[Sevatar]] is a badass among Space Marines. Things end up in a draw, leaving things open for a new plotline within the Heresy, the ''Prince of Crows'' novella being the next.
*'''''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. [[derp|''Riggggghhhhtttt.'']] More importantly: shortly after the start of the Heresy an astropath has routine nervous breakdown and is returned to Terra to get [[Witch Hunters|some R&R]]. What really ends up happening is that he gets there in time for [[Magnus]]'s astral body to reach Big E to warn him of Horus' betrayal, and the fuckhueg psychic shock of course dicks with the Astropath HQ compound something mighty. In the confusion and assloads of psychic phenomena that followed, the astropath gets implanted with a message for somebody regarding the war, but his PTSD keeps him from knowing what the hell it is or who it's for. The Custodes come in and tell him ''"[[Anal Circumference|Ve haff vays of making you talk.]]"'' and hand him over to a pair of [[Inquisition|kind counselors]] who torture the poor man half to death. After a time, he gets busted out in the nick of time by some convict Space Marines from the Traitor Legions. Why they do this is explained by the Thousand Son sagely stating "Just because" to the others. They name themselves the eponymous Outcast Dead and try to get the hell off of Terra. Amusingly, none of the escapees is very happy at the prospect of the Heresy but they are all [[rage|slightly miffed]] at being treated like shit by the Custodes just because of the Legion they belong to. Other subplots revolve around a psyker congregant at a slum church near the Imperial palace; a samurai witch hunter (no, really); '''''fucking [[Thunder Warriors]]'''''. Best bits are <s>[[Rip and tear|an unarmed, unarmored World Eater ripping a Custodes' spine out through his chest]]</s> the portrayal of the Emperor playing chess in dreams, revealing that the message is about his upcoming bitchslap from Horus.
*'''''Deliverance Lost:''''' [[Corvus Corax]], having just escaped from Istvaan V, decides to go ask daddy for a handout to get his Legion back on his feet, and gets the mother of all genetech to do it, though he has to do a bit of legwork to get it. Meanwhile, a bunch of faceless Alpha Legionnaires (okay, they do have faces, they just originally belonged to some Raven Guard) infiltrated Corax's Legion at Istvaan and are doing recon and intelligence gathering waiting for [[Omegon]] to give the go-ahead to fuck shit up. Corax, meanwhile sets up new geneseed methods that bring up new recruits to battle-ready marines ''in fucking hours'' with the potential to conscript literally anybody willing to become a Space Marine. The Alphas decide this probably isn't in their interest, and sabotage the new geneseed by tainting it with ''daemon blood'', turning second- and third-batch new Raven Guard into the twisted monsters we know Corax ended up with. In one of the instances of retcon that was actually flavored with [[awesome]] and win, the mutant marines [[Grimdark|were still sapient]] but were left to fight on in the Emperor's name. After staging a mass insurrection on Deliverance's parent world with the help of some old guilders Corax ousted and the Dark Mechanicum, Omegon gets ''more'' Alphas infiltrated into the Raven Guard for the endgame: steal the genetech, kill some Raven Guard, get the fuck out before anybody knows what the fuck just happened in here. A couple cockups along the way leads to the Raven Guard getting wise and isolating out the Alphas. The end of the novel was like a swingers' party at a retirement home: everybody got screwed (even ''Horus''), nobody got what they hoped for (except for [[Omegon|the really deviant bastard]]), and all-around the reproductive material was a waste. Corax shut down his hothousing method and starts fucking with the Traitors even at reduced numbers. The book ends with Alpharius-Omegon deciding that while their plan for saving the galaxy was still good, they decide working with Xenos isn't for them.
*'''''Know No Fear:''''' The book that made the Ultramarines (of all people) cool again. The Ultras are still ignorant about Istvaan and the civil war erupting around the galaxy, and are mustering at Calth with the Word Bearers [[troll|on orders from Horus]] to go kill some Orks together as a conciliatory gesture. They're in for a surprise: the Word Bearers, while happy as hell to get revenge, are really trying to [[Eldrad|dick over]] the Ultramarines to keep them out of the Heresy if not destroy them outright. What happens next is the Word Bearers arrange some "accidents" using sorcery and good ol' fashioned treachery to fake a monumental fuckup in the shipyards that leaves the Ultramarine forces blind, deaf, and crippled. They use the confusion to say that the Ultras are ''still'' fucking them over, and take the chance to open not only a can but entire cases of whoop-ass on the Ultras. Erebus turns Calth's pole into a screaming hellscape to start up a warp storm while Kor Phaeron oversees the systematic extermination of the Ultramarines and also successfully poisons Calth's sun. Guilliman gets jettisoned into space but survives because [[Spiritual Liege]]. He then leads a counterattack on Kor Phaeron, and while Kor comes ''this close'' to getting a Primarch kill with [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|Chaos mindbullets]], in a moment of self-aggrandizement he holds back and tries to corrupt Guilliman with his own dagger-sized '''MURDER SWORD'''. Guilliman calmly tells him "The Codex Astartes <s>does</s> will not support this action" (it was really "You made an error" followed by an explanation of that error, and "but while I'm alive, I can do this") and [[Rip and Tear|rips out Kor Phaeron's main heart with an unpowered Power Fist]]. Kor Phaeron's minions run away with his carcass, allowing the Ultras to retake their space station, which in turn allows Mechanicus plot power, aided by a planet's worth of orbital defense batteries, to bring the ground war back into the Ultramarines' favor. The novel ends with Word Bearers getting the hell out of there and the Ultramarines evacuating everyone they can off of Calth and telling everybody they can't to get underground, transitioning into the Underworld War. Special features of this novel include the Ultramarines finally being portrayed as awesome, Guilliman not being a cock, [[Ollanius Pius]] being the special guest star with his very own subplot, and the Word Bearers having athame blades as special issue, one of which will [[Uriel Ventris|come back later]]. You might notice this summary is pretty spoilerific, but if you didn't know the broad strokes already, you're in the wrong place. While not exactly winning awards on the philosophical or psychological side, the book itself is a genuinely thrilling read that really knows how to keep its tension up.
*'''''The Primarchs:''''' A novella anthology. As the name suggests, it contains stories featuring Primarchs.
**'''''The Reflection Crack'd:''''' - <s>[[Lucius]] and friends anally rape [[Fulgrim]]. Yeah.</s> While questionable use of a ''pear of anguish'' is featured during a game of "Stab the Fulgrim," the real story is this: Lucius and his buddies are deep into the [[/d/|sickfuckery]] which will come to characterize their Legion, but begin to suspect that Fulgrim might have a daemon in him when he begins acting like not-Fulgrim and uses sorcery. They ambush him and try to exorcise it with pain, because torturing a Slaaneshi daemon will totally work (though they find out that a Primarch can grow back a foot and just about any other wound). Among everything else: [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] is still an arrogant dick; Lucius is still a maniacal and colossally narcissistic sick fuck; Julius Kaesoron is still an angry badass; Marius Vairosean is still a sycophantic cunt; and Eidolon was still a self-important, whiny douche, but Fulgrim throws a tantrum and cuts his head off, and there was much cheering from the readers, and that ''plus'' almost certain off-screen fapping among the Legionaries leads into ''Angel Exterminatus''.
**'''''Feat of Iron''''' - [[Ferrus Manus]]'s Legion is trying to off some Eldar on a desert world, but can't find the major Eldar strategic asset because of Spess Elf warp bullshit. A Farseer thinks he can warn Ferrus about the Heresy, and traps him in the webway or some psychic realm for a spirit quest long enough to fight a [[Fulgrim|giant purple snake]] (which is [[/d/|disturbingly appropriate imagery]] when you think about it); and Ferrus thinks it was the wyrm that he killed and gave him his metal hands, but the snake tells him that he must be mistaking it for somebody else. Ferrus kills it, and meets the Farseer who tries to tell Ferrus that he wasn't just being a dick. Ferrus, having too many experiences with Eldar being dicks, knocks some sense into the Farseer, who manages to run just fast enough to avoid getting killed. Ferrus comes back and helps his Legion fight off the Eldar kill the Webway beacon, or whatever the hell it was. In the background of all of this, the Iron Hands, having lost Ferrus, decide to [[/tg/ gets shit done|get shit done]] rather than bitch about their potentially dead father and work to complete the mission despite being weighed down by Imperial Army who are dying of dehydration and heat stroke. The Eldar figure out a way to use storm clouds that make Iron Hands bionics kill their users, and Ferrus has a bitch of an itch around his neck that he can't get rid of. [[Drop Site Massacre|I wonder if that's important]].
**'''''The Lion:''''' - Dark Angels fight daemons and reinstitute Librarians. The Lion teamkills Nemiel for reminding him about Nikaea, ruining all the buildup from the previous two <s>Dark</s> Fallen Angels Books because [[Gav Thorpe]] wanted to prove he's a big boy author who can kill his characters. Then they steal an intelligent super warp engine (instashifts the Dark Angel fleet into the warp without need for a jump point while teleporting itself and the Lion onto his flagship; Lion is capable of talking politely in front of so much power) from [[Typhus]] then set course for Macragge to sort out Guilliman.
**'''''Serpent Beneath:''''' - Alpharius Omegon plots against himself and destroys a facility built around what looks suspiciously like a Cadian Pylon (and said facility keeping the White Scars out of the war), due to [[Cake|an information leak]], and they can't have that. Except than none of the main players are Alpharius or Omegon. And Alpharius and Omegon can't decide if they're secretly working against each other or not. Also: considered to be one of the better works of the series, not only due to quality, but because of the sheer mindfuckery of the plot, keeping entirely within the rationale of the Alpha Legion without any jumps in logic or canon.

===Books XXI - XXX===
*'''''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 [[/tg/|fa/tg/uy]]s 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 [[Slaanesh]]i 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. Sanguiniuns and Co end up reaching Imperium Secundus.
*'''''Shadows of Treachery:''''' Yet another anthology. Most of the stories are tie-togethers or "in betweens", and some are very short.
**'''''The Crimson Fist''''' - A story about two parallel story lines. The first is set during the [[Battle of Phall]], a space battle between the Iron Warriors' entire fleet, and what was left over after a third of the Imperial Fists' fleet was dispatched to reinforce the loyalists going to Istvaan, got caught in a warpstorm and were run "ashore" leaving them drifting and isolated in the backwater Phall system. The Iron Warriors, having the advantage of knowing what the hell is going on and having the powers of Chaos to guide them through the storm, show up at Phall and wreck shit for some good old fashioned revenge. Despite having the superior numbers, more and bigger guns, suicidal expenditure cohorts, and the power of a raging hateboner, the Iron Warriors were losing to the Imperial Fists's superior maneuverability and [[Alexis Polux|Captain Polux's]] protagonist power. Eventually, the Fists get the order and window to withdraw to Terra, though turning tail would put their fleet at a huge disadvantage. Given the choice between blind obedience to his father or carrying on with the battle they were winning, Polux chooses the former and takes his Fists back to Terra, but ends up in the Imperium Secundus instead. This was also one of the first solid depictions of Perturabo, and clearly the worse of the two as he's shown to be nothing more than an abusive, cold-hearted Saturday morning cartoon villain with rage issues and the depth and complexity of a kiddy pool. The second story line follows [[Sigismund]] as he follows Rogal around the Imperial Palace after deciding to stay home, even though he was ordered to command the same fleet trapped at Phall, but delegated it to Polux's predecessor. The twist is that he met Euphrati Keeler, had a spiritual experience when they spoke, and felt that he would be needed more at Terra instead of as a drifting corpse permanently lost in orbit around some backwater, and so handed off the job of commanding the fleet. When he eventually opened up to Rogal about this, it got him in trouble. See, Rogal was still one of the [[Imperial Truth|stupid atheists]] at this point, so he disowned Sigismund because he thought "serving a higher purpose" was arrogant and got in the way of doing his job. This left Sigismund feeling really sad and pissed off, thus was his start of <s>darkness</s> daddy issues. [[Black Templars|Really pissed off and bad ass daddy issues.]]
**'''''The Dark King''''' - A look into the head and story of Konrad Curze during the events leading up to the Dropsite Massacre. It shows that, even if you buy that Curze was a [[Lawful Evil|murderous paladin of justice and order]] rather than just a [[Chaotic Evil|deranged serial killer]], he's pretty fucked up in the head and lives with the knowledge of his demise haunting him (which isn't that great for what little sanity he has left). It also involves him beating up Rogal Dorn, killing some Imp Fists and Emp's Children terminators <s>with his more advanced suit and built-in vox jammers</s> [[Rip and tear|with his bare fucking hands]], then blowing up Nostramo.
**'''''The Lightning Tower''''' - Basically, 20 pages of Rogal Dorn. The first 10 is him being sad about ruining the Imperial Palace as a grand piece of art by fortifying it into a coldly functional fortress. The next 10 is Rogal having an existential monologue, then a conversation with Malcador all about why he doesn't know why Horus declared war on the Emperor and is afraid to find out why in case it makes sense. Malcador ends up knowing at least a little about Chaos and somehow got his hands on a tarot deck Curze used throughout his life even up to the close of ''The Dark King''. (Don't ask how he got them. Really.) Also that (*Name Drop*) the Lightning Tower is the important card that comes up, signifying [[Siege of Terra|a destruction of fortifications]] and/or [[Imperium of Man|a change of thinking brought about by sacrifice]].
**'''''The Kaban Project''''' - Right before Istvaan, techpriest Pallas Ravachol is working on a top secret "Kaban" robot project on Mars and realizes that the project has achieved sapience, and is in fact a form of full AI. Though he genuinely befriended the Kaban machine, Ravachol complains to boss Magos Chrom that working on an AI is both highly illegal and insanely dangerous. Chrom tells Ravachol not to be such a pussy since Horus himself gave the OK, and after some deliberation has a death squad waiting to escort Ravachol off site the next morning. Ravachol, thinking there were few ways this could end well, makes a break for it and flees for Magos Malevolus's forge, hoping to get somebody with some clout to reveal that his old boss and Horus were up to something bad. On the way, he spends time running away from a latex-clad sadist babe who persistently chases after him; since she's an AdMech equivalent of a Death Cultist assassin, this is a ''much'' better idea than it sounds. When he gets to Malevolus's forge, Malevolus distracts him with a legion of shiny Mk6 suits of Marine Power Armor long enough to drop the bomb to drop that they were for Horus. The latex-clad babe catches up to them both, and the techpriest flees again, only to be puzzled why Malevolus and the assassin are letting him run. As he gets out the door, he meets the Kaban machine, <s>who realizes friendship was most important thing, the Kaban decides to side with the good guys, and the day is saved.</s> Chrom told the Kaban Machine that it and Ravachol simply can't be friends for realsies because of the rules and stuff, and taking up with Horus was a great idea. The Kaban Machine, not understanding how humans work nor '''The Power of Friendship''' didn't know any better than to agree, and kills Ravachol right on the steps of Malevolus's forge. The end. An okay story, somewhat generic feeling prose. More of a who's who of the Dark Mechanicus during ''Mechanicum'' and telling where the hell that Kaban machine from the same book came from, and how they seduced an AI into Chaos worship.
**'''''Raven's Flight''''' - A bridge between Istvaan V and ''Deliverance Lost'', also a companion story to the Raven's Flight audio drama. The story tells how Commander Marcus Valerius of the Imperial Army is stationed on Deliverance and keeps having recurring nightmares which is causing him worry about Corax. Commander Branne of the Raven Guard's garrison on Deliverance, is getting tired of how the Legion's pet human won't stop bitching about it, and decides to take Valerius out on a trip in the battle barge to Istvaan just to show him that everything is just fine. Meanwhile, Corax and a relative handful of surviving Raven Guard are fighting a guerilla war against the traitors, trying to stay one step ahead of the Iron Warriors and then the World Eaters. In between skirmishes Corax spends a few thoughtful moments feeling bad about his Legion and the state of the Imperium now that things have gone to shit.
**'''''Death of a Silversmith''''' - The title says it all. A silversmith attached to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet is tasked with making four rings for the Mournival, after that he makes tokens (for the warrior-lodge, but he doesn't know that) and then gets his windpipe crushed to make sure word doesn't get out about the tokens. The story is seen from the perspective of the silversmith who describes his life up until the point where he's lying on his own floor slowly suffocating to death. Ultimately it is kind of irrelevant, but the lore nerds or people who have been paying attention might find it interesting. At barely 20 pages long, you might as well read it anyway.
**'''''Prince of Crows''''' - A novella featuring the Thramas Crusade as viewed by First Captain [[Sevatar]] of the Night Lords. With the Night Lords's forces all but shattered by the Dark Angels, Curze in a coma and nearly dead, and the Dark Angels's fleet in pursuit, Sevatar has to knock some heads for the Night Lords to get their shit together to reorganize and rethink strategy. It's essentially about showing the fractures in the Night Lords Legion. As most stories written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]], it's pretty good.
*'''''Angel Exterminatus:''''' [[Perturabo]] just finished [[skub|fucking up (or being fucked by)]] some Fists, and [[Fulgrim]] finds him to polish off a plot hook from ''The Reflection Crack'd'' and recruit Pert for an expedition into the Eye of Terror because a renegade Eldar said he knows where to get ''the good shit'' (the eponymous Angel Exterminatus). Fulgrim wanted to make a show out of delivering exposition, and he had Pert use his skills to build a stadium and went storyteller mode; then the moment was killed when a Shattered Legion detachment composed of Iron Hands and a Raven Guard commando sniped Fulgrim (he got better). Of course, Pert took the moment to remind himself that this is why he can't have and [[Rage|won't ever have]] nice things. Thinking that Fulgrim had the scent of a powerful artifact or a superweapon, and seeing that Fulgrim was becoming the Primarch equivalent of a crack addict member of the Jersey Shore and his legion wasn't looking much better, Pert decided to play it safe by tagging along and making sure Fulgrim wouldn't break anything. On the way, a different Eldar scholar came to the Shattered Legion, telling them that Fulgrim and Pert can't be allowed to get to the Angel Exterminatus, or [[Daemon|Bad Things (Warp-registered trademark)]] will happen. Well into the journey into the Eye, the Iron Hands's resident mad scientist accidentally gives away their location, and the Emp's Children and Iron Warriors decide to throw a boarding party. After a few pages of pulse-pounding action, Pert says "fuck this" and leaves as the Iron Hands' same mad scientist overloads the engines and does a [[Battlefleet Gothic|mother of a ramming maneuver]] which kills an Emp's Children ship. (Pert was getting sick of Fulgrim's shit at this point, so he decided not to let them know, leading to the loss of the ship and thousands of casualties for Fulgrim.) When they finally get there, they find a [[Crone World]] covered in ruins and occupied spirit stones being held in orbit around a black hole. Some wraithbone constructs pop up and Pert and Fulgrim have to fight to the heart of the planet to get at the Angel Exterminatus. On the way, Pert kills their renegade Eldar because he was a lyin' bitch. When they ''finally'' get there, surprise! Daemon Primarch Fulgrim is supposed to be the Angel Exterminatus, and he betrays Pert (a bauble Fulgrim gave to Pert at the start of the book was a vitality-leeching thing), and they start the ritual which would sacrifice Pert to turn Fulgrim into a Daemon Prince. Then the Shattered Legion crashes the ceremony and assists the Iron Warriors since it's clear they weren't working with the Emp's Children anymore. Pert kills Fulgrim but it doesn't count since Fulgrim's mortal essence works just as well as sacrifice. He goes full Daemon Prince despite a generous helping of Thunder Hammer to his [[gay|pretty face]], breaks every spirit stone on the planet, and disappears with every last one of his sick fucks. The Eldar scholar helping the Shattered Legion throws a bitch fit, revealing that both scholars were Dark Eldar who had cut a deal with Fulgrim (help him become a daemon and they get assloads of spirit stones to fuck with), and he had made sure that the Shattered Legions were there to put a wedge in that deal because... reasons. The Shattered Legion gets the hell out and the Iron Warriors try to GTFO as the planet starts to fall into the black hole. The book ends with Pert, [[pretend|being a wise man]], ordering them to reverse course and fly right into that fucker. (It works out for them in the end.) Subplots include a lot of buildup for McNeil's Iron Warriors stories, the Shattered Legions' feelings on trying to unfuck an irreversibly fucked situation, and a tense story of two Imperial Fists as they try to survive Fabius's turning them into mutants (which actually had a poor payoff). Despite being overall good, it's a bit of a skub novel because the depiction of Perturabo is so different from expected; rather than being the bitter [[RAGE|Rage]] machine from every other depiction, he's a quiet [[Neckbeard|nerd who plays with toys as a hobby]] but with muscles. The ghosts of Eldar's Aspect Warriors and Wraith-Constructs inside a planet left inside the Eye of Terror, the first death of Lucius at the hands of a Mary Sue despite previous claims that he was undefeated during the Heresy and his unexplained first resurrection, and an Iron Hands legionnaire somehow being immune to sonic weapons by being deaf is canon rape on par with C.S. Goto. And worst of all, a rotating Shadowsword turret.
*'''''Betrayer:''''' Lorgar and Angron rampage over the Ultramarines' 500 worlds. Lots of references to Angron's past and his Butcher's Nails killing him slowly. Turns out one of the Ultramarine worlds was his own homeworld, so he destroys it and Lorgar makes him into a daemon prince. Also remember the ''Furious Abyss''? Lorgar has two more. Also focuses on Khârn and Argel Tal being totally bro-tier until that bitch Erebus decides to intervene and becomes a team-killing asshole. Why Erebus isn't modeled with a long mustache fit for twirling is beyond us. Best known for containing Angron's dressing-down speech toward Guilliman having it easy since birth while Angron had a pretty shit life from day one.
*'''''Mark of Calth:''''' Another set of short stories, though all focused on the [[Ultramarines]] or the [[Word Bearers]].
**'''''Shards of Erebus:''''' - We find that [[Erebus]] broke the '''MURDER SWORD''' into eight daggers/athames and shared them with his bros. Also shows how he returned to Davin to learn how to teleport with the '''MURDER SWORD''', then killing the priestess that helped him turn Horus. She somehow wins because she served Chaos before dying which pisses Erebus off.
**'''''Calth That Was''''' - The story focuses on an Ultramarine Captain and Co. and on a Word Bearers commander and his Dark Apostle. Keeps bringing up what Calth used to be like. Longer-than-the-rest-story short, Word Bearers try to Nurgle everyone, and the Ultramarines save the day in the nick of time. After all, THE GREATEST OF THE-{{BLAM}}
**'''''Dark Heart''''' - A young Word Bearer is interrogated by Kor Phaeron after he ended up killing his mentor with dark powers (turned him insta inside out). A kind of nice story that shows the <s>degradation</s> enlightenment of the Legion.
**'''''The Traveller''''' - A spacedock traffic controller survives the destruction of his star fort, and the fatal crash of his escape shuttle before ending up in a small underground arcology with other human survivors. Imperial cultists believe he is blessed, and when he starts hearing whispers and seeing unbelievers they start rounding everybody up for execution. Everybody gets slowly executed till he's the last one left. He learns he's been possessed and reveals to an Ultramarine that he was was infected by the vox from the ''Campanile''.
**'''''A Deeper Darkness''''' - An Ultramarine has a hard-on for a certain Word Bearer trolling him. Hunts down said Word Bearer into a cave system with a team of soldiers and Spess Merheens. Word Bearer trolls them by summoning a Gorgon. Ultramarine wins by tricking the Gorgon into looking at its reflection.
**'''''The Underworld War''''' - A story that has little to do with the actual Underworld War. It features a Gal Vorbak who sees the attack on Calth as a clusterfuck of fail. Has a plot-twist ending... turns out Daemons give visions of the future to potential Gal Vorbak, and said Gal Vorbak was given a vision of him not abandoning his fallen brothers on Calth. The Daemon doesn't have time for that shit so it lets him die during his transformation, much to the distress of the still fairly bro tier [[Argel Tal]] who is soothed by the honeyed words of [[Lorgar|did nothing wrong]].
**'''''Athame''''' - A narrated story of the history of a knife, though not one from the '''MURDER SWORD'''. That's about it... totally... right? Wrong. The small sacrificial knife that Ollanius found was carved on Terra for a benign ritual, stolen by an evil Perpetual who was killed by ''the Emperor'' in medieval times, found in an archeological dig by Kasper Hawser, and went on other crazy murder-adventures, all while having rudimentary sentience.
**'''''Unmarked''''' - Ollanius Pius and friends are traveling through time and space using the athame from the previous story. We learn a lot more about Oll's past, going into detail about his offhand mentions that he was one of the Argonauts and that he served in the First World War and the First Gulf War. It's based as all fuck and written by [[Dan Abnett]], so don't miss it. Also features Ol' Oll's much, much earlier encounters with the [[Emperor|big daddy E]] in flashbacks and kinda proves O.P. Diddy right in his contention against Him that faith has power it not directed [[Lorgar|in the wrong]] [[Chaos|places]] and has in fact protected Terra for fuckawatts worth of millenia, and if He hadn't have been such an aspergated edgelord about atheism, more daemons might have been conquered due to the power of 19th century English hymnody with some of the words altered to refer apparently to the very same edgy atheist. Also features a traumatized but insightful qt3.14 psyker witch.
*'''''Vulkan Lives:''''' What happened to Vulkan after the Dropsite Massacre? He got made Konrad Curze's torture bitch. Plenty of fun with dining implements and an awesome ending involving a hammer to the face. Not one of the best HH Books though is a somewhat necessary read for continuing the plot arc. Remember the Shattered Legions crew from ''Angel Exterminatus''? Now you get a new group that is far more bland and less distinct. The major problem with the story is that, while it is fun reading Curze taunting Vulkan, not much happens in it and it barely affects the stakes or the overall plot to a great degree, except we now know that Vulkan is a perpetual.
*'''''The Unremembered Empire:''''' [[Perpetual|Matt Damon]] killed Martin Luther King. This happens in the book. Also, unlike the cover and synopsis would imply, it's ''not'' about Sanguinius and Guilliman working together to build a back-up Imperium around Ultramar, which leads to the question of ''why that's on the cover?'' No one knows what it is really about, especially the book's description of itself (which describes its ''sequels''). Several things happen in the book and several unrelated subplots collide as several entities are drawn by the Pharos device to Macragge. There are implications that Guilliman's new backup Imperium is starving resources from Terra.
*'''''Scars:''''' Technically the third book of the Prospero arc. The Khan returns to the Imperium after killing Orks left over from Ullanor and can't decide what side to join. Turns his back on Leman Russ during a fight with the Alpha Legion and goes looking for his best friend Magnus, also gets into a fight with Mortarion on the way, also [[The Fallen|half his legion turns traitor]] but turns out it's no big deal.
** '''''Brotherhood of the Storm:''''' Prequel to Scars, shows the White Scars fighting Orks on Chondax.
*'''''Vengeful Spirit''''' Horus goes looking for power to make him equal to the Emperor and the Chaos Gods give it to him by sending him to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z (kinda). We learn that the Emperor gained his powers after making a pact with the Chaos Gods where they gave him a fraction of their power, then somehow managed to double-cross them in what is quite possibly the most retarded retcon ever introduced in the entire book series. (In all seriousness though, the Chaos Gods have been claiming this throughout the series. It could be the truth or one of their beautifully crafted lies.) Loken comes back. There's also the Knights of <s>Lannister</s> Molech, who fall to Slaanesh through copious amounts of Twincest. Also, if you have been ignoring the audio books, you will be a bit lost at the start of this one.
*'''''The Damnation of Pythos''''' A Lovecraftian Horror story disguised as a Horus Heresy story. Has the most grimdark ending of the series thus far, up there with Dead Men Walking. Adds just about as much to the overall series as ''Furious Abyss'' did, but is actually pretty well written (unlike "Furious Abyss"). To cut a long story short, daemons take over a world in the Pandorax system, capture a starship, and use it to start ferrying cultists from place to place. The book also has some crossover with 40k and the Pandorax Campaign.

===Books XXXI - XL===
*'''''Legacies of Betrayal''''' Another anthology, though this time it's a bit of a cheat; they just consolidated several pre-existing stories and some of the the novellas but also included print versions of audio books.
**'''Brotherhood of the Storm''' - see above
**'''Serpent''' - A really short and out-of-place story about a Davinite Priest.
**'''Hunters Moon''' - Originally an audiobook involving peasant fishermen rescuing a crashed Space Wolf who is running from the Alpha Legion after killing Alpharius. It obviously doesn't end well.
**'''Veritas Ferrum''' - A prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", about an Iron Hands starship escaping (against their better nature) from Isstvan with some survivors.
**'''Riven''' - An Iron Hand from the Crusader Host is sent by Sigismund to look for some of his brothers, scattered after Istvaan V. He finds one suspicious-looking group and discovers that they use forbidden technologies to fight traitors even after death.
**'''Strike and Fade''' - More survivors of Isstvan, though this is about Salamanders just killing time (and Night Lords) whilst they wait to be rescued.
**'''Honour to the Dead''' - An Ultramarine squad fights its way through Calth with a innocent woman and child trying their hardest to follow them to safety, while loyalist and traitor Titans punch each other's faces in the background.
**'''Butcher's Nails''' - A good one to read: Angron & Lorgar go on the Shadow Crusade and come to an understanding whilst fighting Eldar. It is also a prequel to "Betrayer".
**'''Warmaster''' - Horus considers how much of a badass he is while chatting with Ferrus Manus's skull and complains about how all the primarchs that sided with him are [[Perturabo|dickheaded]] [[Mortarion|edgelords]] or [[Konrad Curze|batshit]] [[Angron|lunatics]], while the cool guys like Sanguinius and Guilliman are still loyal to the Emprah.
**'''Kryptos''' - Somewhere in the Galactic East (either Thramas Crusade or Imperium Secundus), Nykona Sharrowkyn and company go kidnap a warp code interpreter that will let them intercept garbled enemy communications. Prequel to "Angel Exterminatus".
**'''Wolf's Claw''' - Bjorn the Fell-Handed needs a replacement arm but the Iron Priests are too busy; he happens to find a nice fancy relic one just lying around.
**'''The Divine Word''' - Marcus Valerius (army commander from Raven Guard story arc) receives some prophetic dreams and subsequently prevents an Alpha Legion diversion. It serves as his final push to join the Imperial Cult.
**'''Thief of Revelations''' - After Prospero, the Thousand Sons need something to stop all their rampant mutation, so Ahriman goes to ask why Magnus has locked himself away. He's got bigger things to worry about and is looking across time and space for key events for future [[Just as Planned]] manipulations.
**'''Lucius the Eternal Warrior''' - After his first death ''(and unexplained resurrection)'' at the hands of Nykona Sharrowkyn, Lucius has somehow abandoned the Heresy and goes to the Planet of Sorcerers to fight a duel with the bestest Thousand Son swordsman (cause he cheats and reads your mind to see what you do next) and ends up meeting Ahriman. [[wat|Uh-huh...]]
**'''The Eightfold Path''' - Kharn and the World Eaters realise that too much rip and tear is leading them [[Khorne|down a damning path]], but they're already too far gone.
**'''Guardian of Order''' - [[Cypher]] and [[Zahariel]] discover that the Ouroboros (banished in Fallen Angels) is coming back.
**'''Heart of the Conqueror''' - Angron's Navigator gets a bit uppity about being made to turn traitor, despite having been picked for the job as the angry man's chauffeur by the Emperor himself. Blams herself during mid-warp transit with not-fun results for flagship.
**'''Censure''' - Aeonid Thiel is killing time and Word Bearers in the Underworld War on Calth, writing notes about it on his armour. Said notes will eventually get written into Guilliman's draft of the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]] on the subject of killing Word Bearers (because it's that damn important to kill Word Bearers). Goes on a buddy cop adventure with an army trooper. Thiel eventually gets bored and goes back to Macragge in the end.
**'''Lone Wolf''' - Bjorn has lost all of his squad, but is now such an awesome badass that he can solo Bloodthirsters.
*'''''Deathfire''''' - "vUlKaN lIvEs" What the Salamanders have been saying since Isstvan is true: Vulkan lives! Well now he does. Basically a bunch of Salamanders take his body from Macragge to Nocturne (with some side help from didn't-ask-for-this Magnus) and throw him into Nocturne's largest volcano, and lo and behold he comes back to life, making that entire plotline pointless. Still has the fucking Fulgurite in his chest, though. TL;DR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7nzml-zZ9M
*'''''War Without End''''': Anthologies Without End.
**'''The Devine Adoratrice''' - Prequel to "Vengeful Spirit" shows that House Devine was rotten to the core long before the coming of Fulgrim.
**'''Howl of the Hearthworld''' - Space Wolves get sent to Terra to watch over Rogal Dorn so he doesn't start using psykers; it's a pointless task and everyone involved knows it. Also offers insight into the Wolves' naming conventions.
**'''Lord of the Red Sands''' - During Istvaan III, Angron indulges himself in some philosophizing about the nature of his rebellion and what is good cause while butchering his own sons. I swear, I'm telling the truth.
**'''Artefacts''' - On his way to Istvaan V, Vulkan decides that all of his artefacts should be destroyed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. His forgemaster intervenes and persuades him to keep at least some so Vulkan grants him the right to choose seven items to preserve and give him the title of Forge Father, keeper of these artefacts.
**'''Hands of the Emperor''' - Depicts one typical day of the Adeptus Custodes through eyes of their newly appointed Master of the Watch, including colossal orbital plates invading Imperial Palace and Custodes and the Imperial Fists being stubborn assholes even when facing battle with each other at the heart of the Imperium, never-ceasing Blood Games and bureaucratic and diplomatic hell wrapping all that entanglement.
**'''The Phoenician''' - A dying Morlock witnesses the final duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim.
**'''Sermon of Exodus''' - Another prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", explains the appearance of the huge cultists' fleet from Davin in orbit of Pythos. Provides rare insight on the life on Davin and origins of Chaos cults there. Also features really bizarre description of the first Davinite priest, who spent the last several thousand years in the warp.
**'''By the Lion's Command''' - Prologue to "Angels of Caliban". Corswain is tasked by the Lion to hunt Death Guard ships, but is experiencing a severe lack of manpower. After an uneven engagement with Typhon that nearly costs him his life and fleet, he decides to send Chapter Master Belath to Caliban for recruits.
**'''The Harrowing''' - Some random Alpha Legionnaires take over some random Mechanicus ship. Turns out that they are so god-mode that everyone important is their operative, so they meet no resistance at all. The end.
**'''All That Remains''' - A transport ship full of war orphans and Imperial Army soldiers with severe PTSD is lost in space during warp transit. Fear not though, because in fact they are being stolen by one of Malcador's agents for transfer to Titan and induction into the Grey Knights.
**'''Gunsight''' - The Vindicare Assassin from Nemesis is still alive and on Horus' flagship; it's about him spending years waiting for the opportune moment to get a shot, but he starts going mad while he waits. He finally gives up when Horus plucks his killshot from the air and Horus gives him a chaos rifle for his change in loyalty.
**'''Allegiance''' - Revuel Arvida spends some time on the White Scars flagship trying to understand what to do after losing all his Legion. He reflects on his time on Prospero, attends the Khan's trial for the pro-Horus plotters from "Scars", and tries to escape, but in the end he chooses to spend some more time with the Scars.
**'''Daemonology''' - After his duel with Jaghatai, Mortarion tries to interrogate a daemon, which goes as well as you'd expect. Also shows that Malcador and the Emperor planned Nikaea for almost seventy years before it took place.
**'''Black Oculus''' - A Navigator that serves the IV Legion loses his mind after Perturabo drives his ships into the black hole in the center of the Eye of Terror.
**'''Virtues of the Sons''' - Sanguinius forsees that he will not always be in charge of the Blood Angels, but worries about the Red Thirst causing havoc with his sons' futures, so gets Amit to duel Kharn and Azkaellon to duel Lucius in hopes they'll learn something. Azkaellon learns to let the rage out a bit and Amit learns a modicum of restraint.
**'''The Laurel of Defiance''' - Lucretius Corvo (later founder of the Novamarines) and his squad kill a Traitor Titan using only their wits and one meltagun.
**'''A Safe and Shadowed Place''' - [[Night Lords]] start stabbing each other in the back as soon as Curze goes missing while solo'ing Macragge. It's about a ship floating in the ruinstorm that has just discovered the [[Imperium Secundus|Pharos]] and foreshadows problems for Ultramar.
**'''Imperfect''' - Daemon-Fulgrim has been getting Fabius to clone Ferrus Manus, because the split personality thing makes him feel guilty about failing to turn his brother to Horus's side, but the clones are never quite right and go mental at each suggestion. Fabius also has his own stuff going on.
**'''Chirurgeon''' - Fabius is dying from the genetic flaw that's been killing Emperor's Children since before they found Fulgrim - or not, since he found a way to distill other Marines into drug that keeps the illness at bay.
**'''Twisted''' - Maloghurst solves some routine troubles on the ''Vengeful Spirit'' like persistent petitioners, lack of water, rogue daemons and the Davinite cult plotting to control Horus.
**'''Wolf Mother''' - Right after events of ''Vengeful Spirit'' Alivia Sureka goes searching for her daughter, who was stolen by a Slaaneshi cult that escaped from Molech, with a little help from Severian The Wolf. No, really, she is so badass that Severian doesn't even look like someone superior.
*'''''Pharos''''': Night Lords fucking up the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha. Sanguinius eventually grows some balls and starts standing up to Guilliman instead of just being a pantomime Emperor, while the Lion is nowhere to be seen as usual. Warsmith Dantioch bites it while using the Pharos to burn the Night Lords out of his fortress, but inadvertently piques the interest of the [[Tyranids]], causing them to show up 10,000 years later. Skraivok become a prime example of DAEMON SWORDS: NOT EVEN ONCE.
*'''''Eye of Terra''''': Another anthology.
**'''The Wolf of Ash and Fire''' - takes place before Ullanor. Emperor and Horus destroy one really powerful WAAAGH!!!, lead by an exceptionally huge Big Mek. Story consists almost completely of foreshadowing.
**'''Aurelian''' - see "First Heretic"
**'''Massacre''' - A young Night Lords apothecary named [[Talos_(Warhammer_40,000)|Talos]] takes part in the Istvaan V Massacre.
**'''Brotherhood of the Moon''' - After the failed coup from ''Scars'', Torghun Khan is being interrogated and explains why he chose Team Horus.
**'''Inheritor''' - [[Eliphas_The_Inheritor|Eliphas]] The Inheritor (yes, that one from the DoW series) sacrifices the population of a city on a planet Kronos (yes, again from DoW) and a company of Ultramarines to have a nice little chat with Lorgar.
**'''Vorax''' - An unlucky Dark Mechanicum priest falls to a loyalist ambush and subsequently being killed by Vorax-class battle servitor. Really short and forgettable story.
**'''Ironfire''' - Turns out that Idriss Krendl (that arrogant warsmith who had a stronghold dropped on his head by Dantioch) is alive! Really tough bastard, though several months under debris has affected his sanity a little. He now spends his time testing new siege tactics on the Emperor's Children world in preparation for the siege of the Imperial Palace.
**'''Red-Marked''' - Aeonid Thiel starts his band of cliche badass marines and learns about the mysterious Nightfane that threatens Macragge itself.
**'''Master of the First''' - Astelan takes part in a coup to remove Luther from command, but only to prevent it.
**'''Stratagem''' - Guilliman explains to Aeonid Thiel how important it is not to follow military books to the letter and concludes that he'll just have to write a book about it (guess [[Codex_Astartes|what book]] it is).
**'''The Long Night''' - Jago Sevatarion is chilling in Dark Angels captivity, slowly losing his mind due to his suppressed psyker powers, when some girl from the ship's astropath corps starts to talk to him from boredom. When her superiors find out, they flog her nearly to death because it was obviously forbidden. Sevatar doesn't take it lightly, flees captivity and kills the main astropath and calls it JUSTICE, because a man who skins young girls by the dozens on a daily basis simply to strike fear in a populace is definitely all about justice.
**'''Sins of the Father''' - During his emo-phase Sanguinius contemplates how his legion will fall after his death. He then decides that switching roles between Azkaellon and Amit during ritual combat will probably solve all problems.
**'''The Eagle's Talon''' - While the Battle of Tallarn rages, some Imperial Fists '''covert operatives''' try to take over a huge macro-transporter. They fail and are forced to crash the transporter onto raging battlefield below, blasting everything within 300km and causing nuclear fallout.
**'''Iron Corpses''' - One really tough and stubborn Iron Warriors Warsmith refuses to die despite the nuclear fallout from the previous story, waits for the storm to subside, finds and reanimates Warlord Titan and returns to action.
**'''The Final Compliance of Sixty-Three Fourteen''' - The Imperial governor of some backwater world recollects memories of his long service to the Imperium, while preparing himself to spit in the face of Horus's representatives when they come to demand his surrender.
**'''Herald of Sanguinius''' - Azkaellon invents the Sanguinor to free his gene-father from the burden of being the figurehead of Imperium Secundus.
*'''''The Path Of Heaven''''': Sequel to Scars. The White Scars have been fighting the traitor legions for a few years but are starting to show the strain. They finally decide to head back to Terra, but things don't go as planned. Notable for digging into the Webway storyline and the Navis Nobilite as well as featuring a resurrected and suddenly competent Eidolon. Navigators weren't going to sit around while E-money built their replacement, White Scars use a prototype webway portal to escape their last stand, and Mortarion starts using sorcery to locate Typhon.
*'''The Silent War:''' Guess What?! It's ''another'' anthology of stories that GW have already sold individually as audio-books. So value might be had for those who hadn't listened to them.
**'''The Purge''' - The story consists of two story lines. In the first of them, Sor Talgron purges one of the worlds in Ultramar during the Shadow Crusade, but gets tricked and takes a bombful of life-eater virus to the face (he survives nontheless, though). In second, he undertakes some covert actions on Terra before Istvaan V and leaves a nasty surprise for Dorn in the catacombs beneath the Imperial Palace.
**'''The Sigillite''' - see below, in section "Audio Books"
**'''Wolf Hunt''' - [[Awesome|Samurai witch hunter]] Yasu Nagasena hunts Severian the Wolf right after the events of Outcast Dead.
**'''Army of One''' - An Eversor assassin is sent out for the routine "kill everyone" mission, but finds out that his main target is not only a stereotypical Stupid Fat Decadent Planetary Governor who turned traitor, but also a jerk from his past. So he kills him.
**'''The Gates of Terra''' - Dorn and Malcador have an idea that it will be good for the defences of Terra if they use some psykers to run some chosen veterans through endless hypno-simulations of ill-fated space battles with the Vengeful Spirit within the boundaries of Sol.
**'''Ghosts Speak Not''' - Amendera Kendel, who had a crisis over her moral values after the events of The Voice and left the Silent Sisterhood, returns to Luna to recruit some of Garro's Death Guard into the Knights Errant. They then are dispatched to a mission to uncover a traitor's plot at Proxima Centauri.
**'''Templar''' - Sigismund purges an asteroid temple of Word Bearers, this being the same temple that was mentioned in The Purge (those cross-references are awesome).
**'''Distant Echoes of Old Night''' - Some Death Guard are drowning Imperial Fists' defences with bodies on some shithole moon in the middle of nowhere, but it seems they are running out of time. They launch a final assault but fail to coordinate the phosphex bombardment with the assault and actually destroy themselves with little help from a primitive trap built by the Fists. Facepalm on the house to everyone.
**'''Grey Angel''' - Loken, fresh from Istvaan III and accompanied by Iacton Qruze, is sent to Caliban to check Luther's loyalty to Terra. The mission actually fails as Loken gets caught and is interrogated by Luther himself, but Loken is rescued by the Watcher in the Dark and Lord Cypher and subsequently flees the planet.
**'''Lost Sons''' - Tylos Rubio goes to Baal to disband the Blood Angels Legion and recruit their last battle company into Malcador's Knights Errant after Sanguinius and the rest of the legion go missing after Signus. The Angels understandably don't like this news and Rubio nearly gets killed, but is saved by a message from Raldoron announcing that Sanguinius and the IX Legion are alive.
**'''Child of Night''' - it turns out that one of the Night Lord Librarians had fled his Legion and went into hiding on Terra. One of the Knight Errant finds him and recruits him for the Grey Knights.
**'''Luna Mendax''' - After his fail on Caliban, Garviel Loken shuts himself away in a forgotten garden on Luna and spends his time growing flowers and feeling sorry for himself. This is so pathetic that the spirit of the long-dead and eaten by daemons Tarik Torgaddon escapes the warp to return Loken to his senses.
**'''Patience''' - Helig Gallor from Ghosts Speak Not, now acting on his own, is searching for Garro who is too busy killing giant daemons to report to Malcador's office on time.
**'''The Watcher''' - Ison from the Knights Errant finds and saves a horrifyingly mutilated and nearly dead survivor from the Space Wolves squad that was sent to watch over Konrad Curze.
*'''''Angels of Caliban:''''' Two Dark Angels stories in one book again, though this one actually moves the plot forward. In Ultramar, the Lion captures Konrad Curze but only after discreetly nuking a whole region despite Guilliman's ban on orbital weapon use, which results in his disgrace and we find that it is Guilliman who breaks the Lion Sword. Curze reveals that there were Chaos cults on Macragge too and that Guilliman would be a traitor if he had landed a little to the left. On Caliban, the Fallen openly declare their rebellion from the Imperium and ironically steal some starships that were meant to collect them and actually bring them into the war again. [[Zahariel]] kills [[Cypher]] and takes his place.
*'''''Praetorian of Dorn''''' Alpharius tries to invade <s>Terra</s> Pluto. Dorn kills him. Yes, Alpharius is now dead. And not a fake either, but the real Alpharius. Omegon can confirm. Alpha Legions fags blew a gasket. Oh shit believe we did.
*'''''Corax''''' A compilation of all the Corax Stories plus a new one, '''Weregeld''', which manages to undo all the hard work the previous stories have done and turn Corax into a douchebag. Kills all his mutated Raven Guard because he promised to kill warp stuff. Saves Russ though.

===Books XLI - L===
*'''''The Master of Mankind''''': The Emperor is a dick: the book. We all knew this but now it's set in stone. Highlights include the Emperor stating to Arkhan Land that the Primarchs are tools and he views them with a scientific but detached fascination. He refers to them as numbers but seems content to allow the fantasy of being their "father", an interpretation of the character that was fairly divisive to say the least. He actually seems to care more for his Custodians than he does any of his other creations, but they don't consider him their father and see him as just their warlord. Drach'nyen is also revealed to be the daemon created when Cain killed Abel. In the end the Emperor closes the door on the Webway and has to spend the rest of his time sitting in the chair keeping it shut. Despite this, it does show off why the Chaos Gods fear him, as he pretty much rapes an infinite army of Daemons; the greater daemons either flee or try and fail to fight him (being destroyed in a matter of moments) whilst the lesser ones die just by looking at him. Despite this, Drach'nyen nearly kills him, and claims that it will kill the Emperor (keep in mind that the future is VERY malleable, Daemons lie, and that this was written by a man whose hate-boner for Big-E exceeds that of The Four, themselves). But how will it feast on the Emperor's tattered soul when Abaddon lacks arms to plunge it into his chest? (Abaddon never lost his arms due to the same retcon that let Eldrad live) Also known as Master of Skubkind. The Emperor reveals his grand plan of saving the human race from the Eldar fate by giving absolute control of every human to a Custodian before shanking him with Drach'nyen and making him run into the Webway. Also put all his chips into the ''Human Webway'' plan and screwed us all over without a backup. Can you tell that this is an ADB book? It also features one of the most depressing endings of the whole Heresy series as in the last scene of the book the Emperor somberly acknowledges to one of his Custodian that he fears that he has now run out of cards to play and can't yet think of a way out of the whole situation. Grimdark, indeed.
*'''''Garro''''': Compilation of all the stories about Garro and his boy band, though they insist it isn't just an anthology since the audio book stories were expanded to be more written novel friendly.
*'''''Shattered Legions''''': It's an anthology containing an anthology. I shit thee not. It shoves together the limited edition anthology Meduson with a few other shorter stories, including some Alpha Legion stuff like the Seventh Serpent.
*'''''The Crimson King''''': Magnus was broken into shards when Russ felled him. Now the Thousand Sons with the help of Lucius the Eternal must put him back together. Kairos Fateweaver makes an appearance. Ties into the Ahriman Trilogy
*'''''Tallarn''''': Does it even need to be stated? It's another fucking anthology, this time putting all the tank porn of the Tallarn books into one binding. It is worth a read if you are a fan of Imperial Guard (Army), as most of the storylines are about around mortal tank crews doing what they do best (dying).
*'''''Ruinstorm:''''' The conclusion to the Imperium Secundus plotline, as well as the follow on to Damnation of Pythos. Shows the Lion, Sanguinius and Guilliman trying to cross the Ruinstorm to reach Terra. After a brief stopover at Pandorax, they decide to head out to Davin where the Heresy began and where destinies are remade; they pass systems along the way that show what the Galaxy would look like if Chaos wins, such as a Forge World surrounded by an immense fortress wall in outer space 4000 miles thick and a sector of space filled with solid ritualised geometric shapes that are perhaps light years across. Davin itself is surrounded by a cloud of bones and wreckage millions of kilometers thick, but the planet has long since been abandoned. There Sanguinius finds out that in order to live through the Heresy he must become a monster even worse than Horus, but dying will curse his sons with the Black Rage; blood is on his hands either way. Instead, Sanguinius tries to sacrifice himself to save the day, but the [[Sanguinor]] steps in and takes his place while the fleets rain down a shitstorm and destroy the planet. In the aftermath, the Ruinstorm abates enough for them to reach Terra, but Horus has so much force that it is impossible for all three legions to reach, so Guilliman and the Lion agree to distract the Traitors long enough to give Sanguinius a window to get back and face his destiny, explaining why they never made it to the Siege since they were engaging Traitor fleets and burning their worlds.
*'''''Old Earth:''''' Set immediately after ''Deathfire'', Vulkan and three Salamander legionaries (the rest of the Salamanders weren't informed of their Primarch's resurrection) travel through the Webway by a gate hidden in a cave on Nocturne. On their path to Terra, they came across the Shattered Legions who were preparing for their first major void engagement with the Sons of Horus. Just before the attack, some Medusan-born Iron Hands tried to stage a coup against Shadrak Meduson by revealing a hideous contraption of machines and the last remnants of Ferrus Manus - ''his iron hand'' (they were under the illusion that they could resurrect their Primarch through cybernetics; it is hinted that the Mechanicum had some <s>hand</s>{{BLAM}}{{blam|that pun was so bad heresy is automatic}} in this affair). Thankfully Vulkan shatters the hand and Meduson assumes command again, though he was killed by '''Tybalt Marr''' in a boarding action after the Iron Hands refused to send reinforcements to him. In the end, it is revealed that the Emperor had Vulkan forge a weapon that, in the event Terra fell to Horus, would amplify the power of the Golden Throne into a fatal FUCK YOU nuke into the heart of the Chaos God's domains, sadly also wiping out the entire Throneworld (this is possibly also one of Vulkan's nine relics). Oh, and Eldrad rescues [[Knights-Errant|Barthusa Narek]] from Nocturne and makes him his assassin. They killed most of the Cabal, including a vaguely amphibian alien sitting on top of a jungle pyramid. Yes, Eldrad Ulthran might just be the only person alive to have killed an Old One. Finally they rescue John Grammaticus, who had his memory wiped after his failure to assassinate Vulkan. With his memory restored, Grammaticus is ordered by Eldrad to find Ollanius Pius and go to Terra.
*'''''The Burden of Loyalty:''''' In the grim darkness of the 3rd millenium, there are only anthologies.
**'''The Thirteenth Wolf:''' Old Guard Space Wolves get lost in a a series of Warp Portals during the battle of Prospero.
**'''Into Exile:''' Arkhan-the-Humble-Land basically has to have a Boltgun Shoved in his face to leave during the initial Mars Revolt.
**'''Cybernetica:''' Story full of [[awesome]] about how Carrion the Raven Guard Tech-aspirant awaiting graduation watches his fellows get slaughtered before hulking out Sith-Style. Meanwhile an Iron Warrior proves how badass they are when not under the thumb of their whiny emo excuse of a primarch by literally throwing Carrion off a tower so he's the sole target of an incoming Warlord Titan. Carrion then joins the Knights-Errants and actually makes Dorn backpedal and heads back to Mars to aid the Resistance in taking it back through use of Heretek.
*'''''Wolfsbane:''''' Leman Russ faces off against Horus, with the help of the Spear of Russ mentioned in the FUCKOLD Space Wolves novels. They're evenly matched but Russ seems to get the better of Horus when the Spear partially de-corrupts the Warmaster. Unfortunately for him, Russ tries to bring his brother back to his senses rather than strike a killing blow and is dragged away barely conscious by his men after Horus retaliates, setting the stage for the Battle of Yarant. Also a glimpse of [[Belisarius Cawl]] from back in his earlier, fleshier years.
*'''''Born of Flame:''''' ANTHOLOGIES!

===Books LI-LIV===
*'''''Slaves to Darkness''''' The traitor primarchs gather for the assault on Terra but things aren't going well. Guilliman and the Lion are giving them a helluva hard time and Horus himself is still quite literally drained from his duel with Russ. Basically how the gang gets back together for the push on Terra. The Sons of Horus start fracturing badly and Maloghurst takes it upon himself to cure Horus. In so doing, he forces a daemon to act as his guide through the Warp and finds out from this surprisingly forthcoming daemon (presumably from the Chaos God of Exposition) that even though Horus was superpowered from his Molech makeover, he'd left a part of his soul behind in the Chaos God's realms, which had come to the realization that Chaos had been using him from the beginning. The daemon also suggests that Horus was never meant to win in the first place and that for all his new power he is no match against The Emperor, but Maloghurst very loudly refuses to believe it. Maloghurst meets his end as he resurrects Horus due to infighting within the Sons of Horus, erasing the last uncorrupted part of Horus's soul in the process. Mortarion is named the vanguard of the Siege, Perturabo is sent to pick up Angron, and Lorgar gets Zardu Layak to speak Fulgrim's true name and bind him into joining in a plot to depose the Warmaster, believing that his refusal to completely submit before the Chaos Gods will lead to the Traitor Legions' ultimate defeat at Terra. This turns out to be a massive mistake that leads Lorgar to be utterly curbstomped by the revived Horus and told that he will be killed if Horus ever sees him again. Witnessing this, Zardu Layak and the Word Bearers present all swear allegiance to the Warmaster before Lorgar leaves with his tail between his legs. Layak frees Fulgrim who finds it all hilarious. Magnus makes an appearance at the end, swearing himself to Horus's service. "Alpharius" makes a token appearance to hand over Terra's defence data before disappearing without a trace and no mention of his legion at all, although Alpharius does basically mime they are done fighting for the Warmaster's ends.
*'''''Heralds of the Siege''''' You know the drill by now. Anthology. But the end is in sight.
**'''Myriad:''' Loyalist Mechanicum forces hiding underground in Mars launch guerilla attacks on targets of opportunity from below. During one raid which blows the head off of a Warlord Titan, they retrieve a Castellan automata with the Abominable Intelligence from ''Cybernetica'' and a tech menial. Putting them into quarantine the Abominable Intelligence wakes up from probing and cleanses the menial of all scrap code & corruption to display it means no ill will to the loyalists. The Tech Inquisitor leader decides it's time to go Tech Radical "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Abominable Intelligence supplies them with a complete battleplan and strategy (4.7k item checklist) for wiping out all the Dark Mechanicum on Mars and starts off with seizing & cleansing a Warlord Titan searching for their headquarters.
**'''The Grey Raven:''' A ship sent back to Terra by Corax arrives in the solar system, with the Librarian Raven Guard who opened the Emp's gene-banks for Corax, seven Custodians, and an Imperial Fists force. Presenting to a border post for inspection, the Custodian commander, upon discovering the identity of the Raven Guard, states a code word to the Custodians on ship and they all try to pull the Librarian's head off. The Fist Captain saves him and his men try to hold off the Custodians while he and the Librarian try to get off the ship. The Custodian captain corners them and slays the Fist captain. The Librarian gets angry and is about to use his psychic powers on the Custodian when he remembers his vow to Corax and surrenders to execution. Revealed to be an elaborate test by Malcador, who subsequently recruits him into the Grey Knights after apologizing for the death of the Fist captain.
**'''Valerius:''' Marcus Valerius of the Therion cohort (unaugmented troops fighting with Raven Guard) is now a big believer in the Lectitio Divinatus. He sets his forces to defend cross over points on a river where a bigger enemy force is attempting to cross. Corax had sent the Therion cohort (23k soldiers) and Valerian to die fighting against traitor marines & titans for a planet near Beta-Garmon with no escorts for their transport ships. Gives a speech about how proud all his soldiers should be for facing a suicidal mission to die for the emperor. Therions manage to take out all titans before being overrun. As the remaining marines breach his command leviathan, Valerius gives the order to detonate their reactor and leads a prayer with the remaining command crew. Another regiment of the imperial army happens across the aftermath and think that the Therions were wiped out and some other regiment managed to hold the line against the traitors. Leviathan's death took out everybody on the battlefield. Valerius stumbles out of the wreckage of the Leviathan, and proclaims his survival a miracle.
**'''The Ember Wolves:''' A Warhound titan pack attached to the World Eaters takes down a Warmonger titan on some planet. World Eater influence leads to a leadership challenge shortly after tipping over the Warmonger. Despite the pack leader putting down the leadership challenge, the downed loyalist Warmonger blows up its reactor and takes out all named characters.
**'''Blackshield:''' Khorak, a renegade member of Mortarion's [[Deathshroud]], is on the run from loyalist hunters. He and his squad escape down to the surface of a swamp planet where they are slaughtered till only he remains. He recognizes the leader of the loyalists as another Death Guard member who reveals himself to be Crysos Morturg, a survivor of Isstvan III. Khorak explains that he turned against Mortarion after Molech, when his entire squad was sacrificed by Mort for witchcraft. They both express their hatred of Mortarion, and Khorak briefly considers teaming up with Morturg but then one of his buddies proves to be not quite dead and tries to shoot Morturg, who deflects the shell with his psychic abilities. Khorak immediately tries to kill him and is gunned down. Morturg is revealed to be a mangled mess who survived Isstvan thanks solely to his psychic power and an extensive cybernetic rebuild by Calleb Decima, another Istvaan III survivor (who by the end of the battle was so mangled he resembled a spider more than a person). After Crysos ruminates on the pointlessness of Khorak's death, he decides it's time to go see the Emperor.
**'''Children of Sicarus:''' Kor Phaeron and the remainder of his party are on the run in Sicarus, a daemon planet, being constantly harassed by daemons that are whittling them down. They gain the attention of a warlord acoloyte of Tzeentch and at the same time a prophet appears to them and offers them sanctuary. The prophet leads them into a camouflaged valley where he reveals to them glyphs and Lorgar's athame that show how Kor Phaeron would arrive, slit his own throat to open a portal, and the remaining legionaries would lead the prophet's people through to join Lorgar at the Siege of Terra. Kor Phaeron kills the prophet, announcing that his fate is his own. The camouflage breaks down with the prophet's death and the warlord meets him. She offers him lordship of the planet after she ascends to daemonhood, and he accepts letting her have the prophet's people. As she is about to ascend on the spot, he sneaks up behind her and slits her throat with the athame. Shortly after Sicarus is now a worship planet with slaves laboring to create monuments of worship. Kor Phaeron states that it is now a refuge for the Word Bearers in the neverending war ahead of them.
**'''Exocytosis:''' Typhon is refitting his fleet at Zaramund by the grace of Luther. The Death Guard forces have set up an isolated camp away from any of the Fallen or natives of Zaramund. Luther decides to send a Fallen to spy on the Death Guard to see what's up with their shyness. Typhon is trying to get used to the gifts of the Grandfather when a group of civilians approach the camp. They reveal themselves to have been expecting his arrival, and all of them are revealed to be dead but kept alive by the grace of Nurgle. They call him Typhus and proclaim that with his arrival they are finally free to spread Papa Nurgle's gifts everywhere. The Dark Angel captain observing all of this sees a crowd of zombies and flies and Typhon conversing with them. Typhon sees regular people, though he can glimpse their true nature. The Death Guard sentries just see regular people. The captain springs out of his observation spot and starts attacking the tainted civilians like a true Dark Angel. Typhus kills him and in the process becomes one with his gifts. The Death Guard depart shortly afterwards with no contact with the Dark Angels. Luther is puzzled by this, ignoring a medicae request for apothecary aid for a sudden new disease in the civilian population, and wonders what other effects the Death Guard may have left on Zaramund. Typhon uses his blood to poison his commanding officers after announcing they will reunite with the Primarch.
**'''The Painted Count:''' Gendor Skraivok is having a hard time getting rid of his daemon blade. He tries burning it, tossing it into a plasma reactor, and out an airlock, but it keeps coming back. In a political battle for command of the legion, a rival tosses him into the impossible maze built by Perturabo to contain Vulkan. Failing to leave the maze normally, he seals his pact with the daemon blade and it leads him out of the maze. Killing the rival in a duel, he takes command of the ''Nightfall'' and leads the Night Lords to Terra to join the Warmaster.
**'''The Last Son of Prospero:''' Revuel Arvida is transformed into Ianius after teaming up with the soul shard of Magnus. Jaghatai Khan & Malcador happen to be in the room.
**'''The Soul, Severed:''' Eidolon puts down a leadership challenge from a leader who is loyal only to Fulgrim and wants the legion to sit around waiting for him to return. Being still reasonable, the challenger lures Eidolon's forces into a chemical treatment factory, blows up the chemical tanks, then counterattacks. The challenger deepstrikes with a bodyguard squad directly onto Eidolon, and then Eidolon and every single other noise marine giggle and laugh at the same time, obliterating the entire battlefield. Eidolon realises that he needs a planet with limitless numbers of potential slaves so he could spend lifetimes in debauchery, and so accepts that his fate and that of his forces is to eventually assault the Imperial Palace.
**'''Dark Compliance:''' Argonis, an emissary of Horus, meets Decigus, the Lord of a star system. Decigus is pretty intent on executing Argonis in person, and Argonis tells him to swear fealty to Horus or else... and starts to relate the tale of how he became an emissary, starting over a Mechanicus world that also gave Horus the finger and roasted his emissary. Horus meets with Argonis and reveals the emissary was a distraction to the Mechanicum ruler, while another plan was put into place. Horus sends a distraction fleet, followed by another distraction fleet, followed by hidden fighters and vortex missiles he had dropped off point-blank on the moon when his emissary had been killed. Wiping out all orbital defenses the magos still believes he can extract a heavy toll on Horus over several months of fighting. Horus flies down, summons a daemon w/ invasion on the side, then departs with his forces. The world gets covered in blood clouds and is infested by daemons. Argonis then repeats his question to Decigus, join us or die.
**'''Duty Waits:''' The Imperial Fists have beefed up security protocols around the Imperial Palace to ridiculous levels after the Alpha Legion shenanigans from ''Praetorian of Dorn''. All the civilians in the Palace are barely tolerated and given limited rations. There is a food riot and all the new Imperial Fists who were inducted during the Heresy and have never killed anybody get their first taste by shooting rioters, which they're not thrilled about.
**'''Magisterium:''' Valdor is busy handling the Custodes post-Webway war. Not enough resources, Custodian serfs are working to their deaths, and Custodians dealing with the fact that they can no longer effectively protect the emperor. Flashback to Valdor being talked to dismissively by Leman Russ during the Burning of Prospero.
**'''Now Peals Midnight:''' Rogal Dorn is told that long-range sensors & astropathic choirs have detected something big approaching through the Warp, and he realizes that Horus's arrival in the solar system is imminent. He passes along the message to his brothers on Terra. A strategium general is amazed at how she was bred, augmented, and trained to process insane amounts of info and what takes her 15 minutes to re-appraise herself of the solar system tactical info takes Dorn a brief glance at the screens. Archamus and Andromeda-17 from ''Praetorian of Dorn'' have a quiet chat concerning the imminent siege and the fact that humanity will be forever psychologically scarred by what is about to happen. Dorn, Sanguinius, and the Khan gather on a wall of the Palace and stare up at the sky. At midnight a new star blossoms, signalling the exit of Horus's fleet from warp space.
**'''Dreams of Unity:''' A terminally ill Thunder Warrior helps some Custodes kill an Alpha Legion infiltrator while continuously having flashbacks to the Unification Wars and the Emperor's grand dream of Unity. Once the Alpha is dead, he surrenders himself for execution to the Custodes.
**'''The Board is Set:''' Malcador contacts the Emperor for advice just before the Siege and plays a game of strategy that they have been playing for a ''long'' time, detailing the movements and eventual fates of the Primarchs. Shows that the Emperor was certainly manipulating them but was mostly on the back foot for much of his conflict with the the Chaos Gods so the outcome could have been much worse. Emps reveals a final gambit that will screw over Malcador in order to deny Chaos their victory.
*'''''Titandeath''''' Titan-centric book taking place during the battle for Beta-Garmon, the Loyalists' final effort to prevent the Traitors from reaching Terra. How one book could be made of a battle taking place across an entire solar system that had, according to Slaves to Darkness, more casualties than the last five years of the Great Crusade remains to be seen. As it happens... fairly feasibly. Beta-Garmon represented the tipping point for both the loyalists and the traitors; if the traitors didn't move past it, Guilliman would crush them from behind. If the loyalists didn't engage, then Horus would take his overwhelming numbers unopposed. The point is that Horus would win Beta Garmon either way. Rogal Dorn makes the only proactive move that he can make in the whole war, and sends a sizeable contingent of Terra's defenses to Beta Garmon to delay the Warmaster for as long as possible. And because Titans aren't really well suited to defending Terra, they are let out in force on Beta-Garmon. Which makes perfect target practice for the massive orbital platform that Horus proceeds to use. Unfortunately the story is let down by its ham-fisted portrayal of an all-female Titan Legion (mostly out of wasted potential) and a rushed storyline. Also a mopey Sanguinius who makes 'I do not die here today' into the new 'Vulkan Lives!'.
*'''''The Buried Dagger''''' This is the final book in the "main" Horus Heresy series, and tells the story of how Mortarion and the Death Guard fell to Nurgle's service. It happens essentially as has already been seen in other fluff sources: Typhon murders all the Navigators and claims he can guide the Death Guard fleet to Terra himself, only to deliberately strand them in the Warp so that Nurgle can turn them to his service. As disease spreads through the fleet, Mortarion becomes increasingly horrified and outraged as he realizes what's happening to his legion and finally kills Typhon in retaliation, but the Destroyer Hive reanimates his corpse, officially turning him into Typhus. After some more internal angst and butthurt, Mortarion finally accepts his destiny and becomes Nurgle's champion. The B-plot of the book concerns the founding of the [[Grey Knights]], as well as an assassination attempt on Malcador by Erebus, who planted a psychic suggestion in Tylos Rubio's head all the way back on Calth. Rubio, Sevarian, Revuel Arvida/Ianius, and several other Knights-Errant are named as the first eight Grey Knights and are shipped off to Titan to prepare for what will come after the Heresy. Garviel Loken is supposed to be the ninth Knight, but he turns it down because he still wants a shot at Horus. Nathaniel Garro gets cut loose from the Knights-Errant and sets off to find his own destiny.

==The [[Siege of Terra]] series==
Yep, it's getting an entire series to itself. What, did you really think they'd dedicate only one book to it? The series is slated to be eight books long, along with an unspecified number of novellas.

*'''''The Solar War''''': The Traitors make their big push through the remaining defenses of the Sol system and clear the path to Terra. Dorn's strategy is to make them pay for every centimeter and hope he can delay them long enough for the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels to arrive. To do this, he sends entire fleets out to fight delaying actions and blows up some of Pluto's moons after the traitors capture them. It sort of works, but the traitors have thousands of ships and even a few Space Hulks, so Perturabo just keeps feeding them into the grinder until they break through. Meanwhile, Mersadie Oliton receives a warning vision from Euphrati Keeler and busts out of space jail to deliver her message to Dorn. Unfortunately, it turns out "Keeler" was actually Samus manipulating Mersadie to get her onto the ''Phalanx'' and use her as a gateway to invade the station, so she winds up committing suicide in front of Garviel Loken. Samus rampages around the ''Phalanx'' for a bit and is killed again, this time by Dorn. Abaddon bypasses the outer defenses via a warp rift opened up by Ahriman, captures Luna, and convinces the matriarch of the Selenar to start making more Astartes for the traitors. The book ends with Horus, Fulgrim, and Angron arriving in-system along with the main strength of their fleets, meaning shit is now officially real.
*'''''The Lost and the Damned''''': This is it, ladies and neckbeards. The Siege has begun in earnest. Dorn is using millions of conscripts and all the vast firepower he’s installed on the Palace walls to blunt Horus's initial attacks, holding the V, VII, and IX Legions in reserve. Unfortunately, this is all more or less playing into the traitors’ hands. They want to cause as much death as possible so that the walls between reality and the warp will be thin enough to let hordes of daemons onto the planet and the daemon primarchs themselves can safely set foot on Terra without being banished by the Emperor’s psychic mojo. To their credit, Dorn and his brothers are aware of this, but also recognize that they’re screwed either way, so they decide to just go ahead and kill as many traitors as possible. After a few months of traitor Army regiments, Chaos spawn, and beastmen being sent in to soften the defenses up while the Dark Mechanicum build siege guns and towers to punch through the walls, the Death Guard finally show up after their side trip to visit Grandpa Nurgle. Horus sends them in first, mightily pissing off Angron in the process, and they immediately set about turning the warzone into a large-scale recreation of Passchendaele circa 1917. Jaghatai goes out to gather intel on the siege engines and gets poked with a plague knife, but as soon as he crosses back into the Palace grounds the Emperor’s psychic aegis cures him. He then takes half the White Scars to go defend the citizens of Terra from rampaging traitors despite Dorn ordering him not to, and promises to return when needed. Sanguinius rallies the defenders and leads his sons from the front even though Azkaellon and Raldoron would really rather he didn’t. The book ends with the World Eaters and Night Lords launching their first full-scale attack on the Palace walls; Angron challenges Sanguinius to battle while Raldoron beats Gendor Skraivok hollow and tosses him off the wall. The book reveals that despite their numerical superiority and the aid of the Chaos gods, Horus is maintaining control over his war effort and the other traitor primarchs only by sheer force of will: Lorgar, Curze, and Alpharius are out of the picture, Magnus is doing his own thing, Fulgrim is being a prissy dick, Perturabo is as much a whiny bitch as ever, and Angron is so uncontrollable that Kharn and [[Lotara Sarrin]] are forced to teleport him into the labyrinth Perturabo built to contain Vulkan until he can be set loose on Terra. Only Mortarion still seems relatively normal despite the fact he’s now a daemon primarch. Moreover Abaddon is getting really fucking cagey about Horus's new habit of Chaos worship, for good reason. It turns out that the wound Russ inflicted on him at Trisolian has resulted in his soul slowly being drained. As a result, the Chaos Gods have to keep juicing Horus up, with the downsides of time-wasting sojourns into the warp and the gradual destruction of Horus's body. What's more, there are implications that Abaddon is being groomed to take over if Horus falls.
*'''''The First Wall''''': This book focuses on the battle for the Lion’s Gate spaceport, which is the tallest structure on Terra and the only place that void-going ships can dock on the entire planet, meaning that the traitors will be able to shuttle in reinforcements and materiel more easily if they can capture it. Perturabo details Warsmith Kroeger to command the Iron Warriors’ assault on the spaceport under the logic that Dorn will be expecting Pert to command the attack personally and won’t be expecting whatever battle plans Kroeger comes up with. Warsmith Forrix isn’t happy with this or with anything else that’s going on, since he’s realized that Horus is using the Iron Warriors in the same way the Emperor did and he's become increasingly disillusioned with Perturabo himself. To aid the attack, the Dark Mechanicum sets a technophagic virus loose inside the spaceport and Zardu Layak, [[Abaddon]], and [[Typhus]] perform a Nurglite ritual to infiltrate Cor’bax Utterblight inside the Emperor’s wards. The Fists hold out as long as they can and inflict heavy casualties, but Dorn finally gives the order to withdraw and abandon the Gate as Perturabo lands his flagship atop the port and joins an assault led by Abaddon and Kharn. Sigismund duels Kharn and nearly loses while Dorn kills Zardu Layak, which allows daemons to manifest on Terra for the first time. He then has a brief exchange of taunts with Perturabo and the first Chaos Titans set foot on Terra, spelling a new stage of the battle. In the midst of all this is a little passage detailing just how many artillery pieces the Iron Warriors have landed on the planet, including two thousand [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]], fifteen hundred [[Manticore Launcher Tank|Manticores]], five hundred [[Medusa Siege Gun|Medusas]], sixteen hundred Siege Dreadnoughts, seven thousand Thunderburst guns, five hundred [[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|Deathstrike]] launchers and eighty-four [[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank|Typhon siege guns]], plus uncounted thousands of Rhinos, Land Raiders, Vindicators, Predators, Sicarans, and [[Baneblade|assorted]] [[Fellblade|superheavy]] [[Spartan Assault Tank|tanks]]. [[Awesome|That sound you just heard was Josef Stalin and the entire Red Army popping a boner from beyond the grave.]] Meanwhile, to stop Cor’bax’s taint from spreading inside the Imperial Palace, Malcador recruits Euphrati Keeler and the Custodian Amon Tauromachian to hunt down and eliminate any corrupted cults of the Emperor, giving us the weirdest buddy-cop pairing of all time. Malcador wants to see if he can weaponize the cult’s belief in the Emperor against the Chaos gods and sees Keeler as the key to doing so, while Amon would rather just stamp it out. They eventually find a cult that has been corrupted by Cor’bax. When the daemon uses their bodies to manifest inside the walls, Keeler, Malcador, and Amon team up to kill him. Malcador tells Dorn, Valdor, and the other Imperial commanders that he will allow the cult of the Emperor to exist until the Emperor himself says otherwise. While all this is going on, we get to see more of the siege from a mortal perspective. Katsuhiro, a veteran of the initial fighting outside the walls, is detailed to a section of the outer walls under attack by the Death Guard and eventually has to aid in putting down an outbreak of plague zombies. We also follow Zenobi, a seventeen-year-old line worker from the Afrik hive of Addaba who volunteered to serve in the Imperial Army, only it turns out that she and her entire regiment are pledged to Horus, though this doesn't stop the Warmaster's fleet bombing their city to shit from orbit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, sounds like a fun read huh?) The novel ends with John Grammaticus arriving on Terra, mission unknown.
*'''''Saturnine''''': Dan Abnett's first HH book in seven years. Dorn is trying to decide which parts of the Palace need to be defended and which can be allowed to fall, as the Imperial forces are outnumbered, outgunned, and running low on supplies. He identifies four key parts of the defense that cannot be allowed to fall to the enemy, then decides which one he can afford to lose anyway: the Eternity Wall spaceport. The Saturnine Wall, one of the other key elements, has developed a subtle fault thanks to the relentless traitor bombardment. Dorn suspects that Perturabo will try to exploit it, so he lays a trap for the traitor assault force and calls in Arkhan Land to help fix it. While this is going on, Sanguinius kills an Iron Warriors Warsmith at the Gorgon Bar, then [[Awesome|solos a Warlord Titan]] and stares down three Warhounds until they turn tail and run for it. Jaghatai and the White Scars lead a few massed jetbike charges into the ranks of the Death Guard and really ruin their day, further pissing off Mortarion. [[Abaddon]] enlists the entire [[Emperor's Children]] Legion and three companies of the Sons of Horus, led by the entire Mournival, to attack the Saturnine Wall with Perturabo's help; however, Perturabo anticipates that Dorn will expect them to do so and refuses to lend his aid. The III Legion attacks from the front, using three ancient and irreplaceable siege engines, while Abaddon and his Astartes burrow up from beneath with Termite assault drills. When the Sons of Horus emerge from their assault drills, they're ambushed by kill teams led by [[Garviel Loken]] and [[Nathaniel Garro]]. All three companies, including the famed [[Justaerin]] and Catulan Reavers of the 1st Company, are wiped out. Garro kills Falkus Kibre while Loken kills Horus Aximand ([[Blood Ravens|and takes his sword]]) and Tormageddon, finally avenging his old friend. Tybalt Marr and Lev Goshen are also killed off, meaning that all of the Sons of Horus characters we were introduced to at the beginning of the series are now dead except for Loken and Abaddon. Abaddon goes on a killing spree, but eventually gets beaten up by a nobody [[Blood Angel]], Endryd Haar, and Garro. Abaddon manages to kill the Blood Angel and Haar, but is almost killed by Garro, only to be [[Plot Armor|teleported to safety at the last moment]]. Arkhan Land floods the fault line with thousands of tons of quick-setting rockcrete, [[Grimdark|entombing a bunch of the Sons of Horus beneath the palace forever.]] Fulgrim hurls his legion at the Saturnine Wall ''en masse'', which accomplishes nothing but getting 18,000 of them killed and destroying the siege platforms. Dorn and Sigismund fight Fulgrim; Sigismund manages to injure Fulgrim despite being hilariously outclassed, but before Fulgrim can finish the job, Dorn appears. He holds his own against his psychotic bishonen brother, inflicting so much damage that Fulgrim throws a tantrum and takes his legion and goes home, abandoning the Siege entirely. The two then fight a bunch of III Legion champions and defeat them all. In one particularly awesome moment, Sigismund just straight-up kicks Eidolon off the wall. At this point, Perturabo seems to be the only person on Team Horus who still gives a shit about winning the siege. The rest of traitor primarchs are all too indignant to focus on their alleged objective, too busy conspiring against each other, or too insane to care.
**Crucially to the ongoing progress of the Siege, the loyalists lose the Eternity Wall spaceport, but this was part of the plan. As noted above, Dorn identified four key points in the defense that he couldn't afford to lose, then chose the one that he couldn't afford to lose the least, personally took command at the Saturnine Wall, and sent Sanguinius and Jaghatai to hold the other two spots. Angron and the World Eaters assault the spaceport, and pretty much every named Imperial Army character in the book dies at this point, along with Jenetia Krole, the leader of the [[Sisters of Silence]], who gets killed by Kharn, and Camba Diaz of the Imperial Fists, who literally dies standing while holding the main bridge into the spaceport. Also, Angron gets blown up by artillery but comes back to life since, y'know, he's a daemon prince and all. Sanguinius' visions are getting increasingly powerful and painful, especially when he winds up inside Angron's tortured mind. He eventually delves deeply enough to realize that Angron has sensed the annihilation of Nuceria. The [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Ultramarines]] are on the way!
**Other miscellaneous things that happen: John Grammaticus is trying to meet up with Ollanius Persson and encounters the Perpetual Erda, who tells us that Big-E was named '''Neoth''' when they met, but that this was just one of the many names he's had over the millennia. It is also revealed that she is the true mother of the primarchs and is technically responsible for their scattering - cue the sound of countless facepalms from the fanbase. Dorn has Kyril Sindermann form the proto-[[Inquisition]], and he recruits Euphrati Keeler and some other people to go around collecting interviews with soldiers, workers, and other residents of the Palace. Keeler interviews Basilio Fo, the mad genesmith from the short story ''Misbegotten'', and he reveals that he can create a biomechanical phage that could kill Horus, along with every other Space Marine and primarch in the galaxy. Keeler and her Custodian babysitter decide that this information should go to Dorn, just in case he decides he needs such a doomsday option. The Ollanius Pius myth is partly born from a Guardsman named Olly Piers standing up and defending a banner of the Emperor before dying at Angron's hands. Horus is sliding further into apparent senility as the Chaos Gods' power begins to overwhelm his body and mind to the point that would have killed him outright had he not died in the duel against the Emperor first, much to Abaddon's disgust; he is almost totally disconnected from the siege, asks for things and immediately forgets asking for them, and keeps calling his equerry Maloghurst, even though Maloghurst has been dead since ''Slaves to Darkness''. At the very end, Corswain of the Dark Angels arrives with a large chunk of the Dark Angels fleet, ready to aid in the battle. In short, a lot of named characters die and plot threads are set up for other books and the rest of 40K.
*'''''Mortis''''': John French's second book in the series. As the morale of the Palace's defenders slowly erodes under the pressure of the unrelenting assault and the malign influence of the Warp, the traitor Titans of Legio Mortis are unleashed to break through the Mercury Wall, with only the loyalist engines of the Legio Ignatum to hold them off. Not as good as ''Saturnine'' or ''The Lost and the Damned'', but not as bad as Zenobi's story in ''The First Wall'', it feels more like an anthology, though all of its stories have a common beginning and converge in the end.
** The main story, the siege itself, has very little to offer. Horus has finally decided to take direct command of the traitor forces, but his first order to Perturabo is to send everything they have, include the entire Legio Mortis, to attack the Mercury Wall head on. Perturabo objects to such a terrible strategy, after which Horus sends his equerry to tell him to disperse his legion among the traitor forces and let the Death Guard take over their positions. Perturabo immediately realizes that Horus is about to pull some serious warp fuckery, which he's not okay with, so he orders a full-on retreat of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege completely. The rest of the main siege plot centers around the Titan battle in front of the Mercury Wall; the traitor forces have used Warp power to reanimate countless Titan wrecks collected from Beta-Garmon and elsewhere, using them as cannon fodder to weaken the loyalist defenses before attacking with the full might of the Legio Mortis, the largest Titan legion in the entire Imperium.
** Meanwhile, in another corner of the battle, a small group of loyalist Imperial Army soldiers are still holding a maybe no longer important line of defense. Amongst them is Katsuhiro, the luckiest unlucky son of a gun from ''The Lost and the Damned'', who has fought from the Outer Wall all the way into the central palace and is still fighting because [[Grimdark|in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war]]. Their forces are initially led by a Blood Angel, but he dies during the battle and puts Katsuhiro in charge because this man's got nothing but unwavering belief in the Emperor and balls made out of titanium.
** Shiban Khan, to everyone's surprise, survived his shuttle crashing in ''Saturnine'' thanks to his extensive augmetic rebuild. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere and starts hearing the voices of his dead brothers as he limps toward the Inner Palace. It could be warp fuckery, as the land shows various signs of Chaos corruption, or perhaps more likely, he just had some severe head trauma due to the shuttle crash (and the sky's the limit when it comes to head trauma). Either way, Shiban wants to return to the fight, so he starts to walk, and walk, and walk (there is a lot of walking in this not that long of a side plot). Then he encounters an Army lieutenant with a baby (feels like there is a joke in there somewhere) and the man tags along with him. The lieutenant explains that he just found the baby in the middle of all this shit and took it without any question; I keep expecting it to be a daemon or something, but it ends up to be something hopeful, wholesome even. Later the lieutenant is severely injured by an actual daemon, but Shiban refuses to leave him behind and carries him and the baby. Eventually, they come across the line Katsuhiro's defending; though the lieutenant doesn't make it, the baby survives, which amazes the crumbling troopers to no end and boosts their morale. Shiban and Katsuhiro have a brief chat before Shiban keeps pushing on to rejoin his legion. For the Emperor's sake, please don't let the baby be a daemon in the coming books.
** We finally get to see psi-titans deployed!!! For a few paragraphs at least. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (who we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because they only answer to the Emperor) shows up and tells Dorn that the Emperor has personally authorized use of the Ordo Sinister, an act that simultaneously tells Dorn that the Emperor has commanded victory at any cost. We see a psi-titan strut up to a battlefield, order all friendly titans to fire warp missiles at itself, then redirects the warp power in the warp missiles to instant kill several demon titan engines. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. But the traitors brought a lot of titans and even the Psi-titans are eventually overwhelmed.
** On the traitor titan side, special siege titans are unveiled bespoke from Mars. Turns out you can just line up several big titans and hook up all their reactors to mobile reactors behind their shields, then slow walk towards the wall like a big phalanx advance. And you get called the special engine class of Warmaster Titans. Plus lots and lots of guns on the front.
** At the end of the last book, Corswain and his fleet came to reinforce the loyalists. Now we learn that he was expecting to meet the Lion and the main strength of the Dark Angels at Terra, but finds out that he is the only reinforcement that has shown up. If you have read the new Luther book, you know that he was lied to by Luther, and most importantly, the ten thousand Dark Angels he brought along were given to him by Luther, which means they're most likely no longer loyal to the Imperium. Now here comes some plot fuckery: the traitors took the Astronomican and put it out. What? Wasn't Dorn's entire plan was to delay the traitors' offensive long enough for the reinforcements to arrive? Why was the Astronomican not as heavily defended as the Imperial Palace itself? How the fuck are the reinforcements going get to Terra without the Astronomican? But the plot must give Corswain and his Dark Angels something to do I guess. Nevertheless, Corswain plans an assault through the traitor fleet blockade; with the sacrifice of the Emperor's personal flagship and the gap left by the Iron Warriors' departure, the Dark Angels successfully make planetfall on Terra and retake the Astronomican by killing a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh and a bunch of Kakophoni. But here comes the backstabbing: the officers Luther sent to follow Corswain cannot allow his plan to succeed for obvious reasons, but one of the Librarians, Vassago, is having second thoughts about the whole thing after the daemonic horrors he's just witnessed. When he tells this to his fallen brothers, they decide to kill him and keep on with their plan.
** The various storylines are tied together in the end by a speech given by Dorn. As he speaks, what's left of the loyalist Titan legions begin to charge an unknown anomaly that appeared mid-battle; Katsuhiro's ragged force faces off against a new wave of enemies; Vassago is attacked by his fallen brothers; and the Legio Mortis finally reaches the Mercury Wall, the true Imperial Palace itself.
** Also, remember all of those weird metaphorical scenes of the Emperor being a dirty old man they put in every book? Turns out it is the physical manifestation of the struggle and suffering the Emperor is enduring in the spiritual world, and it is getting worse and worse. In previous books, he could still shelter himself in a cave and have Malcador deliver him food or something; now he is quite literally cooking under the sun in an open desert with only a dead tree for cover, and because the Chaos gods are winning, it has become impossible for Malcador to keep supporting the Emperor. So the Big-E is now facing off against the entire warp with nothing but his own willpower to sustain him. Horus keeps showing up to taunt his father and sometimes the Chaos gods accompany him like some kind of pet snakes. Every time he appears he is closer to the Emperor and at the end of this book he is finally able to reach him.
** Oh, Ollanius and his crew from Calth also return in this book. They finally make it back to Terra after bouncing through all of time and space, and then they infiltrate a hive overrun by the Emperor's Children in order to rescue John Grammaticus. Along the way, they run into someone named Actaea (who might be Cyrene Valantion based on John's horrified recognition of her) and a legionary calling himself Alpharius, because everything wasn't convoluted enough already. Ollanius decides to team up with these two even though Grammaticus is getting some serious bad vibes off of them. This part of the plot is not a bad read, but it really feels like it has nothing to do with the ongoing siege. This, and John's plot from the last book, feel like they should have gotten their own book instead of being cut to pieces and stitched into the main series. But again, it's not as bad and irrelevant as Zenobi's storyline from ''The First Wall''. At least it revealed Ollanius was once a close friend to the Big-E. How close, you ask? He was the Emperor's first Warmaster. He led an army to raze the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel Tower of Babel] to the ground, in the 40K narrative the tower was actually built by Cognitae precursors who were using it to learn Enuncia (first seen in the Eisenhorn books). After taking the tower the Emperor decides that he in his enlightened state can actually run the project better then the Cognitae. Ollanius disagrees and stabs the Emperor while using Enuncia to bring lightning down on the tower. John having stumbled into this memory via being caught in the same pleasure-warp trap uses his psyker language ability to learn Enuncia on the spot. Uses it to unmake a demon, but gets a bad nose-bleed.
* '''''Warhawk''''': The Khan vs. Morty, round two. The end of the Siege is nigh, and everyone on Terra knows it. Angron and the World Eaters are loose inside the Mercury Wall, the Sons of Horus are happily killing anything that crosses their path, and the Death Guard have taken over the Lion's Gate spaceport after Perturabo ragequit halfway through ''Mortis''. Many of the XIV Legion are still coming to terms with their new warp-touched nature. Some of them aren't sure the bargain was worth the price, while others are happily adopting pet Nurglings and savoring the feeling of turning into walking sacks of pus and tentacles. Mortarion is using his daemonic powers to turn the port into a mirror of Barbarus and blanket the Palace with a psychic miasma of despair; the effect is so potent that even Rogal Dorn is beginning to crack under the strain. Jaghatai is tired of playing defense, so he rallies up the entire V Legion and every single tank that Ilya Ravallion can coax out of reserves to storm the Lion's Gate and retake the spaceport. They use the last intact orbital plate on Terra to shield them from the traitor fleet bombardments and charge across the leveled wreckage of the Palace's outer districts en masse, wrecking shit all the way until they slam into the Death Guard and their defenses. The two legions proceed to just shred the hell out of each other across the spaceport. We get an interesting comparison between their fighting styles here; the Scars dominate the battlefield when they can use their speed and maneuverability, and then when the fighting turns into a battle of attrition the Death Guard give just as good as they get. Jaghatai is in fine form; at one point he yeets a Leviathan Dreadnought with ''one hand'', and the narration explicitly states that everyone on both sides stops to watch him do it. The battle culminates in a knock-down drag-out brawl between the Death Lord and the Warhawk. Mortarion literally beats the Khan to a pulp, but Jaghatai just laughs it off and needles Mortarion until he makes a mistake that lets Jaghatai gut him. Mortarion reminds the Khan that he can't die, since he's a daemon prince now, and the Khan reminds Mortarion that he can die, then pulls the classic "let the other guy impale me so I can kill him" move and decapitates Morty even though he's now got a power scythe embedded in his chest. The resultant explosion of psychic energy disorients the Death Guard and sends the Scars into a frenzy that doesn't end until a newly raised khan manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book. Jaghatai's body is carried out on a Leman Russ, and just when it seems like they might actually have unexpectedly killed another primarch, Ilya Ravallion shows up and demands that he be taken to Malcador, who sets about putting the Warhawk back together.
**Dorn finally lets Sigismund off the chain, telling him to just go kill as many traitors as possible. On his way out to the field, he's given the Black Sword, which was forged in the dark times prior to the Unification Wars, and sets out to become the Emperor's Champion. He kills so damn many captains and praetors that whispers of "the Black Sword" spread across the Palace, and both sides seek him out, either to join him or to kill him. He rematches Kharn and puts him down, though not before Kharn has a lucid moment and is horrified by what Sigismund has become: a remorseless, passionless, icy-hearted killing machine who will raise [[Black Templars|an entire legion of fanatical killers just like him]] to crush the galaxy beneath their boots.
**Euphrati Keeler inspires thousands of civilians, stragglers, and refugees to take up arms and go drown the enemy in bodies in the name of the God-Emperor, establishing the foundations for the Imperial Cult and the Imperium's philosophy of sending wave after wave of conscripts and Guardsmen at the problem until it ceases to be a problem. Garviel Loken tracks her down and is disturbed by her new, more nihilistic mindset, but decides to stay by her side anyway.
**Basilio Fo runs around for a bit and gets attacked by a Night Lord who can apparently see the future and isn't sure if killing him or letting him live will do more damage. He's then retrieved by Constantin Valdor, who took a break from daemon-hunting to haul him back to the Sanctum Imperialis so he can go to work on his anti-Astartes phage. Valdor wonders if using the phage would interfere with the Emperor's plans somehow, since even he isn't sure what is or isn't part of the Big-E's schemes anymore. Really, the whole subplot is kind of pointless, since Fo just winds up back under guard and doing exactly what he wanted to do all along. Makes you wonder why the authors bothered setting him loose last book.
** Ollanius Persson and his merry band are still traveling to the Palace. Actaea is all but stated to be Cyrene Valantion, who has an agenda of her own that involves getting to Horus. "Alpharius" is one of the Alpha Legion infiltrators from ''Praetorian of Dorn'', who's apparently just been kicking around the planet since his legion's attack on Pluto failed. They fly all the way to the Palace and start making their way into the Dungeon to get on with whatever their missions are, planning to pick up some more Alpha Legionnaires who were planted in the catacombs.
** The Sons of Horus are quietly starting to turn on each other. With Horus still sitting on his arse and doing nothing to lead his legion, some of his captains are starting to refer to Abaddon as the XVI's Legion Master, which is pissing off the hardcore Horus loyalists. Most of them end up getting killed by Sigismund anyway, though.
** Erda dies. Maybe. Erebus turns out to have disguised himself as a random Word Bearer in order to reach Terra and track her down, and after he introduces himself he tells her that her scattering of the primarchs was such a nice gift to the Chaos Pantheon that they themselves sing her praises in gratitude. He offers to help her achieve apotheosis and become a queen of the warp as a reward. Erda sneers at him and tells him that he's being manipulated by the cast-off thoughts and unconscious desires of humanity; more or less confirming that she knows many of the same truths about Chaos as the Emperor does, but unlike Big-E, she perhaps underestimates the danger they pose. That might also be why she tries to say it's not her fault some of the primarchs were corrupted and fell to Chaos, deflecting the blame onto the primarchs themselves, Big-E, society (that's actually barely an exaggeration), and basically everyone but herself. Erebus eventually gets sick of her obfuscation and summons four greater daemons to kill her. However, Erda's able to defeat them pretty comprehensively, with Erebus assuming they've been banished, but the book suggesting that they've been permakilled. Regardless of which however, the fight leaves her drained enough that Erebus is able to hit her with a psychic attack that overwhelms her with the true consequences of what she did. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, but does so offscreen. As he's leaving, however, he wonders if she let him kill her, and if so, why.
*'''''Echoes of Eternity''''': ADB's contribution. [[Meme|We're in the endgame now]]: the Palace defenses have completely collapsed, the Khan is down for the count, Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, the surviving loyalist troops have been driven back into the Sanctum Imperialis, and Guilliman and the Lion still haven't arrived. Angron is leading the World Eaters and Sons of Horus toward victory as Sanguinius rallies his troops for a last stand at the Eternity Gate. Will almost certainly have Sanguinius' rematch with Ka'Bandha as the big climactic fight.
*'''''Sons of the Selenar''''': The first novella in the series. Flashback to the compliance of the Selenar gene cults on the moon, the high supreme matriarch tells a grumpy gene witch to take their best gene tech and hide it from the Emperor while she starts a date/mind purge to wipe out all knowledge of the tech from existence before she surrenders to the soon-to-be Luna Wolves. Flash forward to the crew of the ''Sisypheum'' returning to Terra, SOMEHOW getting all the way to Luna through a lot of luck and bad traitor captains. They pick up a distress signal from Ta'lab Vita-37 saying that the Sons of Horus are breaking through the defenses she has built around the Magna Mater - a silver case containing all the genetic knowledge used to make the first Space Marines. They manage to meet up with Vita-37 and make their way to the center of a moon volcano just in time to snatch it from some tech-priests. Some explosions happen and we get to see Tarsa the Salamander Apothecary walk through radioactive lava while hallucinating that Vulkan lives and dying as he hands the case to Ignatius Numen who also waded in. He dies too because [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film) radioactive lava], but the case gets out of the lava. Justaerin Terminators chase them through the gene labs, and Vita-37 unleashes a bunch of hideous gene-monsters on the Terminators before dying. One spooks them cause it has the face of Horus, but the Terminators finally form up and continue the chase. The last two Iron Hands hand off the Mater to Sharrowkyn and tell him to run like hell while they slow down the Terminator squad, with predictable results. Sharrowkyn gets rescued by the other two Iron Hands in a Storm Eagle, and they make it back to the ''Sisypheum'', while Thamatica uses a Selenar combat AI to destroy a fighter chasing them before it turns back on him and eats his brains. Magnus makes an appearance and saves the ''Sisypheum'' for some reason, then leaves. Wayland drops off Sharrowkyn on an abandoned refueling station before flying away to distract the traitors. Sharrowkyn finally dies with Garuda the mechanical eagle watching him, under the name of the station "Sangprimus Portum", strongly implying that the Magna Mater is the relic that will be given to Archmagos Cawl to create the [[Primaris Space Marines]].
* '''''Fury of Magnus''''': The second novella, which focuses on Magnus's attempt to reclaim the shard of his soul that he believes is housed inside the Palace. Alivia Sureka agrees to come with Malcador in exchange for protection for her adopted family, and he takes her down trans-dimensional tunnels known only to him (it's strongly implied that Valdor would fuck Malcador up for keeping these tunnels secret even from the custodians). Magnus and some of the Thousand Sons breach the Emperor's telesthetic wards, saving some civilians along the way, and storm the Hall of Leng deep beneath the Palace. They're met by Malcador and Alivia, and Magnus demands to know where the last shard of his soul is. Malcador admits that it's already gone, having been fused into Revuel Arvida to produce Janus, so Magnus throws a psychic tantrum that permakills the Sigillite. One of the Thousand Sons kills Alivia for some reason, so Magnus explodes his head for disobeying his orders not to kill anyone. He and his Astartes make it all the way to the Golden Throne, only to find out that the Emperor let them through because he wanted to offer Magnus a shot at redemption. He explains that, though Magnus has been wounded and touched by Chaos, there is still a chance for him to return to the Imperial fold, at the head of [[Grey Knights|a shiny new legion of incorruptible psychic warriors]]. All he has to do is abandon the remaining Thousand Sons to their fate, as they're already too corrupted to be brought back. Vulkan, who is still guarding the Throne, pleads with Magnus to accept the deal, but Magnus decides that abandoning his legion is too dear a price to pay and tries to kill the Emperor. Vulkan proceeds to kick the ever-loving shit out of him until Magnus finally surrenders to Chaos and ascends into his daemon primarch form. He forever repudiates the Emperor before being ejected from the Palace. Alivia resurrects, finds Malcador's barbecued corpse, and surrenders her Perpetuality in order to bring him back, dying permanently herself in the process.

==The Primarchs Series==
Because Black Library don't seem satisfied confusing us with all their anthologies, audio-books, and short stories, they have begun releasing a spin-off series of Horus Heresy novels centered on the Primarchs. The series don't really take place in a specific time, but generally focuses on expanding on the titular Primarch's backstory and motivations during events before the Horus Heresy (though some of them also have events occurring after it). Why Black Library lists it as part of the Horus Heresy series when that isn't always the case is beyond our comprehension. Hopefully the Horus book finally shows us his conquest of Ullanor.

===Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar===
Centers on Papa Smurf himself and his trying to deal with how the Emperor used him like a rusty hammer to smack Lorgar in the head at Monarchia. Uses a conflict against Orks squatting on human ruins as a vehicle for him and the smurfs to express their angst over the event. He eventually discovers that the original humans went extinct from literally a war of red shirts vs blue shirts. A subplot details the conflict of morality the Ultramarines legion had with their Destroyer companies, especially the [[Nemesis]] Chapter (later a second founding) who held on to their Terran roots. Guilliman didn't much like their use, but eventually saw their necessity (especially when Imperium Secundus came swinging around).

===Leman Russ: The Great Wolf===
Focuses on Leman Russ' notorious rivalry with the Lion, explaining why to this day whenever the Chapters meet they throw the gauntlet down and beat the stuffing out of one another. Notably it reveals some interesting stuff like the Lion being aware of the Space Wolves' furry issue and keeping a lid on it, also that the Lion shanked Russ in the Imperial basement in front of a fresco of the compliance where they previously fought. Establishes clearly that even with overpowered Mech suits, baseline humans will always lose to legionary soldiers.

===Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero===
Depicts the unlikely friendship between Magnus and old Pert with a joint venture between their legions to evacuate a planet that's getting torn apart by accelerated magnetic polarity shifts. Things go wrong on the planet due to totally not Chaos cult nonsense, and it does a decent job of showing Magnus' flaws, specifically his inability to leave things that have "do not fuck with this" written on them alone; something Pert tries and fails at making him understand. Crucially it's set early enough in the Crusade that the use of psychic powers by Astartes is uncommon and the Thousand Sons basically have to keep a lid on how powerful they really are. They do not succeed.

The original colonists of Morningstar survived by rounding up all the psykers into their seed ship and splitting them from their psychic powers throne room of the emperor style. However since they didn't dissipate these psychic powers, the souls of the psykers just floated around inside the ship until they joined up into a single entity. When their jailers realized what was happening, they ran and sealed the ship but the psychic gestalt had already infected their minds with a doomsday meme, resulting in the shenanigans that Magnus and Pert arrive to. The entire Morningstar government fell victim to this meme and built a continent sized machine to destroy their planet which Pert & Magnus somehow didn't notice. Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt into his book, and the surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading.

===Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia===
Probably the book in the series that did the most character building of all. This book shows Perturabo's childhood on Olympia alongside a "current" day conflict against the Hrud, the former showing why Pert is the odd genius manchild guy he is, while the latter does a great job of showing why fucking with an alien species capable of controlling time is somewhat of a stupid idea. However, the real draw of the book is that it is mainly written as an attempt to merge together the seemingly contradictory depictions of Pert we've had over the years, showing how the ruthless dick who decimates his legion for not being good enough in the Forgeworld books is the same guy who just wanted to be a builder in Angel Exterminatus. Also he may or may not have wanted to bang his adopted sister.

===Lorgar: Bearer of the Word===
Yep, the first(ish?) heretic himself gets his own obligatory messed-up childhood novel. Focuses slightly more on Kor Phaeron rather than Lorgar himself, showing him to be a manipulative dick who beat Lorgar as a child and never really bought into this whole "fatherhood" shtick or this whole concept of [[Emperor|One True God]], but allowed Lorgar his fantasies and the takeover Colchis (by "Word" or by "Mace") while Phaeron benefitted from increased power and secretly kept the faith of [[Chaos Gods]]. By the end Kor Phaeron wonders if Lorgar just let him think that he was manipulated and could have disposed of him at any time. The book does introduce a contrasting character to Kor Phaeron who actually shows Lorgar compassion growing up and was far more worthy of being named "father" but was far less useful to Lorgar's goals. The book shows that Lorgar isn't as stupid or naive as everyone thinks and does indeed realise that people have been using him for their own gains, but he only really cares about doing the work of the gods; so long as they both align he doesn't seem to care.

=== Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix ===
Fulgrim tries to conquer the newly discovered planet Byzas with only 7 men. Byzas has devolved to steam power and bolt-action bolters, but capital palace has DAOT gun defenses and anti-grav airships (think blimps without gasbags). Along the way Fulgrim encounters a brotherhood much like his own that wants to work with him; he dismisses them as a bunch of idealists. It's implied that he COULD have gotten the same results (Compliance) working with them but unfortunately that would have meant calling in backup and Fulgrim didn't want to do that. In the end Fulgrim takes the world but nearly dies from a hidden hydrogen bomb which he disarms. Several other characters such as Cyrius (who gets shanked by a squad from the brotherhood while wearing armor and has to be saved by Fulgrim) and Kasperos Telmar) later become prominent champions of chaos, while the others were blown up on Istvaan III. Also makes the first (but all too brief) direct mention of one of the Missing Primarchs, as well as the amusing spectacle of Fabius Bile in formal attire.

===Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa===
Ferrus is overseeing joint exercises between the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children when he learns about a noncompliant human empire called the Gardinaal who have just humiliated a compliance force of Ultramarines and Thousand Sons. He decides that he'll conquer them singlehandedly so as to impress the Emperor and his brothers and maybe even get appointed to that Warmaster position everyone's whispering about. He throws his weight around when he arrives and tells off the Ultramarines commander for getting his ass kicked, then learns that the Gardinaal are actually some tough mothers, with their own genetically enhanced soldier caste and a willingness to nuke their own cities if it'll kill some Imperial troops. Ferrus quits fucking around after the Gardinaal try to assassinate him under the pretense of surrender negotiations and orders his fleet to demolish their entire capital planet before personally going down to smash faces in until they finally give up. In the end, he admits to Fulgrim that he doesn't have the patience to be Warmaster, and that he'll back whoever gets the job.

Probably the highlight of the novel is that we get a look inside Ferrus' head while it's still attached to the rest of him. Ferrus is a zealot who gives no fucks about anything beyond conquering systems in the name of the Emprah and being the best there is at what he does. In his own way, he was just as obsessed with perfection as Fulgrim, which is why they got along so well. He's also got a lot of built-up resentment toward Dorn, since Dorn once called him a dumbass on the bridge of his own flagship in front of a bunch of his sons. He doesn't seem to like Guilliman very much either at this point, probably because the G-man encouraged restraint when dealing with noncompliant planets and Ferrus just wanted to smash everything and let someone else pick up the pieces.

===Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris===
Basically a recap of some of the White Scars' more important pre-Heresy campaigns, including conquering the Nephilim homeworld and killing a shitload of Orks on a planet made of psychically resonant crystals. The main thing the book does is confirm that Jaghatai was always meant to be a wild card. More importantly, it shows that while he didn't really agree with the Emperor about anything, especially the Imperial Truth, he was still willing to serve the Imperium in his own way (read: killing xenos on the edges of the galaxy while everyone else built an empire behind him). Also shows the Khan trying to plan ahead for the [[Council of Nikaea|inevitable showdown]] between pro and anti-psyker factions in the Imperium, and how the warrior lodges were first introduced to the Scars. On a side note, we learn that the V Legion's original name was the Star Hunters, and that they relied heavily on armor and mechanized infantry before the Khan and his Chogorian posse taught them to love jetbikes and going ''real'' fast. Oh, and they became known as the White Scars because of a mistranslation, not unlike the Vlka Fenryka/Space Wolves.

===Vulkan: Lord of Drakes===
Vulkan is united with the Terran members of his legion while they're on campaign against a fuckhueg WAAAGH! on a volcanic death world. The main takeaway from the book is that the XVIII Legion were stubborn badasses ready to lay down their lives for civilians right from the start of the Crusade. Without Vulkan around though, they kept throwing themselves into desperate last stands, to the point that other Imperial forces were starting to call them suicidal. Some of the Nocturnean legionaries even suggest that the Emperor kept Vulkan away from the legion for so long because he was waiting for all the Terrans to get themselves killed, but Vulkan dismisses that idea out of hand and nothing comes of it. There's also a pretty nifty sequence where Vulkan and a bunch of his sons surf a modified Termite assault drill into an attack moon and blow it up from the inside.

===Corax: Lord of Shadows===
Corax and the Raven Guard are sent to bring the Carinae system into compliance. The system is basically a thousand floating space station hive cities, all independent of each other with a thousand different governments, orbiting a star. Typically they hate each other's guts but are able to come together and combine firepower to a devastating effect when an Imperial compliance fleet gives them a common enemy. The leaders aren't keen on handing over all their power to the emperor. He initially tries to use stealth and surgical strikes to get them to surrender peacefully with minimal casualties, but a real Imperium hater forms a coalition and death stars the first city to surrender. When Corax targets him for surgical elimination, he releases a zombie virus on the whole station and escapes via a stealth shuttle to a hidden station masked by the sun's emissions. A pissed-off Corax orders his legion to hunt the dude down and disable the station engines, letting him broadcast his 5 stages of grief to the whole system while he descends into the Sun. This also comes at the cost of dragging out the compliance and thousands of unnecessary casualties since the remaining orbitals are able to consolidate their strategic/tactical positions and form actual armies. There is also a subplot about Corax’s home planets of Kiavahr and Deliverance which shows that Imperial compliance didn’t actually make things all that much better for the people living there; the Kiavahr tech-guilds and the Mechanicum can barely tolerate each other and people from Deliverance are still routinely discriminated against to the point where some of them have turned to terrorism to express their displeasure. Corax himself admits that he didn't have time to fix everything before leaving but pledges that he'll come back and set Kiavahr to rights once the Crusade is over. Doesn't stop him from executing one of his best friends in the rebellion for being uppity.

The book shows us that Corax was an idealist who believed in the principles of the Great Crusade and genuinely didn’t understand why people would reject the Imperium. It’s shown that while he was a proponent of treating normal humans as equals, he could still be astoundingly arrogant when dealing with them since he was a genetically-engineered transhuman demigod and all. He is also shown to be constantly grappling with his need to deliver justice at any cost, aware that he might turn into another Konrad Curze if he’s not careful. We also get a look at what the Sable Brand is like through the eyes of an afflicted Raven Guard legionary; basically, it's a watered down version of the Black Rage that causes them to hallucinate and become suicidal, which some of them deal with by joining the [[Moritat]].

===Sons of The Emperor===
A collection of short stories showcasing the contrast between the Primarchs and the rest of mankind, getting down to how they really perceive themselves and how humanity sees them.
:'''The Passing of Angels:''' Sanguinius leads a Destroyer host to completely obliterate an abominable culture. He has his men adopt anonymity so they do not need to shoulder the burdens of what they do, but argues that since he was designed for dark deeds he cannot set aside what he is. Primarchs might be angels, "but angels were not created for kindness".
:'''Mercy of the Dragon:''' Recounts a conversation between Vulkan and the Emperor that shows us how Vulkan was always intended to be the "most human" of the Primarchs, and to be able to teach his brothers how to be more like him. Possibly hinting towards a plan after the Great Crusade that involved the Primarchs settling down into civilian life.
:'''The Abyssal Edge:''' Shows a conflict between Curze and Magnus that was kept confidential, because the rest of the Imperium were not allowed to see the Primarchs in disagreement with each other. Crucially shows a side of Curze that ISN'T a terrorizing murder junkie edgelord. Sevatar leaves the choice up to the investigating officer, and it's implied the officer chooses to hush up the report. Also the first chronological appearance of Khayon from the Black Legion series as well as Sevatar back on his finest snarking form.
:'''Shadows of the Past:''' Set some point after the Horus Heresy, a "daemon" starts killing its way through some Word Bearers. Turns out Corax has ascended into a creature made of pure darkness and gets into a duel with Daemon-Lorgar. Corax wins, but the Word Bearers act as a mass human shield to allow Lorgar a chance to escape. Shaken from the fight, Lorgar heads to his room and slams the door behind him for a few millennia.
:'''The Emperor's Architect:''' A biography of Perturabo showing what he was doing before awoke halfway up a mountain, then later. Hints that Perturabo's projected image was carefully stage-managed, and ''oh'' how he hated to be upstaged. He had a sculpt-off with a prodigy artist, and just like Fulgrim he made a perfect statue. But the artist worked for a decade to make a cool statue of some hero that showed a different facet of his life/personality from the angle you were standing, and practically everybody who saw them side by side said that was better than Pert's 3D-printed like replica. Pert slapped the statue and never spoke about it again. He was destroying [[Rogal Dorn|artwork that embarrassed him]] long before he was discovered by the Emperor.
:'''Prince of Blood:''' After Angron gets Daemon-Prince'd by Lorgar, he goes mad and gets locked up in the bowels of his flagship, causing all sorts of disgusting changes to take place. Kharn goes to talk to him and finds that Angron has been stripped of his sense of self, completely lost to Khorne. Angron warns them against his form of slavery, though it appears that Kharn and the others followed him down the same path simply because he was their father, but there is also a promise that they will [[Blam|"thank"]] Lorgar for what he did to them.
:'''The Ancient Awaits:''' Long after the Heresy is over, Magnus sends a Thousand Sons squad to an abandoned planet to find a repeating broadcast that says only "the Ancient awaits". In a deep underground hangar they find an ancient Dreadnought and realize that the planet is Istvaan III, and that the Dreadnought is [[Ancient Rylanor]] of the Emperor's Children, who's been sitting there ever since Horus Exterminatus'd the planet millennia ago. Fulgrim appears to try and seduce Rylanor into joining up with the endless party machine that is the III Legion, and Rylanor goes "Surprise Motherfucker" and detonates a virus bomb he was sitting on. The Thousand Sons feel sympathetic to how honorable Rylanor is (despite being a bit cuckoo from sitting on his ass) and let him do it. Fulgrim's ego is wounded from seeing that even after several millennia Rylanor rejected all the pleasures he had to offer. [https://youtu.be/X2Hb4bngxJ8 A story forever immortalized in song form].
:'''Misbegotten:''' The Sons of Horus take over most of a system without having to fight, but have to deal with one holdout planet defended by Frankenstein-like creatures spliced together from multiple human donors. Their creator (Basilio Fo) is a five thousand year old bioengineer who encountered the Emperor at some point on Terra and then got the fuck out before the Great Crusade kicked off. He sends a big ball of human hands to surprise strike Horus in his command post, but Horus naturally defeats it messily. For all his own abominations, Fo admits that he sees the Primarchs as representing something far worse than even what he could have created. The epilogue shows him laughing his ass off in his cell on Terra when the Siege starts because he's kind of been proven right.

===Angron: Slave of Nuceria===
Covers the events leading to the World Eaters' adoption of the Butcher's Nails and the Ghenna massacre. Ever since taking command of the Legion, Angron has been ordering them to complete every planetary conquest they undertake in thirty-one hours, this being the length of a single day on Nuceria. When and if they fail, he has them kill one in every ten Astartes; the same thing Perturabo did when he took command of the Iron Warriors. This has happened so many times that the World Eaters are starting to suffer some serious daddy issues, and the only way for them to earn his approval is to accept the Butcher's Nails. Unfortunately for them, the implants keep failing, sometimes explosively so, until they're sent to bring a rebellious Imperial world back into compliance and find that it's been turned into a planet full of androids who were created with some of the same tech used in the Nails; with this, one of the Legion's Apothecaries is able to create a stable version of the Nails. Kharn is the first to successfully undergo the procedure, and the Nails make him [[Rip and Tear|RAGE]] so hard the book literally blacks out for a couple of pages. Angron orders the entire legion to be implanted, which triggers a brief spate of infighting between the World Eaters who want to earn Papa Angron's approval at any cost and those who think that he's a broken psychopath who needs to be taken to the Emperor for help. The one World Eater captain who still thinks the Nails are a terrible idea gets killed by Kharn in a duel and the rest of them submit to the procedure. The story ends right as Russ shows up with the entire VI Legion fleet, having decided that Angron needs a talking-to about all this nonsense. We all know how this ends, of course. There's also an epilogue where Kharn happens to ransack Ghenna 10,000 years later and comes across an embellished statue of the World Eater captain he beheaded, and has a rare moment of clear headed dispair for what he and his broken legion have become.

The book gives Angron some character development beyond "giant frothing berserker" which turns him into a pretty tragic figure. As it turns out, he didn't get the Butcher's Nails immediately after landing on Nuceria, but received them as a punishment for refusing to kill his adoptive father in the arenas. Before the Nails he was a pretty bro-tier guy who loved his fellow gladiators and used what appeared to be latent psyker powers to absorb all their nightmares so they could rest properly while he dealt with all their accumulated fear and anger. This Angron would have probably made one hell of a general for the Crusade. Then the Nails got pounded into his head and he Hulked out and killed his adoptive father, which broke him and turned him into the psychotic death machine we're all familiar with. He also has a death wish caused by the Emperor yoinking him from his last stand with the other gladiators on Nuceria and has spent the entirety of the Great Crusade looking for something tough enough to kill him.

===Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter===

Grimdark Batman finally gets his very own standalone novel! The entire thing is told in flashbacks framed by Curze talking to a statue of the Emperor he stitched together out of human flesh while waiting for M'Shen to come and kill him. Most of it involves explaining how Curze got out of the stasis coffin that Sanguinius stuffed him into at the end of ''Ruinstorm''. As it turns out he was adrift for a few decades after the end of the Heresy, until he got picked up by the crew of a sub-light freighter who planned to sell the coffin for a packet; instead Curze woke up and decided to [[rip and tear|play some tag]] [[grimdark|with the stupid humans.]] He left one of the crew alive and told him to drive the ship to Tsagualsa, mutilating the poor kid whenever he got bored. The kid had a chance to escape after dropping Curze off but followed him instead and was predictably [[grimdark|killed by the Night Lords when Curze decided he was done with him.]] Konrad also struggles under the weight of his visions throughout only for the Emperor to contact him and explain Konrad's great mistake: his visions of the future were not fixed and Curze could have chosen a different and better path if he had not been so convinced of the inevitability of fate. The Emperor also tells him two very interesting things: he does not consider any of the traitor primarchs irredeemable, and he forgives Konrad for all that he's done, just as Papa Sang had said he might. Konrad freaks out and insists he cannot be forgiven because there is no justice in that, then tears the statue down before leaving to get ready for M'Shen's imminent arrival.

Other highlights include some flashbacks to Curze's days murdering people on Nostramo, including killing a woman [[derp|who was about to commit suicide]] and Curze eating his victims [[grimdark|because he enjoyed it.]] Also Curze hated Corax, not because Corax was good, but because Corax was a better ninja than him. Oddly enough he also says he didn't hate any of his other brothers, even the ones who were dicks to him like Fulgrim or Dorn. So he really just tortured the shit out of Vulkan for shits and giggles, what a dick.

Seriously though, this summary doesn't do it much justice. It's still a pretty good book. And it's barely 200 pages, read it anyway.

===Scions of the Emperor===
A second short story collection and cocktease extraordinaire, originally a Weekender exclusive.
:'''Canticle:''' Focuses on Ferrus Manus during his early days on Medusa, fighting his way through hordes of cyborg monstrosities while he scavenges for armor, weapons, food, and equipment; battles the extreme weather; and tries to find a name for himself. He encounters a woman who tries to hold him up, but when he shows no fear of her and gives her his weapon on the grounds that she's earned it, she instead suggests he join her clan. He refuses, stating that he has something to do (namely killing Asirnoth). Amusingly, the story reveals that Primarchs can literally eat sand and metal to stay alive.
:'''The Verdict of the Scythe:''' Set during the Great Crusade. Having been yelled at by his brothers for trashing yet another planet, Mortarion tries being nice for once when bringing the world of Absyrtus into compliance. He roams the streets for a bit after the official compliance ceremony and realizes that the witch-cults which dominated Absyrtus before his arrival weren't limited to just the ruling tyrants but are completely integrated into the planet's society, so he deems the planet beyond saving, [[Exterminatus|nukes it from orbit]], and decides that being Mr. Nice Guy isn't for him (Liberating Humanity from Lifetm).
:'''A Game of Opposites:''' Set during the Heresy. An Iron Warriors warsmith tries to outthink Jaghatai Khan and loses hilariously because the Khan [[Oinkbane|is too subtle for him]]. Jaghatai easily defeats the trap the Iron Warriors tried to set, then explains to the warsmith why he lost before executing him: the warsmith may have studied the Khan's writings, but he failed to grasp their true meaning, and so he was doomed to defeat even if the Khan had not been present.
:'''Better Angels:''' Follows Jehoel, a line legionary of the Blood Angels, throughout the latter days of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Sanguinius chooses to be his patron as Jehoel commemorates the battles the legion has fought by making glass sculptures, all the while lamenting the destruction and loss wrought by the Heresy. Just before the Siege of Terra, he finally asks his father why Sanguinius chose to be his patron, and the primarch explains that he sees himself in Jehoel more than he does any of his other sons; he is the best expression of the Blood Angels' highest ideals.
:'''The Conqueror's Truth:''' A remembrancer gets herself assigned to the Night Lords so she can see some war, and Curze and Sevatar oblige her in the same way a jackass genie might grant your wish for a ton of gold by dropping it on you: they bring her to a city under assault by the Night Lords and allow her to record the civilian population being dumped en masse into its geothermal furnaces. When she declares that she will find some way to show this atrocity to the people of Terra, Curze tells her that's what he wants. He says that the citizens of the Imperium must know what kind of war is being waged in their name and that he'll use the footage to show other worlds that there are only two options for them: compliance, or death.
:'''The Sinew of War:''' A flashback to Guilliman's younger days on Macragge as he returns from putting down a tribal uprising to find Macragge City in flames and his adoptive father dead. He quickly realizes that his father's co-consul, Gallan, is responsible, and busts Gallan in front of the entire Senate. He fights down the temptation to just murder him, thus holding true to Konor's ideals. One of his bitterest enemies is so impressed that he swears allegiance to Roboute, and so does the rest of the Senate, thus setting Guilliman on the path to becoming the Lord of Macragge.
:'''The Chamber at the End of Memory:''' Also known as light touching above the clothes. Some workers fortifying a forgotten corner of the Imperial Palace in preparation for the forthcoming siege are killed by a psychic booby trap. When Rogal Dorn investigates, he discovers that they accidentally broke into the personal quarters of the Lost Primarchs, which have been heavily warded with psychic defenses forged by Malcador himself. When Malcador shows up, Dorn realizes that he can't even remember his brothers' names, and starts to tear into the Sigillite for having sealed his memories. Malcador counters by revealing that it was Dorn's idea to begin with, and further explains that he and Guilliman were able to save the II and XI Legions from being purged alongside their primarchs; they were mind-wiped and absorbed into the other Legions. He then unseals Dorn's memories long enough for him to realize that whatever his lost brothers did was so horrible that the Imperium would have long since fallen if they were still alive.
:'''First Legion:''' Also known as a gentle groping of your mental bits. Lion el'Jonson and the Dark Angels are in the midst of the [[Rangdan Xenocides]] when a mysterious legionary calling himself Alpharius turns up and requests an audience with the Primarch of the I Legion. He offers to secretly take over the war effort so that the Dark Angels may withdraw and rebuild their strength as this will improve the Lion's chances of one day being named commander of the entire Imperial war machine, which "Alpharius" believes is necessary for the Imperium to survive. The Lion rejects the offer immediately, stating that he will see the Xenocides through.

===Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First===
While the campaign for Ullanor takes place, the Emperor tasks the Lion with pacifying an irrelevant little world on the galactic fringe that had already been considered compliant. The Lion begins fortifying the world and bringing in more troops and fleets, keeping his true intentions to himself, while his senior commanders are keen to move on and earn real glory elsewhere. As it turns out, the planet was being used as a feeding world for the [[Khrave]], a race of uber-psychic xenos from before the [[Fall of the Eldar]] that can read minds, crush tanks with a gesture, and possess people in their millions from outside of a solar system. The book shows how clever and callous the Lion could be by [[Alpharius|coming up with a massively convoluted plan]] that he needed to keep secret from a race of mind readers, even going so far as to issue seemingly contradictory orders to his men to confuse the enemy as well as [[Perturabo|knowingly sacrificing millions of mortal lives]] in order to escalate the conflict and draw out the Khrave's leader in order to destroy them. This is all interspersed with some of his brief meetings with the [[Emperor]], highlighting how similar the two of them were in mindset. As the dutiful firstborn son, the Lion seemed to always know what his father desired and was the one most trusted to enact it. At one point, the Lion laments that his own contribution to the Imperium is nothing but ash and destruction, but the Emperor explains that this is the point of him and the I Legion: to do the things that even Konrad Curze and Leman Russ cannot, such as the complete erasure of opponents too troublesome to allow to exist (including obliterating all memory of them), and to do it without the need for recognition, accolades, or ceremony. The book even ends with the Lion having potentially [[Grey Knights|mind wiped his own Space Marines so that they cannot remember who they just fought.]] What the novel does best is illuminate the labyrinthine inner workings of the Dark Angels, showing why even the Alpha Legion thought they were a tough nut to crack. There are orders and cabals and subdivisions of orders and cabals threaded throughout the legion's structure, reaching across rank, station, and specialization, all of which are linked by a complex and ever-expanding web of coded heraldries, hidden symbols, and secret passphrases that only the Lion seems to fully grasp.

The book also reads like a tie-in novel to the recently released Horus Heresy 9: Crusade. It has many references to items and formations that were first introduced only months earlier such as the ''Fusil Actinaeus'', the Excindio battle-automata, Dreadwing Interemptors, Firewing Enigmatii Cabals, and the various hidden Orders of the Hekatonystika. It also disappoints because it actually shows the secret arsenals of those orders that are tantalizingly NOT represented on the tabletop, such as Fire Raptors equipped with psionic lance weapons, assault psycannons, archaeotech pistols [[Grimdark|that erase their target from memory]], and the Lion wearing a psychic dampening cloak.

===Alpharius: Head of the Hydra===
Long story short, everything we’ve been told about Alpharius is true, from a certain point of view (or maybe not). Alpharius himself (unless it was actually Omegon) lands on Terra after the primarchs were scattered. He immediately senses that [[Omegon|some part of him is missing]], but before he can ponder this too deeply the Emperor finds him and brings him back to the Palace. He's raised in total secrecy by Malcador, who explains that he will be the Emperor’s hidden blade, the son who can strike from the shadows and weave deceptions of surpassing subtlety. The Emperor further explains to him that Alpharius' job will be to preserve the Imperium at all costs, no matter what he might have to do. Alpharius interprets this to mean that he should test the Palace’s defenses, so he breaks into the Imperial Dungeon, kills a Custodian and steals his armor, and sets up a fake assassination attempt on the Emperor. Constantin Valdor stops him, but Alpharius reveals that he had already hacked into an AA battery on the other side of the Palace and could have just shot down the Emperor’s shuttle at any time, proving his point and annoying Valdor. Alpharius and his legion go on to wage war in the shadows throughout the Great Crusade, using wetwork teams, deep-cover sleeper agents, and psyops to defeat the Imperium’s enemies. The XX Legion apparently has agents seeded throughout the galaxy, even on worlds that haven’t yet been contacted by the Imperium, and uses them as appropriate to destabilize governments or cripple armies and infrastructures prior to the arrival of other Legions. Alpharius claims to have fought alongside the Dark Angels in their first deployment (as seen in Valdor’s novel), and also claims to have been present for the rediscoveries of several of his brothers, disguised as members of their legions. He and his legion are shown to be content with their role as black operatives, though also a bit bummed that they don’t get to stomp around kicking ass and gaining glory like the rest of the Astartes do.

He later unmasks his legion’s existence to the Lion during the Third Rangdan War, and the account of this meeting directly contradicts the one from ''Scions of the Emperor'', in that this time Alpharius merely offers his legion’s support to the Dark Angels, rather than suggesting that the Angels withdraw and let the XX Legion take over. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two accounts. While fighting the Rangdan behind the scenes and dealing with civil insurrections, Alpharius gets wind of a mysterious warrior who may possibly his missing twin on a world behind enemy lines. When he goes to investigate, he discovers that the world is being overrun by the [[Slaugth]], so Alpharius takes a small team in to find his brother. Most of his legionnaires die, but he finds Omegon (unless it's really Alpharius), and they sit down for a friendly chat. Omegon tells Alpharius that he fetched up on a deserted planet and stole a ship belonging to some space pirates in order to escape (unless he’s lying). They wonder if the Emperor had deliberately engineered them as twins or if they had been divided somehow by their passage through the Warp. Either way, they decide to keep the truth concealed from the rest of the Imperium, then escape the Slaugth together and start planning how to reveal Alpharius' existence to the Imperium. They decide to stage an attack on the ''Vengeful Spirit'', so Omegon sneaks onto the ship and fights his way to the bridge. Horus recognizes him immediately and is overjoyed to have found his last brother, who introduces himself to the Lupercal as Alpharius. This is followed by the last line of the novel: “This was a lie.” So does that refer to Omegon calling himself Alpharius, or does it mean that the entire story was all one big lie? Hydra Dominatus, ladies and gentlemen.

Throughout the novel, Alpharius presents himself as a surprisingly philosophical person, often ruminating on his nature and that of his brothers. He isn’t particularly impressed with any of them except for Horus and Sanguinius (but he might be lying) and he reveals that he distrusted Rogal Dorn so much that he decided to plant some sleeper agents on Terra just in case. (Of course, one of these sleeper agents was Alpharius himself, according to ''Praetorian of Dorn'', so does this mean that the Alpharius who was narrating this novel is a disguised Alpha Legionnaire?)

===Blood of the Emperor===

Oh, look, another short story anthology. Only six stories this time.

:'''Lupis Daemonis:''' Turns out Cthonia is even shittier than we were told it was, ranking as possibly even shittier than Nostramo and Barbarus combined. Horus, who goes without a name until the end of the story, is the runt of his gang in the utter shitheap that is the Cthonian underworld and is only spared from getting shanked by the other members of his gang because the gang leader realizes he isn't normal. We find out Horus was made differently from the other Primarchs in that his Primarch-level growth rate was intentionally stunted until psychically activated by the Emperor from afar, for some reason. Long story short, Horus evolves into his current form Pokémon style at the end after killing his gang leader, who was the one who gave him his name. Also apparently the Justaerin got their name from a violent gang on Cthonia who enjoyed impaling people on stakes.
:'''Skjalds:''' We learn Russ returns to Fenris every once in awhile to fuck with the locals, in this case a hunting party trying to kill a warp tainted creature who killed a whole village. Also we get confirmation that, yes, he does indeed smell like a dog.
:'''The Sixth Cult of the Denied:''' Magnus soft-exiles a member of his legion (and disbands an entire cult of the Thousand Sons) for consorting with demons in the quest for forbidden knowledge, specifically how the fuck he managed to cure his legion of the Flesh Change. Oh, the irony.
:'''The Will of the Legion:''' Dorn and the Imperial Fists happen upon an opportunistic bunch of void-dwelling bandits who attack their fleet and are a hair's breadth away from destroying every single one of them with extreme prejudice until they surrender at the very last moment. Basically a reminder that just because Dorn is a loyal good boy to the Emperor doesn't mean he isn't still a mass murderous dick at the end of the day.
:'''Council of Truth:''' Alpharius "confesses" to doing things the hard way as a means to constantly test himself and the Alpha Legion in preparation for the day that might see them standing as the Imperium's last line of defense. Basically confirms that Alpharius saw the Heresy coming a loooong way off.
:'''Terminus:''' Two Death Guard at the Siege of Terra, fresh off the events of 'The Buried Dagger', wonder if they're (gasp) the bad guys, what with their rotting flesh and awful smell and such.

===Mortarion: The Pale King===
Set to cover the Conquest of Galaspar, Mortarion's first campaign after taking command of the Death Guard.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
Not a Primarch (like Malcador), but still technically part of this series. Will cover Constantin Valdor's role in the Unification Wars, and according to previews it will hold some new insights on the Emperor's plans.

As it turns out, it doesn't really tell us anything that we didn't know already, though it does expand on a few things. The book is set near the end of the Unification Wars on Terra. The new Provost Marshal, Uwoma Kandawire, has uncovered evidence of some shady doings at Mount Ararat and confronts Constantin Valdor as to the Custodians’ role in that battle. Along the way, he tells her of the war against the warp-tainted Confederacy of Maulland Sen, where the inherent instability of the Thunder Warriors first became apparent. They weren't just genetically unstable; the influence of the Warp also caused them to go more berserk than usual, so it became evident to the Emperor that a [[Space Marines|long-term solution would be required]]. Valdor also tells Kandawire about the primarchs being scattered by the Chaos gods; the psychic backlash from the event was so strong that it wrecked a large section of the Imperial Dungeon and killed thousands of those present. Valdor himself waded in to save the stored gene-seed from being destroyed, alongside Amar Astarte, the Imperium’s best gene-wright and the namesake of the Adeptus Astartes, though everyone believed that the primarchs had been killed. The Provost Marshal concludes that the Custodes are trying to make a grab for power and leads an uprising alongside Lord Ushotan, the “primarch” of the Thunder Warriors’ Fourth Legion, who survived the purge at Ararat. Valdor confronts Kandawire and Ushotan outside the Lion’s Gate and explains himself thus: the Custodians and the Emperor are the architects of humanity’s future, and any crime can be forgiven and any virtue dismissed if it is in service to that future. Then he unleashes the fledgling [[Dark Angels|I Legion]] to destroy the insurrectionists and personally kills Ushotan in a duel. In the aftermath, he explains to Kandawire the Imperium’s ultimate aim: not just Unity on Earth, but [[Great Crusade| Unity throughout the galaxy]], a vast undertaking which will require hundreds of thousands of these new soldiers. Meanwhile, Amar Astarte has come to the conclusion that the Space Marine project will fall apart without the primarchs and has decided to destroy the stored gene-seed in order to stop them from failing like the Thunder Warriors did. She manages to blow up the gene-seed vaults underneath the Palace, but Malcador already had copies of all twenty batches moved to Luna. He then reveals to Valdor that the Emperor believes the primarchs are still alive and intends to seek them out. Valdor wonders if it wouldn't just be better to abandon them or destroy them outright, since they might be tainted by [[Chaos|whatever power]] snatched them away in the first place. Malcador's dialogue heavily implies that the Emperor actually did have some paternal affection for the primarchs at this point, as he mentions that the Emperor has started referring to them as his sons and suggests that he has a lingering attachment to them which has yet to fade. Valdor's response is equally telling: he notes that the Emperor's "human sentiments" are slowly ebbing away, and Malcador acknowledges that this is the price the Emperor was willing to pay to secure his dream of Unity.

===Luther: First of the Fallen===
A story told from the perspective of Luther starting at the time he’s found by Redloss after the events of Caliban’s destruction. Locked in a cell and tortured on and off so frequently that he barely even registers it anymore, he’s constantly forced to deal with Dark Angel Chapter Master after Dark Angel Chapter Master as the millennia go by, each one coming to him for knowledge of the past in between being frozen in stasis by the Watchers in the Dark. Each time he’s asked a question, Luther answers it in a roundabout way by telling a story from his past as a way to demonstrate some point to whichever Chapter Master happens to be listening: some get what he’s saying, and some don’t. One story gets misinterpreted so badly that the Chapter Master in question comes back afterwards and kills himself in Luther’s cell. By the time of the events of great rift with Azrael as the current chapter master, while the Rock is under siege, he finds that his cell door is open and he literally just tip-toes his way out.

===Sigismund: The Eternal Crusader===
Covers Sigismund near the end of the Great Crusade, as he talks to Solomon Voss about why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future. Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time and gets his backstory. Siggy was an orphan recruited from the slums of Terra by the Night Lords, but the initial genetic testing revealed he was more compatible with the Imperial Fists, War Hounds, Luna Wolves, and Raven Guard, in that order, so he got bumped into the VII Legion instead. He fights alongside the War Hounds and Night Lords, making him relieved he didn't wind up in either of those legions, and earned his position as First Captain by beating 200 other Templar Brethren in one-on-one duels, with his final opponent being a Contemptor Dreadnought containing the guy who coached him when he joined the Templars. He's named Dorn's personal champion after winning a duel with an Iron Hands champion over whether Dorn or Ferrus was right about the proper prosecution of a campaign. We also get to see his infamous duel with Sevatar, which lasted most of a night until Sevatar got bored and cheated to end it, and his time with the World Eaters, where he picked up his habit of chaining his sword to his arm. Most interestingly, he admits that he never wanted to be recruited for the Legions, and that if he knew then what he'd become, he'd still have said no. He ends by telling Voss that he believes there will always be war because conflict is an inescapable part of human nature; even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to deal with the war within the human spirit. We also learn a bit of Voss' backstory; he was a merchant who sold all his stuff and joined the remembrancer order after his son died in the Army and proved to have one hell of a knack for writing.

===Audiobooks===
'''The Sigillite''' Despite not being a Primarch, his short story is included in the Primarch sub-series of the Horus Heresy. It covers a discussion between Malcador and a Stormtrooper named Khalid Hassan about the nature of the Emperor's plans and whether or not Malcador agreed with everything the Emperor thought(hint: he didn't). Khalid had brought the Rosetta Stone to Malcador without fully understanding its significance, whereupon Malcador reveals that he is part of an ancient order dedicated to the preservation of humanity's knowledge and history, and whose symbol will later become the Inquisitorial =I=.

Malcador also reveals the doors to the Golden Throne and indicates the awesome battle going on behind them, foreshadowing the events of the Webway War that are covered later on in the main series.

'''Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium''' In the story Malcador visits his elderly personal astropath who is on her deathbed. The pair have a few conversations where Malcador shows surprising compassion and humanity. During the conversations there are some major revelations about Malcador and the origins of the Heresy. You should listen to it yourself as it's cheap and short (25 mins), but in case you don't care about spoilers here's some stuff: he's 6718 years old, he helped the Emperor go from being just the biggest warlord on Terra to... well, being the Emperor, and he explains who the Sigillites are and what their role in the Imperium is. After the astropath despairs about the countless billions who've died in the Heresy, he drops the mother of all bombshells: the Heresy was planned by him and the Emperor from the beginning. Just as how the Thunder Warriors served their purpose and were betrayed and wiped out, the plan was to eventually pit the Primarchs against one another and have them wipe themselves out. He says the two of them carefully maneuvered the Primarchs into specific roles and situations, as well as the Emperor showing unequal favour between them, in order to foster hostility. The ones who "couldn't be controlled" never made it to the endgame (possibility referencing the lost Primarchs). He admits though that his failure was underestimating Chaos who caused the Heresy to happen much sooner than expected, which turned it into the calamity that it is.

After she dies Malcador he admits he lied but doesn't say exactly which bit he lied about. Some people think the truth is they planned to wipe out the Primarchs and Astartes, but the Heresy was never planned and was instead a lie intended to comfort an old woman on her deathbed (by saying they have it under control, sorta). Some other people think the lie is where he tells her that the Emperor "will catch her" when she dies (hinting at an afterlife and saving her soul from Chaos). The truth is we'll probably never know as this is typical Malcador obfuscation. If there's even a shred of truth to the origins of the Heresy, though, the implications are staggering: Horus was right in turning against the Emperor even if his reasons for doing so were wrong.

'''Perturabo: Stone and Iron''' A minor story largely about showing the differences between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, so doesn't provide any major revelations for the series. The Iron Warriors are supposed to be supporting an Imperial Fist position that is currently under assault, but Perturabo holds back and uses the opportunity to instruct his officers about how the Fists prosecute their own wars.

'''Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness''' Pretty skippable, really just Curze giving his thoughts on why the Emperor made him like he did and the Night Lord definition of "compliance" during the Great Crusade. Hint: It involves flaying. Lots of it.

===Short Stories===
'''Grandfather's Gift:''' Mortarion has a lab accident and knocks himself out. He wakes up in Nurgle's Garden, wanders around for a bit, and has a nice chat with [[Ku'Gath]] the Plaguefather, whose name is misspelled [[Derp|for some reason]]. It's revealed that Nurgle has tracked down his foster father's soul and will let Mortarion capture it as a gift for joining his service. The timeline is a bit squiffy due to warp fuckery. Mortarion knows what daemons are and knows that he's fought alongside them, but doesn't recognize Ku'Gath. Ku'Gath knows Mortarion, but also says that they haven't met yet. Morty himself doesn't know where he is or what's going on at first, but eventually his memories return, and he mutates into his daemon primarch form and captures his foster father's soul.

'''A Lesson in Iron:''' Ferrus Manus chases some orks into a warp rift and stumbles across an Iron Hands ship from a few thousand years in the future. The boarding parties he sends are attacked by daemons which fuck them up, and Ferrus himself finds a dead future Iron Hand whose bionics look like a shitty hack-job to him, so he gets pissy and orders everyone to leave. When his Mechanicum adept points out that they might be able to mine the databanks for advanced technology and info on [[Drop Site Massacre|future events]], he declares that he wants no part of this future. Also reveals that Ferrus had seen enough shit on Medusa to know that the Imperial Truth was a "useful lie."

==The Tabletop Wargame==
[[Forge World]] produces a line of books and models (in line with the old [[Imperial Armour]] and [[Warhammer Forge]]) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy, with rules and models for the [[Primarchs]] (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors), named characters who were romping around back then and ancient vehicles and machines that would be one off units in 40k armies, being fielded en-mass. Originally an add on system for [[Warhammer 40,000]], it became it's own game with a rulebook after 40k moved on to [[Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition|8th edition]] making it a sort of legacy game for the older style of 40k edition and also meaning the game has become a refuge for fa/tg/uys who don't enjoy 8th/9th edition 40k. Since the game is set during the 31st millennium pretty much all the armies are more archaic versions of their 40k counter parts, with lots of rules and quirks that help differentiate the factions from their future selves, such as legion tactical squads being able to be fielded in 20 man squads representing how much bigger the legions were and [[Daemon]]s not having their gods properly identified (though still having rules for god specific daemons) and having vague unit names to represent the only basic understanding the Imperium had of them. There are no [[xenos]] armies unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask), but all the factions that are in the game are very customisable with a huge array of rules, army types and really good conversion opportunities being able to be brought to the table, especially for Mechanicum, Daemon and Militia & Cults armies. 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.

Following the passing of Alan Bligh and the re-organisation of Forge World as a studio, the fate of this wargame had been seen as a bit precarious. While there were probably more books to cover up to and likely including the Siege of Terra, it seemed increasingly likely that Daddy GeeDubs wasn't keen on letting FW continue writing for this game (or making massive monsters and tanks for the mainstream games) on top of their work on [[Necromunda]] and [[Blood Bowl]]. One only had to look at how gutted the Imperial Armour books became in recent editions to see the writing on the wall. That said, the game had itself a sizeable following, especially after 8th Edition 40K essentially threw out all the crunch fans knew and made something entirely different, predictably leading to reactionary grognards clinging to the remaining flecks of nostalgia.

The game was never fully cancelled though. Though the black books had essentially stopped after Crusade, GW did release '''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HHZone_Mortalis_Rules.pdf Zone Mortalis]''' rules, the Exemplary Battles PDFs and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 essentially announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team.

===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 [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Space Marines/Legion List‎|tactica]]), and rules for special characters and units from the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Death Guard]], [[Emperor's Children]], and [[World Eaters]] Legions, including their [[Primarch]]s (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. The book's storyline is essentially just the ''first day'' of the battle, leading up to the death of [[Ferrus Manus]].

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===
Focusses 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 includes rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]].

It also gives us a complete Mechanicum Army List: the Taghmata.

====Condensed Lists====
The ICL and LACAL were initially released as part of the limited edition run of Extermination, but were then later released separately. They are fluff-lite, codex-equivalent books that also included all of the FAQs/Errata up to their release; which unfortunately was still the end of 6th edition so some rules haven't carried over well. ''(eg. [[Lorgar]]s psychic rules.)''

The Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the Isstvan Campaign Legions contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3; their units, characters and wargear in the previous three books. Meaning you can have a cheaper alternative to buying multiple £70+, huge black tomes JUST to play the game. The ICL was continued in the Age of Darkness Legions, which collected everything to book 5, including the errata.

Later came the Mechanicum Taghamata Army List, which contained all the Mechanicum units and army lists mentioned and rearranged them to keep everything on the same page, but lacked the Questoris Knight Army. The Crusade Imperialis Army Lists contain the Solar Auxilia, Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults, and Questoris Knight Crusade army lists.

===Conquest===
Horus Heresy Volume Four is entitled 'Conquest', despite early hints from Forgeworld that it would be about the Battle of Prospero, it instead features Horus' conquest of the Imperium and the [[Skub|"Major"]] battles of this time, which is to say some battle-zones that Forgeworld made up to fill time whilst they worked on the more well known events from the in-universe history. ''(And to be fair, their response as to why Prospero was delayed was because it included four major factions, [[Adeptus Custodes|two of]] [[Sisters of Silence|which have]] NEVER been represented on the tabletop, so required more time to do them justice.)''

A large portion of the book is given over to running battles in the '''"Age of Darkness"''', which is a variant ruleset used as the default for Horus Heresy games ''(where only Troops usually score, amongst other things)'' and has rules and FOCs for Cityfight missions, rules for running ongoing campaigns, variant rules for mysterious terrain and objectives as well as including unique relics to be taken by the various army lists to add flavor to non-special characters.

It also introduces the [[Solar Auxilia]] and [[Imperial Knight|"Questoris" Knights]] (as an AdMech list) armies to play while the modellers take a break from building power armor 24/7.

===Tempest===
The fifth Horus Heresy book covered the Battle of Calth. The rules for the [[Ultramarines]] (including [[Roboute Guilliman]] himself) as well as several warp-corrupted Word Bearer units are brought in alongside a few other new miscellaneous FW releases, including the Deredeo and the new Thanatars. There's also an Imperial Militia (Read: PDF) list that's super-customizable so you can make both loyalist and traitor lists. Also, the MOTHERFUCKING [[Warlord Titan|WARLORD TITANS]] IS IN IT TOO. PREPARE YOUR WALLET.

===Retribution===
Focused on 'Shadow Wars' far from the main fronts of the Heresy, in particular the Shattered Legions - that is, the [[Iron Hands]], [[Raven Guard]], and [[Salamanders]] in their weakened state following their losses in the Drop Site Massacre. But other Legions can also be included, with special rules for the Shattered Legions, Black Shields and a list for Armies of Dark Compliance - mixed traitor Legiones/Militia lists, as well as ten new special characters. It includes Legiones Astartes rules for the White Scars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels, so that players of those legions can start playing properly; however, it does not include special units, characters, or Primarchs for those legions. It also includes Garro and the Knights Errant and additional Mechanicum units and characters, including a new Dark Magos, [[Anacharis Scoria]]. Space Wolves and Thousand Sons will still need to wait for the Prospero book (Inferno, Book 7).

===Inferno===
In <s>Set to be book 3.</s> <s>late 2016.</s> <s>early 2017 (Because FW can't keep to schedule)</s> <s>December 2016</s> February 4, 2017, comes with what many neckbeards are waiting for: THE BURNING OF PROSPERO!!! For those [[Thousand Sons]] players, start saving up so you can play your space Egyptian sorcerers in all their 30k glory. Rules for the Sisters of Silence as an allied detachment and the Adeptus Custodes as a full army list will be present as well.

Well, it's come, and... it's uninspiring to say the least, with stuff like [[What|Magnus being straight up impossible to hit if he casts invisibility, not to mention pumping out 2d6 destroyer hits at every unit within 18" if he likes]], [[Derp|Custodes captains beating out every Primarch with a rollable 3+ invulnerable save]], some Custodes wargear being straight up [[Wat|left out of the book]] and to cap it all, [[Herp|pictures of tourists in the book ('''twice''') where you'd expect miniatures to be]]. You'd think with such a long development cycle the quality assurance would have been more thorough. Didn't help that [[Alan Bligh]] was likely fairly ill in late 2016, and his death in May of 2017 means the Horus Heresy team now has a big hole in it.

===Malevolence===
After the untimely death of Alan Bligh, this will be the first book with John French behind the wheel after two years of internal re-organizing. Covers the events of Signus Prime and the Chondax Campaigns. It features [[White Scars]] and [[Blood Angels]] including rules for both Jaghatai and Sanguinius, [[Dark Angel Shoulder Pad|making the Lion the only Primarch without rules]]. Introduced as a new army is Daemons of the Ruinstorm, an army of 'unknown aberrant xenoforms' (since this was before the Imperium really understood what Daemons really were) which play quite differently to the Daemons of Fantasy/Sigmar/40K. Also included are 5 new consuls and two new squads that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

===Crusade===
Was originally to be called ''Angelus'', though it eventually was renamed to ''Crusade''. It covers the [[Thramas Crusade]] with the Dark Angels vs Night Lords, and introduces new Legion-specific units and characters for the Dark Angels, including Dreadwing units and rules for upgrading DA characters to represent any of the six Wings of the Hexagrammaton. Most importantly, the Lion finally has his rules. The Night Lords got revamped rules and some new toys, including a new VIII Legion-specific Terminator squad that [[Derp|isn't the Atramentar]]. Unfortunately leaks have confirmed that the Dark Mechanicum army list has been pushed back to the next <s>book</s> edition. Also has rules for some new Space Marine vehicles, including the Sabre strike tank and the Arquitor Bombard, plus new additions for the Solar Auxilia, Imperial militia, and Chaos cults. Finally released in September 2020, having been delayed due to Nurgle's interference. Remarkable for atrocious fluff like Dark Angel auxiliary fleets usually including [[Gloriana-class_Battleship|Glorianas]], [[Rangdan_Xenocides|"the biggest threat to the existence of Imperium"]] being reduced to 80k Marine casualties in all three campaigns spanning for two decades, Legion recruits retaining their noble status after being conscripted, and many, many more things that would give even Matt Ward a pause. This appears to be the last of the black books for the current edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

===Exemplary Battles===

As of fall 2021, GW is publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that aren't big enough for their own black book. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff", so one could plausibly argue that the PDFs are just ads for FW's overpriced upgrade packs. Still, it's a neat concept and at least they're free. These seem to be leading into the new edition of the game as announced at Adepticon 2022.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Xwccsydzg8YpDsho.pdf The Battle of Pluto: Hydra's Devastation]''''': Focuses on the Alpha Legion's invasion of Pluto, as seen in ''Praetorian of Dorn'', and provides a scenario for Imperial Fists vs Alpharius' sneaky sneks. Also has rules for the Huscarls, Dorn's elite bodyguard, which make them into Phalanx Warders on steroids.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/9eA3ZYnzr5tXbxjX.pdf The Defence of Sotha: Aegida's Lament]''''': Focuses on the Night Lords' raid on Sotha and the near-destruction of the Ultramarines Aegida Company while attempting to hold Sothopolis. The Atramentar ''finally'' get their tabletop rules and also are spotlighted in the fluff, which concludes with them [[Internet Troll|murderfucking their own commanding officer]] because he was getting too uppity for the other Night Lord officers' liking.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NUTJvW4qx8d08Fkr.pdf The Siege of Hydra Cordatus: Sundering of the Cadmean Citadel]''''': Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors brawling it out on the ruined world of Hydra Cordatus. Includes rules for the IV Legion's Dominator Cohort, Perturabo's former bodyguards who got fired and replaced with the Iron Circle after Phall. Hilariously, they are so salty about this that they have Hatred (Cybernetica Cortex) unless you take them as Pert's retinue.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fcMVfgBlCyDHmejD.pdf The Battle of Armatura]''''': World Eaters vs. Ultramarines on the war world of Armatura, as seen in ''Betrayer''. Includes rules for the XII Legion's Red Hand Destroyer squads, who can take Caedere weapons like meteor hammers and excoriator chainaxes in addition to all the usual Destroyer nastiness and ''must'' declare a charge whenever able if they're within 12" of an enemy unit at the beginning of the Assault phase.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/mouvfePNquxVdprP.pdf The Battle of Perditus: Umbral-51]''''': The Death Guard are trying to [[Ork|loot]] galaxy-wrecking archaeotech and the Dark Angels mean to stop them. Iron Hands and Mechanicum are there too, and the mission pack has rules for rampaging battle-automata trying to kill the Spess Mehreens so the techpriests can go back to worshiping their doomsday devices in peace. Includes rules for units from both sides: the Order of the Broken Claw and the Mortus Poisoners. The Broken Claw are Inner Circle Knights who get bonuses against Monstrous and Gargantuan Creatures and daemons, representing the fact that they were the I Legion's specialized Rangdan-killers during the Xenocides. The Mortus Poisoners are Destroyers who can swap their bolters for flamers with chem-munitions for free and one in every five can swap their bolt pistol for a heavy flamer with chem-munitions for 20 points ([[Derp|that's right, their '''bolt pistol''', not their bolter, blame FW editors]]), and can be taken in units of 15 for when you just want the table to burn.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/iIVebnZrYRFbaDGH.pdf The Battle of Calth: Underworld War]''''': Smurfs and Word Bearers duking it out in Zone Mortalis missions representing the underground battles fought after Calth's surface was trashed in ''Know No Fear''. Includes rules for the Ultramarines' Nemesis Destroyer squads, aka Guilliman's least favorite sons. Instead of dual bolt pistols, they get bolters with specialist ammo that gives them Assault 2 and Rending and they can take weapons usually reserved for Breacher and Support squads. Kinda weird, but makes sense given the XIII's "tactical flexibility" schtick. No jump packs, though.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/H6ygklXe9Fv2FwRe.pdf Battle For Kalium Gate]''''': Emperor's Children and White Scars get their turn, fighting over a huge void gate as the Scars try to get back to Terra in time for the big party. Has rules for new units from both sides. The III Legion gets the Sun Killers, Heavy Support squads that only use lascannons, multi-meltas, volkite culverins, and plasma cannons [[Meme|because they're elegant weapons from a more civilized time]] and can take an Aegis Defence Line without using up a Force Org slot. The White Scars get the Karaoghlanlar, or Dark Sons of Death. Aside from sounding like a Welsh person choking on something, they're jump-pack Destroyers who don't get phosphex or missile launchers and trade one bolt pistol for a chainsword, but can be taken as a retinue for a Stormseer with a jump pack. They also have a rule that lets them autofail Sweeping Advance rolls in exchange for performing a spooky ritual that forces enemy units within 6" to pass an Ld test or suffer -1 WS next turn.

==See Also==
* [[The War of The Beast]], for the next massive shit-show the Imperium was involved with.
* [[Alternate Heresy]], for a discussion of other possible outcomes of the (not necessarily Horus) Heresy.
* [[Army compatibility between Warhammer settings]]

==External Links==
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Board Games]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Wargames]]

Horus Heresy

2022-04-08T11:52:14Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Warhammer 40,000 Fluff */

[[File:zbrothers.jpg|500px|thumb|right|It was pretty much ''this''.]]
{{Topquote|1=[[Fulgrim|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me.]] [[Magnus the Red|Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.]] [[Angron|They will be of iron will and steely muscle.]] [[Perturabo|In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed.]] [[Mortarion|They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them.]] [[Alpharius|They will have tactics, strategies and machines]] [[Omegon|so that no foe can best them in battle.]] [[Konrad Curze|They are my bulwark against the Terror.]] [[Lorgar|They are the Defenders of Humanity.]] [[Horus|They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.]]|2=The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], [[Not as planned|getting exactly what he wanted.]]}}
{{Topquote|The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.|Karl Popper}}

The '''Horus Heresy''' also known as '''Horus Humbug''', '''Cosmic Scale Daddy Issues''', '''That time [[Erebus]] fucked everyone over forever''', '''Paradise Lost IN SPACE''', '''[[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Jimmy Space]] and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Decade''' and (in-universe) as '''The Great Heresy War''' is one of the single biggest clusterfuck of events in [[Warhammer 40,000]] fluff, alongside the [[Eldar]]'s creation of a new [[Slaanesh|Chaos God]] and the [[War in Heaven|rampage and fall of the]] [[C'Tan|star gods]]. Needless to say, this heresy derailed the Emperor's plan and himself, and gave the Chaos Gods their most prominent armies to carry out their will in realspace.

In the Horus Heresy, the Emperor's favorite son, [[Horus| Horus Lupercal]], formerly Warmaster of the Imperium, was corrupted by Chaos and rebelled against the Emperor, taking nine [[First Founding|Space Marine Legions]] (Including [[Luna Wolves|his own]]), their respective Primarchs, and about half 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 cut the head off the proverbial snake by killing the Emperor and winning the war.

Things went [[Not as Planned]] however, as he was eventually surrounded by loyalist forces at the height of the siege on Terra. As a final gambit, he dropped the shields of his flagship which allowed the Emperor to beam up and challenged him to a duel for the fate of humanity. Horus beat the Emperor within an inch of his life but was killed in turn after the Emperor put his foot down and obliterated Horus' soul from existence (as in it didn't go to the warp to be resurrected by daemons, it was literally erased from existence) when it finally became clear to him that Horus was beyond forgiveness. 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==
[[File:HHMap.jpg|600px|right|thumb|The Clusterfuck in motion. If this map reminds you of the Syrian Civil War, consider getting a gold star.]]
The Horus Heresy screwed with almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course) and changed the flavor of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a positive word about religion, we rape you and your family with knives" to Catholic [[Inquisition]] "if you breathe a word about the ''wrong'' religion, we rape you [[Exterminatus|or your whole planet]] 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|Burning]] [[Magnus_the_Red#Horus_Heresy|of Prospero]]
*[[Drop Site Massacre]]
*[[Battle of Calth|Battle of Calth]]
*[[Shadow Crusade]]
*[[Thramas Crusade]]
*[[Signus Campaign]]
*[[Battle of Phall]]
*[[Battle of Tallarn]]
*[[Battle of Trisolian]]
*The TitanDeath at [[Beta Garmon]]
*[[Siege of Terra]]

Following the Siege of Terra, Horus was permakilled, Konrad allowed himself to be assassinated, Ferrus Manus had already died in the Drop Site Massacare, Sanguinius was KIA, Big E was interred onto the Golden Throne, the surviving loyalist Primarchs freaked out trying to figure out what do now that daddy was in a coma, the surviving traitors fucked off into the Eye of Terror, and overall the galaxy slowly and collectively lost their minds now that their wise and all-powerful ruler was no longer around to tell them what to do.

==The Board Game==
First published in 1993 by [[Game Designer's Workshop]], it was the Emprah versus his [[Horus|evil bastard of a son]] in the scorched earth of Terra. Units include [[Titan#Warhammer_40k|titans]] and [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Spaw-]] oh shiARHGRBLLYRBGRDEWUODHGRYEB.

Ahem. As he was saying, the more recent edition (2010) was published by [[Fantasy Flight Games]]. Also a two-player [[wargame|war]] [[board game|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 [[heresy|traitor's]] flagship ''Vengeful Spirit''. Combat is less [[dice|dice-y]] and more card-y.

(Not to be confused with the lame Horus Heresy card game, whose only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway.)

==The Main Book Series==
{{Spoilers}}
For the last decade, [[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 [[Dan Abnett|the first trilogy]], The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Fear To Tread, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|Betrayer]], [[White Scars|Scars]], and the short story [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]].

Of course, like we mentioned, there's some that are... um... Well, let's just say that the worst are a [[skub|matter of much debate]]. And there a couple that are just objectively bad (Battle for the Abyss).

===Books I - X===
*'''''Horus Rising:''''' A prologue story, introducing us to the series and Garviel Loken who will grow into a very significant and popular character, the 'Jim Raynor from Starcraft' of the heresy. Black Library needed a killer opener and they succeeded, Dan Abnett handling it pretty well. An Emperor (not [[Emperor|Him]]) is killed at the beginning and some bugs are killed on a planet called Murder for no reason other than they were there. The [[Interex]] show up and ask "whadya do that for?". Negotiations with them go sour when [[Erebus]] steals the '''MURDER SWORD''' from them. It is worth noting that if the Interex had some goddamn CCTV set up in their museum of awesome and valuable weapons then the whole heresy could possibly have been avoided.
*'''''False Gods:''''' Horus falls at Davin when wounded by the '''MURDER SWORD''' and gets a crash course in the chaos gods from [[Erebus]] & [[Magnus]]. After getting shown a few "truths" that WILL HAPPEN in the future (like the Emperor being worshipped as a god and Horus being reviled and forgotten) he decides to make war on the Imperium to [[FAIL|prevent]] all this from happening. Actually a rather weak and rushed affair when it comes to detailing the Horus Heresy's origin story. Until this point, we've been exploring Horus' character in great detail for 1.5 books, but then he has a nasty fever dream, sees a few bad prophecies and boom, he wakes up as a traitorous Saturday morning cartoon villain, after which point his machinations to create the Isstvan III event and Dropsite Massacre or any other bits of the heresy go completely undetailed and left behind the scenes. The really cool shit in this book is the battle on Davin, as the Sons of Horus and the Imperial Army fights against a massive horde of chaos zombies in a foggy swamp and the wreck of a space ship.
*'''''Galaxy in Flames:''''' Isstvan III happens and the traitors send the loyalists down to the planet without reinforcements and proceed to bomb them to fuck. Things don't go to plan when [[Angron]] decides to invade, turning it into a [[Not as Planned]] drawn out conflict that the Warmaster can't really afford - Loken is presumed dead after a duel with Abaddon. While it's good to have a whole book detailing a key event in the Heresy, there isn't actually any important or interesting dialogue to read that would make you glad you didn't just read a synopsis. There's also an embarrassingly written sequence towards the end, where a large number of loyalists survive an Exterminatus event by fleeing to some magical and super convenient bunkers. They see virus bombs entering the planet's atmosphere with the naked eye and somehow have enough time to run deep enough underground to survive one of the Imperium's most effective superweapons.
*'''''Flight of the Eisenstein:''''' the other side of ''Galaxy in Flames''. Nathaniel Garro escapes and gets marooned in the warp fighting daemons, eventually gets saved (and mega-bitchslapped) by [[Rogal Dorn]], who does not take the news from Isstvan [[Rage|very well]]. The first bit of the novel is so far 'the Death Guard's novel'. There is also the very first canonical appearance of Plague Marines, Euphrati Keeler being all mystical and shit, and Malcador recruiting Garro as the first Knight-Errant.
*'''''Fulgrim:''''' A divisive entry that is either forgettable to some or pretty interesting depending on who you ask - depends how much you like the Emperor's Children. Tells the story of the III Legion from the Great Crusade all the way up to the [[Drop Site Massacre]] in one book. In short Fulgrim finds a sword, gets possessed, kills Ferrus Manus - the end. It is written by Graham McNeill though, and it has an awesome quote from Fulgrim: "My Emperor's Children. What beautiful music they make." The second plot of this book is about some human, but it is so forgettable the writer has it dropped halfway through the book. The human plot also explains where [[Lucius]] get his self-scarring habit from: a painter woman told him it will make his face perfect (ugly) again, because he wouldn't shut up about how Loken ruined his perfect beauty with a sucker punch.
*'''''Descent of Angels:''''' This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on [[Zahariel]]'s time on [[Caliban]]. It portrays [[Lion El'Jonson]] having to deal with some social awkwardness (he cannot read people at all, so he comes off as 'do what I say or die!') and having Luther to handle the small talk. Hints that the Great Crusade <s>does more harm than good</s> {{BLAM|is bringing the lost colonies of mankind together into a united future!}} Luther gets sent home with Zahariel to hustle up more Dark Angels. Another divisive book, but could definitely have used some more time with the editor. Be aware that this book was published long before GW had decided what to do with the Lion's loyalty and personality, so its descriptions of the Lion are outdated and do not match his current status.
*'''''Legion''''' introduces [[the Cabal]], the [[Perpetual]]s and [[Omegon]]. READ THIS BOOK. Or don't, as this is where those things that would eventually take over the Heresy series and according to many completely ruin it (Cabal, Perpetuals) are introduced. I still would recommend reading it since when the novel introduces these ideas they are very fresh and interesting. Don't blame ''Legion'' when the rest of the novels were what ruined it. The [[Alpha Legion]], along with the Geno Chiliad, a regiment of genetically engineered supermen-yet-not-Astartes lead by anime lolis called ''uxors'' (High Gothic for "wives") is trying to bring some Chaos cultists in <s>space Afghanistan</s>[[Nurth]] into compliance. The cultists activate planetary self-destruct blood sacrifice; as this goes down, the Alpha Legion meets with the [[Cabal]], gets a glimpse of their vision of the future ("the Alpharius gambit"), agrees to work with them, then kills off all non-legion bystanders & ships with "FOR E-MONEY"! This book is still 100% canon, but in later books GW seems to have changed their mind on the Alpha Legion so they abandoned most of the plots from this book.
*'''''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 thought it was cobbled together from [[Matt Ward|Wardian fluff]] stitched together by [[C. S. Goto]]. Reading this book, in fact, causes mind cancer, which is to say, that it does not create brain tumors, but hurts the ideas of the reader. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much (as in anything). The only thing you need to remember is [[Lorgar]] built a fuckhueg space ship and filled it with Dreadnoughts, and it failed miserably. The book's adherence to canon is an atrocity, but it does contain some decent depictions of ship-to-ship combat as a mildly redeeming quality.
*'''''Mechanicum:''''' Easily one of the best novels in the series, it explores many hidden/forbidden aspects and lore of the Mechanicum. Techpriests turn renegade after Horus tells them they can do whatever they like with technology, so they release forbidden viral scrapcodes and screw everything up. Also turns out that [[Emperor|Big E]] invented the Machine-God by sealing a C'Tan on Mars back during the Saint George era, giving everyone visions of technology. Also more subtle hints that the Emperor is a god himself as he uses divine golden light to heal machines and instant access super wikipedia. Contains a lot of Titan awesomeness and [[Imperial Knight|Knights]] badassery. And for extra Grimdark, a tech priestess discovers that the Dark Age era humans stored a backup copy of Wikipedia in the warp and <s>with a giant psyker powered terminal accesses said Wikipedia and restores all the knowledge of mankind</s> floods her forge with lava to deny the traitors access. A psyker tech savant meets up with the gaoler of the Void Dragon and takes over his fuck long shift.
*'''''Tales of Heresy:''''' short story collection, including [[The Last Church]]. Has a lot of twist endings.
** '''''Blood Games:''''' An assassin tries to kill the emperor. The Adeptus Custodes go to kill a traitor on Terra. The assassin was a Custodes probing the palace defences. The traitor was a triple agent working for Dorn. The bodyguard of the triple agent turns out to be an Sons of Horus assassin who detonates a bomb that kills the triple agent and nearly accomplishes a suicide run to destroy a bunch of reactors controlled by the triple agent.
** '''''Wolf at the Door:''''' The Space Wolves kill some Dark Eldar and are the defenders of everyone who does not defy the Emperor. When the liberated planet chooses freedom over the Emperor, the Wolves invade it, of course.
** '''''Scions of the Storm:''''' The Word Bearers destroy a human civilization that has crystal cities, crystal robots, and lots of lightning. They worshiped the Emperor, but Lorgar no longer does. This is also later a chapter of ''The First Heretic'', but they're narrated from a slightly different point of view .
** '''''The Voice:''''' A squad of Sisters of Silence investigate a Black Ship that became derelict in the Warp. Turns out [[Blank|the youngest of the squad]] in the future [[Wat|used sorcery]] to beam back her consciousness through time onto some psykers on the Black Ship. She <s>successfully warns the squad about Horus's Rebellion </s> is executed by a hard-core Sister for breaking her vow of [[Psyker|no funny stuff]].
** '''''Call of the Lion:''''' Half of the Dark Angels are dicks, the other half are not. Totally not foreshadowing.
** '''''[[The Last Church]]:''''' A story about the Emperor destroying one of the churches on Terra during the reunification era in his effort to wipe out religion. The Emperor and the priest of the church have an enlightening conversation about what the Emprah's trying to accomplish. The conversation ends up with the priest accusing the Emperor of being a hypocrite, with him decrying that he's no different from the old warlords who waged crusades and holy wars in the past to push their own agendas on other people. The Emperor reveals himself as the very god the priest was worshiping, and nearly convinces him to stand by his side while his soldiers destroy the church. Priest gets cold feet and walks back into the church while it collapses. An end-times alarm clock starts ringing in the ruins.
** '''''After Desh'ea:''''' The War Hounds meet their Primarch. Angron defeats the War Hounds. More specifically, the Emperor just beamed up Angron away from his last stand (rather than, you know, intervening with his Custodes or his fleet), leaving Angron pretty pissed. [[Kharn]] is a pretty great guy to be around, and pulls his femurs out of his lungs quickly enough to establish himself as Angron's best buddy ''after everyone above him in the War Hounds chain of command calmed Angron down as fleshy squeeze balls''.

===Books XI - XX===
*'''''Fallen Angels:''''' this sequel to Descent of Angels is actually two stories rolled into one book that never converge. The Lion heads to a strategically important forge world only to find that the magos has turned traitor, then fights a war to reclaim some Ordinatus devices only to hand them to Perturabo to gain his trust, not realising that his brother has already turned. He's really spergily awkward with people throughout. Meanwhile, [[Zahariel]] and Luther encounter a daemon cult on Caliban and get into shennanigans with [[Cypher]], setting the stage for the rise of the [[Fallen]] as they reject the Lion and the Emperor due to misplaced patriotism for Caliban and butthurt over feeling abandoned by their primarch.
*'''''A Thousand Sons:''''' Part 1 of the Battle for Prospero. Runs through the Great Crusade where Magnus discovers the webway, but his Father already knew about it. Then the Edict of Nikaea where Magnus gets all passionate about not restricting psychic powers, then to Horus's vision quest where Magnus fails to keep his brother on the right path, then does the WORST thing possible by forcing himself through the palace psychic spam filter, breaking the Golden Throne in the process. Space Wolves come knocking shortly after. Tragedy ensues and the Thousand Sons become a thousand sons all over again. Ahriman starts writing his Rubric.
*'''''Nemesis:''''' [[Malcador the Sigillite]] invents the [[Officio Assassinorum]] Execution Task Force and sends six assassins to kill Horus. They fail because Horus sent a look-a-like, but in the process slay a shapeshifting daemonic counter-assassin sent by Erebus. While it is a decent book and we learn a lot, it didn't contribute much to the overall plot. On the more [[rage|vitriolic side]], the writing is a bit underwhelming in places; highlights include calling a pariah a psyker, another pariah with a contrived possession, and Horus uttering one of the most cliche one liners out there.
*'''''The First Heretic:''''' [[Lorgar]]'s turn to get a backstory and generally considered one of the better books in the series. While you may never sympathize with them, this book really lets you understand why The Word Bearers fell to Chaos, rather then being the "CHAOTIC EVIL MONSTERS" they are portrayed in the rest of the series. Feels less rushed than ''[[Fulgrim]]''. Goes from Monarchia to a bit of soul searching in the Eye of Terror and discovers Cadia. Leads up to Istvaan V and the immediate aftermath. Significant subplots revolve around the inception of Possessed Marines, and what happens to the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] babysitters watching over the Word Bearers, and how the protagonist [[Argel Tal]] gets into a tragic bromance with the Custodes leader.
** '''''Aurelian:''''' A limited release short story until an ebook was published. The plot bounces around in between a number of moments in Lorgar's history up to the prelude of the Shadow Crusade. One narrative involves how Lorgar's brothers still treat him like shit, especially when he's the only one who sees through Fulgrim's possession, and ends with Horus sending him to fuck up Ultima Segmentum and handing him Angron's (figurative, [[/d/|not literal]]) leash. The other narrative takes place in the 40 year gap in ''The First Heretic'', where Lorgar makes a pilgrimage into the Eye of Terror with a Daemon Princess as his guide. They come to a dead Crone World where he puts a dying [[Avatar of Khaine|Avatar]] out of its misery and he's told that the Eldar panicked rather than embrace Chaos during the birth of Slaanesh, which is what caused them to nearly die out; the daemon prince(ss) tells Lorgar the same thing is happening with humanity during the Heresy, how Chaos really wants a [[A Game of Pretend|symbiotic relationship with humanity rather than to conquer it]]. In the middle of this, Khorne decides he's had enough of this talky wordy shit and sends [[An'ggrath]] to make things more exciting, and Lorgar narrowly beats him. Then Kairos Fateweaver comes and "tells" him about Calth and his relationship with Guilliman and his upcoming war with him in the most confusing as fuck discussion ever. The truth of most of the things told to Lorgar are left ambiguous, because, well, Fateweaver; but also Chaos has a lot riding on the Heresy coming to fruition for reasons left not entirely explored.
*'''''Prospero Burns:''''' Part 2 of the Battle for Prospero. A civilian archaeologist named Kasper Hawser (as typical for GW authors flexing obscuring knowledge, not very subtle given that the real Kaspar Hauser was a liar from 1820s Germany, who thrived on getting public attention and [[Derp|accidentally killed himself]] when public attention faded) hangs out with a company of the Space Wolves, where we learn a lot about their culture and attitudes. Turns out that Chaos infiltrated everything, so the outcome of Nikaea was practically rigged. The civilian himself even turns out to have been an unwitting spy for Chaos, but the Wolves knew anyway and didn't give a shit (they thought he worked for Magnus).
* '''''Age of Darkness:''''' A short story anthology.
** '''''Rules of Engagement:''''' Roboute lets one of his commanders lead in a series of wars that didn't really occur, and we get the best line ever said in regards to the [[Codex Astartes]]: despite the fact it does cover a lot, it's not meant to be followed biblically <s>which is a load of bull given that the Codex lets said commander win all the wars in the most efficient way possible while blindly following it and only failed in the last battle because he was in a war game against Girlyman</s>. (See the quote on the page on the Big Book of Astartes). The Imperium Secundus shows up, making for another bizarre plot element that ruins the series without adding anything.
** '''''Liar's Due:''''' You know those memes on how the [[Alpha Legion]] causes mass paranoia without actually involving any Astartes? Those aren't just memes. An Alpha Legion serf arrives on a agri-world and turns its allegiance to Horus just by hacking all their interplanetary communications.
** '''''Forgotten Sons:''''' A [[Salamanders|Salamander]] and a grumpy ol' [[Ultramarine]] are sent in opposition to one of Horus' iterators to convince an industrial-militant world which side to side with. They almost side with Horus before the Warmaster's agents [[Exterminatus|wreck shit]] for the lulz and to send the message that neutrality will be punished. The [[Iron Warriors]] were doing weird shit on that world for years beforehand and were probably a bigger factor than the lulz.
** '''''The Last Remembrancer:''''' Horus sent the one last remembrancer he had stored up as a gift to Dorn. Instead of in a box (or eight or some shit like that), it was the [[Dan Abnett]] of his day telling Dorn that the grimdark galaxy was grimdark. Also that the Emperor's vision of a galaxy of peace, unity, prosperity, and fluffy bunnies built up without any more grimdark attached than was strictly needed probably wasn't very likely before any shit hit any fan either way. Also, Iacton Qruze makes his first appearance since forever, but nobody gives a shit. Dorn says it's all lies and enemy propaganda before executing said remembrancer and torching all his ramblings.
** '''''Rebirth:''''' Magnus's absent fleet from the Burning of Prospero comes home and shits a brick. The last known surviving squad of Thousand Sons outside of the Planet of the Sorcerers gets beaten up and they slowly figure out it was the Space Wolves who shit on Magnus's <s>parade</s> world and is stalking them. One plot twist later, most of them are dead, the last one decides he's gonna rebuild everything, with a few scant hints that his flesh-change genetic flaw will [[Blood Ravens|shift into kleptomania]].
** '''''The Face of Treachery:''''' The tie-in and conclusion of the audiodrama featuring the Raven Guard after Istvaan and the prequel to Deliverance Lost. After getting fed up with Corax [[troll]]ing Perturabo for a bit too long, Horus sends Angron in to finish the job but Corax's cavalry arrives to troll Angron by getting the loyalists the fuck out of there. We also learn that Corax has a supersekrit psyker ability which lets him roll a natural 20 on stealth checks no matter how ridiculous it would be, and that the Alpha Legion ''once again'' can out-troll everybody when they fuck things up for the World Eaters (they let the World Eater commander think he was in command then blew his brains out when he tried to actually command). Ends with an transitory bit into ''Deliverance Lost''.
** '''''Little Horus:''''' Little Horus Aximand is struggling with the PTSD he got when he killed Loken and Torgaddon with [[Abaddon|Abby]]. Abby and Little Horus have a discussion (we mean Horus Aximand, not when Primarch Horus was sodomizing Abaddon again) about restoring the Mournival. A couple war scenes later, Little Horus learns the hard way that the White Scars are pretty badass, but his PTSD starts acting up again and he gets his face shaved off before the White Scars are driven off. Little Horus realizes the PTSD he has ultimately stems from that time he helped kill Loken and Torgaddon, and gives a diatribe about how things like "change", "mood swings", and "hallucinations" are suited to his melancholic nature, saying things like "it's perfectly natural", "I'm fine, everything's fine. Everything is perfectly, absolutely fine", and "Therapy is for the weak. I'm fine". After the Mongolian shave, he gets his face reattached and ends up looking even more like Big Horus in the deal.
** '''''The Iron Within:''''' Some pretty bro-tier loyalist Iron Warriors build a fortress hanging from a cave over an ocean of promethium in a hellhole of a world (giant cavern system & acidic atmosphere), and one of Perturabo's traitor Grand Companies come knocking to demand that they hand over the house keys. The loyalists give them a fuck-you in the form of a Dreadnought. A few melodramatic and horrific but generic war scenes later, and they get overrun (after a full year of siege thanks to the genius of a certain [[Barabas Dantioch]]), drop the fortress from the ceiling onto a Titan, and get the hell out of there by hijacking one of the Iron Warriors warships via teleportation. An Ultramarine bigwig was there to bring the loyalists home, informing them that [[Skub|Guilliman was fortifying Terra]] and he needed good siege workers to stall the traitors then to fortify Terra. While loyalist Iron Warriors were pretty cool, the story itself was pretty forgettable and left some open questions like whether the continuity errors were the result of "faulty astropathic communications" (see Outcast Dead) or if the Ultramarines were trolling the Iron Warriors to join with the Imperium Secundus; also why the Iron Warriors were determined to take a hellhole at an immense expense of people and materiel, including Titans, while they could have just said "fuck yo shit!" and left a fortress with no space or warp conveyance and arguably little strategic value in itself in the middle of nowhere alone. It mentions a few times that it looks really bad for a rebellion trying to gain initiative when a mere captain of their Legions tells their Primarch "fuck off, imma keeping this fortress & resources for the Emperor!" The message behind it being if you can't even control your own men, maybe this rebellion thing needs a rethinking, because hearing Horus can't even take this shitty outpost in the middle of nowhere might be bad press when he's going to Terra.
** '''''Savage Weapons:''''' A good story written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|ADB]]. Dark Angels are hunting down the Night Lords who are fucking with Forge Worlds, but the Night Lords are staying a step ahead of them, much to [[Rage|the Lion's frustration]]. After being advised by Horus to pass along a message, Curze asks the Lion to meet up face-to-face on Tsagualsa. When they talk, while what they say to each other is offscreen, it's implied Curze told Lion about the Fallen Angels and that Horus knew about their impending betrayal. Lion decides nobody is going to give him shit about being a rumored closet traitor, and the ensuing fight proves that Jonson is a <s>badass among primarchs</s> cheating bitch (he initiated the fight, ending the parlay, by getting in a cheap shot when he plunged his sword into Curze's heart), until Curze, ignoring a terrible wound even by Primarch standards, whoops that ass and goes to his old fallback of strangling a fucker. Their respective honor guards go at it in the meantime, showing [[Sevatar]] is a badass among Space Marines. Things end up in a draw, leaving things open for a new plotline within the Heresy, the ''Prince of Crows'' novella being the next.
*'''''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. [[derp|''Riggggghhhhtttt.'']] More importantly: shortly after the start of the Heresy an astropath has routine nervous breakdown and is returned to Terra to get [[Witch Hunters|some R&R]]. What really ends up happening is that he gets there in time for [[Magnus]]'s astral body to reach Big E to warn him of Horus' betrayal, and the fuckhueg psychic shock of course dicks with the Astropath HQ compound something mighty. In the confusion and assloads of psychic phenomena that followed, the astropath gets implanted with a message for somebody regarding the war, but his PTSD keeps him from knowing what the hell it is or who it's for. The Custodes come in and tell him ''"[[Anal Circumference|Ve haff vays of making you talk.]]"'' and hand him over to a pair of [[Inquisition|kind counselors]] who torture the poor man half to death. After a time, he gets busted out in the nick of time by some convict Space Marines from the Traitor Legions. Why they do this is explained by the Thousand Son sagely stating "Just because" to the others. They name themselves the eponymous Outcast Dead and try to get the hell off of Terra. Amusingly, none of the escapees is very happy at the prospect of the Heresy but they are all [[rage|slightly miffed]] at being treated like shit by the Custodes just because of the Legion they belong to. Other subplots revolve around a psyker congregant at a slum church near the Imperial palace; a samurai witch hunter (no, really); '''''fucking [[Thunder Warriors]]'''''. Best bits are <s>[[Rip and tear|an unarmed, unarmored World Eater ripping a Custodes' spine out through his chest]]</s> the portrayal of the Emperor playing chess in dreams, revealing that the message is about his upcoming bitchslap from Horus.
*'''''Deliverance Lost:''''' [[Corvus Corax]], having just escaped from Istvaan V, decides to go ask daddy for a handout to get his Legion back on his feet, and gets the mother of all genetech to do it, though he has to do a bit of legwork to get it. Meanwhile, a bunch of faceless Alpha Legionnaires (okay, they do have faces, they just originally belonged to some Raven Guard) infiltrated Corax's Legion at Istvaan and are doing recon and intelligence gathering waiting for [[Omegon]] to give the go-ahead to fuck shit up. Corax, meanwhile sets up new geneseed methods that bring up new recruits to battle-ready marines ''in fucking hours'' with the potential to conscript literally anybody willing to become a Space Marine. The Alphas decide this probably isn't in their interest, and sabotage the new geneseed by tainting it with ''daemon blood'', turning second- and third-batch new Raven Guard into the twisted monsters we know Corax ended up with. In one of the instances of retcon that was actually flavored with [[awesome]] and win, the mutant marines [[Grimdark|were still sapient]] but were left to fight on in the Emperor's name. After staging a mass insurrection on Deliverance's parent world with the help of some old guilders Corax ousted and the Dark Mechanicum, Omegon gets ''more'' Alphas infiltrated into the Raven Guard for the endgame: steal the genetech, kill some Raven Guard, get the fuck out before anybody knows what the fuck just happened in here. A couple cockups along the way leads to the Raven Guard getting wise and isolating out the Alphas. The end of the novel was like a swingers' party at a retirement home: everybody got screwed (even ''Horus''), nobody got what they hoped for (except for [[Omegon|the really deviant bastard]]), and all-around the reproductive material was a waste. Corax shut down his hothousing method and starts fucking with the Traitors even at reduced numbers. The book ends with Alpharius-Omegon deciding that while their plan for saving the galaxy was still good, they decide working with Xenos isn't for them.
*'''''Know No Fear:''''' The book that made the Ultramarines (of all people) cool again. The Ultras are still ignorant about Istvaan and the civil war erupting around the galaxy, and are mustering at Calth with the Word Bearers [[troll|on orders from Horus]] to go kill some Orks together as a conciliatory gesture. They're in for a surprise: the Word Bearers, while happy as hell to get revenge, are really trying to [[Eldrad|dick over]] the Ultramarines to keep them out of the Heresy if not destroy them outright. What happens next is the Word Bearers arrange some "accidents" using sorcery and good ol' fashioned treachery to fake a monumental fuckup in the shipyards that leaves the Ultramarine forces blind, deaf, and crippled. They use the confusion to say that the Ultras are ''still'' fucking them over, and take the chance to open not only a can but entire cases of whoop-ass on the Ultras. Erebus turns Calth's pole into a screaming hellscape to start up a warp storm while Kor Phaeron oversees the systematic extermination of the Ultramarines and also successfully poisons Calth's sun. Guilliman gets jettisoned into space but survives because [[Spiritual Liege]]. He then leads a counterattack on Kor Phaeron, and while Kor comes ''this close'' to getting a Primarch kill with [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|Chaos mindbullets]], in a moment of self-aggrandizement he holds back and tries to corrupt Guilliman with his own dagger-sized '''MURDER SWORD'''. Guilliman calmly tells him "The Codex Astartes <s>does</s> will not support this action" (it was really "You made an error" followed by an explanation of that error, and "but while I'm alive, I can do this") and [[Rip and Tear|rips out Kor Phaeron's main heart with an unpowered Power Fist]]. Kor Phaeron's minions run away with his carcass, allowing the Ultras to retake their space station, which in turn allows Mechanicus plot power, aided by a planet's worth of orbital defense batteries, to bring the ground war back into the Ultramarines' favor. The novel ends with Word Bearers getting the hell out of there and the Ultramarines evacuating everyone they can off of Calth and telling everybody they can't to get underground, transitioning into the Underworld War. Special features of this novel include the Ultramarines finally being portrayed as awesome, Guilliman not being a cock, [[Ollanius Pius]] being the special guest star with his very own subplot, and the Word Bearers having athame blades as special issue, one of which will [[Uriel Ventris|come back later]]. You might notice this summary is pretty spoilerific, but if you didn't know the broad strokes already, you're in the wrong place. While not exactly winning awards on the philosophical or psychological side, the book itself is a genuinely thrilling read that really knows how to keep its tension up.
*'''''The Primarchs:''''' A novella anthology. As the name suggests, it contains stories featuring Primarchs.
**'''''The Reflection Crack'd:''''' - <s>[[Lucius]] and friends anally rape [[Fulgrim]]. Yeah.</s> While questionable use of a ''pear of anguish'' is featured during a game of "Stab the Fulgrim," the real story is this: Lucius and his buddies are deep into the [[/d/|sickfuckery]] which will come to characterize their Legion, but begin to suspect that Fulgrim might have a daemon in him when he begins acting like not-Fulgrim and uses sorcery. They ambush him and try to exorcise it with pain, because torturing a Slaaneshi daemon will totally work (though they find out that a Primarch can grow back a foot and just about any other wound). Among everything else: [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] is still an arrogant dick; Lucius is still a maniacal and colossally narcissistic sick fuck; Julius Kaesoron is still an angry badass; Marius Vairosean is still a sycophantic cunt; and Eidolon was still a self-important, whiny douche, but Fulgrim throws a tantrum and cuts his head off, and there was much cheering from the readers, and that ''plus'' almost certain off-screen fapping among the Legionaries leads into ''Angel Exterminatus''.
**'''''Feat of Iron''''' - [[Ferrus Manus]]'s Legion is trying to off some Eldar on a desert world, but can't find the major Eldar strategic asset because of Spess Elf warp bullshit. A Farseer thinks he can warn Ferrus about the Heresy, and traps him in the webway or some psychic realm for a spirit quest long enough to fight a [[Fulgrim|giant purple snake]] (which is [[/d/|disturbingly appropriate imagery]] when you think about it); and Ferrus thinks it was the wyrm that he killed and gave him his metal hands, but the snake tells him that he must be mistaking it for somebody else. Ferrus kills it, and meets the Farseer who tries to tell Ferrus that he wasn't just being a dick. Ferrus, having too many experiences with Eldar being dicks, knocks some sense into the Farseer, who manages to run just fast enough to avoid getting killed. Ferrus comes back and helps his Legion fight off the Eldar kill the Webway beacon, or whatever the hell it was. In the background of all of this, the Iron Hands, having lost Ferrus, decide to [[/tg/ gets shit done|get shit done]] rather than bitch about their potentially dead father and work to complete the mission despite being weighed down by Imperial Army who are dying of dehydration and heat stroke. The Eldar figure out a way to use storm clouds that make Iron Hands bionics kill their users, and Ferrus has a bitch of an itch around his neck that he can't get rid of. [[Drop Site Massacre|I wonder if that's important]].
**'''''The Lion:''''' - Dark Angels fight daemons and reinstitute Librarians. The Lion teamkills Nemiel for reminding him about Nikaea, ruining all the buildup from the previous two <s>Dark</s> Fallen Angels Books because [[Gav Thorpe]] wanted to prove he's a big boy author who can kill his characters. Then they steal an intelligent super warp engine (instashifts the Dark Angel fleet into the warp without need for a jump point while teleporting itself and the Lion onto his flagship; Lion is capable of talking politely in front of so much power) from [[Typhus]] then set course for Macragge to sort out Guilliman.
**'''''Serpent Beneath:''''' - Alpharius Omegon plots against himself and destroys a facility built around what looks suspiciously like a Cadian Pylon (and said facility keeping the White Scars out of the war), due to [[Cake|an information leak]], and they can't have that. Except than none of the main players are Alpharius or Omegon. And Alpharius and Omegon can't decide if they're secretly working against each other or not. Also: considered to be one of the better works of the series, not only due to quality, but because of the sheer mindfuckery of the plot, keeping entirely within the rationale of the Alpha Legion without any jumps in logic or canon.

===Books XXI - XXX===
*'''''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 [[/tg/|fa/tg/uy]]s 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 [[Slaanesh]]i 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. Sanguiniuns and Co end up reaching Imperium Secundus.
*'''''Shadows of Treachery:''''' Yet another anthology. Most of the stories are tie-togethers or "in betweens", and some are very short.
**'''''The Crimson Fist''''' - A story about two parallel story lines. The first is set during the [[Battle of Phall]], a space battle between the Iron Warriors' entire fleet, and what was left over after a third of the Imperial Fists' fleet was dispatched to reinforce the loyalists going to Istvaan, got caught in a warpstorm and were run "ashore" leaving them drifting and isolated in the backwater Phall system. The Iron Warriors, having the advantage of knowing what the hell is going on and having the powers of Chaos to guide them through the storm, show up at Phall and wreck shit for some good old fashioned revenge. Despite having the superior numbers, more and bigger guns, suicidal expenditure cohorts, and the power of a raging hateboner, the Iron Warriors were losing to the Imperial Fists's superior maneuverability and [[Alexis Polux|Captain Polux's]] protagonist power. Eventually, the Fists get the order and window to withdraw to Terra, though turning tail would put their fleet at a huge disadvantage. Given the choice between blind obedience to his father or carrying on with the battle they were winning, Polux chooses the former and takes his Fists back to Terra, but ends up in the Imperium Secundus instead. This was also one of the first solid depictions of Perturabo, and clearly the worse of the two as he's shown to be nothing more than an abusive, cold-hearted Saturday morning cartoon villain with rage issues and the depth and complexity of a kiddy pool. The second story line follows [[Sigismund]] as he follows Rogal around the Imperial Palace after deciding to stay home, even though he was ordered to command the same fleet trapped at Phall, but delegated it to Polux's predecessor. The twist is that he met Euphrati Keeler, had a spiritual experience when they spoke, and felt that he would be needed more at Terra instead of as a drifting corpse permanently lost in orbit around some backwater, and so handed off the job of commanding the fleet. When he eventually opened up to Rogal about this, it got him in trouble. See, Rogal was still one of the [[Imperial Truth|stupid atheists]] at this point, so he disowned Sigismund because he thought "serving a higher purpose" was arrogant and got in the way of doing his job. This left Sigismund feeling really sad and pissed off, thus was his start of <s>darkness</s> daddy issues. [[Black Templars|Really pissed off and bad ass daddy issues.]]
**'''''The Dark King''''' - A look into the head and story of Konrad Curze during the events leading up to the Dropsite Massacre. It shows that, even if you buy that Curze was a [[Lawful Evil|murderous paladin of justice and order]] rather than just a [[Chaotic Evil|deranged serial killer]], he's pretty fucked up in the head and lives with the knowledge of his demise haunting him (which isn't that great for what little sanity he has left). It also involves him beating up Rogal Dorn, killing some Imp Fists and Emp's Children terminators <s>with his more advanced suit and built-in vox jammers</s> [[Rip and tear|with his bare fucking hands]], then blowing up Nostramo.
**'''''The Lightning Tower''''' - Basically, 20 pages of Rogal Dorn. The first 10 is him being sad about ruining the Imperial Palace as a grand piece of art by fortifying it into a coldly functional fortress. The next 10 is Rogal having an existential monologue, then a conversation with Malcador all about why he doesn't know why Horus declared war on the Emperor and is afraid to find out why in case it makes sense. Malcador ends up knowing at least a little about Chaos and somehow got his hands on a tarot deck Curze used throughout his life even up to the close of ''The Dark King''. (Don't ask how he got them. Really.) Also that (*Name Drop*) the Lightning Tower is the important card that comes up, signifying [[Siege of Terra|a destruction of fortifications]] and/or [[Imperium of Man|a change of thinking brought about by sacrifice]].
**'''''The Kaban Project''''' - Right before Istvaan, techpriest Pallas Ravachol is working on a top secret "Kaban" robot project on Mars and realizes that the project has achieved sapience, and is in fact a form of full AI. Though he genuinely befriended the Kaban machine, Ravachol complains to boss Magos Chrom that working on an AI is both highly illegal and insanely dangerous. Chrom tells Ravachol not to be such a pussy since Horus himself gave the OK, and after some deliberation has a death squad waiting to escort Ravachol off site the next morning. Ravachol, thinking there were few ways this could end well, makes a break for it and flees for Magos Malevolus's forge, hoping to get somebody with some clout to reveal that his old boss and Horus were up to something bad. On the way, he spends time running away from a latex-clad sadist babe who persistently chases after him; since she's an AdMech equivalent of a Death Cultist assassin, this is a ''much'' better idea than it sounds. When he gets to Malevolus's forge, Malevolus distracts him with a legion of shiny Mk6 suits of Marine Power Armor long enough to drop the bomb to drop that they were for Horus. The latex-clad babe catches up to them both, and the techpriest flees again, only to be puzzled why Malevolus and the assassin are letting him run. As he gets out the door, he meets the Kaban machine, <s>who realizes friendship was most important thing, the Kaban decides to side with the good guys, and the day is saved.</s> Chrom told the Kaban Machine that it and Ravachol simply can't be friends for realsies because of the rules and stuff, and taking up with Horus was a great idea. The Kaban Machine, not understanding how humans work nor '''The Power of Friendship''' didn't know any better than to agree, and kills Ravachol right on the steps of Malevolus's forge. The end. An okay story, somewhat generic feeling prose. More of a who's who of the Dark Mechanicus during ''Mechanicum'' and telling where the hell that Kaban machine from the same book came from, and how they seduced an AI into Chaos worship.
**'''''Raven's Flight''''' - A bridge between Istvaan V and ''Deliverance Lost'', also a companion story to the Raven's Flight audio drama. The story tells how Commander Marcus Valerius of the Imperial Army is stationed on Deliverance and keeps having recurring nightmares which is causing him worry about Corax. Commander Branne of the Raven Guard's garrison on Deliverance, is getting tired of how the Legion's pet human won't stop bitching about it, and decides to take Valerius out on a trip in the battle barge to Istvaan just to show him that everything is just fine. Meanwhile, Corax and a relative handful of surviving Raven Guard are fighting a guerilla war against the traitors, trying to stay one step ahead of the Iron Warriors and then the World Eaters. In between skirmishes Corax spends a few thoughtful moments feeling bad about his Legion and the state of the Imperium now that things have gone to shit.
**'''''Death of a Silversmith''''' - The title says it all. A silversmith attached to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet is tasked with making four rings for the Mournival, after that he makes tokens (for the warrior-lodge, but he doesn't know that) and then gets his windpipe crushed to make sure word doesn't get out about the tokens. The story is seen from the perspective of the silversmith who describes his life up until the point where he's lying on his own floor slowly suffocating to death. Ultimately it is kind of irrelevant, but the lore nerds or people who have been paying attention might find it interesting. At barely 20 pages long, you might as well read it anyway.
**'''''Prince of Crows''''' - A novella featuring the Thramas Crusade as viewed by First Captain [[Sevatar]] of the Night Lords. With the Night Lords's forces all but shattered by the Dark Angels, Curze in a coma and nearly dead, and the Dark Angels's fleet in pursuit, Sevatar has to knock some heads for the Night Lords to get their shit together to reorganize and rethink strategy. It's essentially about showing the fractures in the Night Lords Legion. As most stories written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]], it's pretty good.
*'''''Angel Exterminatus:''''' [[Perturabo]] just finished [[skub|fucking up (or being fucked by)]] some Fists, and [[Fulgrim]] finds him to polish off a plot hook from ''The Reflection Crack'd'' and recruit Pert for an expedition into the Eye of Terror because a renegade Eldar said he knows where to get ''the good shit'' (the eponymous Angel Exterminatus). Fulgrim wanted to make a show out of delivering exposition, and he had Pert use his skills to build a stadium and went storyteller mode; then the moment was killed when a Shattered Legion detachment composed of Iron Hands and a Raven Guard commando sniped Fulgrim (he got better). Of course, Pert took the moment to remind himself that this is why he can't have and [[Rage|won't ever have]] nice things. Thinking that Fulgrim had the scent of a powerful artifact or a superweapon, and seeing that Fulgrim was becoming the Primarch equivalent of a crack addict member of the Jersey Shore and his legion wasn't looking much better, Pert decided to play it safe by tagging along and making sure Fulgrim wouldn't break anything. On the way, a different Eldar scholar came to the Shattered Legion, telling them that Fulgrim and Pert can't be allowed to get to the Angel Exterminatus, or [[Daemon|Bad Things (Warp-registered trademark)]] will happen. Well into the journey into the Eye, the Iron Hands's resident mad scientist accidentally gives away their location, and the Emp's Children and Iron Warriors decide to throw a boarding party. After a few pages of pulse-pounding action, Pert says "fuck this" and leaves as the Iron Hands' same mad scientist overloads the engines and does a [[Battlefleet Gothic|mother of a ramming maneuver]] which kills an Emp's Children ship. (Pert was getting sick of Fulgrim's shit at this point, so he decided not to let them know, leading to the loss of the ship and thousands of casualties for Fulgrim.) When they finally get there, they find a [[Crone World]] covered in ruins and occupied spirit stones being held in orbit around a black hole. Some wraithbone constructs pop up and Pert and Fulgrim have to fight to the heart of the planet to get at the Angel Exterminatus. On the way, Pert kills their renegade Eldar because he was a lyin' bitch. When they ''finally'' get there, surprise! Daemon Primarch Fulgrim is supposed to be the Angel Exterminatus, and he betrays Pert (a bauble Fulgrim gave to Pert at the start of the book was a vitality-leeching thing), and they start the ritual which would sacrifice Pert to turn Fulgrim into a Daemon Prince. Then the Shattered Legion crashes the ceremony and assists the Iron Warriors since it's clear they weren't working with the Emp's Children anymore. Pert kills Fulgrim but it doesn't count since Fulgrim's mortal essence works just as well as sacrifice. He goes full Daemon Prince despite a generous helping of Thunder Hammer to his [[gay|pretty face]], breaks every spirit stone on the planet, and disappears with every last one of his sick fucks. The Eldar scholar helping the Shattered Legion throws a bitch fit, revealing that both scholars were Dark Eldar who had cut a deal with Fulgrim (help him become a daemon and they get assloads of spirit stones to fuck with), and he had made sure that the Shattered Legions were there to put a wedge in that deal because... reasons. The Shattered Legion gets the hell out and the Iron Warriors try to GTFO as the planet starts to fall into the black hole. The book ends with Pert, [[pretend|being a wise man]], ordering them to reverse course and fly right into that fucker. (It works out for them in the end.) Subplots include a lot of buildup for McNeil's Iron Warriors stories, the Shattered Legions' feelings on trying to unfuck an irreversibly fucked situation, and a tense story of two Imperial Fists as they try to survive Fabius's turning them into mutants (which actually had a poor payoff). Despite being overall good, it's a bit of a skub novel because the depiction of Perturabo is so different from expected; rather than being the bitter [[RAGE|Rage]] machine from every other depiction, he's a quiet [[Neckbeard|nerd who plays with toys as a hobby]] but with muscles. The ghosts of Eldar's Aspect Warriors and Wraith-Constructs inside a planet left inside the Eye of Terror, the first death of Lucius at the hands of a Mary Sue despite previous claims that he was undefeated during the Heresy and his unexplained first resurrection, and an Iron Hands legionnaire somehow being immune to sonic weapons by being deaf is canon rape on par with C.S. Goto. And worst of all, a rotating Shadowsword turret.
*'''''Betrayer:''''' Lorgar and Angron rampage over the Ultramarines' 500 worlds. Lots of references to Angron's past and his Butcher's Nails killing him slowly. Turns out one of the Ultramarine worlds was his own homeworld, so he destroys it and Lorgar makes him into a daemon prince. Also remember the ''Furious Abyss''? Lorgar has two more. Also focuses on Khârn and Argel Tal being totally bro-tier until that bitch Erebus decides to intervene and becomes a team-killing asshole. Why Erebus isn't modeled with a long mustache fit for twirling is beyond us. Best known for containing Angron's dressing-down speech toward Guilliman having it easy since birth while Angron had a pretty shit life from day one.
*'''''Mark of Calth:''''' Another set of short stories, though all focused on the [[Ultramarines]] or the [[Word Bearers]].
**'''''Shards of Erebus:''''' - We find that [[Erebus]] broke the '''MURDER SWORD''' into eight daggers/athames and shared them with his bros. Also shows how he returned to Davin to learn how to teleport with the '''MURDER SWORD''', then killing the priestess that helped him turn Horus. She somehow wins because she served Chaos before dying which pisses Erebus off.
**'''''Calth That Was''''' - The story focuses on an Ultramarine Captain and Co. and on a Word Bearers commander and his Dark Apostle. Keeps bringing up what Calth used to be like. Longer-than-the-rest-story short, Word Bearers try to Nurgle everyone, and the Ultramarines save the day in the nick of time. After all, THE GREATEST OF THE-{{BLAM}}
**'''''Dark Heart''''' - A young Word Bearer is interrogated by Kor Phaeron after he ended up killing his mentor with dark powers (turned him insta inside out). A kind of nice story that shows the <s>degradation</s> enlightenment of the Legion.
**'''''The Traveller''''' - A spacedock traffic controller survives the destruction of his star fort, and the fatal crash of his escape shuttle before ending up in a small underground arcology with other human survivors. Imperial cultists believe he is blessed, and when he starts hearing whispers and seeing unbelievers they start rounding everybody up for execution. Everybody gets slowly executed till he's the last one left. He learns he's been possessed and reveals to an Ultramarine that he was was infected by the vox from the ''Campanile''.
**'''''A Deeper Darkness''''' - An Ultramarine has a hard-on for a certain Word Bearer trolling him. Hunts down said Word Bearer into a cave system with a team of soldiers and Spess Merheens. Word Bearer trolls them by summoning a Gorgon. Ultramarine wins by tricking the Gorgon into looking at its reflection.
**'''''The Underworld War''''' - A story that has little to do with the actual Underworld War. It features a Gal Vorbak who sees the attack on Calth as a clusterfuck of fail. Has a plot-twist ending... turns out Daemons give visions of the future to potential Gal Vorbak, and said Gal Vorbak was given a vision of him not abandoning his fallen brothers on Calth. The Daemon doesn't have time for that shit so it lets him die during his transformation, much to the distress of the still fairly bro tier [[Argel Tal]] who is soothed by the honeyed words of [[Lorgar|did nothing wrong]].
**'''''Athame''''' - A narrated story of the history of a knife, though not one from the '''MURDER SWORD'''. That's about it... totally... right? Wrong. The small sacrificial knife that Ollanius found was carved on Terra for a benign ritual, stolen by an evil Perpetual who was killed by ''the Emperor'' in medieval times, found in an archeological dig by Kasper Hawser, and went on other crazy murder-adventures, all while having rudimentary sentience.
**'''''Unmarked''''' - Ollanius Pius and friends are traveling through time and space using the athame from the previous story. We learn a lot more about Oll's past, going into detail about his offhand mentions that he was one of the Argonauts and that he served in the First World War and the First Gulf War. It's based as all fuck and written by [[Dan Abnett]], so don't miss it. Also features Ol' Oll's much, much earlier encounters with the [[Emperor|big daddy E]] in flashbacks and kinda proves O.P. Diddy right in his contention against Him that faith has power it not directed [[Lorgar|in the wrong]] [[Chaos|places]] and has in fact protected Terra for fuckawatts worth of millenia, and if He hadn't have been such an aspergated edgelord about atheism, more daemons might have been conquered due to the power of 19th century English hymnody with some of the words altered to refer apparently to the very same edgy atheist. Also features a traumatized but insightful qt3.14 psyker witch.
*'''''Vulkan Lives:''''' What happened to Vulkan after the Dropsite Massacre? He got made Konrad Curze's torture bitch. Plenty of fun with dining implements and an awesome ending involving a hammer to the face. Not one of the best HH Books though is a somewhat necessary read for continuing the plot arc. Remember the Shattered Legions crew from ''Angel Exterminatus''? Now you get a new group that is far more bland and less distinct. The major problem with the story is that, while it is fun reading Curze taunting Vulkan, not much happens in it and it barely affects the stakes or the overall plot to a great degree, except we now know that Vulkan is a perpetual.
*'''''The Unremembered Empire:''''' [[Perpetual|Matt Damon]] killed Martin Luther King. This happens in the book. Also, unlike the cover and synopsis would imply, it's ''not'' about Sanguinius and Guilliman working together to build a back-up Imperium around Ultramar, which leads to the question of ''why that's on the cover?'' No one knows what it is really about, especially the book's description of itself (which describes its ''sequels''). Several things happen in the book and several unrelated subplots collide as several entities are drawn by the Pharos device to Macragge. There are implications that Guilliman's new backup Imperium is starving resources from Terra.
*'''''Scars:''''' Technically the third book of the Prospero arc. The Khan returns to the Imperium after killing Orks left over from Ullanor and can't decide what side to join. Turns his back on Leman Russ during a fight with the Alpha Legion and goes looking for his best friend Magnus, also gets into a fight with Mortarion on the way, also [[The Fallen|half his legion turns traitor]] but turns out it's no big deal.
** '''''Brotherhood of the Storm:''''' Prequel to Scars, shows the White Scars fighting Orks on Chondax.
*'''''Vengeful Spirit''''' Horus goes looking for power to make him equal to the Emperor and the Chaos Gods give it to him by sending him to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z (kinda). We learn that the Emperor gained his powers after making a pact with the Chaos Gods where they gave him a fraction of their power, then somehow managed to double-cross them in what is quite possibly the most retarded retcon ever introduced in the entire book series. (In all seriousness though, the Chaos Gods have been claiming this throughout the series. It could be the truth or one of their beautifully crafted lies.) Loken comes back. There's also the Knights of <s>Lannister</s> Molech, who fall to Slaanesh through copious amounts of Twincest. Also, if you have been ignoring the audio books, you will be a bit lost at the start of this one.
*'''''The Damnation of Pythos''''' A Lovecraftian Horror story disguised as a Horus Heresy story. Has the most grimdark ending of the series thus far, up there with Dead Men Walking. Adds just about as much to the overall series as ''Furious Abyss'' did, but is actually pretty well written (unlike "Furious Abyss"). To cut a long story short, daemons take over a world in the Pandorax system, capture a starship, and use it to start ferrying cultists from place to place. The book also has some crossover with 40k and the Pandorax Campaign.

===Books XXXI - XL===
*'''''Legacies of Betrayal''''' Another anthology, though this time it's a bit of a cheat; they just consolidated several pre-existing stories and some of the the novellas but also included print versions of audio books.
**'''Brotherhood of the Storm''' - see above
**'''Serpent''' - A really short and out-of-place story about a Davinite Priest.
**'''Hunters Moon''' - Originally an audiobook involving peasant fishermen rescuing a crashed Space Wolf who is running from the Alpha Legion after killing Alpharius. It obviously doesn't end well.
**'''Veritas Ferrum''' - A prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", about an Iron Hands starship escaping (against their better nature) from Isstvan with some survivors.
**'''Riven''' - An Iron Hand from the Crusader Host is sent by Sigismund to look for some of his brothers, scattered after Istvaan V. He finds one suspicious-looking group and discovers that they use forbidden technologies to fight traitors even after death.
**'''Strike and Fade''' - More survivors of Isstvan, though this is about Salamanders just killing time (and Night Lords) whilst they wait to be rescued.
**'''Honour to the Dead''' - An Ultramarine squad fights its way through Calth with a innocent woman and child trying their hardest to follow them to safety, while loyalist and traitor Titans punch each other's faces in the background.
**'''Butcher's Nails''' - A good one to read: Angron & Lorgar go on the Shadow Crusade and come to an understanding whilst fighting Eldar. It is also a prequel to "Betrayer".
**'''Warmaster''' - Horus considers how much of a badass he is while chatting with Ferrus Manus's skull and complains about how all the primarchs that sided with him are [[Perturabo|dickheaded]] [[Mortarion|edgelords]] or [[Konrad Curze|batshit]] [[Angron|lunatics]], while the cool guys like Sanguinius and Guilliman are still loyal to the Emprah.
**'''Kryptos''' - Somewhere in the Galactic East (either Thramas Crusade or Imperium Secundus), Nykona Sharrowkyn and company go kidnap a warp code interpreter that will let them intercept garbled enemy communications. Prequel to "Angel Exterminatus".
**'''Wolf's Claw''' - Bjorn the Fell-Handed needs a replacement arm but the Iron Priests are too busy; he happens to find a nice fancy relic one just lying around.
**'''The Divine Word''' - Marcus Valerius (army commander from Raven Guard story arc) receives some prophetic dreams and subsequently prevents an Alpha Legion diversion. It serves as his final push to join the Imperial Cult.
**'''Thief of Revelations''' - After Prospero, the Thousand Sons need something to stop all their rampant mutation, so Ahriman goes to ask why Magnus has locked himself away. He's got bigger things to worry about and is looking across time and space for key events for future [[Just as Planned]] manipulations.
**'''Lucius the Eternal Warrior''' - After his first death ''(and unexplained resurrection)'' at the hands of Nykona Sharrowkyn, Lucius has somehow abandoned the Heresy and goes to the Planet of Sorcerers to fight a duel with the bestest Thousand Son swordsman (cause he cheats and reads your mind to see what you do next) and ends up meeting Ahriman. [[wat|Uh-huh...]]
**'''The Eightfold Path''' - Kharn and the World Eaters realise that too much rip and tear is leading them [[Khorne|down a damning path]], but they're already too far gone.
**'''Guardian of Order''' - [[Cypher]] and [[Zahariel]] discover that the Ouroboros (banished in Fallen Angels) is coming back.
**'''Heart of the Conqueror''' - Angron's Navigator gets a bit uppity about being made to turn traitor, despite having been picked for the job as the angry man's chauffeur by the Emperor himself. Blams herself during mid-warp transit with not-fun results for flagship.
**'''Censure''' - Aeonid Thiel is killing time and Word Bearers in the Underworld War on Calth, writing notes about it on his armour. Said notes will eventually get written into Guilliman's draft of the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]] on the subject of killing Word Bearers (because it's that damn important to kill Word Bearers). Goes on a buddy cop adventure with an army trooper. Thiel eventually gets bored and goes back to Macragge in the end.
**'''Lone Wolf''' - Bjorn has lost all of his squad, but is now such an awesome badass that he can solo Bloodthirsters.
*'''''Deathfire''''' - "vUlKaN lIvEs" What the Salamanders have been saying since Isstvan is true: Vulkan lives! Well now he does. Basically a bunch of Salamanders take his body from Macragge to Nocturne (with some side help from didn't-ask-for-this Magnus) and throw him into Nocturne's largest volcano, and lo and behold he comes back to life, making that entire plotline pointless. Still has the fucking Fulgurite in his chest, though. TL;DR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7nzml-zZ9M
*'''''War Without End''''': Anthologies Without End.
**'''The Devine Adoratrice''' - Prequel to "Vengeful Spirit" shows that House Devine was rotten to the core long before the coming of Fulgrim.
**'''Howl of the Hearthworld''' - Space Wolves get sent to Terra to watch over Rogal Dorn so he doesn't start using psykers; it's a pointless task and everyone involved knows it. Also offers insight into the Wolves' naming conventions.
**'''Lord of the Red Sands''' - During Istvaan III, Angron indulges himself in some philosophizing about the nature of his rebellion and what is good cause while butchering his own sons. I swear, I'm telling the truth.
**'''Artefacts''' - On his way to Istvaan V, Vulkan decides that all of his artefacts should be destroyed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. His forgemaster intervenes and persuades him to keep at least some so Vulkan grants him the right to choose seven items to preserve and give him the title of Forge Father, keeper of these artefacts.
**'''Hands of the Emperor''' - Depicts one typical day of the Adeptus Custodes through eyes of their newly appointed Master of the Watch, including colossal orbital plates invading Imperial Palace and Custodes and the Imperial Fists being stubborn assholes even when facing battle with each other at the heart of the Imperium, never-ceasing Blood Games and bureaucratic and diplomatic hell wrapping all that entanglement.
**'''The Phoenician''' - A dying Morlock witnesses the final duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim.
**'''Sermon of Exodus''' - Another prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", explains the appearance of the huge cultists' fleet from Davin in orbit of Pythos. Provides rare insight on the life on Davin and origins of Chaos cults there. Also features really bizarre description of the first Davinite priest, who spent the last several thousand years in the warp.
**'''By the Lion's Command''' - Prologue to "Angels of Caliban". Corswain is tasked by the Lion to hunt Death Guard ships, but is experiencing a severe lack of manpower. After an uneven engagement with Typhon that nearly costs him his life and fleet, he decides to send Chapter Master Belath to Caliban for recruits.
**'''The Harrowing''' - Some random Alpha Legionnaires take over some random Mechanicus ship. Turns out that they are so god-mode that everyone important is their operative, so they meet no resistance at all. The end.
**'''All That Remains''' - A transport ship full of war orphans and Imperial Army soldiers with severe PTSD is lost in space during warp transit. Fear not though, because in fact they are being stolen by one of Malcador's agents for transfer to Titan and induction into the Grey Knights.
**'''Gunsight''' - The Vindicare Assassin from Nemesis is still alive and on Horus' flagship; it's about him spending years waiting for the opportune moment to get a shot, but he starts going mad while he waits. He finally gives up when Horus plucks his killshot from the air and Horus gives him a chaos rifle for his change in loyalty.
**'''Allegiance''' - Revuel Arvida spends some time on the White Scars flagship trying to understand what to do after losing all his Legion. He reflects on his time on Prospero, attends the Khan's trial for the pro-Horus plotters from "Scars", and tries to escape, but in the end he chooses to spend some more time with the Scars.
**'''Daemonology''' - After his duel with Jaghatai, Mortarion tries to interrogate a daemon, which goes as well as you'd expect. Also shows that Malcador and the Emperor planned Nikaea for almost seventy years before it took place.
**'''Black Oculus''' - A Navigator that serves the IV Legion loses his mind after Perturabo drives his ships into the black hole in the center of the Eye of Terror.
**'''Virtues of the Sons''' - Sanguinius forsees that he will not always be in charge of the Blood Angels, but worries about the Red Thirst causing havoc with his sons' futures, so gets Amit to duel Kharn and Azkaellon to duel Lucius in hopes they'll learn something. Azkaellon learns to let the rage out a bit and Amit learns a modicum of restraint.
**'''The Laurel of Defiance''' - Lucretius Corvo (later founder of the Novamarines) and his squad kill a Traitor Titan using only their wits and one meltagun.
**'''A Safe and Shadowed Place''' - [[Night Lords]] start stabbing each other in the back as soon as Curze goes missing while solo'ing Macragge. It's about a ship floating in the ruinstorm that has just discovered the [[Imperium Secundus|Pharos]] and foreshadows problems for Ultramar.
**'''Imperfect''' - Daemon-Fulgrim has been getting Fabius to clone Ferrus Manus, because the split personality thing makes him feel guilty about failing to turn his brother to Horus's side, but the clones are never quite right and go mental at each suggestion. Fabius also has his own stuff going on.
**'''Chirurgeon''' - Fabius is dying from the genetic flaw that's been killing Emperor's Children since before they found Fulgrim - or not, since he found a way to distill other Marines into drug that keeps the illness at bay.
**'''Twisted''' - Maloghurst solves some routine troubles on the ''Vengeful Spirit'' like persistent petitioners, lack of water, rogue daemons and the Davinite cult plotting to control Horus.
**'''Wolf Mother''' - Right after events of ''Vengeful Spirit'' Alivia Sureka goes searching for her daughter, who was stolen by a Slaaneshi cult that escaped from Molech, with a little help from Severian The Wolf. No, really, she is so badass that Severian doesn't even look like someone superior.
*'''''Pharos''''': Night Lords fucking up the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha. Sanguinius eventually grows some balls and starts standing up to Guilliman instead of just being a pantomime Emperor, while the Lion is nowhere to be seen as usual. Warsmith Dantioch bites it while using the Pharos to burn the Night Lords out of his fortress, but inadvertently piques the interest of the [[Tyranids]], causing them to show up 10,000 years later. Skraivok become a prime example of DAEMON SWORDS: NOT EVEN ONCE.
*'''''Eye of Terra''''': Another anthology.
**'''The Wolf of Ash and Fire''' - takes place before Ullanor. Emperor and Horus destroy one really powerful WAAAGH!!!, lead by an exceptionally huge Big Mek. Story consists almost completely of foreshadowing.
**'''Aurelian''' - see "First Heretic"
**'''Massacre''' - A young Night Lords apothecary named [[Talos_(Warhammer_40,000)|Talos]] takes part in the Istvaan V Massacre.
**'''Brotherhood of the Moon''' - After the failed coup from ''Scars'', Torghun Khan is being interrogated and explains why he chose Team Horus.
**'''Inheritor''' - [[Eliphas_The_Inheritor|Eliphas]] The Inheritor (yes, that one from the DoW series) sacrifices the population of a city on a planet Kronos (yes, again from DoW) and a company of Ultramarines to have a nice little chat with Lorgar.
**'''Vorax''' - An unlucky Dark Mechanicum priest falls to a loyalist ambush and subsequently being killed by Vorax-class battle servitor. Really short and forgettable story.
**'''Ironfire''' - Turns out that Idriss Krendl (that arrogant warsmith who had a stronghold dropped on his head by Dantioch) is alive! Really tough bastard, though several months under debris has affected his sanity a little. He now spends his time testing new siege tactics on the Emperor's Children world in preparation for the siege of the Imperial Palace.
**'''Red-Marked''' - Aeonid Thiel starts his band of cliche badass marines and learns about the mysterious Nightfane that threatens Macragge itself.
**'''Master of the First''' - Astelan takes part in a coup to remove Luther from command, but only to prevent it.
**'''Stratagem''' - Guilliman explains to Aeonid Thiel how important it is not to follow military books to the letter and concludes that he'll just have to write a book about it (guess [[Codex_Astartes|what book]] it is).
**'''The Long Night''' - Jago Sevatarion is chilling in Dark Angels captivity, slowly losing his mind due to his suppressed psyker powers, when some girl from the ship's astropath corps starts to talk to him from boredom. When her superiors find out, they flog her nearly to death because it was obviously forbidden. Sevatar doesn't take it lightly, flees captivity and kills the main astropath and calls it JUSTICE, because a man who skins young girls by the dozens on a daily basis simply to strike fear in a populace is definitely all about justice.
**'''Sins of the Father''' - During his emo-phase Sanguinius contemplates how his legion will fall after his death. He then decides that switching roles between Azkaellon and Amit during ritual combat will probably solve all problems.
**'''The Eagle's Talon''' - While the Battle of Tallarn rages, some Imperial Fists '''covert operatives''' try to take over a huge macro-transporter. They fail and are forced to crash the transporter onto raging battlefield below, blasting everything within 300km and causing nuclear fallout.
**'''Iron Corpses''' - One really tough and stubborn Iron Warriors Warsmith refuses to die despite the nuclear fallout from the previous story, waits for the storm to subside, finds and reanimates Warlord Titan and returns to action.
**'''The Final Compliance of Sixty-Three Fourteen''' - The Imperial governor of some backwater world recollects memories of his long service to the Imperium, while preparing himself to spit in the face of Horus's representatives when they come to demand his surrender.
**'''Herald of Sanguinius''' - Azkaellon invents the Sanguinor to free his gene-father from the burden of being the figurehead of Imperium Secundus.
*'''''The Path Of Heaven''''': Sequel to Scars. The White Scars have been fighting the traitor legions for a few years but are starting to show the strain. They finally decide to head back to Terra, but things don't go as planned. Notable for digging into the Webway storyline and the Navis Nobilite as well as featuring a resurrected and suddenly competent Eidolon. Navigators weren't going to sit around while E-money built their replacement, White Scars use a prototype webway portal to escape their last stand, and Mortarion starts using sorcery to locate Typhon.
*'''The Silent War:''' Guess What?! It's ''another'' anthology of stories that GW have already sold individually as audio-books. So value might be had for those who hadn't listened to them.
**'''The Purge''' - The story consists of two story lines. In the first of them, Sor Talgron purges one of the worlds in Ultramar during the Shadow Crusade, but gets tricked and takes a bombful of life-eater virus to the face (he survives nontheless, though). In second, he undertakes some covert actions on Terra before Istvaan V and leaves a nasty surprise for Dorn in the catacombs beneath the Imperial Palace.
**'''The Sigillite''' - see below, in section "Audio Books"
**'''Wolf Hunt''' - [[Awesome|Samurai witch hunter]] Yasu Nagasena hunts Severian the Wolf right after the events of Outcast Dead.
**'''Army of One''' - An Eversor assassin is sent out for the routine "kill everyone" mission, but finds out that his main target is not only a stereotypical Stupid Fat Decadent Planetary Governor who turned traitor, but also a jerk from his past. So he kills him.
**'''The Gates of Terra''' - Dorn and Malcador have an idea that it will be good for the defences of Terra if they use some psykers to run some chosen veterans through endless hypno-simulations of ill-fated space battles with the Vengeful Spirit within the boundaries of Sol.
**'''Ghosts Speak Not''' - Amendera Kendel, who had a crisis over her moral values after the events of The Voice and left the Silent Sisterhood, returns to Luna to recruit some of Garro's Death Guard into the Knights Errant. They then are dispatched to a mission to uncover a traitor's plot at Proxima Centauri.
**'''Templar''' - Sigismund purges an asteroid temple of Word Bearers, this being the same temple that was mentioned in The Purge (those cross-references are awesome).
**'''Distant Echoes of Old Night''' - Some Death Guard are drowning Imperial Fists' defences with bodies on some shithole moon in the middle of nowhere, but it seems they are running out of time. They launch a final assault but fail to coordinate the phosphex bombardment with the assault and actually destroy themselves with little help from a primitive trap built by the Fists. Facepalm on the house to everyone.
**'''Grey Angel''' - Loken, fresh from Istvaan III and accompanied by Iacton Qruze, is sent to Caliban to check Luther's loyalty to Terra. The mission actually fails as Loken gets caught and is interrogated by Luther himself, but Loken is rescued by the Watcher in the Dark and Lord Cypher and subsequently flees the planet.
**'''Lost Sons''' - Tylos Rubio goes to Baal to disband the Blood Angels Legion and recruit their last battle company into Malcador's Knights Errant after Sanguinius and the rest of the legion go missing after Signus. The Angels understandably don't like this news and Rubio nearly gets killed, but is saved by a message from Raldoron announcing that Sanguinius and the IX Legion are alive.
**'''Child of Night''' - it turns out that one of the Night Lord Librarians had fled his Legion and went into hiding on Terra. One of the Knight Errant finds him and recruits him for the Grey Knights.
**'''Luna Mendax''' - After his fail on Caliban, Garviel Loken shuts himself away in a forgotten garden on Luna and spends his time growing flowers and feeling sorry for himself. This is so pathetic that the spirit of the long-dead and eaten by daemons Tarik Torgaddon escapes the warp to return Loken to his senses.
**'''Patience''' - Helig Gallor from Ghosts Speak Not, now acting on his own, is searching for Garro who is too busy killing giant daemons to report to Malcador's office on time.
**'''The Watcher''' - Ison from the Knights Errant finds and saves a horrifyingly mutilated and nearly dead survivor from the Space Wolves squad that was sent to watch over Konrad Curze.
*'''''Angels of Caliban:''''' Two Dark Angels stories in one book again, though this one actually moves the plot forward. In Ultramar, the Lion captures Konrad Curze but only after discreetly nuking a whole region despite Guilliman's ban on orbital weapon use, which results in his disgrace and we find that it is Guilliman who breaks the Lion Sword. Curze reveals that there were Chaos cults on Macragge too and that Guilliman would be a traitor if he had landed a little to the left. On Caliban, the Fallen openly declare their rebellion from the Imperium and ironically steal some starships that were meant to collect them and actually bring them into the war again. [[Zahariel]] kills [[Cypher]] and takes his place.
*'''''Praetorian of Dorn''''' Alpharius tries to invade <s>Terra</s> Pluto. Dorn kills him. Yes, Alpharius is now dead. And not a fake either, but the real Alpharius. Omegon can confirm. Alpha Legions fags blew a gasket. Oh shit believe we did.
*'''''Corax''''' A compilation of all the Corax Stories plus a new one, '''Weregeld''', which manages to undo all the hard work the previous stories have done and turn Corax into a douchebag. Kills all his mutated Raven Guard because he promised to kill warp stuff. Saves Russ though.

===Books XLI - L===
*'''''The Master of Mankind''''': The Emperor is a dick: the book. We all knew this but now it's set in stone. Highlights include the Emperor stating to Arkhan Land that the Primarchs are tools and he views them with a scientific but detached fascination. He refers to them as numbers but seems content to allow the fantasy of being their "father", an interpretation of the character that was fairly divisive to say the least. He actually seems to care more for his Custodians than he does any of his other creations, but they don't consider him their father and see him as just their warlord. Drach'nyen is also revealed to be the daemon created when Cain killed Abel. In the end the Emperor closes the door on the Webway and has to spend the rest of his time sitting in the chair keeping it shut. Despite this, it does show off why the Chaos Gods fear him, as he pretty much rapes an infinite army of Daemons; the greater daemons either flee or try and fail to fight him (being destroyed in a matter of moments) whilst the lesser ones die just by looking at him. Despite this, Drach'nyen nearly kills him, and claims that it will kill the Emperor (keep in mind that the future is VERY malleable, Daemons lie, and that this was written by a man whose hate-boner for Big-E exceeds that of The Four, themselves). But how will it feast on the Emperor's tattered soul when Abaddon lacks arms to plunge it into his chest? (Abaddon never lost his arms due to the same retcon that let Eldrad live) Also known as Master of Skubkind. The Emperor reveals his grand plan of saving the human race from the Eldar fate by giving absolute control of every human to a Custodian before shanking him with Drach'nyen and making him run into the Webway. Also put all his chips into the ''Human Webway'' plan and screwed us all over without a backup. Can you tell that this is an ADB book? It also features one of the most depressing endings of the whole Heresy series as in the last scene of the book the Emperor somberly acknowledges to one of his Custodian that he fears that he has now run out of cards to play and can't yet think of a way out of the whole situation. Grimdark, indeed.
*'''''Garro''''': Compilation of all the stories about Garro and his boy band, though they insist it isn't just an anthology since the audio book stories were expanded to be more written novel friendly.
*'''''Shattered Legions''''': It's an anthology containing an anthology. I shit thee not. It shoves together the limited edition anthology Meduson with a few other shorter stories, including some Alpha Legion stuff like the Seventh Serpent.
*'''''The Crimson King''''': Magnus was broken into shards when Russ felled him. Now the Thousand Sons with the help of Lucius the Eternal must put him back together. Kairos Fateweaver makes an appearance. Ties into the Ahriman Trilogy
*'''''Tallarn''''': Does it even need to be stated? It's another fucking anthology, this time putting all the tank porn of the Tallarn books into one binding. It is worth a read if you are a fan of Imperial Guard (Army), as most of the storylines are about around mortal tank crews doing what they do best (dying).
*'''''Ruinstorm:''''' The conclusion to the Imperium Secundus plotline, as well as the follow on to Damnation of Pythos. Shows the Lion, Sanguinius and Guilliman trying to cross the Ruinstorm to reach Terra. After a brief stopover at Pandorax, they decide to head out to Davin where the Heresy began and where destinies are remade; they pass systems along the way that show what the Galaxy would look like if Chaos wins, such as a Forge World surrounded by an immense fortress wall in outer space 4000 miles thick and a sector of space filled with solid ritualised geometric shapes that are perhaps light years across. Davin itself is surrounded by a cloud of bones and wreckage millions of kilometers thick, but the planet has long since been abandoned. There Sanguinius finds out that in order to live through the Heresy he must become a monster even worse than Horus, but dying will curse his sons with the Black Rage; blood is on his hands either way. Instead, Sanguinius tries to sacrifice himself to save the day, but the [[Sanguinor]] steps in and takes his place while the fleets rain down a shitstorm and destroy the planet. In the aftermath, the Ruinstorm abates enough for them to reach Terra, but Horus has so much force that it is impossible for all three legions to reach, so Guilliman and the Lion agree to distract the Traitors long enough to give Sanguinius a window to get back and face his destiny, explaining why they never made it to the Siege since they were engaging Traitor fleets and burning their worlds.
*'''''Old Earth:''''' Set immediately after ''Deathfire'', Vulkan and three Salamander legionaries (the rest of the Salamanders weren't informed of their Primarch's resurrection) travel through the Webway by a gate hidden in a cave on Nocturne. On their path to Terra, they came across the Shattered Legions who were preparing for their first major void engagement with the Sons of Horus. Just before the attack, some Medusan-born Iron Hands tried to stage a coup against Shadrak Meduson by revealing a hideous contraption of machines and the last remnants of Ferrus Manus - ''his iron hand'' (they were under the illusion that they could resurrect their Primarch through cybernetics; it is hinted that the Mechanicum had some <s>hand</s>{{BLAM}}{{blam|that pun was so bad heresy is automatic}} in this affair). Thankfully Vulkan shatters the hand and Meduson assumes command again, though he was killed by '''Tybalt Marr''' in a boarding action after the Iron Hands refused to send reinforcements to him. In the end, it is revealed that the Emperor had Vulkan forge a weapon that, in the event Terra fell to Horus, would amplify the power of the Golden Throne into a fatal FUCK YOU nuke into the heart of the Chaos God's domains, sadly also wiping out the entire Throneworld (this is possibly also one of Vulkan's nine relics). Oh, and Eldrad rescues [[Knights-Errant|Barthusa Narek]] from Nocturne and makes him his assassin. They killed most of the Cabal, including a vaguely amphibian alien sitting on top of a jungle pyramid. Yes, Eldrad Ulthran might just be the only person alive to have killed an Old One. Finally they rescue John Grammaticus, who had his memory wiped after his failure to assassinate Vulkan. With his memory restored, Grammaticus is ordered by Eldrad to find Ollanius Pius and go to Terra.
*'''''The Burden of Loyalty:''''' In the grim darkness of the 3rd millenium, there are only anthologies.
**'''The Thirteenth Wolf:''' Old Guard Space Wolves get lost in a a series of Warp Portals during the battle of Prospero.
**'''Into Exile:''' Arkhan-the-Humble-Land basically has to have a Boltgun Shoved in his face to leave during the initial Mars Revolt.
**'''Cybernetica:''' Story full of [[awesome]] about how Carrion the Raven Guard Tech-aspirant awaiting graduation watches his fellows get slaughtered before hulking out Sith-Style. Meanwhile an Iron Warrior proves how badass they are when not under the thumb of their whiny emo excuse of a primarch by literally throwing Carrion off a tower so he's the sole target of an incoming Warlord Titan. Carrion then joins the Knights-Errants and actually makes Dorn backpedal and heads back to Mars to aid the Resistance in taking it back through use of Heretek.
*'''''Wolfsbane:''''' Leman Russ faces off against Horus, with the help of the Spear of Russ mentioned in the FUCKOLD Space Wolves novels. They're evenly matched but Russ seems to get the better of Horus when the Spear partially de-corrupts the Warmaster. Unfortunately for him, Russ tries to bring his brother back to his senses rather than strike a killing blow and is dragged away barely conscious by his men after Horus retaliates, setting the stage for the Battle of Yarant. Also a glimpse of [[Belisarius Cawl]] from back in his earlier, fleshier years.
*'''''Born of Flame:''''' ANTHOLOGIES!

===Books LI-LIV===
*'''''Slaves to Darkness''''' The traitor primarchs gather for the assault on Terra but things aren't going well. Guilliman and the Lion are giving them a helluva hard time and Horus himself is still quite literally drained from his duel with Russ. Basically how the gang gets back together for the push on Terra. The Sons of Horus start fracturing badly and Maloghurst takes it upon himself to cure Horus. In so doing, he forces a daemon to act as his guide through the Warp and finds out from this surprisingly forthcoming daemon (presumably from the Chaos God of Exposition) that even though Horus was superpowered from his Molech makeover, he'd left a part of his soul behind in the Chaos God's realms, which had come to the realization that Chaos had been using him from the beginning. The daemon also suggests that Horus was never meant to win in the first place and that for all his new power he is no match against The Emperor, but Maloghurst very loudly refuses to believe it. Maloghurst meets his end as he resurrects Horus due to infighting within the Sons of Horus, erasing the last uncorrupted part of Horus's soul in the process. Mortarion is named the vanguard of the Siege, Perturabo is sent to pick up Angron, and Lorgar gets Zardu Layak to speak Fulgrim's true name and bind him into joining in a plot to depose the Warmaster, believing that his refusal to completely submit before the Chaos Gods will lead to the Traitor Legions' ultimate defeat at Terra. This turns out to be a massive mistake that leads Lorgar to be utterly curbstomped by the revived Horus and told that he will be killed if Horus ever sees him again. Witnessing this, Zardu Layak and the Word Bearers present all swear allegiance to the Warmaster before Lorgar leaves with his tail between his legs. Layak frees Fulgrim who finds it all hilarious. Magnus makes an appearance at the end, swearing himself to Horus's service. "Alpharius" makes a token appearance to hand over Terra's defence data before disappearing without a trace and no mention of his legion at all, although Alpharius does basically mime they are done fighting for the Warmaster's ends.
*'''''Heralds of the Siege''''' You know the drill by now. Anthology. But the end is in sight.
**'''Myriad:''' Loyalist Mechanicum forces hiding underground in Mars launch guerilla attacks on targets of opportunity from below. During one raid which blows the head off of a Warlord Titan, they retrieve a Castellan automata with the Abominable Intelligence from ''Cybernetica'' and a tech menial. Putting them into quarantine the Abominable Intelligence wakes up from probing and cleanses the menial of all scrap code & corruption to display it means no ill will to the loyalists. The Tech Inquisitor leader decides it's time to go Tech Radical "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Abominable Intelligence supplies them with a complete battleplan and strategy (4.7k item checklist) for wiping out all the Dark Mechanicum on Mars and starts off with seizing & cleansing a Warlord Titan searching for their headquarters.
**'''The Grey Raven:''' A ship sent back to Terra by Corax arrives in the solar system, with the Librarian Raven Guard who opened the Emp's gene-banks for Corax, seven Custodians, and an Imperial Fists force. Presenting to a border post for inspection, the Custodian commander, upon discovering the identity of the Raven Guard, states a code word to the Custodians on ship and they all try to pull the Librarian's head off. The Fist Captain saves him and his men try to hold off the Custodians while he and the Librarian try to get off the ship. The Custodian captain corners them and slays the Fist captain. The Librarian gets angry and is about to use his psychic powers on the Custodian when he remembers his vow to Corax and surrenders to execution. Revealed to be an elaborate test by Malcador, who subsequently recruits him into the Grey Knights after apologizing for the death of the Fist captain.
**'''Valerius:''' Marcus Valerius of the Therion cohort (unaugmented troops fighting with Raven Guard) is now a big believer in the Lectitio Divinatus. He sets his forces to defend cross over points on a river where a bigger enemy force is attempting to cross. Corax had sent the Therion cohort (23k soldiers) and Valerian to die fighting against traitor marines & titans for a planet near Beta-Garmon with no escorts for their transport ships. Gives a speech about how proud all his soldiers should be for facing a suicidal mission to die for the emperor. Therions manage to take out all titans before being overrun. As the remaining marines breach his command leviathan, Valerius gives the order to detonate their reactor and leads a prayer with the remaining command crew. Another regiment of the imperial army happens across the aftermath and think that the Therions were wiped out and some other regiment managed to hold the line against the traitors. Leviathan's death took out everybody on the battlefield. Valerius stumbles out of the wreckage of the Leviathan, and proclaims his survival a miracle.
**'''The Ember Wolves:''' A Warhound titan pack attached to the World Eaters takes down a Warmonger titan on some planet. World Eater influence leads to a leadership challenge shortly after tipping over the Warmonger. Despite the pack leader putting down the leadership challenge, the downed loyalist Warmonger blows up its reactor and takes out all named characters.
**'''Blackshield:''' Khorak, a renegade member of Mortarion's [[Deathshroud]], is on the run from loyalist hunters. He and his squad escape down to the surface of a swamp planet where they are slaughtered till only he remains. He recognizes the leader of the loyalists as another Death Guard member who reveals himself to be Crysos Morturg, a survivor of Isstvan III. Khorak explains that he turned against Mortarion after Molech, when his entire squad was sacrificed by Mort for witchcraft. They both express their hatred of Mortarion, and Khorak briefly considers teaming up with Morturg but then one of his buddies proves to be not quite dead and tries to shoot Morturg, who deflects the shell with his psychic abilities. Khorak immediately tries to kill him and is gunned down. Morturg is revealed to be a mangled mess who survived Isstvan thanks solely to his psychic power and an extensive cybernetic rebuild by Calleb Decima, another Istvaan III survivor (who by the end of the battle was so mangled he resembled a spider more than a person). After Crysos ruminates on the pointlessness of Khorak's death, he decides it's time to go see the Emperor.
**'''Children of Sicarus:''' Kor Phaeron and the remainder of his party are on the run in Sicarus, a daemon planet, being constantly harassed by daemons that are whittling them down. They gain the attention of a warlord acoloyte of Tzeentch and at the same time a prophet appears to them and offers them sanctuary. The prophet leads them into a camouflaged valley where he reveals to them glyphs and Lorgar's athame that show how Kor Phaeron would arrive, slit his own throat to open a portal, and the remaining legionaries would lead the prophet's people through to join Lorgar at the Siege of Terra. Kor Phaeron kills the prophet, announcing that his fate is his own. The camouflage breaks down with the prophet's death and the warlord meets him. She offers him lordship of the planet after she ascends to daemonhood, and he accepts letting her have the prophet's people. As she is about to ascend on the spot, he sneaks up behind her and slits her throat with the athame. Shortly after Sicarus is now a worship planet with slaves laboring to create monuments of worship. Kor Phaeron states that it is now a refuge for the Word Bearers in the neverending war ahead of them.
**'''Exocytosis:''' Typhon is refitting his fleet at Zaramund by the grace of Luther. The Death Guard forces have set up an isolated camp away from any of the Fallen or natives of Zaramund. Luther decides to send a Fallen to spy on the Death Guard to see what's up with their shyness. Typhon is trying to get used to the gifts of the Grandfather when a group of civilians approach the camp. They reveal themselves to have been expecting his arrival, and all of them are revealed to be dead but kept alive by the grace of Nurgle. They call him Typhus and proclaim that with his arrival they are finally free to spread Papa Nurgle's gifts everywhere. The Dark Angel captain observing all of this sees a crowd of zombies and flies and Typhon conversing with them. Typhon sees regular people, though he can glimpse their true nature. The Death Guard sentries just see regular people. The captain springs out of his observation spot and starts attacking the tainted civilians like a true Dark Angel. Typhus kills him and in the process becomes one with his gifts. The Death Guard depart shortly afterwards with no contact with the Dark Angels. Luther is puzzled by this, ignoring a medicae request for apothecary aid for a sudden new disease in the civilian population, and wonders what other effects the Death Guard may have left on Zaramund. Typhon uses his blood to poison his commanding officers after announcing they will reunite with the Primarch.
**'''The Painted Count:''' Gendor Skraivok is having a hard time getting rid of his daemon blade. He tries burning it, tossing it into a plasma reactor, and out an airlock, but it keeps coming back. In a political battle for command of the legion, a rival tosses him into the impossible maze built by Perturabo to contain Vulkan. Failing to leave the maze normally, he seals his pact with the daemon blade and it leads him out of the maze. Killing the rival in a duel, he takes command of the ''Nightfall'' and leads the Night Lords to Terra to join the Warmaster.
**'''The Last Son of Prospero:''' Revuel Arvida is transformed into Ianius after teaming up with the soul shard of Magnus. Jaghatai Khan & Malcador happen to be in the room.
**'''The Soul, Severed:''' Eidolon puts down a leadership challenge from a leader who is loyal only to Fulgrim and wants the legion to sit around waiting for him to return. Being still reasonable, the challenger lures Eidolon's forces into a chemical treatment factory, blows up the chemical tanks, then counterattacks. The challenger deepstrikes with a bodyguard squad directly onto Eidolon, and then Eidolon and every single other noise marine giggle and laugh at the same time, obliterating the entire battlefield. Eidolon realises that he needs a planet with limitless numbers of potential slaves so he could spend lifetimes in debauchery, and so accepts that his fate and that of his forces is to eventually assault the Imperial Palace.
**'''Dark Compliance:''' Argonis, an emissary of Horus, meets Decigus, the Lord of a star system. Decigus is pretty intent on executing Argonis in person, and Argonis tells him to swear fealty to Horus or else... and starts to relate the tale of how he became an emissary, starting over a Mechanicus world that also gave Horus the finger and roasted his emissary. Horus meets with Argonis and reveals the emissary was a distraction to the Mechanicum ruler, while another plan was put into place. Horus sends a distraction fleet, followed by another distraction fleet, followed by hidden fighters and vortex missiles he had dropped off point-blank on the moon when his emissary had been killed. Wiping out all orbital defenses the magos still believes he can extract a heavy toll on Horus over several months of fighting. Horus flies down, summons a daemon w/ invasion on the side, then departs with his forces. The world gets covered in blood clouds and is infested by daemons. Argonis then repeats his question to Decigus, join us or die.
**'''Duty Waits:''' The Imperial Fists have beefed up security protocols around the Imperial Palace to ridiculous levels after the Alpha Legion shenanigans from ''Praetorian of Dorn''. All the civilians in the Palace are barely tolerated and given limited rations. There is a food riot and all the new Imperial Fists who were inducted during the Heresy and have never killed anybody get their first taste by shooting rioters, which they're not thrilled about.
**'''Magisterium:''' Valdor is busy handling the Custodes post-Webway war. Not enough resources, Custodian serfs are working to their deaths, and Custodians dealing with the fact that they can no longer effectively protect the emperor. Flashback to Valdor being talked to dismissively by Leman Russ during the Burning of Prospero.
**'''Now Peals Midnight:''' Rogal Dorn is told that long-range sensors & astropathic choirs have detected something big approaching through the Warp, and he realizes that Horus's arrival in the solar system is imminent. He passes along the message to his brothers on Terra. A strategium general is amazed at how she was bred, augmented, and trained to process insane amounts of info and what takes her 15 minutes to re-appraise herself of the solar system tactical info takes Dorn a brief glance at the screens. Archamus and Andromeda-17 from ''Praetorian of Dorn'' have a quiet chat concerning the imminent siege and the fact that humanity will be forever psychologically scarred by what is about to happen. Dorn, Sanguinius, and the Khan gather on a wall of the Palace and stare up at the sky. At midnight a new star blossoms, signalling the exit of Horus's fleet from warp space.
**'''Dreams of Unity:''' A terminally ill Thunder Warrior helps some Custodes kill an Alpha Legion infiltrator while continuously having flashbacks to the Unification Wars and the Emperor's grand dream of Unity. Once the Alpha is dead, he surrenders himself for execution to the Custodes.
**'''The Board is Set:''' Malcador contacts the Emperor for advice just before the Siege and plays a game of strategy that they have been playing for a ''long'' time, detailing the movements and eventual fates of the Primarchs. Shows that the Emperor was certainly manipulating them but was mostly on the back foot for much of his conflict with the the Chaos Gods so the outcome could have been much worse. Emps reveals a final gambit that will screw over Malcador in order to deny Chaos their victory.
*'''''Titandeath''''' Titan-centric book taking place during the battle for Beta-Garmon, the Loyalists' final effort to prevent the Traitors from reaching Terra. How one book could be made of a battle taking place across an entire solar system that had, according to Slaves to Darkness, more casualties than the last five years of the Great Crusade remains to be seen. As it happens... fairly feasibly. Beta-Garmon represented the tipping point for both the loyalists and the traitors; if the traitors didn't move past it, Guilliman would crush them from behind. If the loyalists didn't engage, then Horus would take his overwhelming numbers unopposed. The point is that Horus would win Beta Garmon either way. Rogal Dorn makes the only proactive move that he can make in the whole war, and sends a sizeable contingent of Terra's defenses to Beta Garmon to delay the Warmaster for as long as possible. And because Titans aren't really well suited to defending Terra, they are let out in force on Beta-Garmon. Which makes perfect target practice for the massive orbital platform that Horus proceeds to use. Unfortunately the story is let down by its ham-fisted portrayal of an all-female Titan Legion (mostly out of wasted potential) and a rushed storyline. Also a mopey Sanguinius who makes 'I do not die here today' into the new 'Vulkan Lives!'.
*'''''The Buried Dagger''''' This is the final book in the "main" Horus Heresy series, and tells the story of how Mortarion and the Death Guard fell to Nurgle's service. It happens essentially as has already been seen in other fluff sources: Typhon murders all the Navigators and claims he can guide the Death Guard fleet to Terra himself, only to deliberately strand them in the Warp so that Nurgle can turn them to his service. As disease spreads through the fleet, Mortarion becomes increasingly horrified and outraged as he realizes what's happening to his legion and finally kills Typhon in retaliation, but the Destroyer Hive reanimates his corpse, officially turning him into Typhus. After some more internal angst and butthurt, Mortarion finally accepts his destiny and becomes Nurgle's champion. The B-plot of the book concerns the founding of the [[Grey Knights]], as well as an assassination attempt on Malcador by Erebus, who planted a psychic suggestion in Tylos Rubio's head all the way back on Calth. Rubio, Sevarian, Revuel Arvida/Ianius, and several other Knights-Errant are named as the first eight Grey Knights and are shipped off to Titan to prepare for what will come after the Heresy. Garviel Loken is supposed to be the ninth Knight, but he turns it down because he still wants a shot at Horus. Nathaniel Garro gets cut loose from the Knights-Errant and sets off to find his own destiny.

==The [[Siege of Terra]] series==
Yep, it's getting an entire series to itself. What, did you really think they'd dedicate only one book to it? The series is slated to be eight books long, along with an unspecified number of novellas.

*'''''The Solar War''''': The Traitors make their big push through the remaining defenses of the Sol system and clear the path to Terra. Dorn's strategy is to make them pay for every centimeter and hope he can delay them long enough for the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels to arrive. To do this, he sends entire fleets out to fight delaying actions and blows up some of Pluto's moons after the traitors capture them. It sort of works, but the traitors have thousands of ships and even a few Space Hulks, so Perturabo just keeps feeding them into the grinder until they break through. Meanwhile, Mersadie Oliton receives a warning vision from Euphrati Keeler and busts out of space jail to deliver her message to Dorn. Unfortunately, it turns out "Keeler" was actually Samus manipulating Mersadie to get her onto the ''Phalanx'' and use her as a gateway to invade the station, so she winds up committing suicide in front of Garviel Loken. Samus rampages around the ''Phalanx'' for a bit and is killed again, this time by Dorn. Abaddon bypasses the outer defenses via a warp rift opened up by Ahriman, captures Luna, and convinces the matriarch of the Selenar to start making more Astartes for the traitors. The book ends with Horus, Fulgrim, and Angron arriving in-system along with the main strength of their fleets, meaning shit is now officially real.
*'''''The Lost and the Damned''''': This is it, ladies and neckbeards. The Siege has begun in earnest. Dorn is using millions of conscripts and all the vast firepower he’s installed on the Palace walls to blunt Horus's initial attacks, holding the V, VII, and IX Legions in reserve. Unfortunately, this is all more or less playing into the traitors’ hands. They want to cause as much death as possible so that the walls between reality and the warp will be thin enough to let hordes of daemons onto the planet and the daemon primarchs themselves can safely set foot on Terra without being banished by the Emperor’s psychic mojo. To their credit, Dorn and his brothers are aware of this, but also recognize that they’re screwed either way, so they decide to just go ahead and kill as many traitors as possible. After a few months of traitor Army regiments, Chaos spawn, and beastmen being sent in to soften the defenses up while the Dark Mechanicum build siege guns and towers to punch through the walls, the Death Guard finally show up after their side trip to visit Grandpa Nurgle. Horus sends them in first, mightily pissing off Angron in the process, and they immediately set about turning the warzone into a large-scale recreation of Passchendaele circa 1917. Jaghatai goes out to gather intel on the siege engines and gets poked with a plague knife, but as soon as he crosses back into the Palace grounds the Emperor’s psychic aegis cures him. He then takes half the White Scars to go defend the citizens of Terra from rampaging traitors despite Dorn ordering him not to, and promises to return when needed. Sanguinius rallies the defenders and leads his sons from the front even though Azkaellon and Raldoron would really rather he didn’t. The book ends with the World Eaters and Night Lords launching their first full-scale attack on the Palace walls; Angron challenges Sanguinius to battle while Raldoron beats Gendor Skraivok hollow and tosses him off the wall. The book reveals that despite their numerical superiority and the aid of the Chaos gods, Horus is maintaining control over his war effort and the other traitor primarchs only by sheer force of will: Lorgar, Curze, and Alpharius are out of the picture, Magnus is doing his own thing, Fulgrim is being a prissy dick, Perturabo is as much a whiny bitch as ever, and Angron is so uncontrollable that Kharn and [[Lotara Sarrin]] are forced to teleport him into the labyrinth Perturabo built to contain Vulkan until he can be set loose on Terra. Only Mortarion still seems relatively normal despite the fact he’s now a daemon primarch. Moreover Abaddon is getting really fucking cagey about Horus's new habit of Chaos worship, for good reason. It turns out that the wound Russ inflicted on him at Trisolian has resulted in his soul slowly being drained. As a result, the Chaos Gods have to keep juicing Horus up, with the downsides of time-wasting sojourns into the warp and the gradual destruction of Horus's body. What's more, there are implications that Abaddon is being groomed to take over if Horus falls.
*'''''The First Wall''''': This book focuses on the battle for the Lion’s Gate spaceport, which is the tallest structure on Terra and the only place that void-going ships can dock on the entire planet, meaning that the traitors will be able to shuttle in reinforcements and materiel more easily if they can capture it. Perturabo details Warsmith Kroeger to command the Iron Warriors’ assault on the spaceport under the logic that Dorn will be expecting Pert to command the attack personally and won’t be expecting whatever battle plans Kroeger comes up with. Warsmith Forrix isn’t happy with this or with anything else that’s going on, since he’s realized that Horus is using the Iron Warriors in the same way the Emperor did and he's become increasingly disillusioned with Perturabo himself. To aid the attack, the Dark Mechanicum sets a technophagic virus loose inside the spaceport and Zardu Layak, [[Abaddon]], and [[Typhus]] perform a Nurglite ritual to infiltrate Cor’bax Utterblight inside the Emperor’s wards. The Fists hold out as long as they can and inflict heavy casualties, but Dorn finally gives the order to withdraw and abandon the Gate as Perturabo lands his flagship atop the port and joins an assault led by Abaddon and Kharn. Sigismund duels Kharn and nearly loses while Dorn kills Zardu Layak, which allows daemons to manifest on Terra for the first time. He then has a brief exchange of taunts with Perturabo and the first Chaos Titans set foot on Terra, spelling a new stage of the battle. In the midst of all this is a little passage detailing just how many artillery pieces the Iron Warriors have landed on the planet, including two thousand [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]], fifteen hundred [[Manticore Launcher Tank|Manticores]], five hundred [[Medusa Siege Gun|Medusas]], sixteen hundred Siege Dreadnoughts, seven thousand Thunderburst guns, five hundred [[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|Deathstrike]] launchers and eighty-four [[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank|Typhon siege guns]], plus uncounted thousands of Rhinos, Land Raiders, Vindicators, Predators, Sicarans, and [[Baneblade|assorted]] [[Fellblade|superheavy]] [[Spartan Assault Tank|tanks]]. [[Awesome|That sound you just heard was Josef Stalin and the entire Red Army popping a boner from beyond the grave.]] Meanwhile, to stop Cor’bax’s taint from spreading inside the Imperial Palace, Malcador recruits Euphrati Keeler and the Custodian Amon Tauromachian to hunt down and eliminate any corrupted cults of the Emperor, giving us the weirdest buddy-cop pairing of all time. Malcador wants to see if he can weaponize the cult’s belief in the Emperor against the Chaos gods and sees Keeler as the key to doing so, while Amon would rather just stamp it out. They eventually find a cult that has been corrupted by Cor’bax. When the daemon uses their bodies to manifest inside the walls, Keeler, Malcador, and Amon team up to kill him. Malcador tells Dorn, Valdor, and the other Imperial commanders that he will allow the cult of the Emperor to exist until the Emperor himself says otherwise. While all this is going on, we get to see more of the siege from a mortal perspective. Katsuhiro, a veteran of the initial fighting outside the walls, is detailed to a section of the outer walls under attack by the Death Guard and eventually has to aid in putting down an outbreak of plague zombies. We also follow Zenobi, a seventeen-year-old line worker from the Afrik hive of Addaba who volunteered to serve in the Imperial Army, only it turns out that she and her entire regiment are pledged to Horus, though this doesn't stop the Warmaster's fleet bombing their city to shit from orbit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, sounds like a fun read huh?) The novel ends with John Grammaticus arriving on Terra, mission unknown.
*'''''Saturnine''''': Dan Abnett's first HH book in seven years. Dorn is trying to decide which parts of the Palace need to be defended and which can be allowed to fall, as the Imperial forces are outnumbered, outgunned, and running low on supplies. He identifies four key parts of the defense that cannot be allowed to fall to the enemy, then decides which one he can afford to lose anyway: the Eternity Wall spaceport. The Saturnine Wall, one of the other key elements, has developed a subtle fault thanks to the relentless traitor bombardment. Dorn suspects that Perturabo will try to exploit it, so he lays a trap for the traitor assault force and calls in Arkhan Land to help fix it. While this is going on, Sanguinius kills an Iron Warriors Warsmith at the Gorgon Bar, then [[Awesome|solos a Warlord Titan]] and stares down three Warhounds until they turn tail and run for it. Jaghatai and the White Scars lead a few massed jetbike charges into the ranks of the Death Guard and really ruin their day, further pissing off Mortarion. [[Abaddon]] enlists the entire [[Emperor's Children]] Legion and three companies of the Sons of Horus, led by the entire Mournival, to attack the Saturnine Wall with Perturabo's help; however, Perturabo anticipates that Dorn will expect them to do so and refuses to lend his aid. The III Legion attacks from the front, using three ancient and irreplaceable siege engines, while Abaddon and his Astartes burrow up from beneath with Termite assault drills. When the Sons of Horus emerge from their assault drills, they're ambushed by kill teams led by [[Garviel Loken]] and [[Nathaniel Garro]]. All three companies, including the famed [[Justaerin]] and Catulan Reavers of the 1st Company, are wiped out. Garro kills Falkus Kibre while Loken kills Horus Aximand ([[Blood Ravens|and takes his sword]]) and Tormageddon, finally avenging his old friend. Tybalt Marr and Lev Goshen are also killed off, meaning that all of the Sons of Horus characters we were introduced to at the beginning of the series are now dead except for Loken and Abaddon. Abaddon goes on a killing spree, but eventually gets beaten up by a nobody [[Blood Angel]], Endryd Haar, and Garro. Abaddon manages to kill the Blood Angel and Haar, but is almost killed by Garro, only to be [[Plot Armor|teleported to safety at the last moment]]. Arkhan Land floods the fault line with thousands of tons of quick-setting rockcrete, [[Grimdark|entombing a bunch of the Sons of Horus beneath the palace forever.]] Fulgrim hurls his legion at the Saturnine Wall ''en masse'', which accomplishes nothing but getting 18,000 of them killed and destroying the siege platforms. Dorn and Sigismund fight Fulgrim; Sigismund manages to injure Fulgrim despite being hilariously outclassed, but before Fulgrim can finish the job, Dorn appears. He holds his own against his psychotic bishonen brother, inflicting so much damage that Fulgrim throws a tantrum and takes his legion and goes home, abandoning the Siege entirely. The two then fight a bunch of III Legion champions and defeat them all. In one particularly awesome moment, Sigismund just straight-up kicks Eidolon off the wall. At this point, Perturabo seems to be the only person on Team Horus who still gives a shit about winning the siege. The rest of traitor primarchs are all too indignant to focus on their alleged objective, too busy conspiring against each other, or too insane to care.
**Crucially to the ongoing progress of the Siege, the loyalists lose the Eternity Wall spaceport, but this was part of the plan. As noted above, Dorn identified four key points in the defense that he couldn't afford to lose, then chose the one that he couldn't afford to lose the least, personally took command at the Saturnine Wall, and sent Sanguinius and Jaghatai to hold the other two spots. Angron and the World Eaters assault the spaceport, and pretty much every named Imperial Army character in the book dies at this point, along with Jenetia Krole, the leader of the [[Sisters of Silence]], who gets killed by Kharn, and Camba Diaz of the Imperial Fists, who literally dies standing while holding the main bridge into the spaceport. Also, Angron gets blown up by artillery but comes back to life since, y'know, he's a daemon prince and all. Sanguinius' visions are getting increasingly powerful and painful, especially when he winds up inside Angron's tortured mind. He eventually delves deeply enough to realize that Angron has sensed the annihilation of Nuceria. The [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Ultramarines]] are on the way!
**Other miscellaneous things that happen: John Grammaticus is trying to meet up with Ollanius Persson and encounters the Perpetual Erda, who tells us that Big-E was named '''Neoth''' when they met, but that this was just one of the many names he's had over the millennia. It is also revealed that she is the true mother of the primarchs and is technically responsible for their scattering - cue the sound of countless facepalms from the fanbase. Dorn has Kyril Sindermann form the proto-[[Inquisition]], and he recruits Euphrati Keeler and some other people to go around collecting interviews with soldiers, workers, and other residents of the Palace. Keeler interviews Basilio Fo, the mad genesmith from the short story ''Misbegotten'', and he reveals that he can create a biomechanical phage that could kill Horus, along with every other Space Marine and primarch in the galaxy. Keeler and her Custodian babysitter decide that this information should go to Dorn, just in case he decides he needs such a doomsday option. The Ollanius Pius myth is partly born from a Guardsman named Olly Piers standing up and defending a banner of the Emperor before dying at Angron's hands. Horus is sliding further into apparent senility as the Chaos Gods' power begins to overwhelm his body and mind to the point that would have killed him outright had he not died in the duel against the Emperor first, much to Abaddon's disgust; he is almost totally disconnected from the siege, asks for things and immediately forgets asking for them, and keeps calling his equerry Maloghurst, even though Maloghurst has been dead since ''Slaves to Darkness''. At the very end, Corswain of the Dark Angels arrives with a large chunk of the Dark Angels fleet, ready to aid in the battle. In short, a lot of named characters die and plot threads are set up for other books and the rest of 40K.
*'''''Mortis''''': John French's second book in the series. As the morale of the Palace's defenders slowly erodes under the pressure of the unrelenting assault and the malign influence of the Warp, the traitor Titans of Legio Mortis are unleashed to break through the Mercury Wall, with only the loyalist engines of the Legio Ignatum to hold them off. Not as good as ''Saturnine'' or ''The Lost and the Damned'', but not as bad as Zenobi's story in ''The First Wall'', it feels more like an anthology, though all of its stories have a common beginning and converge in the end.
** The main story, the siege itself, has very little to offer. Horus has finally decided to take direct command of the traitor forces, but his first order to Perturabo is to send everything they have, include the entire Legio Mortis, to attack the Mercury Wall head on. Perturabo objects to such a terrible strategy, after which Horus sends his equerry to tell him to disperse his legion among the traitor forces and let the Death Guard take over their positions. Perturabo immediately realizes that Horus is about to pull some serious warp fuckery, which he's not okay with, so he orders a full-on retreat of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege completely. The rest of the main siege plot centers around the Titan battle in front of the Mercury Wall; the traitor forces have used Warp power to reanimate countless Titan wrecks collected from Beta-Garmon and elsewhere, using them as cannon fodder to weaken the loyalist defenses before attacking with the full might of the Legio Mortis, the largest Titan legion in the entire Imperium.
** Meanwhile, in another corner of the battle, a small group of loyalist Imperial Army soldiers are still holding a maybe no longer important line of defense. Amongst them is Katsuhiro, the luckiest unlucky son of a gun from ''The Lost and the Damned'', who has fought from the Outer Wall all the way into the central palace and is still fighting because [[Grimdark|in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war]]. Their forces are initially led by a Blood Angel, but he dies during the battle and puts Katsuhiro in charge because this man's got nothing but unwavering belief in the Emperor and balls made out of titanium.
** Shiban Khan, to everyone's surprise, survived his shuttle crashing in ''Saturnine'' thanks to his extensive augmetic rebuild. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere and starts hearing the voices of his dead brothers as he limps toward the Inner Palace. It could be warp fuckery, as the land shows various signs of Chaos corruption, or perhaps more likely, he just had some severe head trauma due to the shuttle crash (and the sky's the limit when it comes to head trauma). Either way, Shiban wants to return to the fight, so he starts to walk, and walk, and walk (there is a lot of walking in this not that long of a side plot). Then he encounters an Army lieutenant with a baby (feels like there is a joke in there somewhere) and the man tags along with him. The lieutenant explains that he just found the baby in the middle of all this shit and took it without any question; I keep expecting it to be a daemon or something, but it ends up to be something hopeful, wholesome even. Later the lieutenant is severely injured by an actual daemon, but Shiban refuses to leave him behind and carries him and the baby. Eventually, they come across the line Katsuhiro's defending; though the lieutenant doesn't make it, the baby survives, which amazes the crumbling troopers to no end and boosts their morale. Shiban and Katsuhiro have a brief chat before Shiban keeps pushing on to rejoin his legion. For the Emperor's sake, please don't let the baby be a daemon in the coming books.
** We finally get to see psi-titans deployed!!! For a few paragraphs at least. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (who we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because they only answer to the Emperor) shows up and tells Dorn that the Emperor has personally authorized use of the Ordo Sinister, an act that simultaneously tells Dorn that the Emperor has commanded victory at any cost. We see a psi-titan strut up to a battlefield, order all friendly titans to fire warp missiles at itself, then redirects the warp power in the warp missiles to instant kill several demon titan engines. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. But the traitors brought a lot of titans and even the Psi-titans are eventually overwhelmed.
** On the traitor titan side, special siege titans are unveiled bespoke from Mars. Turns out you can just line up several big titans and hook up all their reactors to mobile reactors behind their shields, then slow walk towards the wall like a big phalanx advance. And you get called the special engine class of Warmaster Titans. Plus lots and lots of guns on the front.
** At the end of the last book, Corswain and his fleet came to reinforce the loyalists. Now we learn that he was expecting to meet the Lion and the main strength of the Dark Angels at Terra, but finds out that he is the only reinforcement that has shown up. If you have read the new Luther book, you know that he was lied to by Luther, and most importantly, the ten thousand Dark Angels he brought along were given to him by Luther, which means they're most likely no longer loyal to the Imperium. Now here comes some plot fuckery: the traitors took the Astronomican and put it out. What? Wasn't Dorn's entire plan was to delay the traitors' offensive long enough for the reinforcements to arrive? Why was the Astronomican not as heavily defended as the Imperial Palace itself? How the fuck are the reinforcements going get to Terra without the Astronomican? But the plot must give Corswain and his Dark Angels something to do I guess. Nevertheless, Corswain plans an assault through the traitor fleet blockade; with the sacrifice of the Emperor's personal flagship and the gap left by the Iron Warriors' departure, the Dark Angels successfully make planetfall on Terra and retake the Astronomican by killing a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh and a bunch of Kakophoni. But here comes the backstabbing: the officers Luther sent to follow Corswain cannot allow his plan to succeed for obvious reasons, but one of the Librarians, Vassago, is having second thoughts about the whole thing after the daemonic horrors he's just witnessed. When he tells this to his fallen brothers, they decide to kill him and keep on with their plan.
** The various storylines are tied together in the end by a speech given by Dorn. As he speaks, what's left of the loyalist Titan legions begin to charge an unknown anomaly that appeared mid-battle; Katsuhiro's ragged force faces off against a new wave of enemies; Vassago is attacked by his fallen brothers; and the Legio Mortis finally reaches the Mercury Wall, the true Imperial Palace itself.
** Also, remember all of those weird metaphorical scenes of the Emperor being a dirty old man they put in every book? Turns out it is the physical manifestation of the struggle and suffering the Emperor is enduring in the spiritual world, and it is getting worse and worse. In previous books, he could still shelter himself in a cave and have Malcador deliver him food or something; now he is quite literally cooking under the sun in an open desert with only a dead tree for cover, and because the Chaos gods are winning, it has become impossible for Malcador to keep supporting the Emperor. So the Big-E is now facing off against the entire warp with nothing but his own willpower to sustain him. Horus keeps showing up to taunt his father and sometimes the Chaos gods accompany him like some kind of pet snakes. Every time he appears he is closer to the Emperor and at the end of this book he is finally able to reach him.
** Oh, Ollanius and his crew from Calth also return in this book. They finally make it back to Terra after bouncing through all of time and space, and then they infiltrate a hive overrun by the Emperor's Children in order to rescue John Grammaticus. Along the way, they run into someone named Actaea (who might be Cyrene Valantion based on John's horrified recognition of her) and a legionary calling himself Alpharius, because everything wasn't convoluted enough already. Ollanius decides to team up with these two even though Grammaticus is getting some serious bad vibes off of them. This part of the plot is not a bad read, but it really feels like it has nothing to do with the ongoing siege. This, and John's plot from the last book, feel like they should have gotten their own book instead of being cut to pieces and stitched into the main series. But again, it's not as bad and irrelevant as Zenobi's storyline from ''The First Wall''. At least it revealed Ollanius was once a close friend to the Big-E. How close, you ask? He was the Emperor's first Warmaster. He led an army to raze the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel Tower of Babel] to the ground, in the 40K narrative the tower was actually built by Cognitae precursors who were using it to learn Enuncia (first seen in the Eisenhorn books). After taking the tower the Emperor decides that he in his enlightened state can actually run the project better then the Cognitae. Ollanius disagrees and stabs the Emperor while using Enuncia to bring lightning down on the tower. John having stumbled into this memory via being caught in the same pleasure-warp trap uses his psyker language ability to learn Enuncia on the spot. Uses it to unmake a demon, but gets a bad nose-bleed.
* '''''Warhawk''''': The Khan vs. Morty, round two. The end of the Siege is nigh, and everyone on Terra knows it. Angron and the World Eaters are loose inside the Mercury Wall, the Sons of Horus are happily killing anything that crosses their path, and the Death Guard have taken over the Lion's Gate spaceport after Perturabo ragequit halfway through ''Mortis''. Many of the XIV Legion are still coming to terms with their new warp-touched nature. Some of them aren't sure the bargain was worth the price, while others are happily adopting pet Nurglings and savoring the feeling of turning into walking sacks of pus and tentacles. Mortarion is using his daemonic powers to turn the port into a mirror of Barbarus and blanket the Palace with a psychic miasma of despair; the effect is so potent that even Rogal Dorn is beginning to crack under the strain. Jaghatai is tired of playing defense, so he rallies up the entire V Legion and every single tank that Ilya Ravallion can coax out of reserves to storm the Lion's Gate and retake the spaceport. They use the last intact orbital plate on Terra to shield them from the traitor fleet bombardments and charge across the leveled wreckage of the Palace's outer districts en masse, wrecking shit all the way until they slam into the Death Guard and their defenses. The two legions proceed to just shred the hell out of each other across the spaceport. We get an interesting comparison between their fighting styles here; the Scars dominate the battlefield when they can use their speed and maneuverability, and then when the fighting turns into a battle of attrition the Death Guard give just as good as they get. Jaghatai is in fine form; at one point he yeets a Leviathan Dreadnought with ''one hand'', and the narration explicitly states that everyone on both sides stops to watch him do it. The battle culminates in a knock-down drag-out brawl between the Death Lord and the Warhawk. Mortarion literally beats the Khan to a pulp, but Jaghatai just laughs it off and needles Mortarion until he makes a mistake that lets Jaghatai gut him. Mortarion reminds the Khan that he can't die, since he's a daemon prince now, and the Khan reminds Mortarion that he can die, then pulls the classic "let the other guy impale me so I can kill him" move and decapitates Morty even though he's now got a power scythe embedded in his chest. The resultant explosion of psychic energy disorients the Death Guard and sends the Scars into a frenzy that doesn't end until a newly raised khan manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book. Jaghatai's body is carried out on a Leman Russ, and just when it seems like they might actually have unexpectedly killed another primarch, Ilya Ravallion shows up and demands that he be taken to Malcador, who sets about putting the Warhawk back together.
**Dorn finally lets Sigismund off the chain, telling him to just go kill as many traitors as possible. On his way out to the field, he's given the Black Sword, which was forged in the dark times prior to the Unification Wars, and sets out to become the Emperor's Champion. He kills so damn many captains and praetors that whispers of "the Black Sword" spread across the Palace, and both sides seek him out, either to join him or to kill him. He rematches Kharn and puts him down, though not before Kharn has a lucid moment and is horrified by what Sigismund has become: a remorseless, passionless, icy-hearted killing machine who will raise [[Black Templars|an entire legion of fanatical killers just like him]] to crush the galaxy beneath their boots.
**Euphrati Keeler inspires thousands of civilians, stragglers, and refugees to take up arms and go drown the enemy in bodies in the name of the God-Emperor, establishing the foundations for the Imperial Cult and the Imperium's philosophy of sending wave after wave of conscripts and Guardsmen at the problem until it ceases to be a problem. Garviel Loken tracks her down and is disturbed by her new, more nihilistic mindset, but decides to stay by her side anyway.
**Basilio Fo runs around for a bit and gets attacked by a Night Lord who can apparently see the future and isn't sure if killing him or letting him live will do more damage. He's then retrieved by Constantin Valdor, who took a break from daemon-hunting to haul him back to the Sanctum Imperialis so he can go to work on his anti-Astartes phage. Valdor wonders if using the phage would interfere with the Emperor's plans somehow, since even he isn't sure what is or isn't part of the Big-E's schemes anymore. Really, the whole subplot is kind of pointless, since Fo just winds up back under guard and doing exactly what he wanted to do all along. Makes you wonder why the authors bothered setting him loose last book.
** Ollanius Persson and his merry band are still traveling to the Palace. Actaea is all but stated to be Cyrene Valantion, who has an agenda of her own that involves getting to Horus. "Alpharius" is one of the Alpha Legion infiltrators from ''Praetorian of Dorn'', who's apparently just been kicking around the planet since his legion's attack on Pluto failed. They fly all the way to the Palace and start making their way into the Dungeon to get on with whatever their missions are, planning to pick up some more Alpha Legionnaires who were planted in the catacombs.
** The Sons of Horus are quietly starting to turn on each other. With Horus still sitting on his arse and doing nothing to lead his legion, some of his captains are starting to refer to Abaddon as the XVI's Legion Master, which is pissing off the hardcore Horus loyalists. Most of them end up getting killed by Sigismund anyway, though.
** Erda dies. Maybe. Erebus turns out to have disguised himself as a random Word Bearer in order to reach Terra and track her down, and after he introduces himself he tells her that her scattering of the primarchs was such a nice gift to the Chaos Pantheon that they themselves sing her praises in gratitude. He offers to help her achieve apotheosis and become a queen of the warp as a reward. Erda sneers at him and tells him that he's being manipulated by the cast-off thoughts and unconscious desires of humanity; more or less confirming that she knows many of the same truths about Chaos as the Emperor does, but unlike Big-E, she perhaps underestimates the danger they pose. That might also be why she tries to say it's not her fault some of the primarchs were corrupted and fell to Chaos, deflecting the blame onto the primarchs themselves, Big-E, society (that's actually barely an exaggeration), and basically everyone but herself. Erebus eventually gets sick of her obfuscation and summons four greater daemons to kill her. However, Erda's able to defeat them pretty comprehensively, with Erebus assuming they've been banished, but the book suggesting that they've been permakilled. Regardless of which however, the fight leaves her drained enough that Erebus is able to hit her with a psychic attack that overwhelms her with the true consequences of what she did. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, but does so offscreen. As he's leaving, however, he wonders if she let him kill her, and if so, why.
*'''''Echoes of Eternity''''': ADB's contribution. [[Meme|We're in the endgame now]]: the Palace defenses have completely collapsed, the Khan is down for the count, Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, the surviving loyalist troops have been driven back into the Sanctum Imperialis, and Guilliman and the Lion still haven't arrived. Angron is leading the World Eaters and Sons of Horus toward victory as Sanguinius rallies his troops for a last stand at the Eternity Gate. Will almost certainly have Sanguinius' rematch with Ka'Bandha as the big climactic fight.
*'''''Sons of the Selenar''''': The first novella in the series. Flashback to the compliance of the Selenar gene cults on the moon, the high supreme matriarch tells a grumpy gene witch to take their best gene tech and hide it from the Emperor while she starts a date/mind purge to wipe out all knowledge of the tech from existence before she surrenders to the soon-to-be Luna Wolves. Flash forward to the crew of the ''Sisypheum'' returning to Terra, SOMEHOW getting all the way to Luna through a lot of luck and bad traitor captains. They pick up a distress signal from Ta'lab Vita-37 saying that the Sons of Horus are breaking through the defenses she has built around the Magna Mater - a silver case containing all the genetic knowledge used to make the first Space Marines. They manage to meet up with Vita-37 and make their way to the center of a moon volcano just in time to snatch it from some tech-priests. Some explosions happen and we get to see Tarsa the Salamander Apothecary walk through radioactive lava while hallucinating that Vulkan lives and dying as he hands the case to Ignatius Numen who also waded in. He dies too because [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film) radioactive lava], but the case gets out of the lava. Justaerin Terminators chase them through the gene labs, and Vita-37 unleashes a bunch of hideous gene-monsters on the Terminators before dying. One spooks them cause it has the face of Horus, but the Terminators finally form up and continue the chase. The last two Iron Hands hand off the Mater to Sharrowkyn and tell him to run like hell while they slow down the Terminator squad, with predictable results. Sharrowkyn gets rescued by the other two Iron Hands in a Storm Eagle, and they make it back to the ''Sisypheum'', while Thamatica uses a Selenar combat AI to destroy a fighter chasing them before it turns back on him and eats his brains. Magnus makes an appearance and saves the ''Sisypheum'' for some reason, then leaves. Wayland drops off Sharrowkyn on an abandoned refueling station before flying away to distract the traitors. Sharrowkyn finally dies with Garuda the mechanical eagle watching him, under the name of the station "Sangprimus Portum", strongly implying that the Magna Mater is the relic that will be given to Archmagos Cawl to create the [[Primaris Space Marines]].
* '''''Fury of Magnus''''': The second novella, which focuses on Magnus's attempt to reclaim the shard of his soul that he believes is housed inside the Palace. Alivia Sureka agrees to come with Malcador in exchange for protection for her adopted family, and he takes her down trans-dimensional tunnels known only to him (it's strongly implied that Valdor would fuck Malcador up for keeping these tunnels secret even from the custodians). Magnus and some of the Thousand Sons breach the Emperor's telesthetic wards, saving some civilians along the way, and storm the Hall of Leng deep beneath the Palace. They're met by Malcador and Alivia, and Magnus demands to know where the last shard of his soul is. Malcador admits that it's already gone, having been fused into Revuel Arvida to produce Janus, so Magnus throws a psychic tantrum that permakills the Sigillite. One of the Thousand Sons kills Alivia for some reason, so Magnus explodes his head for disobeying his orders not to kill anyone. He and his Astartes make it all the way to the Golden Throne, only to find out that the Emperor let them through because he wanted to offer Magnus a shot at redemption. He explains that, though Magnus has been wounded and touched by Chaos, there is still a chance for him to return to the Imperial fold, at the head of [[Grey Knights|a shiny new legion of incorruptible psychic warriors]]. All he has to do is abandon the remaining Thousand Sons to their fate, as they're already too corrupted to be brought back. Vulkan, who is still guarding the Throne, pleads with Magnus to accept the deal, but Magnus decides that abandoning his legion is too dear a price to pay and tries to kill the Emperor. Vulkan proceeds to kick the ever-loving shit out of him until Magnus finally surrenders to Chaos and ascends into his daemon primarch form. He forever repudiates the Emperor before being ejected from the Palace. Alivia resurrects, finds Malcador's barbecued corpse, and surrenders her Perpetuality in order to bring him back, dying permanently herself in the process.

==The Primarchs Series==
Because Black Library don't seem satisfied confusing us with all their anthologies, audio-books, and short stories, they have begun releasing a spin-off series of Horus Heresy novels centered on the Primarchs. The series don't really take place in a specific time, but generally focuses on expanding on the titular Primarch's backstory and motivations during events before the Horus Heresy (though some of them also have events occurring after it). Why Black Library lists it as part of the Horus Heresy series when that isn't always the case is beyond our comprehension. Hopefully the Horus book finally shows us his conquest of Ullanor.

===Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar===
Centers on Papa Smurf himself and his trying to deal with how the Emperor used him like a rusty hammer to smack Lorgar in the head at Monarchia. Uses a conflict against Orks squatting on human ruins as a vehicle for him and the smurfs to express their angst over the event. He eventually discovers that the original humans went extinct from literally a war of red shirts vs blue shirts. A subplot details the conflict of morality the Ultramarines legion had with their Destroyer companies, especially the [[Nemesis]] Chapter (later a second founding) who held on to their Terran roots. Guilliman didn't much like their use, but eventually saw their necessity (especially when Imperium Secundus came swinging around).

===Leman Russ: The Great Wolf===
Focuses on Leman Russ' notorious rivalry with the Lion, explaining why to this day whenever the Chapters meet they throw the gauntlet down and beat the stuffing out of one another. Notably it reveals some interesting stuff like the Lion being aware of the Space Wolves' furry issue and keeping a lid on it, also that the Lion shanked Russ in the Imperial basement in front of a fresco of the compliance where they previously fought. Establishes clearly that even with overpowered Mech suits, baseline humans will always lose to legionary soldiers.

===Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero===
Depicts the unlikely friendship between Magnus and old Pert with a joint venture between their legions to evacuate a planet that's getting torn apart by accelerated magnetic polarity shifts. Things go wrong on the planet due to totally not Chaos cult nonsense, and it does a decent job of showing Magnus' flaws, specifically his inability to leave things that have "do not fuck with this" written on them alone; something Pert tries and fails at making him understand. Crucially it's set early enough in the Crusade that the use of psychic powers by Astartes is uncommon and the Thousand Sons basically have to keep a lid on how powerful they really are. They do not succeed.

The original colonists of Morningstar survived by rounding up all the psykers into their seed ship and splitting them from their psychic powers throne room of the emperor style. However since they didn't dissipate these psychic powers, the souls of the psykers just floated around inside the ship until they joined up into a single entity. When their jailers realized what was happening, they ran and sealed the ship but the psychic gestalt had already infected their minds with a doomsday meme, resulting in the shenanigans that Magnus and Pert arrive to. The entire Morningstar government fell victim to this meme and built a continent sized machine to destroy their planet which Pert & Magnus somehow didn't notice. Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt into his book, and the surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading.

===Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia===
Probably the book in the series that did the most character building of all. This book shows Perturabo's childhood on Olympia alongside a "current" day conflict against the Hrud, the former showing why Pert is the odd genius manchild guy he is, while the latter does a great job of showing why fucking with an alien species capable of controlling time is somewhat of a stupid idea. However, the real draw of the book is that it is mainly written as an attempt to merge together the seemingly contradictory depictions of Pert we've had over the years, showing how the ruthless dick who decimates his legion for not being good enough in the Forgeworld books is the same guy who just wanted to be a builder in Angel Exterminatus. Also he may or may not have wanted to bang his adopted sister.

===Lorgar: Bearer of the Word===
Yep, the first(ish?) heretic himself gets his own obligatory messed-up childhood novel. Focuses slightly more on Kor Phaeron rather than Lorgar himself, showing him to be a manipulative dick who beat Lorgar as a child and never really bought into this whole "fatherhood" shtick or this whole concept of [[Emperor|One True God]], but allowed Lorgar his fantasies and the takeover Colchis (by "Word" or by "Mace") while Phaeron benefitted from increased power and secretly kept the faith of [[Chaos Gods]]. By the end Kor Phaeron wonders if Lorgar just let him think that he was manipulated and could have disposed of him at any time. The book does introduce a contrasting character to Kor Phaeron who actually shows Lorgar compassion growing up and was far more worthy of being named "father" but was far less useful to Lorgar's goals. The book shows that Lorgar isn't as stupid or naive as everyone thinks and does indeed realise that people have been using him for their own gains, but he only really cares about doing the work of the gods; so long as they both align he doesn't seem to care.

=== Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix ===
Fulgrim tries to conquer the newly discovered planet Byzas with only 7 men. Byzas has devolved to steam power and bolt-action bolters, but capital palace has DAOT gun defenses and anti-grav airships (think blimps without gasbags). Along the way Fulgrim encounters a brotherhood much like his own that wants to work with him; he dismisses them as a bunch of idealists. It's implied that he COULD have gotten the same results (Compliance) working with them but unfortunately that would have meant calling in backup and Fulgrim didn't want to do that. In the end Fulgrim takes the world but nearly dies from a hidden hydrogen bomb which he disarms. Several other characters such as Cyrius (who gets shanked by a squad from the brotherhood while wearing armor and has to be saved by Fulgrim) and Kasperos Telmar) later become prominent champions of chaos, while the others were blown up on Istvaan III. Also makes the first (but all too brief) direct mention of one of the Missing Primarchs, as well as the amusing spectacle of Fabius Bile in formal attire.

===Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa===
Ferrus is overseeing joint exercises between the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children when he learns about a noncompliant human empire called the Gardinaal who have just humiliated a compliance force of Ultramarines and Thousand Sons. He decides that he'll conquer them singlehandedly so as to impress the Emperor and his brothers and maybe even get appointed to that Warmaster position everyone's whispering about. He throws his weight around when he arrives and tells off the Ultramarines commander for getting his ass kicked, then learns that the Gardinaal are actually some tough mothers, with their own genetically enhanced soldier caste and a willingness to nuke their own cities if it'll kill some Imperial troops. Ferrus quits fucking around after the Gardinaal try to assassinate him under the pretense of surrender negotiations and orders his fleet to demolish their entire capital planet before personally going down to smash faces in until they finally give up. In the end, he admits to Fulgrim that he doesn't have the patience to be Warmaster, and that he'll back whoever gets the job.

Probably the highlight of the novel is that we get a look inside Ferrus' head while it's still attached to the rest of him. Ferrus is a zealot who gives no fucks about anything beyond conquering systems in the name of the Emprah and being the best there is at what he does. In his own way, he was just as obsessed with perfection as Fulgrim, which is why they got along so well. He's also got a lot of built-up resentment toward Dorn, since Dorn once called him a dumbass on the bridge of his own flagship in front of a bunch of his sons. He doesn't seem to like Guilliman very much either at this point, probably because the G-man encouraged restraint when dealing with noncompliant planets and Ferrus just wanted to smash everything and let someone else pick up the pieces.

===Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris===
Basically a recap of some of the White Scars' more important pre-Heresy campaigns, including conquering the Nephilim homeworld and killing a shitload of Orks on a planet made of psychically resonant crystals. The main thing the book does is confirm that Jaghatai was always meant to be a wild card. More importantly, it shows that while he didn't really agree with the Emperor about anything, especially the Imperial Truth, he was still willing to serve the Imperium in his own way (read: killing xenos on the edges of the galaxy while everyone else built an empire behind him). Also shows the Khan trying to plan ahead for the [[Council of Nikaea|inevitable showdown]] between pro and anti-psyker factions in the Imperium, and how the warrior lodges were first introduced to the Scars. On a side note, we learn that the V Legion's original name was the Star Hunters, and that they relied heavily on armor and mechanized infantry before the Khan and his Chogorian posse taught them to love jetbikes and going ''real'' fast. Oh, and they became known as the White Scars because of a mistranslation, not unlike the Vlka Fenryka/Space Wolves.

===Vulkan: Lord of Drakes===
Vulkan is united with the Terran members of his legion while they're on campaign against a fuckhueg WAAAGH! on a volcanic death world. The main takeaway from the book is that the XVIII Legion were stubborn badasses ready to lay down their lives for civilians right from the start of the Crusade. Without Vulkan around though, they kept throwing themselves into desperate last stands, to the point that other Imperial forces were starting to call them suicidal. Some of the Nocturnean legionaries even suggest that the Emperor kept Vulkan away from the legion for so long because he was waiting for all the Terrans to get themselves killed, but Vulkan dismisses that idea out of hand and nothing comes of it. There's also a pretty nifty sequence where Vulkan and a bunch of his sons surf a modified Termite assault drill into an attack moon and blow it up from the inside.

===Corax: Lord of Shadows===
Corax and the Raven Guard are sent to bring the Carinae system into compliance. The system is basically a thousand floating space station hive cities, all independent of each other with a thousand different governments, orbiting a star. Typically they hate each other's guts but are able to come together and combine firepower to a devastating effect when an Imperial compliance fleet gives them a common enemy. The leaders aren't keen on handing over all their power to the emperor. He initially tries to use stealth and surgical strikes to get them to surrender peacefully with minimal casualties, but a real Imperium hater forms a coalition and death stars the first city to surrender. When Corax targets him for surgical elimination, he releases a zombie virus on the whole station and escapes via a stealth shuttle to a hidden station masked by the sun's emissions. A pissed-off Corax orders his legion to hunt the dude down and disable the station engines, letting him broadcast his 5 stages of grief to the whole system while he descends into the Sun. This also comes at the cost of dragging out the compliance and thousands of unnecessary casualties since the remaining orbitals are able to consolidate their strategic/tactical positions and form actual armies. There is also a subplot about Corax’s home planets of Kiavahr and Deliverance which shows that Imperial compliance didn’t actually make things all that much better for the people living there; the Kiavahr tech-guilds and the Mechanicum can barely tolerate each other and people from Deliverance are still routinely discriminated against to the point where some of them have turned to terrorism to express their displeasure. Corax himself admits that he didn't have time to fix everything before leaving but pledges that he'll come back and set Kiavahr to rights once the Crusade is over. Doesn't stop him from executing one of his best friends in the rebellion for being uppity.

The book shows us that Corax was an idealist who believed in the principles of the Great Crusade and genuinely didn’t understand why people would reject the Imperium. It’s shown that while he was a proponent of treating normal humans as equals, he could still be astoundingly arrogant when dealing with them since he was a genetically-engineered transhuman demigod and all. He is also shown to be constantly grappling with his need to deliver justice at any cost, aware that he might turn into another Konrad Curze if he’s not careful. We also get a look at what the Sable Brand is like through the eyes of an afflicted Raven Guard legionary; basically, it's a watered down version of the Black Rage that causes them to hallucinate and become suicidal, which some of them deal with by joining the [[Moritat]].

===Sons of The Emperor===
A collection of short stories showcasing the contrast between the Primarchs and the rest of mankind, getting down to how they really perceive themselves and how humanity sees them.
:'''The Passing of Angels:''' Sanguinius leads a Destroyer host to completely obliterate an abominable culture. He has his men adopt anonymity so they do not need to shoulder the burdens of what they do, but argues that since he was designed for dark deeds he cannot set aside what he is. Primarchs might be angels, "but angels were not created for kindness".
:'''Mercy of the Dragon:''' Recounts a conversation between Vulkan and the Emperor that shows us how Vulkan was always intended to be the "most human" of the Primarchs, and to be able to teach his brothers how to be more like him. Possibly hinting towards a plan after the Great Crusade that involved the Primarchs settling down into civilian life.
:'''The Abyssal Edge:''' Shows a conflict between Curze and Magnus that was kept confidential, because the rest of the Imperium were not allowed to see the Primarchs in disagreement with each other. Crucially shows a side of Curze that ISN'T a terrorizing murder junkie edgelord. Sevatar leaves the choice up to the investigating officer, and it's implied the officer chooses to hush up the report. Also the first chronological appearance of Khayon from the Black Legion series as well as Sevatar back on his finest snarking form.
:'''Shadows of the Past:''' Set some point after the Horus Heresy, a "daemon" starts killing its way through some Word Bearers. Turns out Corax has ascended into a creature made of pure darkness and gets into a duel with Daemon-Lorgar. Corax wins, but the Word Bearers act as a mass human shield to allow Lorgar a chance to escape. Shaken from the fight, Lorgar heads to his room and slams the door behind him for a few millennia.
:'''The Emperor's Architect:''' A biography of Perturabo showing what he was doing before awoke halfway up a mountain, then later. Hints that Perturabo's projected image was carefully stage-managed, and ''oh'' how he hated to be upstaged. He had a sculpt-off with a prodigy artist, and just like Fulgrim he made a perfect statue. But the artist worked for a decade to make a cool statue of some hero that showed a different facet of his life/personality from the angle you were standing, and practically everybody who saw them side by side said that was better than Pert's 3D-printed like replica. Pert slapped the statue and never spoke about it again. He was destroying [[Rogal Dorn|artwork that embarrassed him]] long before he was discovered by the Emperor.
:'''Prince of Blood:''' After Angron gets Daemon-Prince'd by Lorgar, he goes mad and gets locked up in the bowels of his flagship, causing all sorts of disgusting changes to take place. Kharn goes to talk to him and finds that Angron has been stripped of his sense of self, completely lost to Khorne. Angron warns them against his form of slavery, though it appears that Kharn and the others followed him down the same path simply because he was their father, but there is also a promise that they will [[Blam|"thank"]] Lorgar for what he did to them.
:'''The Ancient Awaits:''' Long after the Heresy is over, Magnus sends a Thousand Sons squad to an abandoned planet to find a repeating broadcast that says only "the Ancient awaits". In a deep underground hangar they find an ancient Dreadnought and realize that the planet is Istvaan III, and that the Dreadnought is [[Ancient Rylanor]] of the Emperor's Children, who's been sitting there ever since Horus Exterminatus'd the planet millennia ago. Fulgrim appears to try and seduce Rylanor into joining up with the endless party machine that is the III Legion, and Rylanor goes "Surprise Motherfucker" and detonates a virus bomb he was sitting on. The Thousand Sons feel sympathetic to how honorable Rylanor is (despite being a bit cuckoo from sitting on his ass) and let him do it. Fulgrim's ego is wounded from seeing that even after several millennia Rylanor rejected all the pleasures he had to offer. [https://youtu.be/X2Hb4bngxJ8 A story forever immortalized in song form].
:'''Misbegotten:''' The Sons of Horus take over most of a system without having to fight, but have to deal with one holdout planet defended by Frankenstein-like creatures spliced together from multiple human donors. Their creator (Basilio Fo) is a five thousand year old bioengineer who encountered the Emperor at some point on Terra and then got the fuck out before the Great Crusade kicked off. He sends a big ball of human hands to surprise strike Horus in his command post, but Horus naturally defeats it messily. For all his own abominations, Fo admits that he sees the Primarchs as representing something far worse than even what he could have created. The epilogue shows him laughing his ass off in his cell on Terra when the Siege starts because he's kind of been proven right.

===Angron: Slave of Nuceria===
Covers the events leading to the World Eaters' adoption of the Butcher's Nails and the Ghenna massacre. Ever since taking command of the Legion, Angron has been ordering them to complete every planetary conquest they undertake in thirty-one hours, this being the length of a single day on Nuceria. When and if they fail, he has them kill one in every ten Astartes; the same thing Perturabo did when he took command of the Iron Warriors. This has happened so many times that the World Eaters are starting to suffer some serious daddy issues, and the only way for them to earn his approval is to accept the Butcher's Nails. Unfortunately for them, the implants keep failing, sometimes explosively so, until they're sent to bring a rebellious Imperial world back into compliance and find that it's been turned into a planet full of androids who were created with some of the same tech used in the Nails; with this, one of the Legion's Apothecaries is able to create a stable version of the Nails. Kharn is the first to successfully undergo the procedure, and the Nails make him [[Rip and Tear|RAGE]] so hard the book literally blacks out for a couple of pages. Angron orders the entire legion to be implanted, which triggers a brief spate of infighting between the World Eaters who want to earn Papa Angron's approval at any cost and those who think that he's a broken psychopath who needs to be taken to the Emperor for help. The one World Eater captain who still thinks the Nails are a terrible idea gets killed by Kharn in a duel and the rest of them submit to the procedure. The story ends right as Russ shows up with the entire VI Legion fleet, having decided that Angron needs a talking-to about all this nonsense. We all know how this ends, of course. There's also an epilogue where Kharn happens to ransack Ghenna 10,000 years later and comes across an embellished statue of the World Eater captain he beheaded, and has a rare moment of clear headed dispair for what he and his broken legion have become.

The book gives Angron some character development beyond "giant frothing berserker" which turns him into a pretty tragic figure. As it turns out, he didn't get the Butcher's Nails immediately after landing on Nuceria, but received them as a punishment for refusing to kill his adoptive father in the arenas. Before the Nails he was a pretty bro-tier guy who loved his fellow gladiators and used what appeared to be latent psyker powers to absorb all their nightmares so they could rest properly while he dealt with all their accumulated fear and anger. This Angron would have probably made one hell of a general for the Crusade. Then the Nails got pounded into his head and he Hulked out and killed his adoptive father, which broke him and turned him into the psychotic death machine we're all familiar with. He also has a death wish caused by the Emperor yoinking him from his last stand with the other gladiators on Nuceria and has spent the entirety of the Great Crusade looking for something tough enough to kill him.

===Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter===

Grimdark Batman finally gets his very own standalone novel! The entire thing is told in flashbacks framed by Curze talking to a statue of the Emperor he stitched together out of human flesh while waiting for M'Shen to come and kill him. Most of it involves explaining how Curze got out of the stasis coffin that Sanguinius stuffed him into at the end of ''Ruinstorm''. As it turns out he was adrift for a few decades after the end of the Heresy, until he got picked up by the crew of a sub-light freighter who planned to sell the coffin for a packet; instead Curze woke up and decided to [[rip and tear|play some tag]] [[grimdark|with the stupid humans.]] He left one of the crew alive and told him to drive the ship to Tsagualsa, mutilating the poor kid whenever he got bored. The kid had a chance to escape after dropping Curze off but followed him instead and was predictably [[grimdark|killed by the Night Lords when Curze decided he was done with him.]] Konrad also struggles under the weight of his visions throughout only for the Emperor to contact him and explain Konrad's great mistake: his visions of the future were not fixed and Curze could have chosen a different and better path if he had not been so convinced of the inevitability of fate. The Emperor also tells him two very interesting things: he does not consider any of the traitor primarchs irredeemable, and he forgives Konrad for all that he's done, just as Papa Sang had said he might. Konrad freaks out and insists he cannot be forgiven because there is no justice in that, then tears the statue down before leaving to get ready for M'Shen's imminent arrival.

Other highlights include some flashbacks to Curze's days murdering people on Nostramo, including killing a woman [[derp|who was about to commit suicide]] and Curze eating his victims [[grimdark|because he enjoyed it.]] Also Curze hated Corax, not because Corax was good, but because Corax was a better ninja than him. Oddly enough he also says he didn't hate any of his other brothers, even the ones who were dicks to him like Fulgrim or Dorn. So he really just tortured the shit out of Vulkan for shits and giggles, what a dick.

Seriously though, this summary doesn't do it much justice. It's still a pretty good book. And it's barely 200 pages, read it anyway.

===Scions of the Emperor===
A second short story collection and cocktease extraordinaire, originally a Weekender exclusive.
:'''Canticle:''' Focuses on Ferrus Manus during his early days on Medusa, fighting his way through hordes of cyborg monstrosities while he scavenges for armor, weapons, food, and equipment; battles the extreme weather; and tries to find a name for himself. He encounters a woman who tries to hold him up, but when he shows no fear of her and gives her his weapon on the grounds that she's earned it, she instead suggests he join her clan. He refuses, stating that he has something to do (namely killing Asirnoth). Amusingly, the story reveals that Primarchs can literally eat sand and metal to stay alive.
:'''The Verdict of the Scythe:''' Set during the Great Crusade. Having been yelled at by his brothers for trashing yet another planet, Mortarion tries being nice for once when bringing the world of Absyrtus into compliance. He roams the streets for a bit after the official compliance ceremony and realizes that the witch-cults which dominated Absyrtus before his arrival weren't limited to just the ruling tyrants but are completely integrated into the planet's society, so he deems the planet beyond saving, [[Exterminatus|nukes it from orbit]], and decides that being Mr. Nice Guy isn't for him (Liberating Humanity from Lifetm).
:'''A Game of Opposites:''' Set during the Heresy. An Iron Warriors warsmith tries to outthink Jaghatai Khan and loses hilariously because the Khan [[Oinkbane|is too subtle for him]]. Jaghatai easily defeats the trap the Iron Warriors tried to set, then explains to the warsmith why he lost before executing him: the warsmith may have studied the Khan's writings, but he failed to grasp their true meaning, and so he was doomed to defeat even if the Khan had not been present.
:'''Better Angels:''' Follows Jehoel, a line legionary of the Blood Angels, throughout the latter days of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Sanguinius chooses to be his patron as Jehoel commemorates the battles the legion has fought by making glass sculptures, all the while lamenting the destruction and loss wrought by the Heresy. Just before the Siege of Terra, he finally asks his father why Sanguinius chose to be his patron, and the primarch explains that he sees himself in Jehoel more than he does any of his other sons; he is the best expression of the Blood Angels' highest ideals.
:'''The Conqueror's Truth:''' A remembrancer gets herself assigned to the Night Lords so she can see some war, and Curze and Sevatar oblige her in the same way a jackass genie might grant your wish for a ton of gold by dropping it on you: they bring her to a city under assault by the Night Lords and allow her to record the civilian population being dumped en masse into its geothermal furnaces. When she declares that she will find some way to show this atrocity to the people of Terra, Curze tells her that's what he wants. He says that the citizens of the Imperium must know what kind of war is being waged in their name and that he'll use the footage to show other worlds that there are only two options for them: compliance, or death.
:'''The Sinew of War:''' A flashback to Guilliman's younger days on Macragge as he returns from putting down a tribal uprising to find Macragge City in flames and his adoptive father dead. He quickly realizes that his father's co-consul, Gallan, is responsible, and busts Gallan in front of the entire Senate. He fights down the temptation to just murder him, thus holding true to Konor's ideals. One of his bitterest enemies is so impressed that he swears allegiance to Roboute, and so does the rest of the Senate, thus setting Guilliman on the path to becoming the Lord of Macragge.
:'''The Chamber at the End of Memory:''' Also known as light touching above the clothes. Some workers fortifying a forgotten corner of the Imperial Palace in preparation for the forthcoming siege are killed by a psychic booby trap. When Rogal Dorn investigates, he discovers that they accidentally broke into the personal quarters of the Lost Primarchs, which have been heavily warded with psychic defenses forged by Malcador himself. When Malcador shows up, Dorn realizes that he can't even remember his brothers' names, and starts to tear into the Sigillite for having sealed his memories. Malcador counters by revealing that it was Dorn's idea to begin with, and further explains that he and Guilliman were able to save the II and XI Legions from being purged alongside their primarchs; they were mind-wiped and absorbed into the other Legions. He then unseals Dorn's memories long enough for him to realize that whatever his lost brothers did was so horrible that the Imperium would have long since fallen if they were still alive.
:'''First Legion:''' Also known as a gentle groping of your mental bits. Lion el'Jonson and the Dark Angels are in the midst of the [[Rangdan Xenocides]] when a mysterious legionary calling himself Alpharius turns up and requests an audience with the Primarch of the I Legion. He offers to secretly take over the war effort so that the Dark Angels may withdraw and rebuild their strength as this will improve the Lion's chances of one day being named commander of the entire Imperial war machine, which "Alpharius" believes is necessary for the Imperium to survive. The Lion rejects the offer immediately, stating that he will see the Xenocides through.

===Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First===
While the campaign for Ullanor takes place, the Emperor tasks the Lion with pacifying an irrelevant little world on the galactic fringe that had already been considered compliant. The Lion begins fortifying the world and bringing in more troops and fleets, keeping his true intentions to himself, while his senior commanders are keen to move on and earn real glory elsewhere. As it turns out, the planet was being used as a feeding world for the [[Khrave]], a race of uber-psychic xenos from before the [[Fall of the Eldar]] that can read minds, crush tanks with a gesture, and possess people in their millions from outside of a solar system. The book shows how clever and callous the Lion could be by [[Alpharius|coming up with a massively convoluted plan]] that he needed to keep secret from a race of mind readers, even going so far as to issue seemingly contradictory orders to his men to confuse the enemy as well as [[Perturabo|knowingly sacrificing millions of mortal lives]] in order to escalate the conflict and draw out the Khrave's leader in order to destroy them. This is all interspersed with some of his brief meetings with the [[Emperor]], highlighting how similar the two of them were in mindset. As the dutiful firstborn son, the Lion seemed to always know what his father desired and was the one most trusted to enact it. At one point, the Lion laments that his own contribution to the Imperium is nothing but ash and destruction, but the Emperor explains that this is the point of him and the I Legion: to do the things that even Konrad Curze and Leman Russ cannot, such as the complete erasure of opponents too troublesome to allow to exist (including obliterating all memory of them), and to do it without the need for recognition, accolades, or ceremony. The book even ends with the Lion having potentially [[Grey Knights|mind wiped his own Space Marines so that they cannot remember who they just fought.]] What the novel does best is illuminate the labyrinthine inner workings of the Dark Angels, showing why even the Alpha Legion thought they were a tough nut to crack. There are orders and cabals and subdivisions of orders and cabals threaded throughout the legion's structure, reaching across rank, station, and specialization, all of which are linked by a complex and ever-expanding web of coded heraldries, hidden symbols, and secret passphrases that only the Lion seems to fully grasp.

The book also reads like a tie-in novel to the recently released Horus Heresy 9: Crusade. It has many references to items and formations that were first introduced only months earlier such as the ''Fusil Actinaeus'', the Excindio battle-automata, Dreadwing Interemptors, Firewing Enigmatii Cabals, and the various hidden Orders of the Hekatonystika. It also disappoints because it actually shows the secret arsenals of those orders that are tantalizingly NOT represented on the tabletop, such as Fire Raptors equipped with psionic lance weapons, assault psycannons, archaeotech pistols [[Grimdark|that erase their target from memory]], and the Lion wearing a psychic dampening cloak.

===Alpharius: Head of the Hydra===
Long story short, everything we’ve been told about Alpharius is true, from a certain point of view (or maybe not). Alpharius himself (unless it was actually Omegon) lands on Terra after the primarchs were scattered. He immediately senses that [[Omegon|some part of him is missing]], but before he can ponder this too deeply the Emperor finds him and brings him back to the Palace. He's raised in total secrecy by Malcador, who explains that he will be the Emperor’s hidden blade, the son who can strike from the shadows and weave deceptions of surpassing subtlety. The Emperor further explains to him that Alpharius' job will be to preserve the Imperium at all costs, no matter what he might have to do. Alpharius interprets this to mean that he should test the Palace’s defenses, so he breaks into the Imperial Dungeon, kills a Custodian and steals his armor, and sets up a fake assassination attempt on the Emperor. Constantin Valdor stops him, but Alpharius reveals that he had already hacked into an AA battery on the other side of the Palace and could have just shot down the Emperor’s shuttle at any time, proving his point and annoying Valdor. Alpharius and his legion go on to wage war in the shadows throughout the Great Crusade, using wetwork teams, deep-cover sleeper agents, and psyops to defeat the Imperium’s enemies. The XX Legion apparently has agents seeded throughout the galaxy, even on worlds that haven’t yet been contacted by the Imperium, and uses them as appropriate to destabilize governments or cripple armies and infrastructures prior to the arrival of other Legions. Alpharius claims to have fought alongside the Dark Angels in their first deployment (as seen in Valdor’s novel), and also claims to have been present for the rediscoveries of several of his brothers, disguised as members of their legions. He and his legion are shown to be content with their role as black operatives, though also a bit bummed that they don’t get to stomp around kicking ass and gaining glory like the rest of the Astartes do.

He later unmasks his legion’s existence to the Lion during the Third Rangdan War, and the account of this meeting directly contradicts the one from ''Scions of the Emperor'', in that this time Alpharius merely offers his legion’s support to the Dark Angels, rather than suggesting that the Angels withdraw and let the XX Legion take over. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two accounts. While fighting the Rangdan behind the scenes and dealing with civil insurrections, Alpharius gets wind of a mysterious warrior who may possibly his missing twin on a world behind enemy lines. When he goes to investigate, he discovers that the world is being overrun by the [[Slaugth]], so Alpharius takes a small team in to find his brother. Most of his legionnaires die, but he finds Omegon (unless it's really Alpharius), and they sit down for a friendly chat. Omegon tells Alpharius that he fetched up on a deserted planet and stole a ship belonging to some space pirates in order to escape (unless he’s lying). They wonder if the Emperor had deliberately engineered them as twins or if they had been divided somehow by their passage through the Warp. Either way, they decide to keep the truth concealed from the rest of the Imperium, then escape the Slaugth together and start planning how to reveal Alpharius' existence to the Imperium. They decide to stage an attack on the ''Vengeful Spirit'', so Omegon sneaks onto the ship and fights his way to the bridge. Horus recognizes him immediately and is overjoyed to have found his last brother, who introduces himself to the Lupercal as Alpharius. This is followed by the last line of the novel: “This was a lie.” So does that refer to Omegon calling himself Alpharius, or does it mean that the entire story was all one big lie? Hydra Dominatus, ladies and gentlemen.

Throughout the novel, Alpharius presents himself as a surprisingly philosophical person, often ruminating on his nature and that of his brothers. He isn’t particularly impressed with any of them except for Horus and Sanguinius (but he might be lying) and he reveals that he distrusted Rogal Dorn so much that he decided to plant some sleeper agents on Terra just in case. (Of course, one of these sleeper agents was Alpharius himself, according to ''Praetorian of Dorn'', so does this mean that the Alpharius who was narrating this novel is a disguised Alpha Legionnaire?)

===Blood of the Emperor===

Oh, look, another short story anthology. Only six stories this time.

:'''Lupis Daemonis:''' Turns out Cthonia is even shittier than we were told it was, ranking as possibly even shittier than Nostramo and Barbarus combined. Horus, who goes without a name until the end of the story, is the runt of his gang in the utter shitheap that is the Cthonian underworld and is only spared from getting shanked by the other members of his gang because the gang leader realizes he isn't normal. We find out Horus was made differently from the other Primarchs in that his Primarch-level growth rate was intentionally stunted until psychically activated by the Emperor from afar, for some reason. Long story short, Horus evolves into his current form Pokémon style at the end after killing his gang leader, who was the one who gave him his name. Also apparently the Justaerin got their name from a violent gang on Cthonia who enjoyed impaling people on stakes.
:'''Skjalds:''' We learn Russ returns to Fenris every once in awhile to fuck with the locals, in this case a hunting party trying to kill a warp tainted creature who killed a whole village. Also we get confirmation that, yes, he does indeed smell like a dog.
:'''The Sixth Cult of the Denied:''' Magnus soft-exiles a member of his legion (and disbands an entire cult of the Thousand Sons) for consorting with demons in the quest for forbidden knowledge, specifically how the fuck he managed to cure his legion of the Flesh Change. Oh, the irony.
:'''The Will of the Legion:''' Dorn and the Imperial Fists happen upon an opportunistic bunch of void-dwelling bandits who attack their fleet and are a hair's breadth away from destroying every single one of them with extreme prejudice until they surrender at the very last moment. Basically a reminder that just because Dorn is a loyal good boy to the Emperor doesn't mean he isn't still a mass murderous dick at the end of the day.
:'''Council of Truth:''' Alpharius "confesses" to doing things the hard way as a means to constantly test himself and the Alpha Legion in preparation for the day that might see them standing as the Imperium's last line of defense. Basically confirms that Alpharius saw the Heresy coming a loooong way off.
:'''Terminus:''' Two Death Guard at the Siege of Terra, fresh off the events of 'The Buried Dagger', wonder if they're (gasp) the bad guys, what with their rotting flesh and awful smell and such.

===Mortarion: The Pale King===
Set to cover the Conquest of Galaspar, Mortarion's first campaign after taking command of the Death Guard.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
Not a Primarch (like Malcador), but still technically part of this series. Will cover Constantin Valdor's role in the Unification Wars, and according to previews it will hold some new insights on the Emperor's plans.

As it turns out, it doesn't really tell us anything that we didn't know already, though it does expand on a few things. The book is set near the end of the Unification Wars on Terra. The new Provost Marshal, Uwoma Kandawire, has uncovered evidence of some shady doings at Mount Ararat and confronts Constantin Valdor as to the Custodians’ role in that battle. Along the way, he tells her of the war against the warp-tainted Confederacy of Maulland Sen, where the inherent instability of the Thunder Warriors first became apparent. They weren't just genetically unstable; the influence of the Warp also caused them to go more berserk than usual, so it became evident to the Emperor that a [[Space Marines|long-term solution would be required]]. Valdor also tells Kandawire about the primarchs being scattered by the Chaos gods; the psychic backlash from the event was so strong that it wrecked a large section of the Imperial Dungeon and killed thousands of those present. Valdor himself waded in to save the stored gene-seed from being destroyed, alongside Amar Astarte, the Imperium’s best gene-wright and the namesake of the Adeptus Astartes, though everyone believed that the primarchs had been killed. The Provost Marshal concludes that the Custodes are trying to make a grab for power and leads an uprising alongside Lord Ushotan, the “primarch” of the Thunder Warriors’ Fourth Legion, who survived the purge at Ararat. Valdor confronts Kandawire and Ushotan outside the Lion’s Gate and explains himself thus: the Custodians and the Emperor are the architects of humanity’s future, and any crime can be forgiven and any virtue dismissed if it is in service to that future. Then he unleashes the fledgling [[Dark Angels|I Legion]] to destroy the insurrectionists and personally kills Ushotan in a duel. In the aftermath, he explains to Kandawire the Imperium’s ultimate aim: not just Unity on Earth, but [[Great Crusade| Unity throughout the galaxy]], a vast undertaking which will require hundreds of thousands of these new soldiers. Meanwhile, Amar Astarte has come to the conclusion that the Space Marine project will fall apart without the primarchs and has decided to destroy the stored gene-seed in order to stop them from failing like the Thunder Warriors did. She manages to blow up the gene-seed vaults underneath the Palace, but Malcador already had copies of all twenty batches moved to Luna. He then reveals to Valdor that the Emperor believes the primarchs are still alive and intends to seek them out. Valdor wonders if it wouldn't just be better to abandon them or destroy them outright, since they might be tainted by [[Chaos|whatever power]] snatched them away in the first place. Malcador's dialogue heavily implies that the Emperor actually did have some paternal affection for the primarchs at this point, as he mentions that the Emperor has started referring to them as his sons and suggests that he has a lingering attachment to them which has yet to fade. Valdor's response is equally telling: he notes that the Emperor's "human sentiments" are slowly ebbing away, and Malcador acknowledges that this is the price the Emperor was willing to pay to secure his dream of Unity.

===Luther: First of the Fallen===
A story told from the perspective of Luther starting at the time he’s found by Redloss after the events of Caliban’s destruction. Locked in a cell and tortured on and off so frequently that he barely even registers it anymore, he’s constantly forced to deal with Dark Angel Chapter Master after Dark Angel Chapter Master as the millennia go by, each one coming to him for knowledge of the past in between being frozen in stasis by the Watchers in the Dark. Each time he’s asked a question, Luther answers it in a roundabout way by telling a story from his past as a way to demonstrate some point to whichever Chapter Master happens to be listening: some get what he’s saying, and some don’t. One story gets misinterpreted so badly that the Chapter Master in question comes back afterwards and kills himself in Luther’s cell. By the time of the events of great rift with Azrael as the current chapter master, while the Rock is under siege, he finds that his cell door is open and he literally just tip-toes his way out.

===Sigismund: The Eternal Crusader===
Covers Sigismund near the end of the Great Crusade, as he talks to Solomon Voss about why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future. Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time and gets his backstory. Siggy was an orphan recruited from the slums of Terra by the Night Lords, but the initial genetic testing revealed he was more compatible with the Imperial Fists, War Hounds, Luna Wolves, and Raven Guard, in that order, so he got bumped into the VII Legion instead. He fights alongside the War Hounds and Night Lords, making him relieved he didn't wind up in either of those legions, and earned his position as First Captain by beating 200 other Templar Brethren in one-on-one duels, with his final opponent being a Contemptor Dreadnought containing the guy who coached him when he joined the Templars. He's named Dorn's personal champion after winning a duel with an Iron Hands champion over whether Dorn or Ferrus was right about the proper prosecution of a campaign. We also get to see his infamous duel with Sevatar, which lasted most of a night until Sevatar got bored and cheated to end it, and his time with the World Eaters, where he picked up his habit of chaining his sword to his arm. Most interestingly, he admits that he never wanted to be recruited for the Legions, and that if he knew then what he'd become, he'd still have said no. He ends by telling Voss that he believes there will always be war because conflict is an inescapable part of human nature; even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to deal with the war within the human spirit. We also learn a bit of Voss' backstory; he was a merchant who sold all his stuff and joined the remembrancer order after his son died in the Army and proved to have one hell of a knack for writing.

===Audiobooks===
'''The Sigillite''' Despite not being a Primarch, his short story is included in the Primarch sub-series of the Horus Heresy. It covers a discussion between Malcador and a Stormtrooper named Khalid Hassan about the nature of the Emperor's plans and whether or not Malcador agreed with everything the Emperor thought(hint: he didn't). Khalid had brought the Rosetta Stone to Malcador without fully understanding its significance, whereupon Malcador reveals that he is part of an ancient order dedicated to the preservation of humanity's knowledge and history, and whose symbol will later become the Inquisitorial =I=.

Malcador also reveals the doors to the Golden Throne and indicates the awesome battle going on behind them, foreshadowing the events of the Webway War that are covered later on in the main series.

'''Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium''' In the story Malcador visits his elderly personal astropath who is on her deathbed. The pair have a few conversations where Malcador shows surprising compassion and humanity. During the conversations there are some major revelations about Malcador and the origins of the Heresy. You should listen to it yourself as it's cheap and short (25 mins), but in case you don't care about spoilers here's some stuff: he's 6718 years old, he helped the Emperor go from being just the biggest warlord on Terra to... well, being the Emperor, and he explains who the Sigillites are and what their role in the Imperium is. After the astropath despairs about the countless billions who've died in the Heresy, he drops the mother of all bombshells: the Heresy was planned by him and the Emperor from the beginning. Just as how the Thunder Warriors served their purpose and were betrayed and wiped out, the plan was to eventually pit the Primarchs against one another and have them wipe themselves out. He says the two of them carefully maneuvered the Primarchs into specific roles and situations, as well as the Emperor showing unequal favour between them, in order to foster hostility. The ones who "couldn't be controlled" never made it to the endgame (possibility referencing the lost Primarchs). He admits though that his failure was underestimating Chaos who caused the Heresy to happen much sooner than expected, which turned it into the calamity that it is.

After she dies Malcador he admits he lied but doesn't say exactly which bit he lied about. Some people think the truth is they planned to wipe out the Primarchs and Astartes, but the Heresy was never planned and was instead a lie intended to comfort an old woman on her deathbed (by saying they have it under control, sorta). Some other people think the lie is where he tells her that the Emperor "will catch her" when she dies (hinting at an afterlife and saving her soul from Chaos). The truth is we'll probably never know as this is typical Malcador obfuscation. If there's even a shred of truth to the origins of the Heresy, though, the implications are staggering: Horus was right in turning against the Emperor even if his reasons for doing so were wrong.

'''Perturabo: Stone and Iron''' A minor story largely about showing the differences between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, so doesn't provide any major revelations for the series. The Iron Warriors are supposed to be supporting an Imperial Fist position that is currently under assault, but Perturabo holds back and uses the opportunity to instruct his officers about how the Fists prosecute their own wars.

'''Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness''' Pretty skippable, really just Curze giving his thoughts on why the Emperor made him like he did and the Night Lord definition of "compliance" during the Great Crusade. Hint: It involves flaying. Lots of it.

===Short Stories===
'''Grandfather's Gift:''' Mortarion has a lab accident and knocks himself out. He wakes up in Nurgle's Garden, wanders around for a bit, and has a nice chat with [[Ku'Gath]] the Plaguefather, whose name is misspelled [[Derp|for some reason]]. It's revealed that Nurgle has tracked down his foster father's soul and will let Mortarion capture it as a gift for joining his service. The timeline is a bit squiffy due to warp fuckery. Mortarion knows what daemons are and knows that he's fought alongside them, but doesn't recognize Ku'Gath. Ku'Gath knows Mortarion, but also says that they haven't met yet. Morty himself doesn't know where he is or what's going on at first, but eventually his memories return, and he mutates into his daemon primarch form and captures his foster father's soul.

'''A Lesson in Iron:''' Ferrus Manus chases some orks into a warp rift and stumbles across an Iron Hands ship from a few thousand years in the future. The boarding parties he sends are attacked by daemons which fuck them up, and Ferrus himself finds a dead future Iron Hand whose bionics look like a shitty hack-job to him, so he gets pissy and orders everyone to leave. When his Mechanicum adept points out that they might be able to mine the databanks for advanced technology and info on [[Drop Site Massacre|future events]], he declares that he wants no part of this future. Also reveals that Ferrus had seen enough shit on Medusa to know that the Imperial Truth was a "useful lie."

==The Tabletop Wargame==
[[Forge World]] produces a line of books and models (in line with the old [[Imperial Armour]] and [[Warhammer Forge]]) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy, with rules and models for the [[Primarchs]] (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors), named characters who were romping around back then and ancient vehicles and machines that would be one off units in 40k armies, being fielded en-mass. Originally an add on system for [[Warhammer 40,000]], it became it's own game with a rulebook after 40k moved on to [[Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition|8th edition]] making it a sort of legacy game for the older style of 40k edition and also meaning the game has become a refuge for fa/tg/uys who don't enjoy 8th/9th edition 40k. Since the game is set during the 31st millennium pretty much all the armies are more archaic versions of their 40k counter parts, with lots of rules and quirks that help differentiate the factions from their future selves, such as legion tactical squads being able to be fielded in 20 man squads representing how much bigger the legions were and [[Daemon]]s not having their gods properly identified (though still having rules for god specific daemons) and having vague unit names to represent the only basic understanding the Imperium had of them. There are no [[xenos]] armies unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask), but all the factions that are in the game are very customisable with a huge array of rules, army types and really good conversion opportunities being able to be brought to the table, especially for Mechanicum, Daemon and Militia & Cults armies. 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.

Following the passing of Alan Bligh and the re-organisation of Forge World as a studio, the fate of this wargame had been seen as a bit precarious. While there were probably more books to cover up to and likely including the Siege of Terra, it seemed increasingly likely that Daddy GeeDubs wasn't keen on letting FW continue writing for this game (or making massive monsters and tanks for the mainstream games) on top of their work on [[Necromunda]] and [[Blood Bowl]]. One only had to look at how gutted the Imperial Armour books became in recent editions to see the writing on the wall. That said, the game had itself a sizeable following, especially after 8th Edition 40K essentially threw out all the crunch fans knew and made something entirely different, predictably leading to reactionary grognards clinging to the remaining flecks of nostalgia.

The game was never fully cancelled though. Though the black books had essentially stopped after Crusade, GW did release '''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HHZone_Mortalis_Rules.pdf Zone Mortalis]''' rules, the Exemplary Battles PDFs and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 essentially announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team.

===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 [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Space Marines/Legion List‎|tactica]]), and rules for special characters and units from the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Death Guard]], [[Emperor's Children]], and [[World Eaters]] Legions, including their [[Primarch]]s (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. The book's storyline is essentially just the ''first day'' of the battle, leading up to the death of [[Ferrus Manus]].

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===
Focusses 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 includes rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]].

It also gives us a complete Mechanicum Army List: the Taghmata.

====Condensed Lists====
The ICL and LACAL were initially released as part of the limited edition run of Extermination, but were then later released separately. They are fluff-lite, codex-equivalent books that also included all of the FAQs/Errata up to their release; which unfortunately was still the end of 6th edition so some rules haven't carried over well. ''(eg. [[Lorgar]]s psychic rules.)''

The Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the Isstvan Campaign Legions contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3; their units, characters and wargear in the previous three books. Meaning you can have a cheaper alternative to buying multiple £70+, huge black tomes JUST to play the game. The ICL was continued in the Age of Darkness Legions, which collected everything to book 5, including the errata.

Later came the Mechanicum Taghamata Army List, which contained all the Mechanicum units and army lists mentioned and rearranged them to keep everything on the same page, but lacked the Questoris Knight Army. The Crusade Imperialis Army Lists contain the Solar Auxilia, Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults, and Questoris Knight Crusade army lists.

===Conquest===
Horus Heresy Volume Four is entitled 'Conquest', despite early hints from Forgeworld that it would be about the Battle of Prospero, it instead features Horus' conquest of the Imperium and the [[Skub|"Major"]] battles of this time, which is to say some battle-zones that Forgeworld made up to fill time whilst they worked on the more well known events from the in-universe history. ''(And to be fair, their response as to why Prospero was delayed was because it included four major factions, [[Adeptus Custodes|two of]] [[Sisters of Silence|which have]] NEVER been represented on the tabletop, so required more time to do them justice.)''

A large portion of the book is given over to running battles in the '''"Age of Darkness"''', which is a variant ruleset used as the default for Horus Heresy games ''(where only Troops usually score, amongst other things)'' and has rules and FOCs for Cityfight missions, rules for running ongoing campaigns, variant rules for mysterious terrain and objectives as well as including unique relics to be taken by the various army lists to add flavor to non-special characters.

It also introduces the [[Solar Auxilia]] and [[Imperial Knight|"Questoris" Knights]] (as an AdMech list) armies to play while the modellers take a break from building power armor 24/7.

===Tempest===
The fifth Horus Heresy book covered the Battle of Calth. The rules for the [[Ultramarines]] (including [[Roboute Guilliman]] himself) as well as several warp-corrupted Word Bearer units are brought in alongside a few other new miscellaneous FW releases, including the Deredeo and the new Thanatars. There's also an Imperial Militia (Read: PDF) list that's super-customizable so you can make both loyalist and traitor lists. Also, the MOTHERFUCKING [[Warlord Titan|WARLORD TITANS]] IS IN IT TOO. PREPARE YOUR WALLET.

===Retribution===
Focused on 'Shadow Wars' far from the main fronts of the Heresy, in particular the Shattered Legions - that is, the [[Iron Hands]], [[Raven Guard]], and [[Salamanders]] in their weakened state following their losses in the Drop Site Massacre. But other Legions can also be included, with special rules for the Shattered Legions, Black Shields and a list for Armies of Dark Compliance - mixed traitor Legiones/Militia lists, as well as ten new special characters. It includes Legiones Astartes rules for the White Scars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels, so that players of those legions can start playing properly; however, it does not include special units, characters, or Primarchs for those legions. It also includes Garro and the Knights Errant and additional Mechanicum units and characters, including a new Dark Magos, [[Anacharis Scoria]]. Space Wolves and Thousand Sons will still need to wait for the Prospero book (Inferno, Book 7).

===Inferno===
In <s>Set to be book 3.</s> <s>late 2016.</s> <s>early 2017 (Because FW can't keep to schedule)</s> <s>December 2016</s> February 4, 2017, comes with what many neckbeards are waiting for: THE BURNING OF PROSPERO!!! For those [[Thousand Sons]] players, start saving up so you can play your space Egyptian sorcerers in all their 30k glory. Rules for the Sisters of Silence as an allied detachment and the Adeptus Custodes as a full army list will be present as well.

Well, it's come, and... it's uninspiring to say the least, with stuff like [[What|Magnus being straight up impossible to hit if he casts invisibility, not to mention pumping out 2d6 destroyer hits at every unit within 18" if he likes]], [[Derp|Custodes captains beating out every Primarch with a rollable 3+ invulnerable save]], some Custodes wargear being straight up [[Wat|left out of the book]] and to cap it all, [[Herp|pictures of tourists in the book ('''twice''') where you'd expect miniatures to be]]. You'd think with such a long development cycle the quality assurance would have been more thorough. Didn't help that [[Alan Bligh]] was likely fairly ill in late 2016, and his death in May of 2017 means the Horus Heresy team now has a big hole in it.

===Malevolence===
After the untimely death of Alan Bligh, this will be the first book with John French behind the wheel after two years of internal re-organizing. Covers the events of Signus Prime and the Chondax Campaigns. It features [[White Scars]] and [[Blood Angels]] including rules for both Jaghatai and Sanguinius, [[Dark Angel Shoulder Pad|making the Lion the only Primarch without rules]]. Introduced as a new army is Daemons of the Ruinstorm, an army of 'unknown aberrant xenoforms' (since this was before the Imperium really understood what Daemons really were) which play quite differently to the Daemons of Fantasy/Sigmar/40K. Also included are 5 new consuls and two new squads that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

===Crusade===
Was originally to be called ''Angelus'', though it eventually was renamed to ''Crusade''. It covers the [[Thramas Crusade]] with the Dark Angels vs Night Lords, and introduces new Legion-specific units and characters for the Dark Angels, including Dreadwing units and rules for upgrading DA characters to represent any of the six Wings of the Hexagrammaton. Most importantly, the Lion finally has his rules. The Night Lords got revamped rules and some new toys, including a new VIII Legion-specific Terminator squad that [[Derp|isn't the Atramentar]]. Unfortunately leaks have confirmed that the Dark Mechanicum army list has been pushed back to the next <s>book</s> edition. Also has rules for some new Space Marine vehicles, including the Sabre strike tank and the Arquitor Bombard, plus new additions for the Solar Auxilia, Imperial militia, and Chaos cults. Finally released in September 2020, having been delayed due to Nurgle's interference. Remarkable for atrocious fluff like Dark Angel auxiliary fleets usually including [[Gloriana-class_Battleship|Glorianas]], [[Rangdan_Xenocides|"the biggest threat to the existence of Imperium"]] being reduced to 80k Marine casualties in all three campaigns spanning for two decades, Legion recruits retaining their noble status after being conscripted, and many, many more things that would give even Matt Ward a pause. This appears to be the last of the black books for the current edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

===Exemplary Battles===

As of fall 2021, GW is publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that aren't big enough for their own black book. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff", so one could plausibly argue that the PDFs are just ads for FW's overpriced upgrade packs. Still, it's a neat concept and at least they're free. These seem to be leading into the new edition of the game as announced at Adepticon 2022.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Xwccsydzg8YpDsho.pdf The Battle of Pluto: Hydra's Devastation]''''': Focuses on the Alpha Legion's invasion of Pluto, as seen in ''Praetorian of Dorn'', and provides a scenario for Imperial Fists vs Alpharius' sneaky sneks. Also has rules for the Huscarls, Dorn's elite bodyguard, which make them into Phalanx Warders on steroids.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/9eA3ZYnzr5tXbxjX.pdf The Defence of Sotha: Aegida's Lament]''''': Focuses on the Night Lords' raid on Sotha and the near-destruction of the Ultramarines Aegida Company while attempting to hold Sothopolis. The Atramentar ''finally'' get their tabletop rules and also are spotlighted in the fluff, which concludes with them [[Internet Troll|murderfucking their own commanding officer]] because he was getting too uppity for the other Night Lord officers' liking.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NUTJvW4qx8d08Fkr.pdf The Siege of Hydra Cordatus: Sundering of the Cadmean Citadel]''''': Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors brawling it out on the ruined world of Hydra Cordatus. Includes rules for the IV Legion's Dominator Cohort, Perturabo's former bodyguards who got fired and replaced with the Iron Circle after Phall. Hilariously, they are so salty about this that they have Hatred (Cybernetica Cortex) unless you take them as Pert's retinue.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fcMVfgBlCyDHmejD.pdf The Battle of Armatura]''''': World Eaters vs. Ultramarines on the war world of Armatura, as seen in ''Betrayer''. Includes rules for the XII Legion's Red Hand Destroyer squads, who can take Caedere weapons like meteor hammers and excoriator chainaxes in addition to all the usual Destroyer nastiness and ''must'' declare a charge whenever able if they're within 12" of an enemy unit at the beginning of the Assault phase.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/mouvfePNquxVdprP.pdf The Battle of Perditus: Umbral-51]''''': The Death Guard are trying to [[Ork|loot]] galaxy-wrecking archaeotech and the Dark Angels mean to stop them. Iron Hands and Mechanicum are there too, and the mission pack has rules for rampaging battle-automata trying to kill the Spess Mehreens so the techpriests can go back to worshiping their doomsday devices in peace. Includes rules for units from both sides: the Order of the Broken Claw and the Mortus Poisoners. The Broken Claw are Inner Circle Knights who get bonuses against Monstrous and Gargantuan Creatures and daemons, representing the fact that they were the I Legion's specialized Rangdan-killers during the Xenocides. The Mortus Poisoners are Destroyers who can swap their bolters for flamers with chem-munitions for free and one in every five can swap their bolt pistol for a heavy flamer with chem-munitions for 20 points ([[Derp|that's right, their '''bolt pistol''', not their bolter, blame FW editors]]), and can be taken in units of 15 for when you just want the table to burn.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/iIVebnZrYRFbaDGH.pdf The Battle of Calth: Underworld War]''''': Smurfs and Word Bearers duking it out in Zone Mortalis missions representing the underground battles fought after Calth's surface was trashed in ''Know No Fear''. Includes rules for the Ultramarines' Nemesis Destroyer squads, aka Guilliman's least favorite sons. Instead of dual bolt pistols, they get bolters with specialist ammo that gives them Assault 2 and Rending and they can take weapons usually reserved for Breacher and Support squads. Kinda weird, but makes sense given the XIII's "tactical flexibility" schtick. No jump packs, though.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/H6ygklXe9Fv2FwRe.pdf Battle For Kalium Gate]''''': Emperor's Children and White Scars get their turn, fighting over a huge void gate as the Scars try to get back to Terra in time for the big party. Has rules for new units from both sides. The III Legion gets the Sun Killers, Heavy Support squads that only use lascannons, multi-meltas, volkite culverins, and plasma cannons [[Meme|because they're elegant weapons from a more civilized time]] and can take an Aegis Defence Line without using up a Force Org slot. The White Scars get the Karaoghlanlar, or Dark Sons of Death. Aside from sounding like a Welsh person choking on something, they're jump-pack Destroyers who don't get phosphex or missile launchers and trade one bolt pistol for a chainsword, but can be taken as a retinue for a Stormseer with a jump pack. They also have a rule that lets them autofail Sweeping Advance rolls in exchange for performing a spooky ritual that forces enemy units within 6" to pass an Ld test or suffer -1 WS next turn.

==See Also==
* [[The War of The Beast]], for the next massive shit-show the Imperium was involved with.
* [[Alternate Heresy]], for a discussion of other possible outcomes of the (not necessarily Horus) Heresy.
* [[Army compatibility between Warhammer settings]]

==External Links==
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Board Games]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Wargames]]

Horus Heresy

2022-04-08T11:47:12Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Books XLI - L */

[[File:zbrothers.jpg|500px|thumb|right|It was pretty much ''this''.]]
{{Topquote|1=[[Fulgrim|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me.]] [[Magnus the Red|Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.]] [[Angron|They will be of iron will and steely muscle.]] [[Perturabo|In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed.]] [[Mortarion|They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them.]] [[Alpharius|They will have tactics, strategies and machines]] [[Omegon|so that no foe can best them in battle.]] [[Konrad Curze|They are my bulwark against the Terror.]] [[Lorgar|They are the Defenders of Humanity.]] [[Horus|They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.]]|2=The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], [[Not as planned|getting exactly what he wanted.]]}}
{{Topquote|The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.|Karl Popper}}

The '''Horus Heresy''' also known as '''Horus Humbug''', '''Cosmic Scale Daddy Issues''', '''That time [[Erebus]] fucked everyone over forever''', '''Paradise Lost IN SPACE''', '''[[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Jimmy Space]] and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Decade''' and (in-universe) as '''The Great Heresy War''' is one of the single biggest clusterfuck of events in [[Warhammer 40,000]] fluff, alongside the [[Eldar]]'s creation of a new [[Slaanesh|Chaos God]] and the [[War in Heaven|rampage and fall of the]] [[C'Tan|star gods]]. Needless to say, this heresy derailed the Emperor's plan and himself, and gave the Chaos Gods their most prominent armies to carry out their will in realspace.

In the Horus Heresy, the Emperor's favorite son, [[Horus| Horus Lupercal]], formerly Warmaster of the Imperium, was corrupted by Chaos and rebelled against the Emperor, taking nine [[First Founding|Space Marine Legions]] (Including [[Luna Wolves|his own]]), their respective Primarchs, and about half 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 cut the head off the proverbial snake by killing the Emperor and winning the war.

Things went [[Not as Planned]] however, as he was eventually surrounded by loyalist forces at the height of the siege on Terra. As a final gambit, he dropped the shields of his flagship which allowed the Emperor to beam up and challenged him to a duel for the fate of humanity. Horus beat the Emperor within an inch of his life but was killed in turn after the Emperor put his foot down and obliterated Horus' soul from existence (as in it didn't go to the warp to be resurrected by daemons, it was literally erased from existence) when it finally became clear to him that Horus was beyond forgiveness. 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==
[[File:HHMap.jpg|600px|right|thumb|The Clusterfuck in motion. If this map reminds you of the Syrian Civil War, consider getting a gold star.]]
The Horus Heresy screwed with almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course) and changed the flavor of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a positive word about religion, we rape you and your family with knives" to Catholic [[Inquisition]] "if you breathe a word about the ''wrong'' religion, we rape you [[Exterminatus|or your whole planet]] 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|Burning]] [[Magnus_the_Red#Horus_Heresy|of Prospero]]
*[[Drop Site Massacre]]
*[[Battle of Calth|Battle of Calth]]
*[[Shadow Crusade]]
*[[Thramas Crusade]]
*[[Signus Campaign]]
*[[Battle of Phall]]
*[[Battle of Tallarn]]
* The TitanDeath at [[Beta Garmon]]
*[[Siege of Terra]]

Following the Siege of Terra, Horus was permakilled, Konrad allowed himself to be assassinated, Ferrus Manus had already died in the Drop Site Massacare, Sanguinius was KIA, Big E was interred onto the Golden Throne, the surviving loyalist Primarchs freaked out trying to figure out what do now that daddy was in a coma, the surviving traitors fucked off into the Eye of Terror, and overall the galaxy slowly and collectively lost their minds now that their wise and all-powerful ruler was no longer around to tell them what to do.

==The Board Game==
First published in 1993 by [[Game Designer's Workshop]], it was the Emprah versus his [[Horus|evil bastard of a son]] in the scorched earth of Terra. Units include [[Titan#Warhammer_40k|titans]] and [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Spaw-]] oh shiARHGRBLLYRBGRDEWUODHGRYEB.

Ahem. As he was saying, the more recent edition (2010) was published by [[Fantasy Flight Games]]. Also a two-player [[wargame|war]] [[board game|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 [[heresy|traitor's]] flagship ''Vengeful Spirit''. Combat is less [[dice|dice-y]] and more card-y.

(Not to be confused with the lame Horus Heresy card game, whose only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway.)

==The Main Book Series==
{{Spoilers}}
For the last decade, [[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 [[Dan Abnett|the first trilogy]], The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Fear To Tread, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|Betrayer]], [[White Scars|Scars]], and the short story [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]].

Of course, like we mentioned, there's some that are... um... Well, let's just say that the worst are a [[skub|matter of much debate]]. And there a couple that are just objectively bad (Battle for the Abyss).

===Books I - X===
*'''''Horus Rising:''''' A prologue story, introducing us to the series and Garviel Loken who will grow into a very significant and popular character, the 'Jim Raynor from Starcraft' of the heresy. Black Library needed a killer opener and they succeeded, Dan Abnett handling it pretty well. An Emperor (not [[Emperor|Him]]) is killed at the beginning and some bugs are killed on a planet called Murder for no reason other than they were there. The [[Interex]] show up and ask "whadya do that for?". Negotiations with them go sour when [[Erebus]] steals the '''MURDER SWORD''' from them. It is worth noting that if the Interex had some goddamn CCTV set up in their museum of awesome and valuable weapons then the whole heresy could possibly have been avoided.
*'''''False Gods:''''' Horus falls at Davin when wounded by the '''MURDER SWORD''' and gets a crash course in the chaos gods from [[Erebus]] & [[Magnus]]. After getting shown a few "truths" that WILL HAPPEN in the future (like the Emperor being worshipped as a god and Horus being reviled and forgotten) he decides to make war on the Imperium to [[FAIL|prevent]] all this from happening. Actually a rather weak and rushed affair when it comes to detailing the Horus Heresy's origin story. Until this point, we've been exploring Horus' character in great detail for 1.5 books, but then he has a nasty fever dream, sees a few bad prophecies and boom, he wakes up as a traitorous Saturday morning cartoon villain, after which point his machinations to create the Isstvan III event and Dropsite Massacre or any other bits of the heresy go completely undetailed and left behind the scenes. The really cool shit in this book is the battle on Davin, as the Sons of Horus and the Imperial Army fights against a massive horde of chaos zombies in a foggy swamp and the wreck of a space ship.
*'''''Galaxy in Flames:''''' Isstvan III happens and the traitors send the loyalists down to the planet without reinforcements and proceed to bomb them to fuck. Things don't go to plan when [[Angron]] decides to invade, turning it into a [[Not as Planned]] drawn out conflict that the Warmaster can't really afford - Loken is presumed dead after a duel with Abaddon. While it's good to have a whole book detailing a key event in the Heresy, there isn't actually any important or interesting dialogue to read that would make you glad you didn't just read a synopsis. There's also an embarrassingly written sequence towards the end, where a large number of loyalists survive an Exterminatus event by fleeing to some magical and super convenient bunkers. They see virus bombs entering the planet's atmosphere with the naked eye and somehow have enough time to run deep enough underground to survive one of the Imperium's most effective superweapons.
*'''''Flight of the Eisenstein:''''' the other side of ''Galaxy in Flames''. Nathaniel Garro escapes and gets marooned in the warp fighting daemons, eventually gets saved (and mega-bitchslapped) by [[Rogal Dorn]], who does not take the news from Isstvan [[Rage|very well]]. The first bit of the novel is so far 'the Death Guard's novel'. There is also the very first canonical appearance of Plague Marines, Euphrati Keeler being all mystical and shit, and Malcador recruiting Garro as the first Knight-Errant.
*'''''Fulgrim:''''' A divisive entry that is either forgettable to some or pretty interesting depending on who you ask - depends how much you like the Emperor's Children. Tells the story of the III Legion from the Great Crusade all the way up to the [[Drop Site Massacre]] in one book. In short Fulgrim finds a sword, gets possessed, kills Ferrus Manus - the end. It is written by Graham McNeill though, and it has an awesome quote from Fulgrim: "My Emperor's Children. What beautiful music they make." The second plot of this book is about some human, but it is so forgettable the writer has it dropped halfway through the book. The human plot also explains where [[Lucius]] get his self-scarring habit from: a painter woman told him it will make his face perfect (ugly) again, because he wouldn't shut up about how Loken ruined his perfect beauty with a sucker punch.
*'''''Descent of Angels:''''' This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on [[Zahariel]]'s time on [[Caliban]]. It portrays [[Lion El'Jonson]] having to deal with some social awkwardness (he cannot read people at all, so he comes off as 'do what I say or die!') and having Luther to handle the small talk. Hints that the Great Crusade <s>does more harm than good</s> {{BLAM|is bringing the lost colonies of mankind together into a united future!}} Luther gets sent home with Zahariel to hustle up more Dark Angels. Another divisive book, but could definitely have used some more time with the editor. Be aware that this book was published long before GW had decided what to do with the Lion's loyalty and personality, so its descriptions of the Lion are outdated and do not match his current status.
*'''''Legion''''' introduces [[the Cabal]], the [[Perpetual]]s and [[Omegon]]. READ THIS BOOK. Or don't, as this is where those things that would eventually take over the Heresy series and according to many completely ruin it (Cabal, Perpetuals) are introduced. I still would recommend reading it since when the novel introduces these ideas they are very fresh and interesting. Don't blame ''Legion'' when the rest of the novels were what ruined it. The [[Alpha Legion]], along with the Geno Chiliad, a regiment of genetically engineered supermen-yet-not-Astartes lead by anime lolis called ''uxors'' (High Gothic for "wives") is trying to bring some Chaos cultists in <s>space Afghanistan</s>[[Nurth]] into compliance. The cultists activate planetary self-destruct blood sacrifice; as this goes down, the Alpha Legion meets with the [[Cabal]], gets a glimpse of their vision of the future ("the Alpharius gambit"), agrees to work with them, then kills off all non-legion bystanders & ships with "FOR E-MONEY"! This book is still 100% canon, but in later books GW seems to have changed their mind on the Alpha Legion so they abandoned most of the plots from this book.
*'''''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 thought it was cobbled together from [[Matt Ward|Wardian fluff]] stitched together by [[C. S. Goto]]. Reading this book, in fact, causes mind cancer, which is to say, that it does not create brain tumors, but hurts the ideas of the reader. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much (as in anything). The only thing you need to remember is [[Lorgar]] built a fuckhueg space ship and filled it with Dreadnoughts, and it failed miserably. The book's adherence to canon is an atrocity, but it does contain some decent depictions of ship-to-ship combat as a mildly redeeming quality.
*'''''Mechanicum:''''' Easily one of the best novels in the series, it explores many hidden/forbidden aspects and lore of the Mechanicum. Techpriests turn renegade after Horus tells them they can do whatever they like with technology, so they release forbidden viral scrapcodes and screw everything up. Also turns out that [[Emperor|Big E]] invented the Machine-God by sealing a C'Tan on Mars back during the Saint George era, giving everyone visions of technology. Also more subtle hints that the Emperor is a god himself as he uses divine golden light to heal machines and instant access super wikipedia. Contains a lot of Titan awesomeness and [[Imperial Knight|Knights]] badassery. And for extra Grimdark, a tech priestess discovers that the Dark Age era humans stored a backup copy of Wikipedia in the warp and <s>with a giant psyker powered terminal accesses said Wikipedia and restores all the knowledge of mankind</s> floods her forge with lava to deny the traitors access. A psyker tech savant meets up with the gaoler of the Void Dragon and takes over his fuck long shift.
*'''''Tales of Heresy:''''' short story collection, including [[The Last Church]]. Has a lot of twist endings.
** '''''Blood Games:''''' An assassin tries to kill the emperor. The Adeptus Custodes go to kill a traitor on Terra. The assassin was a Custodes probing the palace defences. The traitor was a triple agent working for Dorn. The bodyguard of the triple agent turns out to be an Sons of Horus assassin who detonates a bomb that kills the triple agent and nearly accomplishes a suicide run to destroy a bunch of reactors controlled by the triple agent.
** '''''Wolf at the Door:''''' The Space Wolves kill some Dark Eldar and are the defenders of everyone who does not defy the Emperor. When the liberated planet chooses freedom over the Emperor, the Wolves invade it, of course.
** '''''Scions of the Storm:''''' The Word Bearers destroy a human civilization that has crystal cities, crystal robots, and lots of lightning. They worshiped the Emperor, but Lorgar no longer does. This is also later a chapter of ''The First Heretic'', but they're narrated from a slightly different point of view .
** '''''The Voice:''''' A squad of Sisters of Silence investigate a Black Ship that became derelict in the Warp. Turns out [[Blank|the youngest of the squad]] in the future [[Wat|used sorcery]] to beam back her consciousness through time onto some psykers on the Black Ship. She <s>successfully warns the squad about Horus's Rebellion </s> is executed by a hard-core Sister for breaking her vow of [[Psyker|no funny stuff]].
** '''''Call of the Lion:''''' Half of the Dark Angels are dicks, the other half are not. Totally not foreshadowing.
** '''''[[The Last Church]]:''''' A story about the Emperor destroying one of the churches on Terra during the reunification era in his effort to wipe out religion. The Emperor and the priest of the church have an enlightening conversation about what the Emprah's trying to accomplish. The conversation ends up with the priest accusing the Emperor of being a hypocrite, with him decrying that he's no different from the old warlords who waged crusades and holy wars in the past to push their own agendas on other people. The Emperor reveals himself as the very god the priest was worshiping, and nearly convinces him to stand by his side while his soldiers destroy the church. Priest gets cold feet and walks back into the church while it collapses. An end-times alarm clock starts ringing in the ruins.
** '''''After Desh'ea:''''' The War Hounds meet their Primarch. Angron defeats the War Hounds. More specifically, the Emperor just beamed up Angron away from his last stand (rather than, you know, intervening with his Custodes or his fleet), leaving Angron pretty pissed. [[Kharn]] is a pretty great guy to be around, and pulls his femurs out of his lungs quickly enough to establish himself as Angron's best buddy ''after everyone above him in the War Hounds chain of command calmed Angron down as fleshy squeeze balls''.

===Books XI - XX===
*'''''Fallen Angels:''''' this sequel to Descent of Angels is actually two stories rolled into one book that never converge. The Lion heads to a strategically important forge world only to find that the magos has turned traitor, then fights a war to reclaim some Ordinatus devices only to hand them to Perturabo to gain his trust, not realising that his brother has already turned. He's really spergily awkward with people throughout. Meanwhile, [[Zahariel]] and Luther encounter a daemon cult on Caliban and get into shennanigans with [[Cypher]], setting the stage for the rise of the [[Fallen]] as they reject the Lion and the Emperor due to misplaced patriotism for Caliban and butthurt over feeling abandoned by their primarch.
*'''''A Thousand Sons:''''' Part 1 of the Battle for Prospero. Runs through the Great Crusade where Magnus discovers the webway, but his Father already knew about it. Then the Edict of Nikaea where Magnus gets all passionate about not restricting psychic powers, then to Horus's vision quest where Magnus fails to keep his brother on the right path, then does the WORST thing possible by forcing himself through the palace psychic spam filter, breaking the Golden Throne in the process. Space Wolves come knocking shortly after. Tragedy ensues and the Thousand Sons become a thousand sons all over again. Ahriman starts writing his Rubric.
*'''''Nemesis:''''' [[Malcador the Sigillite]] invents the [[Officio Assassinorum]] Execution Task Force and sends six assassins to kill Horus. They fail because Horus sent a look-a-like, but in the process slay a shapeshifting daemonic counter-assassin sent by Erebus. While it is a decent book and we learn a lot, it didn't contribute much to the overall plot. On the more [[rage|vitriolic side]], the writing is a bit underwhelming in places; highlights include calling a pariah a psyker, another pariah with a contrived possession, and Horus uttering one of the most cliche one liners out there.
*'''''The First Heretic:''''' [[Lorgar]]'s turn to get a backstory and generally considered one of the better books in the series. While you may never sympathize with them, this book really lets you understand why The Word Bearers fell to Chaos, rather then being the "CHAOTIC EVIL MONSTERS" they are portrayed in the rest of the series. Feels less rushed than ''[[Fulgrim]]''. Goes from Monarchia to a bit of soul searching in the Eye of Terror and discovers Cadia. Leads up to Istvaan V and the immediate aftermath. Significant subplots revolve around the inception of Possessed Marines, and what happens to the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] babysitters watching over the Word Bearers, and how the protagonist [[Argel Tal]] gets into a tragic bromance with the Custodes leader.
** '''''Aurelian:''''' A limited release short story until an ebook was published. The plot bounces around in between a number of moments in Lorgar's history up to the prelude of the Shadow Crusade. One narrative involves how Lorgar's brothers still treat him like shit, especially when he's the only one who sees through Fulgrim's possession, and ends with Horus sending him to fuck up Ultima Segmentum and handing him Angron's (figurative, [[/d/|not literal]]) leash. The other narrative takes place in the 40 year gap in ''The First Heretic'', where Lorgar makes a pilgrimage into the Eye of Terror with a Daemon Princess as his guide. They come to a dead Crone World where he puts a dying [[Avatar of Khaine|Avatar]] out of its misery and he's told that the Eldar panicked rather than embrace Chaos during the birth of Slaanesh, which is what caused them to nearly die out; the daemon prince(ss) tells Lorgar the same thing is happening with humanity during the Heresy, how Chaos really wants a [[A Game of Pretend|symbiotic relationship with humanity rather than to conquer it]]. In the middle of this, Khorne decides he's had enough of this talky wordy shit and sends [[An'ggrath]] to make things more exciting, and Lorgar narrowly beats him. Then Kairos Fateweaver comes and "tells" him about Calth and his relationship with Guilliman and his upcoming war with him in the most confusing as fuck discussion ever. The truth of most of the things told to Lorgar are left ambiguous, because, well, Fateweaver; but also Chaos has a lot riding on the Heresy coming to fruition for reasons left not entirely explored.
*'''''Prospero Burns:''''' Part 2 of the Battle for Prospero. A civilian archaeologist named Kasper Hawser (as typical for GW authors flexing obscuring knowledge, not very subtle given that the real Kaspar Hauser was a liar from 1820s Germany, who thrived on getting public attention and [[Derp|accidentally killed himself]] when public attention faded) hangs out with a company of the Space Wolves, where we learn a lot about their culture and attitudes. Turns out that Chaos infiltrated everything, so the outcome of Nikaea was practically rigged. The civilian himself even turns out to have been an unwitting spy for Chaos, but the Wolves knew anyway and didn't give a shit (they thought he worked for Magnus).
* '''''Age of Darkness:''''' A short story anthology.
** '''''Rules of Engagement:''''' Roboute lets one of his commanders lead in a series of wars that didn't really occur, and we get the best line ever said in regards to the [[Codex Astartes]]: despite the fact it does cover a lot, it's not meant to be followed biblically <s>which is a load of bull given that the Codex lets said commander win all the wars in the most efficient way possible while blindly following it and only failed in the last battle because he was in a war game against Girlyman</s>. (See the quote on the page on the Big Book of Astartes). The Imperium Secundus shows up, making for another bizarre plot element that ruins the series without adding anything.
** '''''Liar's Due:''''' You know those memes on how the [[Alpha Legion]] causes mass paranoia without actually involving any Astartes? Those aren't just memes. An Alpha Legion serf arrives on a agri-world and turns its allegiance to Horus just by hacking all their interplanetary communications.
** '''''Forgotten Sons:''''' A [[Salamanders|Salamander]] and a grumpy ol' [[Ultramarine]] are sent in opposition to one of Horus' iterators to convince an industrial-militant world which side to side with. They almost side with Horus before the Warmaster's agents [[Exterminatus|wreck shit]] for the lulz and to send the message that neutrality will be punished. The [[Iron Warriors]] were doing weird shit on that world for years beforehand and were probably a bigger factor than the lulz.
** '''''The Last Remembrancer:''''' Horus sent the one last remembrancer he had stored up as a gift to Dorn. Instead of in a box (or eight or some shit like that), it was the [[Dan Abnett]] of his day telling Dorn that the grimdark galaxy was grimdark. Also that the Emperor's vision of a galaxy of peace, unity, prosperity, and fluffy bunnies built up without any more grimdark attached than was strictly needed probably wasn't very likely before any shit hit any fan either way. Also, Iacton Qruze makes his first appearance since forever, but nobody gives a shit. Dorn says it's all lies and enemy propaganda before executing said remembrancer and torching all his ramblings.
** '''''Rebirth:''''' Magnus's absent fleet from the Burning of Prospero comes home and shits a brick. The last known surviving squad of Thousand Sons outside of the Planet of the Sorcerers gets beaten up and they slowly figure out it was the Space Wolves who shit on Magnus's <s>parade</s> world and is stalking them. One plot twist later, most of them are dead, the last one decides he's gonna rebuild everything, with a few scant hints that his flesh-change genetic flaw will [[Blood Ravens|shift into kleptomania]].
** '''''The Face of Treachery:''''' The tie-in and conclusion of the audiodrama featuring the Raven Guard after Istvaan and the prequel to Deliverance Lost. After getting fed up with Corax [[troll]]ing Perturabo for a bit too long, Horus sends Angron in to finish the job but Corax's cavalry arrives to troll Angron by getting the loyalists the fuck out of there. We also learn that Corax has a supersekrit psyker ability which lets him roll a natural 20 on stealth checks no matter how ridiculous it would be, and that the Alpha Legion ''once again'' can out-troll everybody when they fuck things up for the World Eaters (they let the World Eater commander think he was in command then blew his brains out when he tried to actually command). Ends with an transitory bit into ''Deliverance Lost''.
** '''''Little Horus:''''' Little Horus Aximand is struggling with the PTSD he got when he killed Loken and Torgaddon with [[Abaddon|Abby]]. Abby and Little Horus have a discussion (we mean Horus Aximand, not when Primarch Horus was sodomizing Abaddon again) about restoring the Mournival. A couple war scenes later, Little Horus learns the hard way that the White Scars are pretty badass, but his PTSD starts acting up again and he gets his face shaved off before the White Scars are driven off. Little Horus realizes the PTSD he has ultimately stems from that time he helped kill Loken and Torgaddon, and gives a diatribe about how things like "change", "mood swings", and "hallucinations" are suited to his melancholic nature, saying things like "it's perfectly natural", "I'm fine, everything's fine. Everything is perfectly, absolutely fine", and "Therapy is for the weak. I'm fine". After the Mongolian shave, he gets his face reattached and ends up looking even more like Big Horus in the deal.
** '''''The Iron Within:''''' Some pretty bro-tier loyalist Iron Warriors build a fortress hanging from a cave over an ocean of promethium in a hellhole of a world (giant cavern system & acidic atmosphere), and one of Perturabo's traitor Grand Companies come knocking to demand that they hand over the house keys. The loyalists give them a fuck-you in the form of a Dreadnought. A few melodramatic and horrific but generic war scenes later, and they get overrun (after a full year of siege thanks to the genius of a certain [[Barabas Dantioch]]), drop the fortress from the ceiling onto a Titan, and get the hell out of there by hijacking one of the Iron Warriors warships via teleportation. An Ultramarine bigwig was there to bring the loyalists home, informing them that [[Skub|Guilliman was fortifying Terra]] and he needed good siege workers to stall the traitors then to fortify Terra. While loyalist Iron Warriors were pretty cool, the story itself was pretty forgettable and left some open questions like whether the continuity errors were the result of "faulty astropathic communications" (see Outcast Dead) or if the Ultramarines were trolling the Iron Warriors to join with the Imperium Secundus; also why the Iron Warriors were determined to take a hellhole at an immense expense of people and materiel, including Titans, while they could have just said "fuck yo shit!" and left a fortress with no space or warp conveyance and arguably little strategic value in itself in the middle of nowhere alone. It mentions a few times that it looks really bad for a rebellion trying to gain initiative when a mere captain of their Legions tells their Primarch "fuck off, imma keeping this fortress & resources for the Emperor!" The message behind it being if you can't even control your own men, maybe this rebellion thing needs a rethinking, because hearing Horus can't even take this shitty outpost in the middle of nowhere might be bad press when he's going to Terra.
** '''''Savage Weapons:''''' A good story written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|ADB]]. Dark Angels are hunting down the Night Lords who are fucking with Forge Worlds, but the Night Lords are staying a step ahead of them, much to [[Rage|the Lion's frustration]]. After being advised by Horus to pass along a message, Curze asks the Lion to meet up face-to-face on Tsagualsa. When they talk, while what they say to each other is offscreen, it's implied Curze told Lion about the Fallen Angels and that Horus knew about their impending betrayal. Lion decides nobody is going to give him shit about being a rumored closet traitor, and the ensuing fight proves that Jonson is a <s>badass among primarchs</s> cheating bitch (he initiated the fight, ending the parlay, by getting in a cheap shot when he plunged his sword into Curze's heart), until Curze, ignoring a terrible wound even by Primarch standards, whoops that ass and goes to his old fallback of strangling a fucker. Their respective honor guards go at it in the meantime, showing [[Sevatar]] is a badass among Space Marines. Things end up in a draw, leaving things open for a new plotline within the Heresy, the ''Prince of Crows'' novella being the next.
*'''''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. [[derp|''Riggggghhhhtttt.'']] More importantly: shortly after the start of the Heresy an astropath has routine nervous breakdown and is returned to Terra to get [[Witch Hunters|some R&R]]. What really ends up happening is that he gets there in time for [[Magnus]]'s astral body to reach Big E to warn him of Horus' betrayal, and the fuckhueg psychic shock of course dicks with the Astropath HQ compound something mighty. In the confusion and assloads of psychic phenomena that followed, the astropath gets implanted with a message for somebody regarding the war, but his PTSD keeps him from knowing what the hell it is or who it's for. The Custodes come in and tell him ''"[[Anal Circumference|Ve haff vays of making you talk.]]"'' and hand him over to a pair of [[Inquisition|kind counselors]] who torture the poor man half to death. After a time, he gets busted out in the nick of time by some convict Space Marines from the Traitor Legions. Why they do this is explained by the Thousand Son sagely stating "Just because" to the others. They name themselves the eponymous Outcast Dead and try to get the hell off of Terra. Amusingly, none of the escapees is very happy at the prospect of the Heresy but they are all [[rage|slightly miffed]] at being treated like shit by the Custodes just because of the Legion they belong to. Other subplots revolve around a psyker congregant at a slum church near the Imperial palace; a samurai witch hunter (no, really); '''''fucking [[Thunder Warriors]]'''''. Best bits are <s>[[Rip and tear|an unarmed, unarmored World Eater ripping a Custodes' spine out through his chest]]</s> the portrayal of the Emperor playing chess in dreams, revealing that the message is about his upcoming bitchslap from Horus.
*'''''Deliverance Lost:''''' [[Corvus Corax]], having just escaped from Istvaan V, decides to go ask daddy for a handout to get his Legion back on his feet, and gets the mother of all genetech to do it, though he has to do a bit of legwork to get it. Meanwhile, a bunch of faceless Alpha Legionnaires (okay, they do have faces, they just originally belonged to some Raven Guard) infiltrated Corax's Legion at Istvaan and are doing recon and intelligence gathering waiting for [[Omegon]] to give the go-ahead to fuck shit up. Corax, meanwhile sets up new geneseed methods that bring up new recruits to battle-ready marines ''in fucking hours'' with the potential to conscript literally anybody willing to become a Space Marine. The Alphas decide this probably isn't in their interest, and sabotage the new geneseed by tainting it with ''daemon blood'', turning second- and third-batch new Raven Guard into the twisted monsters we know Corax ended up with. In one of the instances of retcon that was actually flavored with [[awesome]] and win, the mutant marines [[Grimdark|were still sapient]] but were left to fight on in the Emperor's name. After staging a mass insurrection on Deliverance's parent world with the help of some old guilders Corax ousted and the Dark Mechanicum, Omegon gets ''more'' Alphas infiltrated into the Raven Guard for the endgame: steal the genetech, kill some Raven Guard, get the fuck out before anybody knows what the fuck just happened in here. A couple cockups along the way leads to the Raven Guard getting wise and isolating out the Alphas. The end of the novel was like a swingers' party at a retirement home: everybody got screwed (even ''Horus''), nobody got what they hoped for (except for [[Omegon|the really deviant bastard]]), and all-around the reproductive material was a waste. Corax shut down his hothousing method and starts fucking with the Traitors even at reduced numbers. The book ends with Alpharius-Omegon deciding that while their plan for saving the galaxy was still good, they decide working with Xenos isn't for them.
*'''''Know No Fear:''''' The book that made the Ultramarines (of all people) cool again. The Ultras are still ignorant about Istvaan and the civil war erupting around the galaxy, and are mustering at Calth with the Word Bearers [[troll|on orders from Horus]] to go kill some Orks together as a conciliatory gesture. They're in for a surprise: the Word Bearers, while happy as hell to get revenge, are really trying to [[Eldrad|dick over]] the Ultramarines to keep them out of the Heresy if not destroy them outright. What happens next is the Word Bearers arrange some "accidents" using sorcery and good ol' fashioned treachery to fake a monumental fuckup in the shipyards that leaves the Ultramarine forces blind, deaf, and crippled. They use the confusion to say that the Ultras are ''still'' fucking them over, and take the chance to open not only a can but entire cases of whoop-ass on the Ultras. Erebus turns Calth's pole into a screaming hellscape to start up a warp storm while Kor Phaeron oversees the systematic extermination of the Ultramarines and also successfully poisons Calth's sun. Guilliman gets jettisoned into space but survives because [[Spiritual Liege]]. He then leads a counterattack on Kor Phaeron, and while Kor comes ''this close'' to getting a Primarch kill with [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|Chaos mindbullets]], in a moment of self-aggrandizement he holds back and tries to corrupt Guilliman with his own dagger-sized '''MURDER SWORD'''. Guilliman calmly tells him "The Codex Astartes <s>does</s> will not support this action" (it was really "You made an error" followed by an explanation of that error, and "but while I'm alive, I can do this") and [[Rip and Tear|rips out Kor Phaeron's main heart with an unpowered Power Fist]]. Kor Phaeron's minions run away with his carcass, allowing the Ultras to retake their space station, which in turn allows Mechanicus plot power, aided by a planet's worth of orbital defense batteries, to bring the ground war back into the Ultramarines' favor. The novel ends with Word Bearers getting the hell out of there and the Ultramarines evacuating everyone they can off of Calth and telling everybody they can't to get underground, transitioning into the Underworld War. Special features of this novel include the Ultramarines finally being portrayed as awesome, Guilliman not being a cock, [[Ollanius Pius]] being the special guest star with his very own subplot, and the Word Bearers having athame blades as special issue, one of which will [[Uriel Ventris|come back later]]. You might notice this summary is pretty spoilerific, but if you didn't know the broad strokes already, you're in the wrong place. While not exactly winning awards on the philosophical or psychological side, the book itself is a genuinely thrilling read that really knows how to keep its tension up.
*'''''The Primarchs:''''' A novella anthology. As the name suggests, it contains stories featuring Primarchs.
**'''''The Reflection Crack'd:''''' - <s>[[Lucius]] and friends anally rape [[Fulgrim]]. Yeah.</s> While questionable use of a ''pear of anguish'' is featured during a game of "Stab the Fulgrim," the real story is this: Lucius and his buddies are deep into the [[/d/|sickfuckery]] which will come to characterize their Legion, but begin to suspect that Fulgrim might have a daemon in him when he begins acting like not-Fulgrim and uses sorcery. They ambush him and try to exorcise it with pain, because torturing a Slaaneshi daemon will totally work (though they find out that a Primarch can grow back a foot and just about any other wound). Among everything else: [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] is still an arrogant dick; Lucius is still a maniacal and colossally narcissistic sick fuck; Julius Kaesoron is still an angry badass; Marius Vairosean is still a sycophantic cunt; and Eidolon was still a self-important, whiny douche, but Fulgrim throws a tantrum and cuts his head off, and there was much cheering from the readers, and that ''plus'' almost certain off-screen fapping among the Legionaries leads into ''Angel Exterminatus''.
**'''''Feat of Iron''''' - [[Ferrus Manus]]'s Legion is trying to off some Eldar on a desert world, but can't find the major Eldar strategic asset because of Spess Elf warp bullshit. A Farseer thinks he can warn Ferrus about the Heresy, and traps him in the webway or some psychic realm for a spirit quest long enough to fight a [[Fulgrim|giant purple snake]] (which is [[/d/|disturbingly appropriate imagery]] when you think about it); and Ferrus thinks it was the wyrm that he killed and gave him his metal hands, but the snake tells him that he must be mistaking it for somebody else. Ferrus kills it, and meets the Farseer who tries to tell Ferrus that he wasn't just being a dick. Ferrus, having too many experiences with Eldar being dicks, knocks some sense into the Farseer, who manages to run just fast enough to avoid getting killed. Ferrus comes back and helps his Legion fight off the Eldar kill the Webway beacon, or whatever the hell it was. In the background of all of this, the Iron Hands, having lost Ferrus, decide to [[/tg/ gets shit done|get shit done]] rather than bitch about their potentially dead father and work to complete the mission despite being weighed down by Imperial Army who are dying of dehydration and heat stroke. The Eldar figure out a way to use storm clouds that make Iron Hands bionics kill their users, and Ferrus has a bitch of an itch around his neck that he can't get rid of. [[Drop Site Massacre|I wonder if that's important]].
**'''''The Lion:''''' - Dark Angels fight daemons and reinstitute Librarians. The Lion teamkills Nemiel for reminding him about Nikaea, ruining all the buildup from the previous two <s>Dark</s> Fallen Angels Books because [[Gav Thorpe]] wanted to prove he's a big boy author who can kill his characters. Then they steal an intelligent super warp engine (instashifts the Dark Angel fleet into the warp without need for a jump point while teleporting itself and the Lion onto his flagship; Lion is capable of talking politely in front of so much power) from [[Typhus]] then set course for Macragge to sort out Guilliman.
**'''''Serpent Beneath:''''' - Alpharius Omegon plots against himself and destroys a facility built around what looks suspiciously like a Cadian Pylon (and said facility keeping the White Scars out of the war), due to [[Cake|an information leak]], and they can't have that. Except than none of the main players are Alpharius or Omegon. And Alpharius and Omegon can't decide if they're secretly working against each other or not. Also: considered to be one of the better works of the series, not only due to quality, but because of the sheer mindfuckery of the plot, keeping entirely within the rationale of the Alpha Legion without any jumps in logic or canon.

===Books XXI - XXX===
*'''''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 [[/tg/|fa/tg/uy]]s 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 [[Slaanesh]]i 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. Sanguiniuns and Co end up reaching Imperium Secundus.
*'''''Shadows of Treachery:''''' Yet another anthology. Most of the stories are tie-togethers or "in betweens", and some are very short.
**'''''The Crimson Fist''''' - A story about two parallel story lines. The first is set during the [[Battle of Phall]], a space battle between the Iron Warriors' entire fleet, and what was left over after a third of the Imperial Fists' fleet was dispatched to reinforce the loyalists going to Istvaan, got caught in a warpstorm and were run "ashore" leaving them drifting and isolated in the backwater Phall system. The Iron Warriors, having the advantage of knowing what the hell is going on and having the powers of Chaos to guide them through the storm, show up at Phall and wreck shit for some good old fashioned revenge. Despite having the superior numbers, more and bigger guns, suicidal expenditure cohorts, and the power of a raging hateboner, the Iron Warriors were losing to the Imperial Fists's superior maneuverability and [[Alexis Polux|Captain Polux's]] protagonist power. Eventually, the Fists get the order and window to withdraw to Terra, though turning tail would put their fleet at a huge disadvantage. Given the choice between blind obedience to his father or carrying on with the battle they were winning, Polux chooses the former and takes his Fists back to Terra, but ends up in the Imperium Secundus instead. This was also one of the first solid depictions of Perturabo, and clearly the worse of the two as he's shown to be nothing more than an abusive, cold-hearted Saturday morning cartoon villain with rage issues and the depth and complexity of a kiddy pool. The second story line follows [[Sigismund]] as he follows Rogal around the Imperial Palace after deciding to stay home, even though he was ordered to command the same fleet trapped at Phall, but delegated it to Polux's predecessor. The twist is that he met Euphrati Keeler, had a spiritual experience when they spoke, and felt that he would be needed more at Terra instead of as a drifting corpse permanently lost in orbit around some backwater, and so handed off the job of commanding the fleet. When he eventually opened up to Rogal about this, it got him in trouble. See, Rogal was still one of the [[Imperial Truth|stupid atheists]] at this point, so he disowned Sigismund because he thought "serving a higher purpose" was arrogant and got in the way of doing his job. This left Sigismund feeling really sad and pissed off, thus was his start of <s>darkness</s> daddy issues. [[Black Templars|Really pissed off and bad ass daddy issues.]]
**'''''The Dark King''''' - A look into the head and story of Konrad Curze during the events leading up to the Dropsite Massacre. It shows that, even if you buy that Curze was a [[Lawful Evil|murderous paladin of justice and order]] rather than just a [[Chaotic Evil|deranged serial killer]], he's pretty fucked up in the head and lives with the knowledge of his demise haunting him (which isn't that great for what little sanity he has left). It also involves him beating up Rogal Dorn, killing some Imp Fists and Emp's Children terminators <s>with his more advanced suit and built-in vox jammers</s> [[Rip and tear|with his bare fucking hands]], then blowing up Nostramo.
**'''''The Lightning Tower''''' - Basically, 20 pages of Rogal Dorn. The first 10 is him being sad about ruining the Imperial Palace as a grand piece of art by fortifying it into a coldly functional fortress. The next 10 is Rogal having an existential monologue, then a conversation with Malcador all about why he doesn't know why Horus declared war on the Emperor and is afraid to find out why in case it makes sense. Malcador ends up knowing at least a little about Chaos and somehow got his hands on a tarot deck Curze used throughout his life even up to the close of ''The Dark King''. (Don't ask how he got them. Really.) Also that (*Name Drop*) the Lightning Tower is the important card that comes up, signifying [[Siege of Terra|a destruction of fortifications]] and/or [[Imperium of Man|a change of thinking brought about by sacrifice]].
**'''''The Kaban Project''''' - Right before Istvaan, techpriest Pallas Ravachol is working on a top secret "Kaban" robot project on Mars and realizes that the project has achieved sapience, and is in fact a form of full AI. Though he genuinely befriended the Kaban machine, Ravachol complains to boss Magos Chrom that working on an AI is both highly illegal and insanely dangerous. Chrom tells Ravachol not to be such a pussy since Horus himself gave the OK, and after some deliberation has a death squad waiting to escort Ravachol off site the next morning. Ravachol, thinking there were few ways this could end well, makes a break for it and flees for Magos Malevolus's forge, hoping to get somebody with some clout to reveal that his old boss and Horus were up to something bad. On the way, he spends time running away from a latex-clad sadist babe who persistently chases after him; since she's an AdMech equivalent of a Death Cultist assassin, this is a ''much'' better idea than it sounds. When he gets to Malevolus's forge, Malevolus distracts him with a legion of shiny Mk6 suits of Marine Power Armor long enough to drop the bomb to drop that they were for Horus. The latex-clad babe catches up to them both, and the techpriest flees again, only to be puzzled why Malevolus and the assassin are letting him run. As he gets out the door, he meets the Kaban machine, <s>who realizes friendship was most important thing, the Kaban decides to side with the good guys, and the day is saved.</s> Chrom told the Kaban Machine that it and Ravachol simply can't be friends for realsies because of the rules and stuff, and taking up with Horus was a great idea. The Kaban Machine, not understanding how humans work nor '''The Power of Friendship''' didn't know any better than to agree, and kills Ravachol right on the steps of Malevolus's forge. The end. An okay story, somewhat generic feeling prose. More of a who's who of the Dark Mechanicus during ''Mechanicum'' and telling where the hell that Kaban machine from the same book came from, and how they seduced an AI into Chaos worship.
**'''''Raven's Flight''''' - A bridge between Istvaan V and ''Deliverance Lost'', also a companion story to the Raven's Flight audio drama. The story tells how Commander Marcus Valerius of the Imperial Army is stationed on Deliverance and keeps having recurring nightmares which is causing him worry about Corax. Commander Branne of the Raven Guard's garrison on Deliverance, is getting tired of how the Legion's pet human won't stop bitching about it, and decides to take Valerius out on a trip in the battle barge to Istvaan just to show him that everything is just fine. Meanwhile, Corax and a relative handful of surviving Raven Guard are fighting a guerilla war against the traitors, trying to stay one step ahead of the Iron Warriors and then the World Eaters. In between skirmishes Corax spends a few thoughtful moments feeling bad about his Legion and the state of the Imperium now that things have gone to shit.
**'''''Death of a Silversmith''''' - The title says it all. A silversmith attached to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet is tasked with making four rings for the Mournival, after that he makes tokens (for the warrior-lodge, but he doesn't know that) and then gets his windpipe crushed to make sure word doesn't get out about the tokens. The story is seen from the perspective of the silversmith who describes his life up until the point where he's lying on his own floor slowly suffocating to death. Ultimately it is kind of irrelevant, but the lore nerds or people who have been paying attention might find it interesting. At barely 20 pages long, you might as well read it anyway.
**'''''Prince of Crows''''' - A novella featuring the Thramas Crusade as viewed by First Captain [[Sevatar]] of the Night Lords. With the Night Lords's forces all but shattered by the Dark Angels, Curze in a coma and nearly dead, and the Dark Angels's fleet in pursuit, Sevatar has to knock some heads for the Night Lords to get their shit together to reorganize and rethink strategy. It's essentially about showing the fractures in the Night Lords Legion. As most stories written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]], it's pretty good.
*'''''Angel Exterminatus:''''' [[Perturabo]] just finished [[skub|fucking up (or being fucked by)]] some Fists, and [[Fulgrim]] finds him to polish off a plot hook from ''The Reflection Crack'd'' and recruit Pert for an expedition into the Eye of Terror because a renegade Eldar said he knows where to get ''the good shit'' (the eponymous Angel Exterminatus). Fulgrim wanted to make a show out of delivering exposition, and he had Pert use his skills to build a stadium and went storyteller mode; then the moment was killed when a Shattered Legion detachment composed of Iron Hands and a Raven Guard commando sniped Fulgrim (he got better). Of course, Pert took the moment to remind himself that this is why he can't have and [[Rage|won't ever have]] nice things. Thinking that Fulgrim had the scent of a powerful artifact or a superweapon, and seeing that Fulgrim was becoming the Primarch equivalent of a crack addict member of the Jersey Shore and his legion wasn't looking much better, Pert decided to play it safe by tagging along and making sure Fulgrim wouldn't break anything. On the way, a different Eldar scholar came to the Shattered Legion, telling them that Fulgrim and Pert can't be allowed to get to the Angel Exterminatus, or [[Daemon|Bad Things (Warp-registered trademark)]] will happen. Well into the journey into the Eye, the Iron Hands's resident mad scientist accidentally gives away their location, and the Emp's Children and Iron Warriors decide to throw a boarding party. After a few pages of pulse-pounding action, Pert says "fuck this" and leaves as the Iron Hands' same mad scientist overloads the engines and does a [[Battlefleet Gothic|mother of a ramming maneuver]] which kills an Emp's Children ship. (Pert was getting sick of Fulgrim's shit at this point, so he decided not to let them know, leading to the loss of the ship and thousands of casualties for Fulgrim.) When they finally get there, they find a [[Crone World]] covered in ruins and occupied spirit stones being held in orbit around a black hole. Some wraithbone constructs pop up and Pert and Fulgrim have to fight to the heart of the planet to get at the Angel Exterminatus. On the way, Pert kills their renegade Eldar because he was a lyin' bitch. When they ''finally'' get there, surprise! Daemon Primarch Fulgrim is supposed to be the Angel Exterminatus, and he betrays Pert (a bauble Fulgrim gave to Pert at the start of the book was a vitality-leeching thing), and they start the ritual which would sacrifice Pert to turn Fulgrim into a Daemon Prince. Then the Shattered Legion crashes the ceremony and assists the Iron Warriors since it's clear they weren't working with the Emp's Children anymore. Pert kills Fulgrim but it doesn't count since Fulgrim's mortal essence works just as well as sacrifice. He goes full Daemon Prince despite a generous helping of Thunder Hammer to his [[gay|pretty face]], breaks every spirit stone on the planet, and disappears with every last one of his sick fucks. The Eldar scholar helping the Shattered Legion throws a bitch fit, revealing that both scholars were Dark Eldar who had cut a deal with Fulgrim (help him become a daemon and they get assloads of spirit stones to fuck with), and he had made sure that the Shattered Legions were there to put a wedge in that deal because... reasons. The Shattered Legion gets the hell out and the Iron Warriors try to GTFO as the planet starts to fall into the black hole. The book ends with Pert, [[pretend|being a wise man]], ordering them to reverse course and fly right into that fucker. (It works out for them in the end.) Subplots include a lot of buildup for McNeil's Iron Warriors stories, the Shattered Legions' feelings on trying to unfuck an irreversibly fucked situation, and a tense story of two Imperial Fists as they try to survive Fabius's turning them into mutants (which actually had a poor payoff). Despite being overall good, it's a bit of a skub novel because the depiction of Perturabo is so different from expected; rather than being the bitter [[RAGE|Rage]] machine from every other depiction, he's a quiet [[Neckbeard|nerd who plays with toys as a hobby]] but with muscles. The ghosts of Eldar's Aspect Warriors and Wraith-Constructs inside a planet left inside the Eye of Terror, the first death of Lucius at the hands of a Mary Sue despite previous claims that he was undefeated during the Heresy and his unexplained first resurrection, and an Iron Hands legionnaire somehow being immune to sonic weapons by being deaf is canon rape on par with C.S. Goto. And worst of all, a rotating Shadowsword turret.
*'''''Betrayer:''''' Lorgar and Angron rampage over the Ultramarines' 500 worlds. Lots of references to Angron's past and his Butcher's Nails killing him slowly. Turns out one of the Ultramarine worlds was his own homeworld, so he destroys it and Lorgar makes him into a daemon prince. Also remember the ''Furious Abyss''? Lorgar has two more. Also focuses on Khârn and Argel Tal being totally bro-tier until that bitch Erebus decides to intervene and becomes a team-killing asshole. Why Erebus isn't modeled with a long mustache fit for twirling is beyond us. Best known for containing Angron's dressing-down speech toward Guilliman having it easy since birth while Angron had a pretty shit life from day one.
*'''''Mark of Calth:''''' Another set of short stories, though all focused on the [[Ultramarines]] or the [[Word Bearers]].
**'''''Shards of Erebus:''''' - We find that [[Erebus]] broke the '''MURDER SWORD''' into eight daggers/athames and shared them with his bros. Also shows how he returned to Davin to learn how to teleport with the '''MURDER SWORD''', then killing the priestess that helped him turn Horus. She somehow wins because she served Chaos before dying which pisses Erebus off.
**'''''Calth That Was''''' - The story focuses on an Ultramarine Captain and Co. and on a Word Bearers commander and his Dark Apostle. Keeps bringing up what Calth used to be like. Longer-than-the-rest-story short, Word Bearers try to Nurgle everyone, and the Ultramarines save the day in the nick of time. After all, THE GREATEST OF THE-{{BLAM}}
**'''''Dark Heart''''' - A young Word Bearer is interrogated by Kor Phaeron after he ended up killing his mentor with dark powers (turned him insta inside out). A kind of nice story that shows the <s>degradation</s> enlightenment of the Legion.
**'''''The Traveller''''' - A spacedock traffic controller survives the destruction of his star fort, and the fatal crash of his escape shuttle before ending up in a small underground arcology with other human survivors. Imperial cultists believe he is blessed, and when he starts hearing whispers and seeing unbelievers they start rounding everybody up for execution. Everybody gets slowly executed till he's the last one left. He learns he's been possessed and reveals to an Ultramarine that he was was infected by the vox from the ''Campanile''.
**'''''A Deeper Darkness''''' - An Ultramarine has a hard-on for a certain Word Bearer trolling him. Hunts down said Word Bearer into a cave system with a team of soldiers and Spess Merheens. Word Bearer trolls them by summoning a Gorgon. Ultramarine wins by tricking the Gorgon into looking at its reflection.
**'''''The Underworld War''''' - A story that has little to do with the actual Underworld War. It features a Gal Vorbak who sees the attack on Calth as a clusterfuck of fail. Has a plot-twist ending... turns out Daemons give visions of the future to potential Gal Vorbak, and said Gal Vorbak was given a vision of him not abandoning his fallen brothers on Calth. The Daemon doesn't have time for that shit so it lets him die during his transformation, much to the distress of the still fairly bro tier [[Argel Tal]] who is soothed by the honeyed words of [[Lorgar|did nothing wrong]].
**'''''Athame''''' - A narrated story of the history of a knife, though not one from the '''MURDER SWORD'''. That's about it... totally... right? Wrong. The small sacrificial knife that Ollanius found was carved on Terra for a benign ritual, stolen by an evil Perpetual who was killed by ''the Emperor'' in medieval times, found in an archeological dig by Kasper Hawser, and went on other crazy murder-adventures, all while having rudimentary sentience.
**'''''Unmarked''''' - Ollanius Pius and friends are traveling through time and space using the athame from the previous story. We learn a lot more about Oll's past, going into detail about his offhand mentions that he was one of the Argonauts and that he served in the First World War and the First Gulf War. It's based as all fuck and written by [[Dan Abnett]], so don't miss it. Also features Ol' Oll's much, much earlier encounters with the [[Emperor|big daddy E]] in flashbacks and kinda proves O.P. Diddy right in his contention against Him that faith has power it not directed [[Lorgar|in the wrong]] [[Chaos|places]] and has in fact protected Terra for fuckawatts worth of millenia, and if He hadn't have been such an aspergated edgelord about atheism, more daemons might have been conquered due to the power of 19th century English hymnody with some of the words altered to refer apparently to the very same edgy atheist. Also features a traumatized but insightful qt3.14 psyker witch.
*'''''Vulkan Lives:''''' What happened to Vulkan after the Dropsite Massacre? He got made Konrad Curze's torture bitch. Plenty of fun with dining implements and an awesome ending involving a hammer to the face. Not one of the best HH Books though is a somewhat necessary read for continuing the plot arc. Remember the Shattered Legions crew from ''Angel Exterminatus''? Now you get a new group that is far more bland and less distinct. The major problem with the story is that, while it is fun reading Curze taunting Vulkan, not much happens in it and it barely affects the stakes or the overall plot to a great degree, except we now know that Vulkan is a perpetual.
*'''''The Unremembered Empire:''''' [[Perpetual|Matt Damon]] killed Martin Luther King. This happens in the book. Also, unlike the cover and synopsis would imply, it's ''not'' about Sanguinius and Guilliman working together to build a back-up Imperium around Ultramar, which leads to the question of ''why that's on the cover?'' No one knows what it is really about, especially the book's description of itself (which describes its ''sequels''). Several things happen in the book and several unrelated subplots collide as several entities are drawn by the Pharos device to Macragge. There are implications that Guilliman's new backup Imperium is starving resources from Terra.
*'''''Scars:''''' Technically the third book of the Prospero arc. The Khan returns to the Imperium after killing Orks left over from Ullanor and can't decide what side to join. Turns his back on Leman Russ during a fight with the Alpha Legion and goes looking for his best friend Magnus, also gets into a fight with Mortarion on the way, also [[The Fallen|half his legion turns traitor]] but turns out it's no big deal.
** '''''Brotherhood of the Storm:''''' Prequel to Scars, shows the White Scars fighting Orks on Chondax.
*'''''Vengeful Spirit''''' Horus goes looking for power to make him equal to the Emperor and the Chaos Gods give it to him by sending him to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z (kinda). We learn that the Emperor gained his powers after making a pact with the Chaos Gods where they gave him a fraction of their power, then somehow managed to double-cross them in what is quite possibly the most retarded retcon ever introduced in the entire book series. (In all seriousness though, the Chaos Gods have been claiming this throughout the series. It could be the truth or one of their beautifully crafted lies.) Loken comes back. There's also the Knights of <s>Lannister</s> Molech, who fall to Slaanesh through copious amounts of Twincest. Also, if you have been ignoring the audio books, you will be a bit lost at the start of this one.
*'''''The Damnation of Pythos''''' A Lovecraftian Horror story disguised as a Horus Heresy story. Has the most grimdark ending of the series thus far, up there with Dead Men Walking. Adds just about as much to the overall series as ''Furious Abyss'' did, but is actually pretty well written (unlike "Furious Abyss"). To cut a long story short, daemons take over a world in the Pandorax system, capture a starship, and use it to start ferrying cultists from place to place. The book also has some crossover with 40k and the Pandorax Campaign.

===Books XXXI - XL===
*'''''Legacies of Betrayal''''' Another anthology, though this time it's a bit of a cheat; they just consolidated several pre-existing stories and some of the the novellas but also included print versions of audio books.
**'''Brotherhood of the Storm''' - see above
**'''Serpent''' - A really short and out-of-place story about a Davinite Priest.
**'''Hunters Moon''' - Originally an audiobook involving peasant fishermen rescuing a crashed Space Wolf who is running from the Alpha Legion after killing Alpharius. It obviously doesn't end well.
**'''Veritas Ferrum''' - A prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", about an Iron Hands starship escaping (against their better nature) from Isstvan with some survivors.
**'''Riven''' - An Iron Hand from the Crusader Host is sent by Sigismund to look for some of his brothers, scattered after Istvaan V. He finds one suspicious-looking group and discovers that they use forbidden technologies to fight traitors even after death.
**'''Strike and Fade''' - More survivors of Isstvan, though this is about Salamanders just killing time (and Night Lords) whilst they wait to be rescued.
**'''Honour to the Dead''' - An Ultramarine squad fights its way through Calth with a innocent woman and child trying their hardest to follow them to safety, while loyalist and traitor Titans punch each other's faces in the background.
**'''Butcher's Nails''' - A good one to read: Angron & Lorgar go on the Shadow Crusade and come to an understanding whilst fighting Eldar. It is also a prequel to "Betrayer".
**'''Warmaster''' - Horus considers how much of a badass he is while chatting with Ferrus Manus's skull and complains about how all the primarchs that sided with him are [[Perturabo|dickheaded]] [[Mortarion|edgelords]] or [[Konrad Curze|batshit]] [[Angron|lunatics]], while the cool guys like Sanguinius and Guilliman are still loyal to the Emprah.
**'''Kryptos''' - Somewhere in the Galactic East (either Thramas Crusade or Imperium Secundus), Nykona Sharrowkyn and company go kidnap a warp code interpreter that will let them intercept garbled enemy communications. Prequel to "Angel Exterminatus".
**'''Wolf's Claw''' - Bjorn the Fell-Handed needs a replacement arm but the Iron Priests are too busy; he happens to find a nice fancy relic one just lying around.
**'''The Divine Word''' - Marcus Valerius (army commander from Raven Guard story arc) receives some prophetic dreams and subsequently prevents an Alpha Legion diversion. It serves as his final push to join the Imperial Cult.
**'''Thief of Revelations''' - After Prospero, the Thousand Sons need something to stop all their rampant mutation, so Ahriman goes to ask why Magnus has locked himself away. He's got bigger things to worry about and is looking across time and space for key events for future [[Just as Planned]] manipulations.
**'''Lucius the Eternal Warrior''' - After his first death ''(and unexplained resurrection)'' at the hands of Nykona Sharrowkyn, Lucius has somehow abandoned the Heresy and goes to the Planet of Sorcerers to fight a duel with the bestest Thousand Son swordsman (cause he cheats and reads your mind to see what you do next) and ends up meeting Ahriman. [[wat|Uh-huh...]]
**'''The Eightfold Path''' - Kharn and the World Eaters realise that too much rip and tear is leading them [[Khorne|down a damning path]], but they're already too far gone.
**'''Guardian of Order''' - [[Cypher]] and [[Zahariel]] discover that the Ouroboros (banished in Fallen Angels) is coming back.
**'''Heart of the Conqueror''' - Angron's Navigator gets a bit uppity about being made to turn traitor, despite having been picked for the job as the angry man's chauffeur by the Emperor himself. Blams herself during mid-warp transit with not-fun results for flagship.
**'''Censure''' - Aeonid Thiel is killing time and Word Bearers in the Underworld War on Calth, writing notes about it on his armour. Said notes will eventually get written into Guilliman's draft of the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]] on the subject of killing Word Bearers (because it's that damn important to kill Word Bearers). Goes on a buddy cop adventure with an army trooper. Thiel eventually gets bored and goes back to Macragge in the end.
**'''Lone Wolf''' - Bjorn has lost all of his squad, but is now such an awesome badass that he can solo Bloodthirsters.
*'''''Deathfire''''' - "vUlKaN lIvEs" What the Salamanders have been saying since Isstvan is true: Vulkan lives! Well now he does. Basically a bunch of Salamanders take his body from Macragge to Nocturne (with some side help from didn't-ask-for-this Magnus) and throw him into Nocturne's largest volcano, and lo and behold he comes back to life, making that entire plotline pointless. Still has the fucking Fulgurite in his chest, though. TL;DR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7nzml-zZ9M
*'''''War Without End''''': Anthologies Without End.
**'''The Devine Adoratrice''' - Prequel to "Vengeful Spirit" shows that House Devine was rotten to the core long before the coming of Fulgrim.
**'''Howl of the Hearthworld''' - Space Wolves get sent to Terra to watch over Rogal Dorn so he doesn't start using psykers; it's a pointless task and everyone involved knows it. Also offers insight into the Wolves' naming conventions.
**'''Lord of the Red Sands''' - During Istvaan III, Angron indulges himself in some philosophizing about the nature of his rebellion and what is good cause while butchering his own sons. I swear, I'm telling the truth.
**'''Artefacts''' - On his way to Istvaan V, Vulkan decides that all of his artefacts should be destroyed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. His forgemaster intervenes and persuades him to keep at least some so Vulkan grants him the right to choose seven items to preserve and give him the title of Forge Father, keeper of these artefacts.
**'''Hands of the Emperor''' - Depicts one typical day of the Adeptus Custodes through eyes of their newly appointed Master of the Watch, including colossal orbital plates invading Imperial Palace and Custodes and the Imperial Fists being stubborn assholes even when facing battle with each other at the heart of the Imperium, never-ceasing Blood Games and bureaucratic and diplomatic hell wrapping all that entanglement.
**'''The Phoenician''' - A dying Morlock witnesses the final duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim.
**'''Sermon of Exodus''' - Another prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", explains the appearance of the huge cultists' fleet from Davin in orbit of Pythos. Provides rare insight on the life on Davin and origins of Chaos cults there. Also features really bizarre description of the first Davinite priest, who spent the last several thousand years in the warp.
**'''By the Lion's Command''' - Prologue to "Angels of Caliban". Corswain is tasked by the Lion to hunt Death Guard ships, but is experiencing a severe lack of manpower. After an uneven engagement with Typhon that nearly costs him his life and fleet, he decides to send Chapter Master Belath to Caliban for recruits.
**'''The Harrowing''' - Some random Alpha Legionnaires take over some random Mechanicus ship. Turns out that they are so god-mode that everyone important is their operative, so they meet no resistance at all. The end.
**'''All That Remains''' - A transport ship full of war orphans and Imperial Army soldiers with severe PTSD is lost in space during warp transit. Fear not though, because in fact they are being stolen by one of Malcador's agents for transfer to Titan and induction into the Grey Knights.
**'''Gunsight''' - The Vindicare Assassin from Nemesis is still alive and on Horus' flagship; it's about him spending years waiting for the opportune moment to get a shot, but he starts going mad while he waits. He finally gives up when Horus plucks his killshot from the air and Horus gives him a chaos rifle for his change in loyalty.
**'''Allegiance''' - Revuel Arvida spends some time on the White Scars flagship trying to understand what to do after losing all his Legion. He reflects on his time on Prospero, attends the Khan's trial for the pro-Horus plotters from "Scars", and tries to escape, but in the end he chooses to spend some more time with the Scars.
**'''Daemonology''' - After his duel with Jaghatai, Mortarion tries to interrogate a daemon, which goes as well as you'd expect. Also shows that Malcador and the Emperor planned Nikaea for almost seventy years before it took place.
**'''Black Oculus''' - A Navigator that serves the IV Legion loses his mind after Perturabo drives his ships into the black hole in the center of the Eye of Terror.
**'''Virtues of the Sons''' - Sanguinius forsees that he will not always be in charge of the Blood Angels, but worries about the Red Thirst causing havoc with his sons' futures, so gets Amit to duel Kharn and Azkaellon to duel Lucius in hopes they'll learn something. Azkaellon learns to let the rage out a bit and Amit learns a modicum of restraint.
**'''The Laurel of Defiance''' - Lucretius Corvo (later founder of the Novamarines) and his squad kill a Traitor Titan using only their wits and one meltagun.
**'''A Safe and Shadowed Place''' - [[Night Lords]] start stabbing each other in the back as soon as Curze goes missing while solo'ing Macragge. It's about a ship floating in the ruinstorm that has just discovered the [[Imperium Secundus|Pharos]] and foreshadows problems for Ultramar.
**'''Imperfect''' - Daemon-Fulgrim has been getting Fabius to clone Ferrus Manus, because the split personality thing makes him feel guilty about failing to turn his brother to Horus's side, but the clones are never quite right and go mental at each suggestion. Fabius also has his own stuff going on.
**'''Chirurgeon''' - Fabius is dying from the genetic flaw that's been killing Emperor's Children since before they found Fulgrim - or not, since he found a way to distill other Marines into drug that keeps the illness at bay.
**'''Twisted''' - Maloghurst solves some routine troubles on the ''Vengeful Spirit'' like persistent petitioners, lack of water, rogue daemons and the Davinite cult plotting to control Horus.
**'''Wolf Mother''' - Right after events of ''Vengeful Spirit'' Alivia Sureka goes searching for her daughter, who was stolen by a Slaaneshi cult that escaped from Molech, with a little help from Severian The Wolf. No, really, she is so badass that Severian doesn't even look like someone superior.
*'''''Pharos''''': Night Lords fucking up the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha. Sanguinius eventually grows some balls and starts standing up to Guilliman instead of just being a pantomime Emperor, while the Lion is nowhere to be seen as usual. Warsmith Dantioch bites it while using the Pharos to burn the Night Lords out of his fortress, but inadvertently piques the interest of the [[Tyranids]], causing them to show up 10,000 years later. Skraivok become a prime example of DAEMON SWORDS: NOT EVEN ONCE.
*'''''Eye of Terra''''': Another anthology.
**'''The Wolf of Ash and Fire''' - takes place before Ullanor. Emperor and Horus destroy one really powerful WAAAGH!!!, lead by an exceptionally huge Big Mek. Story consists almost completely of foreshadowing.
**'''Aurelian''' - see "First Heretic"
**'''Massacre''' - A young Night Lords apothecary named [[Talos_(Warhammer_40,000)|Talos]] takes part in the Istvaan V Massacre.
**'''Brotherhood of the Moon''' - After the failed coup from ''Scars'', Torghun Khan is being interrogated and explains why he chose Team Horus.
**'''Inheritor''' - [[Eliphas_The_Inheritor|Eliphas]] The Inheritor (yes, that one from the DoW series) sacrifices the population of a city on a planet Kronos (yes, again from DoW) and a company of Ultramarines to have a nice little chat with Lorgar.
**'''Vorax''' - An unlucky Dark Mechanicum priest falls to a loyalist ambush and subsequently being killed by Vorax-class battle servitor. Really short and forgettable story.
**'''Ironfire''' - Turns out that Idriss Krendl (that arrogant warsmith who had a stronghold dropped on his head by Dantioch) is alive! Really tough bastard, though several months under debris has affected his sanity a little. He now spends his time testing new siege tactics on the Emperor's Children world in preparation for the siege of the Imperial Palace.
**'''Red-Marked''' - Aeonid Thiel starts his band of cliche badass marines and learns about the mysterious Nightfane that threatens Macragge itself.
**'''Master of the First''' - Astelan takes part in a coup to remove Luther from command, but only to prevent it.
**'''Stratagem''' - Guilliman explains to Aeonid Thiel how important it is not to follow military books to the letter and concludes that he'll just have to write a book about it (guess [[Codex_Astartes|what book]] it is).
**'''The Long Night''' - Jago Sevatarion is chilling in Dark Angels captivity, slowly losing his mind due to his suppressed psyker powers, when some girl from the ship's astropath corps starts to talk to him from boredom. When her superiors find out, they flog her nearly to death because it was obviously forbidden. Sevatar doesn't take it lightly, flees captivity and kills the main astropath and calls it JUSTICE, because a man who skins young girls by the dozens on a daily basis simply to strike fear in a populace is definitely all about justice.
**'''Sins of the Father''' - During his emo-phase Sanguinius contemplates how his legion will fall after his death. He then decides that switching roles between Azkaellon and Amit during ritual combat will probably solve all problems.
**'''The Eagle's Talon''' - While the Battle of Tallarn rages, some Imperial Fists '''covert operatives''' try to take over a huge macro-transporter. They fail and are forced to crash the transporter onto raging battlefield below, blasting everything within 300km and causing nuclear fallout.
**'''Iron Corpses''' - One really tough and stubborn Iron Warriors Warsmith refuses to die despite the nuclear fallout from the previous story, waits for the storm to subside, finds and reanimates Warlord Titan and returns to action.
**'''The Final Compliance of Sixty-Three Fourteen''' - The Imperial governor of some backwater world recollects memories of his long service to the Imperium, while preparing himself to spit in the face of Horus's representatives when they come to demand his surrender.
**'''Herald of Sanguinius''' - Azkaellon invents the Sanguinor to free his gene-father from the burden of being the figurehead of Imperium Secundus.
*'''''The Path Of Heaven''''': Sequel to Scars. The White Scars have been fighting the traitor legions for a few years but are starting to show the strain. They finally decide to head back to Terra, but things don't go as planned. Notable for digging into the Webway storyline and the Navis Nobilite as well as featuring a resurrected and suddenly competent Eidolon. Navigators weren't going to sit around while E-money built their replacement, White Scars use a prototype webway portal to escape their last stand, and Mortarion starts using sorcery to locate Typhon.
*'''The Silent War:''' Guess What?! It's ''another'' anthology of stories that GW have already sold individually as audio-books. So value might be had for those who hadn't listened to them.
**'''The Purge''' - The story consists of two story lines. In the first of them, Sor Talgron purges one of the worlds in Ultramar during the Shadow Crusade, but gets tricked and takes a bombful of life-eater virus to the face (he survives nontheless, though). In second, he undertakes some covert actions on Terra before Istvaan V and leaves a nasty surprise for Dorn in the catacombs beneath the Imperial Palace.
**'''The Sigillite''' - see below, in section "Audio Books"
**'''Wolf Hunt''' - [[Awesome|Samurai witch hunter]] Yasu Nagasena hunts Severian the Wolf right after the events of Outcast Dead.
**'''Army of One''' - An Eversor assassin is sent out for the routine "kill everyone" mission, but finds out that his main target is not only a stereotypical Stupid Fat Decadent Planetary Governor who turned traitor, but also a jerk from his past. So he kills him.
**'''The Gates of Terra''' - Dorn and Malcador have an idea that it will be good for the defences of Terra if they use some psykers to run some chosen veterans through endless hypno-simulations of ill-fated space battles with the Vengeful Spirit within the boundaries of Sol.
**'''Ghosts Speak Not''' - Amendera Kendel, who had a crisis over her moral values after the events of The Voice and left the Silent Sisterhood, returns to Luna to recruit some of Garro's Death Guard into the Knights Errant. They then are dispatched to a mission to uncover a traitor's plot at Proxima Centauri.
**'''Templar''' - Sigismund purges an asteroid temple of Word Bearers, this being the same temple that was mentioned in The Purge (those cross-references are awesome).
**'''Distant Echoes of Old Night''' - Some Death Guard are drowning Imperial Fists' defences with bodies on some shithole moon in the middle of nowhere, but it seems they are running out of time. They launch a final assault but fail to coordinate the phosphex bombardment with the assault and actually destroy themselves with little help from a primitive trap built by the Fists. Facepalm on the house to everyone.
**'''Grey Angel''' - Loken, fresh from Istvaan III and accompanied by Iacton Qruze, is sent to Caliban to check Luther's loyalty to Terra. The mission actually fails as Loken gets caught and is interrogated by Luther himself, but Loken is rescued by the Watcher in the Dark and Lord Cypher and subsequently flees the planet.
**'''Lost Sons''' - Tylos Rubio goes to Baal to disband the Blood Angels Legion and recruit their last battle company into Malcador's Knights Errant after Sanguinius and the rest of the legion go missing after Signus. The Angels understandably don't like this news and Rubio nearly gets killed, but is saved by a message from Raldoron announcing that Sanguinius and the IX Legion are alive.
**'''Child of Night''' - it turns out that one of the Night Lord Librarians had fled his Legion and went into hiding on Terra. One of the Knight Errant finds him and recruits him for the Grey Knights.
**'''Luna Mendax''' - After his fail on Caliban, Garviel Loken shuts himself away in a forgotten garden on Luna and spends his time growing flowers and feeling sorry for himself. This is so pathetic that the spirit of the long-dead and eaten by daemons Tarik Torgaddon escapes the warp to return Loken to his senses.
**'''Patience''' - Helig Gallor from Ghosts Speak Not, now acting on his own, is searching for Garro who is too busy killing giant daemons to report to Malcador's office on time.
**'''The Watcher''' - Ison from the Knights Errant finds and saves a horrifyingly mutilated and nearly dead survivor from the Space Wolves squad that was sent to watch over Konrad Curze.
*'''''Angels of Caliban:''''' Two Dark Angels stories in one book again, though this one actually moves the plot forward. In Ultramar, the Lion captures Konrad Curze but only after discreetly nuking a whole region despite Guilliman's ban on orbital weapon use, which results in his disgrace and we find that it is Guilliman who breaks the Lion Sword. Curze reveals that there were Chaos cults on Macragge too and that Guilliman would be a traitor if he had landed a little to the left. On Caliban, the Fallen openly declare their rebellion from the Imperium and ironically steal some starships that were meant to collect them and actually bring them into the war again. [[Zahariel]] kills [[Cypher]] and takes his place.
*'''''Praetorian of Dorn''''' Alpharius tries to invade <s>Terra</s> Pluto. Dorn kills him. Yes, Alpharius is now dead. And not a fake either, but the real Alpharius. Omegon can confirm. Alpha Legions fags blew a gasket. Oh shit believe we did.
*'''''Corax''''' A compilation of all the Corax Stories plus a new one, '''Weregeld''', which manages to undo all the hard work the previous stories have done and turn Corax into a douchebag. Kills all his mutated Raven Guard because he promised to kill warp stuff. Saves Russ though.

===Books XLI - L===
*'''''The Master of Mankind''''': The Emperor is a dick: the book. We all knew this but now it's set in stone. Highlights include the Emperor stating to Arkhan Land that the Primarchs are tools and he views them with a scientific but detached fascination. He refers to them as numbers but seems content to allow the fantasy of being their "father", an interpretation of the character that was fairly divisive to say the least. He actually seems to care more for his Custodians than he does any of his other creations, but they don't consider him their father and see him as just their warlord. Drach'nyen is also revealed to be the daemon created when Cain killed Abel. In the end the Emperor closes the door on the Webway and has to spend the rest of his time sitting in the chair keeping it shut. Despite this, it does show off why the Chaos Gods fear him, as he pretty much rapes an infinite army of Daemons; the greater daemons either flee or try and fail to fight him (being destroyed in a matter of moments) whilst the lesser ones die just by looking at him. Despite this, Drach'nyen nearly kills him, and claims that it will kill the Emperor (keep in mind that the future is VERY malleable, Daemons lie, and that this was written by a man whose hate-boner for Big-E exceeds that of The Four, themselves). But how will it feast on the Emperor's tattered soul when Abaddon lacks arms to plunge it into his chest? (Abaddon never lost his arms due to the same retcon that let Eldrad live) Also known as Master of Skubkind. The Emperor reveals his grand plan of saving the human race from the Eldar fate by giving absolute control of every human to a Custodian before shanking him with Drach'nyen and making him run into the Webway. Also put all his chips into the ''Human Webway'' plan and screwed us all over without a backup. Can you tell that this is an ADB book? It also features one of the most depressing endings of the whole Heresy series as in the last scene of the book the Emperor somberly acknowledges to one of his Custodian that he fears that he has now run out of cards to play and can't yet think of a way out of the whole situation. Grimdark, indeed.
*'''''Garro''''': Compilation of all the stories about Garro and his boy band, though they insist it isn't just an anthology since the audio book stories were expanded to be more written novel friendly.
*'''''Shattered Legions''''': It's an anthology containing an anthology. I shit thee not. It shoves together the limited edition anthology Meduson with a few other shorter stories, including some Alpha Legion stuff like the Seventh Serpent.
*'''''The Crimson King''''': Magnus was broken into shards when Russ felled him. Now the Thousand Sons with the help of Lucius the Eternal must put him back together. Kairos Fateweaver makes an appearance. Ties into the Ahriman Trilogy
*'''''Tallarn''''': Does it even need to be stated? It's another fucking anthology, this time putting all the tank porn of the Tallarn books into one binding. It is worth a read if you are a fan of Imperial Guard (Army), as most of the storylines are about around mortal tank crews doing what they do best (dying).
*'''''Ruinstorm:''''' The conclusion to the Imperium Secundus plotline, as well as the follow on to Damnation of Pythos. Shows the Lion, Sanguinius and Guilliman trying to cross the Ruinstorm to reach Terra. After a brief stopover at Pandorax, they decide to head out to Davin where the Heresy began and where destinies are remade; they pass systems along the way that show what the Galaxy would look like if Chaos wins, such as a Forge World surrounded by an immense fortress wall in outer space 4000 miles thick and a sector of space filled with solid ritualised geometric shapes that are perhaps light years across. Davin itself is surrounded by a cloud of bones and wreckage millions of kilometers thick, but the planet has long since been abandoned. There Sanguinius finds out that in order to live through the Heresy he must become a monster even worse than Horus, but dying will curse his sons with the Black Rage; blood is on his hands either way. Instead, Sanguinius tries to sacrifice himself to save the day, but the [[Sanguinor]] steps in and takes his place while the fleets rain down a shitstorm and destroy the planet. In the aftermath, the Ruinstorm abates enough for them to reach Terra, but Horus has so much force that it is impossible for all three legions to reach, so Guilliman and the Lion agree to distract the Traitors long enough to give Sanguinius a window to get back and face his destiny, explaining why they never made it to the Siege since they were engaging Traitor fleets and burning their worlds.
*'''''Old Earth:''''' Set immediately after ''Deathfire'', Vulkan and three Salamander legionaries (the rest of the Salamanders weren't informed of their Primarch's resurrection) travel through the Webway by a gate hidden in a cave on Nocturne. On their path to Terra, they came across the Shattered Legions who were preparing for their first major void engagement with the Sons of Horus. Just before the attack, some Medusan-born Iron Hands tried to stage a coup against Shadrak Meduson by revealing a hideous contraption of machines and the last remnants of Ferrus Manus - ''his iron hand'' (they were under the illusion that they could resurrect their Primarch through cybernetics; it is hinted that the Mechanicum had some <s>hand</s>{{BLAM}}{{blam|that pun was so bad heresy is automatic}} in this affair). Thankfully Vulkan shatters the hand and Meduson assumes command again, though he was killed by '''Tybalt Marr''' in a boarding action after the Iron Hands refused to send reinforcements to him. In the end, it is revealed that the Emperor had Vulkan forge a weapon that, in the event Terra fell to Horus, would amplify the power of the Golden Throne into a fatal FUCK YOU nuke into the heart of the Chaos God's domains, sadly also wiping out the entire Throneworld (this is possibly also one of Vulkan's nine relics). Oh, and Eldrad rescues [[Knights-Errant|Barthusa Narek]] from Nocturne and makes him his assassin. They killed most of the Cabal, including a vaguely amphibian alien sitting on top of a jungle pyramid. Yes, Eldrad Ulthran might just be the only person alive to have killed an Old One. Finally they rescue John Grammaticus, who had his memory wiped after his failure to assassinate Vulkan. With his memory restored, Grammaticus is ordered by Eldrad to find Ollanius Pius and go to Terra.
*'''''The Burden of Loyalty:''''' In the grim darkness of the 3rd millenium, there are only anthologies.
**'''The Thirteenth Wolf:''' Old Guard Space Wolves get lost in a a series of Warp Portals during the battle of Prospero.
**'''Into Exile:''' Arkhan-the-Humble-Land basically has to have a Boltgun Shoved in his face to leave during the initial Mars Revolt.
**'''Cybernetica:''' Story full of [[awesome]] about how Carrion the Raven Guard Tech-aspirant awaiting graduation watches his fellows get slaughtered before hulking out Sith-Style. Meanwhile an Iron Warrior proves how badass they are when not under the thumb of their whiny emo excuse of a primarch by literally throwing Carrion off a tower so he's the sole target of an incoming Warlord Titan. Carrion then joins the Knights-Errants and actually makes Dorn backpedal and heads back to Mars to aid the Resistance in taking it back through use of Heretek.
*'''''Wolfsbane:''''' Leman Russ faces off against Horus, with the help of the Spear of Russ mentioned in the FUCKOLD Space Wolves novels. They're evenly matched but Russ seems to get the better of Horus when the Spear partially de-corrupts the Warmaster. Unfortunately for him, Russ tries to bring his brother back to his senses rather than strike a killing blow and is dragged away barely conscious by his men after Horus retaliates, setting the stage for the Battle of Yarant. Also a glimpse of [[Belisarius Cawl]] from back in his earlier, fleshier years.
*'''''Born of Flame:''''' ANTHOLOGIES!

===Books LI-LIV===
*'''''Slaves to Darkness''''' The traitor primarchs gather for the assault on Terra but things aren't going well. Guilliman and the Lion are giving them a helluva hard time and Horus himself is still quite literally drained from his duel with Russ. Basically how the gang gets back together for the push on Terra. The Sons of Horus start fracturing badly and Maloghurst takes it upon himself to cure Horus. In so doing, he forces a daemon to act as his guide through the Warp and finds out from this surprisingly forthcoming daemon (presumably from the Chaos God of Exposition) that even though Horus was superpowered from his Molech makeover, he'd left a part of his soul behind in the Chaos God's realms, which had come to the realization that Chaos had been using him from the beginning. The daemon also suggests that Horus was never meant to win in the first place and that for all his new power he is no match against The Emperor, but Maloghurst very loudly refuses to believe it. Maloghurst meets his end as he resurrects Horus due to infighting within the Sons of Horus, erasing the last uncorrupted part of Horus's soul in the process. Mortarion is named the vanguard of the Siege, Perturabo is sent to pick up Angron, and Lorgar gets Zardu Layak to speak Fulgrim's true name and bind him into joining in a plot to depose the Warmaster, believing that his refusal to completely submit before the Chaos Gods will lead to the Traitor Legions' ultimate defeat at Terra. This turns out to be a massive mistake that leads Lorgar to be utterly curbstomped by the revived Horus and told that he will be killed if Horus ever sees him again. Witnessing this, Zardu Layak and the Word Bearers present all swear allegiance to the Warmaster before Lorgar leaves with his tail between his legs. Layak frees Fulgrim who finds it all hilarious. Magnus makes an appearance at the end, swearing himself to Horus's service. "Alpharius" makes a token appearance to hand over Terra's defence data before disappearing without a trace and no mention of his legion at all, although Alpharius does basically mime they are done fighting for the Warmaster's ends.
*'''''Heralds of the Siege''''' You know the drill by now. Anthology. But the end is in sight.
**'''Myriad:''' Loyalist Mechanicum forces hiding underground in Mars launch guerilla attacks on targets of opportunity from below. During one raid which blows the head off of a Warlord Titan, they retrieve a Castellan automata with the Abominable Intelligence from ''Cybernetica'' and a tech menial. Putting them into quarantine the Abominable Intelligence wakes up from probing and cleanses the menial of all scrap code & corruption to display it means no ill will to the loyalists. The Tech Inquisitor leader decides it's time to go Tech Radical "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Abominable Intelligence supplies them with a complete battleplan and strategy (4.7k item checklist) for wiping out all the Dark Mechanicum on Mars and starts off with seizing & cleansing a Warlord Titan searching for their headquarters.
**'''The Grey Raven:''' A ship sent back to Terra by Corax arrives in the solar system, with the Librarian Raven Guard who opened the Emp's gene-banks for Corax, seven Custodians, and an Imperial Fists force. Presenting to a border post for inspection, the Custodian commander, upon discovering the identity of the Raven Guard, states a code word to the Custodians on ship and they all try to pull the Librarian's head off. The Fist Captain saves him and his men try to hold off the Custodians while he and the Librarian try to get off the ship. The Custodian captain corners them and slays the Fist captain. The Librarian gets angry and is about to use his psychic powers on the Custodian when he remembers his vow to Corax and surrenders to execution. Revealed to be an elaborate test by Malcador, who subsequently recruits him into the Grey Knights after apologizing for the death of the Fist captain.
**'''Valerius:''' Marcus Valerius of the Therion cohort (unaugmented troops fighting with Raven Guard) is now a big believer in the Lectitio Divinatus. He sets his forces to defend cross over points on a river where a bigger enemy force is attempting to cross. Corax had sent the Therion cohort (23k soldiers) and Valerian to die fighting against traitor marines & titans for a planet near Beta-Garmon with no escorts for their transport ships. Gives a speech about how proud all his soldiers should be for facing a suicidal mission to die for the emperor. Therions manage to take out all titans before being overrun. As the remaining marines breach his command leviathan, Valerius gives the order to detonate their reactor and leads a prayer with the remaining command crew. Another regiment of the imperial army happens across the aftermath and think that the Therions were wiped out and some other regiment managed to hold the line against the traitors. Leviathan's death took out everybody on the battlefield. Valerius stumbles out of the wreckage of the Leviathan, and proclaims his survival a miracle.
**'''The Ember Wolves:''' A Warhound titan pack attached to the World Eaters takes down a Warmonger titan on some planet. World Eater influence leads to a leadership challenge shortly after tipping over the Warmonger. Despite the pack leader putting down the leadership challenge, the downed loyalist Warmonger blows up its reactor and takes out all named characters.
**'''Blackshield:''' Khorak, a renegade member of Mortarion's [[Deathshroud]], is on the run from loyalist hunters. He and his squad escape down to the surface of a swamp planet where they are slaughtered till only he remains. He recognizes the leader of the loyalists as another Death Guard member who reveals himself to be Crysos Morturg, a survivor of Isstvan III. Khorak explains that he turned against Mortarion after Molech, when his entire squad was sacrificed by Mort for witchcraft. They both express their hatred of Mortarion, and Khorak briefly considers teaming up with Morturg but then one of his buddies proves to be not quite dead and tries to shoot Morturg, who deflects the shell with his psychic abilities. Khorak immediately tries to kill him and is gunned down. Morturg is revealed to be a mangled mess who survived Isstvan thanks solely to his psychic power and an extensive cybernetic rebuild by Calleb Decima, another Istvaan III survivor (who by the end of the battle was so mangled he resembled a spider more than a person). After Crysos ruminates on the pointlessness of Khorak's death, he decides it's time to go see the Emperor.
**'''Children of Sicarus:''' Kor Phaeron and the remainder of his party are on the run in Sicarus, a daemon planet, being constantly harassed by daemons that are whittling them down. They gain the attention of a warlord acoloyte of Tzeentch and at the same time a prophet appears to them and offers them sanctuary. The prophet leads them into a camouflaged valley where he reveals to them glyphs and Lorgar's athame that show how Kor Phaeron would arrive, slit his own throat to open a portal, and the remaining legionaries would lead the prophet's people through to join Lorgar at the Siege of Terra. Kor Phaeron kills the prophet, announcing that his fate is his own. The camouflage breaks down with the prophet's death and the warlord meets him. She offers him lordship of the planet after she ascends to daemonhood, and he accepts letting her have the prophet's people. As she is about to ascend on the spot, he sneaks up behind her and slits her throat with the athame. Shortly after Sicarus is now a worship planet with slaves laboring to create monuments of worship. Kor Phaeron states that it is now a refuge for the Word Bearers in the neverending war ahead of them.
**'''Exocytosis:''' Typhon is refitting his fleet at Zaramund by the grace of Luther. The Death Guard forces have set up an isolated camp away from any of the Fallen or natives of Zaramund. Luther decides to send a Fallen to spy on the Death Guard to see what's up with their shyness. Typhon is trying to get used to the gifts of the Grandfather when a group of civilians approach the camp. They reveal themselves to have been expecting his arrival, and all of them are revealed to be dead but kept alive by the grace of Nurgle. They call him Typhus and proclaim that with his arrival they are finally free to spread Papa Nurgle's gifts everywhere. The Dark Angel captain observing all of this sees a crowd of zombies and flies and Typhon conversing with them. Typhon sees regular people, though he can glimpse their true nature. The Death Guard sentries just see regular people. The captain springs out of his observation spot and starts attacking the tainted civilians like a true Dark Angel. Typhus kills him and in the process becomes one with his gifts. The Death Guard depart shortly afterwards with no contact with the Dark Angels. Luther is puzzled by this, ignoring a medicae request for apothecary aid for a sudden new disease in the civilian population, and wonders what other effects the Death Guard may have left on Zaramund. Typhon uses his blood to poison his commanding officers after announcing they will reunite with the Primarch.
**'''The Painted Count:''' Gendor Skraivok is having a hard time getting rid of his daemon blade. He tries burning it, tossing it into a plasma reactor, and out an airlock, but it keeps coming back. In a political battle for command of the legion, a rival tosses him into the impossible maze built by Perturabo to contain Vulkan. Failing to leave the maze normally, he seals his pact with the daemon blade and it leads him out of the maze. Killing the rival in a duel, he takes command of the ''Nightfall'' and leads the Night Lords to Terra to join the Warmaster.
**'''The Last Son of Prospero:''' Revuel Arvida is transformed into Ianius after teaming up with the soul shard of Magnus. Jaghatai Khan & Malcador happen to be in the room.
**'''The Soul, Severed:''' Eidolon puts down a leadership challenge from a leader who is loyal only to Fulgrim and wants the legion to sit around waiting for him to return. Being still reasonable, the challenger lures Eidolon's forces into a chemical treatment factory, blows up the chemical tanks, then counterattacks. The challenger deepstrikes with a bodyguard squad directly onto Eidolon, and then Eidolon and every single other noise marine giggle and laugh at the same time, obliterating the entire battlefield. Eidolon realises that he needs a planet with limitless numbers of potential slaves so he could spend lifetimes in debauchery, and so accepts that his fate and that of his forces is to eventually assault the Imperial Palace.
**'''Dark Compliance:''' Argonis, an emissary of Horus, meets Decigus, the Lord of a star system. Decigus is pretty intent on executing Argonis in person, and Argonis tells him to swear fealty to Horus or else... and starts to relate the tale of how he became an emissary, starting over a Mechanicus world that also gave Horus the finger and roasted his emissary. Horus meets with Argonis and reveals the emissary was a distraction to the Mechanicum ruler, while another plan was put into place. Horus sends a distraction fleet, followed by another distraction fleet, followed by hidden fighters and vortex missiles he had dropped off point-blank on the moon when his emissary had been killed. Wiping out all orbital defenses the magos still believes he can extract a heavy toll on Horus over several months of fighting. Horus flies down, summons a daemon w/ invasion on the side, then departs with his forces. The world gets covered in blood clouds and is infested by daemons. Argonis then repeats his question to Decigus, join us or die.
**'''Duty Waits:''' The Imperial Fists have beefed up security protocols around the Imperial Palace to ridiculous levels after the Alpha Legion shenanigans from ''Praetorian of Dorn''. All the civilians in the Palace are barely tolerated and given limited rations. There is a food riot and all the new Imperial Fists who were inducted during the Heresy and have never killed anybody get their first taste by shooting rioters, which they're not thrilled about.
**'''Magisterium:''' Valdor is busy handling the Custodes post-Webway war. Not enough resources, Custodian serfs are working to their deaths, and Custodians dealing with the fact that they can no longer effectively protect the emperor. Flashback to Valdor being talked to dismissively by Leman Russ during the Burning of Prospero.
**'''Now Peals Midnight:''' Rogal Dorn is told that long-range sensors & astropathic choirs have detected something big approaching through the Warp, and he realizes that Horus's arrival in the solar system is imminent. He passes along the message to his brothers on Terra. A strategium general is amazed at how she was bred, augmented, and trained to process insane amounts of info and what takes her 15 minutes to re-appraise herself of the solar system tactical info takes Dorn a brief glance at the screens. Archamus and Andromeda-17 from ''Praetorian of Dorn'' have a quiet chat concerning the imminent siege and the fact that humanity will be forever psychologically scarred by what is about to happen. Dorn, Sanguinius, and the Khan gather on a wall of the Palace and stare up at the sky. At midnight a new star blossoms, signalling the exit of Horus's fleet from warp space.
**'''Dreams of Unity:''' A terminally ill Thunder Warrior helps some Custodes kill an Alpha Legion infiltrator while continuously having flashbacks to the Unification Wars and the Emperor's grand dream of Unity. Once the Alpha is dead, he surrenders himself for execution to the Custodes.
**'''The Board is Set:''' Malcador contacts the Emperor for advice just before the Siege and plays a game of strategy that they have been playing for a ''long'' time, detailing the movements and eventual fates of the Primarchs. Shows that the Emperor was certainly manipulating them but was mostly on the back foot for much of his conflict with the the Chaos Gods so the outcome could have been much worse. Emps reveals a final gambit that will screw over Malcador in order to deny Chaos their victory.
*'''''Titandeath''''' Titan-centric book taking place during the battle for Beta-Garmon, the Loyalists' final effort to prevent the Traitors from reaching Terra. How one book could be made of a battle taking place across an entire solar system that had, according to Slaves to Darkness, more casualties than the last five years of the Great Crusade remains to be seen. As it happens... fairly feasibly. Beta-Garmon represented the tipping point for both the loyalists and the traitors; if the traitors didn't move past it, Guilliman would crush them from behind. If the loyalists didn't engage, then Horus would take his overwhelming numbers unopposed. The point is that Horus would win Beta Garmon either way. Rogal Dorn makes the only proactive move that he can make in the whole war, and sends a sizeable contingent of Terra's defenses to Beta Garmon to delay the Warmaster for as long as possible. And because Titans aren't really well suited to defending Terra, they are let out in force on Beta-Garmon. Which makes perfect target practice for the massive orbital platform that Horus proceeds to use. Unfortunately the story is let down by its ham-fisted portrayal of an all-female Titan Legion (mostly out of wasted potential) and a rushed storyline. Also a mopey Sanguinius who makes 'I do not die here today' into the new 'Vulkan Lives!'.
*'''''The Buried Dagger''''' This is the final book in the "main" Horus Heresy series, and tells the story of how Mortarion and the Death Guard fell to Nurgle's service. It happens essentially as has already been seen in other fluff sources: Typhon murders all the Navigators and claims he can guide the Death Guard fleet to Terra himself, only to deliberately strand them in the Warp so that Nurgle can turn them to his service. As disease spreads through the fleet, Mortarion becomes increasingly horrified and outraged as he realizes what's happening to his legion and finally kills Typhon in retaliation, but the Destroyer Hive reanimates his corpse, officially turning him into Typhus. After some more internal angst and butthurt, Mortarion finally accepts his destiny and becomes Nurgle's champion. The B-plot of the book concerns the founding of the [[Grey Knights]], as well as an assassination attempt on Malcador by Erebus, who planted a psychic suggestion in Tylos Rubio's head all the way back on Calth. Rubio, Sevarian, Revuel Arvida/Ianius, and several other Knights-Errant are named as the first eight Grey Knights and are shipped off to Titan to prepare for what will come after the Heresy. Garviel Loken is supposed to be the ninth Knight, but he turns it down because he still wants a shot at Horus. Nathaniel Garro gets cut loose from the Knights-Errant and sets off to find his own destiny.

==The [[Siege of Terra]] series==
Yep, it's getting an entire series to itself. What, did you really think they'd dedicate only one book to it? The series is slated to be eight books long, along with an unspecified number of novellas.

*'''''The Solar War''''': The Traitors make their big push through the remaining defenses of the Sol system and clear the path to Terra. Dorn's strategy is to make them pay for every centimeter and hope he can delay them long enough for the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels to arrive. To do this, he sends entire fleets out to fight delaying actions and blows up some of Pluto's moons after the traitors capture them. It sort of works, but the traitors have thousands of ships and even a few Space Hulks, so Perturabo just keeps feeding them into the grinder until they break through. Meanwhile, Mersadie Oliton receives a warning vision from Euphrati Keeler and busts out of space jail to deliver her message to Dorn. Unfortunately, it turns out "Keeler" was actually Samus manipulating Mersadie to get her onto the ''Phalanx'' and use her as a gateway to invade the station, so she winds up committing suicide in front of Garviel Loken. Samus rampages around the ''Phalanx'' for a bit and is killed again, this time by Dorn. Abaddon bypasses the outer defenses via a warp rift opened up by Ahriman, captures Luna, and convinces the matriarch of the Selenar to start making more Astartes for the traitors. The book ends with Horus, Fulgrim, and Angron arriving in-system along with the main strength of their fleets, meaning shit is now officially real.
*'''''The Lost and the Damned''''': This is it, ladies and neckbeards. The Siege has begun in earnest. Dorn is using millions of conscripts and all the vast firepower he’s installed on the Palace walls to blunt Horus's initial attacks, holding the V, VII, and IX Legions in reserve. Unfortunately, this is all more or less playing into the traitors’ hands. They want to cause as much death as possible so that the walls between reality and the warp will be thin enough to let hordes of daemons onto the planet and the daemon primarchs themselves can safely set foot on Terra without being banished by the Emperor’s psychic mojo. To their credit, Dorn and his brothers are aware of this, but also recognize that they’re screwed either way, so they decide to just go ahead and kill as many traitors as possible. After a few months of traitor Army regiments, Chaos spawn, and beastmen being sent in to soften the defenses up while the Dark Mechanicum build siege guns and towers to punch through the walls, the Death Guard finally show up after their side trip to visit Grandpa Nurgle. Horus sends them in first, mightily pissing off Angron in the process, and they immediately set about turning the warzone into a large-scale recreation of Passchendaele circa 1917. Jaghatai goes out to gather intel on the siege engines and gets poked with a plague knife, but as soon as he crosses back into the Palace grounds the Emperor’s psychic aegis cures him. He then takes half the White Scars to go defend the citizens of Terra from rampaging traitors despite Dorn ordering him not to, and promises to return when needed. Sanguinius rallies the defenders and leads his sons from the front even though Azkaellon and Raldoron would really rather he didn’t. The book ends with the World Eaters and Night Lords launching their first full-scale attack on the Palace walls; Angron challenges Sanguinius to battle while Raldoron beats Gendor Skraivok hollow and tosses him off the wall. The book reveals that despite their numerical superiority and the aid of the Chaos gods, Horus is maintaining control over his war effort and the other traitor primarchs only by sheer force of will: Lorgar, Curze, and Alpharius are out of the picture, Magnus is doing his own thing, Fulgrim is being a prissy dick, Perturabo is as much a whiny bitch as ever, and Angron is so uncontrollable that Kharn and [[Lotara Sarrin]] are forced to teleport him into the labyrinth Perturabo built to contain Vulkan until he can be set loose on Terra. Only Mortarion still seems relatively normal despite the fact he’s now a daemon primarch. Moreover Abaddon is getting really fucking cagey about Horus's new habit of Chaos worship, for good reason. It turns out that the wound Russ inflicted on him at Trisolian has resulted in his soul slowly being drained. As a result, the Chaos Gods have to keep juicing Horus up, with the downsides of time-wasting sojourns into the warp and the gradual destruction of Horus's body. What's more, there are implications that Abaddon is being groomed to take over if Horus falls.
*'''''The First Wall''''': This book focuses on the battle for the Lion’s Gate spaceport, which is the tallest structure on Terra and the only place that void-going ships can dock on the entire planet, meaning that the traitors will be able to shuttle in reinforcements and materiel more easily if they can capture it. Perturabo details Warsmith Kroeger to command the Iron Warriors’ assault on the spaceport under the logic that Dorn will be expecting Pert to command the attack personally and won’t be expecting whatever battle plans Kroeger comes up with. Warsmith Forrix isn’t happy with this or with anything else that’s going on, since he’s realized that Horus is using the Iron Warriors in the same way the Emperor did and he's become increasingly disillusioned with Perturabo himself. To aid the attack, the Dark Mechanicum sets a technophagic virus loose inside the spaceport and Zardu Layak, [[Abaddon]], and [[Typhus]] perform a Nurglite ritual to infiltrate Cor’bax Utterblight inside the Emperor’s wards. The Fists hold out as long as they can and inflict heavy casualties, but Dorn finally gives the order to withdraw and abandon the Gate as Perturabo lands his flagship atop the port and joins an assault led by Abaddon and Kharn. Sigismund duels Kharn and nearly loses while Dorn kills Zardu Layak, which allows daemons to manifest on Terra for the first time. He then has a brief exchange of taunts with Perturabo and the first Chaos Titans set foot on Terra, spelling a new stage of the battle. In the midst of all this is a little passage detailing just how many artillery pieces the Iron Warriors have landed on the planet, including two thousand [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]], fifteen hundred [[Manticore Launcher Tank|Manticores]], five hundred [[Medusa Siege Gun|Medusas]], sixteen hundred Siege Dreadnoughts, seven thousand Thunderburst guns, five hundred [[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|Deathstrike]] launchers and eighty-four [[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank|Typhon siege guns]], plus uncounted thousands of Rhinos, Land Raiders, Vindicators, Predators, Sicarans, and [[Baneblade|assorted]] [[Fellblade|superheavy]] [[Spartan Assault Tank|tanks]]. [[Awesome|That sound you just heard was Josef Stalin and the entire Red Army popping a boner from beyond the grave.]] Meanwhile, to stop Cor’bax’s taint from spreading inside the Imperial Palace, Malcador recruits Euphrati Keeler and the Custodian Amon Tauromachian to hunt down and eliminate any corrupted cults of the Emperor, giving us the weirdest buddy-cop pairing of all time. Malcador wants to see if he can weaponize the cult’s belief in the Emperor against the Chaos gods and sees Keeler as the key to doing so, while Amon would rather just stamp it out. They eventually find a cult that has been corrupted by Cor’bax. When the daemon uses their bodies to manifest inside the walls, Keeler, Malcador, and Amon team up to kill him. Malcador tells Dorn, Valdor, and the other Imperial commanders that he will allow the cult of the Emperor to exist until the Emperor himself says otherwise. While all this is going on, we get to see more of the siege from a mortal perspective. Katsuhiro, a veteran of the initial fighting outside the walls, is detailed to a section of the outer walls under attack by the Death Guard and eventually has to aid in putting down an outbreak of plague zombies. We also follow Zenobi, a seventeen-year-old line worker from the Afrik hive of Addaba who volunteered to serve in the Imperial Army, only it turns out that she and her entire regiment are pledged to Horus, though this doesn't stop the Warmaster's fleet bombing their city to shit from orbit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, sounds like a fun read huh?) The novel ends with John Grammaticus arriving on Terra, mission unknown.
*'''''Saturnine''''': Dan Abnett's first HH book in seven years. Dorn is trying to decide which parts of the Palace need to be defended and which can be allowed to fall, as the Imperial forces are outnumbered, outgunned, and running low on supplies. He identifies four key parts of the defense that cannot be allowed to fall to the enemy, then decides which one he can afford to lose anyway: the Eternity Wall spaceport. The Saturnine Wall, one of the other key elements, has developed a subtle fault thanks to the relentless traitor bombardment. Dorn suspects that Perturabo will try to exploit it, so he lays a trap for the traitor assault force and calls in Arkhan Land to help fix it. While this is going on, Sanguinius kills an Iron Warriors Warsmith at the Gorgon Bar, then [[Awesome|solos a Warlord Titan]] and stares down three Warhounds until they turn tail and run for it. Jaghatai and the White Scars lead a few massed jetbike charges into the ranks of the Death Guard and really ruin their day, further pissing off Mortarion. [[Abaddon]] enlists the entire [[Emperor's Children]] Legion and three companies of the Sons of Horus, led by the entire Mournival, to attack the Saturnine Wall with Perturabo's help; however, Perturabo anticipates that Dorn will expect them to do so and refuses to lend his aid. The III Legion attacks from the front, using three ancient and irreplaceable siege engines, while Abaddon and his Astartes burrow up from beneath with Termite assault drills. When the Sons of Horus emerge from their assault drills, they're ambushed by kill teams led by [[Garviel Loken]] and [[Nathaniel Garro]]. All three companies, including the famed [[Justaerin]] and Catulan Reavers of the 1st Company, are wiped out. Garro kills Falkus Kibre while Loken kills Horus Aximand ([[Blood Ravens|and takes his sword]]) and Tormageddon, finally avenging his old friend. Tybalt Marr and Lev Goshen are also killed off, meaning that all of the Sons of Horus characters we were introduced to at the beginning of the series are now dead except for Loken and Abaddon. Abaddon goes on a killing spree, but eventually gets beaten up by a nobody [[Blood Angel]], Endryd Haar, and Garro. Abaddon manages to kill the Blood Angel and Haar, but is almost killed by Garro, only to be [[Plot Armor|teleported to safety at the last moment]]. Arkhan Land floods the fault line with thousands of tons of quick-setting rockcrete, [[Grimdark|entombing a bunch of the Sons of Horus beneath the palace forever.]] Fulgrim hurls his legion at the Saturnine Wall ''en masse'', which accomplishes nothing but getting 18,000 of them killed and destroying the siege platforms. Dorn and Sigismund fight Fulgrim; Sigismund manages to injure Fulgrim despite being hilariously outclassed, but before Fulgrim can finish the job, Dorn appears. He holds his own against his psychotic bishonen brother, inflicting so much damage that Fulgrim throws a tantrum and takes his legion and goes home, abandoning the Siege entirely. The two then fight a bunch of III Legion champions and defeat them all. In one particularly awesome moment, Sigismund just straight-up kicks Eidolon off the wall. At this point, Perturabo seems to be the only person on Team Horus who still gives a shit about winning the siege. The rest of traitor primarchs are all too indignant to focus on their alleged objective, too busy conspiring against each other, or too insane to care.
**Crucially to the ongoing progress of the Siege, the loyalists lose the Eternity Wall spaceport, but this was part of the plan. As noted above, Dorn identified four key points in the defense that he couldn't afford to lose, then chose the one that he couldn't afford to lose the least, personally took command at the Saturnine Wall, and sent Sanguinius and Jaghatai to hold the other two spots. Angron and the World Eaters assault the spaceport, and pretty much every named Imperial Army character in the book dies at this point, along with Jenetia Krole, the leader of the [[Sisters of Silence]], who gets killed by Kharn, and Camba Diaz of the Imperial Fists, who literally dies standing while holding the main bridge into the spaceport. Also, Angron gets blown up by artillery but comes back to life since, y'know, he's a daemon prince and all. Sanguinius' visions are getting increasingly powerful and painful, especially when he winds up inside Angron's tortured mind. He eventually delves deeply enough to realize that Angron has sensed the annihilation of Nuceria. The [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Ultramarines]] are on the way!
**Other miscellaneous things that happen: John Grammaticus is trying to meet up with Ollanius Persson and encounters the Perpetual Erda, who tells us that Big-E was named '''Neoth''' when they met, but that this was just one of the many names he's had over the millennia. It is also revealed that she is the true mother of the primarchs and is technically responsible for their scattering - cue the sound of countless facepalms from the fanbase. Dorn has Kyril Sindermann form the proto-[[Inquisition]], and he recruits Euphrati Keeler and some other people to go around collecting interviews with soldiers, workers, and other residents of the Palace. Keeler interviews Basilio Fo, the mad genesmith from the short story ''Misbegotten'', and he reveals that he can create a biomechanical phage that could kill Horus, along with every other Space Marine and primarch in the galaxy. Keeler and her Custodian babysitter decide that this information should go to Dorn, just in case he decides he needs such a doomsday option. The Ollanius Pius myth is partly born from a Guardsman named Olly Piers standing up and defending a banner of the Emperor before dying at Angron's hands. Horus is sliding further into apparent senility as the Chaos Gods' power begins to overwhelm his body and mind to the point that would have killed him outright had he not died in the duel against the Emperor first, much to Abaddon's disgust; he is almost totally disconnected from the siege, asks for things and immediately forgets asking for them, and keeps calling his equerry Maloghurst, even though Maloghurst has been dead since ''Slaves to Darkness''. At the very end, Corswain of the Dark Angels arrives with a large chunk of the Dark Angels fleet, ready to aid in the battle. In short, a lot of named characters die and plot threads are set up for other books and the rest of 40K.
*'''''Mortis''''': John French's second book in the series. As the morale of the Palace's defenders slowly erodes under the pressure of the unrelenting assault and the malign influence of the Warp, the traitor Titans of Legio Mortis are unleashed to break through the Mercury Wall, with only the loyalist engines of the Legio Ignatum to hold them off. Not as good as ''Saturnine'' or ''The Lost and the Damned'', but not as bad as Zenobi's story in ''The First Wall'', it feels more like an anthology, though all of its stories have a common beginning and converge in the end.
** The main story, the siege itself, has very little to offer. Horus has finally decided to take direct command of the traitor forces, but his first order to Perturabo is to send everything they have, include the entire Legio Mortis, to attack the Mercury Wall head on. Perturabo objects to such a terrible strategy, after which Horus sends his equerry to tell him to disperse his legion among the traitor forces and let the Death Guard take over their positions. Perturabo immediately realizes that Horus is about to pull some serious warp fuckery, which he's not okay with, so he orders a full-on retreat of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege completely. The rest of the main siege plot centers around the Titan battle in front of the Mercury Wall; the traitor forces have used Warp power to reanimate countless Titan wrecks collected from Beta-Garmon and elsewhere, using them as cannon fodder to weaken the loyalist defenses before attacking with the full might of the Legio Mortis, the largest Titan legion in the entire Imperium.
** Meanwhile, in another corner of the battle, a small group of loyalist Imperial Army soldiers are still holding a maybe no longer important line of defense. Amongst them is Katsuhiro, the luckiest unlucky son of a gun from ''The Lost and the Damned'', who has fought from the Outer Wall all the way into the central palace and is still fighting because [[Grimdark|in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war]]. Their forces are initially led by a Blood Angel, but he dies during the battle and puts Katsuhiro in charge because this man's got nothing but unwavering belief in the Emperor and balls made out of titanium.
** Shiban Khan, to everyone's surprise, survived his shuttle crashing in ''Saturnine'' thanks to his extensive augmetic rebuild. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere and starts hearing the voices of his dead brothers as he limps toward the Inner Palace. It could be warp fuckery, as the land shows various signs of Chaos corruption, or perhaps more likely, he just had some severe head trauma due to the shuttle crash (and the sky's the limit when it comes to head trauma). Either way, Shiban wants to return to the fight, so he starts to walk, and walk, and walk (there is a lot of walking in this not that long of a side plot). Then he encounters an Army lieutenant with a baby (feels like there is a joke in there somewhere) and the man tags along with him. The lieutenant explains that he just found the baby in the middle of all this shit and took it without any question; I keep expecting it to be a daemon or something, but it ends up to be something hopeful, wholesome even. Later the lieutenant is severely injured by an actual daemon, but Shiban refuses to leave him behind and carries him and the baby. Eventually, they come across the line Katsuhiro's defending; though the lieutenant doesn't make it, the baby survives, which amazes the crumbling troopers to no end and boosts their morale. Shiban and Katsuhiro have a brief chat before Shiban keeps pushing on to rejoin his legion. For the Emperor's sake, please don't let the baby be a daemon in the coming books.
** We finally get to see psi-titans deployed!!! For a few paragraphs at least. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (who we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because they only answer to the Emperor) shows up and tells Dorn that the Emperor has personally authorized use of the Ordo Sinister, an act that simultaneously tells Dorn that the Emperor has commanded victory at any cost. We see a psi-titan strut up to a battlefield, order all friendly titans to fire warp missiles at itself, then redirects the warp power in the warp missiles to instant kill several demon titan engines. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. But the traitors brought a lot of titans and even the Psi-titans are eventually overwhelmed.
** On the traitor titan side, special siege titans are unveiled bespoke from Mars. Turns out you can just line up several big titans and hook up all their reactors to mobile reactors behind their shields, then slow walk towards the wall like a big phalanx advance. And you get called the special engine class of Warmaster Titans. Plus lots and lots of guns on the front.
** At the end of the last book, Corswain and his fleet came to reinforce the loyalists. Now we learn that he was expecting to meet the Lion and the main strength of the Dark Angels at Terra, but finds out that he is the only reinforcement that has shown up. If you have read the new Luther book, you know that he was lied to by Luther, and most importantly, the ten thousand Dark Angels he brought along were given to him by Luther, which means they're most likely no longer loyal to the Imperium. Now here comes some plot fuckery: the traitors took the Astronomican and put it out. What? Wasn't Dorn's entire plan was to delay the traitors' offensive long enough for the reinforcements to arrive? Why was the Astronomican not as heavily defended as the Imperial Palace itself? How the fuck are the reinforcements going get to Terra without the Astronomican? But the plot must give Corswain and his Dark Angels something to do I guess. Nevertheless, Corswain plans an assault through the traitor fleet blockade; with the sacrifice of the Emperor's personal flagship and the gap left by the Iron Warriors' departure, the Dark Angels successfully make planetfall on Terra and retake the Astronomican by killing a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh and a bunch of Kakophoni. But here comes the backstabbing: the officers Luther sent to follow Corswain cannot allow his plan to succeed for obvious reasons, but one of the Librarians, Vassago, is having second thoughts about the whole thing after the daemonic horrors he's just witnessed. When he tells this to his fallen brothers, they decide to kill him and keep on with their plan.
** The various storylines are tied together in the end by a speech given by Dorn. As he speaks, what's left of the loyalist Titan legions begin to charge an unknown anomaly that appeared mid-battle; Katsuhiro's ragged force faces off against a new wave of enemies; Vassago is attacked by his fallen brothers; and the Legio Mortis finally reaches the Mercury Wall, the true Imperial Palace itself.
** Also, remember all of those weird metaphorical scenes of the Emperor being a dirty old man they put in every book? Turns out it is the physical manifestation of the struggle and suffering the Emperor is enduring in the spiritual world, and it is getting worse and worse. In previous books, he could still shelter himself in a cave and have Malcador deliver him food or something; now he is quite literally cooking under the sun in an open desert with only a dead tree for cover, and because the Chaos gods are winning, it has become impossible for Malcador to keep supporting the Emperor. So the Big-E is now facing off against the entire warp with nothing but his own willpower to sustain him. Horus keeps showing up to taunt his father and sometimes the Chaos gods accompany him like some kind of pet snakes. Every time he appears he is closer to the Emperor and at the end of this book he is finally able to reach him.
** Oh, Ollanius and his crew from Calth also return in this book. They finally make it back to Terra after bouncing through all of time and space, and then they infiltrate a hive overrun by the Emperor's Children in order to rescue John Grammaticus. Along the way, they run into someone named Actaea (who might be Cyrene Valantion based on John's horrified recognition of her) and a legionary calling himself Alpharius, because everything wasn't convoluted enough already. Ollanius decides to team up with these two even though Grammaticus is getting some serious bad vibes off of them. This part of the plot is not a bad read, but it really feels like it has nothing to do with the ongoing siege. This, and John's plot from the last book, feel like they should have gotten their own book instead of being cut to pieces and stitched into the main series. But again, it's not as bad and irrelevant as Zenobi's storyline from ''The First Wall''. At least it revealed Ollanius was once a close friend to the Big-E. How close, you ask? He was the Emperor's first Warmaster. He led an army to raze the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel Tower of Babel] to the ground, in the 40K narrative the tower was actually built by Cognitae precursors who were using it to learn Enuncia (first seen in the Eisenhorn books). After taking the tower the Emperor decides that he in his enlightened state can actually run the project better then the Cognitae. Ollanius disagrees and stabs the Emperor while using Enuncia to bring lightning down on the tower. John having stumbled into this memory via being caught in the same pleasure-warp trap uses his psyker language ability to learn Enuncia on the spot. Uses it to unmake a demon, but gets a bad nose-bleed.
* '''''Warhawk''''': The Khan vs. Morty, round two. The end of the Siege is nigh, and everyone on Terra knows it. Angron and the World Eaters are loose inside the Mercury Wall, the Sons of Horus are happily killing anything that crosses their path, and the Death Guard have taken over the Lion's Gate spaceport after Perturabo ragequit halfway through ''Mortis''. Many of the XIV Legion are still coming to terms with their new warp-touched nature. Some of them aren't sure the bargain was worth the price, while others are happily adopting pet Nurglings and savoring the feeling of turning into walking sacks of pus and tentacles. Mortarion is using his daemonic powers to turn the port into a mirror of Barbarus and blanket the Palace with a psychic miasma of despair; the effect is so potent that even Rogal Dorn is beginning to crack under the strain. Jaghatai is tired of playing defense, so he rallies up the entire V Legion and every single tank that Ilya Ravallion can coax out of reserves to storm the Lion's Gate and retake the spaceport. They use the last intact orbital plate on Terra to shield them from the traitor fleet bombardments and charge across the leveled wreckage of the Palace's outer districts en masse, wrecking shit all the way until they slam into the Death Guard and their defenses. The two legions proceed to just shred the hell out of each other across the spaceport. We get an interesting comparison between their fighting styles here; the Scars dominate the battlefield when they can use their speed and maneuverability, and then when the fighting turns into a battle of attrition the Death Guard give just as good as they get. Jaghatai is in fine form; at one point he yeets a Leviathan Dreadnought with ''one hand'', and the narration explicitly states that everyone on both sides stops to watch him do it. The battle culminates in a knock-down drag-out brawl between the Death Lord and the Warhawk. Mortarion literally beats the Khan to a pulp, but Jaghatai just laughs it off and needles Mortarion until he makes a mistake that lets Jaghatai gut him. Mortarion reminds the Khan that he can't die, since he's a daemon prince now, and the Khan reminds Mortarion that he can die, then pulls the classic "let the other guy impale me so I can kill him" move and decapitates Morty even though he's now got a power scythe embedded in his chest. The resultant explosion of psychic energy disorients the Death Guard and sends the Scars into a frenzy that doesn't end until a newly raised khan manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book. Jaghatai's body is carried out on a Leman Russ, and just when it seems like they might actually have unexpectedly killed another primarch, Ilya Ravallion shows up and demands that he be taken to Malcador, who sets about putting the Warhawk back together.
**Dorn finally lets Sigismund off the chain, telling him to just go kill as many traitors as possible. On his way out to the field, he's given the Black Sword, which was forged in the dark times prior to the Unification Wars, and sets out to become the Emperor's Champion. He kills so damn many captains and praetors that whispers of "the Black Sword" spread across the Palace, and both sides seek him out, either to join him or to kill him. He rematches Kharn and puts him down, though not before Kharn has a lucid moment and is horrified by what Sigismund has become: a remorseless, passionless, icy-hearted killing machine who will raise [[Black Templars|an entire legion of fanatical killers just like him]] to crush the galaxy beneath their boots.
**Euphrati Keeler inspires thousands of civilians, stragglers, and refugees to take up arms and go drown the enemy in bodies in the name of the God-Emperor, establishing the foundations for the Imperial Cult and the Imperium's philosophy of sending wave after wave of conscripts and Guardsmen at the problem until it ceases to be a problem. Garviel Loken tracks her down and is disturbed by her new, more nihilistic mindset, but decides to stay by her side anyway.
**Basilio Fo runs around for a bit and gets attacked by a Night Lord who can apparently see the future and isn't sure if killing him or letting him live will do more damage. He's then retrieved by Constantin Valdor, who took a break from daemon-hunting to haul him back to the Sanctum Imperialis so he can go to work on his anti-Astartes phage. Valdor wonders if using the phage would interfere with the Emperor's plans somehow, since even he isn't sure what is or isn't part of the Big-E's schemes anymore. Really, the whole subplot is kind of pointless, since Fo just winds up back under guard and doing exactly what he wanted to do all along. Makes you wonder why the authors bothered setting him loose last book.
** Ollanius Persson and his merry band are still traveling to the Palace. Actaea is all but stated to be Cyrene Valantion, who has an agenda of her own that involves getting to Horus. "Alpharius" is one of the Alpha Legion infiltrators from ''Praetorian of Dorn'', who's apparently just been kicking around the planet since his legion's attack on Pluto failed. They fly all the way to the Palace and start making their way into the Dungeon to get on with whatever their missions are, planning to pick up some more Alpha Legionnaires who were planted in the catacombs.
** The Sons of Horus are quietly starting to turn on each other. With Horus still sitting on his arse and doing nothing to lead his legion, some of his captains are starting to refer to Abaddon as the XVI's Legion Master, which is pissing off the hardcore Horus loyalists. Most of them end up getting killed by Sigismund anyway, though.
** Erda dies. Maybe. Erebus turns out to have disguised himself as a random Word Bearer in order to reach Terra and track her down, and after he introduces himself he tells her that her scattering of the primarchs was such a nice gift to the Chaos Pantheon that they themselves sing her praises in gratitude. He offers to help her achieve apotheosis and become a queen of the warp as a reward. Erda sneers at him and tells him that he's being manipulated by the cast-off thoughts and unconscious desires of humanity; more or less confirming that she knows many of the same truths about Chaos as the Emperor does, but unlike Big-E, she perhaps underestimates the danger they pose. That might also be why she tries to say it's not her fault some of the primarchs were corrupted and fell to Chaos, deflecting the blame onto the primarchs themselves, Big-E, society (that's actually barely an exaggeration), and basically everyone but herself. Erebus eventually gets sick of her obfuscation and summons four greater daemons to kill her. However, Erda's able to defeat them pretty comprehensively, with Erebus assuming they've been banished, but the book suggesting that they've been permakilled. Regardless of which however, the fight leaves her drained enough that Erebus is able to hit her with a psychic attack that overwhelms her with the true consequences of what she did. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, but does so offscreen. As he's leaving, however, he wonders if she let him kill her, and if so, why.
*'''''Echoes of Eternity''''': ADB's contribution. [[Meme|We're in the endgame now]]: the Palace defenses have completely collapsed, the Khan is down for the count, Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, the surviving loyalist troops have been driven back into the Sanctum Imperialis, and Guilliman and the Lion still haven't arrived. Angron is leading the World Eaters and Sons of Horus toward victory as Sanguinius rallies his troops for a last stand at the Eternity Gate. Will almost certainly have Sanguinius' rematch with Ka'Bandha as the big climactic fight.
*'''''Sons of the Selenar''''': The first novella in the series. Flashback to the compliance of the Selenar gene cults on the moon, the high supreme matriarch tells a grumpy gene witch to take their best gene tech and hide it from the Emperor while she starts a date/mind purge to wipe out all knowledge of the tech from existence before she surrenders to the soon-to-be Luna Wolves. Flash forward to the crew of the ''Sisypheum'' returning to Terra, SOMEHOW getting all the way to Luna through a lot of luck and bad traitor captains. They pick up a distress signal from Ta'lab Vita-37 saying that the Sons of Horus are breaking through the defenses she has built around the Magna Mater - a silver case containing all the genetic knowledge used to make the first Space Marines. They manage to meet up with Vita-37 and make their way to the center of a moon volcano just in time to snatch it from some tech-priests. Some explosions happen and we get to see Tarsa the Salamander Apothecary walk through radioactive lava while hallucinating that Vulkan lives and dying as he hands the case to Ignatius Numen who also waded in. He dies too because [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film) radioactive lava], but the case gets out of the lava. Justaerin Terminators chase them through the gene labs, and Vita-37 unleashes a bunch of hideous gene-monsters on the Terminators before dying. One spooks them cause it has the face of Horus, but the Terminators finally form up and continue the chase. The last two Iron Hands hand off the Mater to Sharrowkyn and tell him to run like hell while they slow down the Terminator squad, with predictable results. Sharrowkyn gets rescued by the other two Iron Hands in a Storm Eagle, and they make it back to the ''Sisypheum'', while Thamatica uses a Selenar combat AI to destroy a fighter chasing them before it turns back on him and eats his brains. Magnus makes an appearance and saves the ''Sisypheum'' for some reason, then leaves. Wayland drops off Sharrowkyn on an abandoned refueling station before flying away to distract the traitors. Sharrowkyn finally dies with Garuda the mechanical eagle watching him, under the name of the station "Sangprimus Portum", strongly implying that the Magna Mater is the relic that will be given to Archmagos Cawl to create the [[Primaris Space Marines]].
* '''''Fury of Magnus''''': The second novella, which focuses on Magnus's attempt to reclaim the shard of his soul that he believes is housed inside the Palace. Alivia Sureka agrees to come with Malcador in exchange for protection for her adopted family, and he takes her down trans-dimensional tunnels known only to him (it's strongly implied that Valdor would fuck Malcador up for keeping these tunnels secret even from the custodians). Magnus and some of the Thousand Sons breach the Emperor's telesthetic wards, saving some civilians along the way, and storm the Hall of Leng deep beneath the Palace. They're met by Malcador and Alivia, and Magnus demands to know where the last shard of his soul is. Malcador admits that it's already gone, having been fused into Revuel Arvida to produce Janus, so Magnus throws a psychic tantrum that permakills the Sigillite. One of the Thousand Sons kills Alivia for some reason, so Magnus explodes his head for disobeying his orders not to kill anyone. He and his Astartes make it all the way to the Golden Throne, only to find out that the Emperor let them through because he wanted to offer Magnus a shot at redemption. He explains that, though Magnus has been wounded and touched by Chaos, there is still a chance for him to return to the Imperial fold, at the head of [[Grey Knights|a shiny new legion of incorruptible psychic warriors]]. All he has to do is abandon the remaining Thousand Sons to their fate, as they're already too corrupted to be brought back. Vulkan, who is still guarding the Throne, pleads with Magnus to accept the deal, but Magnus decides that abandoning his legion is too dear a price to pay and tries to kill the Emperor. Vulkan proceeds to kick the ever-loving shit out of him until Magnus finally surrenders to Chaos and ascends into his daemon primarch form. He forever repudiates the Emperor before being ejected from the Palace. Alivia resurrects, finds Malcador's barbecued corpse, and surrenders her Perpetuality in order to bring him back, dying permanently herself in the process.

==The Primarchs Series==
Because Black Library don't seem satisfied confusing us with all their anthologies, audio-books, and short stories, they have begun releasing a spin-off series of Horus Heresy novels centered on the Primarchs. The series don't really take place in a specific time, but generally focuses on expanding on the titular Primarch's backstory and motivations during events before the Horus Heresy (though some of them also have events occurring after it). Why Black Library lists it as part of the Horus Heresy series when that isn't always the case is beyond our comprehension. Hopefully the Horus book finally shows us his conquest of Ullanor.

===Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar===
Centers on Papa Smurf himself and his trying to deal with how the Emperor used him like a rusty hammer to smack Lorgar in the head at Monarchia. Uses a conflict against Orks squatting on human ruins as a vehicle for him and the smurfs to express their angst over the event. He eventually discovers that the original humans went extinct from literally a war of red shirts vs blue shirts. A subplot details the conflict of morality the Ultramarines legion had with their Destroyer companies, especially the [[Nemesis]] Chapter (later a second founding) who held on to their Terran roots. Guilliman didn't much like their use, but eventually saw their necessity (especially when Imperium Secundus came swinging around).

===Leman Russ: The Great Wolf===
Focuses on Leman Russ' notorious rivalry with the Lion, explaining why to this day whenever the Chapters meet they throw the gauntlet down and beat the stuffing out of one another. Notably it reveals some interesting stuff like the Lion being aware of the Space Wolves' furry issue and keeping a lid on it, also that the Lion shanked Russ in the Imperial basement in front of a fresco of the compliance where they previously fought. Establishes clearly that even with overpowered Mech suits, baseline humans will always lose to legionary soldiers.

===Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero===
Depicts the unlikely friendship between Magnus and old Pert with a joint venture between their legions to evacuate a planet that's getting torn apart by accelerated magnetic polarity shifts. Things go wrong on the planet due to totally not Chaos cult nonsense, and it does a decent job of showing Magnus' flaws, specifically his inability to leave things that have "do not fuck with this" written on them alone; something Pert tries and fails at making him understand. Crucially it's set early enough in the Crusade that the use of psychic powers by Astartes is uncommon and the Thousand Sons basically have to keep a lid on how powerful they really are. They do not succeed.

The original colonists of Morningstar survived by rounding up all the psykers into their seed ship and splitting them from their psychic powers throne room of the emperor style. However since they didn't dissipate these psychic powers, the souls of the psykers just floated around inside the ship until they joined up into a single entity. When their jailers realized what was happening, they ran and sealed the ship but the psychic gestalt had already infected their minds with a doomsday meme, resulting in the shenanigans that Magnus and Pert arrive to. The entire Morningstar government fell victim to this meme and built a continent sized machine to destroy their planet which Pert & Magnus somehow didn't notice. Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt into his book, and the surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading.

===Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia===
Probably the book in the series that did the most character building of all. This book shows Perturabo's childhood on Olympia alongside a "current" day conflict against the Hrud, the former showing why Pert is the odd genius manchild guy he is, while the latter does a great job of showing why fucking with an alien species capable of controlling time is somewhat of a stupid idea. However, the real draw of the book is that it is mainly written as an attempt to merge together the seemingly contradictory depictions of Pert we've had over the years, showing how the ruthless dick who decimates his legion for not being good enough in the Forgeworld books is the same guy who just wanted to be a builder in Angel Exterminatus. Also he may or may not have wanted to bang his adopted sister.

===Lorgar: Bearer of the Word===
Yep, the first(ish?) heretic himself gets his own obligatory messed-up childhood novel. Focuses slightly more on Kor Phaeron rather than Lorgar himself, showing him to be a manipulative dick who beat Lorgar as a child and never really bought into this whole "fatherhood" shtick or this whole concept of [[Emperor|One True God]], but allowed Lorgar his fantasies and the takeover Colchis (by "Word" or by "Mace") while Phaeron benefitted from increased power and secretly kept the faith of [[Chaos Gods]]. By the end Kor Phaeron wonders if Lorgar just let him think that he was manipulated and could have disposed of him at any time. The book does introduce a contrasting character to Kor Phaeron who actually shows Lorgar compassion growing up and was far more worthy of being named "father" but was far less useful to Lorgar's goals. The book shows that Lorgar isn't as stupid or naive as everyone thinks and does indeed realise that people have been using him for their own gains, but he only really cares about doing the work of the gods; so long as they both align he doesn't seem to care.

=== Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix ===
Fulgrim tries to conquer the newly discovered planet Byzas with only 7 men. Byzas has devolved to steam power and bolt-action bolters, but capital palace has DAOT gun defenses and anti-grav airships (think blimps without gasbags). Along the way Fulgrim encounters a brotherhood much like his own that wants to work with him; he dismisses them as a bunch of idealists. It's implied that he COULD have gotten the same results (Compliance) working with them but unfortunately that would have meant calling in backup and Fulgrim didn't want to do that. In the end Fulgrim takes the world but nearly dies from a hidden hydrogen bomb which he disarms. Several other characters such as Cyrius (who gets shanked by a squad from the brotherhood while wearing armor and has to be saved by Fulgrim) and Kasperos Telmar) later become prominent champions of chaos, while the others were blown up on Istvaan III. Also makes the first (but all too brief) direct mention of one of the Missing Primarchs, as well as the amusing spectacle of Fabius Bile in formal attire.

===Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa===
Ferrus is overseeing joint exercises between the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children when he learns about a noncompliant human empire called the Gardinaal who have just humiliated a compliance force of Ultramarines and Thousand Sons. He decides that he'll conquer them singlehandedly so as to impress the Emperor and his brothers and maybe even get appointed to that Warmaster position everyone's whispering about. He throws his weight around when he arrives and tells off the Ultramarines commander for getting his ass kicked, then learns that the Gardinaal are actually some tough mothers, with their own genetically enhanced soldier caste and a willingness to nuke their own cities if it'll kill some Imperial troops. Ferrus quits fucking around after the Gardinaal try to assassinate him under the pretense of surrender negotiations and orders his fleet to demolish their entire capital planet before personally going down to smash faces in until they finally give up. In the end, he admits to Fulgrim that he doesn't have the patience to be Warmaster, and that he'll back whoever gets the job.

Probably the highlight of the novel is that we get a look inside Ferrus' head while it's still attached to the rest of him. Ferrus is a zealot who gives no fucks about anything beyond conquering systems in the name of the Emprah and being the best there is at what he does. In his own way, he was just as obsessed with perfection as Fulgrim, which is why they got along so well. He's also got a lot of built-up resentment toward Dorn, since Dorn once called him a dumbass on the bridge of his own flagship in front of a bunch of his sons. He doesn't seem to like Guilliman very much either at this point, probably because the G-man encouraged restraint when dealing with noncompliant planets and Ferrus just wanted to smash everything and let someone else pick up the pieces.

===Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris===
Basically a recap of some of the White Scars' more important pre-Heresy campaigns, including conquering the Nephilim homeworld and killing a shitload of Orks on a planet made of psychically resonant crystals. The main thing the book does is confirm that Jaghatai was always meant to be a wild card. More importantly, it shows that while he didn't really agree with the Emperor about anything, especially the Imperial Truth, he was still willing to serve the Imperium in his own way (read: killing xenos on the edges of the galaxy while everyone else built an empire behind him). Also shows the Khan trying to plan ahead for the [[Council of Nikaea|inevitable showdown]] between pro and anti-psyker factions in the Imperium, and how the warrior lodges were first introduced to the Scars. On a side note, we learn that the V Legion's original name was the Star Hunters, and that they relied heavily on armor and mechanized infantry before the Khan and his Chogorian posse taught them to love jetbikes and going ''real'' fast. Oh, and they became known as the White Scars because of a mistranslation, not unlike the Vlka Fenryka/Space Wolves.

===Vulkan: Lord of Drakes===
Vulkan is united with the Terran members of his legion while they're on campaign against a fuckhueg WAAAGH! on a volcanic death world. The main takeaway from the book is that the XVIII Legion were stubborn badasses ready to lay down their lives for civilians right from the start of the Crusade. Without Vulkan around though, they kept throwing themselves into desperate last stands, to the point that other Imperial forces were starting to call them suicidal. Some of the Nocturnean legionaries even suggest that the Emperor kept Vulkan away from the legion for so long because he was waiting for all the Terrans to get themselves killed, but Vulkan dismisses that idea out of hand and nothing comes of it. There's also a pretty nifty sequence where Vulkan and a bunch of his sons surf a modified Termite assault drill into an attack moon and blow it up from the inside.

===Corax: Lord of Shadows===
Corax and the Raven Guard are sent to bring the Carinae system into compliance. The system is basically a thousand floating space station hive cities, all independent of each other with a thousand different governments, orbiting a star. Typically they hate each other's guts but are able to come together and combine firepower to a devastating effect when an Imperial compliance fleet gives them a common enemy. The leaders aren't keen on handing over all their power to the emperor. He initially tries to use stealth and surgical strikes to get them to surrender peacefully with minimal casualties, but a real Imperium hater forms a coalition and death stars the first city to surrender. When Corax targets him for surgical elimination, he releases a zombie virus on the whole station and escapes via a stealth shuttle to a hidden station masked by the sun's emissions. A pissed-off Corax orders his legion to hunt the dude down and disable the station engines, letting him broadcast his 5 stages of grief to the whole system while he descends into the Sun. This also comes at the cost of dragging out the compliance and thousands of unnecessary casualties since the remaining orbitals are able to consolidate their strategic/tactical positions and form actual armies. There is also a subplot about Corax’s home planets of Kiavahr and Deliverance which shows that Imperial compliance didn’t actually make things all that much better for the people living there; the Kiavahr tech-guilds and the Mechanicum can barely tolerate each other and people from Deliverance are still routinely discriminated against to the point where some of them have turned to terrorism to express their displeasure. Corax himself admits that he didn't have time to fix everything before leaving but pledges that he'll come back and set Kiavahr to rights once the Crusade is over. Doesn't stop him from executing one of his best friends in the rebellion for being uppity.

The book shows us that Corax was an idealist who believed in the principles of the Great Crusade and genuinely didn’t understand why people would reject the Imperium. It’s shown that while he was a proponent of treating normal humans as equals, he could still be astoundingly arrogant when dealing with them since he was a genetically-engineered transhuman demigod and all. He is also shown to be constantly grappling with his need to deliver justice at any cost, aware that he might turn into another Konrad Curze if he’s not careful. We also get a look at what the Sable Brand is like through the eyes of an afflicted Raven Guard legionary; basically, it's a watered down version of the Black Rage that causes them to hallucinate and become suicidal, which some of them deal with by joining the [[Moritat]].

===Sons of The Emperor===
A collection of short stories showcasing the contrast between the Primarchs and the rest of mankind, getting down to how they really perceive themselves and how humanity sees them.
:'''The Passing of Angels:''' Sanguinius leads a Destroyer host to completely obliterate an abominable culture. He has his men adopt anonymity so they do not need to shoulder the burdens of what they do, but argues that since he was designed for dark deeds he cannot set aside what he is. Primarchs might be angels, "but angels were not created for kindness".
:'''Mercy of the Dragon:''' Recounts a conversation between Vulkan and the Emperor that shows us how Vulkan was always intended to be the "most human" of the Primarchs, and to be able to teach his brothers how to be more like him. Possibly hinting towards a plan after the Great Crusade that involved the Primarchs settling down into civilian life.
:'''The Abyssal Edge:''' Shows a conflict between Curze and Magnus that was kept confidential, because the rest of the Imperium were not allowed to see the Primarchs in disagreement with each other. Crucially shows a side of Curze that ISN'T a terrorizing murder junkie edgelord. Sevatar leaves the choice up to the investigating officer, and it's implied the officer chooses to hush up the report. Also the first chronological appearance of Khayon from the Black Legion series as well as Sevatar back on his finest snarking form.
:'''Shadows of the Past:''' Set some point after the Horus Heresy, a "daemon" starts killing its way through some Word Bearers. Turns out Corax has ascended into a creature made of pure darkness and gets into a duel with Daemon-Lorgar. Corax wins, but the Word Bearers act as a mass human shield to allow Lorgar a chance to escape. Shaken from the fight, Lorgar heads to his room and slams the door behind him for a few millennia.
:'''The Emperor's Architect:''' A biography of Perturabo showing what he was doing before awoke halfway up a mountain, then later. Hints that Perturabo's projected image was carefully stage-managed, and ''oh'' how he hated to be upstaged. He had a sculpt-off with a prodigy artist, and just like Fulgrim he made a perfect statue. But the artist worked for a decade to make a cool statue of some hero that showed a different facet of his life/personality from the angle you were standing, and practically everybody who saw them side by side said that was better than Pert's 3D-printed like replica. Pert slapped the statue and never spoke about it again. He was destroying [[Rogal Dorn|artwork that embarrassed him]] long before he was discovered by the Emperor.
:'''Prince of Blood:''' After Angron gets Daemon-Prince'd by Lorgar, he goes mad and gets locked up in the bowels of his flagship, causing all sorts of disgusting changes to take place. Kharn goes to talk to him and finds that Angron has been stripped of his sense of self, completely lost to Khorne. Angron warns them against his form of slavery, though it appears that Kharn and the others followed him down the same path simply because he was their father, but there is also a promise that they will [[Blam|"thank"]] Lorgar for what he did to them.
:'''The Ancient Awaits:''' Long after the Heresy is over, Magnus sends a Thousand Sons squad to an abandoned planet to find a repeating broadcast that says only "the Ancient awaits". In a deep underground hangar they find an ancient Dreadnought and realize that the planet is Istvaan III, and that the Dreadnought is [[Ancient Rylanor]] of the Emperor's Children, who's been sitting there ever since Horus Exterminatus'd the planet millennia ago. Fulgrim appears to try and seduce Rylanor into joining up with the endless party machine that is the III Legion, and Rylanor goes "Surprise Motherfucker" and detonates a virus bomb he was sitting on. The Thousand Sons feel sympathetic to how honorable Rylanor is (despite being a bit cuckoo from sitting on his ass) and let him do it. Fulgrim's ego is wounded from seeing that even after several millennia Rylanor rejected all the pleasures he had to offer. [https://youtu.be/X2Hb4bngxJ8 A story forever immortalized in song form].
:'''Misbegotten:''' The Sons of Horus take over most of a system without having to fight, but have to deal with one holdout planet defended by Frankenstein-like creatures spliced together from multiple human donors. Their creator (Basilio Fo) is a five thousand year old bioengineer who encountered the Emperor at some point on Terra and then got the fuck out before the Great Crusade kicked off. He sends a big ball of human hands to surprise strike Horus in his command post, but Horus naturally defeats it messily. For all his own abominations, Fo admits that he sees the Primarchs as representing something far worse than even what he could have created. The epilogue shows him laughing his ass off in his cell on Terra when the Siege starts because he's kind of been proven right.

===Angron: Slave of Nuceria===
Covers the events leading to the World Eaters' adoption of the Butcher's Nails and the Ghenna massacre. Ever since taking command of the Legion, Angron has been ordering them to complete every planetary conquest they undertake in thirty-one hours, this being the length of a single day on Nuceria. When and if they fail, he has them kill one in every ten Astartes; the same thing Perturabo did when he took command of the Iron Warriors. This has happened so many times that the World Eaters are starting to suffer some serious daddy issues, and the only way for them to earn his approval is to accept the Butcher's Nails. Unfortunately for them, the implants keep failing, sometimes explosively so, until they're sent to bring a rebellious Imperial world back into compliance and find that it's been turned into a planet full of androids who were created with some of the same tech used in the Nails; with this, one of the Legion's Apothecaries is able to create a stable version of the Nails. Kharn is the first to successfully undergo the procedure, and the Nails make him [[Rip and Tear|RAGE]] so hard the book literally blacks out for a couple of pages. Angron orders the entire legion to be implanted, which triggers a brief spate of infighting between the World Eaters who want to earn Papa Angron's approval at any cost and those who think that he's a broken psychopath who needs to be taken to the Emperor for help. The one World Eater captain who still thinks the Nails are a terrible idea gets killed by Kharn in a duel and the rest of them submit to the procedure. The story ends right as Russ shows up with the entire VI Legion fleet, having decided that Angron needs a talking-to about all this nonsense. We all know how this ends, of course. There's also an epilogue where Kharn happens to ransack Ghenna 10,000 years later and comes across an embellished statue of the World Eater captain he beheaded, and has a rare moment of clear headed dispair for what he and his broken legion have become.

The book gives Angron some character development beyond "giant frothing berserker" which turns him into a pretty tragic figure. As it turns out, he didn't get the Butcher's Nails immediately after landing on Nuceria, but received them as a punishment for refusing to kill his adoptive father in the arenas. Before the Nails he was a pretty bro-tier guy who loved his fellow gladiators and used what appeared to be latent psyker powers to absorb all their nightmares so they could rest properly while he dealt with all their accumulated fear and anger. This Angron would have probably made one hell of a general for the Crusade. Then the Nails got pounded into his head and he Hulked out and killed his adoptive father, which broke him and turned him into the psychotic death machine we're all familiar with. He also has a death wish caused by the Emperor yoinking him from his last stand with the other gladiators on Nuceria and has spent the entirety of the Great Crusade looking for something tough enough to kill him.

===Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter===

Grimdark Batman finally gets his very own standalone novel! The entire thing is told in flashbacks framed by Curze talking to a statue of the Emperor he stitched together out of human flesh while waiting for M'Shen to come and kill him. Most of it involves explaining how Curze got out of the stasis coffin that Sanguinius stuffed him into at the end of ''Ruinstorm''. As it turns out he was adrift for a few decades after the end of the Heresy, until he got picked up by the crew of a sub-light freighter who planned to sell the coffin for a packet; instead Curze woke up and decided to [[rip and tear|play some tag]] [[grimdark|with the stupid humans.]] He left one of the crew alive and told him to drive the ship to Tsagualsa, mutilating the poor kid whenever he got bored. The kid had a chance to escape after dropping Curze off but followed him instead and was predictably [[grimdark|killed by the Night Lords when Curze decided he was done with him.]] Konrad also struggles under the weight of his visions throughout only for the Emperor to contact him and explain Konrad's great mistake: his visions of the future were not fixed and Curze could have chosen a different and better path if he had not been so convinced of the inevitability of fate. The Emperor also tells him two very interesting things: he does not consider any of the traitor primarchs irredeemable, and he forgives Konrad for all that he's done, just as Papa Sang had said he might. Konrad freaks out and insists he cannot be forgiven because there is no justice in that, then tears the statue down before leaving to get ready for M'Shen's imminent arrival.

Other highlights include some flashbacks to Curze's days murdering people on Nostramo, including killing a woman [[derp|who was about to commit suicide]] and Curze eating his victims [[grimdark|because he enjoyed it.]] Also Curze hated Corax, not because Corax was good, but because Corax was a better ninja than him. Oddly enough he also says he didn't hate any of his other brothers, even the ones who were dicks to him like Fulgrim or Dorn. So he really just tortured the shit out of Vulkan for shits and giggles, what a dick.

Seriously though, this summary doesn't do it much justice. It's still a pretty good book. And it's barely 200 pages, read it anyway.

===Scions of the Emperor===
A second short story collection and cocktease extraordinaire, originally a Weekender exclusive.
:'''Canticle:''' Focuses on Ferrus Manus during his early days on Medusa, fighting his way through hordes of cyborg monstrosities while he scavenges for armor, weapons, food, and equipment; battles the extreme weather; and tries to find a name for himself. He encounters a woman who tries to hold him up, but when he shows no fear of her and gives her his weapon on the grounds that she's earned it, she instead suggests he join her clan. He refuses, stating that he has something to do (namely killing Asirnoth). Amusingly, the story reveals that Primarchs can literally eat sand and metal to stay alive.
:'''The Verdict of the Scythe:''' Set during the Great Crusade. Having been yelled at by his brothers for trashing yet another planet, Mortarion tries being nice for once when bringing the world of Absyrtus into compliance. He roams the streets for a bit after the official compliance ceremony and realizes that the witch-cults which dominated Absyrtus before his arrival weren't limited to just the ruling tyrants but are completely integrated into the planet's society, so he deems the planet beyond saving, [[Exterminatus|nukes it from orbit]], and decides that being Mr. Nice Guy isn't for him (Liberating Humanity from Lifetm).
:'''A Game of Opposites:''' Set during the Heresy. An Iron Warriors warsmith tries to outthink Jaghatai Khan and loses hilariously because the Khan [[Oinkbane|is too subtle for him]]. Jaghatai easily defeats the trap the Iron Warriors tried to set, then explains to the warsmith why he lost before executing him: the warsmith may have studied the Khan's writings, but he failed to grasp their true meaning, and so he was doomed to defeat even if the Khan had not been present.
:'''Better Angels:''' Follows Jehoel, a line legionary of the Blood Angels, throughout the latter days of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Sanguinius chooses to be his patron as Jehoel commemorates the battles the legion has fought by making glass sculptures, all the while lamenting the destruction and loss wrought by the Heresy. Just before the Siege of Terra, he finally asks his father why Sanguinius chose to be his patron, and the primarch explains that he sees himself in Jehoel more than he does any of his other sons; he is the best expression of the Blood Angels' highest ideals.
:'''The Conqueror's Truth:''' A remembrancer gets herself assigned to the Night Lords so she can see some war, and Curze and Sevatar oblige her in the same way a jackass genie might grant your wish for a ton of gold by dropping it on you: they bring her to a city under assault by the Night Lords and allow her to record the civilian population being dumped en masse into its geothermal furnaces. When she declares that she will find some way to show this atrocity to the people of Terra, Curze tells her that's what he wants. He says that the citizens of the Imperium must know what kind of war is being waged in their name and that he'll use the footage to show other worlds that there are only two options for them: compliance, or death.
:'''The Sinew of War:''' A flashback to Guilliman's younger days on Macragge as he returns from putting down a tribal uprising to find Macragge City in flames and his adoptive father dead. He quickly realizes that his father's co-consul, Gallan, is responsible, and busts Gallan in front of the entire Senate. He fights down the temptation to just murder him, thus holding true to Konor's ideals. One of his bitterest enemies is so impressed that he swears allegiance to Roboute, and so does the rest of the Senate, thus setting Guilliman on the path to becoming the Lord of Macragge.
:'''The Chamber at the End of Memory:''' Also known as light touching above the clothes. Some workers fortifying a forgotten corner of the Imperial Palace in preparation for the forthcoming siege are killed by a psychic booby trap. When Rogal Dorn investigates, he discovers that they accidentally broke into the personal quarters of the Lost Primarchs, which have been heavily warded with psychic defenses forged by Malcador himself. When Malcador shows up, Dorn realizes that he can't even remember his brothers' names, and starts to tear into the Sigillite for having sealed his memories. Malcador counters by revealing that it was Dorn's idea to begin with, and further explains that he and Guilliman were able to save the II and XI Legions from being purged alongside their primarchs; they were mind-wiped and absorbed into the other Legions. He then unseals Dorn's memories long enough for him to realize that whatever his lost brothers did was so horrible that the Imperium would have long since fallen if they were still alive.
:'''First Legion:''' Also known as a gentle groping of your mental bits. Lion el'Jonson and the Dark Angels are in the midst of the [[Rangdan Xenocides]] when a mysterious legionary calling himself Alpharius turns up and requests an audience with the Primarch of the I Legion. He offers to secretly take over the war effort so that the Dark Angels may withdraw and rebuild their strength as this will improve the Lion's chances of one day being named commander of the entire Imperial war machine, which "Alpharius" believes is necessary for the Imperium to survive. The Lion rejects the offer immediately, stating that he will see the Xenocides through.

===Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First===
While the campaign for Ullanor takes place, the Emperor tasks the Lion with pacifying an irrelevant little world on the galactic fringe that had already been considered compliant. The Lion begins fortifying the world and bringing in more troops and fleets, keeping his true intentions to himself, while his senior commanders are keen to move on and earn real glory elsewhere. As it turns out, the planet was being used as a feeding world for the [[Khrave]], a race of uber-psychic xenos from before the [[Fall of the Eldar]] that can read minds, crush tanks with a gesture, and possess people in their millions from outside of a solar system. The book shows how clever and callous the Lion could be by [[Alpharius|coming up with a massively convoluted plan]] that he needed to keep secret from a race of mind readers, even going so far as to issue seemingly contradictory orders to his men to confuse the enemy as well as [[Perturabo|knowingly sacrificing millions of mortal lives]] in order to escalate the conflict and draw out the Khrave's leader in order to destroy them. This is all interspersed with some of his brief meetings with the [[Emperor]], highlighting how similar the two of them were in mindset. As the dutiful firstborn son, the Lion seemed to always know what his father desired and was the one most trusted to enact it. At one point, the Lion laments that his own contribution to the Imperium is nothing but ash and destruction, but the Emperor explains that this is the point of him and the I Legion: to do the things that even Konrad Curze and Leman Russ cannot, such as the complete erasure of opponents too troublesome to allow to exist (including obliterating all memory of them), and to do it without the need for recognition, accolades, or ceremony. The book even ends with the Lion having potentially [[Grey Knights|mind wiped his own Space Marines so that they cannot remember who they just fought.]] What the novel does best is illuminate the labyrinthine inner workings of the Dark Angels, showing why even the Alpha Legion thought they were a tough nut to crack. There are orders and cabals and subdivisions of orders and cabals threaded throughout the legion's structure, reaching across rank, station, and specialization, all of which are linked by a complex and ever-expanding web of coded heraldries, hidden symbols, and secret passphrases that only the Lion seems to fully grasp.

The book also reads like a tie-in novel to the recently released Horus Heresy 9: Crusade. It has many references to items and formations that were first introduced only months earlier such as the ''Fusil Actinaeus'', the Excindio battle-automata, Dreadwing Interemptors, Firewing Enigmatii Cabals, and the various hidden Orders of the Hekatonystika. It also disappoints because it actually shows the secret arsenals of those orders that are tantalizingly NOT represented on the tabletop, such as Fire Raptors equipped with psionic lance weapons, assault psycannons, archaeotech pistols [[Grimdark|that erase their target from memory]], and the Lion wearing a psychic dampening cloak.

===Alpharius: Head of the Hydra===
Long story short, everything we’ve been told about Alpharius is true, from a certain point of view (or maybe not). Alpharius himself (unless it was actually Omegon) lands on Terra after the primarchs were scattered. He immediately senses that [[Omegon|some part of him is missing]], but before he can ponder this too deeply the Emperor finds him and brings him back to the Palace. He's raised in total secrecy by Malcador, who explains that he will be the Emperor’s hidden blade, the son who can strike from the shadows and weave deceptions of surpassing subtlety. The Emperor further explains to him that Alpharius' job will be to preserve the Imperium at all costs, no matter what he might have to do. Alpharius interprets this to mean that he should test the Palace’s defenses, so he breaks into the Imperial Dungeon, kills a Custodian and steals his armor, and sets up a fake assassination attempt on the Emperor. Constantin Valdor stops him, but Alpharius reveals that he had already hacked into an AA battery on the other side of the Palace and could have just shot down the Emperor’s shuttle at any time, proving his point and annoying Valdor. Alpharius and his legion go on to wage war in the shadows throughout the Great Crusade, using wetwork teams, deep-cover sleeper agents, and psyops to defeat the Imperium’s enemies. The XX Legion apparently has agents seeded throughout the galaxy, even on worlds that haven’t yet been contacted by the Imperium, and uses them as appropriate to destabilize governments or cripple armies and infrastructures prior to the arrival of other Legions. Alpharius claims to have fought alongside the Dark Angels in their first deployment (as seen in Valdor’s novel), and also claims to have been present for the rediscoveries of several of his brothers, disguised as members of their legions. He and his legion are shown to be content with their role as black operatives, though also a bit bummed that they don’t get to stomp around kicking ass and gaining glory like the rest of the Astartes do.

He later unmasks his legion’s existence to the Lion during the Third Rangdan War, and the account of this meeting directly contradicts the one from ''Scions of the Emperor'', in that this time Alpharius merely offers his legion’s support to the Dark Angels, rather than suggesting that the Angels withdraw and let the XX Legion take over. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two accounts. While fighting the Rangdan behind the scenes and dealing with civil insurrections, Alpharius gets wind of a mysterious warrior who may possibly his missing twin on a world behind enemy lines. When he goes to investigate, he discovers that the world is being overrun by the [[Slaugth]], so Alpharius takes a small team in to find his brother. Most of his legionnaires die, but he finds Omegon (unless it's really Alpharius), and they sit down for a friendly chat. Omegon tells Alpharius that he fetched up on a deserted planet and stole a ship belonging to some space pirates in order to escape (unless he’s lying). They wonder if the Emperor had deliberately engineered them as twins or if they had been divided somehow by their passage through the Warp. Either way, they decide to keep the truth concealed from the rest of the Imperium, then escape the Slaugth together and start planning how to reveal Alpharius' existence to the Imperium. They decide to stage an attack on the ''Vengeful Spirit'', so Omegon sneaks onto the ship and fights his way to the bridge. Horus recognizes him immediately and is overjoyed to have found his last brother, who introduces himself to the Lupercal as Alpharius. This is followed by the last line of the novel: “This was a lie.” So does that refer to Omegon calling himself Alpharius, or does it mean that the entire story was all one big lie? Hydra Dominatus, ladies and gentlemen.

Throughout the novel, Alpharius presents himself as a surprisingly philosophical person, often ruminating on his nature and that of his brothers. He isn’t particularly impressed with any of them except for Horus and Sanguinius (but he might be lying) and he reveals that he distrusted Rogal Dorn so much that he decided to plant some sleeper agents on Terra just in case. (Of course, one of these sleeper agents was Alpharius himself, according to ''Praetorian of Dorn'', so does this mean that the Alpharius who was narrating this novel is a disguised Alpha Legionnaire?)

===Blood of the Emperor===

Oh, look, another short story anthology. Only six stories this time.

:'''Lupis Daemonis:''' Turns out Cthonia is even shittier than we were told it was, ranking as possibly even shittier than Nostramo and Barbarus combined. Horus, who goes without a name until the end of the story, is the runt of his gang in the utter shitheap that is the Cthonian underworld and is only spared from getting shanked by the other members of his gang because the gang leader realizes he isn't normal. We find out Horus was made differently from the other Primarchs in that his Primarch-level growth rate was intentionally stunted until psychically activated by the Emperor from afar, for some reason. Long story short, Horus evolves into his current form Pokémon style at the end after killing his gang leader, who was the one who gave him his name. Also apparently the Justaerin got their name from a violent gang on Cthonia who enjoyed impaling people on stakes.
:'''Skjalds:''' We learn Russ returns to Fenris every once in awhile to fuck with the locals, in this case a hunting party trying to kill a warp tainted creature who killed a whole village. Also we get confirmation that, yes, he does indeed smell like a dog.
:'''The Sixth Cult of the Denied:''' Magnus soft-exiles a member of his legion (and disbands an entire cult of the Thousand Sons) for consorting with demons in the quest for forbidden knowledge, specifically how the fuck he managed to cure his legion of the Flesh Change. Oh, the irony.
:'''The Will of the Legion:''' Dorn and the Imperial Fists happen upon an opportunistic bunch of void-dwelling bandits who attack their fleet and are a hair's breadth away from destroying every single one of them with extreme prejudice until they surrender at the very last moment. Basically a reminder that just because Dorn is a loyal good boy to the Emperor doesn't mean he isn't still a mass murderous dick at the end of the day.
:'''Council of Truth:''' Alpharius "confesses" to doing things the hard way as a means to constantly test himself and the Alpha Legion in preparation for the day that might see them standing as the Imperium's last line of defense. Basically confirms that Alpharius saw the Heresy coming a loooong way off.
:'''Terminus:''' Two Death Guard at the Siege of Terra, fresh off the events of 'The Buried Dagger', wonder if they're (gasp) the bad guys, what with their rotting flesh and awful smell and such.

===Mortarion: The Pale King===
Set to cover the Conquest of Galaspar, Mortarion's first campaign after taking command of the Death Guard.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
Not a Primarch (like Malcador), but still technically part of this series. Will cover Constantin Valdor's role in the Unification Wars, and according to previews it will hold some new insights on the Emperor's plans.

As it turns out, it doesn't really tell us anything that we didn't know already, though it does expand on a few things. The book is set near the end of the Unification Wars on Terra. The new Provost Marshal, Uwoma Kandawire, has uncovered evidence of some shady doings at Mount Ararat and confronts Constantin Valdor as to the Custodians’ role in that battle. Along the way, he tells her of the war against the warp-tainted Confederacy of Maulland Sen, where the inherent instability of the Thunder Warriors first became apparent. They weren't just genetically unstable; the influence of the Warp also caused them to go more berserk than usual, so it became evident to the Emperor that a [[Space Marines|long-term solution would be required]]. Valdor also tells Kandawire about the primarchs being scattered by the Chaos gods; the psychic backlash from the event was so strong that it wrecked a large section of the Imperial Dungeon and killed thousands of those present. Valdor himself waded in to save the stored gene-seed from being destroyed, alongside Amar Astarte, the Imperium’s best gene-wright and the namesake of the Adeptus Astartes, though everyone believed that the primarchs had been killed. The Provost Marshal concludes that the Custodes are trying to make a grab for power and leads an uprising alongside Lord Ushotan, the “primarch” of the Thunder Warriors’ Fourth Legion, who survived the purge at Ararat. Valdor confronts Kandawire and Ushotan outside the Lion’s Gate and explains himself thus: the Custodians and the Emperor are the architects of humanity’s future, and any crime can be forgiven and any virtue dismissed if it is in service to that future. Then he unleashes the fledgling [[Dark Angels|I Legion]] to destroy the insurrectionists and personally kills Ushotan in a duel. In the aftermath, he explains to Kandawire the Imperium’s ultimate aim: not just Unity on Earth, but [[Great Crusade| Unity throughout the galaxy]], a vast undertaking which will require hundreds of thousands of these new soldiers. Meanwhile, Amar Astarte has come to the conclusion that the Space Marine project will fall apart without the primarchs and has decided to destroy the stored gene-seed in order to stop them from failing like the Thunder Warriors did. She manages to blow up the gene-seed vaults underneath the Palace, but Malcador already had copies of all twenty batches moved to Luna. He then reveals to Valdor that the Emperor believes the primarchs are still alive and intends to seek them out. Valdor wonders if it wouldn't just be better to abandon them or destroy them outright, since they might be tainted by [[Chaos|whatever power]] snatched them away in the first place. Malcador's dialogue heavily implies that the Emperor actually did have some paternal affection for the primarchs at this point, as he mentions that the Emperor has started referring to them as his sons and suggests that he has a lingering attachment to them which has yet to fade. Valdor's response is equally telling: he notes that the Emperor's "human sentiments" are slowly ebbing away, and Malcador acknowledges that this is the price the Emperor was willing to pay to secure his dream of Unity.

===Luther: First of the Fallen===
A story told from the perspective of Luther starting at the time he’s found by Redloss after the events of Caliban’s destruction. Locked in a cell and tortured on and off so frequently that he barely even registers it anymore, he’s constantly forced to deal with Dark Angel Chapter Master after Dark Angel Chapter Master as the millennia go by, each one coming to him for knowledge of the past in between being frozen in stasis by the Watchers in the Dark. Each time he’s asked a question, Luther answers it in a roundabout way by telling a story from his past as a way to demonstrate some point to whichever Chapter Master happens to be listening: some get what he’s saying, and some don’t. One story gets misinterpreted so badly that the Chapter Master in question comes back afterwards and kills himself in Luther’s cell. By the time of the events of great rift with Azrael as the current chapter master, while the Rock is under siege, he finds that his cell door is open and he literally just tip-toes his way out.

===Sigismund: The Eternal Crusader===
Covers Sigismund near the end of the Great Crusade, as he talks to Solomon Voss about why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future. Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time and gets his backstory. Siggy was an orphan recruited from the slums of Terra by the Night Lords, but the initial genetic testing revealed he was more compatible with the Imperial Fists, War Hounds, Luna Wolves, and Raven Guard, in that order, so he got bumped into the VII Legion instead. He fights alongside the War Hounds and Night Lords, making him relieved he didn't wind up in either of those legions, and earned his position as First Captain by beating 200 other Templar Brethren in one-on-one duels, with his final opponent being a Contemptor Dreadnought containing the guy who coached him when he joined the Templars. He's named Dorn's personal champion after winning a duel with an Iron Hands champion over whether Dorn or Ferrus was right about the proper prosecution of a campaign. We also get to see his infamous duel with Sevatar, which lasted most of a night until Sevatar got bored and cheated to end it, and his time with the World Eaters, where he picked up his habit of chaining his sword to his arm. Most interestingly, he admits that he never wanted to be recruited for the Legions, and that if he knew then what he'd become, he'd still have said no. He ends by telling Voss that he believes there will always be war because conflict is an inescapable part of human nature; even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to deal with the war within the human spirit. We also learn a bit of Voss' backstory; he was a merchant who sold all his stuff and joined the remembrancer order after his son died in the Army and proved to have one hell of a knack for writing.

===Audiobooks===
'''The Sigillite''' Despite not being a Primarch, his short story is included in the Primarch sub-series of the Horus Heresy. It covers a discussion between Malcador and a Stormtrooper named Khalid Hassan about the nature of the Emperor's plans and whether or not Malcador agreed with everything the Emperor thought(hint: he didn't). Khalid had brought the Rosetta Stone to Malcador without fully understanding its significance, whereupon Malcador reveals that he is part of an ancient order dedicated to the preservation of humanity's knowledge and history, and whose symbol will later become the Inquisitorial =I=.

Malcador also reveals the doors to the Golden Throne and indicates the awesome battle going on behind them, foreshadowing the events of the Webway War that are covered later on in the main series.

'''Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium''' In the story Malcador visits his elderly personal astropath who is on her deathbed. The pair have a few conversations where Malcador shows surprising compassion and humanity. During the conversations there are some major revelations about Malcador and the origins of the Heresy. You should listen to it yourself as it's cheap and short (25 mins), but in case you don't care about spoilers here's some stuff: he's 6718 years old, he helped the Emperor go from being just the biggest warlord on Terra to... well, being the Emperor, and he explains who the Sigillites are and what their role in the Imperium is. After the astropath despairs about the countless billions who've died in the Heresy, he drops the mother of all bombshells: the Heresy was planned by him and the Emperor from the beginning. Just as how the Thunder Warriors served their purpose and were betrayed and wiped out, the plan was to eventually pit the Primarchs against one another and have them wipe themselves out. He says the two of them carefully maneuvered the Primarchs into specific roles and situations, as well as the Emperor showing unequal favour between them, in order to foster hostility. The ones who "couldn't be controlled" never made it to the endgame (possibility referencing the lost Primarchs). He admits though that his failure was underestimating Chaos who caused the Heresy to happen much sooner than expected, which turned it into the calamity that it is.

After she dies Malcador he admits he lied but doesn't say exactly which bit he lied about. Some people think the truth is they planned to wipe out the Primarchs and Astartes, but the Heresy was never planned and was instead a lie intended to comfort an old woman on her deathbed (by saying they have it under control, sorta). Some other people think the lie is where he tells her that the Emperor "will catch her" when she dies (hinting at an afterlife and saving her soul from Chaos). The truth is we'll probably never know as this is typical Malcador obfuscation. If there's even a shred of truth to the origins of the Heresy, though, the implications are staggering: Horus was right in turning against the Emperor even if his reasons for doing so were wrong.

'''Perturabo: Stone and Iron''' A minor story largely about showing the differences between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, so doesn't provide any major revelations for the series. The Iron Warriors are supposed to be supporting an Imperial Fist position that is currently under assault, but Perturabo holds back and uses the opportunity to instruct his officers about how the Fists prosecute their own wars.

'''Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness''' Pretty skippable, really just Curze giving his thoughts on why the Emperor made him like he did and the Night Lord definition of "compliance" during the Great Crusade. Hint: It involves flaying. Lots of it.

===Short Stories===
'''Grandfather's Gift:''' Mortarion has a lab accident and knocks himself out. He wakes up in Nurgle's Garden, wanders around for a bit, and has a nice chat with [[Ku'Gath]] the Plaguefather, whose name is misspelled [[Derp|for some reason]]. It's revealed that Nurgle has tracked down his foster father's soul and will let Mortarion capture it as a gift for joining his service. The timeline is a bit squiffy due to warp fuckery. Mortarion knows what daemons are and knows that he's fought alongside them, but doesn't recognize Ku'Gath. Ku'Gath knows Mortarion, but also says that they haven't met yet. Morty himself doesn't know where he is or what's going on at first, but eventually his memories return, and he mutates into his daemon primarch form and captures his foster father's soul.

'''A Lesson in Iron:''' Ferrus Manus chases some orks into a warp rift and stumbles across an Iron Hands ship from a few thousand years in the future. The boarding parties he sends are attacked by daemons which fuck them up, and Ferrus himself finds a dead future Iron Hand whose bionics look like a shitty hack-job to him, so he gets pissy and orders everyone to leave. When his Mechanicum adept points out that they might be able to mine the databanks for advanced technology and info on [[Drop Site Massacre|future events]], he declares that he wants no part of this future. Also reveals that Ferrus had seen enough shit on Medusa to know that the Imperial Truth was a "useful lie."

==The Tabletop Wargame==
[[Forge World]] produces a line of books and models (in line with the old [[Imperial Armour]] and [[Warhammer Forge]]) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy, with rules and models for the [[Primarchs]] (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors), named characters who were romping around back then and ancient vehicles and machines that would be one off units in 40k armies, being fielded en-mass. Originally an add on system for [[Warhammer 40,000]], it became it's own game with a rulebook after 40k moved on to [[Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition|8th edition]] making it a sort of legacy game for the older style of 40k edition and also meaning the game has become a refuge for fa/tg/uys who don't enjoy 8th/9th edition 40k. Since the game is set during the 31st millennium pretty much all the armies are more archaic versions of their 40k counter parts, with lots of rules and quirks that help differentiate the factions from their future selves, such as legion tactical squads being able to be fielded in 20 man squads representing how much bigger the legions were and [[Daemon]]s not having their gods properly identified (though still having rules for god specific daemons) and having vague unit names to represent the only basic understanding the Imperium had of them. There are no [[xenos]] armies unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask), but all the factions that are in the game are very customisable with a huge array of rules, army types and really good conversion opportunities being able to be brought to the table, especially for Mechanicum, Daemon and Militia & Cults armies. 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.

Following the passing of Alan Bligh and the re-organisation of Forge World as a studio, the fate of this wargame had been seen as a bit precarious. While there were probably more books to cover up to and likely including the Siege of Terra, it seemed increasingly likely that Daddy GeeDubs wasn't keen on letting FW continue writing for this game (or making massive monsters and tanks for the mainstream games) on top of their work on [[Necromunda]] and [[Blood Bowl]]. One only had to look at how gutted the Imperial Armour books became in recent editions to see the writing on the wall. That said, the game had itself a sizeable following, especially after 8th Edition 40K essentially threw out all the crunch fans knew and made something entirely different, predictably leading to reactionary grognards clinging to the remaining flecks of nostalgia.

The game was never fully cancelled though. Though the black books had essentially stopped after Crusade, GW did release '''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HHZone_Mortalis_Rules.pdf Zone Mortalis]''' rules, the Exemplary Battles PDFs and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 essentially announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team.

===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 [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Space Marines/Legion List‎|tactica]]), and rules for special characters and units from the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Death Guard]], [[Emperor's Children]], and [[World Eaters]] Legions, including their [[Primarch]]s (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. The book's storyline is essentially just the ''first day'' of the battle, leading up to the death of [[Ferrus Manus]].

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===
Focusses 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 includes rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]].

It also gives us a complete Mechanicum Army List: the Taghmata.

====Condensed Lists====
The ICL and LACAL were initially released as part of the limited edition run of Extermination, but were then later released separately. They are fluff-lite, codex-equivalent books that also included all of the FAQs/Errata up to their release; which unfortunately was still the end of 6th edition so some rules haven't carried over well. ''(eg. [[Lorgar]]s psychic rules.)''

The Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the Isstvan Campaign Legions contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3; their units, characters and wargear in the previous three books. Meaning you can have a cheaper alternative to buying multiple £70+, huge black tomes JUST to play the game. The ICL was continued in the Age of Darkness Legions, which collected everything to book 5, including the errata.

Later came the Mechanicum Taghamata Army List, which contained all the Mechanicum units and army lists mentioned and rearranged them to keep everything on the same page, but lacked the Questoris Knight Army. The Crusade Imperialis Army Lists contain the Solar Auxilia, Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults, and Questoris Knight Crusade army lists.

===Conquest===
Horus Heresy Volume Four is entitled 'Conquest', despite early hints from Forgeworld that it would be about the Battle of Prospero, it instead features Horus' conquest of the Imperium and the [[Skub|"Major"]] battles of this time, which is to say some battle-zones that Forgeworld made up to fill time whilst they worked on the more well known events from the in-universe history. ''(And to be fair, their response as to why Prospero was delayed was because it included four major factions, [[Adeptus Custodes|two of]] [[Sisters of Silence|which have]] NEVER been represented on the tabletop, so required more time to do them justice.)''

A large portion of the book is given over to running battles in the '''"Age of Darkness"''', which is a variant ruleset used as the default for Horus Heresy games ''(where only Troops usually score, amongst other things)'' and has rules and FOCs for Cityfight missions, rules for running ongoing campaigns, variant rules for mysterious terrain and objectives as well as including unique relics to be taken by the various army lists to add flavor to non-special characters.

It also introduces the [[Solar Auxilia]] and [[Imperial Knight|"Questoris" Knights]] (as an AdMech list) armies to play while the modellers take a break from building power armor 24/7.

===Tempest===
The fifth Horus Heresy book covered the Battle of Calth. The rules for the [[Ultramarines]] (including [[Roboute Guilliman]] himself) as well as several warp-corrupted Word Bearer units are brought in alongside a few other new miscellaneous FW releases, including the Deredeo and the new Thanatars. There's also an Imperial Militia (Read: PDF) list that's super-customizable so you can make both loyalist and traitor lists. Also, the MOTHERFUCKING [[Warlord Titan|WARLORD TITANS]] IS IN IT TOO. PREPARE YOUR WALLET.

===Retribution===
Focused on 'Shadow Wars' far from the main fronts of the Heresy, in particular the Shattered Legions - that is, the [[Iron Hands]], [[Raven Guard]], and [[Salamanders]] in their weakened state following their losses in the Drop Site Massacre. But other Legions can also be included, with special rules for the Shattered Legions, Black Shields and a list for Armies of Dark Compliance - mixed traitor Legiones/Militia lists, as well as ten new special characters. It includes Legiones Astartes rules for the White Scars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels, so that players of those legions can start playing properly; however, it does not include special units, characters, or Primarchs for those legions. It also includes Garro and the Knights Errant and additional Mechanicum units and characters, including a new Dark Magos, [[Anacharis Scoria]]. Space Wolves and Thousand Sons will still need to wait for the Prospero book (Inferno, Book 7).

===Inferno===
In <s>Set to be book 3.</s> <s>late 2016.</s> <s>early 2017 (Because FW can't keep to schedule)</s> <s>December 2016</s> February 4, 2017, comes with what many neckbeards are waiting for: THE BURNING OF PROSPERO!!! For those [[Thousand Sons]] players, start saving up so you can play your space Egyptian sorcerers in all their 30k glory. Rules for the Sisters of Silence as an allied detachment and the Adeptus Custodes as a full army list will be present as well.

Well, it's come, and... it's uninspiring to say the least, with stuff like [[What|Magnus being straight up impossible to hit if he casts invisibility, not to mention pumping out 2d6 destroyer hits at every unit within 18" if he likes]], [[Derp|Custodes captains beating out every Primarch with a rollable 3+ invulnerable save]], some Custodes wargear being straight up [[Wat|left out of the book]] and to cap it all, [[Herp|pictures of tourists in the book ('''twice''') where you'd expect miniatures to be]]. You'd think with such a long development cycle the quality assurance would have been more thorough. Didn't help that [[Alan Bligh]] was likely fairly ill in late 2016, and his death in May of 2017 means the Horus Heresy team now has a big hole in it.

===Malevolence===
After the untimely death of Alan Bligh, this will be the first book with John French behind the wheel after two years of internal re-organizing. Covers the events of Signus Prime and the Chondax Campaigns. It features [[White Scars]] and [[Blood Angels]] including rules for both Jaghatai and Sanguinius, [[Dark Angel Shoulder Pad|making the Lion the only Primarch without rules]]. Introduced as a new army is Daemons of the Ruinstorm, an army of 'unknown aberrant xenoforms' (since this was before the Imperium really understood what Daemons really were) which play quite differently to the Daemons of Fantasy/Sigmar/40K. Also included are 5 new consuls and two new squads that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

===Crusade===
Was originally to be called ''Angelus'', though it eventually was renamed to ''Crusade''. It covers the [[Thramas Crusade]] with the Dark Angels vs Night Lords, and introduces new Legion-specific units and characters for the Dark Angels, including Dreadwing units and rules for upgrading DA characters to represent any of the six Wings of the Hexagrammaton. Most importantly, the Lion finally has his rules. The Night Lords got revamped rules and some new toys, including a new VIII Legion-specific Terminator squad that [[Derp|isn't the Atramentar]]. Unfortunately leaks have confirmed that the Dark Mechanicum army list has been pushed back to the next <s>book</s> edition. Also has rules for some new Space Marine vehicles, including the Sabre strike tank and the Arquitor Bombard, plus new additions for the Solar Auxilia, Imperial militia, and Chaos cults. Finally released in September 2020, having been delayed due to Nurgle's interference. Remarkable for atrocious fluff like Dark Angel auxiliary fleets usually including [[Gloriana-class_Battleship|Glorianas]], [[Rangdan_Xenocides|"the biggest threat to the existence of Imperium"]] being reduced to 80k Marine casualties in all three campaigns spanning for two decades, Legion recruits retaining their noble status after being conscripted, and many, many more things that would give even Matt Ward a pause. This appears to be the last of the black books for the current edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

===Exemplary Battles===

As of fall 2021, GW is publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that aren't big enough for their own black book. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff", so one could plausibly argue that the PDFs are just ads for FW's overpriced upgrade packs. Still, it's a neat concept and at least they're free. These seem to be leading into the new edition of the game as announced at Adepticon 2022.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Xwccsydzg8YpDsho.pdf The Battle of Pluto: Hydra's Devastation]''''': Focuses on the Alpha Legion's invasion of Pluto, as seen in ''Praetorian of Dorn'', and provides a scenario for Imperial Fists vs Alpharius' sneaky sneks. Also has rules for the Huscarls, Dorn's elite bodyguard, which make them into Phalanx Warders on steroids.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/9eA3ZYnzr5tXbxjX.pdf The Defence of Sotha: Aegida's Lament]''''': Focuses on the Night Lords' raid on Sotha and the near-destruction of the Ultramarines Aegida Company while attempting to hold Sothopolis. The Atramentar ''finally'' get their tabletop rules and also are spotlighted in the fluff, which concludes with them [[Internet Troll|murderfucking their own commanding officer]] because he was getting too uppity for the other Night Lord officers' liking.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NUTJvW4qx8d08Fkr.pdf The Siege of Hydra Cordatus: Sundering of the Cadmean Citadel]''''': Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors brawling it out on the ruined world of Hydra Cordatus. Includes rules for the IV Legion's Dominator Cohort, Perturabo's former bodyguards who got fired and replaced with the Iron Circle after Phall. Hilariously, they are so salty about this that they have Hatred (Cybernetica Cortex) unless you take them as Pert's retinue.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fcMVfgBlCyDHmejD.pdf The Battle of Armatura]''''': World Eaters vs. Ultramarines on the war world of Armatura, as seen in ''Betrayer''. Includes rules for the XII Legion's Red Hand Destroyer squads, who can take Caedere weapons like meteor hammers and excoriator chainaxes in addition to all the usual Destroyer nastiness and ''must'' declare a charge whenever able if they're within 12" of an enemy unit at the beginning of the Assault phase.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/mouvfePNquxVdprP.pdf The Battle of Perditus: Umbral-51]''''': The Death Guard are trying to [[Ork|loot]] galaxy-wrecking archaeotech and the Dark Angels mean to stop them. Iron Hands and Mechanicum are there too, and the mission pack has rules for rampaging battle-automata trying to kill the Spess Mehreens so the techpriests can go back to worshiping their doomsday devices in peace. Includes rules for units from both sides: the Order of the Broken Claw and the Mortus Poisoners. The Broken Claw are Inner Circle Knights who get bonuses against Monstrous and Gargantuan Creatures and daemons, representing the fact that they were the I Legion's specialized Rangdan-killers during the Xenocides. The Mortus Poisoners are Destroyers who can swap their bolters for flamers with chem-munitions for free and one in every five can swap their bolt pistol for a heavy flamer with chem-munitions for 20 points ([[Derp|that's right, their '''bolt pistol''', not their bolter, blame FW editors]]), and can be taken in units of 15 for when you just want the table to burn.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/iIVebnZrYRFbaDGH.pdf The Battle of Calth: Underworld War]''''': Smurfs and Word Bearers duking it out in Zone Mortalis missions representing the underground battles fought after Calth's surface was trashed in ''Know No Fear''. Includes rules for the Ultramarines' Nemesis Destroyer squads, aka Guilliman's least favorite sons. Instead of dual bolt pistols, they get bolters with specialist ammo that gives them Assault 2 and Rending and they can take weapons usually reserved for Breacher and Support squads. Kinda weird, but makes sense given the XIII's "tactical flexibility" schtick. No jump packs, though.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/H6ygklXe9Fv2FwRe.pdf Battle For Kalium Gate]''''': Emperor's Children and White Scars get their turn, fighting over a huge void gate as the Scars try to get back to Terra in time for the big party. Has rules for new units from both sides. The III Legion gets the Sun Killers, Heavy Support squads that only use lascannons, multi-meltas, volkite culverins, and plasma cannons [[Meme|because they're elegant weapons from a more civilized time]] and can take an Aegis Defence Line without using up a Force Org slot. The White Scars get the Karaoghlanlar, or Dark Sons of Death. Aside from sounding like a Welsh person choking on something, they're jump-pack Destroyers who don't get phosphex or missile launchers and trade one bolt pistol for a chainsword, but can be taken as a retinue for a Stormseer with a jump pack. They also have a rule that lets them autofail Sweeping Advance rolls in exchange for performing a spooky ritual that forces enemy units within 6" to pass an Ld test or suffer -1 WS next turn.

==See Also==
* [[The War of The Beast]], for the next massive shit-show the Imperium was involved with.
* [[Alternate Heresy]], for a discussion of other possible outcomes of the (not necessarily Horus) Heresy.
* [[Army compatibility between Warhammer settings]]

==External Links==
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Board Games]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Wargames]]

Horus Heresy

2022-04-08T11:40:19Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Books XLI - L */

[[File:zbrothers.jpg|500px|thumb|right|It was pretty much ''this''.]]
{{Topquote|1=[[Fulgrim|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me.]] [[Magnus the Red|Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.]] [[Angron|They will be of iron will and steely muscle.]] [[Perturabo|In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed.]] [[Mortarion|They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them.]] [[Alpharius|They will have tactics, strategies and machines]] [[Omegon|so that no foe can best them in battle.]] [[Konrad Curze|They are my bulwark against the Terror.]] [[Lorgar|They are the Defenders of Humanity.]] [[Horus|They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.]]|2=The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], [[Not as planned|getting exactly what he wanted.]]}}
{{Topquote|The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.|Karl Popper}}

The '''Horus Heresy''' also known as '''Horus Humbug''', '''Cosmic Scale Daddy Issues''', '''That time [[Erebus]] fucked everyone over forever''', '''Paradise Lost IN SPACE''', '''[[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Jimmy Space]] and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Decade''' and (in-universe) as '''The Great Heresy War''' is one of the single biggest clusterfuck of events in [[Warhammer 40,000]] fluff, alongside the [[Eldar]]'s creation of a new [[Slaanesh|Chaos God]] and the [[War in Heaven|rampage and fall of the]] [[C'Tan|star gods]]. Needless to say, this heresy derailed the Emperor's plan and himself, and gave the Chaos Gods their most prominent armies to carry out their will in realspace.

In the Horus Heresy, the Emperor's favorite son, [[Horus| Horus Lupercal]], formerly Warmaster of the Imperium, was corrupted by Chaos and rebelled against the Emperor, taking nine [[First Founding|Space Marine Legions]] (Including [[Luna Wolves|his own]]), their respective Primarchs, and about half 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 cut the head off the proverbial snake by killing the Emperor and winning the war.

Things went [[Not as Planned]] however, as he was eventually surrounded by loyalist forces at the height of the siege on Terra. As a final gambit, he dropped the shields of his flagship which allowed the Emperor to beam up and challenged him to a duel for the fate of humanity. Horus beat the Emperor within an inch of his life but was killed in turn after the Emperor put his foot down and obliterated Horus' soul from existence (as in it didn't go to the warp to be resurrected by daemons, it was literally erased from existence) when it finally became clear to him that Horus was beyond forgiveness. 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==
[[File:HHMap.jpg|600px|right|thumb|The Clusterfuck in motion. If this map reminds you of the Syrian Civil War, consider getting a gold star.]]
The Horus Heresy screwed with almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course) and changed the flavor of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a positive word about religion, we rape you and your family with knives" to Catholic [[Inquisition]] "if you breathe a word about the ''wrong'' religion, we rape you [[Exterminatus|or your whole planet]] 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|Burning]] [[Magnus_the_Red#Horus_Heresy|of Prospero]]
*[[Drop Site Massacre]]
*[[Battle of Calth|Battle of Calth]]
*[[Shadow Crusade]]
*[[Thramas Crusade]]
*[[Signus Campaign]]
*[[Battle of Phall]]
*[[Battle of Tallarn]]
* The TitanDeath at [[Beta Garmon]]
*[[Siege of Terra]]

Following the Siege of Terra, Horus was permakilled, Konrad allowed himself to be assassinated, Ferrus Manus had already died in the Drop Site Massacare, Sanguinius was KIA, Big E was interred onto the Golden Throne, the surviving loyalist Primarchs freaked out trying to figure out what do now that daddy was in a coma, the surviving traitors fucked off into the Eye of Terror, and overall the galaxy slowly and collectively lost their minds now that their wise and all-powerful ruler was no longer around to tell them what to do.

==The Board Game==
First published in 1993 by [[Game Designer's Workshop]], it was the Emprah versus his [[Horus|evil bastard of a son]] in the scorched earth of Terra. Units include [[Titan#Warhammer_40k|titans]] and [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Spaw-]] oh shiARHGRBLLYRBGRDEWUODHGRYEB.

Ahem. As he was saying, the more recent edition (2010) was published by [[Fantasy Flight Games]]. Also a two-player [[wargame|war]] [[board game|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 [[heresy|traitor's]] flagship ''Vengeful Spirit''. Combat is less [[dice|dice-y]] and more card-y.

(Not to be confused with the lame Horus Heresy card game, whose only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway.)

==The Main Book Series==
{{Spoilers}}
For the last decade, [[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 [[Dan Abnett|the first trilogy]], The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Fear To Tread, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|Betrayer]], [[White Scars|Scars]], and the short story [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]].

Of course, like we mentioned, there's some that are... um... Well, let's just say that the worst are a [[skub|matter of much debate]]. And there a couple that are just objectively bad (Battle for the Abyss).

===Books I - X===
*'''''Horus Rising:''''' A prologue story, introducing us to the series and Garviel Loken who will grow into a very significant and popular character, the 'Jim Raynor from Starcraft' of the heresy. Black Library needed a killer opener and they succeeded, Dan Abnett handling it pretty well. An Emperor (not [[Emperor|Him]]) is killed at the beginning and some bugs are killed on a planet called Murder for no reason other than they were there. The [[Interex]] show up and ask "whadya do that for?". Negotiations with them go sour when [[Erebus]] steals the '''MURDER SWORD''' from them. It is worth noting that if the Interex had some goddamn CCTV set up in their museum of awesome and valuable weapons then the whole heresy could possibly have been avoided.
*'''''False Gods:''''' Horus falls at Davin when wounded by the '''MURDER SWORD''' and gets a crash course in the chaos gods from [[Erebus]] & [[Magnus]]. After getting shown a few "truths" that WILL HAPPEN in the future (like the Emperor being worshipped as a god and Horus being reviled and forgotten) he decides to make war on the Imperium to [[FAIL|prevent]] all this from happening. Actually a rather weak and rushed affair when it comes to detailing the Horus Heresy's origin story. Until this point, we've been exploring Horus' character in great detail for 1.5 books, but then he has a nasty fever dream, sees a few bad prophecies and boom, he wakes up as a traitorous Saturday morning cartoon villain, after which point his machinations to create the Isstvan III event and Dropsite Massacre or any other bits of the heresy go completely undetailed and left behind the scenes. The really cool shit in this book is the battle on Davin, as the Sons of Horus and the Imperial Army fights against a massive horde of chaos zombies in a foggy swamp and the wreck of a space ship.
*'''''Galaxy in Flames:''''' Isstvan III happens and the traitors send the loyalists down to the planet without reinforcements and proceed to bomb them to fuck. Things don't go to plan when [[Angron]] decides to invade, turning it into a [[Not as Planned]] drawn out conflict that the Warmaster can't really afford - Loken is presumed dead after a duel with Abaddon. While it's good to have a whole book detailing a key event in the Heresy, there isn't actually any important or interesting dialogue to read that would make you glad you didn't just read a synopsis. There's also an embarrassingly written sequence towards the end, where a large number of loyalists survive an Exterminatus event by fleeing to some magical and super convenient bunkers. They see virus bombs entering the planet's atmosphere with the naked eye and somehow have enough time to run deep enough underground to survive one of the Imperium's most effective superweapons.
*'''''Flight of the Eisenstein:''''' the other side of ''Galaxy in Flames''. Nathaniel Garro escapes and gets marooned in the warp fighting daemons, eventually gets saved (and mega-bitchslapped) by [[Rogal Dorn]], who does not take the news from Isstvan [[Rage|very well]]. The first bit of the novel is so far 'the Death Guard's novel'. There is also the very first canonical appearance of Plague Marines, Euphrati Keeler being all mystical and shit, and Malcador recruiting Garro as the first Knight-Errant.
*'''''Fulgrim:''''' A divisive entry that is either forgettable to some or pretty interesting depending on who you ask - depends how much you like the Emperor's Children. Tells the story of the III Legion from the Great Crusade all the way up to the [[Drop Site Massacre]] in one book. In short Fulgrim finds a sword, gets possessed, kills Ferrus Manus - the end. It is written by Graham McNeill though, and it has an awesome quote from Fulgrim: "My Emperor's Children. What beautiful music they make." The second plot of this book is about some human, but it is so forgettable the writer has it dropped halfway through the book. The human plot also explains where [[Lucius]] get his self-scarring habit from: a painter woman told him it will make his face perfect (ugly) again, because he wouldn't shut up about how Loken ruined his perfect beauty with a sucker punch.
*'''''Descent of Angels:''''' This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on [[Zahariel]]'s time on [[Caliban]]. It portrays [[Lion El'Jonson]] having to deal with some social awkwardness (he cannot read people at all, so he comes off as 'do what I say or die!') and having Luther to handle the small talk. Hints that the Great Crusade <s>does more harm than good</s> {{BLAM|is bringing the lost colonies of mankind together into a united future!}} Luther gets sent home with Zahariel to hustle up more Dark Angels. Another divisive book, but could definitely have used some more time with the editor. Be aware that this book was published long before GW had decided what to do with the Lion's loyalty and personality, so its descriptions of the Lion are outdated and do not match his current status.
*'''''Legion''''' introduces [[the Cabal]], the [[Perpetual]]s and [[Omegon]]. READ THIS BOOK. Or don't, as this is where those things that would eventually take over the Heresy series and according to many completely ruin it (Cabal, Perpetuals) are introduced. I still would recommend reading it since when the novel introduces these ideas they are very fresh and interesting. Don't blame ''Legion'' when the rest of the novels were what ruined it. The [[Alpha Legion]], along with the Geno Chiliad, a regiment of genetically engineered supermen-yet-not-Astartes lead by anime lolis called ''uxors'' (High Gothic for "wives") is trying to bring some Chaos cultists in <s>space Afghanistan</s>[[Nurth]] into compliance. The cultists activate planetary self-destruct blood sacrifice; as this goes down, the Alpha Legion meets with the [[Cabal]], gets a glimpse of their vision of the future ("the Alpharius gambit"), agrees to work with them, then kills off all non-legion bystanders & ships with "FOR E-MONEY"! This book is still 100% canon, but in later books GW seems to have changed their mind on the Alpha Legion so they abandoned most of the plots from this book.
*'''''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 thought it was cobbled together from [[Matt Ward|Wardian fluff]] stitched together by [[C. S. Goto]]. Reading this book, in fact, causes mind cancer, which is to say, that it does not create brain tumors, but hurts the ideas of the reader. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much (as in anything). The only thing you need to remember is [[Lorgar]] built a fuckhueg space ship and filled it with Dreadnoughts, and it failed miserably. The book's adherence to canon is an atrocity, but it does contain some decent depictions of ship-to-ship combat as a mildly redeeming quality.
*'''''Mechanicum:''''' Easily one of the best novels in the series, it explores many hidden/forbidden aspects and lore of the Mechanicum. Techpriests turn renegade after Horus tells them they can do whatever they like with technology, so they release forbidden viral scrapcodes and screw everything up. Also turns out that [[Emperor|Big E]] invented the Machine-God by sealing a C'Tan on Mars back during the Saint George era, giving everyone visions of technology. Also more subtle hints that the Emperor is a god himself as he uses divine golden light to heal machines and instant access super wikipedia. Contains a lot of Titan awesomeness and [[Imperial Knight|Knights]] badassery. And for extra Grimdark, a tech priestess discovers that the Dark Age era humans stored a backup copy of Wikipedia in the warp and <s>with a giant psyker powered terminal accesses said Wikipedia and restores all the knowledge of mankind</s> floods her forge with lava to deny the traitors access. A psyker tech savant meets up with the gaoler of the Void Dragon and takes over his fuck long shift.
*'''''Tales of Heresy:''''' short story collection, including [[The Last Church]]. Has a lot of twist endings.
** '''''Blood Games:''''' An assassin tries to kill the emperor. The Adeptus Custodes go to kill a traitor on Terra. The assassin was a Custodes probing the palace defences. The traitor was a triple agent working for Dorn. The bodyguard of the triple agent turns out to be an Sons of Horus assassin who detonates a bomb that kills the triple agent and nearly accomplishes a suicide run to destroy a bunch of reactors controlled by the triple agent.
** '''''Wolf at the Door:''''' The Space Wolves kill some Dark Eldar and are the defenders of everyone who does not defy the Emperor. When the liberated planet chooses freedom over the Emperor, the Wolves invade it, of course.
** '''''Scions of the Storm:''''' The Word Bearers destroy a human civilization that has crystal cities, crystal robots, and lots of lightning. They worshiped the Emperor, but Lorgar no longer does. This is also later a chapter of ''The First Heretic'', but they're narrated from a slightly different point of view .
** '''''The Voice:''''' A squad of Sisters of Silence investigate a Black Ship that became derelict in the Warp. Turns out [[Blank|the youngest of the squad]] in the future [[Wat|used sorcery]] to beam back her consciousness through time onto some psykers on the Black Ship. She <s>successfully warns the squad about Horus's Rebellion </s> is executed by a hard-core Sister for breaking her vow of [[Psyker|no funny stuff]].
** '''''Call of the Lion:''''' Half of the Dark Angels are dicks, the other half are not. Totally not foreshadowing.
** '''''[[The Last Church]]:''''' A story about the Emperor destroying one of the churches on Terra during the reunification era in his effort to wipe out religion. The Emperor and the priest of the church have an enlightening conversation about what the Emprah's trying to accomplish. The conversation ends up with the priest accusing the Emperor of being a hypocrite, with him decrying that he's no different from the old warlords who waged crusades and holy wars in the past to push their own agendas on other people. The Emperor reveals himself as the very god the priest was worshiping, and nearly convinces him to stand by his side while his soldiers destroy the church. Priest gets cold feet and walks back into the church while it collapses. An end-times alarm clock starts ringing in the ruins.
** '''''After Desh'ea:''''' The War Hounds meet their Primarch. Angron defeats the War Hounds. More specifically, the Emperor just beamed up Angron away from his last stand (rather than, you know, intervening with his Custodes or his fleet), leaving Angron pretty pissed. [[Kharn]] is a pretty great guy to be around, and pulls his femurs out of his lungs quickly enough to establish himself as Angron's best buddy ''after everyone above him in the War Hounds chain of command calmed Angron down as fleshy squeeze balls''.

===Books XI - XX===
*'''''Fallen Angels:''''' this sequel to Descent of Angels is actually two stories rolled into one book that never converge. The Lion heads to a strategically important forge world only to find that the magos has turned traitor, then fights a war to reclaim some Ordinatus devices only to hand them to Perturabo to gain his trust, not realising that his brother has already turned. He's really spergily awkward with people throughout. Meanwhile, [[Zahariel]] and Luther encounter a daemon cult on Caliban and get into shennanigans with [[Cypher]], setting the stage for the rise of the [[Fallen]] as they reject the Lion and the Emperor due to misplaced patriotism for Caliban and butthurt over feeling abandoned by their primarch.
*'''''A Thousand Sons:''''' Part 1 of the Battle for Prospero. Runs through the Great Crusade where Magnus discovers the webway, but his Father already knew about it. Then the Edict of Nikaea where Magnus gets all passionate about not restricting psychic powers, then to Horus's vision quest where Magnus fails to keep his brother on the right path, then does the WORST thing possible by forcing himself through the palace psychic spam filter, breaking the Golden Throne in the process. Space Wolves come knocking shortly after. Tragedy ensues and the Thousand Sons become a thousand sons all over again. Ahriman starts writing his Rubric.
*'''''Nemesis:''''' [[Malcador the Sigillite]] invents the [[Officio Assassinorum]] Execution Task Force and sends six assassins to kill Horus. They fail because Horus sent a look-a-like, but in the process slay a shapeshifting daemonic counter-assassin sent by Erebus. While it is a decent book and we learn a lot, it didn't contribute much to the overall plot. On the more [[rage|vitriolic side]], the writing is a bit underwhelming in places; highlights include calling a pariah a psyker, another pariah with a contrived possession, and Horus uttering one of the most cliche one liners out there.
*'''''The First Heretic:''''' [[Lorgar]]'s turn to get a backstory and generally considered one of the better books in the series. While you may never sympathize with them, this book really lets you understand why The Word Bearers fell to Chaos, rather then being the "CHAOTIC EVIL MONSTERS" they are portrayed in the rest of the series. Feels less rushed than ''[[Fulgrim]]''. Goes from Monarchia to a bit of soul searching in the Eye of Terror and discovers Cadia. Leads up to Istvaan V and the immediate aftermath. Significant subplots revolve around the inception of Possessed Marines, and what happens to the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] babysitters watching over the Word Bearers, and how the protagonist [[Argel Tal]] gets into a tragic bromance with the Custodes leader.
** '''''Aurelian:''''' A limited release short story until an ebook was published. The plot bounces around in between a number of moments in Lorgar's history up to the prelude of the Shadow Crusade. One narrative involves how Lorgar's brothers still treat him like shit, especially when he's the only one who sees through Fulgrim's possession, and ends with Horus sending him to fuck up Ultima Segmentum and handing him Angron's (figurative, [[/d/|not literal]]) leash. The other narrative takes place in the 40 year gap in ''The First Heretic'', where Lorgar makes a pilgrimage into the Eye of Terror with a Daemon Princess as his guide. They come to a dead Crone World where he puts a dying [[Avatar of Khaine|Avatar]] out of its misery and he's told that the Eldar panicked rather than embrace Chaos during the birth of Slaanesh, which is what caused them to nearly die out; the daemon prince(ss) tells Lorgar the same thing is happening with humanity during the Heresy, how Chaos really wants a [[A Game of Pretend|symbiotic relationship with humanity rather than to conquer it]]. In the middle of this, Khorne decides he's had enough of this talky wordy shit and sends [[An'ggrath]] to make things more exciting, and Lorgar narrowly beats him. Then Kairos Fateweaver comes and "tells" him about Calth and his relationship with Guilliman and his upcoming war with him in the most confusing as fuck discussion ever. The truth of most of the things told to Lorgar are left ambiguous, because, well, Fateweaver; but also Chaos has a lot riding on the Heresy coming to fruition for reasons left not entirely explored.
*'''''Prospero Burns:''''' Part 2 of the Battle for Prospero. A civilian archaeologist named Kasper Hawser (as typical for GW authors flexing obscuring knowledge, not very subtle given that the real Kaspar Hauser was a liar from 1820s Germany, who thrived on getting public attention and [[Derp|accidentally killed himself]] when public attention faded) hangs out with a company of the Space Wolves, where we learn a lot about their culture and attitudes. Turns out that Chaos infiltrated everything, so the outcome of Nikaea was practically rigged. The civilian himself even turns out to have been an unwitting spy for Chaos, but the Wolves knew anyway and didn't give a shit (they thought he worked for Magnus).
* '''''Age of Darkness:''''' A short story anthology.
** '''''Rules of Engagement:''''' Roboute lets one of his commanders lead in a series of wars that didn't really occur, and we get the best line ever said in regards to the [[Codex Astartes]]: despite the fact it does cover a lot, it's not meant to be followed biblically <s>which is a load of bull given that the Codex lets said commander win all the wars in the most efficient way possible while blindly following it and only failed in the last battle because he was in a war game against Girlyman</s>. (See the quote on the page on the Big Book of Astartes). The Imperium Secundus shows up, making for another bizarre plot element that ruins the series without adding anything.
** '''''Liar's Due:''''' You know those memes on how the [[Alpha Legion]] causes mass paranoia without actually involving any Astartes? Those aren't just memes. An Alpha Legion serf arrives on a agri-world and turns its allegiance to Horus just by hacking all their interplanetary communications.
** '''''Forgotten Sons:''''' A [[Salamanders|Salamander]] and a grumpy ol' [[Ultramarine]] are sent in opposition to one of Horus' iterators to convince an industrial-militant world which side to side with. They almost side with Horus before the Warmaster's agents [[Exterminatus|wreck shit]] for the lulz and to send the message that neutrality will be punished. The [[Iron Warriors]] were doing weird shit on that world for years beforehand and were probably a bigger factor than the lulz.
** '''''The Last Remembrancer:''''' Horus sent the one last remembrancer he had stored up as a gift to Dorn. Instead of in a box (or eight or some shit like that), it was the [[Dan Abnett]] of his day telling Dorn that the grimdark galaxy was grimdark. Also that the Emperor's vision of a galaxy of peace, unity, prosperity, and fluffy bunnies built up without any more grimdark attached than was strictly needed probably wasn't very likely before any shit hit any fan either way. Also, Iacton Qruze makes his first appearance since forever, but nobody gives a shit. Dorn says it's all lies and enemy propaganda before executing said remembrancer and torching all his ramblings.
** '''''Rebirth:''''' Magnus's absent fleet from the Burning of Prospero comes home and shits a brick. The last known surviving squad of Thousand Sons outside of the Planet of the Sorcerers gets beaten up and they slowly figure out it was the Space Wolves who shit on Magnus's <s>parade</s> world and is stalking them. One plot twist later, most of them are dead, the last one decides he's gonna rebuild everything, with a few scant hints that his flesh-change genetic flaw will [[Blood Ravens|shift into kleptomania]].
** '''''The Face of Treachery:''''' The tie-in and conclusion of the audiodrama featuring the Raven Guard after Istvaan and the prequel to Deliverance Lost. After getting fed up with Corax [[troll]]ing Perturabo for a bit too long, Horus sends Angron in to finish the job but Corax's cavalry arrives to troll Angron by getting the loyalists the fuck out of there. We also learn that Corax has a supersekrit psyker ability which lets him roll a natural 20 on stealth checks no matter how ridiculous it would be, and that the Alpha Legion ''once again'' can out-troll everybody when they fuck things up for the World Eaters (they let the World Eater commander think he was in command then blew his brains out when he tried to actually command). Ends with an transitory bit into ''Deliverance Lost''.
** '''''Little Horus:''''' Little Horus Aximand is struggling with the PTSD he got when he killed Loken and Torgaddon with [[Abaddon|Abby]]. Abby and Little Horus have a discussion (we mean Horus Aximand, not when Primarch Horus was sodomizing Abaddon again) about restoring the Mournival. A couple war scenes later, Little Horus learns the hard way that the White Scars are pretty badass, but his PTSD starts acting up again and he gets his face shaved off before the White Scars are driven off. Little Horus realizes the PTSD he has ultimately stems from that time he helped kill Loken and Torgaddon, and gives a diatribe about how things like "change", "mood swings", and "hallucinations" are suited to his melancholic nature, saying things like "it's perfectly natural", "I'm fine, everything's fine. Everything is perfectly, absolutely fine", and "Therapy is for the weak. I'm fine". After the Mongolian shave, he gets his face reattached and ends up looking even more like Big Horus in the deal.
** '''''The Iron Within:''''' Some pretty bro-tier loyalist Iron Warriors build a fortress hanging from a cave over an ocean of promethium in a hellhole of a world (giant cavern system & acidic atmosphere), and one of Perturabo's traitor Grand Companies come knocking to demand that they hand over the house keys. The loyalists give them a fuck-you in the form of a Dreadnought. A few melodramatic and horrific but generic war scenes later, and they get overrun (after a full year of siege thanks to the genius of a certain [[Barabas Dantioch]]), drop the fortress from the ceiling onto a Titan, and get the hell out of there by hijacking one of the Iron Warriors warships via teleportation. An Ultramarine bigwig was there to bring the loyalists home, informing them that [[Skub|Guilliman was fortifying Terra]] and he needed good siege workers to stall the traitors then to fortify Terra. While loyalist Iron Warriors were pretty cool, the story itself was pretty forgettable and left some open questions like whether the continuity errors were the result of "faulty astropathic communications" (see Outcast Dead) or if the Ultramarines were trolling the Iron Warriors to join with the Imperium Secundus; also why the Iron Warriors were determined to take a hellhole at an immense expense of people and materiel, including Titans, while they could have just said "fuck yo shit!" and left a fortress with no space or warp conveyance and arguably little strategic value in itself in the middle of nowhere alone. It mentions a few times that it looks really bad for a rebellion trying to gain initiative when a mere captain of their Legions tells their Primarch "fuck off, imma keeping this fortress & resources for the Emperor!" The message behind it being if you can't even control your own men, maybe this rebellion thing needs a rethinking, because hearing Horus can't even take this shitty outpost in the middle of nowhere might be bad press when he's going to Terra.
** '''''Savage Weapons:''''' A good story written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|ADB]]. Dark Angels are hunting down the Night Lords who are fucking with Forge Worlds, but the Night Lords are staying a step ahead of them, much to [[Rage|the Lion's frustration]]. After being advised by Horus to pass along a message, Curze asks the Lion to meet up face-to-face on Tsagualsa. When they talk, while what they say to each other is offscreen, it's implied Curze told Lion about the Fallen Angels and that Horus knew about their impending betrayal. Lion decides nobody is going to give him shit about being a rumored closet traitor, and the ensuing fight proves that Jonson is a <s>badass among primarchs</s> cheating bitch (he initiated the fight, ending the parlay, by getting in a cheap shot when he plunged his sword into Curze's heart), until Curze, ignoring a terrible wound even by Primarch standards, whoops that ass and goes to his old fallback of strangling a fucker. Their respective honor guards go at it in the meantime, showing [[Sevatar]] is a badass among Space Marines. Things end up in a draw, leaving things open for a new plotline within the Heresy, the ''Prince of Crows'' novella being the next.
*'''''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. [[derp|''Riggggghhhhtttt.'']] More importantly: shortly after the start of the Heresy an astropath has routine nervous breakdown and is returned to Terra to get [[Witch Hunters|some R&R]]. What really ends up happening is that he gets there in time for [[Magnus]]'s astral body to reach Big E to warn him of Horus' betrayal, and the fuckhueg psychic shock of course dicks with the Astropath HQ compound something mighty. In the confusion and assloads of psychic phenomena that followed, the astropath gets implanted with a message for somebody regarding the war, but his PTSD keeps him from knowing what the hell it is or who it's for. The Custodes come in and tell him ''"[[Anal Circumference|Ve haff vays of making you talk.]]"'' and hand him over to a pair of [[Inquisition|kind counselors]] who torture the poor man half to death. After a time, he gets busted out in the nick of time by some convict Space Marines from the Traitor Legions. Why they do this is explained by the Thousand Son sagely stating "Just because" to the others. They name themselves the eponymous Outcast Dead and try to get the hell off of Terra. Amusingly, none of the escapees is very happy at the prospect of the Heresy but they are all [[rage|slightly miffed]] at being treated like shit by the Custodes just because of the Legion they belong to. Other subplots revolve around a psyker congregant at a slum church near the Imperial palace; a samurai witch hunter (no, really); '''''fucking [[Thunder Warriors]]'''''. Best bits are <s>[[Rip and tear|an unarmed, unarmored World Eater ripping a Custodes' spine out through his chest]]</s> the portrayal of the Emperor playing chess in dreams, revealing that the message is about his upcoming bitchslap from Horus.
*'''''Deliverance Lost:''''' [[Corvus Corax]], having just escaped from Istvaan V, decides to go ask daddy for a handout to get his Legion back on his feet, and gets the mother of all genetech to do it, though he has to do a bit of legwork to get it. Meanwhile, a bunch of faceless Alpha Legionnaires (okay, they do have faces, they just originally belonged to some Raven Guard) infiltrated Corax's Legion at Istvaan and are doing recon and intelligence gathering waiting for [[Omegon]] to give the go-ahead to fuck shit up. Corax, meanwhile sets up new geneseed methods that bring up new recruits to battle-ready marines ''in fucking hours'' with the potential to conscript literally anybody willing to become a Space Marine. The Alphas decide this probably isn't in their interest, and sabotage the new geneseed by tainting it with ''daemon blood'', turning second- and third-batch new Raven Guard into the twisted monsters we know Corax ended up with. In one of the instances of retcon that was actually flavored with [[awesome]] and win, the mutant marines [[Grimdark|were still sapient]] but were left to fight on in the Emperor's name. After staging a mass insurrection on Deliverance's parent world with the help of some old guilders Corax ousted and the Dark Mechanicum, Omegon gets ''more'' Alphas infiltrated into the Raven Guard for the endgame: steal the genetech, kill some Raven Guard, get the fuck out before anybody knows what the fuck just happened in here. A couple cockups along the way leads to the Raven Guard getting wise and isolating out the Alphas. The end of the novel was like a swingers' party at a retirement home: everybody got screwed (even ''Horus''), nobody got what they hoped for (except for [[Omegon|the really deviant bastard]]), and all-around the reproductive material was a waste. Corax shut down his hothousing method and starts fucking with the Traitors even at reduced numbers. The book ends with Alpharius-Omegon deciding that while their plan for saving the galaxy was still good, they decide working with Xenos isn't for them.
*'''''Know No Fear:''''' The book that made the Ultramarines (of all people) cool again. The Ultras are still ignorant about Istvaan and the civil war erupting around the galaxy, and are mustering at Calth with the Word Bearers [[troll|on orders from Horus]] to go kill some Orks together as a conciliatory gesture. They're in for a surprise: the Word Bearers, while happy as hell to get revenge, are really trying to [[Eldrad|dick over]] the Ultramarines to keep them out of the Heresy if not destroy them outright. What happens next is the Word Bearers arrange some "accidents" using sorcery and good ol' fashioned treachery to fake a monumental fuckup in the shipyards that leaves the Ultramarine forces blind, deaf, and crippled. They use the confusion to say that the Ultras are ''still'' fucking them over, and take the chance to open not only a can but entire cases of whoop-ass on the Ultras. Erebus turns Calth's pole into a screaming hellscape to start up a warp storm while Kor Phaeron oversees the systematic extermination of the Ultramarines and also successfully poisons Calth's sun. Guilliman gets jettisoned into space but survives because [[Spiritual Liege]]. He then leads a counterattack on Kor Phaeron, and while Kor comes ''this close'' to getting a Primarch kill with [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|Chaos mindbullets]], in a moment of self-aggrandizement he holds back and tries to corrupt Guilliman with his own dagger-sized '''MURDER SWORD'''. Guilliman calmly tells him "The Codex Astartes <s>does</s> will not support this action" (it was really "You made an error" followed by an explanation of that error, and "but while I'm alive, I can do this") and [[Rip and Tear|rips out Kor Phaeron's main heart with an unpowered Power Fist]]. Kor Phaeron's minions run away with his carcass, allowing the Ultras to retake their space station, which in turn allows Mechanicus plot power, aided by a planet's worth of orbital defense batteries, to bring the ground war back into the Ultramarines' favor. The novel ends with Word Bearers getting the hell out of there and the Ultramarines evacuating everyone they can off of Calth and telling everybody they can't to get underground, transitioning into the Underworld War. Special features of this novel include the Ultramarines finally being portrayed as awesome, Guilliman not being a cock, [[Ollanius Pius]] being the special guest star with his very own subplot, and the Word Bearers having athame blades as special issue, one of which will [[Uriel Ventris|come back later]]. You might notice this summary is pretty spoilerific, but if you didn't know the broad strokes already, you're in the wrong place. While not exactly winning awards on the philosophical or psychological side, the book itself is a genuinely thrilling read that really knows how to keep its tension up.
*'''''The Primarchs:''''' A novella anthology. As the name suggests, it contains stories featuring Primarchs.
**'''''The Reflection Crack'd:''''' - <s>[[Lucius]] and friends anally rape [[Fulgrim]]. Yeah.</s> While questionable use of a ''pear of anguish'' is featured during a game of "Stab the Fulgrim," the real story is this: Lucius and his buddies are deep into the [[/d/|sickfuckery]] which will come to characterize their Legion, but begin to suspect that Fulgrim might have a daemon in him when he begins acting like not-Fulgrim and uses sorcery. They ambush him and try to exorcise it with pain, because torturing a Slaaneshi daemon will totally work (though they find out that a Primarch can grow back a foot and just about any other wound). Among everything else: [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] is still an arrogant dick; Lucius is still a maniacal and colossally narcissistic sick fuck; Julius Kaesoron is still an angry badass; Marius Vairosean is still a sycophantic cunt; and Eidolon was still a self-important, whiny douche, but Fulgrim throws a tantrum and cuts his head off, and there was much cheering from the readers, and that ''plus'' almost certain off-screen fapping among the Legionaries leads into ''Angel Exterminatus''.
**'''''Feat of Iron''''' - [[Ferrus Manus]]'s Legion is trying to off some Eldar on a desert world, but can't find the major Eldar strategic asset because of Spess Elf warp bullshit. A Farseer thinks he can warn Ferrus about the Heresy, and traps him in the webway or some psychic realm for a spirit quest long enough to fight a [[Fulgrim|giant purple snake]] (which is [[/d/|disturbingly appropriate imagery]] when you think about it); and Ferrus thinks it was the wyrm that he killed and gave him his metal hands, but the snake tells him that he must be mistaking it for somebody else. Ferrus kills it, and meets the Farseer who tries to tell Ferrus that he wasn't just being a dick. Ferrus, having too many experiences with Eldar being dicks, knocks some sense into the Farseer, who manages to run just fast enough to avoid getting killed. Ferrus comes back and helps his Legion fight off the Eldar kill the Webway beacon, or whatever the hell it was. In the background of all of this, the Iron Hands, having lost Ferrus, decide to [[/tg/ gets shit done|get shit done]] rather than bitch about their potentially dead father and work to complete the mission despite being weighed down by Imperial Army who are dying of dehydration and heat stroke. The Eldar figure out a way to use storm clouds that make Iron Hands bionics kill their users, and Ferrus has a bitch of an itch around his neck that he can't get rid of. [[Drop Site Massacre|I wonder if that's important]].
**'''''The Lion:''''' - Dark Angels fight daemons and reinstitute Librarians. The Lion teamkills Nemiel for reminding him about Nikaea, ruining all the buildup from the previous two <s>Dark</s> Fallen Angels Books because [[Gav Thorpe]] wanted to prove he's a big boy author who can kill his characters. Then they steal an intelligent super warp engine (instashifts the Dark Angel fleet into the warp without need for a jump point while teleporting itself and the Lion onto his flagship; Lion is capable of talking politely in front of so much power) from [[Typhus]] then set course for Macragge to sort out Guilliman.
**'''''Serpent Beneath:''''' - Alpharius Omegon plots against himself and destroys a facility built around what looks suspiciously like a Cadian Pylon (and said facility keeping the White Scars out of the war), due to [[Cake|an information leak]], and they can't have that. Except than none of the main players are Alpharius or Omegon. And Alpharius and Omegon can't decide if they're secretly working against each other or not. Also: considered to be one of the better works of the series, not only due to quality, but because of the sheer mindfuckery of the plot, keeping entirely within the rationale of the Alpha Legion without any jumps in logic or canon.

===Books XXI - XXX===
*'''''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 [[/tg/|fa/tg/uy]]s 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 [[Slaanesh]]i 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. Sanguiniuns and Co end up reaching Imperium Secundus.
*'''''Shadows of Treachery:''''' Yet another anthology. Most of the stories are tie-togethers or "in betweens", and some are very short.
**'''''The Crimson Fist''''' - A story about two parallel story lines. The first is set during the [[Battle of Phall]], a space battle between the Iron Warriors' entire fleet, and what was left over after a third of the Imperial Fists' fleet was dispatched to reinforce the loyalists going to Istvaan, got caught in a warpstorm and were run "ashore" leaving them drifting and isolated in the backwater Phall system. The Iron Warriors, having the advantage of knowing what the hell is going on and having the powers of Chaos to guide them through the storm, show up at Phall and wreck shit for some good old fashioned revenge. Despite having the superior numbers, more and bigger guns, suicidal expenditure cohorts, and the power of a raging hateboner, the Iron Warriors were losing to the Imperial Fists's superior maneuverability and [[Alexis Polux|Captain Polux's]] protagonist power. Eventually, the Fists get the order and window to withdraw to Terra, though turning tail would put their fleet at a huge disadvantage. Given the choice between blind obedience to his father or carrying on with the battle they were winning, Polux chooses the former and takes his Fists back to Terra, but ends up in the Imperium Secundus instead. This was also one of the first solid depictions of Perturabo, and clearly the worse of the two as he's shown to be nothing more than an abusive, cold-hearted Saturday morning cartoon villain with rage issues and the depth and complexity of a kiddy pool. The second story line follows [[Sigismund]] as he follows Rogal around the Imperial Palace after deciding to stay home, even though he was ordered to command the same fleet trapped at Phall, but delegated it to Polux's predecessor. The twist is that he met Euphrati Keeler, had a spiritual experience when they spoke, and felt that he would be needed more at Terra instead of as a drifting corpse permanently lost in orbit around some backwater, and so handed off the job of commanding the fleet. When he eventually opened up to Rogal about this, it got him in trouble. See, Rogal was still one of the [[Imperial Truth|stupid atheists]] at this point, so he disowned Sigismund because he thought "serving a higher purpose" was arrogant and got in the way of doing his job. This left Sigismund feeling really sad and pissed off, thus was his start of <s>darkness</s> daddy issues. [[Black Templars|Really pissed off and bad ass daddy issues.]]
**'''''The Dark King''''' - A look into the head and story of Konrad Curze during the events leading up to the Dropsite Massacre. It shows that, even if you buy that Curze was a [[Lawful Evil|murderous paladin of justice and order]] rather than just a [[Chaotic Evil|deranged serial killer]], he's pretty fucked up in the head and lives with the knowledge of his demise haunting him (which isn't that great for what little sanity he has left). It also involves him beating up Rogal Dorn, killing some Imp Fists and Emp's Children terminators <s>with his more advanced suit and built-in vox jammers</s> [[Rip and tear|with his bare fucking hands]], then blowing up Nostramo.
**'''''The Lightning Tower''''' - Basically, 20 pages of Rogal Dorn. The first 10 is him being sad about ruining the Imperial Palace as a grand piece of art by fortifying it into a coldly functional fortress. The next 10 is Rogal having an existential monologue, then a conversation with Malcador all about why he doesn't know why Horus declared war on the Emperor and is afraid to find out why in case it makes sense. Malcador ends up knowing at least a little about Chaos and somehow got his hands on a tarot deck Curze used throughout his life even up to the close of ''The Dark King''. (Don't ask how he got them. Really.) Also that (*Name Drop*) the Lightning Tower is the important card that comes up, signifying [[Siege of Terra|a destruction of fortifications]] and/or [[Imperium of Man|a change of thinking brought about by sacrifice]].
**'''''The Kaban Project''''' - Right before Istvaan, techpriest Pallas Ravachol is working on a top secret "Kaban" robot project on Mars and realizes that the project has achieved sapience, and is in fact a form of full AI. Though he genuinely befriended the Kaban machine, Ravachol complains to boss Magos Chrom that working on an AI is both highly illegal and insanely dangerous. Chrom tells Ravachol not to be such a pussy since Horus himself gave the OK, and after some deliberation has a death squad waiting to escort Ravachol off site the next morning. Ravachol, thinking there were few ways this could end well, makes a break for it and flees for Magos Malevolus's forge, hoping to get somebody with some clout to reveal that his old boss and Horus were up to something bad. On the way, he spends time running away from a latex-clad sadist babe who persistently chases after him; since she's an AdMech equivalent of a Death Cultist assassin, this is a ''much'' better idea than it sounds. When he gets to Malevolus's forge, Malevolus distracts him with a legion of shiny Mk6 suits of Marine Power Armor long enough to drop the bomb to drop that they were for Horus. The latex-clad babe catches up to them both, and the techpriest flees again, only to be puzzled why Malevolus and the assassin are letting him run. As he gets out the door, he meets the Kaban machine, <s>who realizes friendship was most important thing, the Kaban decides to side with the good guys, and the day is saved.</s> Chrom told the Kaban Machine that it and Ravachol simply can't be friends for realsies because of the rules and stuff, and taking up with Horus was a great idea. The Kaban Machine, not understanding how humans work nor '''The Power of Friendship''' didn't know any better than to agree, and kills Ravachol right on the steps of Malevolus's forge. The end. An okay story, somewhat generic feeling prose. More of a who's who of the Dark Mechanicus during ''Mechanicum'' and telling where the hell that Kaban machine from the same book came from, and how they seduced an AI into Chaos worship.
**'''''Raven's Flight''''' - A bridge between Istvaan V and ''Deliverance Lost'', also a companion story to the Raven's Flight audio drama. The story tells how Commander Marcus Valerius of the Imperial Army is stationed on Deliverance and keeps having recurring nightmares which is causing him worry about Corax. Commander Branne of the Raven Guard's garrison on Deliverance, is getting tired of how the Legion's pet human won't stop bitching about it, and decides to take Valerius out on a trip in the battle barge to Istvaan just to show him that everything is just fine. Meanwhile, Corax and a relative handful of surviving Raven Guard are fighting a guerilla war against the traitors, trying to stay one step ahead of the Iron Warriors and then the World Eaters. In between skirmishes Corax spends a few thoughtful moments feeling bad about his Legion and the state of the Imperium now that things have gone to shit.
**'''''Death of a Silversmith''''' - The title says it all. A silversmith attached to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet is tasked with making four rings for the Mournival, after that he makes tokens (for the warrior-lodge, but he doesn't know that) and then gets his windpipe crushed to make sure word doesn't get out about the tokens. The story is seen from the perspective of the silversmith who describes his life up until the point where he's lying on his own floor slowly suffocating to death. Ultimately it is kind of irrelevant, but the lore nerds or people who have been paying attention might find it interesting. At barely 20 pages long, you might as well read it anyway.
**'''''Prince of Crows''''' - A novella featuring the Thramas Crusade as viewed by First Captain [[Sevatar]] of the Night Lords. With the Night Lords's forces all but shattered by the Dark Angels, Curze in a coma and nearly dead, and the Dark Angels's fleet in pursuit, Sevatar has to knock some heads for the Night Lords to get their shit together to reorganize and rethink strategy. It's essentially about showing the fractures in the Night Lords Legion. As most stories written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]], it's pretty good.
*'''''Angel Exterminatus:''''' [[Perturabo]] just finished [[skub|fucking up (or being fucked by)]] some Fists, and [[Fulgrim]] finds him to polish off a plot hook from ''The Reflection Crack'd'' and recruit Pert for an expedition into the Eye of Terror because a renegade Eldar said he knows where to get ''the good shit'' (the eponymous Angel Exterminatus). Fulgrim wanted to make a show out of delivering exposition, and he had Pert use his skills to build a stadium and went storyteller mode; then the moment was killed when a Shattered Legion detachment composed of Iron Hands and a Raven Guard commando sniped Fulgrim (he got better). Of course, Pert took the moment to remind himself that this is why he can't have and [[Rage|won't ever have]] nice things. Thinking that Fulgrim had the scent of a powerful artifact or a superweapon, and seeing that Fulgrim was becoming the Primarch equivalent of a crack addict member of the Jersey Shore and his legion wasn't looking much better, Pert decided to play it safe by tagging along and making sure Fulgrim wouldn't break anything. On the way, a different Eldar scholar came to the Shattered Legion, telling them that Fulgrim and Pert can't be allowed to get to the Angel Exterminatus, or [[Daemon|Bad Things (Warp-registered trademark)]] will happen. Well into the journey into the Eye, the Iron Hands's resident mad scientist accidentally gives away their location, and the Emp's Children and Iron Warriors decide to throw a boarding party. After a few pages of pulse-pounding action, Pert says "fuck this" and leaves as the Iron Hands' same mad scientist overloads the engines and does a [[Battlefleet Gothic|mother of a ramming maneuver]] which kills an Emp's Children ship. (Pert was getting sick of Fulgrim's shit at this point, so he decided not to let them know, leading to the loss of the ship and thousands of casualties for Fulgrim.) When they finally get there, they find a [[Crone World]] covered in ruins and occupied spirit stones being held in orbit around a black hole. Some wraithbone constructs pop up and Pert and Fulgrim have to fight to the heart of the planet to get at the Angel Exterminatus. On the way, Pert kills their renegade Eldar because he was a lyin' bitch. When they ''finally'' get there, surprise! Daemon Primarch Fulgrim is supposed to be the Angel Exterminatus, and he betrays Pert (a bauble Fulgrim gave to Pert at the start of the book was a vitality-leeching thing), and they start the ritual which would sacrifice Pert to turn Fulgrim into a Daemon Prince. Then the Shattered Legion crashes the ceremony and assists the Iron Warriors since it's clear they weren't working with the Emp's Children anymore. Pert kills Fulgrim but it doesn't count since Fulgrim's mortal essence works just as well as sacrifice. He goes full Daemon Prince despite a generous helping of Thunder Hammer to his [[gay|pretty face]], breaks every spirit stone on the planet, and disappears with every last one of his sick fucks. The Eldar scholar helping the Shattered Legion throws a bitch fit, revealing that both scholars were Dark Eldar who had cut a deal with Fulgrim (help him become a daemon and they get assloads of spirit stones to fuck with), and he had made sure that the Shattered Legions were there to put a wedge in that deal because... reasons. The Shattered Legion gets the hell out and the Iron Warriors try to GTFO as the planet starts to fall into the black hole. The book ends with Pert, [[pretend|being a wise man]], ordering them to reverse course and fly right into that fucker. (It works out for them in the end.) Subplots include a lot of buildup for McNeil's Iron Warriors stories, the Shattered Legions' feelings on trying to unfuck an irreversibly fucked situation, and a tense story of two Imperial Fists as they try to survive Fabius's turning them into mutants (which actually had a poor payoff). Despite being overall good, it's a bit of a skub novel because the depiction of Perturabo is so different from expected; rather than being the bitter [[RAGE|Rage]] machine from every other depiction, he's a quiet [[Neckbeard|nerd who plays with toys as a hobby]] but with muscles. The ghosts of Eldar's Aspect Warriors and Wraith-Constructs inside a planet left inside the Eye of Terror, the first death of Lucius at the hands of a Mary Sue despite previous claims that he was undefeated during the Heresy and his unexplained first resurrection, and an Iron Hands legionnaire somehow being immune to sonic weapons by being deaf is canon rape on par with C.S. Goto. And worst of all, a rotating Shadowsword turret.
*'''''Betrayer:''''' Lorgar and Angron rampage over the Ultramarines' 500 worlds. Lots of references to Angron's past and his Butcher's Nails killing him slowly. Turns out one of the Ultramarine worlds was his own homeworld, so he destroys it and Lorgar makes him into a daemon prince. Also remember the ''Furious Abyss''? Lorgar has two more. Also focuses on Khârn and Argel Tal being totally bro-tier until that bitch Erebus decides to intervene and becomes a team-killing asshole. Why Erebus isn't modeled with a long mustache fit for twirling is beyond us. Best known for containing Angron's dressing-down speech toward Guilliman having it easy since birth while Angron had a pretty shit life from day one.
*'''''Mark of Calth:''''' Another set of short stories, though all focused on the [[Ultramarines]] or the [[Word Bearers]].
**'''''Shards of Erebus:''''' - We find that [[Erebus]] broke the '''MURDER SWORD''' into eight daggers/athames and shared them with his bros. Also shows how he returned to Davin to learn how to teleport with the '''MURDER SWORD''', then killing the priestess that helped him turn Horus. She somehow wins because she served Chaos before dying which pisses Erebus off.
**'''''Calth That Was''''' - The story focuses on an Ultramarine Captain and Co. and on a Word Bearers commander and his Dark Apostle. Keeps bringing up what Calth used to be like. Longer-than-the-rest-story short, Word Bearers try to Nurgle everyone, and the Ultramarines save the day in the nick of time. After all, THE GREATEST OF THE-{{BLAM}}
**'''''Dark Heart''''' - A young Word Bearer is interrogated by Kor Phaeron after he ended up killing his mentor with dark powers (turned him insta inside out). A kind of nice story that shows the <s>degradation</s> enlightenment of the Legion.
**'''''The Traveller''''' - A spacedock traffic controller survives the destruction of his star fort, and the fatal crash of his escape shuttle before ending up in a small underground arcology with other human survivors. Imperial cultists believe he is blessed, and when he starts hearing whispers and seeing unbelievers they start rounding everybody up for execution. Everybody gets slowly executed till he's the last one left. He learns he's been possessed and reveals to an Ultramarine that he was was infected by the vox from the ''Campanile''.
**'''''A Deeper Darkness''''' - An Ultramarine has a hard-on for a certain Word Bearer trolling him. Hunts down said Word Bearer into a cave system with a team of soldiers and Spess Merheens. Word Bearer trolls them by summoning a Gorgon. Ultramarine wins by tricking the Gorgon into looking at its reflection.
**'''''The Underworld War''''' - A story that has little to do with the actual Underworld War. It features a Gal Vorbak who sees the attack on Calth as a clusterfuck of fail. Has a plot-twist ending... turns out Daemons give visions of the future to potential Gal Vorbak, and said Gal Vorbak was given a vision of him not abandoning his fallen brothers on Calth. The Daemon doesn't have time for that shit so it lets him die during his transformation, much to the distress of the still fairly bro tier [[Argel Tal]] who is soothed by the honeyed words of [[Lorgar|did nothing wrong]].
**'''''Athame''''' - A narrated story of the history of a knife, though not one from the '''MURDER SWORD'''. That's about it... totally... right? Wrong. The small sacrificial knife that Ollanius found was carved on Terra for a benign ritual, stolen by an evil Perpetual who was killed by ''the Emperor'' in medieval times, found in an archeological dig by Kasper Hawser, and went on other crazy murder-adventures, all while having rudimentary sentience.
**'''''Unmarked''''' - Ollanius Pius and friends are traveling through time and space using the athame from the previous story. We learn a lot more about Oll's past, going into detail about his offhand mentions that he was one of the Argonauts and that he served in the First World War and the First Gulf War. It's based as all fuck and written by [[Dan Abnett]], so don't miss it. Also features Ol' Oll's much, much earlier encounters with the [[Emperor|big daddy E]] in flashbacks and kinda proves O.P. Diddy right in his contention against Him that faith has power it not directed [[Lorgar|in the wrong]] [[Chaos|places]] and has in fact protected Terra for fuckawatts worth of millenia, and if He hadn't have been such an aspergated edgelord about atheism, more daemons might have been conquered due to the power of 19th century English hymnody with some of the words altered to refer apparently to the very same edgy atheist. Also features a traumatized but insightful qt3.14 psyker witch.
*'''''Vulkan Lives:''''' What happened to Vulkan after the Dropsite Massacre? He got made Konrad Curze's torture bitch. Plenty of fun with dining implements and an awesome ending involving a hammer to the face. Not one of the best HH Books though is a somewhat necessary read for continuing the plot arc. Remember the Shattered Legions crew from ''Angel Exterminatus''? Now you get a new group that is far more bland and less distinct. The major problem with the story is that, while it is fun reading Curze taunting Vulkan, not much happens in it and it barely affects the stakes or the overall plot to a great degree, except we now know that Vulkan is a perpetual.
*'''''The Unremembered Empire:''''' [[Perpetual|Matt Damon]] killed Martin Luther King. This happens in the book. Also, unlike the cover and synopsis would imply, it's ''not'' about Sanguinius and Guilliman working together to build a back-up Imperium around Ultramar, which leads to the question of ''why that's on the cover?'' No one knows what it is really about, especially the book's description of itself (which describes its ''sequels''). Several things happen in the book and several unrelated subplots collide as several entities are drawn by the Pharos device to Macragge. There are implications that Guilliman's new backup Imperium is starving resources from Terra.
*'''''Scars:''''' Technically the third book of the Prospero arc. The Khan returns to the Imperium after killing Orks left over from Ullanor and can't decide what side to join. Turns his back on Leman Russ during a fight with the Alpha Legion and goes looking for his best friend Magnus, also gets into a fight with Mortarion on the way, also [[The Fallen|half his legion turns traitor]] but turns out it's no big deal.
** '''''Brotherhood of the Storm:''''' Prequel to Scars, shows the White Scars fighting Orks on Chondax.
*'''''Vengeful Spirit''''' Horus goes looking for power to make him equal to the Emperor and the Chaos Gods give it to him by sending him to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z (kinda). We learn that the Emperor gained his powers after making a pact with the Chaos Gods where they gave him a fraction of their power, then somehow managed to double-cross them in what is quite possibly the most retarded retcon ever introduced in the entire book series. (In all seriousness though, the Chaos Gods have been claiming this throughout the series. It could be the truth or one of their beautifully crafted lies.) Loken comes back. There's also the Knights of <s>Lannister</s> Molech, who fall to Slaanesh through copious amounts of Twincest. Also, if you have been ignoring the audio books, you will be a bit lost at the start of this one.
*'''''The Damnation of Pythos''''' A Lovecraftian Horror story disguised as a Horus Heresy story. Has the most grimdark ending of the series thus far, up there with Dead Men Walking. Adds just about as much to the overall series as ''Furious Abyss'' did, but is actually pretty well written (unlike "Furious Abyss"). To cut a long story short, daemons take over a world in the Pandorax system, capture a starship, and use it to start ferrying cultists from place to place. The book also has some crossover with 40k and the Pandorax Campaign.

===Books XXXI - XL===
*'''''Legacies of Betrayal''''' Another anthology, though this time it's a bit of a cheat; they just consolidated several pre-existing stories and some of the the novellas but also included print versions of audio books.
**'''Brotherhood of the Storm''' - see above
**'''Serpent''' - A really short and out-of-place story about a Davinite Priest.
**'''Hunters Moon''' - Originally an audiobook involving peasant fishermen rescuing a crashed Space Wolf who is running from the Alpha Legion after killing Alpharius. It obviously doesn't end well.
**'''Veritas Ferrum''' - A prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", about an Iron Hands starship escaping (against their better nature) from Isstvan with some survivors.
**'''Riven''' - An Iron Hand from the Crusader Host is sent by Sigismund to look for some of his brothers, scattered after Istvaan V. He finds one suspicious-looking group and discovers that they use forbidden technologies to fight traitors even after death.
**'''Strike and Fade''' - More survivors of Isstvan, though this is about Salamanders just killing time (and Night Lords) whilst they wait to be rescued.
**'''Honour to the Dead''' - An Ultramarine squad fights its way through Calth with a innocent woman and child trying their hardest to follow them to safety, while loyalist and traitor Titans punch each other's faces in the background.
**'''Butcher's Nails''' - A good one to read: Angron & Lorgar go on the Shadow Crusade and come to an understanding whilst fighting Eldar. It is also a prequel to "Betrayer".
**'''Warmaster''' - Horus considers how much of a badass he is while chatting with Ferrus Manus's skull and complains about how all the primarchs that sided with him are [[Perturabo|dickheaded]] [[Mortarion|edgelords]] or [[Konrad Curze|batshit]] [[Angron|lunatics]], while the cool guys like Sanguinius and Guilliman are still loyal to the Emprah.
**'''Kryptos''' - Somewhere in the Galactic East (either Thramas Crusade or Imperium Secundus), Nykona Sharrowkyn and company go kidnap a warp code interpreter that will let them intercept garbled enemy communications. Prequel to "Angel Exterminatus".
**'''Wolf's Claw''' - Bjorn the Fell-Handed needs a replacement arm but the Iron Priests are too busy; he happens to find a nice fancy relic one just lying around.
**'''The Divine Word''' - Marcus Valerius (army commander from Raven Guard story arc) receives some prophetic dreams and subsequently prevents an Alpha Legion diversion. It serves as his final push to join the Imperial Cult.
**'''Thief of Revelations''' - After Prospero, the Thousand Sons need something to stop all their rampant mutation, so Ahriman goes to ask why Magnus has locked himself away. He's got bigger things to worry about and is looking across time and space for key events for future [[Just as Planned]] manipulations.
**'''Lucius the Eternal Warrior''' - After his first death ''(and unexplained resurrection)'' at the hands of Nykona Sharrowkyn, Lucius has somehow abandoned the Heresy and goes to the Planet of Sorcerers to fight a duel with the bestest Thousand Son swordsman (cause he cheats and reads your mind to see what you do next) and ends up meeting Ahriman. [[wat|Uh-huh...]]
**'''The Eightfold Path''' - Kharn and the World Eaters realise that too much rip and tear is leading them [[Khorne|down a damning path]], but they're already too far gone.
**'''Guardian of Order''' - [[Cypher]] and [[Zahariel]] discover that the Ouroboros (banished in Fallen Angels) is coming back.
**'''Heart of the Conqueror''' - Angron's Navigator gets a bit uppity about being made to turn traitor, despite having been picked for the job as the angry man's chauffeur by the Emperor himself. Blams herself during mid-warp transit with not-fun results for flagship.
**'''Censure''' - Aeonid Thiel is killing time and Word Bearers in the Underworld War on Calth, writing notes about it on his armour. Said notes will eventually get written into Guilliman's draft of the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]] on the subject of killing Word Bearers (because it's that damn important to kill Word Bearers). Goes on a buddy cop adventure with an army trooper. Thiel eventually gets bored and goes back to Macragge in the end.
**'''Lone Wolf''' - Bjorn has lost all of his squad, but is now such an awesome badass that he can solo Bloodthirsters.
*'''''Deathfire''''' - "vUlKaN lIvEs" What the Salamanders have been saying since Isstvan is true: Vulkan lives! Well now he does. Basically a bunch of Salamanders take his body from Macragge to Nocturne (with some side help from didn't-ask-for-this Magnus) and throw him into Nocturne's largest volcano, and lo and behold he comes back to life, making that entire plotline pointless. Still has the fucking Fulgurite in his chest, though. TL;DR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7nzml-zZ9M
*'''''War Without End''''': Anthologies Without End.
**'''The Devine Adoratrice''' - Prequel to "Vengeful Spirit" shows that House Devine was rotten to the core long before the coming of Fulgrim.
**'''Howl of the Hearthworld''' - Space Wolves get sent to Terra to watch over Rogal Dorn so he doesn't start using psykers; it's a pointless task and everyone involved knows it. Also offers insight into the Wolves' naming conventions.
**'''Lord of the Red Sands''' - During Istvaan III, Angron indulges himself in some philosophizing about the nature of his rebellion and what is good cause while butchering his own sons. I swear, I'm telling the truth.
**'''Artefacts''' - On his way to Istvaan V, Vulkan decides that all of his artefacts should be destroyed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. His forgemaster intervenes and persuades him to keep at least some so Vulkan grants him the right to choose seven items to preserve and give him the title of Forge Father, keeper of these artefacts.
**'''Hands of the Emperor''' - Depicts one typical day of the Adeptus Custodes through eyes of their newly appointed Master of the Watch, including colossal orbital plates invading Imperial Palace and Custodes and the Imperial Fists being stubborn assholes even when facing battle with each other at the heart of the Imperium, never-ceasing Blood Games and bureaucratic and diplomatic hell wrapping all that entanglement.
**'''The Phoenician''' - A dying Morlock witnesses the final duel between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim.
**'''Sermon of Exodus''' - Another prequel to "Damnation of Pythos", explains the appearance of the huge cultists' fleet from Davin in orbit of Pythos. Provides rare insight on the life on Davin and origins of Chaos cults there. Also features really bizarre description of the first Davinite priest, who spent the last several thousand years in the warp.
**'''By the Lion's Command''' - Prologue to "Angels of Caliban". Corswain is tasked by the Lion to hunt Death Guard ships, but is experiencing a severe lack of manpower. After an uneven engagement with Typhon that nearly costs him his life and fleet, he decides to send Chapter Master Belath to Caliban for recruits.
**'''The Harrowing''' - Some random Alpha Legionnaires take over some random Mechanicus ship. Turns out that they are so god-mode that everyone important is their operative, so they meet no resistance at all. The end.
**'''All That Remains''' - A transport ship full of war orphans and Imperial Army soldiers with severe PTSD is lost in space during warp transit. Fear not though, because in fact they are being stolen by one of Malcador's agents for transfer to Titan and induction into the Grey Knights.
**'''Gunsight''' - The Vindicare Assassin from Nemesis is still alive and on Horus' flagship; it's about him spending years waiting for the opportune moment to get a shot, but he starts going mad while he waits. He finally gives up when Horus plucks his killshot from the air and Horus gives him a chaos rifle for his change in loyalty.
**'''Allegiance''' - Revuel Arvida spends some time on the White Scars flagship trying to understand what to do after losing all his Legion. He reflects on his time on Prospero, attends the Khan's trial for the pro-Horus plotters from "Scars", and tries to escape, but in the end he chooses to spend some more time with the Scars.
**'''Daemonology''' - After his duel with Jaghatai, Mortarion tries to interrogate a daemon, which goes as well as you'd expect. Also shows that Malcador and the Emperor planned Nikaea for almost seventy years before it took place.
**'''Black Oculus''' - A Navigator that serves the IV Legion loses his mind after Perturabo drives his ships into the black hole in the center of the Eye of Terror.
**'''Virtues of the Sons''' - Sanguinius forsees that he will not always be in charge of the Blood Angels, but worries about the Red Thirst causing havoc with his sons' futures, so gets Amit to duel Kharn and Azkaellon to duel Lucius in hopes they'll learn something. Azkaellon learns to let the rage out a bit and Amit learns a modicum of restraint.
**'''The Laurel of Defiance''' - Lucretius Corvo (later founder of the Novamarines) and his squad kill a Traitor Titan using only their wits and one meltagun.
**'''A Safe and Shadowed Place''' - [[Night Lords]] start stabbing each other in the back as soon as Curze goes missing while solo'ing Macragge. It's about a ship floating in the ruinstorm that has just discovered the [[Imperium Secundus|Pharos]] and foreshadows problems for Ultramar.
**'''Imperfect''' - Daemon-Fulgrim has been getting Fabius to clone Ferrus Manus, because the split personality thing makes him feel guilty about failing to turn his brother to Horus's side, but the clones are never quite right and go mental at each suggestion. Fabius also has his own stuff going on.
**'''Chirurgeon''' - Fabius is dying from the genetic flaw that's been killing Emperor's Children since before they found Fulgrim - or not, since he found a way to distill other Marines into drug that keeps the illness at bay.
**'''Twisted''' - Maloghurst solves some routine troubles on the ''Vengeful Spirit'' like persistent petitioners, lack of water, rogue daemons and the Davinite cult plotting to control Horus.
**'''Wolf Mother''' - Right after events of ''Vengeful Spirit'' Alivia Sureka goes searching for her daughter, who was stolen by a Slaaneshi cult that escaped from Molech, with a little help from Severian The Wolf. No, really, she is so badass that Severian doesn't even look like someone superior.
*'''''Pharos''''': Night Lords fucking up the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha. Sanguinius eventually grows some balls and starts standing up to Guilliman instead of just being a pantomime Emperor, while the Lion is nowhere to be seen as usual. Warsmith Dantioch bites it while using the Pharos to burn the Night Lords out of his fortress, but inadvertently piques the interest of the [[Tyranids]], causing them to show up 10,000 years later. Skraivok become a prime example of DAEMON SWORDS: NOT EVEN ONCE.
*'''''Eye of Terra''''': Another anthology.
**'''The Wolf of Ash and Fire''' - takes place before Ullanor. Emperor and Horus destroy one really powerful WAAAGH!!!, lead by an exceptionally huge Big Mek. Story consists almost completely of foreshadowing.
**'''Aurelian''' - see "First Heretic"
**'''Massacre''' - A young Night Lords apothecary named [[Talos_(Warhammer_40,000)|Talos]] takes part in the Istvaan V Massacre.
**'''Brotherhood of the Moon''' - After the failed coup from ''Scars'', Torghun Khan is being interrogated and explains why he chose Team Horus.
**'''Inheritor''' - [[Eliphas_The_Inheritor|Eliphas]] The Inheritor (yes, that one from the DoW series) sacrifices the population of a city on a planet Kronos (yes, again from DoW) and a company of Ultramarines to have a nice little chat with Lorgar.
**'''Vorax''' - An unlucky Dark Mechanicum priest falls to a loyalist ambush and subsequently being killed by Vorax-class battle servitor. Really short and forgettable story.
**'''Ironfire''' - Turns out that Idriss Krendl (that arrogant warsmith who had a stronghold dropped on his head by Dantioch) is alive! Really tough bastard, though several months under debris has affected his sanity a little. He now spends his time testing new siege tactics on the Emperor's Children world in preparation for the siege of the Imperial Palace.
**'''Red-Marked''' - Aeonid Thiel starts his band of cliche badass marines and learns about the mysterious Nightfane that threatens Macragge itself.
**'''Master of the First''' - Astelan takes part in a coup to remove Luther from command, but only to prevent it.
**'''Stratagem''' - Guilliman explains to Aeonid Thiel how important it is not to follow military books to the letter and concludes that he'll just have to write a book about it (guess [[Codex_Astartes|what book]] it is).
**'''The Long Night''' - Jago Sevatarion is chilling in Dark Angels captivity, slowly losing his mind due to his suppressed psyker powers, when some girl from the ship's astropath corps starts to talk to him from boredom. When her superiors find out, they flog her nearly to death because it was obviously forbidden. Sevatar doesn't take it lightly, flees captivity and kills the main astropath and calls it JUSTICE, because a man who skins young girls by the dozens on a daily basis simply to strike fear in a populace is definitely all about justice.
**'''Sins of the Father''' - During his emo-phase Sanguinius contemplates how his legion will fall after his death. He then decides that switching roles between Azkaellon and Amit during ritual combat will probably solve all problems.
**'''The Eagle's Talon''' - While the Battle of Tallarn rages, some Imperial Fists '''covert operatives''' try to take over a huge macro-transporter. They fail and are forced to crash the transporter onto raging battlefield below, blasting everything within 300km and causing nuclear fallout.
**'''Iron Corpses''' - One really tough and stubborn Iron Warriors Warsmith refuses to die despite the nuclear fallout from the previous story, waits for the storm to subside, finds and reanimates Warlord Titan and returns to action.
**'''The Final Compliance of Sixty-Three Fourteen''' - The Imperial governor of some backwater world recollects memories of his long service to the Imperium, while preparing himself to spit in the face of Horus's representatives when they come to demand his surrender.
**'''Herald of Sanguinius''' - Azkaellon invents the Sanguinor to free his gene-father from the burden of being the figurehead of Imperium Secundus.
*'''''The Path Of Heaven''''': Sequel to Scars. The White Scars have been fighting the traitor legions for a few years but are starting to show the strain. They finally decide to head back to Terra, but things don't go as planned. Notable for digging into the Webway storyline and the Navis Nobilite as well as featuring a resurrected and suddenly competent Eidolon. Navigators weren't going to sit around while E-money built their replacement, White Scars use a prototype webway portal to escape their last stand, and Mortarion starts using sorcery to locate Typhon.
*'''The Silent War:''' Guess What?! It's ''another'' anthology of stories that GW have already sold individually as audio-books. So value might be had for those who hadn't listened to them.
**'''The Purge''' - The story consists of two story lines. In the first of them, Sor Talgron purges one of the worlds in Ultramar during the Shadow Crusade, but gets tricked and takes a bombful of life-eater virus to the face (he survives nontheless, though). In second, he undertakes some covert actions on Terra before Istvaan V and leaves a nasty surprise for Dorn in the catacombs beneath the Imperial Palace.
**'''The Sigillite''' - see below, in section "Audio Books"
**'''Wolf Hunt''' - [[Awesome|Samurai witch hunter]] Yasu Nagasena hunts Severian the Wolf right after the events of Outcast Dead.
**'''Army of One''' - An Eversor assassin is sent out for the routine "kill everyone" mission, but finds out that his main target is not only a stereotypical Stupid Fat Decadent Planetary Governor who turned traitor, but also a jerk from his past. So he kills him.
**'''The Gates of Terra''' - Dorn and Malcador have an idea that it will be good for the defences of Terra if they use some psykers to run some chosen veterans through endless hypno-simulations of ill-fated space battles with the Vengeful Spirit within the boundaries of Sol.
**'''Ghosts Speak Not''' - Amendera Kendel, who had a crisis over her moral values after the events of The Voice and left the Silent Sisterhood, returns to Luna to recruit some of Garro's Death Guard into the Knights Errant. They then are dispatched to a mission to uncover a traitor's plot at Proxima Centauri.
**'''Templar''' - Sigismund purges an asteroid temple of Word Bearers, this being the same temple that was mentioned in The Purge (those cross-references are awesome).
**'''Distant Echoes of Old Night''' - Some Death Guard are drowning Imperial Fists' defences with bodies on some shithole moon in the middle of nowhere, but it seems they are running out of time. They launch a final assault but fail to coordinate the phosphex bombardment with the assault and actually destroy themselves with little help from a primitive trap built by the Fists. Facepalm on the house to everyone.
**'''Grey Angel''' - Loken, fresh from Istvaan III and accompanied by Iacton Qruze, is sent to Caliban to check Luther's loyalty to Terra. The mission actually fails as Loken gets caught and is interrogated by Luther himself, but Loken is rescued by the Watcher in the Dark and Lord Cypher and subsequently flees the planet.
**'''Lost Sons''' - Tylos Rubio goes to Baal to disband the Blood Angels Legion and recruit their last battle company into Malcador's Knights Errant after Sanguinius and the rest of the legion go missing after Signus. The Angels understandably don't like this news and Rubio nearly gets killed, but is saved by a message from Raldoron announcing that Sanguinius and the IX Legion are alive.
**'''Child of Night''' - it turns out that one of the Night Lord Librarians had fled his Legion and went into hiding on Terra. One of the Knight Errant finds him and recruits him for the Grey Knights.
**'''Luna Mendax''' - After his fail on Caliban, Garviel Loken shuts himself away in a forgotten garden on Luna and spends his time growing flowers and feeling sorry for himself. This is so pathetic that the spirit of the long-dead and eaten by daemons Tarik Torgaddon escapes the warp to return Loken to his senses.
**'''Patience''' - Helig Gallor from Ghosts Speak Not, now acting on his own, is searching for Garro who is too busy killing giant daemons to report to Malcador's office on time.
**'''The Watcher''' - Ison from the Knights Errant finds and saves a horrifyingly mutilated and nearly dead survivor from the Space Wolves squad that was sent to watch over Konrad Curze.
*'''''Angels of Caliban:''''' Two Dark Angels stories in one book again, though this one actually moves the plot forward. In Ultramar, the Lion captures Konrad Curze but only after discreetly nuking a whole region despite Guilliman's ban on orbital weapon use, which results in his disgrace and we find that it is Guilliman who breaks the Lion Sword. Curze reveals that there were Chaos cults on Macragge too and that Guilliman would be a traitor if he had landed a little to the left. On Caliban, the Fallen openly declare their rebellion from the Imperium and ironically steal some starships that were meant to collect them and actually bring them into the war again. [[Zahariel]] kills [[Cypher]] and takes his place.
*'''''Praetorian of Dorn''''' Alpharius tries to invade <s>Terra</s> Pluto. Dorn kills him. Yes, Alpharius is now dead. And not a fake either, but the real Alpharius. Omegon can confirm. Alpha Legions fags blew a gasket. Oh shit believe we did.
*'''''Corax''''' A compilation of all the Corax Stories plus a new one, '''Weregeld''', which manages to undo all the hard work the previous stories have done and turn Corax into a douchebag. Kills all his mutated Raven Guard because he promised to kill warp stuff. Saves Russ though.

===Books XLI - L===
*'''''The Master of Mankind''''': The Emperor is a dick: the book. We all knew this but now it's set in stone. Highlights include the Emperor stating to Arkhan Land that the Primarchs are tools and he views them with a scientific but detached fascination. He refers to them as numbers but seems content to allow the fantasy of being their "father", an interpretation of the character that was fairly divisive to say the least. He actually seems to care more for his Custodians than he does any of his other creations, but they don't consider him their father and see him as just their warlord. Drach'nyen is also revealed to be the daemon created when Cain killed Abel. In the end the Emperor closes the door on the Webway and has to spend the rest of his time sitting in the chair keeping it shut. Despite this, it does show off why the Chaos Gods fear him, as he pretty much rapes an infinite army of Daemons; the greater daemons either flee or try and fail to fight him (being destroyed in a matter of moments) whilst the lesser ones die just by looking at him. Despite this, Drach'nyen nearly kills him, and claims that it will kill the Emperor (keep in mind that the future is malleable and Daemons lie). But how will it feast on the Emperor's tattered soul when Abaddon lacks arms to plunge it into his chest? (Abaddon never lost his arms due to the same retcon that let Eldrad live) Also known as Master of Skubkind. The Emperor reveals his grand plan of saving the human race from the Eldar fate by giving absolute control of every human to a Custodian before shanking him with Drach'nyen and making him run into the Webway. Also put all his chips into the ''Human Webway'' plan and screwed us all over without a backup. Can you tell that this is an ADB book? It also features one of the most depressing endings of the whole Heresy series as in the last scene of the book the Emperor somberly acknowledges to one of his Custodian that he has run out of cards to play and can't think of a way out of the whole situation, grimdark indeed.
*'''''Garro''''': Compilation of all the stories about Garro and his boy band, though they insist it isn't just an anthology since the audio book stories were expanded to be more written novel friendly.
*'''''Shattered Legions''''': It's an anthology containing an anthology. I shit thee not. It shoves together the limited edition anthology Meduson with a few other shorter stories, including some Alpha Legion stuff like the Seventh Serpent.
*'''''The Crimson King''''': Magnus was broken into shards when Russ felled him. Now the Thousand Sons with the help of Lucius the Eternal must put him back together. Kairos Fateweaver makes an appearance. Ties into the Ahriman Trilogy
*'''''Tallarn''''': Does it even need to be stated? It's another fucking anthology, this time putting all the tank porn of the Tallarn books into one binding. It is worth a read if you are a fan of Imperial Guard (Army), as most of the storylines are about around mortal tank crews doing what they do best (dying).
*'''''Ruinstorm:''''' The conclusion to the Imperium Secundus plotline, as well as the follow on to Damnation of Pythos. Shows the Lion, Sanguinius and Guilliman trying to cross the Ruinstorm to reach Terra. After a brief stopover at Pandorax, they decide to head out to Davin where the Heresy began and where destinies are remade; they pass systems along the way that show what the Galaxy would look like if Chaos wins, such as a Forge World surrounded by an immense fortress wall in outer space 4000 miles thick and a sector of space filled with solid ritualised geometric shapes that are perhaps light years across. Davin itself is surrounded by a cloud of bones and wreckage millions of kilometers thick, but the planet has long since been abandoned. There Sanguinius finds out that in order to live through the Heresy he must become a monster even worse than Horus, but dying will curse his sons with the Black Rage; blood is on his hands either way. Instead, Sanguinius tries to sacrifice himself to save the day, but the [[Sanguinor]] steps in and takes his place while the fleets rain down a shitstorm and destroy the planet. In the aftermath, the Ruinstorm abates enough for them to reach Terra, but Horus has so much force that it is impossible for all three legions to reach, so Guilliman and the Lion agree to distract the Traitors long enough to give Sanguinius a window to get back and face his destiny, explaining why they never made it to the Siege since they were engaging Traitor fleets and burning their worlds.
*'''''Old Earth:''''' Set immediately after ''Deathfire'', Vulkan and three Salamander legionaries (the rest of the Salamanders weren't informed of their Primarch's resurrection) travel through the Webway by a gate hidden in a cave on Nocturne. On their path to Terra, they came across the Shattered Legions who were preparing for their first major void engagement with the Sons of Horus. Just before the attack, some Medusan-born Iron Hands tried to stage a coup against Shadrak Meduson by revealing a hideous contraption of machines and the last remnants of Ferrus Manus - ''his iron hand'' (they were under the illusion that they could resurrect their Primarch through cybernetics; it is hinted that the Mechanicum had some <s>hand</s>{{BLAM}}{{blam|that pun was so bad heresy is automatic}} in this affair). Thankfully Vulkan shatters the hand and Meduson assumes command again, though he was killed by '''Tybalt Marr''' in a boarding action after the Iron Hands refused to send reinforcements to him. In the end, it is revealed that the Emperor had Vulkan forge a weapon that, in the event Terra fell to Horus, would amplify the power of the Golden Throne into a fatal FUCK YOU nuke into the heart of the Chaos God's domains, sadly also wiping out the entire Throneworld (this is possibly also one of Vulkan's nine relics). Oh, and Eldrad rescues [[Knights-Errant|Barthusa Narek]] from Nocturne and makes him his assassin. They killed most of the Cabal, including a vaguely amphibian alien sitting on top of a jungle pyramid. Yes, Eldrad Ulthran might just be the only person alive to have killed an Old One. Finally they rescue John Grammaticus, who had his memory wiped after his failure to assassinate Vulkan. With his memory restored, Grammaticus is ordered by Eldrad to find Ollanius Pius and go to Terra.
*'''''The Burden of Loyalty:''''' In the grim darkness of the 3rd millenium, there are only anthologies.
**'''The Thirteenth Wolf:''' Old Guard Space Wolves get lost in a a series of Warp Portals during the battle of Prospero.
**'''Into Exile:''' Arkhan-the-Humble-Land basically has to have a Boltgun Shoved in his face to leave during the initial Mars Revolt.
**'''Cybernetica:''' Story full of [[awesome]] about how Carrion the Raven Guard Tech-aspirant awaiting graduation watches his fellows get slaughtered before hulking out Sith-Style. Meanwhile an Iron Warrior proves how badass they are when not under the thumb of their whiny emo excuse of a primarch by literally throwing Carrion off a tower so he's the sole target of an incoming Warlord Titan. Carrion then joins the Knights-Errants and actually makes Dorn backpedal and heads back to Mars to aid the Resistance in taking it back through use of Heretek.
*'''''Wolfsbane:''''' Leman Russ faces off against Horus, with the help of the Spear of Russ mentioned in the FUCKOLD Space Wolves novels. They're evenly matched but Russ seems to get the better of Horus when the Spear partially de-corrupts the Warmaster. Unfortunately for him, Russ tries to bring his brother back to his senses rather than strike a killing blow and is dragged away barely conscious by his men after Horus retaliates, setting the stage for the Battle of Yarant. Also a glimpse of [[Belisarius Cawl]] from back in his earlier, fleshier years.
*'''''Born of Flame:''''' ANTHOLOGIES!

===Books LI-LIV===
*'''''Slaves to Darkness''''' The traitor primarchs gather for the assault on Terra but things aren't going well. Guilliman and the Lion are giving them a helluva hard time and Horus himself is still quite literally drained from his duel with Russ. Basically how the gang gets back together for the push on Terra. The Sons of Horus start fracturing badly and Maloghurst takes it upon himself to cure Horus. In so doing, he forces a daemon to act as his guide through the Warp and finds out from this surprisingly forthcoming daemon (presumably from the Chaos God of Exposition) that even though Horus was superpowered from his Molech makeover, he'd left a part of his soul behind in the Chaos God's realms, which had come to the realization that Chaos had been using him from the beginning. The daemon also suggests that Horus was never meant to win in the first place and that for all his new power he is no match against The Emperor, but Maloghurst very loudly refuses to believe it. Maloghurst meets his end as he resurrects Horus due to infighting within the Sons of Horus, erasing the last uncorrupted part of Horus's soul in the process. Mortarion is named the vanguard of the Siege, Perturabo is sent to pick up Angron, and Lorgar gets Zardu Layak to speak Fulgrim's true name and bind him into joining in a plot to depose the Warmaster, believing that his refusal to completely submit before the Chaos Gods will lead to the Traitor Legions' ultimate defeat at Terra. This turns out to be a massive mistake that leads Lorgar to be utterly curbstomped by the revived Horus and told that he will be killed if Horus ever sees him again. Witnessing this, Zardu Layak and the Word Bearers present all swear allegiance to the Warmaster before Lorgar leaves with his tail between his legs. Layak frees Fulgrim who finds it all hilarious. Magnus makes an appearance at the end, swearing himself to Horus's service. "Alpharius" makes a token appearance to hand over Terra's defence data before disappearing without a trace and no mention of his legion at all, although Alpharius does basically mime they are done fighting for the Warmaster's ends.
*'''''Heralds of the Siege''''' You know the drill by now. Anthology. But the end is in sight.
**'''Myriad:''' Loyalist Mechanicum forces hiding underground in Mars launch guerilla attacks on targets of opportunity from below. During one raid which blows the head off of a Warlord Titan, they retrieve a Castellan automata with the Abominable Intelligence from ''Cybernetica'' and a tech menial. Putting them into quarantine the Abominable Intelligence wakes up from probing and cleanses the menial of all scrap code & corruption to display it means no ill will to the loyalists. The Tech Inquisitor leader decides it's time to go Tech Radical "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Abominable Intelligence supplies them with a complete battleplan and strategy (4.7k item checklist) for wiping out all the Dark Mechanicum on Mars and starts off with seizing & cleansing a Warlord Titan searching for their headquarters.
**'''The Grey Raven:''' A ship sent back to Terra by Corax arrives in the solar system, with the Librarian Raven Guard who opened the Emp's gene-banks for Corax, seven Custodians, and an Imperial Fists force. Presenting to a border post for inspection, the Custodian commander, upon discovering the identity of the Raven Guard, states a code word to the Custodians on ship and they all try to pull the Librarian's head off. The Fist Captain saves him and his men try to hold off the Custodians while he and the Librarian try to get off the ship. The Custodian captain corners them and slays the Fist captain. The Librarian gets angry and is about to use his psychic powers on the Custodian when he remembers his vow to Corax and surrenders to execution. Revealed to be an elaborate test by Malcador, who subsequently recruits him into the Grey Knights after apologizing for the death of the Fist captain.
**'''Valerius:''' Marcus Valerius of the Therion cohort (unaugmented troops fighting with Raven Guard) is now a big believer in the Lectitio Divinatus. He sets his forces to defend cross over points on a river where a bigger enemy force is attempting to cross. Corax had sent the Therion cohort (23k soldiers) and Valerian to die fighting against traitor marines & titans for a planet near Beta-Garmon with no escorts for their transport ships. Gives a speech about how proud all his soldiers should be for facing a suicidal mission to die for the emperor. Therions manage to take out all titans before being overrun. As the remaining marines breach his command leviathan, Valerius gives the order to detonate their reactor and leads a prayer with the remaining command crew. Another regiment of the imperial army happens across the aftermath and think that the Therions were wiped out and some other regiment managed to hold the line against the traitors. Leviathan's death took out everybody on the battlefield. Valerius stumbles out of the wreckage of the Leviathan, and proclaims his survival a miracle.
**'''The Ember Wolves:''' A Warhound titan pack attached to the World Eaters takes down a Warmonger titan on some planet. World Eater influence leads to a leadership challenge shortly after tipping over the Warmonger. Despite the pack leader putting down the leadership challenge, the downed loyalist Warmonger blows up its reactor and takes out all named characters.
**'''Blackshield:''' Khorak, a renegade member of Mortarion's [[Deathshroud]], is on the run from loyalist hunters. He and his squad escape down to the surface of a swamp planet where they are slaughtered till only he remains. He recognizes the leader of the loyalists as another Death Guard member who reveals himself to be Crysos Morturg, a survivor of Isstvan III. Khorak explains that he turned against Mortarion after Molech, when his entire squad was sacrificed by Mort for witchcraft. They both express their hatred of Mortarion, and Khorak briefly considers teaming up with Morturg but then one of his buddies proves to be not quite dead and tries to shoot Morturg, who deflects the shell with his psychic abilities. Khorak immediately tries to kill him and is gunned down. Morturg is revealed to be a mangled mess who survived Isstvan thanks solely to his psychic power and an extensive cybernetic rebuild by Calleb Decima, another Istvaan III survivor (who by the end of the battle was so mangled he resembled a spider more than a person). After Crysos ruminates on the pointlessness of Khorak's death, he decides it's time to go see the Emperor.
**'''Children of Sicarus:''' Kor Phaeron and the remainder of his party are on the run in Sicarus, a daemon planet, being constantly harassed by daemons that are whittling them down. They gain the attention of a warlord acoloyte of Tzeentch and at the same time a prophet appears to them and offers them sanctuary. The prophet leads them into a camouflaged valley where he reveals to them glyphs and Lorgar's athame that show how Kor Phaeron would arrive, slit his own throat to open a portal, and the remaining legionaries would lead the prophet's people through to join Lorgar at the Siege of Terra. Kor Phaeron kills the prophet, announcing that his fate is his own. The camouflage breaks down with the prophet's death and the warlord meets him. She offers him lordship of the planet after she ascends to daemonhood, and he accepts letting her have the prophet's people. As she is about to ascend on the spot, he sneaks up behind her and slits her throat with the athame. Shortly after Sicarus is now a worship planet with slaves laboring to create monuments of worship. Kor Phaeron states that it is now a refuge for the Word Bearers in the neverending war ahead of them.
**'''Exocytosis:''' Typhon is refitting his fleet at Zaramund by the grace of Luther. The Death Guard forces have set up an isolated camp away from any of the Fallen or natives of Zaramund. Luther decides to send a Fallen to spy on the Death Guard to see what's up with their shyness. Typhon is trying to get used to the gifts of the Grandfather when a group of civilians approach the camp. They reveal themselves to have been expecting his arrival, and all of them are revealed to be dead but kept alive by the grace of Nurgle. They call him Typhus and proclaim that with his arrival they are finally free to spread Papa Nurgle's gifts everywhere. The Dark Angel captain observing all of this sees a crowd of zombies and flies and Typhon conversing with them. Typhon sees regular people, though he can glimpse their true nature. The Death Guard sentries just see regular people. The captain springs out of his observation spot and starts attacking the tainted civilians like a true Dark Angel. Typhus kills him and in the process becomes one with his gifts. The Death Guard depart shortly afterwards with no contact with the Dark Angels. Luther is puzzled by this, ignoring a medicae request for apothecary aid for a sudden new disease in the civilian population, and wonders what other effects the Death Guard may have left on Zaramund. Typhon uses his blood to poison his commanding officers after announcing they will reunite with the Primarch.
**'''The Painted Count:''' Gendor Skraivok is having a hard time getting rid of his daemon blade. He tries burning it, tossing it into a plasma reactor, and out an airlock, but it keeps coming back. In a political battle for command of the legion, a rival tosses him into the impossible maze built by Perturabo to contain Vulkan. Failing to leave the maze normally, he seals his pact with the daemon blade and it leads him out of the maze. Killing the rival in a duel, he takes command of the ''Nightfall'' and leads the Night Lords to Terra to join the Warmaster.
**'''The Last Son of Prospero:''' Revuel Arvida is transformed into Ianius after teaming up with the soul shard of Magnus. Jaghatai Khan & Malcador happen to be in the room.
**'''The Soul, Severed:''' Eidolon puts down a leadership challenge from a leader who is loyal only to Fulgrim and wants the legion to sit around waiting for him to return. Being still reasonable, the challenger lures Eidolon's forces into a chemical treatment factory, blows up the chemical tanks, then counterattacks. The challenger deepstrikes with a bodyguard squad directly onto Eidolon, and then Eidolon and every single other noise marine giggle and laugh at the same time, obliterating the entire battlefield. Eidolon realises that he needs a planet with limitless numbers of potential slaves so he could spend lifetimes in debauchery, and so accepts that his fate and that of his forces is to eventually assault the Imperial Palace.
**'''Dark Compliance:''' Argonis, an emissary of Horus, meets Decigus, the Lord of a star system. Decigus is pretty intent on executing Argonis in person, and Argonis tells him to swear fealty to Horus or else... and starts to relate the tale of how he became an emissary, starting over a Mechanicus world that also gave Horus the finger and roasted his emissary. Horus meets with Argonis and reveals the emissary was a distraction to the Mechanicum ruler, while another plan was put into place. Horus sends a distraction fleet, followed by another distraction fleet, followed by hidden fighters and vortex missiles he had dropped off point-blank on the moon when his emissary had been killed. Wiping out all orbital defenses the magos still believes he can extract a heavy toll on Horus over several months of fighting. Horus flies down, summons a daemon w/ invasion on the side, then departs with his forces. The world gets covered in blood clouds and is infested by daemons. Argonis then repeats his question to Decigus, join us or die.
**'''Duty Waits:''' The Imperial Fists have beefed up security protocols around the Imperial Palace to ridiculous levels after the Alpha Legion shenanigans from ''Praetorian of Dorn''. All the civilians in the Palace are barely tolerated and given limited rations. There is a food riot and all the new Imperial Fists who were inducted during the Heresy and have never killed anybody get their first taste by shooting rioters, which they're not thrilled about.
**'''Magisterium:''' Valdor is busy handling the Custodes post-Webway war. Not enough resources, Custodian serfs are working to their deaths, and Custodians dealing with the fact that they can no longer effectively protect the emperor. Flashback to Valdor being talked to dismissively by Leman Russ during the Burning of Prospero.
**'''Now Peals Midnight:''' Rogal Dorn is told that long-range sensors & astropathic choirs have detected something big approaching through the Warp, and he realizes that Horus's arrival in the solar system is imminent. He passes along the message to his brothers on Terra. A strategium general is amazed at how she was bred, augmented, and trained to process insane amounts of info and what takes her 15 minutes to re-appraise herself of the solar system tactical info takes Dorn a brief glance at the screens. Archamus and Andromeda-17 from ''Praetorian of Dorn'' have a quiet chat concerning the imminent siege and the fact that humanity will be forever psychologically scarred by what is about to happen. Dorn, Sanguinius, and the Khan gather on a wall of the Palace and stare up at the sky. At midnight a new star blossoms, signalling the exit of Horus's fleet from warp space.
**'''Dreams of Unity:''' A terminally ill Thunder Warrior helps some Custodes kill an Alpha Legion infiltrator while continuously having flashbacks to the Unification Wars and the Emperor's grand dream of Unity. Once the Alpha is dead, he surrenders himself for execution to the Custodes.
**'''The Board is Set:''' Malcador contacts the Emperor for advice just before the Siege and plays a game of strategy that they have been playing for a ''long'' time, detailing the movements and eventual fates of the Primarchs. Shows that the Emperor was certainly manipulating them but was mostly on the back foot for much of his conflict with the the Chaos Gods so the outcome could have been much worse. Emps reveals a final gambit that will screw over Malcador in order to deny Chaos their victory.
*'''''Titandeath''''' Titan-centric book taking place during the battle for Beta-Garmon, the Loyalists' final effort to prevent the Traitors from reaching Terra. How one book could be made of a battle taking place across an entire solar system that had, according to Slaves to Darkness, more casualties than the last five years of the Great Crusade remains to be seen. As it happens... fairly feasibly. Beta-Garmon represented the tipping point for both the loyalists and the traitors; if the traitors didn't move past it, Guilliman would crush them from behind. If the loyalists didn't engage, then Horus would take his overwhelming numbers unopposed. The point is that Horus would win Beta Garmon either way. Rogal Dorn makes the only proactive move that he can make in the whole war, and sends a sizeable contingent of Terra's defenses to Beta Garmon to delay the Warmaster for as long as possible. And because Titans aren't really well suited to defending Terra, they are let out in force on Beta-Garmon. Which makes perfect target practice for the massive orbital platform that Horus proceeds to use. Unfortunately the story is let down by its ham-fisted portrayal of an all-female Titan Legion (mostly out of wasted potential) and a rushed storyline. Also a mopey Sanguinius who makes 'I do not die here today' into the new 'Vulkan Lives!'.
*'''''The Buried Dagger''''' This is the final book in the "main" Horus Heresy series, and tells the story of how Mortarion and the Death Guard fell to Nurgle's service. It happens essentially as has already been seen in other fluff sources: Typhon murders all the Navigators and claims he can guide the Death Guard fleet to Terra himself, only to deliberately strand them in the Warp so that Nurgle can turn them to his service. As disease spreads through the fleet, Mortarion becomes increasingly horrified and outraged as he realizes what's happening to his legion and finally kills Typhon in retaliation, but the Destroyer Hive reanimates his corpse, officially turning him into Typhus. After some more internal angst and butthurt, Mortarion finally accepts his destiny and becomes Nurgle's champion. The B-plot of the book concerns the founding of the [[Grey Knights]], as well as an assassination attempt on Malcador by Erebus, who planted a psychic suggestion in Tylos Rubio's head all the way back on Calth. Rubio, Sevarian, Revuel Arvida/Ianius, and several other Knights-Errant are named as the first eight Grey Knights and are shipped off to Titan to prepare for what will come after the Heresy. Garviel Loken is supposed to be the ninth Knight, but he turns it down because he still wants a shot at Horus. Nathaniel Garro gets cut loose from the Knights-Errant and sets off to find his own destiny.

==The [[Siege of Terra]] series==
Yep, it's getting an entire series to itself. What, did you really think they'd dedicate only one book to it? The series is slated to be eight books long, along with an unspecified number of novellas.

*'''''The Solar War''''': The Traitors make their big push through the remaining defenses of the Sol system and clear the path to Terra. Dorn's strategy is to make them pay for every centimeter and hope he can delay them long enough for the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels to arrive. To do this, he sends entire fleets out to fight delaying actions and blows up some of Pluto's moons after the traitors capture them. It sort of works, but the traitors have thousands of ships and even a few Space Hulks, so Perturabo just keeps feeding them into the grinder until they break through. Meanwhile, Mersadie Oliton receives a warning vision from Euphrati Keeler and busts out of space jail to deliver her message to Dorn. Unfortunately, it turns out "Keeler" was actually Samus manipulating Mersadie to get her onto the ''Phalanx'' and use her as a gateway to invade the station, so she winds up committing suicide in front of Garviel Loken. Samus rampages around the ''Phalanx'' for a bit and is killed again, this time by Dorn. Abaddon bypasses the outer defenses via a warp rift opened up by Ahriman, captures Luna, and convinces the matriarch of the Selenar to start making more Astartes for the traitors. The book ends with Horus, Fulgrim, and Angron arriving in-system along with the main strength of their fleets, meaning shit is now officially real.
*'''''The Lost and the Damned''''': This is it, ladies and neckbeards. The Siege has begun in earnest. Dorn is using millions of conscripts and all the vast firepower he’s installed on the Palace walls to blunt Horus's initial attacks, holding the V, VII, and IX Legions in reserve. Unfortunately, this is all more or less playing into the traitors’ hands. They want to cause as much death as possible so that the walls between reality and the warp will be thin enough to let hordes of daemons onto the planet and the daemon primarchs themselves can safely set foot on Terra without being banished by the Emperor’s psychic mojo. To their credit, Dorn and his brothers are aware of this, but also recognize that they’re screwed either way, so they decide to just go ahead and kill as many traitors as possible. After a few months of traitor Army regiments, Chaos spawn, and beastmen being sent in to soften the defenses up while the Dark Mechanicum build siege guns and towers to punch through the walls, the Death Guard finally show up after their side trip to visit Grandpa Nurgle. Horus sends them in first, mightily pissing off Angron in the process, and they immediately set about turning the warzone into a large-scale recreation of Passchendaele circa 1917. Jaghatai goes out to gather intel on the siege engines and gets poked with a plague knife, but as soon as he crosses back into the Palace grounds the Emperor’s psychic aegis cures him. He then takes half the White Scars to go defend the citizens of Terra from rampaging traitors despite Dorn ordering him not to, and promises to return when needed. Sanguinius rallies the defenders and leads his sons from the front even though Azkaellon and Raldoron would really rather he didn’t. The book ends with the World Eaters and Night Lords launching their first full-scale attack on the Palace walls; Angron challenges Sanguinius to battle while Raldoron beats Gendor Skraivok hollow and tosses him off the wall. The book reveals that despite their numerical superiority and the aid of the Chaos gods, Horus is maintaining control over his war effort and the other traitor primarchs only by sheer force of will: Lorgar, Curze, and Alpharius are out of the picture, Magnus is doing his own thing, Fulgrim is being a prissy dick, Perturabo is as much a whiny bitch as ever, and Angron is so uncontrollable that Kharn and [[Lotara Sarrin]] are forced to teleport him into the labyrinth Perturabo built to contain Vulkan until he can be set loose on Terra. Only Mortarion still seems relatively normal despite the fact he’s now a daemon primarch. Moreover Abaddon is getting really fucking cagey about Horus's new habit of Chaos worship, for good reason. It turns out that the wound Russ inflicted on him at Trisolian has resulted in his soul slowly being drained. As a result, the Chaos Gods have to keep juicing Horus up, with the downsides of time-wasting sojourns into the warp and the gradual destruction of Horus's body. What's more, there are implications that Abaddon is being groomed to take over if Horus falls.
*'''''The First Wall''''': This book focuses on the battle for the Lion’s Gate spaceport, which is the tallest structure on Terra and the only place that void-going ships can dock on the entire planet, meaning that the traitors will be able to shuttle in reinforcements and materiel more easily if they can capture it. Perturabo details Warsmith Kroeger to command the Iron Warriors’ assault on the spaceport under the logic that Dorn will be expecting Pert to command the attack personally and won’t be expecting whatever battle plans Kroeger comes up with. Warsmith Forrix isn’t happy with this or with anything else that’s going on, since he’s realized that Horus is using the Iron Warriors in the same way the Emperor did and he's become increasingly disillusioned with Perturabo himself. To aid the attack, the Dark Mechanicum sets a technophagic virus loose inside the spaceport and Zardu Layak, [[Abaddon]], and [[Typhus]] perform a Nurglite ritual to infiltrate Cor’bax Utterblight inside the Emperor’s wards. The Fists hold out as long as they can and inflict heavy casualties, but Dorn finally gives the order to withdraw and abandon the Gate as Perturabo lands his flagship atop the port and joins an assault led by Abaddon and Kharn. Sigismund duels Kharn and nearly loses while Dorn kills Zardu Layak, which allows daemons to manifest on Terra for the first time. He then has a brief exchange of taunts with Perturabo and the first Chaos Titans set foot on Terra, spelling a new stage of the battle. In the midst of all this is a little passage detailing just how many artillery pieces the Iron Warriors have landed on the planet, including two thousand [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]], fifteen hundred [[Manticore Launcher Tank|Manticores]], five hundred [[Medusa Siege Gun|Medusas]], sixteen hundred Siege Dreadnoughts, seven thousand Thunderburst guns, five hundred [[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|Deathstrike]] launchers and eighty-four [[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank|Typhon siege guns]], plus uncounted thousands of Rhinos, Land Raiders, Vindicators, Predators, Sicarans, and [[Baneblade|assorted]] [[Fellblade|superheavy]] [[Spartan Assault Tank|tanks]]. [[Awesome|That sound you just heard was Josef Stalin and the entire Red Army popping a boner from beyond the grave.]] Meanwhile, to stop Cor’bax’s taint from spreading inside the Imperial Palace, Malcador recruits Euphrati Keeler and the Custodian Amon Tauromachian to hunt down and eliminate any corrupted cults of the Emperor, giving us the weirdest buddy-cop pairing of all time. Malcador wants to see if he can weaponize the cult’s belief in the Emperor against the Chaos gods and sees Keeler as the key to doing so, while Amon would rather just stamp it out. They eventually find a cult that has been corrupted by Cor’bax. When the daemon uses their bodies to manifest inside the walls, Keeler, Malcador, and Amon team up to kill him. Malcador tells Dorn, Valdor, and the other Imperial commanders that he will allow the cult of the Emperor to exist until the Emperor himself says otherwise. While all this is going on, we get to see more of the siege from a mortal perspective. Katsuhiro, a veteran of the initial fighting outside the walls, is detailed to a section of the outer walls under attack by the Death Guard and eventually has to aid in putting down an outbreak of plague zombies. We also follow Zenobi, a seventeen-year-old line worker from the Afrik hive of Addaba who volunteered to serve in the Imperial Army, only it turns out that she and her entire regiment are pledged to Horus, though this doesn't stop the Warmaster's fleet bombing their city to shit from orbit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, sounds like a fun read huh?) The novel ends with John Grammaticus arriving on Terra, mission unknown.
*'''''Saturnine''''': Dan Abnett's first HH book in seven years. Dorn is trying to decide which parts of the Palace need to be defended and which can be allowed to fall, as the Imperial forces are outnumbered, outgunned, and running low on supplies. He identifies four key parts of the defense that cannot be allowed to fall to the enemy, then decides which one he can afford to lose anyway: the Eternity Wall spaceport. The Saturnine Wall, one of the other key elements, has developed a subtle fault thanks to the relentless traitor bombardment. Dorn suspects that Perturabo will try to exploit it, so he lays a trap for the traitor assault force and calls in Arkhan Land to help fix it. While this is going on, Sanguinius kills an Iron Warriors Warsmith at the Gorgon Bar, then [[Awesome|solos a Warlord Titan]] and stares down three Warhounds until they turn tail and run for it. Jaghatai and the White Scars lead a few massed jetbike charges into the ranks of the Death Guard and really ruin their day, further pissing off Mortarion. [[Abaddon]] enlists the entire [[Emperor's Children]] Legion and three companies of the Sons of Horus, led by the entire Mournival, to attack the Saturnine Wall with Perturabo's help; however, Perturabo anticipates that Dorn will expect them to do so and refuses to lend his aid. The III Legion attacks from the front, using three ancient and irreplaceable siege engines, while Abaddon and his Astartes burrow up from beneath with Termite assault drills. When the Sons of Horus emerge from their assault drills, they're ambushed by kill teams led by [[Garviel Loken]] and [[Nathaniel Garro]]. All three companies, including the famed [[Justaerin]] and Catulan Reavers of the 1st Company, are wiped out. Garro kills Falkus Kibre while Loken kills Horus Aximand ([[Blood Ravens|and takes his sword]]) and Tormageddon, finally avenging his old friend. Tybalt Marr and Lev Goshen are also killed off, meaning that all of the Sons of Horus characters we were introduced to at the beginning of the series are now dead except for Loken and Abaddon. Abaddon goes on a killing spree, but eventually gets beaten up by a nobody [[Blood Angel]], Endryd Haar, and Garro. Abaddon manages to kill the Blood Angel and Haar, but is almost killed by Garro, only to be [[Plot Armor|teleported to safety at the last moment]]. Arkhan Land floods the fault line with thousands of tons of quick-setting rockcrete, [[Grimdark|entombing a bunch of the Sons of Horus beneath the palace forever.]] Fulgrim hurls his legion at the Saturnine Wall ''en masse'', which accomplishes nothing but getting 18,000 of them killed and destroying the siege platforms. Dorn and Sigismund fight Fulgrim; Sigismund manages to injure Fulgrim despite being hilariously outclassed, but before Fulgrim can finish the job, Dorn appears. He holds his own against his psychotic bishonen brother, inflicting so much damage that Fulgrim throws a tantrum and takes his legion and goes home, abandoning the Siege entirely. The two then fight a bunch of III Legion champions and defeat them all. In one particularly awesome moment, Sigismund just straight-up kicks Eidolon off the wall. At this point, Perturabo seems to be the only person on Team Horus who still gives a shit about winning the siege. The rest of traitor primarchs are all too indignant to focus on their alleged objective, too busy conspiring against each other, or too insane to care.
**Crucially to the ongoing progress of the Siege, the loyalists lose the Eternity Wall spaceport, but this was part of the plan. As noted above, Dorn identified four key points in the defense that he couldn't afford to lose, then chose the one that he couldn't afford to lose the least, personally took command at the Saturnine Wall, and sent Sanguinius and Jaghatai to hold the other two spots. Angron and the World Eaters assault the spaceport, and pretty much every named Imperial Army character in the book dies at this point, along with Jenetia Krole, the leader of the [[Sisters of Silence]], who gets killed by Kharn, and Camba Diaz of the Imperial Fists, who literally dies standing while holding the main bridge into the spaceport. Also, Angron gets blown up by artillery but comes back to life since, y'know, he's a daemon prince and all. Sanguinius' visions are getting increasingly powerful and painful, especially when he winds up inside Angron's tortured mind. He eventually delves deeply enough to realize that Angron has sensed the annihilation of Nuceria. The [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Ultramarines]] are on the way!
**Other miscellaneous things that happen: John Grammaticus is trying to meet up with Ollanius Persson and encounters the Perpetual Erda, who tells us that Big-E was named '''Neoth''' when they met, but that this was just one of the many names he's had over the millennia. It is also revealed that she is the true mother of the primarchs and is technically responsible for their scattering - cue the sound of countless facepalms from the fanbase. Dorn has Kyril Sindermann form the proto-[[Inquisition]], and he recruits Euphrati Keeler and some other people to go around collecting interviews with soldiers, workers, and other residents of the Palace. Keeler interviews Basilio Fo, the mad genesmith from the short story ''Misbegotten'', and he reveals that he can create a biomechanical phage that could kill Horus, along with every other Space Marine and primarch in the galaxy. Keeler and her Custodian babysitter decide that this information should go to Dorn, just in case he decides he needs such a doomsday option. The Ollanius Pius myth is partly born from a Guardsman named Olly Piers standing up and defending a banner of the Emperor before dying at Angron's hands. Horus is sliding further into apparent senility as the Chaos Gods' power begins to overwhelm his body and mind to the point that would have killed him outright had he not died in the duel against the Emperor first, much to Abaddon's disgust; he is almost totally disconnected from the siege, asks for things and immediately forgets asking for them, and keeps calling his equerry Maloghurst, even though Maloghurst has been dead since ''Slaves to Darkness''. At the very end, Corswain of the Dark Angels arrives with a large chunk of the Dark Angels fleet, ready to aid in the battle. In short, a lot of named characters die and plot threads are set up for other books and the rest of 40K.
*'''''Mortis''''': John French's second book in the series. As the morale of the Palace's defenders slowly erodes under the pressure of the unrelenting assault and the malign influence of the Warp, the traitor Titans of Legio Mortis are unleashed to break through the Mercury Wall, with only the loyalist engines of the Legio Ignatum to hold them off. Not as good as ''Saturnine'' or ''The Lost and the Damned'', but not as bad as Zenobi's story in ''The First Wall'', it feels more like an anthology, though all of its stories have a common beginning and converge in the end.
** The main story, the siege itself, has very little to offer. Horus has finally decided to take direct command of the traitor forces, but his first order to Perturabo is to send everything they have, include the entire Legio Mortis, to attack the Mercury Wall head on. Perturabo objects to such a terrible strategy, after which Horus sends his equerry to tell him to disperse his legion among the traitor forces and let the Death Guard take over their positions. Perturabo immediately realizes that Horus is about to pull some serious warp fuckery, which he's not okay with, so he orders a full-on retreat of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege completely. The rest of the main siege plot centers around the Titan battle in front of the Mercury Wall; the traitor forces have used Warp power to reanimate countless Titan wrecks collected from Beta-Garmon and elsewhere, using them as cannon fodder to weaken the loyalist defenses before attacking with the full might of the Legio Mortis, the largest Titan legion in the entire Imperium.
** Meanwhile, in another corner of the battle, a small group of loyalist Imperial Army soldiers are still holding a maybe no longer important line of defense. Amongst them is Katsuhiro, the luckiest unlucky son of a gun from ''The Lost and the Damned'', who has fought from the Outer Wall all the way into the central palace and is still fighting because [[Grimdark|in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war]]. Their forces are initially led by a Blood Angel, but he dies during the battle and puts Katsuhiro in charge because this man's got nothing but unwavering belief in the Emperor and balls made out of titanium.
** Shiban Khan, to everyone's surprise, survived his shuttle crashing in ''Saturnine'' thanks to his extensive augmetic rebuild. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere and starts hearing the voices of his dead brothers as he limps toward the Inner Palace. It could be warp fuckery, as the land shows various signs of Chaos corruption, or perhaps more likely, he just had some severe head trauma due to the shuttle crash (and the sky's the limit when it comes to head trauma). Either way, Shiban wants to return to the fight, so he starts to walk, and walk, and walk (there is a lot of walking in this not that long of a side plot). Then he encounters an Army lieutenant with a baby (feels like there is a joke in there somewhere) and the man tags along with him. The lieutenant explains that he just found the baby in the middle of all this shit and took it without any question; I keep expecting it to be a daemon or something, but it ends up to be something hopeful, wholesome even. Later the lieutenant is severely injured by an actual daemon, but Shiban refuses to leave him behind and carries him and the baby. Eventually, they come across the line Katsuhiro's defending; though the lieutenant doesn't make it, the baby survives, which amazes the crumbling troopers to no end and boosts their morale. Shiban and Katsuhiro have a brief chat before Shiban keeps pushing on to rejoin his legion. For the Emperor's sake, please don't let the baby be a daemon in the coming books.
** We finally get to see psi-titans deployed!!! For a few paragraphs at least. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (who we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because they only answer to the Emperor) shows up and tells Dorn that the Emperor has personally authorized use of the Ordo Sinister, an act that simultaneously tells Dorn that the Emperor has commanded victory at any cost. We see a psi-titan strut up to a battlefield, order all friendly titans to fire warp missiles at itself, then redirects the warp power in the warp missiles to instant kill several demon titan engines. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. But the traitors brought a lot of titans and even the Psi-titans are eventually overwhelmed.
** On the traitor titan side, special siege titans are unveiled bespoke from Mars. Turns out you can just line up several big titans and hook up all their reactors to mobile reactors behind their shields, then slow walk towards the wall like a big phalanx advance. And you get called the special engine class of Warmaster Titans. Plus lots and lots of guns on the front.
** At the end of the last book, Corswain and his fleet came to reinforce the loyalists. Now we learn that he was expecting to meet the Lion and the main strength of the Dark Angels at Terra, but finds out that he is the only reinforcement that has shown up. If you have read the new Luther book, you know that he was lied to by Luther, and most importantly, the ten thousand Dark Angels he brought along were given to him by Luther, which means they're most likely no longer loyal to the Imperium. Now here comes some plot fuckery: the traitors took the Astronomican and put it out. What? Wasn't Dorn's entire plan was to delay the traitors' offensive long enough for the reinforcements to arrive? Why was the Astronomican not as heavily defended as the Imperial Palace itself? How the fuck are the reinforcements going get to Terra without the Astronomican? But the plot must give Corswain and his Dark Angels something to do I guess. Nevertheless, Corswain plans an assault through the traitor fleet blockade; with the sacrifice of the Emperor's personal flagship and the gap left by the Iron Warriors' departure, the Dark Angels successfully make planetfall on Terra and retake the Astronomican by killing a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh and a bunch of Kakophoni. But here comes the backstabbing: the officers Luther sent to follow Corswain cannot allow his plan to succeed for obvious reasons, but one of the Librarians, Vassago, is having second thoughts about the whole thing after the daemonic horrors he's just witnessed. When he tells this to his fallen brothers, they decide to kill him and keep on with their plan.
** The various storylines are tied together in the end by a speech given by Dorn. As he speaks, what's left of the loyalist Titan legions begin to charge an unknown anomaly that appeared mid-battle; Katsuhiro's ragged force faces off against a new wave of enemies; Vassago is attacked by his fallen brothers; and the Legio Mortis finally reaches the Mercury Wall, the true Imperial Palace itself.
** Also, remember all of those weird metaphorical scenes of the Emperor being a dirty old man they put in every book? Turns out it is the physical manifestation of the struggle and suffering the Emperor is enduring in the spiritual world, and it is getting worse and worse. In previous books, he could still shelter himself in a cave and have Malcador deliver him food or something; now he is quite literally cooking under the sun in an open desert with only a dead tree for cover, and because the Chaos gods are winning, it has become impossible for Malcador to keep supporting the Emperor. So the Big-E is now facing off against the entire warp with nothing but his own willpower to sustain him. Horus keeps showing up to taunt his father and sometimes the Chaos gods accompany him like some kind of pet snakes. Every time he appears he is closer to the Emperor and at the end of this book he is finally able to reach him.
** Oh, Ollanius and his crew from Calth also return in this book. They finally make it back to Terra after bouncing through all of time and space, and then they infiltrate a hive overrun by the Emperor's Children in order to rescue John Grammaticus. Along the way, they run into someone named Actaea (who might be Cyrene Valantion based on John's horrified recognition of her) and a legionary calling himself Alpharius, because everything wasn't convoluted enough already. Ollanius decides to team up with these two even though Grammaticus is getting some serious bad vibes off of them. This part of the plot is not a bad read, but it really feels like it has nothing to do with the ongoing siege. This, and John's plot from the last book, feel like they should have gotten their own book instead of being cut to pieces and stitched into the main series. But again, it's not as bad and irrelevant as Zenobi's storyline from ''The First Wall''. At least it revealed Ollanius was once a close friend to the Big-E. How close, you ask? He was the Emperor's first Warmaster. He led an army to raze the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel Tower of Babel] to the ground, in the 40K narrative the tower was actually built by Cognitae precursors who were using it to learn Enuncia (first seen in the Eisenhorn books). After taking the tower the Emperor decides that he in his enlightened state can actually run the project better then the Cognitae. Ollanius disagrees and stabs the Emperor while using Enuncia to bring lightning down on the tower. John having stumbled into this memory via being caught in the same pleasure-warp trap uses his psyker language ability to learn Enuncia on the spot. Uses it to unmake a demon, but gets a bad nose-bleed.
* '''''Warhawk''''': The Khan vs. Morty, round two. The end of the Siege is nigh, and everyone on Terra knows it. Angron and the World Eaters are loose inside the Mercury Wall, the Sons of Horus are happily killing anything that crosses their path, and the Death Guard have taken over the Lion's Gate spaceport after Perturabo ragequit halfway through ''Mortis''. Many of the XIV Legion are still coming to terms with their new warp-touched nature. Some of them aren't sure the bargain was worth the price, while others are happily adopting pet Nurglings and savoring the feeling of turning into walking sacks of pus and tentacles. Mortarion is using his daemonic powers to turn the port into a mirror of Barbarus and blanket the Palace with a psychic miasma of despair; the effect is so potent that even Rogal Dorn is beginning to crack under the strain. Jaghatai is tired of playing defense, so he rallies up the entire V Legion and every single tank that Ilya Ravallion can coax out of reserves to storm the Lion's Gate and retake the spaceport. They use the last intact orbital plate on Terra to shield them from the traitor fleet bombardments and charge across the leveled wreckage of the Palace's outer districts en masse, wrecking shit all the way until they slam into the Death Guard and their defenses. The two legions proceed to just shred the hell out of each other across the spaceport. We get an interesting comparison between their fighting styles here; the Scars dominate the battlefield when they can use their speed and maneuverability, and then when the fighting turns into a battle of attrition the Death Guard give just as good as they get. Jaghatai is in fine form; at one point he yeets a Leviathan Dreadnought with ''one hand'', and the narration explicitly states that everyone on both sides stops to watch him do it. The battle culminates in a knock-down drag-out brawl between the Death Lord and the Warhawk. Mortarion literally beats the Khan to a pulp, but Jaghatai just laughs it off and needles Mortarion until he makes a mistake that lets Jaghatai gut him. Mortarion reminds the Khan that he can't die, since he's a daemon prince now, and the Khan reminds Mortarion that he can die, then pulls the classic "let the other guy impale me so I can kill him" move and decapitates Morty even though he's now got a power scythe embedded in his chest. The resultant explosion of psychic energy disorients the Death Guard and sends the Scars into a frenzy that doesn't end until a newly raised khan manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book. Jaghatai's body is carried out on a Leman Russ, and just when it seems like they might actually have unexpectedly killed another primarch, Ilya Ravallion shows up and demands that he be taken to Malcador, who sets about putting the Warhawk back together.
**Dorn finally lets Sigismund off the chain, telling him to just go kill as many traitors as possible. On his way out to the field, he's given the Black Sword, which was forged in the dark times prior to the Unification Wars, and sets out to become the Emperor's Champion. He kills so damn many captains and praetors that whispers of "the Black Sword" spread across the Palace, and both sides seek him out, either to join him or to kill him. He rematches Kharn and puts him down, though not before Kharn has a lucid moment and is horrified by what Sigismund has become: a remorseless, passionless, icy-hearted killing machine who will raise [[Black Templars|an entire legion of fanatical killers just like him]] to crush the galaxy beneath their boots.
**Euphrati Keeler inspires thousands of civilians, stragglers, and refugees to take up arms and go drown the enemy in bodies in the name of the God-Emperor, establishing the foundations for the Imperial Cult and the Imperium's philosophy of sending wave after wave of conscripts and Guardsmen at the problem until it ceases to be a problem. Garviel Loken tracks her down and is disturbed by her new, more nihilistic mindset, but decides to stay by her side anyway.
**Basilio Fo runs around for a bit and gets attacked by a Night Lord who can apparently see the future and isn't sure if killing him or letting him live will do more damage. He's then retrieved by Constantin Valdor, who took a break from daemon-hunting to haul him back to the Sanctum Imperialis so he can go to work on his anti-Astartes phage. Valdor wonders if using the phage would interfere with the Emperor's plans somehow, since even he isn't sure what is or isn't part of the Big-E's schemes anymore. Really, the whole subplot is kind of pointless, since Fo just winds up back under guard and doing exactly what he wanted to do all along. Makes you wonder why the authors bothered setting him loose last book.
** Ollanius Persson and his merry band are still traveling to the Palace. Actaea is all but stated to be Cyrene Valantion, who has an agenda of her own that involves getting to Horus. "Alpharius" is one of the Alpha Legion infiltrators from ''Praetorian of Dorn'', who's apparently just been kicking around the planet since his legion's attack on Pluto failed. They fly all the way to the Palace and start making their way into the Dungeon to get on with whatever their missions are, planning to pick up some more Alpha Legionnaires who were planted in the catacombs.
** The Sons of Horus are quietly starting to turn on each other. With Horus still sitting on his arse and doing nothing to lead his legion, some of his captains are starting to refer to Abaddon as the XVI's Legion Master, which is pissing off the hardcore Horus loyalists. Most of them end up getting killed by Sigismund anyway, though.
** Erda dies. Maybe. Erebus turns out to have disguised himself as a random Word Bearer in order to reach Terra and track her down, and after he introduces himself he tells her that her scattering of the primarchs was such a nice gift to the Chaos Pantheon that they themselves sing her praises in gratitude. He offers to help her achieve apotheosis and become a queen of the warp as a reward. Erda sneers at him and tells him that he's being manipulated by the cast-off thoughts and unconscious desires of humanity; more or less confirming that she knows many of the same truths about Chaos as the Emperor does, but unlike Big-E, she perhaps underestimates the danger they pose. That might also be why she tries to say it's not her fault some of the primarchs were corrupted and fell to Chaos, deflecting the blame onto the primarchs themselves, Big-E, society (that's actually barely an exaggeration), and basically everyone but herself. Erebus eventually gets sick of her obfuscation and summons four greater daemons to kill her. However, Erda's able to defeat them pretty comprehensively, with Erebus assuming they've been banished, but the book suggesting that they've been permakilled. Regardless of which however, the fight leaves her drained enough that Erebus is able to hit her with a psychic attack that overwhelms her with the true consequences of what she did. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, but does so offscreen. As he's leaving, however, he wonders if she let him kill her, and if so, why.
*'''''Echoes of Eternity''''': ADB's contribution. [[Meme|We're in the endgame now]]: the Palace defenses have completely collapsed, the Khan is down for the count, Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, the surviving loyalist troops have been driven back into the Sanctum Imperialis, and Guilliman and the Lion still haven't arrived. Angron is leading the World Eaters and Sons of Horus toward victory as Sanguinius rallies his troops for a last stand at the Eternity Gate. Will almost certainly have Sanguinius' rematch with Ka'Bandha as the big climactic fight.
*'''''Sons of the Selenar''''': The first novella in the series. Flashback to the compliance of the Selenar gene cults on the moon, the high supreme matriarch tells a grumpy gene witch to take their best gene tech and hide it from the Emperor while she starts a date/mind purge to wipe out all knowledge of the tech from existence before she surrenders to the soon-to-be Luna Wolves. Flash forward to the crew of the ''Sisypheum'' returning to Terra, SOMEHOW getting all the way to Luna through a lot of luck and bad traitor captains. They pick up a distress signal from Ta'lab Vita-37 saying that the Sons of Horus are breaking through the defenses she has built around the Magna Mater - a silver case containing all the genetic knowledge used to make the first Space Marines. They manage to meet up with Vita-37 and make their way to the center of a moon volcano just in time to snatch it from some tech-priests. Some explosions happen and we get to see Tarsa the Salamander Apothecary walk through radioactive lava while hallucinating that Vulkan lives and dying as he hands the case to Ignatius Numen who also waded in. He dies too because [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film) radioactive lava], but the case gets out of the lava. Justaerin Terminators chase them through the gene labs, and Vita-37 unleashes a bunch of hideous gene-monsters on the Terminators before dying. One spooks them cause it has the face of Horus, but the Terminators finally form up and continue the chase. The last two Iron Hands hand off the Mater to Sharrowkyn and tell him to run like hell while they slow down the Terminator squad, with predictable results. Sharrowkyn gets rescued by the other two Iron Hands in a Storm Eagle, and they make it back to the ''Sisypheum'', while Thamatica uses a Selenar combat AI to destroy a fighter chasing them before it turns back on him and eats his brains. Magnus makes an appearance and saves the ''Sisypheum'' for some reason, then leaves. Wayland drops off Sharrowkyn on an abandoned refueling station before flying away to distract the traitors. Sharrowkyn finally dies with Garuda the mechanical eagle watching him, under the name of the station "Sangprimus Portum", strongly implying that the Magna Mater is the relic that will be given to Archmagos Cawl to create the [[Primaris Space Marines]].
* '''''Fury of Magnus''''': The second novella, which focuses on Magnus's attempt to reclaim the shard of his soul that he believes is housed inside the Palace. Alivia Sureka agrees to come with Malcador in exchange for protection for her adopted family, and he takes her down trans-dimensional tunnels known only to him (it's strongly implied that Valdor would fuck Malcador up for keeping these tunnels secret even from the custodians). Magnus and some of the Thousand Sons breach the Emperor's telesthetic wards, saving some civilians along the way, and storm the Hall of Leng deep beneath the Palace. They're met by Malcador and Alivia, and Magnus demands to know where the last shard of his soul is. Malcador admits that it's already gone, having been fused into Revuel Arvida to produce Janus, so Magnus throws a psychic tantrum that permakills the Sigillite. One of the Thousand Sons kills Alivia for some reason, so Magnus explodes his head for disobeying his orders not to kill anyone. He and his Astartes make it all the way to the Golden Throne, only to find out that the Emperor let them through because he wanted to offer Magnus a shot at redemption. He explains that, though Magnus has been wounded and touched by Chaos, there is still a chance for him to return to the Imperial fold, at the head of [[Grey Knights|a shiny new legion of incorruptible psychic warriors]]. All he has to do is abandon the remaining Thousand Sons to their fate, as they're already too corrupted to be brought back. Vulkan, who is still guarding the Throne, pleads with Magnus to accept the deal, but Magnus decides that abandoning his legion is too dear a price to pay and tries to kill the Emperor. Vulkan proceeds to kick the ever-loving shit out of him until Magnus finally surrenders to Chaos and ascends into his daemon primarch form. He forever repudiates the Emperor before being ejected from the Palace. Alivia resurrects, finds Malcador's barbecued corpse, and surrenders her Perpetuality in order to bring him back, dying permanently herself in the process.

==The Primarchs Series==
Because Black Library don't seem satisfied confusing us with all their anthologies, audio-books, and short stories, they have begun releasing a spin-off series of Horus Heresy novels centered on the Primarchs. The series don't really take place in a specific time, but generally focuses on expanding on the titular Primarch's backstory and motivations during events before the Horus Heresy (though some of them also have events occurring after it). Why Black Library lists it as part of the Horus Heresy series when that isn't always the case is beyond our comprehension. Hopefully the Horus book finally shows us his conquest of Ullanor.

===Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar===
Centers on Papa Smurf himself and his trying to deal with how the Emperor used him like a rusty hammer to smack Lorgar in the head at Monarchia. Uses a conflict against Orks squatting on human ruins as a vehicle for him and the smurfs to express their angst over the event. He eventually discovers that the original humans went extinct from literally a war of red shirts vs blue shirts. A subplot details the conflict of morality the Ultramarines legion had with their Destroyer companies, especially the [[Nemesis]] Chapter (later a second founding) who held on to their Terran roots. Guilliman didn't much like their use, but eventually saw their necessity (especially when Imperium Secundus came swinging around).

===Leman Russ: The Great Wolf===
Focuses on Leman Russ' notorious rivalry with the Lion, explaining why to this day whenever the Chapters meet they throw the gauntlet down and beat the stuffing out of one another. Notably it reveals some interesting stuff like the Lion being aware of the Space Wolves' furry issue and keeping a lid on it, also that the Lion shanked Russ in the Imperial basement in front of a fresco of the compliance where they previously fought. Establishes clearly that even with overpowered Mech suits, baseline humans will always lose to legionary soldiers.

===Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero===
Depicts the unlikely friendship between Magnus and old Pert with a joint venture between their legions to evacuate a planet that's getting torn apart by accelerated magnetic polarity shifts. Things go wrong on the planet due to totally not Chaos cult nonsense, and it does a decent job of showing Magnus' flaws, specifically his inability to leave things that have "do not fuck with this" written on them alone; something Pert tries and fails at making him understand. Crucially it's set early enough in the Crusade that the use of psychic powers by Astartes is uncommon and the Thousand Sons basically have to keep a lid on how powerful they really are. They do not succeed.

The original colonists of Morningstar survived by rounding up all the psykers into their seed ship and splitting them from their psychic powers throne room of the emperor style. However since they didn't dissipate these psychic powers, the souls of the psykers just floated around inside the ship until they joined up into a single entity. When their jailers realized what was happening, they ran and sealed the ship but the psychic gestalt had already infected their minds with a doomsday meme, resulting in the shenanigans that Magnus and Pert arrive to. The entire Morningstar government fell victim to this meme and built a continent sized machine to destroy their planet which Pert & Magnus somehow didn't notice. Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt into his book, and the surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading.

===Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia===
Probably the book in the series that did the most character building of all. This book shows Perturabo's childhood on Olympia alongside a "current" day conflict against the Hrud, the former showing why Pert is the odd genius manchild guy he is, while the latter does a great job of showing why fucking with an alien species capable of controlling time is somewhat of a stupid idea. However, the real draw of the book is that it is mainly written as an attempt to merge together the seemingly contradictory depictions of Pert we've had over the years, showing how the ruthless dick who decimates his legion for not being good enough in the Forgeworld books is the same guy who just wanted to be a builder in Angel Exterminatus. Also he may or may not have wanted to bang his adopted sister.

===Lorgar: Bearer of the Word===
Yep, the first(ish?) heretic himself gets his own obligatory messed-up childhood novel. Focuses slightly more on Kor Phaeron rather than Lorgar himself, showing him to be a manipulative dick who beat Lorgar as a child and never really bought into this whole "fatherhood" shtick or this whole concept of [[Emperor|One True God]], but allowed Lorgar his fantasies and the takeover Colchis (by "Word" or by "Mace") while Phaeron benefitted from increased power and secretly kept the faith of [[Chaos Gods]]. By the end Kor Phaeron wonders if Lorgar just let him think that he was manipulated and could have disposed of him at any time. The book does introduce a contrasting character to Kor Phaeron who actually shows Lorgar compassion growing up and was far more worthy of being named "father" but was far less useful to Lorgar's goals. The book shows that Lorgar isn't as stupid or naive as everyone thinks and does indeed realise that people have been using him for their own gains, but he only really cares about doing the work of the gods; so long as they both align he doesn't seem to care.

=== Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix ===
Fulgrim tries to conquer the newly discovered planet Byzas with only 7 men. Byzas has devolved to steam power and bolt-action bolters, but capital palace has DAOT gun defenses and anti-grav airships (think blimps without gasbags). Along the way Fulgrim encounters a brotherhood much like his own that wants to work with him; he dismisses them as a bunch of idealists. It's implied that he COULD have gotten the same results (Compliance) working with them but unfortunately that would have meant calling in backup and Fulgrim didn't want to do that. In the end Fulgrim takes the world but nearly dies from a hidden hydrogen bomb which he disarms. Several other characters such as Cyrius (who gets shanked by a squad from the brotherhood while wearing armor and has to be saved by Fulgrim) and Kasperos Telmar) later become prominent champions of chaos, while the others were blown up on Istvaan III. Also makes the first (but all too brief) direct mention of one of the Missing Primarchs, as well as the amusing spectacle of Fabius Bile in formal attire.

===Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa===
Ferrus is overseeing joint exercises between the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children when he learns about a noncompliant human empire called the Gardinaal who have just humiliated a compliance force of Ultramarines and Thousand Sons. He decides that he'll conquer them singlehandedly so as to impress the Emperor and his brothers and maybe even get appointed to that Warmaster position everyone's whispering about. He throws his weight around when he arrives and tells off the Ultramarines commander for getting his ass kicked, then learns that the Gardinaal are actually some tough mothers, with their own genetically enhanced soldier caste and a willingness to nuke their own cities if it'll kill some Imperial troops. Ferrus quits fucking around after the Gardinaal try to assassinate him under the pretense of surrender negotiations and orders his fleet to demolish their entire capital planet before personally going down to smash faces in until they finally give up. In the end, he admits to Fulgrim that he doesn't have the patience to be Warmaster, and that he'll back whoever gets the job.

Probably the highlight of the novel is that we get a look inside Ferrus' head while it's still attached to the rest of him. Ferrus is a zealot who gives no fucks about anything beyond conquering systems in the name of the Emprah and being the best there is at what he does. In his own way, he was just as obsessed with perfection as Fulgrim, which is why they got along so well. He's also got a lot of built-up resentment toward Dorn, since Dorn once called him a dumbass on the bridge of his own flagship in front of a bunch of his sons. He doesn't seem to like Guilliman very much either at this point, probably because the G-man encouraged restraint when dealing with noncompliant planets and Ferrus just wanted to smash everything and let someone else pick up the pieces.

===Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris===
Basically a recap of some of the White Scars' more important pre-Heresy campaigns, including conquering the Nephilim homeworld and killing a shitload of Orks on a planet made of psychically resonant crystals. The main thing the book does is confirm that Jaghatai was always meant to be a wild card. More importantly, it shows that while he didn't really agree with the Emperor about anything, especially the Imperial Truth, he was still willing to serve the Imperium in his own way (read: killing xenos on the edges of the galaxy while everyone else built an empire behind him). Also shows the Khan trying to plan ahead for the [[Council of Nikaea|inevitable showdown]] between pro and anti-psyker factions in the Imperium, and how the warrior lodges were first introduced to the Scars. On a side note, we learn that the V Legion's original name was the Star Hunters, and that they relied heavily on armor and mechanized infantry before the Khan and his Chogorian posse taught them to love jetbikes and going ''real'' fast. Oh, and they became known as the White Scars because of a mistranslation, not unlike the Vlka Fenryka/Space Wolves.

===Vulkan: Lord of Drakes===
Vulkan is united with the Terran members of his legion while they're on campaign against a fuckhueg WAAAGH! on a volcanic death world. The main takeaway from the book is that the XVIII Legion were stubborn badasses ready to lay down their lives for civilians right from the start of the Crusade. Without Vulkan around though, they kept throwing themselves into desperate last stands, to the point that other Imperial forces were starting to call them suicidal. Some of the Nocturnean legionaries even suggest that the Emperor kept Vulkan away from the legion for so long because he was waiting for all the Terrans to get themselves killed, but Vulkan dismisses that idea out of hand and nothing comes of it. There's also a pretty nifty sequence where Vulkan and a bunch of his sons surf a modified Termite assault drill into an attack moon and blow it up from the inside.

===Corax: Lord of Shadows===
Corax and the Raven Guard are sent to bring the Carinae system into compliance. The system is basically a thousand floating space station hive cities, all independent of each other with a thousand different governments, orbiting a star. Typically they hate each other's guts but are able to come together and combine firepower to a devastating effect when an Imperial compliance fleet gives them a common enemy. The leaders aren't keen on handing over all their power to the emperor. He initially tries to use stealth and surgical strikes to get them to surrender peacefully with minimal casualties, but a real Imperium hater forms a coalition and death stars the first city to surrender. When Corax targets him for surgical elimination, he releases a zombie virus on the whole station and escapes via a stealth shuttle to a hidden station masked by the sun's emissions. A pissed-off Corax orders his legion to hunt the dude down and disable the station engines, letting him broadcast his 5 stages of grief to the whole system while he descends into the Sun. This also comes at the cost of dragging out the compliance and thousands of unnecessary casualties since the remaining orbitals are able to consolidate their strategic/tactical positions and form actual armies. There is also a subplot about Corax’s home planets of Kiavahr and Deliverance which shows that Imperial compliance didn’t actually make things all that much better for the people living there; the Kiavahr tech-guilds and the Mechanicum can barely tolerate each other and people from Deliverance are still routinely discriminated against to the point where some of them have turned to terrorism to express their displeasure. Corax himself admits that he didn't have time to fix everything before leaving but pledges that he'll come back and set Kiavahr to rights once the Crusade is over. Doesn't stop him from executing one of his best friends in the rebellion for being uppity.

The book shows us that Corax was an idealist who believed in the principles of the Great Crusade and genuinely didn’t understand why people would reject the Imperium. It’s shown that while he was a proponent of treating normal humans as equals, he could still be astoundingly arrogant when dealing with them since he was a genetically-engineered transhuman demigod and all. He is also shown to be constantly grappling with his need to deliver justice at any cost, aware that he might turn into another Konrad Curze if he’s not careful. We also get a look at what the Sable Brand is like through the eyes of an afflicted Raven Guard legionary; basically, it's a watered down version of the Black Rage that causes them to hallucinate and become suicidal, which some of them deal with by joining the [[Moritat]].

===Sons of The Emperor===
A collection of short stories showcasing the contrast between the Primarchs and the rest of mankind, getting down to how they really perceive themselves and how humanity sees them.
:'''The Passing of Angels:''' Sanguinius leads a Destroyer host to completely obliterate an abominable culture. He has his men adopt anonymity so they do not need to shoulder the burdens of what they do, but argues that since he was designed for dark deeds he cannot set aside what he is. Primarchs might be angels, "but angels were not created for kindness".
:'''Mercy of the Dragon:''' Recounts a conversation between Vulkan and the Emperor that shows us how Vulkan was always intended to be the "most human" of the Primarchs, and to be able to teach his brothers how to be more like him. Possibly hinting towards a plan after the Great Crusade that involved the Primarchs settling down into civilian life.
:'''The Abyssal Edge:''' Shows a conflict between Curze and Magnus that was kept confidential, because the rest of the Imperium were not allowed to see the Primarchs in disagreement with each other. Crucially shows a side of Curze that ISN'T a terrorizing murder junkie edgelord. Sevatar leaves the choice up to the investigating officer, and it's implied the officer chooses to hush up the report. Also the first chronological appearance of Khayon from the Black Legion series as well as Sevatar back on his finest snarking form.
:'''Shadows of the Past:''' Set some point after the Horus Heresy, a "daemon" starts killing its way through some Word Bearers. Turns out Corax has ascended into a creature made of pure darkness and gets into a duel with Daemon-Lorgar. Corax wins, but the Word Bearers act as a mass human shield to allow Lorgar a chance to escape. Shaken from the fight, Lorgar heads to his room and slams the door behind him for a few millennia.
:'''The Emperor's Architect:''' A biography of Perturabo showing what he was doing before awoke halfway up a mountain, then later. Hints that Perturabo's projected image was carefully stage-managed, and ''oh'' how he hated to be upstaged. He had a sculpt-off with a prodigy artist, and just like Fulgrim he made a perfect statue. But the artist worked for a decade to make a cool statue of some hero that showed a different facet of his life/personality from the angle you were standing, and practically everybody who saw them side by side said that was better than Pert's 3D-printed like replica. Pert slapped the statue and never spoke about it again. He was destroying [[Rogal Dorn|artwork that embarrassed him]] long before he was discovered by the Emperor.
:'''Prince of Blood:''' After Angron gets Daemon-Prince'd by Lorgar, he goes mad and gets locked up in the bowels of his flagship, causing all sorts of disgusting changes to take place. Kharn goes to talk to him and finds that Angron has been stripped of his sense of self, completely lost to Khorne. Angron warns them against his form of slavery, though it appears that Kharn and the others followed him down the same path simply because he was their father, but there is also a promise that they will [[Blam|"thank"]] Lorgar for what he did to them.
:'''The Ancient Awaits:''' Long after the Heresy is over, Magnus sends a Thousand Sons squad to an abandoned planet to find a repeating broadcast that says only "the Ancient awaits". In a deep underground hangar they find an ancient Dreadnought and realize that the planet is Istvaan III, and that the Dreadnought is [[Ancient Rylanor]] of the Emperor's Children, who's been sitting there ever since Horus Exterminatus'd the planet millennia ago. Fulgrim appears to try and seduce Rylanor into joining up with the endless party machine that is the III Legion, and Rylanor goes "Surprise Motherfucker" and detonates a virus bomb he was sitting on. The Thousand Sons feel sympathetic to how honorable Rylanor is (despite being a bit cuckoo from sitting on his ass) and let him do it. Fulgrim's ego is wounded from seeing that even after several millennia Rylanor rejected all the pleasures he had to offer. [https://youtu.be/X2Hb4bngxJ8 A story forever immortalized in song form].
:'''Misbegotten:''' The Sons of Horus take over most of a system without having to fight, but have to deal with one holdout planet defended by Frankenstein-like creatures spliced together from multiple human donors. Their creator (Basilio Fo) is a five thousand year old bioengineer who encountered the Emperor at some point on Terra and then got the fuck out before the Great Crusade kicked off. He sends a big ball of human hands to surprise strike Horus in his command post, but Horus naturally defeats it messily. For all his own abominations, Fo admits that he sees the Primarchs as representing something far worse than even what he could have created. The epilogue shows him laughing his ass off in his cell on Terra when the Siege starts because he's kind of been proven right.

===Angron: Slave of Nuceria===
Covers the events leading to the World Eaters' adoption of the Butcher's Nails and the Ghenna massacre. Ever since taking command of the Legion, Angron has been ordering them to complete every planetary conquest they undertake in thirty-one hours, this being the length of a single day on Nuceria. When and if they fail, he has them kill one in every ten Astartes; the same thing Perturabo did when he took command of the Iron Warriors. This has happened so many times that the World Eaters are starting to suffer some serious daddy issues, and the only way for them to earn his approval is to accept the Butcher's Nails. Unfortunately for them, the implants keep failing, sometimes explosively so, until they're sent to bring a rebellious Imperial world back into compliance and find that it's been turned into a planet full of androids who were created with some of the same tech used in the Nails; with this, one of the Legion's Apothecaries is able to create a stable version of the Nails. Kharn is the first to successfully undergo the procedure, and the Nails make him [[Rip and Tear|RAGE]] so hard the book literally blacks out for a couple of pages. Angron orders the entire legion to be implanted, which triggers a brief spate of infighting between the World Eaters who want to earn Papa Angron's approval at any cost and those who think that he's a broken psychopath who needs to be taken to the Emperor for help. The one World Eater captain who still thinks the Nails are a terrible idea gets killed by Kharn in a duel and the rest of them submit to the procedure. The story ends right as Russ shows up with the entire VI Legion fleet, having decided that Angron needs a talking-to about all this nonsense. We all know how this ends, of course. There's also an epilogue where Kharn happens to ransack Ghenna 10,000 years later and comes across an embellished statue of the World Eater captain he beheaded, and has a rare moment of clear headed dispair for what he and his broken legion have become.

The book gives Angron some character development beyond "giant frothing berserker" which turns him into a pretty tragic figure. As it turns out, he didn't get the Butcher's Nails immediately after landing on Nuceria, but received them as a punishment for refusing to kill his adoptive father in the arenas. Before the Nails he was a pretty bro-tier guy who loved his fellow gladiators and used what appeared to be latent psyker powers to absorb all their nightmares so they could rest properly while he dealt with all their accumulated fear and anger. This Angron would have probably made one hell of a general for the Crusade. Then the Nails got pounded into his head and he Hulked out and killed his adoptive father, which broke him and turned him into the psychotic death machine we're all familiar with. He also has a death wish caused by the Emperor yoinking him from his last stand with the other gladiators on Nuceria and has spent the entirety of the Great Crusade looking for something tough enough to kill him.

===Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter===

Grimdark Batman finally gets his very own standalone novel! The entire thing is told in flashbacks framed by Curze talking to a statue of the Emperor he stitched together out of human flesh while waiting for M'Shen to come and kill him. Most of it involves explaining how Curze got out of the stasis coffin that Sanguinius stuffed him into at the end of ''Ruinstorm''. As it turns out he was adrift for a few decades after the end of the Heresy, until he got picked up by the crew of a sub-light freighter who planned to sell the coffin for a packet; instead Curze woke up and decided to [[rip and tear|play some tag]] [[grimdark|with the stupid humans.]] He left one of the crew alive and told him to drive the ship to Tsagualsa, mutilating the poor kid whenever he got bored. The kid had a chance to escape after dropping Curze off but followed him instead and was predictably [[grimdark|killed by the Night Lords when Curze decided he was done with him.]] Konrad also struggles under the weight of his visions throughout only for the Emperor to contact him and explain Konrad's great mistake: his visions of the future were not fixed and Curze could have chosen a different and better path if he had not been so convinced of the inevitability of fate. The Emperor also tells him two very interesting things: he does not consider any of the traitor primarchs irredeemable, and he forgives Konrad for all that he's done, just as Papa Sang had said he might. Konrad freaks out and insists he cannot be forgiven because there is no justice in that, then tears the statue down before leaving to get ready for M'Shen's imminent arrival.

Other highlights include some flashbacks to Curze's days murdering people on Nostramo, including killing a woman [[derp|who was about to commit suicide]] and Curze eating his victims [[grimdark|because he enjoyed it.]] Also Curze hated Corax, not because Corax was good, but because Corax was a better ninja than him. Oddly enough he also says he didn't hate any of his other brothers, even the ones who were dicks to him like Fulgrim or Dorn. So he really just tortured the shit out of Vulkan for shits and giggles, what a dick.

Seriously though, this summary doesn't do it much justice. It's still a pretty good book. And it's barely 200 pages, read it anyway.

===Scions of the Emperor===
A second short story collection and cocktease extraordinaire, originally a Weekender exclusive.
:'''Canticle:''' Focuses on Ferrus Manus during his early days on Medusa, fighting his way through hordes of cyborg monstrosities while he scavenges for armor, weapons, food, and equipment; battles the extreme weather; and tries to find a name for himself. He encounters a woman who tries to hold him up, but when he shows no fear of her and gives her his weapon on the grounds that she's earned it, she instead suggests he join her clan. He refuses, stating that he has something to do (namely killing Asirnoth). Amusingly, the story reveals that Primarchs can literally eat sand and metal to stay alive.
:'''The Verdict of the Scythe:''' Set during the Great Crusade. Having been yelled at by his brothers for trashing yet another planet, Mortarion tries being nice for once when bringing the world of Absyrtus into compliance. He roams the streets for a bit after the official compliance ceremony and realizes that the witch-cults which dominated Absyrtus before his arrival weren't limited to just the ruling tyrants but are completely integrated into the planet's society, so he deems the planet beyond saving, [[Exterminatus|nukes it from orbit]], and decides that being Mr. Nice Guy isn't for him (Liberating Humanity from Lifetm).
:'''A Game of Opposites:''' Set during the Heresy. An Iron Warriors warsmith tries to outthink Jaghatai Khan and loses hilariously because the Khan [[Oinkbane|is too subtle for him]]. Jaghatai easily defeats the trap the Iron Warriors tried to set, then explains to the warsmith why he lost before executing him: the warsmith may have studied the Khan's writings, but he failed to grasp their true meaning, and so he was doomed to defeat even if the Khan had not been present.
:'''Better Angels:''' Follows Jehoel, a line legionary of the Blood Angels, throughout the latter days of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Sanguinius chooses to be his patron as Jehoel commemorates the battles the legion has fought by making glass sculptures, all the while lamenting the destruction and loss wrought by the Heresy. Just before the Siege of Terra, he finally asks his father why Sanguinius chose to be his patron, and the primarch explains that he sees himself in Jehoel more than he does any of his other sons; he is the best expression of the Blood Angels' highest ideals.
:'''The Conqueror's Truth:''' A remembrancer gets herself assigned to the Night Lords so she can see some war, and Curze and Sevatar oblige her in the same way a jackass genie might grant your wish for a ton of gold by dropping it on you: they bring her to a city under assault by the Night Lords and allow her to record the civilian population being dumped en masse into its geothermal furnaces. When she declares that she will find some way to show this atrocity to the people of Terra, Curze tells her that's what he wants. He says that the citizens of the Imperium must know what kind of war is being waged in their name and that he'll use the footage to show other worlds that there are only two options for them: compliance, or death.
:'''The Sinew of War:''' A flashback to Guilliman's younger days on Macragge as he returns from putting down a tribal uprising to find Macragge City in flames and his adoptive father dead. He quickly realizes that his father's co-consul, Gallan, is responsible, and busts Gallan in front of the entire Senate. He fights down the temptation to just murder him, thus holding true to Konor's ideals. One of his bitterest enemies is so impressed that he swears allegiance to Roboute, and so does the rest of the Senate, thus setting Guilliman on the path to becoming the Lord of Macragge.
:'''The Chamber at the End of Memory:''' Also known as light touching above the clothes. Some workers fortifying a forgotten corner of the Imperial Palace in preparation for the forthcoming siege are killed by a psychic booby trap. When Rogal Dorn investigates, he discovers that they accidentally broke into the personal quarters of the Lost Primarchs, which have been heavily warded with psychic defenses forged by Malcador himself. When Malcador shows up, Dorn realizes that he can't even remember his brothers' names, and starts to tear into the Sigillite for having sealed his memories. Malcador counters by revealing that it was Dorn's idea to begin with, and further explains that he and Guilliman were able to save the II and XI Legions from being purged alongside their primarchs; they were mind-wiped and absorbed into the other Legions. He then unseals Dorn's memories long enough for him to realize that whatever his lost brothers did was so horrible that the Imperium would have long since fallen if they were still alive.
:'''First Legion:''' Also known as a gentle groping of your mental bits. Lion el'Jonson and the Dark Angels are in the midst of the [[Rangdan Xenocides]] when a mysterious legionary calling himself Alpharius turns up and requests an audience with the Primarch of the I Legion. He offers to secretly take over the war effort so that the Dark Angels may withdraw and rebuild their strength as this will improve the Lion's chances of one day being named commander of the entire Imperial war machine, which "Alpharius" believes is necessary for the Imperium to survive. The Lion rejects the offer immediately, stating that he will see the Xenocides through.

===Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First===
While the campaign for Ullanor takes place, the Emperor tasks the Lion with pacifying an irrelevant little world on the galactic fringe that had already been considered compliant. The Lion begins fortifying the world and bringing in more troops and fleets, keeping his true intentions to himself, while his senior commanders are keen to move on and earn real glory elsewhere. As it turns out, the planet was being used as a feeding world for the [[Khrave]], a race of uber-psychic xenos from before the [[Fall of the Eldar]] that can read minds, crush tanks with a gesture, and possess people in their millions from outside of a solar system. The book shows how clever and callous the Lion could be by [[Alpharius|coming up with a massively convoluted plan]] that he needed to keep secret from a race of mind readers, even going so far as to issue seemingly contradictory orders to his men to confuse the enemy as well as [[Perturabo|knowingly sacrificing millions of mortal lives]] in order to escalate the conflict and draw out the Khrave's leader in order to destroy them. This is all interspersed with some of his brief meetings with the [[Emperor]], highlighting how similar the two of them were in mindset. As the dutiful firstborn son, the Lion seemed to always know what his father desired and was the one most trusted to enact it. At one point, the Lion laments that his own contribution to the Imperium is nothing but ash and destruction, but the Emperor explains that this is the point of him and the I Legion: to do the things that even Konrad Curze and Leman Russ cannot, such as the complete erasure of opponents too troublesome to allow to exist (including obliterating all memory of them), and to do it without the need for recognition, accolades, or ceremony. The book even ends with the Lion having potentially [[Grey Knights|mind wiped his own Space Marines so that they cannot remember who they just fought.]] What the novel does best is illuminate the labyrinthine inner workings of the Dark Angels, showing why even the Alpha Legion thought they were a tough nut to crack. There are orders and cabals and subdivisions of orders and cabals threaded throughout the legion's structure, reaching across rank, station, and specialization, all of which are linked by a complex and ever-expanding web of coded heraldries, hidden symbols, and secret passphrases that only the Lion seems to fully grasp.

The book also reads like a tie-in novel to the recently released Horus Heresy 9: Crusade. It has many references to items and formations that were first introduced only months earlier such as the ''Fusil Actinaeus'', the Excindio battle-automata, Dreadwing Interemptors, Firewing Enigmatii Cabals, and the various hidden Orders of the Hekatonystika. It also disappoints because it actually shows the secret arsenals of those orders that are tantalizingly NOT represented on the tabletop, such as Fire Raptors equipped with psionic lance weapons, assault psycannons, archaeotech pistols [[Grimdark|that erase their target from memory]], and the Lion wearing a psychic dampening cloak.

===Alpharius: Head of the Hydra===
Long story short, everything we’ve been told about Alpharius is true, from a certain point of view (or maybe not). Alpharius himself (unless it was actually Omegon) lands on Terra after the primarchs were scattered. He immediately senses that [[Omegon|some part of him is missing]], but before he can ponder this too deeply the Emperor finds him and brings him back to the Palace. He's raised in total secrecy by Malcador, who explains that he will be the Emperor’s hidden blade, the son who can strike from the shadows and weave deceptions of surpassing subtlety. The Emperor further explains to him that Alpharius' job will be to preserve the Imperium at all costs, no matter what he might have to do. Alpharius interprets this to mean that he should test the Palace’s defenses, so he breaks into the Imperial Dungeon, kills a Custodian and steals his armor, and sets up a fake assassination attempt on the Emperor. Constantin Valdor stops him, but Alpharius reveals that he had already hacked into an AA battery on the other side of the Palace and could have just shot down the Emperor’s shuttle at any time, proving his point and annoying Valdor. Alpharius and his legion go on to wage war in the shadows throughout the Great Crusade, using wetwork teams, deep-cover sleeper agents, and psyops to defeat the Imperium’s enemies. The XX Legion apparently has agents seeded throughout the galaxy, even on worlds that haven’t yet been contacted by the Imperium, and uses them as appropriate to destabilize governments or cripple armies and infrastructures prior to the arrival of other Legions. Alpharius claims to have fought alongside the Dark Angels in their first deployment (as seen in Valdor’s novel), and also claims to have been present for the rediscoveries of several of his brothers, disguised as members of their legions. He and his legion are shown to be content with their role as black operatives, though also a bit bummed that they don’t get to stomp around kicking ass and gaining glory like the rest of the Astartes do.

He later unmasks his legion’s existence to the Lion during the Third Rangdan War, and the account of this meeting directly contradicts the one from ''Scions of the Emperor'', in that this time Alpharius merely offers his legion’s support to the Dark Angels, rather than suggesting that the Angels withdraw and let the XX Legion take over. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two accounts. While fighting the Rangdan behind the scenes and dealing with civil insurrections, Alpharius gets wind of a mysterious warrior who may possibly his missing twin on a world behind enemy lines. When he goes to investigate, he discovers that the world is being overrun by the [[Slaugth]], so Alpharius takes a small team in to find his brother. Most of his legionnaires die, but he finds Omegon (unless it's really Alpharius), and they sit down for a friendly chat. Omegon tells Alpharius that he fetched up on a deserted planet and stole a ship belonging to some space pirates in order to escape (unless he’s lying). They wonder if the Emperor had deliberately engineered them as twins or if they had been divided somehow by their passage through the Warp. Either way, they decide to keep the truth concealed from the rest of the Imperium, then escape the Slaugth together and start planning how to reveal Alpharius' existence to the Imperium. They decide to stage an attack on the ''Vengeful Spirit'', so Omegon sneaks onto the ship and fights his way to the bridge. Horus recognizes him immediately and is overjoyed to have found his last brother, who introduces himself to the Lupercal as Alpharius. This is followed by the last line of the novel: “This was a lie.” So does that refer to Omegon calling himself Alpharius, or does it mean that the entire story was all one big lie? Hydra Dominatus, ladies and gentlemen.

Throughout the novel, Alpharius presents himself as a surprisingly philosophical person, often ruminating on his nature and that of his brothers. He isn’t particularly impressed with any of them except for Horus and Sanguinius (but he might be lying) and he reveals that he distrusted Rogal Dorn so much that he decided to plant some sleeper agents on Terra just in case. (Of course, one of these sleeper agents was Alpharius himself, according to ''Praetorian of Dorn'', so does this mean that the Alpharius who was narrating this novel is a disguised Alpha Legionnaire?)

===Blood of the Emperor===

Oh, look, another short story anthology. Only six stories this time.

:'''Lupis Daemonis:''' Turns out Cthonia is even shittier than we were told it was, ranking as possibly even shittier than Nostramo and Barbarus combined. Horus, who goes without a name until the end of the story, is the runt of his gang in the utter shitheap that is the Cthonian underworld and is only spared from getting shanked by the other members of his gang because the gang leader realizes he isn't normal. We find out Horus was made differently from the other Primarchs in that his Primarch-level growth rate was intentionally stunted until psychically activated by the Emperor from afar, for some reason. Long story short, Horus evolves into his current form Pokémon style at the end after killing his gang leader, who was the one who gave him his name. Also apparently the Justaerin got their name from a violent gang on Cthonia who enjoyed impaling people on stakes.
:'''Skjalds:''' We learn Russ returns to Fenris every once in awhile to fuck with the locals, in this case a hunting party trying to kill a warp tainted creature who killed a whole village. Also we get confirmation that, yes, he does indeed smell like a dog.
:'''The Sixth Cult of the Denied:''' Magnus soft-exiles a member of his legion (and disbands an entire cult of the Thousand Sons) for consorting with demons in the quest for forbidden knowledge, specifically how the fuck he managed to cure his legion of the Flesh Change. Oh, the irony.
:'''The Will of the Legion:''' Dorn and the Imperial Fists happen upon an opportunistic bunch of void-dwelling bandits who attack their fleet and are a hair's breadth away from destroying every single one of them with extreme prejudice until they surrender at the very last moment. Basically a reminder that just because Dorn is a loyal good boy to the Emperor doesn't mean he isn't still a mass murderous dick at the end of the day.
:'''Council of Truth:''' Alpharius "confesses" to doing things the hard way as a means to constantly test himself and the Alpha Legion in preparation for the day that might see them standing as the Imperium's last line of defense. Basically confirms that Alpharius saw the Heresy coming a loooong way off.
:'''Terminus:''' Two Death Guard at the Siege of Terra, fresh off the events of 'The Buried Dagger', wonder if they're (gasp) the bad guys, what with their rotting flesh and awful smell and such.

===Mortarion: The Pale King===
Set to cover the Conquest of Galaspar, Mortarion's first campaign after taking command of the Death Guard.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
Not a Primarch (like Malcador), but still technically part of this series. Will cover Constantin Valdor's role in the Unification Wars, and according to previews it will hold some new insights on the Emperor's plans.

As it turns out, it doesn't really tell us anything that we didn't know already, though it does expand on a few things. The book is set near the end of the Unification Wars on Terra. The new Provost Marshal, Uwoma Kandawire, has uncovered evidence of some shady doings at Mount Ararat and confronts Constantin Valdor as to the Custodians’ role in that battle. Along the way, he tells her of the war against the warp-tainted Confederacy of Maulland Sen, where the inherent instability of the Thunder Warriors first became apparent. They weren't just genetically unstable; the influence of the Warp also caused them to go more berserk than usual, so it became evident to the Emperor that a [[Space Marines|long-term solution would be required]]. Valdor also tells Kandawire about the primarchs being scattered by the Chaos gods; the psychic backlash from the event was so strong that it wrecked a large section of the Imperial Dungeon and killed thousands of those present. Valdor himself waded in to save the stored gene-seed from being destroyed, alongside Amar Astarte, the Imperium’s best gene-wright and the namesake of the Adeptus Astartes, though everyone believed that the primarchs had been killed. The Provost Marshal concludes that the Custodes are trying to make a grab for power and leads an uprising alongside Lord Ushotan, the “primarch” of the Thunder Warriors’ Fourth Legion, who survived the purge at Ararat. Valdor confronts Kandawire and Ushotan outside the Lion’s Gate and explains himself thus: the Custodians and the Emperor are the architects of humanity’s future, and any crime can be forgiven and any virtue dismissed if it is in service to that future. Then he unleashes the fledgling [[Dark Angels|I Legion]] to destroy the insurrectionists and personally kills Ushotan in a duel. In the aftermath, he explains to Kandawire the Imperium’s ultimate aim: not just Unity on Earth, but [[Great Crusade| Unity throughout the galaxy]], a vast undertaking which will require hundreds of thousands of these new soldiers. Meanwhile, Amar Astarte has come to the conclusion that the Space Marine project will fall apart without the primarchs and has decided to destroy the stored gene-seed in order to stop them from failing like the Thunder Warriors did. She manages to blow up the gene-seed vaults underneath the Palace, but Malcador already had copies of all twenty batches moved to Luna. He then reveals to Valdor that the Emperor believes the primarchs are still alive and intends to seek them out. Valdor wonders if it wouldn't just be better to abandon them or destroy them outright, since they might be tainted by [[Chaos|whatever power]] snatched them away in the first place. Malcador's dialogue heavily implies that the Emperor actually did have some paternal affection for the primarchs at this point, as he mentions that the Emperor has started referring to them as his sons and suggests that he has a lingering attachment to them which has yet to fade. Valdor's response is equally telling: he notes that the Emperor's "human sentiments" are slowly ebbing away, and Malcador acknowledges that this is the price the Emperor was willing to pay to secure his dream of Unity.

===Luther: First of the Fallen===
A story told from the perspective of Luther starting at the time he’s found by Redloss after the events of Caliban’s destruction. Locked in a cell and tortured on and off so frequently that he barely even registers it anymore, he’s constantly forced to deal with Dark Angel Chapter Master after Dark Angel Chapter Master as the millennia go by, each one coming to him for knowledge of the past in between being frozen in stasis by the Watchers in the Dark. Each time he’s asked a question, Luther answers it in a roundabout way by telling a story from his past as a way to demonstrate some point to whichever Chapter Master happens to be listening: some get what he’s saying, and some don’t. One story gets misinterpreted so badly that the Chapter Master in question comes back afterwards and kills himself in Luther’s cell. By the time of the events of great rift with Azrael as the current chapter master, while the Rock is under siege, he finds that his cell door is open and he literally just tip-toes his way out.

===Sigismund: The Eternal Crusader===
Covers Sigismund near the end of the Great Crusade, as he talks to Solomon Voss about why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future. Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time and gets his backstory. Siggy was an orphan recruited from the slums of Terra by the Night Lords, but the initial genetic testing revealed he was more compatible with the Imperial Fists, War Hounds, Luna Wolves, and Raven Guard, in that order, so he got bumped into the VII Legion instead. He fights alongside the War Hounds and Night Lords, making him relieved he didn't wind up in either of those legions, and earned his position as First Captain by beating 200 other Templar Brethren in one-on-one duels, with his final opponent being a Contemptor Dreadnought containing the guy who coached him when he joined the Templars. He's named Dorn's personal champion after winning a duel with an Iron Hands champion over whether Dorn or Ferrus was right about the proper prosecution of a campaign. We also get to see his infamous duel with Sevatar, which lasted most of a night until Sevatar got bored and cheated to end it, and his time with the World Eaters, where he picked up his habit of chaining his sword to his arm. Most interestingly, he admits that he never wanted to be recruited for the Legions, and that if he knew then what he'd become, he'd still have said no. He ends by telling Voss that he believes there will always be war because conflict is an inescapable part of human nature; even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to deal with the war within the human spirit. We also learn a bit of Voss' backstory; he was a merchant who sold all his stuff and joined the remembrancer order after his son died in the Army and proved to have one hell of a knack for writing.

===Audiobooks===
'''The Sigillite''' Despite not being a Primarch, his short story is included in the Primarch sub-series of the Horus Heresy. It covers a discussion between Malcador and a Stormtrooper named Khalid Hassan about the nature of the Emperor's plans and whether or not Malcador agreed with everything the Emperor thought(hint: he didn't). Khalid had brought the Rosetta Stone to Malcador without fully understanding its significance, whereupon Malcador reveals that he is part of an ancient order dedicated to the preservation of humanity's knowledge and history, and whose symbol will later become the Inquisitorial =I=.

Malcador also reveals the doors to the Golden Throne and indicates the awesome battle going on behind them, foreshadowing the events of the Webway War that are covered later on in the main series.

'''Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium''' In the story Malcador visits his elderly personal astropath who is on her deathbed. The pair have a few conversations where Malcador shows surprising compassion and humanity. During the conversations there are some major revelations about Malcador and the origins of the Heresy. You should listen to it yourself as it's cheap and short (25 mins), but in case you don't care about spoilers here's some stuff: he's 6718 years old, he helped the Emperor go from being just the biggest warlord on Terra to... well, being the Emperor, and he explains who the Sigillites are and what their role in the Imperium is. After the astropath despairs about the countless billions who've died in the Heresy, he drops the mother of all bombshells: the Heresy was planned by him and the Emperor from the beginning. Just as how the Thunder Warriors served their purpose and were betrayed and wiped out, the plan was to eventually pit the Primarchs against one another and have them wipe themselves out. He says the two of them carefully maneuvered the Primarchs into specific roles and situations, as well as the Emperor showing unequal favour between them, in order to foster hostility. The ones who "couldn't be controlled" never made it to the endgame (possibility referencing the lost Primarchs). He admits though that his failure was underestimating Chaos who caused the Heresy to happen much sooner than expected, which turned it into the calamity that it is.

After she dies Malcador he admits he lied but doesn't say exactly which bit he lied about. Some people think the truth is they planned to wipe out the Primarchs and Astartes, but the Heresy was never planned and was instead a lie intended to comfort an old woman on her deathbed (by saying they have it under control, sorta). Some other people think the lie is where he tells her that the Emperor "will catch her" when she dies (hinting at an afterlife and saving her soul from Chaos). The truth is we'll probably never know as this is typical Malcador obfuscation. If there's even a shred of truth to the origins of the Heresy, though, the implications are staggering: Horus was right in turning against the Emperor even if his reasons for doing so were wrong.

'''Perturabo: Stone and Iron''' A minor story largely about showing the differences between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, so doesn't provide any major revelations for the series. The Iron Warriors are supposed to be supporting an Imperial Fist position that is currently under assault, but Perturabo holds back and uses the opportunity to instruct his officers about how the Fists prosecute their own wars.

'''Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness''' Pretty skippable, really just Curze giving his thoughts on why the Emperor made him like he did and the Night Lord definition of "compliance" during the Great Crusade. Hint: It involves flaying. Lots of it.

===Short Stories===
'''Grandfather's Gift:''' Mortarion has a lab accident and knocks himself out. He wakes up in Nurgle's Garden, wanders around for a bit, and has a nice chat with [[Ku'Gath]] the Plaguefather, whose name is misspelled [[Derp|for some reason]]. It's revealed that Nurgle has tracked down his foster father's soul and will let Mortarion capture it as a gift for joining his service. The timeline is a bit squiffy due to warp fuckery. Mortarion knows what daemons are and knows that he's fought alongside them, but doesn't recognize Ku'Gath. Ku'Gath knows Mortarion, but also says that they haven't met yet. Morty himself doesn't know where he is or what's going on at first, but eventually his memories return, and he mutates into his daemon primarch form and captures his foster father's soul.

'''A Lesson in Iron:''' Ferrus Manus chases some orks into a warp rift and stumbles across an Iron Hands ship from a few thousand years in the future. The boarding parties he sends are attacked by daemons which fuck them up, and Ferrus himself finds a dead future Iron Hand whose bionics look like a shitty hack-job to him, so he gets pissy and orders everyone to leave. When his Mechanicum adept points out that they might be able to mine the databanks for advanced technology and info on [[Drop Site Massacre|future events]], he declares that he wants no part of this future. Also reveals that Ferrus had seen enough shit on Medusa to know that the Imperial Truth was a "useful lie."

==The Tabletop Wargame==
[[Forge World]] produces a line of books and models (in line with the old [[Imperial Armour]] and [[Warhammer Forge]]) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy, with rules and models for the [[Primarchs]] (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors), named characters who were romping around back then and ancient vehicles and machines that would be one off units in 40k armies, being fielded en-mass. Originally an add on system for [[Warhammer 40,000]], it became it's own game with a rulebook after 40k moved on to [[Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition|8th edition]] making it a sort of legacy game for the older style of 40k edition and also meaning the game has become a refuge for fa/tg/uys who don't enjoy 8th/9th edition 40k. Since the game is set during the 31st millennium pretty much all the armies are more archaic versions of their 40k counter parts, with lots of rules and quirks that help differentiate the factions from their future selves, such as legion tactical squads being able to be fielded in 20 man squads representing how much bigger the legions were and [[Daemon]]s not having their gods properly identified (though still having rules for god specific daemons) and having vague unit names to represent the only basic understanding the Imperium had of them. There are no [[xenos]] armies unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask), but all the factions that are in the game are very customisable with a huge array of rules, army types and really good conversion opportunities being able to be brought to the table, especially for Mechanicum, Daemon and Militia & Cults armies. 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.

Following the passing of Alan Bligh and the re-organisation of Forge World as a studio, the fate of this wargame had been seen as a bit precarious. While there were probably more books to cover up to and likely including the Siege of Terra, it seemed increasingly likely that Daddy GeeDubs wasn't keen on letting FW continue writing for this game (or making massive monsters and tanks for the mainstream games) on top of their work on [[Necromunda]] and [[Blood Bowl]]. One only had to look at how gutted the Imperial Armour books became in recent editions to see the writing on the wall. That said, the game had itself a sizeable following, especially after 8th Edition 40K essentially threw out all the crunch fans knew and made something entirely different, predictably leading to reactionary grognards clinging to the remaining flecks of nostalgia.

The game was never fully cancelled though. Though the black books had essentially stopped after Crusade, GW did release '''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HHZone_Mortalis_Rules.pdf Zone Mortalis]''' rules, the Exemplary Battles PDFs and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 essentially announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team.

===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 [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Space Marines/Legion List‎|tactica]]), and rules for special characters and units from the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Death Guard]], [[Emperor's Children]], and [[World Eaters]] Legions, including their [[Primarch]]s (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. The book's storyline is essentially just the ''first day'' of the battle, leading up to the death of [[Ferrus Manus]].

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===
Focusses 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 includes rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]].

It also gives us a complete Mechanicum Army List: the Taghmata.

====Condensed Lists====
The ICL and LACAL were initially released as part of the limited edition run of Extermination, but were then later released separately. They are fluff-lite, codex-equivalent books that also included all of the FAQs/Errata up to their release; which unfortunately was still the end of 6th edition so some rules haven't carried over well. ''(eg. [[Lorgar]]s psychic rules.)''

The Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the Isstvan Campaign Legions contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3; their units, characters and wargear in the previous three books. Meaning you can have a cheaper alternative to buying multiple £70+, huge black tomes JUST to play the game. The ICL was continued in the Age of Darkness Legions, which collected everything to book 5, including the errata.

Later came the Mechanicum Taghamata Army List, which contained all the Mechanicum units and army lists mentioned and rearranged them to keep everything on the same page, but lacked the Questoris Knight Army. The Crusade Imperialis Army Lists contain the Solar Auxilia, Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults, and Questoris Knight Crusade army lists.

===Conquest===
Horus Heresy Volume Four is entitled 'Conquest', despite early hints from Forgeworld that it would be about the Battle of Prospero, it instead features Horus' conquest of the Imperium and the [[Skub|"Major"]] battles of this time, which is to say some battle-zones that Forgeworld made up to fill time whilst they worked on the more well known events from the in-universe history. ''(And to be fair, their response as to why Prospero was delayed was because it included four major factions, [[Adeptus Custodes|two of]] [[Sisters of Silence|which have]] NEVER been represented on the tabletop, so required more time to do them justice.)''

A large portion of the book is given over to running battles in the '''"Age of Darkness"''', which is a variant ruleset used as the default for Horus Heresy games ''(where only Troops usually score, amongst other things)'' and has rules and FOCs for Cityfight missions, rules for running ongoing campaigns, variant rules for mysterious terrain and objectives as well as including unique relics to be taken by the various army lists to add flavor to non-special characters.

It also introduces the [[Solar Auxilia]] and [[Imperial Knight|"Questoris" Knights]] (as an AdMech list) armies to play while the modellers take a break from building power armor 24/7.

===Tempest===
The fifth Horus Heresy book covered the Battle of Calth. The rules for the [[Ultramarines]] (including [[Roboute Guilliman]] himself) as well as several warp-corrupted Word Bearer units are brought in alongside a few other new miscellaneous FW releases, including the Deredeo and the new Thanatars. There's also an Imperial Militia (Read: PDF) list that's super-customizable so you can make both loyalist and traitor lists. Also, the MOTHERFUCKING [[Warlord Titan|WARLORD TITANS]] IS IN IT TOO. PREPARE YOUR WALLET.

===Retribution===
Focused on 'Shadow Wars' far from the main fronts of the Heresy, in particular the Shattered Legions - that is, the [[Iron Hands]], [[Raven Guard]], and [[Salamanders]] in their weakened state following their losses in the Drop Site Massacre. But other Legions can also be included, with special rules for the Shattered Legions, Black Shields and a list for Armies of Dark Compliance - mixed traitor Legiones/Militia lists, as well as ten new special characters. It includes Legiones Astartes rules for the White Scars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels, so that players of those legions can start playing properly; however, it does not include special units, characters, or Primarchs for those legions. It also includes Garro and the Knights Errant and additional Mechanicum units and characters, including a new Dark Magos, [[Anacharis Scoria]]. Space Wolves and Thousand Sons will still need to wait for the Prospero book (Inferno, Book 7).

===Inferno===
In <s>Set to be book 3.</s> <s>late 2016.</s> <s>early 2017 (Because FW can't keep to schedule)</s> <s>December 2016</s> February 4, 2017, comes with what many neckbeards are waiting for: THE BURNING OF PROSPERO!!! For those [[Thousand Sons]] players, start saving up so you can play your space Egyptian sorcerers in all their 30k glory. Rules for the Sisters of Silence as an allied detachment and the Adeptus Custodes as a full army list will be present as well.

Well, it's come, and... it's uninspiring to say the least, with stuff like [[What|Magnus being straight up impossible to hit if he casts invisibility, not to mention pumping out 2d6 destroyer hits at every unit within 18" if he likes]], [[Derp|Custodes captains beating out every Primarch with a rollable 3+ invulnerable save]], some Custodes wargear being straight up [[Wat|left out of the book]] and to cap it all, [[Herp|pictures of tourists in the book ('''twice''') where you'd expect miniatures to be]]. You'd think with such a long development cycle the quality assurance would have been more thorough. Didn't help that [[Alan Bligh]] was likely fairly ill in late 2016, and his death in May of 2017 means the Horus Heresy team now has a big hole in it.

===Malevolence===
After the untimely death of Alan Bligh, this will be the first book with John French behind the wheel after two years of internal re-organizing. Covers the events of Signus Prime and the Chondax Campaigns. It features [[White Scars]] and [[Blood Angels]] including rules for both Jaghatai and Sanguinius, [[Dark Angel Shoulder Pad|making the Lion the only Primarch without rules]]. Introduced as a new army is Daemons of the Ruinstorm, an army of 'unknown aberrant xenoforms' (since this was before the Imperium really understood what Daemons really were) which play quite differently to the Daemons of Fantasy/Sigmar/40K. Also included are 5 new consuls and two new squads that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

===Crusade===
Was originally to be called ''Angelus'', though it eventually was renamed to ''Crusade''. It covers the [[Thramas Crusade]] with the Dark Angels vs Night Lords, and introduces new Legion-specific units and characters for the Dark Angels, including Dreadwing units and rules for upgrading DA characters to represent any of the six Wings of the Hexagrammaton. Most importantly, the Lion finally has his rules. The Night Lords got revamped rules and some new toys, including a new VIII Legion-specific Terminator squad that [[Derp|isn't the Atramentar]]. Unfortunately leaks have confirmed that the Dark Mechanicum army list has been pushed back to the next <s>book</s> edition. Also has rules for some new Space Marine vehicles, including the Sabre strike tank and the Arquitor Bombard, plus new additions for the Solar Auxilia, Imperial militia, and Chaos cults. Finally released in September 2020, having been delayed due to Nurgle's interference. Remarkable for atrocious fluff like Dark Angel auxiliary fleets usually including [[Gloriana-class_Battleship|Glorianas]], [[Rangdan_Xenocides|"the biggest threat to the existence of Imperium"]] being reduced to 80k Marine casualties in all three campaigns spanning for two decades, Legion recruits retaining their noble status after being conscripted, and many, many more things that would give even Matt Ward a pause. This appears to be the last of the black books for the current edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

===Exemplary Battles===

As of fall 2021, GW is publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that aren't big enough for their own black book. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff", so one could plausibly argue that the PDFs are just ads for FW's overpriced upgrade packs. Still, it's a neat concept and at least they're free. These seem to be leading into the new edition of the game as announced at Adepticon 2022.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Xwccsydzg8YpDsho.pdf The Battle of Pluto: Hydra's Devastation]''''': Focuses on the Alpha Legion's invasion of Pluto, as seen in ''Praetorian of Dorn'', and provides a scenario for Imperial Fists vs Alpharius' sneaky sneks. Also has rules for the Huscarls, Dorn's elite bodyguard, which make them into Phalanx Warders on steroids.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/9eA3ZYnzr5tXbxjX.pdf The Defence of Sotha: Aegida's Lament]''''': Focuses on the Night Lords' raid on Sotha and the near-destruction of the Ultramarines Aegida Company while attempting to hold Sothopolis. The Atramentar ''finally'' get their tabletop rules and also are spotlighted in the fluff, which concludes with them [[Internet Troll|murderfucking their own commanding officer]] because he was getting too uppity for the other Night Lord officers' liking.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NUTJvW4qx8d08Fkr.pdf The Siege of Hydra Cordatus: Sundering of the Cadmean Citadel]''''': Imperial Fists vs. Iron Warriors brawling it out on the ruined world of Hydra Cordatus. Includes rules for the IV Legion's Dominator Cohort, Perturabo's former bodyguards who got fired and replaced with the Iron Circle after Phall. Hilariously, they are so salty about this that they have Hatred (Cybernetica Cortex) unless you take them as Pert's retinue.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fcMVfgBlCyDHmejD.pdf The Battle of Armatura]''''': World Eaters vs. Ultramarines on the war world of Armatura, as seen in ''Betrayer''. Includes rules for the XII Legion's Red Hand Destroyer squads, who can take Caedere weapons like meteor hammers and excoriator chainaxes in addition to all the usual Destroyer nastiness and ''must'' declare a charge whenever able if they're within 12" of an enemy unit at the beginning of the Assault phase.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/mouvfePNquxVdprP.pdf The Battle of Perditus: Umbral-51]''''': The Death Guard are trying to [[Ork|loot]] galaxy-wrecking archaeotech and the Dark Angels mean to stop them. Iron Hands and Mechanicum are there too, and the mission pack has rules for rampaging battle-automata trying to kill the Spess Mehreens so the techpriests can go back to worshiping their doomsday devices in peace. Includes rules for units from both sides: the Order of the Broken Claw and the Mortus Poisoners. The Broken Claw are Inner Circle Knights who get bonuses against Monstrous and Gargantuan Creatures and daemons, representing the fact that they were the I Legion's specialized Rangdan-killers during the Xenocides. The Mortus Poisoners are Destroyers who can swap their bolters for flamers with chem-munitions for free and one in every five can swap their bolt pistol for a heavy flamer with chem-munitions for 20 points ([[Derp|that's right, their '''bolt pistol''', not their bolter, blame FW editors]]), and can be taken in units of 15 for when you just want the table to burn.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/iIVebnZrYRFbaDGH.pdf The Battle of Calth: Underworld War]''''': Smurfs and Word Bearers duking it out in Zone Mortalis missions representing the underground battles fought after Calth's surface was trashed in ''Know No Fear''. Includes rules for the Ultramarines' Nemesis Destroyer squads, aka Guilliman's least favorite sons. Instead of dual bolt pistols, they get bolters with specialist ammo that gives them Assault 2 and Rending and they can take weapons usually reserved for Breacher and Support squads. Kinda weird, but makes sense given the XIII's "tactical flexibility" schtick. No jump packs, though.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/H6ygklXe9Fv2FwRe.pdf Battle For Kalium Gate]''''': Emperor's Children and White Scars get their turn, fighting over a huge void gate as the Scars try to get back to Terra in time for the big party. Has rules for new units from both sides. The III Legion gets the Sun Killers, Heavy Support squads that only use lascannons, multi-meltas, volkite culverins, and plasma cannons [[Meme|because they're elegant weapons from a more civilized time]] and can take an Aegis Defence Line without using up a Force Org slot. The White Scars get the Karaoghlanlar, or Dark Sons of Death. Aside from sounding like a Welsh person choking on something, they're jump-pack Destroyers who don't get phosphex or missile launchers and trade one bolt pistol for a chainsword, but can be taken as a retinue for a Stormseer with a jump pack. They also have a rule that lets them autofail Sweeping Advance rolls in exchange for performing a spooky ritual that forces enemy units within 6" to pass an Ld test or suffer -1 WS next turn.

==See Also==
* [[The War of The Beast]], for the next massive shit-show the Imperium was involved with.
* [[Alternate Heresy]], for a discussion of other possible outcomes of the (not necessarily Horus) Heresy.
* [[Army compatibility between Warhammer settings]]

==External Links==
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [http://geekdo.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Board Games]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Wargames]]

Erda

2022-04-07T13:59:46Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

{{Spoilers}}
{{WTF}}
{{Fail}}
{{Skubby}}
[[File:ErdaArt.jpg|300px|right|thumb|For a 40,000 year old Karen, she is quite the [[PROMOTIONS|MILF]]. But please for the love of the Emprah's rotting testicles, please don't tell [[Fulgrim]] [[Slaanesh|of her existence. Or do, she honestly kinda deserves it.]]]]
{{Topquote|In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, not even the Emperor of Mankind is safe from the horrors of Child Custody.|Erda in a nutshell.}}
{{Topquote|So basically, the entire [[Horus Heresy]] has been reduced to [[Fail|'Karen took the kids']].|Some anon's description of Saturnine.}}
{{Topquote|Woman moment|The Emperor of Mankind}}
{{Topquote|All this over a family squabble.|The Bullet Farmer, Mad Max: Fury Road}}

Woo boy! Where do we begin. First appearing in the Horus Heresy novel: Saturnine (<s>an overall good novel</s> <s>not really</s> [[TTS|'''I gave it a 5/10 It was OK review''']]), Erda (Old High German for Earth. Get it? [[Derp|''Mother Earth'']]...) is a [[Perpetual]] who used to be one of the [[Emprah]]'s most closest allies/fuckbuddy. Some [[Heresy|Heretics]] even believe that she was Big E's first and only girlfriend/waifu/onahole/babyfactory throughout the aeons. Whether or not E-Money actually [[/d/|''fertilised'' Mother Earth]] with his [[Dick|big, throbbing Power Sword,]] we have no idea, but we do know that Erda would have had the Galaxy's strongest ovaries to handle the genetic makeup of Big E's manly bits. DUN DUN DUN! Yes, Erda is the [[Primarch|Primarch's]] mummy, not sure how [[Roboute Guilliman|Big Bobby G's]] foster mom, Tarasha Euten, is gonna feel about this. Maybe we can get them on Jeremy Kyle?!

==Biography AKA The [[Skub|Skubian]] Heresy: Erda would like to Speak to your Manager==

A warning on what you are about to read: with the release of Saturnine, her entire backstory has caused [[Skub]] and [[Rage|Nerd Rage]] on a scale not seen since [[Matt Ward]]'s Ultramarine Fanwank and Grey Knight Power Scaling. You have been warned.

For all intents and purposes, as a Perpetual, Erda was one of the oldest living beings in the Imperium. She met the Emprah in [[Terra|Terra's]] ancient past when he was a warlord king known as [[Conan the Barbarian|Neoth in the age of the First Cities.]] At that time, the Golden Daddy was already shepherding Mankind into the path that would lead to the creation of the Imperium. Erda grew the hots for him and we can't really fault her for this because any normal women could not resist that guy. I mean, just look at that ''hair'' and those ''pecs''... Aaaannnyways, Erda became one of the Emprah's closest and most loyal advisers and, during the [[Unification Wars]], was his chief geneticist along with Astarte in the creation of the [[Primarch]] project.

However, this is where the true [[Skub]] begins. While it makes sense that the Emprah has chosen Erda as the Primarch's mom due to the fact that they are both Perpetuals and their genetics complement each other, Big-E prevented Erda from taking part in their lives so he could prepare them for the upcoming [[Great Crusade]]. This understandably pissed off Erda to no end as anyone with an overbearing mum would understand. On the other hand, she was horrified of the idea that her sons would be used by the Emperor as automaton-like yes-men as generals of the Astartes legions, especially as he and Malcador were all but disowned by the other Perpetuals as fringe radicals who were pushing the evolutionary envelope too fast to guide mankind's evolution into a superior species. Apparently she was one of the last to leave his inner circle.

Unfortunately for all of us, Erda's way of 'saving' her children [[What|involved the creation of a Warp vortex which scattered the Primarchs across the galaxy.]] Yes, turns out it wasn't the interference of those [[Chaos Gods|Warp Goblins]] that scattered the Primarchs, but the action of a woman. This essentially means that rather than [[Erebus|this fucktard]] ruining everything, humanity was doomed and its future stolen by a [[-4 Str|woman,]] [[Religion|again.]] [[FAIL|It was an act of such idiocy and lunacy that by 'saving' the Primarchs from the Emprah,]] [[Leman Russ|it condemned]] [[Angron|some of them]] [[Konrad Curze|to a childhood]] [[Mortarion|worse than death.]] One wonders how the likes of [[Angron]] and [[Mortarion]] are gonna react to [[RAGE|''this'']] [[RIP AND TEAR|revelation.]] Not to mention Konrad Curze and the Lion. Due to this, Erda officially wins the [[EPIC FAIL|Galaxy's worst Mom award]] and seeing as how some like to chastise the Big-E as being a shitty father, maybe those two truly deserve each other in the end. However, in the Valdor novel it is stated that residual Chaos energy could be sensed in the room, making it plausible that Erda simply lowered the shield and let the Four do the heavy lifting. If that's the case though, then fuck, Space-Karen's offence becomes all the more unforgivable, given that she knows enough about Chaos to understand its corrupting nature. What a bitch.

That is a big part of the skub. Not only is it a stupid move, it is redundant. Chaos already had the means and motive to scatter the primarchs. Both Horus and Argel Tal were even shown visions of them going back in time to be the agents of Chaos that did it, with Argel Tal's vision implied to have actually happened. Though given that both of said visions were shown '''In The Warp''', at very important moments, in highly-scripted scenes by demonstrably malicious entities with more than enough power to manipulate what was being depicted [what Horus was shown was at the behest of the four Chaos gods themselves for fuck's sake], to individuals absolutely imperative to the plans of Team Chaos (individuals that conveniently had recently become far more susceptible due to both shattering morale drops and grievous physical injury), their believability could at best be called dubious and suspicious. Welp, with the release of ''The Siege Of Terra: Warhawk'', it's been confirmed from the lips of [[Erebus]] him-motherfucking-self that actually, yeah, Erda did it. What Horus and Argel Tal were shown in the Warp by the Ruinous Powers and [[daemon]]s respectively was a lie. Shock. Even going so far as to reveal that "the scattering wouldn't have been possible without your [Erda's] intervention," and Erebus makes it very clear that the Chaos Gods are REEEAL glad that she did, but that they apparently aren't sure '''WHY''' she did it. For all that Erebus thrives on deception, we can probably believe him on this one. What does it say about your decision-making skills when the Ruinous Powers themselves effectively say your plan was silly? Even though they directly benefited from her not-plan plan. Oh! And then she even has the shitting gall to claim that actually, it wasn't her fault what happened to the primarchs and those that fell to Chaos have only themselves and Big-E to blame. For all that they disagree with [[Emperor|Daddy]] on many things, [[Konrad_Curze|Konrad]], [[Angron]], and [[Mortarion]] in particular [[RAGE|would likely take a rather dim view of that assertion]]. As indeed would anyone who values cause and effect or observable reality. Jesus of Christ. Worst. Mom. EVER. Though she gets a bit of comeuppance when Erebus attacks her with some kind of Psi-mind-rape, and floods her consciousness with the truth of the consequences of her actions, making it very clear to her that this was HER fault; she had just come off an engagement with 4 greater daemons that she killed fairly easily (even implying that they were ''true deaths'', a prospect made even more likely if she had utilized Enuncia), but Erebus' attack brought her to her knees as the sheer horror of the truth, it's magnitude, and the consequences of what she'd done was laid bare. It gets even funnier though because more than a few of the Primarchs thought that the Scattering was deliberate on the part of the Emperor. If only they knew...

And so it was that now, very late in the series, after the [[Cabal]] arc was dead, [[Fail|we get her helping forge the setting by being a bad mom on a galactic scale. While perhaps not to the same level as say, the Old Ones being dicks to the Necrontyr, setting in motion the War In Heaven, which ultimately would result in both the birth of Chaos and the rise of the C'tan, thus forming 40k's bedrock, Erda's bullshittery still literally imperiled the very survival of mankind as a whole. What a TWEEST!]]

After Erda pulled an oopsy, she then went into hiding for many years. [[RAGE|E-Money understandably, had the mother of all God rage,]] but strangely enough, he never sought to retaliate against Erda (possibly having figured out through divination that the current timeline of eternal stalemate and war was the only option), even when he knew where she was. Or maybe he just uncharacteristically forgave her due to his love of playing favourites. By the time of the [[Siege of Terra]], Erda was living in exile at Guelb, an ancient site in Mauritania close to her birthplace, with a group of servants and even her own personal Space Marine called Leetu. Leetu claimed to be an original Astartes predating the creation of the Legions and the diversification of the [[Gene-seed]] that came with the Primarch project; an odd statement since other lore claims that the Dark Angels were the baseline and the other Legions had their gene-seed cultivated from modified DA stuff. Alternatively, he could just as easily be an unrefined prototype much in the way that Cawl's Primaris prototype, Alpha Primus, is in the current era. His name comes from "LE 2", which might mean "Legion Two" and trigger our missing [[Primarch]] sensors but is really a reference to the prototype Space Marine miniature.

She was eventually visited by [[John Grammaticus]] doing his best Nathan Drake impression. Grammaticus sought Erda's help in getting into the Imperial Palace and had also arranged to rendezvous with [[Ollanius Pius|Oll Persson]] at her home. Erda was shocked to hear that Oll had become involved in the affairs of the Human race again, and expressed worry over his fate when he did not arrive. Though sympathetic to John's cause she ultimately said she had no way to help him enter the Palace due to, you know, a [[Emperor of Mankind|certain couple's quarrel.]] In Warhawk, Erebus visits her to convince her to join Chaos because of...[[Derp|reasons]]. Seriously, Erebus just...appears out of nowhere. How that [[Dick]] knew about Erda or why he was even remotely interested in that dumb broad, we have no clue. Predictably, she says no and gets jumped by 4 Greater Daemons and wins due to [[Mary Sue|super-special-psychic-mumbo-jumbo]][[Games Workshop|™]] [[Bullshit]] and/or utilizing Enuncia, but was severely wounded in the process by Erebus. He tells her again but this time, to worship him if she wants to live. She spits at him, which predictably leads to Erebus poking her face with the Athame, killing her...sort of, it cuts off before the finishing blow. Overall, pretty fucking lame way to go on [[Fail|both parties,]] both from Erebus thinking a [[Derp|48,000 year old Karen would help in anyway to the Heresy]] and for Erda in getting [[Herp|punt to the face.]] So yeah, Erda came and went, which again asks the question on what was the point of her existence if you give her less screen time than fucking [[EPIC FAIL|''Calliphone''!?]]

Thank you [[Dan Abnett|Dan Abnett]], for this [[C.S. Goto|fine addition to the established story.]] Why [[Chris Wraight]] was allowed to kill her off we can only guess. Though at least 99.95% of the fandom are hoping her death sticks. Unfortunately, that might prove unlikely since truly killing a perpetual makes truly killing a daemon look like a mundane task, and Erebus only used his athame; and while ordinarily a formidable pokey-stick, multiple previous books in the Horus Heresy have pretty firmly established that (unless your name is Magnus or you're Big-E himself) to permakill a Perpetual requires fulgurite. Indeed, one book in particular, ''Old Earth'', has an entire B-Plot about this very topic, and suffice it to say that if it had been as simple as acquiring an athame, that would have been a much shorter book. Nor indeed would this be the first time Erebus prematurely declared victory. Add to that, there's also the unfortunate aside that Erebus apparently "killed" her offscreen, which is so often a narrative copout (and a blatant one at that) to provide an opening for an easy possible return at some point later on in the future of the story. BUT even if she doesn't stay dead, there's NO need to show the readers that. If nothing else, it provides an out. Thank fuck.
{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The Beast

2022-04-07T13:51:16Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Assorted accomplishments from this dude include */

{{spoilers}}

{{cleanup}}

[[File:ShadowOfUllanor.jpg|thumb|The Big Green Beast himself! Or maybe one of his Prime Ork underlings, it's honestly a bit unclear.]]

{{Topquote|Oh wow, ''Ullanor'' huh? Seems like the Ork spores weren't properly disposed of. Really proves that the Ork genome can make it through anything. '''Even toxic emissions from absolutely atrocious family reunions! And not even [[Vulkan]] could quite regenerate from those!'''|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Magnus the Red]]}}

{{Topquote|I suppose the Great Beast was a sort of descendant of that one Warboss that [[Horus]] threw from the tower. Remember that? Truly an inspiring moment.|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Karstodes]]}}

'''The Beast''' is the mightiest Ork [[Warlords|Warlord]] ever to terrorize the galaxy and fought during [[The War of The Beast]]. It would not be unreasonable (but it is Heretical, unless you made it out as a disgusting parody of the proper order of things) to call him the "God-Emperor of Orks".

==The Legend==
Back during The [[Forging]] (that is, the 32nd Millennium), the [[Imperial Fists]] were idly slaughtering and driving to extinction an alien race when they found something flabbergasting (which in retrospect da alens might 'ave beeen tryin' two dell da gitz): A HUGEASS WAAAGH!!! But it wasn't numbers alone that this Ork threat represented, but also its organization and composition. The Beast leading it was ''ginormous'', far bigger than good old [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]], and his nobs were colossal and mighty foes. How large was the Beast, you ask? He is said to have been as large as a HAB-BLOCK, with a mouth filled with tusks the size of TREE TRUNKS and this could be due to the fact that he's the same breed as Urrlak Urg, the Ork Warboss of Ullanor, and it took ''[[Horus|HORUS]] TO KILL, AND IT NEARLY KILLED THE FUCKING EMPEROR HIMSELF''. Hell, he was so huge that, when he first appears, the Space Marines sent to kill him mistook him for a [[Stompa]] before they realize there's an Ork in that plated armor. But simply being extremely big and incredibly strong was the least of what made him such a threat because, beneath all that armor and muscle, was a brain with the intelligence, the drive, the simple strength of will, and character to forge that race of fungoid space football hooligans into an actual goddamn army.

How big of a threat was The Beast? The [[Iron Warriors]] teamed up with the <s>Imperial Fists</s> [[Black Templars]], of all people, and then later the [[Fists Exemplar]], both Imperial Fists successors, in order to fight him and his boyz. The fucking bitterest enemies in the galaxy teamed up together against him. Whole Crusades were dedicated to halt them, the mightiest fleets since the days of the Heresy were assembled. Tens of Chapters were lost, annihilated by the green tide. The Imperial Fists UNITED as a whole Legion in order to have a fighting chance and during the most heated point the [[Deathwatch]] was created.

The [[Deathwatch]], the prime alien hunters and the most proficient annihilators of xenos the Astartes, and therefore the Imperium have ever produced, were created expressly as a last ditch effort to stop him.

== Assorted accomplishments from this dude include==

*Making attack ''moons''. Not [[Rok]]s, like Thraka's. MOONS as a whole and in plural, that's a whole new level of [[looted|loot]].

*Making logistics and army structure on a sophisticated level.
**The thing goes beyond logistics and army structure. Can you guess what symbols they use? For tactically gifted gits they made them wear bloody axes, snakes for the... "herders", and horns for their best shock troops. That is, Blood Axes, Snakebites, and Goffs. The Space Marines don't recognize these symbols despite there being Iron Warriors who've fought during the Crusade. He laid the foundations for the Ork Klans. His legacy endures to this day as the great-grand-daddy of all the Orks in the current setting.

*Asswhooping dozens of Chapters in unison.

*He fucking reached and BESIEGED Terra itself (We can only imagine [[Abaddon]] becoming so green with envy after hearing this that he could pass for an Ork himself.).

*And, unlike Horus, he could have won if he hadn't backed up as he just had to crash his Attack Moon, GGWP Imperium. (Though that would have resulted in Chaos consuming the fractured pieces of the Imperium)

*He had Ork DIPLOMATS. Just think about greenskins that are capable of more complex thoughts than "run/hide and then run and krump that git's skull into pulp".
**It goes far beyond that; one of the Ork diplomats went to the Senatorum Imperialis itself. He put in evidence what ineffectual little pieces of trash most of the [[High Lords of Terra]] are while also giving one of the most deliciously effective insults ever thrown at mankind - ''he acted in a civilized way, offering surrender terms'', confronting [[Skaven|a bunch of petty cowardly parasites who bickered among themselves like immature kids while trying to backstab each other]]. The guy nailed it in such a way that not even the worst desecration made by Chaos could have hurt the Imperials' pride.
** Considering the way [[Orks]] speak, a civilized Ork wordsmith would probably sound a lot like [[Awesome| BRIAN BLESSED]] "HELLO LORDS OF THE HUMAAAAAANNNNSSS, I AM A DIPLOMAT AND I AM HERE TO NEGOITATE YOUR UNCONDITIONAL SURENDAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR" 
** More or less. Direct quote: "The Great Beast has you by the guts. Struggle, he'll rip 'em out. Surrender, you get to keep 'em."

*His very presence was so overwhelming that he actually caused the entire Ork race to begin evolving on a cultural and biological level, becoming more advanced and more potent psykers. Seriously—the Orks advanced so much under him that they had <s>technology</s> ambitions, aspirations, and the power of WAAAGH! that allowed them to rival the old Eldar. And they had began building an actual civilization on the worlds they controlled. Not just simple settlements, but an empire with advanced cities and even worlds given over to food production and industry.
**Frighteningly enough, the eldar actually mention that the ancient krork at their apex were so much more advanced that the Beast-WAAAGH was 'laughable' in comparison. ''Yikes.''

*He was able to sicken the frigging Iron Warriors: when they went to [[Prax]], they found that the Orks had organized thousands of farms with BILLIONS of humans in there so warped by the WAAAAGH! they were devolved into the cattle they were being bred for. When you've got a bunch like the Iron Warriors saying "It will be a mercy kill", you know you've become a sick fuck of the highest order. And I remind you, this is the same Legion that created the [[Daemonculaba]]. On the other hand, that might just have been because it wasn't Chaos' quackery. If it had been caused by Chaos, they probably would have laughed at or jeered the victims. Or maybe [[Honsou]] is strangely sick.

*He converted the fucking shaft-hatted [[Ecclesiarchy|Ecclesiarch]], and a whole faction of his (granted, said shaft-hat was <s>Vladimir Harkonnen</s>some grotesquely fat pervert), into ''fucking worshipping him'', including composing a <s>Latin</s> High Gothic liturgy (which was strangely enough to confuzzle a Space Marine for a while) in his honor.

*He had ''colonized'' Ullanor. The whole world was now sporting Ork cities (and very well organized to boot) that would become killing zones for the invading forces. Secretly, the world had in fact been converted into a massive Attack Planet that was going to be used to defeat the Imperium (think that attack planet in the fuckawful Star Wars sequels, basically the same thing).

*He murderfucked the Ultramarines Chapter Master (Odaenathus), the Crimson Fist's Chapter Master (Quesadra), crippled a Blood Angels captain (Valefor) and gave [[Vulkan|VULKAN]] of all people a tough fight. Normally, any of the aforementioned would have sufficed to kill him yet it was a hell of a battle for the four.
*Eradicated the [[Imperial Fists]]. Yes, this guy managed to do what no [[Abaddon|armless failure]] has ever accomplished in 10 millennia, killing a First Founding Chapter off for real. (To be fair, the Grey Knights did not fight against the Beast)

*And Vulkan too (though it's rather unlikely Vulkan stayed dead, what with him being a [[Perpetual]], and a very [[Games Workshop|marketable named character]], but he hasn't been seen since).

Truly, this guy is the mightiest Warboss ever and the WAAAGH! Beast reigns supreme as the biggest and meanest WAAAGH!, [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] be damned. The WAAAGH! energy that suffuses him makes him akin to a living Ork demi-god. Able to regenerate from wounds Vulkan inflicts on him and channel his WAAAGH! energy to power the Ork's technology and fry Space Marines with ease. Insanely intelligent; possibly even a genius on a human scale. His existence has triggered a reaction in the Ork genome leading the entire race to transform into coherency and become efficient and organised. Not simply improving tactically but biologically, technologically, psychically, and even culturally. [[heresy |He's essentially their version of the Emperor]] . This Ork is the eventuality of uncontested success for a singular Ork. So vastly different have the Ork become in nature that it is possible that they are evolving into the Krork.

In "The Beast Must Die," it's revealed that the Beast was MOTHERFUCKING PISSED about the humiliation of the Ork race during The Ullanor Crusade, and he was determined to cripple humanity. His colonization of Ullanor and desecration of Horus's victory monument wasn't simply for nothing. It was PERSONAL. In short, this shows that Orks can be as hateful and vengeful as any other race.

Now for the big plot twist: the Beast wasn't just one Ork. There were six of him, six so-called "Prime-Orks", each an Orky version of the [[Primarch]]s, leading a Legion of Orks, which are heavily implied to be the Ork Clans. All of them are dead, mostly due to bullshit (see below). They worked seamlessly in unison, like [[Alpharius|the utterly]] [[Omegon|fictitious Primarchs]] [[Alpha Legion|of an utterly fictitious Legion]], achieving the same effect of everyone assuming there was only one of him. The extent to which he was a team, as opposed to [[Trazyn_the_Infinite|one Ork with multiple bodies]], remains unknown. While unfortunately the series really didn't flesh out the majority of them as it focused almost solely on the dominant Primork: only 2 of them are seen in the series, the rest are killed off-screen, and of those 2, one's purpose was just to be book ten's final boss. The drama behind their reveal so late in the series was supposed to be that there were two more books to fight them in, but [[FAIL|Black Library spoiled what happened in every single book on their website (in the summary for when you went to purchase it no less) before book 9 even came out so there was no real drama to be had.]]

Oh, and one more thing: the Orkish phrase for the Beast's title is "Mag Uruk Thraka". Ghazghkull may not be at the Beast's level of power yet, but the parallels are definitely there.

Rumors about 8th Edition Ork Codex suggested Ghazzy might be elevated to fully fledged Primork status. These turned out to be false but the sixth Psychic Awakening book, [[Psychic_Awakening#Saga_of_The_Beast|Saga of The Beast]], updates Ghaghkull's model and possibly rules and brings [[Makari]] back.

== Fatal Flaw ==

However, for all its strength, the Beast also actually creates a natural (and very easy to exploit) weakness in Orks. As a result of how successful the Beast's Waaagh! was, the Boyz within it are supercharged with Waaagh! energy, a volatile thing at the best of times. Even the use of only a handful of [[Sisters of Silence]] and a Weirdboy has the power to set off a chain reaction strong enough to do anything, from wiping out all five Beasts at once to killing an entire planet of Orks. This is questionable from a fluff consistency perspective at best, as WAAAGH!!! energy seem to be switching (at a given writer's whim) from being a kind of warp energy (that Sisters can nullify) to being something totally different (for example psykers, daemons and psychic nulls have no impact on Ork teknology that is in essence powered by WAAAAGH!!! energy). But than again when was WH40k lore consistent?

Despite this weakness, the conflict against the Beast was desperate due to the Imperium only having a very small number of Sisters of Silence to help them, and only then because Vulkan asked them to. While the Sisters' numbers have been restored in the 41st Millenium, the more immediate threat of Chaos following the formation of the Great Rift may still compromise their ability to respond to any would-be successor. That being said, while Orks are without limit it would still take a hell of a long time for them to get that strong. [[Tuska Daemon-Killa|Why, you would need to be fighting 24 hours a day, seven days, a week for more then a few centuries, all without dying for that to happen...]] what are the odds of any Ork living that long?

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Orks]]

{{Ork-Gitz}}

The Beast

2022-04-07T13:47:53Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Assorted accomplishments from this dude include */

{{spoilers}}

{{cleanup}}

[[File:ShadowOfUllanor.jpg|thumb|The Big Green Beast himself! Or maybe one of his Prime Ork underlings, it's honestly a bit unclear.]]

{{Topquote|Oh wow, ''Ullanor'' huh? Seems like the Ork spores weren't properly disposed of. Really proves that the Ork genome can make it through anything. '''Even toxic emissions from absolutely atrocious family reunions! And not even [[Vulkan]] could quite regenerate from those!'''|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Magnus the Red]]}}

{{Topquote|I suppose the Great Beast was a sort of descendant of that one Warboss that [[Horus]] threw from the tower. Remember that? Truly an inspiring moment.|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Karstodes]]}}

'''The Beast''' is the mightiest Ork [[Warlords|Warlord]] ever to terrorize the galaxy and fought during [[The War of The Beast]]. It would not be unreasonable (but it is Heretical, unless you made it out as a disgusting parody of the proper order of things) to call him the "God-Emperor of Orks".

==The Legend==
Back during The [[Forging]] (that is, the 32nd Millennium), the [[Imperial Fists]] were idly slaughtering and driving to extinction an alien race when they found something flabbergasting (which in retrospect da alens might 'ave beeen tryin' two dell da gitz): A HUGEASS WAAAGH!!! But it wasn't numbers alone that this Ork threat represented, but also its organization and composition. The Beast leading it was ''ginormous'', far bigger than good old [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]], and his nobs were colossal and mighty foes. How large was the Beast, you ask? He is said to have been as large as a HAB-BLOCK, with a mouth filled with tusks the size of TREE TRUNKS and this could be due to the fact that he's the same breed as Urrlak Urg, the Ork Warboss of Ullanor, and it took ''[[Horus|HORUS]] TO KILL, AND IT NEARLY KILLED THE FUCKING EMPEROR HIMSELF''. Hell, he was so huge that, when he first appears, the Space Marines sent to kill him mistook him for a [[Stompa]] before they realize there's an Ork in that plated armor. But simply being extremely big and incredibly strong was the least of what made him such a threat because, beneath all that armor and muscle, was a brain with the intelligence, the drive, the simple strength of will, and character to forge that race of fungoid space football hooligans into an actual goddamn army.

How big of a threat was The Beast? The [[Iron Warriors]] teamed up with the <s>Imperial Fists</s> [[Black Templars]], of all people, and then later the [[Fists Exemplar]], both Imperial Fists successors, in order to fight him and his boyz. The fucking bitterest enemies in the galaxy teamed up together against him. Whole Crusades were dedicated to halt them, the mightiest fleets since the days of the Heresy were assembled. Tens of Chapters were lost, annihilated by the green tide. The Imperial Fists UNITED as a whole Legion in order to have a fighting chance and during the most heated point the [[Deathwatch]] was created.

The [[Deathwatch]], the prime alien hunters and the most proficient annihilators of xenos the Astartes, and therefore the Imperium have ever produced, were created expressly as a last ditch effort to stop him.

== Assorted accomplishments from this dude include==

*Making attack ''moons''. Not [[Rok]]s, like Thraka's. MOONS as a whole and in plural, that's a whole new level of [[looted|loot]].

*Making logistics and army structure on a sophisticated level.
**The thing goes beyond logistics and army structure. Can you guess what symbols they use? For tactically gifted gits they made them wear bloody axes, snakes for the... "herders", and horns for their best shock troops. That is, Blood Axes, Snakebites, and Goffs. The Space Marines don't recognize these symbols despite there being Iron Warriors who've fought during the Crusade. He laid the foundations for the Ork Klans. His legacy endures to this day as the great-grand-daddy of all the Orks in the current setting.

*Asswhooping dozens of Chapters in unison.

*He fucking reached and BESIEGED Terra itself (We can only imagine [[Abaddon]] becoming so green with envy after hearing this that he could pass for an Ork himself.).

*And, unlike Horus, he could have won if he hadn't backed up as he just had to crash his Attack Moon, GGWP Imperium. (Though that would have resulted in Chaos consuming the fractured pieces of the Imperium)

*He had Ork DIPLOMATS. Just think about greenskins that are capable of more complex thoughts than "run/hide and then run and krump that git's skull into pulp".
**It goes far beyond that; one of the Ork diplomats went to the Senatorum Imperialis itself. He put in evidence what ineffectual little pieces of trash most of the [[High Lords of Terra]] are while also giving one of the most deliciously effective insults ever thrown at mankind - ''he acted in a civilized way, offering surrender terms'', confronting [[Skaven|a bunch of petty cowardly parasites who bickered among themselves like immature kids while trying to backstab each other]]. The guy nailed it in such a way that not even the worst desecration made by Chaos could have hurt the Imperials' pride.
** Considering the way [[Orks]] speak, a civilized Ork wordsmith would probably sound a lot like [[Awesome| BRIAN BLESSED]] "HELLO LORDS OF THE HUMAAAAAANNNNSSS, I AM A DIPLOMAT AND I AM HERE TO NEGOITATE YOUR UNCONDITIONAL SURENDAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR" 
** More or less. Direct quote: "The Great Beast has you by the guts. Struggle, he'll rip 'em out. Surrender, you get to keep 'em."

*His very presence was so overwhelming that he actually caused the entire Ork race to begin evolving on a cultural and biological level, becoming more advanced and more potent psykers. Seriously—the Orks advanced so much under him that they had <s>technology</s> ambitions, aspirations, and the power of WAAAGH! that allowed them to rival the old Eldar. And they had began building an actual civilization on the worlds they controlled. Not just simple settlements, but an empire with advanced cities and even worlds given over to food production and industry.
**Frighteningly enough, the eldar actually mention that the ancient krork at their apex were so much more advanced that the Beast-WAAAGH was 'laughable' in comparison. ''Yikes.''

*He was able to sicken the frigging Iron Warriors: when they went to [[Prax]], they found that the Orks had organized thousands of farms with BILLIONS of humans in there so warped by the WAAAAGH! they were devolved into the cattle they were being bred for. When you've got a bunch like the Iron Warriors saying "It will be a mercy kill", you know you've become a sick fuck of the highest order. And I remind you, this is the same Legion that created the [[Daemonculaba]]. On the other hand, that might just have been because it wasn't Chaos' quackery. If it had been caused by Chaos, they probably would have laughed at or jeered the victims. Or maybe [[Honsou]] is strangely sick.

*He converted the fucking shaft-hatted [[Ecclesiarchy|Ecclesiarch]], and a whole faction of his (granted, said shaft-hat was <s>Vladimir Harkonnen</s>some grotesquely fat pervert), into ''fucking worshipping him'', including composing a <s>Latin</s> High Gothic liturgy (which was strangely enough to confuzzle a Space Marine for a while) in his honor.

*He had ''colonized'' Ullanor. The whole world was now sporting Ork cities (and very well organized to boot) that would become killing zones for the invading forces. Secretly, the world had in fact been converted into a massive Attack Planet that was going to be used to defeat the Imperium (think that attack planet in the fuckawful Star Wars sequels, basically the same thing).

*He murderfucked the Ultramarines Chapter Master (Odaenathus), the Crimson Fist's Chapter Master (Quesadra), crippled a Blood Angels captain (Valefor) and gave [[Vulkan|VULKAN]] of all people a tough fight. Normally, any of the aforementioned would have sufficed to kill him yet it was a hell of a battle for the four.
*Eradicated the [[Imperial Fists]]. Yes, this guy managed to do what no [[Abaddon|armless failure]] has ever accomplished in 10 millennia, killing a First Founding Chapter off for real. (To be fair, the Grey Knights did not fight against the Beast)

*And Vulkan too (it's rather unclear as to whether Vulkan stayed dead, what with him being a [[Perpetual]], but he hasn't been seen since).

Truly, this guy is the mightiest Warboss ever and the WAAAGH! Beast reigns supreme as the biggest and meanest WAAAGH!, [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] be damned. The WAAAGH! energy that suffuses him makes him akin to a living Ork demi-god. Able to regenerate from wounds Vulkan inflicts on him and channel his WAAAGH! energy to power the Ork's technology and fry Space Marines with ease. Insanely intelligent; possibly even a genius on a human scale. His existence has triggered a reaction in the Ork genome leading the entire race to transform into coherency and become efficient and organised. Not simply improving tactically but biologically, technologically, psychically, and even culturally. [[heresy |He's essentially their version of the Emperor]] . This Ork is the eventuality of uncontested success for a singular Ork. So vastly different have the Ork become in nature that it is possible that they are evolving into the Krork.

In "The Beast Must Die," it's revealed that the Beast was MOTHERFUCKING PISSED about the humiliation of the Ork race during The Ullanor Crusade, and he was determined to cripple humanity. His colonization of Ullanor and desecration of Horus's victory monument wasn't simply for nothing. It was PERSONAL. In short, this shows that Orks can be as hateful and vengeful as any other race.

Now for the big plot twist: the Beast wasn't just one Ork. There were six of him, six so-called "Prime-Orks", each an Orky version of the [[Primarch]]s, leading a Legion of Orks, which are heavily implied to be the Ork Clans. All of them are dead, mostly due to bullshit (see below). They worked seamlessly in unison, like [[Alpharius|the utterly]] [[Omegon|fictitious Primarchs]] [[Alpha Legion|of an utterly fictitious Legion]], achieving the same effect of everyone assuming there was only one of him. The extent to which he was a team, as opposed to [[Trazyn_the_Infinite|one Ork with multiple bodies]], remains unknown. While unfortunately the series really didn't flesh out the majority of them as it focused almost solely on the dominant Primork: only 2 of them are seen in the series, the rest are killed off-screen, and of those 2, one's purpose was just to be book ten's final boss. The drama behind their reveal so late in the series was supposed to be that there were two more books to fight them in, but [[FAIL|Black Library spoiled what happened in every single book on their website (in the summary for when you went to purchase it no less) before book 9 even came out so there was no real drama to be had.]]

Oh, and one more thing: the Orkish phrase for the Beast's title is "Mag Uruk Thraka". Ghazghkull may not be at the Beast's level of power yet, but the parallels are definitely there.

Rumors about 8th Edition Ork Codex suggested Ghazzy might be elevated to fully fledged Primork status. These turned out to be false but the sixth Psychic Awakening book, [[Psychic_Awakening#Saga_of_The_Beast|Saga of The Beast]], updates Ghaghkull's model and possibly rules and brings [[Makari]] back.

== Fatal Flaw ==

However, for all its strength, the Beast also actually creates a natural (and very easy to exploit) weakness in Orks. As a result of how successful the Beast's Waaagh! was, the Boyz within it are supercharged with Waaagh! energy, a volatile thing at the best of times. Even the use of only a handful of [[Sisters of Silence]] and a Weirdboy has the power to set off a chain reaction strong enough to do anything, from wiping out all five Beasts at once to killing an entire planet of Orks. This is questionable from a fluff consistency perspective at best, as WAAAGH!!! energy seem to be switching (at a given writer's whim) from being a kind of warp energy (that Sisters can nullify) to being something totally different (for example psykers, daemons and psychic nulls have no impact on Ork teknology that is in essence powered by WAAAAGH!!! energy). But than again when was WH40k lore consistent?

Despite this weakness, the conflict against the Beast was desperate due to the Imperium only having a very small number of Sisters of Silence to help them, and only then because Vulkan asked them to. While the Sisters' numbers have been restored in the 41st Millenium, the more immediate threat of Chaos following the formation of the Great Rift may still compromise their ability to respond to any would-be successor. That being said, while Orks are without limit it would still take a hell of a long time for them to get that strong. [[Tuska Daemon-Killa|Why, you would need to be fighting 24 hours a day, seven days, a week for more then a few centuries, all without dying for that to happen...]] what are the odds of any Ork living that long?

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Orks]]

{{Ork-Gitz}}

Battle of Trisolian

2022-04-01T13:14:42Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Background */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking appearances and antics notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Blood Angels]], [[Dark Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

At the behest of [[Malcador]], Constantine Valdor, and [[Rogal Dorn]] following the completion of the recon mission on the Vengeful Spirit, a war council was convened to take in new information and to determine the next course of action. [[Jaghatai Khan]] and Russ were already on-location, with [[Vulkan]] and [[Sanguinius]] now the newest arrivals (though the former arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the sudden and somewhat suspicious death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. For their part, the Mechanicum forces on the forge world were by and large also exceeding loyal to the Omnissiah and despised what the Warmaster and Kelbor Hal had done to their faction, and so had fought with a fire that even Cawl found surprising. This left an enormous reserve of seething, very well-equipped, capable warriors whom Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately however, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of a narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done [that was '''precisely''' the primary mission objective remember] the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the [[Siege of Terra|upcoming siege]] by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Battle of Trisolian

2022-03-30T07:22:32Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* The Battle */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking antics and appearances notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

Following the completion of this mission, [[Sanguinius]], [[Jaghatai Khan]], and [[Vulkan]] had also arrived on Terra and convened a war council to determine the next course of action (though the latter arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the sudden and somewhat suspicious death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. For their part, the Mechanicum forces on the forge world were by and large also exceeding loyal to the Omnissiah and despised what the Warmaster and Kelbor Hal had done to their faction, and so had fought with a fire that even Cawl found surprising. This left an enormous reserve of seething, very well-equipped, capable warriors whom Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately however, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of a narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done [that was '''precisely''' the primary mission objective remember] the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the [[Siege of Terra|upcoming siege]] by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Battle of Trisolian

2022-03-30T07:21:18Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* The Battle */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking antics and appearances notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

Following the completion of this mission, [[Sanguinius]], [[Jaghatai Khan]], and [[Vulkan]] had also arrived on Terra and convened a war council to determine the next course of action (though the latter arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the sudden and somewhat suspicious death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. For their part, the Mechanicum forces on the forge world were by and large also exceeding loyal to the Omnissiah and despised what the Warmaster and Kelbor Hal had done to their faction, and so had fought with a fire that even Cawl found surprising. This left an enormous reserve of seething, very well-equipped, capable warriors whom Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately however, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of a narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done (that was '''precisely''' the primary mission objective remember) the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the [[Siege of Terra|upcoming siege]] by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Battle of Trisolian

2022-03-30T07:12:56Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* The Battle */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking antics and appearances notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

Following the completion of this mission, [[Sanguinius]], [[Jaghatai Khan]], and [[Vulkan]] had also arrived on Terra and convened a war council to determine the next course of action (though the latter arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the sudden and somewhat suspicious death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. For their part, the Mechanicum forces on the forge world were by and large also exceeding loyal to the Omnissiah and despised what the Warmaster and Kelbor Hal had done to their faction, and so had fought with a fire that even Cawl found surprising. This left an enormous reserve of seething, very well-equipped, capable warriors whom Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done (that was precisely the primary mission objective remember) the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the upcoming siege by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Battle of Trisolian

2022-03-30T07:01:54Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* The Battle */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking antics and appearances notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

Following the completion of this mission, [[Sanguinius]], [[Jaghatai Khan]], and [[Vulkan]] had also arrived on Terra and convened a war council to determine the next course of action (though the latter arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the sudden and somewhat suspicious death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. This left a substantial reserve of very well-equipped, capable warriors who Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done (that was precisely the primary mission objective remember) the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the upcoming siege by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Battle of Trisolian

2022-03-30T06:44:06Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Background */

{{Infobox 40k Campaign
|title=The Battle of Trisolian
|image=
|attacker= [[Space Wolves]]
|defender= [[Sons of Horus]]
|commander1= [[Leman Russ]]
[[Belisarius Cawl]]
|commander2= [[Horus]]
|date= ~011.M31
|scale=Void battle
|theatre= Horus Heresy
|strength1= ~40,000 Marines, the near entirety of remaining Space Wolves; majority of fighting forces on a sizable loyalist Forge World
|strength2= ~50 capital ships; [[Sons of Horus]] Legion; considerable elements of [[Word Bearers]], [[World Eaters]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Night Lords]] & [[Iron Warriors]]; Mechanicum Traitors
|casualties1= Extremely High - Maximum ~25,000. Some companies reduced to 20% strength. Unknown number of Mechanicum loyalists - presumably high, but a sizeable amount survived past the end of the war
|casualties2= Extremely High - Number unknown. Higher number & percentage than the Space Wolves, but with sufficient reserves to absorb the losses largely unphased
|status= Imperial retreat
|outcome= Space Wolves retreat to Yarant and prevented from returning to participate in the [[Siege of Terra|Siege]] in time. Effectively ended the VIth as a "Legion". Horus badly wounded/partly de-corrupted. Leman Russ badly wounded and/or traumatized.
}}

The '''Battle of Trisolian''' was the ill-fated attempt by [[Leman Russ]] to kill [[Horus]] before the inevitable [[Siege of Terra]]. It also marks the earliest appearance of a young [[Belisarius Cawl]] who is a mere up-and-coming but still notoriously unconventional tech-adept by this stage.

==Background==
Throughout the Horus Heresy, the Space Wolves were at the forefront for many of the most vicious battles. Loud space viking antics and appearances notwithstanding, the VIth Legion and their primarch, [[Leman Russ]], always took their role as The Emperor's executioners very seriously, and so threw themselves into the thick of things quite often throughout the heresy. Fights they evidently mostly won, but which inevitably took a toll on manpower and material. Additionally, for at least the first half of the war, contact could not even be established with the [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], and [[Ultramarines]] as they were trapped behind the Ruin Storm, and with the other [[Salamanders|loyalist]] [[Raven Guard|legions]] [[Iron Hands|indisposed]], [[Imperial Fists|detained]], or [[White Scars|otherwise]] [[Custodes|occupied]], this resulted in the Space Wolves being engaged far more frequently than was ideal, without being rotated out of the front lines, and so no time to rest, receive repairs, or take on new recruits. By late in the war, the Wolves had lost around 25% of their forces at [[Burning of Prospero|Prospero]], taken further maulings at the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula]], coupled with further engagements at Vanaheim and Daverant, ultimately reducing their numbers down to around forty thousand marines (give or take), after having started the Heresy with approximately one hundred and thirty thousand. Following Alaxxes, the remnant returned to Terra to coordinate with the loyalist forces.

Leman Russ sponsored a stealth mission by the [[Knights-Errant]] on the Vengeful Spirit during the '''Battle of Molech''' in order to gauge any weaknesses in the traitor dispositions and report back on the state of Horus himself. However, the mission went sour when they were discovered, leading to the deaths of several of the Knights-Errant involved when the Warmaster decided to make examples of them.

Following the completion of this mission, [[Sanguinius]], [[Jaghatai Khan]], and [[Vulkan]] had also arrived on Terra and convened a war council to determine the next course of action (though the latter arrived in secret, had remained in the basement ever since, and so wasn't invited). [[Rogal Dorn]] urged that all remaining forces maintain a defensive posture, but was appreciative that the [[Ultramarines]] and [[Dark Angels]] were assaulting the traitors' rear and providing relief to loyalist forces, allowing them to dictate the next few battles. Dorn declared that Terra was too confined a battlezone for the loyalist contingent of Titan Legions and so proposed a muster at '''Beta-Garmon''' and make a stand there in order to give time for [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]], to crush the traitors in a pincer movement. The Battle of Beta-Garmon would itself become the site of one of the greatest battles in the entire Horus Heresy.

However, Leman Russ would not be swayed from his original plan and chose to depart from Terra for [[Fenris]] in order to scry a weakness in the superhuman upgrades that Horus gained at Molech. Upon arriving to Fenris, through the combined efforts of Russ and his best Rune Priests, Russ would enter the world spirit of Fenris to gain the knowledge he sought, and while this was hardly a risk-free endeavor, even for a primarch, it effectively meant that Russ was able to enter into a plane of the warp directly, without exposing himself to chaos. Russ was ultimately successful, and when he re-emerged back into the materium, he had determined that he would have to take the oft-maligned "Spear of Russ" with him; it's a good thing he did too, as it turns out that it's actually probably one of the most powerful pointy sticks in existence, being a gift personally made and given by [[Emperor|Daddy]].

==The Battle==
The battle itself took place over the loyalist [[Forge World]] of '''Trisolian A-4''', which had recently been captured by traitor forces following a surrender of Mechanicum forces. However, this was a surrender brought about entirely by the machinations and sabotage of a single ambitious individual (Cawl's boss), following the death of her superior. The loyalists had actually been putting up a stiff fight, but were unwillingly prevented from continuing due to the interference of that individual. This left a substantial reserve of very well-equipped, capable warriors who Cawl would eventually be able to free and unleash against the traitors.
[[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Russ really wanted Horus's wolf pelt. And honestly, who can blame him?]]
The Space Wolf fleet used the unique gravitational properties of the three stars of the Trisolian star system to approach with stealth and speed, using most of their ships as a distraction while Russ own flagship engaged the ''Vengeful Spirit'' directly, allowing him to board with thousands of marines.

Russ had already figured that the battle would result in a loss for his forces, but thankfully Cawl's considerable loyalist Mechanicum elements on the Forge World managed to overthrow the regime and revert the planet back to loyalist control, allowing it to lend a hand in the conflict. Not just some paltry offerings either. Remember, this is a FORGE WORLD, so it's up there with among the hardest of targets in the setting to hit, and probably only really second to the Necrons. It's further suggested that the forces garrisoning this forge world were particularly formidable. Some even survived well after the war, later coming to Cawl's defense, and vouching for him when the latter was suspected of being a traitor. When the loyalist Mechanicum forces came back online, they caught the traitors completely flatfootted and unleashed all kinds of hell. This also meant that the traitors were forced to split their efforts and fight on two fronts, rather than focus on the Space Wolves.

Once aboard the flagship, Russ engaged Horus directly in an extremely savage duel and incredibly, [[awesome|managed to best Horus in single combat, scoring a debilitating wound with his spear and literally (not figuratively) bringing Horus to his knees]]. In addition to being the twin to Constantine Valdor's Apollonian spear, Russ' spear had been made by The Emperor himself, and so contained some of his power, and as everyone here knows, that power is anathema to Chaos, so when the Chaos-juicing Horus was wounded by it, the effect was even more destructive than it might otherwise have been. In point of fact, this power was so pronounced that when Russ began to further run him through, Horus was shown to be visibly terrified, not by Russ, the wound, or even the very real prospect of death at the hands of his brother, but of the spear's ethereal power coursing through him, obliterating the effects of his chaos-juicing, and wrecking his [[meme|massive gains]]. Unfortunately, Russ was then suddenly and without warning [[Plot Armor|beset by a rampaging plot device in the form of narrative cliché]] which momentarily [[Bullshit|overcame his better judgment and stated goal]]. Thus, instead of immediately killing Horus like he should have done (that was precisely the primary mission objective remember) the wound gave Horus a brief moment of clarity, and so despite the sacrifices made of himself, his sons, and some of his closest advisors (like the death of his chief [[Rune Priest]], Kva), not to mention having heavily negatively impacted Dorn's defensive plans for the upcoming siege by leaving Terra, and that the [[Noblebright|single most powerful motivator for Russ had been that he wanted to protect his father]], now, with the Arch Traitor himself at his mercy, [[fail|Russ instead tried to plead with his brother to rejoin the Emperor's fold]]. [[Troll|Horus declined and then suckerpunched Russ]], starting a new duel. Tired from the last duel, emotionally devastated, and now caught unawares, Russ was on the backfoot; Horus was about to kill him, but was prevented from delivering the killing blow by a mob of dozens of Space Wolves who literally dogpiled him, allowing [[Bjorn]] to drag Russ from the battlefield and back to the Loyalist fleet where they began to disengage and retreat.

==Aftermath==
Already heavily depleted from all the military actions since Prospero, following Trisolian, the Space Wolves were mauled further still, with some companies even being reduced to just a fifth of their strength, and ultimately dropping the effective fighting force of the legion as a whole down to somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 thousand marines, after having started the battle with around 40,000. While on its face that number of survivors may still sound a tad higher than expected, consider that A, this is all that they had to get them through the rest of the war and the subsequent [[Great_Scouring|Scouring]], and B, they would eventually form an [[Wolf Brothers|ill-fated Second Founding chapter]], also made largely of veterans of the Heresy. Or to put it another way, that means that the Space Wolves [[Grimdark|suffered something like 66% casualties to their entire legion in a single engagement]]. Under most circumstances, those are literally (not figuratively) ''war-ending'' casualty figures, so don't for a second think that they got off lightly. They most certainly did not. In any case, without any means of quickly replenishing their forces, this effectively ended the existence of the VIth Legion as a legion.

For his part, Horus was [[butthurt|NOT happy]] in the battle's aftermath. Far from gloating, he was sour over the considerable losses his own forces had incurred, but more than that, he was rattled that [[Not as Planned|Russ had bested him]]. Horus hadn't considered Russ his equal even before he fell to Chaos, yet now, even being infused with additional power from the Ruinous Powers, Russ had laid him low and legitimately could have killed him, had <s>the plot not suddenly intervened</s> Russ' feelings not gotten the better of him. Horus spent time ruminating on this, fully acknowledging it to himself and taking it all in, because he clearly did not like the implications of this. It was amidst these meditations that Horus then suddenly began to experience moments of visions, or perhaps glimpses of visions of his conscience, or something to that effect, berating him for betraying his father, becoming a pawn of the Ruinous Powers, and ultimately just doing what he knew to be wrong. It was this last that most unsettled Horus as it had never happened before, and try as he might, he couldn't simply dismiss it; unbeknownst to him at the time, the wound Russ had dealt him had impacted his spirit as much as his body, and the power of the Emperor's light had slowly started to counteract the baleful malaise of the chaos gods. Flustered and annoyed, he then ordered a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]] to lead a contingent of his forces to hunt down the remnants of the VIth and not return without Russ' head. [[Fail|Disappointmaddon then returned without Russ' head]]. Oh, and without most of the astartes Horus had given him as well. Abaddon basically starting as he meant to go on.

With their Primarch unconscious from his injuries, the remaining Space Wolf commanders have to make a decision of whether to stay together and likely die, or disperse and play no further part in the Horus Heresy. Choosing to remain together to present a viable threat that the traitors would have to divert resources to deal with, they retreat to '''Yarant III''' to make a stand where they are hunted by [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] but are eventually saved by [[Corax]] following his own gene-seed debacle.

Horus was partially cleansed of the corruption he gained at Molech after being wounded by the Spear of Russ and a momentary glimpse of the original Primarch is witnessed by his brother, granting him enough self control to reject the Chaos Gods but continued the campaign on his own terms. [[Lorgar]] believed that Horus' failure to submit to the gods' will but still accepting their gifts would lead them to withdraw their power [[Siege of Terra|when he needed it most]] and cause the war to be lost. Horus later fell into a coma at the aforementioned battle at Beta-Garmon as his wound reopened, and Lorgar attempted a coup.

A shard of Horus' soul that had been purified by the Spear of Russ would be fought over by the [[Chaos Gods]], requiring the sacrifice of Maloghurst in order to free him and Lorgar was expelled from the Warmaster's fleet after his coup failed, with Horus warning that he would kill Lorgar if he ever saw him again.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Battles]]

Star Wars:The Mandalorian

2022-03-28T07:46:25Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82:

[[File:Mandoposter.jpeg|thumb| ''To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day'']]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series was born.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti westerns so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up (John Wayne's grandson does do much of the stunt work for the titular character). Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well known spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way," their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing), and an episode shot like a horror film except that [[awesome|the protagonist is the hunter]]. The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand of awesome. The show also brought back the old style Mandalorians - it's a creed and a way of life, not a species or race. You are a Mandalorian because you chose to be, and because you follow the Mandalorian code, not because you're born that way.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Empire''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

A second season (it was inevitable) was announced in November 2019, finished filming in March 2020 and arrived on Disney+ in October 2020. Several characters from elsewhere in the franchise such as Boba Fett, Bo-Katan (Duchess Satine’s redhead sister from the Clone Wars, who also happens to be the last known wielder of the Darksaber before Moff Gideon turned up with it in the final episode of season 1) and Ahsoka Tano have made appearances, plus Luke Skywalker himself showed up in the final episode of Season 2.

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]

A third season is currently in development and will deput in 2022. It will continue to star Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandalorian with apparantly Moff Gideon playing a larger role. No word on if the famous baby Yoda will still play any role in the series going forward but likely. Also it is confirmed the upcoming Book of Boba Fett is a separate spinoff so the two series will probably not overlap with each other too much though likely some cameos both ways are likely. One big development is Disney's firing of Cara Dune's actress, Gina Carano. So she likely won't be coming back for the coming season. Though the decision was controversial, since her character was recurring it likely won't affect any upcoming storylines. Also no word if this is intended as the final season or not.

==Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome==
{{spoilers}}
*Mando/Din Djarin is a cool protagonist and Pedro Pascal manages to play him really well despite having his face hidden behind a helmet most of the time
*Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu
*IG-11
*Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad-fame, as the main villain
*Several good strong female characters, from returning favorites like Bo-Katan to newcomers like Cara Dune.
*Fennec Shand- Played by Ming-Na Wen, who you probably know from the OG Mulan. Everyone thought she would be a one off assassin cameo, but had multiple extended action sequences and bad ass moments. Furthermore, the actress is plenty badass herself - one need only look at her physical stance in combat scenes to see that she clearly knows her shit, basically making her [[Awesome|Lady John Wick in Space]]. Appears more in the Bad Batch, and in the future, the Book of Boba Fett
*Mando's ship, the Razor Crest. May she rest in peace.
*Callbacks to Mandalorian-related things from [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]] and [[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*Live action debut of Ahsoka Tano.
*Return of Boba Fett. He is a Mandalorian and the thing about Almec saying Fetts aren't Mandalorian in TCW (he was clearly biased against them due to his position) is now set to rest.
*Worldbuilding
*Redesign of TIE Fighter with folding wings
*Brings aspects from the old EU into Disney Canon
*Shows that the Empire didn't just disappear overnight and that there are still remnants out there.
*Clearly made by people who love and understand Star Wars.
*Stormtroopers are actually hitting shit and have some cool moments. Some are still incompetent but most are pretty decent fighters. Death Troopers too make an appearance, and manage to demonstrate themselves as outclassing the rank-and-file stormtrooper, conveying their status as the elite imperial troopers they're reputed to be. That said, as with the stormtroopers, they don't fare too well once stood up against more capable combatants, and simply can't hold a candle to Mandalorians.
*Dark Troopers. If you thought all battledroids are just cannon fodder relying on their numbers to win, think again. Dark Troopers are basically [[Necrons|Terminators]] and can be genuinely terrifying. Not only are they blaster-proof, they can also fly using rocket boosters.
*Tons and tons of fan service.
*Actually does a good job of showing how to do strong female characters, and never falling into the lazy, obnoxious, pandering, seen in the sequels.
*Luke Skywalker makes an appearance, not the old grumpy disillusioned jedi, Jake Skywalker, we saw in The Last Jedi, but Grandmaster Luke Skywalker him-motherfucking-self in one of, if not the best sequences in the entire series. If this was Disney testing the waters, gauging audience hunger for a possible retconning of the god-awful sequels, then they probably got some encouraging results.
*Makes use of some pretty groundbreaking special effects techniques, continuing the Star Wars tradition of trying to push special effects to new levels. Bye bye greenscreens, hello future. <ref>https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-feature</ref> (see more below)
*Has single-handedly restored hope in the franchise after many had lost it due to the sequel trilogy.
*Elements of Westerns, Samurai films, Judge Dredd, Kill Bill, and other classics.

== Almost-Holodeck Soundstage ==

So we mentioned above there is new special effects in play here. The Mandalorian makes use of a brand new soundstage that consists of a large circle of extremely high resolution LED screens surrounding the actors on almost all sides, projecting distant scenery rendered in real time with Unreal Engine, controlled by the camera's movement. This can be shot directly by the camera, with a computer figuring out the compositing later with a higher quality render for the final cut.

The biggest impact it has is on reflections and ambient lighting on the subjects. Using conventional green screen tech, getting the lighting to match the setting is quite difficult, and getting reflections requires extensive post production work to the point of not being practical in most cases. With the screen set used for Mandalorian, any reflections on metal surfaces (such as shiny, polished armor) are natural and the lighting of the final composite shot will PERFECTLY match the principal photography.

==Bad qualities==
*Some episodes can feel like filler
*It's not [[Star Wars:Rebels]] but bad guys can still sometimes feel pretty incompetent.
*While not overrused, baby Yoda can be grating to those who despise "cute".

{{Star Wars}}

Star Wars:The Mandalorian

2022-03-28T07:04:39Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome */

[[File:Mandoposter.jpeg|thumb| ''To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day'']]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series was born.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti westerns so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up (John Wayne's grandson does do much of the stunt work for the titular character). Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well known spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way," their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing), and an episode shot like a horror film except that [[awesome|the protagonist is the hunter]]. The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand of awesome. The show also brought back the old style Mandalorians - it's a creed and a way of life, not a species or race. You are a Mandalorian because you chose to be, and because you follow the Mandalorian code, not because you're born that way.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Empire''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

A second season (it was inevitable) was announced in November 2019, finished filming in March 2020 and arrived on Disney+ in October 2020. Several characters from elsewhere in the franchise such as Boba Fett, Bo-Katan (Duchess Satine’s redhead sister from the Clone Wars, who also happens to be the last known wielder of the Darksaber before Moff Gideon turned up with it in the final episode of season 1) and Ahsoka Tano have made appearances, plus Luke Skywalker himself showed up in the final episode of Season 2.

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]

A third season is currently in development and will deput in 2022. It will continue to star Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandalorian with apparantly Moff Gideon playing a larger role. No word on if the famous baby Yoda will still play any role in the series going forward but likely. Also it is confirmed the upcoming Book of Boba Fett is a separate spinoff so the two series will probably not overlap with each other too much though likely some cameos both ways are likely. One big development is Disney's firing of Cara Dune's actress, Gina Carano. So she likely won't be coming back for the coming season. Though the decision was controversial, since her character was recurring it likely won't affect any upcoming storylines. Also no word if this is intended as the final season or not.

==Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome==
{{spoilers}}
*Mando/Din Djarin is a cool protagonist and Pedro Pascal manages to play him really well despite having his face hidden behind a helmet most of the time
*Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu
*IG-11
*Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad-fame, as the main villain
*Several good strong female characters, from returning favorites like Bo-Katan to newcomers like Cara Dune.
*Fennec Shand- Played by Ming-Na Wen, who you probably know from the OG Mulan. Everyone thought she would be a one off assassin cameo, but had multiple extended action sequences and bad ass moments. Furthermore, the actress is plenty badass herself - one need only look at her physical stance in combat scenes to see that she clearly knows her shit, basically making her [[Awesome|Lady John Wick in Space]]. Appears more in the Bad Batch, and in the future, the Book of Boba Fett
*Mando's ship, the Razor Crest. May she rest in peace.
*Callbacks to Mandalorian-related things from [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]] and [[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*Live action debut of Ahsoka Tano.
*Return of Boba Fett. He is a Mandalorian and the thing about Almec saying Fetts aren't Mandalorian in TCW (he was clearly biased against them due to his position) is now set to rest.
*Worldbuilding
*Redesign of TIE Fighter with folding wings
*Brings aspects from the old EU into Disney Canon
*Shows that the Empire didn't just disappear overnight and that there are still remnants out there.
*Clearly made by people who love and understand Star Wars.
*Stormtroopers are actually hitting shit and have some cool moments. Some are still incompetent but most are pretty decent fighters.
*Dark Troopers. If you thought all battledroids are just cannon fodder relying on their numbers to win, think again. Dark Troopers are basically [[Necrons|Terminators]] and can be genuinely terrifying. Not only are they blaster-proof, they can also fly using rocket boosters.
*Tons and tons of fan service.
*Actually does a good job of showing how to do strong female characters, and never falling into the lazy, obnoxious, pandering, seen in the sequels.
*Luke Skywalker makes an appearance, not the old grumpy disillusioned jedi, Jake Skywalker, we saw in The Last Jedi, but Grandmaster Luke Skywalker him-motherfucking-self in one of, if not the best sequences in the entire series. If this was Disney testing the waters, gauging audience hunger for a possible retconning of the god-awful sequels, then they probably got some encouraging results.
*Makes use of some pretty groundbreaking special effects techniques, continuing the Star Wars tradition of trying to push special effects to new levels. Bye bye greenscreens, hello future. <ref>https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-feature</ref> (see more below)
*Has single-handedly restored hope in the franchise after many had lost it due to the sequel trilogy.
*Elements of Westerns, Samurai films, Judge Dredd, Kill Bill, and other classics.

== Almost-Holodeck Soundstage ==

So we mentioned above there is new special effects in play here. The Mandalorian makes use of a brand new soundstage that consists of a large circle of extremely high resolution LED screens surrounding the actors on almost all sides, projecting distant scenery rendered in real time with Unreal Engine, controlled by the camera's movement. This can be shot directly by the camera, with a computer figuring out the compositing later with a higher quality render for the final cut.

The biggest impact it has is on reflections and ambient lighting on the subjects. Using conventional green screen tech, getting the lighting to match the setting is quite difficult, and getting reflections requires extensive post production work to the point of not being practical in most cases. With the screen set used for Mandalorian, any reflections on metal surfaces (such as shiny, polished armor) are natural and the lighting of the final composite shot will PERFECTLY match the principal photography.

==Bad qualities==
*Some episodes can feel like filler
*It's not [[Star Wars:Rebels]] but bad guys can still sometimes feel pretty incompetent.
*While not overrused, baby Yoda can be grating to those who despise "cute".

{{Star Wars}}

Star Wars:The Mandalorian

2022-03-28T06:56:03Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome */

[[File:Mandoposter.jpeg|thumb| ''To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day'']]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series was born.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti westerns so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up (John Wayne's grandson does do much of the stunt work for the titular character). Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well known spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way," their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing), and an episode shot like a horror film except that [[awesome|the protagonist is the hunter]]. The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand of awesome. The show also brought back the old style Mandalorians - it's a creed and a way of life, not a species or race. You are a Mandalorian because you chose to be, and because you follow the Mandalorian code, not because you're born that way.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Empire''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

A second season (it was inevitable) was announced in November 2019, finished filming in March 2020 and arrived on Disney+ in October 2020. Several characters from elsewhere in the franchise such as Boba Fett, Bo-Katan (Duchess Satine’s redhead sister from the Clone Wars, who also happens to be the last known wielder of the Darksaber before Moff Gideon turned up with it in the final episode of season 1) and Ahsoka Tano have made appearances, plus Luke Skywalker himself showed up in the final episode of Season 2.

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]

A third season is currently in development and will deput in 2022. It will continue to star Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandalorian with apparantly Moff Gideon playing a larger role. No word on if the famous baby Yoda will still play any role in the series going forward but likely. Also it is confirmed the upcoming Book of Boba Fett is a separate spinoff so the two series will probably not overlap with each other too much though likely some cameos both ways are likely. One big development is Disney's firing of Cara Dune's actress, Gina Carano. So she likely won't be coming back for the coming season. Though the decision was controversial, since her character was recurring it likely won't affect any upcoming storylines. Also no word if this is intended as the final season or not.

==Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome==
{{spoilers}}
*Mando/Din Djarin is a cool protagonist and Pedro Pascal manages to play him really well despite having his face hidden behind a helmet most of the time
*Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu
*IG-11
*Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad-fame, as the main villain
*Several good strong female characters, from returning favorites like Bo-Katan to newcomers like Cara Dune.
*Fennec Shand- Played by Ming-Na Wen, who you probably know from the OG Mulan. Everyone thought she would be a one off assassin cameo, but had multiple extended action sequences and bad ass moments. Furthermore, the actress is plenty badass herself - one need only look at her physical stance in combat scenes to see that she clearly knows her shit, basically making her [[Awesome|Lady John Wick in Space]]. Appears more in the Bad Batch, and in the future, the Book of Boba Fett
*Mando's ship, the Razor Crest. May she rest in peace.
*Callbacks to Mandalorian-related things from [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]] and [[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*Live action debut of Ahsoka Tano.
*Return of Boba Fett. He is a Mandalorian and the thing about Almec saying Fetts aren't Mandalorian in TCW (he was clearly biased against them due to his position) is now set to rest.
*Worldbuilding
*Redesign of TIE Fighter with folding wings
*Brings aspects from the old EU into Disney Canon
*Shows that the Empire didn't just disappear overnight and that there are still remnants out there.
*Clearly made by people who love and understand Star Wars.
*Stormtroopers are actually hitting shit and have some cool moments. Some are still incompetent but most are pretty decent fighters.
*Dark Troopers. If you thought all battledroids are just cannon fodder relying on their numbers to win, think again. Dark Troopers are basically [[Necrons|Terminators]] and can be genuinely terrifying. Not only are they blaster-proof, they can also fly using rocket boosters.
*Tons and tons of fan service
*Luke Skywalker makes an appearance, not the old grumpy disillusioned jedi, Jake Skywalker, we saw in The Last Jedi, but Grandmaster Luke Skywalker him-motherfucking-self in one of, if not the best sequences in the entire series. If this was Disney testing the waters, gauging audience hunger for a possible retconning of the god-awful sequels, then they probably got some encouraging results.
*Makes use of some pretty groundbreaking special effects techniques, continuing the Star Wars tradition of trying to push special effects to new levels. Bye bye greenscreens, hello future. <ref>https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-feature</ref> (see more below)
*Has single-handedly restored hope in the franchise after many had lost it due to the sequel trilogy.
*Elements of Westerns, Samurai films, Judge Dredd, Kill Bill, and other classics.

== Almost-Holodeck Soundstage ==

So we mentioned above there is new special effects in play here. The Mandalorian makes use of a brand new soundstage that consists of a large circle of extremely high resolution LED screens surrounding the actors on almost all sides, projecting distant scenery rendered in real time with Unreal Engine, controlled by the camera's movement. This can be shot directly by the camera, with a computer figuring out the compositing later with a higher quality render for the final cut.

The biggest impact it has is on reflections and ambient lighting on the subjects. Using conventional green screen tech, getting the lighting to match the setting is quite difficult, and getting reflections requires extensive post production work to the point of not being practical in most cases. With the screen set used for Mandalorian, any reflections on metal surfaces (such as shiny, polished armor) are natural and the lighting of the final composite shot will PERFECTLY match the principal photography.

==Bad qualities==
*Some episodes can feel like filler
*It's not [[Star Wars:Rebels]] but bad guys can still sometimes feel pretty incompetent.
*While not overrused, baby Yoda can be grating to those who despise "cute".

{{Star Wars}}

Star Wars:The Mandalorian

2022-03-28T06:47:32Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome */

[[File:Mandoposter.jpeg|thumb| ''To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day'']]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series was born.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti westerns so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up (John Wayne's grandson does do much of the stunt work for the titular character). Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well known spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way," their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing), and an episode shot like a horror film except that [[awesome|the protagonist is the hunter]]. The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand of awesome. The show also brought back the old style Mandalorians - it's a creed and a way of life, not a species or race. You are a Mandalorian because you chose to be, and because you follow the Mandalorian code, not because you're born that way.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Empire''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

A second season (it was inevitable) was announced in November 2019, finished filming in March 2020 and arrived on Disney+ in October 2020. Several characters from elsewhere in the franchise such as Boba Fett, Bo-Katan (Duchess Satine’s redhead sister from the Clone Wars, who also happens to be the last known wielder of the Darksaber before Moff Gideon turned up with it in the final episode of season 1) and Ahsoka Tano have made appearances, plus Luke Skywalker himself showed up in the final episode of Season 2.

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]

A third season is currently in development and will deput in 2022. It will continue to star Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandalorian with apparantly Moff Gideon playing a larger role. No word on if the famous baby Yoda will still play any role in the series going forward but likely. Also it is confirmed the upcoming Book of Boba Fett is a separate spinoff so the two series will probably not overlap with each other too much though likely some cameos both ways are likely. One big development is Disney's firing of Cara Dune's actress, Gina Carano. So she likely won't be coming back for the coming season. Though the decision was controversial, since her character was recurring it likely won't affect any upcoming storylines. Also no word if this is intended as the final season or not.

==Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome==
{{spoilers}}
*Mando/Din Djarin is a cool protagonist and Pedro Pascal manages to play him really well despite having his face hidden behind a helmet most of the time
*Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu
*IG-11
*Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad-fame, as the main villain
*Several good strong female characters, from returning favorites like Bo-Katan to newcomers like Cara Dune.
*Fennec Shand- Played by Ming-Na Wen, who you probably know from the OG Mulan. Everyone thought she would be a one off assassin cameo, but had multiple extended action sequences and bad ass moments. Appears in More in the Bad Batch, and in the future, the Book of Boba Fett
*Mando's ship, the Razor Crest. May she rest in peace.
*Callbacks to Mandalorian-related things from [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]] and [[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*Live action debut of Ahsoka Tano.
*Return of Boba Fett. He is a Mandalorian and the thing about Almec saying Fetts aren't Mandalorian in TCW (he was clearly biased against them due to his position) is now set to rest.
*Worldbuilding
*Redesign of TIE Fighter with folding wings
*Brings aspects from the old EU into Disney Canon
*Shows that the Empire didn't just disappear overnight and that there are still remnants out there.
*Clearly made by people who love and understand Star Wars.
*Stormtroopers are actually hitting shit and have some cool moments. Some are still incompetent but most are pretty decent fighters.
*Dark Troopers. If you thought all battledroids are just cannon fodder relying on their numbers to win, think again. Dark Troopers are basically [[Necrons|Terminators]] and can be genuinely terrifying. Not only are they blaster-proof, they can also fly using rocket boosters.
*Tons and tons of fan service
*Luke Skywalker makes an appearance, not the old grumpy disillusioned jedi, Jake Skywalker, we saw in The Last Jedi, but Grandmaster Luke Skywalker him-motherfucking-self in one of, if not the best sequences in the entire series. If this was Disney testing the waters, gauging audience hunger for a possible retconning of the god-awful sequels, then they probably got some encouraging results.
*Makes use of some pretty groundbreaking special effects techniques, continuing the Star Wars tradition of trying to push special effects to new levels. Bye bye greenscreens, hello future. <ref>https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-feature</ref> (see more below)
*Has single-handedly restored hope in the franchise after many had lost it due to the sequel trilogy.
*Elements of Westerns, Samurai films, Judge Dredd, Kill Bill, and other classics.

== Almost-Holodeck Soundstage ==

So we mentioned above there is new special effects in play here. The Mandalorian makes use of a brand new soundstage that consists of a large circle of extremely high resolution LED screens surrounding the actors on almost all sides, projecting distant scenery rendered in real time with Unreal Engine, controlled by the camera's movement. This can be shot directly by the camera, with a computer figuring out the compositing later with a higher quality render for the final cut.

The biggest impact it has is on reflections and ambient lighting on the subjects. Using conventional green screen tech, getting the lighting to match the setting is quite difficult, and getting reflections requires extensive post production work to the point of not being practical in most cases. With the screen set used for Mandalorian, any reflections on metal surfaces (such as shiny, polished armor) are natural and the lighting of the final composite shot will PERFECTLY match the principal photography.

==Bad qualities==
*Some episodes can feel like filler
*It's not [[Star Wars:Rebels]] but bad guys can still sometimes feel pretty incompetent.
*While not overrused, baby Yoda can be grating to those who despise "cute".

{{Star Wars}}

Star Wars:The Mandalorian

2022-03-28T06:45:37Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome */

[[File:Mandoposter.jpeg|thumb| ''To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day'']]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series was born.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti westerns so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up (John Wayne's grandson does do much of the stunt work for the titular character). Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well known spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way," their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing), and an episode shot like a horror film except that [[awesome|the protagonist is the hunter]]. The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand of awesome. The show also brought back the old style Mandalorians - it's a creed and a way of life, not a species or race. You are a Mandalorian because you chose to be, and because you follow the Mandalorian code, not because you're born that way.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Empire''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

A second season (it was inevitable) was announced in November 2019, finished filming in March 2020 and arrived on Disney+ in October 2020. Several characters from elsewhere in the franchise such as Boba Fett, Bo-Katan (Duchess Satine’s redhead sister from the Clone Wars, who also happens to be the last known wielder of the Darksaber before Moff Gideon turned up with it in the final episode of season 1) and Ahsoka Tano have made appearances, plus Luke Skywalker himself showed up in the final episode of Season 2.

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]

A third season is currently in development and will deput in 2022. It will continue to star Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandalorian with apparantly Moff Gideon playing a larger role. No word on if the famous baby Yoda will still play any role in the series going forward but likely. Also it is confirmed the upcoming Book of Boba Fett is a separate spinoff so the two series will probably not overlap with each other too much though likely some cameos both ways are likely. One big development is Disney's firing of Cara Dune's actress, Gina Carano. So she likely won't be coming back for the coming season. Though the decision was controversial, since her character was recurring it likely won't affect any upcoming storylines. Also no word if this is intended as the final season or not.

==Non-Exhaustive List of Awesome==
{{spoilers}}
*Mando/Din Djarin is a cool protagonist and Pedro Pascal manages to play him really well despite having his face hidden behind a helmet most of the time
*Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu
*IG-11
*Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad-fame, as the main villain
*Several good strong female characters, from returning favorites like Bo-Katan to newcomers like Cara Dune.
*Fennec Shand- Played by Ming-Na Wen, who you probably know from the OG Mulan. Everyone thought she would be a one off assassin cameo, but had multiple extended action sequences and bad ass moments. Appears in More in the Bad Batch, and in the future, the Book of Boba Fett
*Mando's ship, the Razor Crest
*Callbacks to Mandalorian-related things from [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]] and [[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*Live action debut of Ahsoka Tano
*Return of Boba Fett. He is a Mandalorian and the thing about Almec saying Fetts aren't Mandalorian in TCW (he was clearly biased against them due to his position) is now set to rest.
*Worldbuilding
*Redesign of TIE Fighter with folding wings
*Brings aspects from the old EU into Disney Canon
*Shows that the Empire didn't just disappear overnight and that there are still remnants out there
*Clearly made by people who love and understand Star Wars
*Stormtroopers are actually hitting shit and have some cool moments. Some are still incompetent but most are pretty decent fighters.
*Dark Troopers. If you thought all battledroids are just cannon fodder relying on their numbers to win, think again. Dark Troopers are basically [[Necrons|Terminators]] and can be genuinely terrifying. Not only are they blaster-proof, they can also fly using rocket boosters.
*Tons and tons of fan service
*Luke Skywalker makes an appearance, not the old grumpy disillusioned jedi, Jake Skywalker, we saw in The Last Jedi, but Grandmaster Luke Skywalker him-motherfucking-self in one of, if not the best sequences in the entire series. If this was Disney testing the waters, gauging audience hunger for a possible retconning of the god-awful sequels, then they probably got some encouraging results.
*Makes use of some pretty groundbreaking special effects techniques, continuing the Star Wars tradition of trying to push special effects to new levels. Bye bye greenscreens, hello future. <ref>https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-feature</ref> (see more below)
*Has single-handedly restored hope in the franchise after many had lost it due to the sequel trilogy
*Elements of Westerns, Samurai films, Judge Dredd, Kill Bill, and other classics.

== Almost-Holodeck Soundstage ==

So we mentioned above there is new special effects in play here. The Mandalorian makes use of a brand new soundstage that consists of a large circle of extremely high resolution LED screens surrounding the actors on almost all sides, projecting distant scenery rendered in real time with Unreal Engine, controlled by the camera's movement. This can be shot directly by the camera, with a computer figuring out the compositing later with a higher quality render for the final cut.

The biggest impact it has is on reflections and ambient lighting on the subjects. Using conventional green screen tech, getting the lighting to match the setting is quite difficult, and getting reflections requires extensive post production work to the point of not being practical in most cases. With the screen set used for Mandalorian, any reflections on metal surfaces (such as shiny, polished armor) are natural and the lighting of the final composite shot will PERFECTLY match the principal photography.

==Bad qualities==
*Some episodes can feel like filler
*It's not [[Star Wars:Rebels]] but bad guys can still sometimes feel pretty incompetent.
*While not overrused, baby Yoda can be grating to those who despise "cute".

{{Star Wars}}

Setting:Halo

2022-03-28T06:36:36Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Setting */

{{Template:/vg/}}
[[File:The Origin of Where it All began.JPG|400px|right|thumb|Welcome to the beginning of where it all began. Say floating lightbulb, do you have time to listen to the one and true savior, the Precursors?]]

'''''Halo''''' [[Marathon|AKA Marathon's more popular brother]] is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360, ECKSBAWKS JUAN, SECKSBAWKS and PC. The series was developed by Bungie, though Microsoft has bought the rights to the game. The ''Halo'' universe is pretty massive, with all sorts of media ranging from video games and graphic novels to action figures and a series of short movies released to DVD. It became famous for being the game that saved ECKSBAWKS from doing an Atari Jaguar by identifying an untapped new market of loud, stupid fratboys, and was the only reason anyone would even want to buy an ECKSBAWKS console.

Because of its innovative controls and game mechanics (button for melee and grenades, rechargeable health, refined online console multiplayer, popularizing console FPS controls as the gold standard, having drivable vehicles in a FPS that didn't suck ass, kickass music, an intriguing plot, a limited weapon carrying capacity, etc), Halo has often been seen as part of the Holy Trinity of First Person Shooters, tied with Golden Eye and Half-Life as being one of the most important video games in history; with Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D and Marathon being seen as the 'Original Old Guards of First Person Shooters'.

Occasionally it breaks away from the generic sci-fi pattern and explores a more fatalistic and human side to the story without having to suck Master Chief's dick or obsess over ancient alien technology every three seconds, and is generally regarded as being about ten times better and more mature for it. Unfortunately, within the games, this lasted a grand total of one game before [[343 Industries]] acquired the license. Within the books, there are many wonderful examples otherwise, and the plot of Halo 4 can only be completely understood by reading the books from the series that begins with ''Glasslands''. ''Halo Silentium'' by Greg Bear is also a necessary read to really understand how many times the Forerunners screw up, be it their own society or another species, or the entire galaxy, and the true nature and intent of the Flood. The character development of the Librarian and the Didact also makes this quite a fun read. If you're into books, that is. It should also be noted that Halo is to be commended for abstracting Larry Niven's Ring World, but since no one reads older books that don't have pew pews on the cover, how would a mangled regurgitation of IP be recognized when you pull from obscure sauces.

/tg/ isn't big on ''Halo'' and topics pertaining to ''Halo'' will normally be saged, trolled, told to go to /v/, or some combination therein. On /v/ however, ''Halo'' is... still widely hated. Then again, /v/ hates video games in general. The hatred of /tg/ comes less from the actual game/gameplay, and more from it being off-topic and a few fanboys being asshats. <s>Though this also may be due to the fact Halo fans have Cortana to fap to while fa/tg/uys are stuck with fapping to the Emprah</s> <strike>{{BLAM|HERESY!}}</strike>WORT WORT WORT! *GLASSED*

Like Warhammer 40k the state of Halo's fluff has been in limbo, while Halo may have fucking spectacular authors on the line of Greg Bear and Eric Nylund (and more recently Troy Denning) it also has its fair share of colossal fuck ups in the line of [[Fail|Brian Reed]] (who some believe to be the series equivalent of The Beast Himself) and [[Rage|Karen Traviss.]] Don't even get us started with the advent of 343i and [[Skub|their mixed bag success]] on the Reclaimer saga as well as Halo's more...questionable marketing campaigns. Ironically, while the more recent games has been bait for [[Rage|flamewars that will send any respectable forum thread into lock down, even off 4chan,]] Halo's transition to tabletop gaming after some [[Fail|failed]] attempts like Halo Actionclix (Which is a shame cause while the game rules sucked, the models was in such high quality that it even outshines some high priced models from [[Forgeworld]]) has been more positively received, what with the fact that hardcore Haloites now need to use their brains and that the new mini models are quite nicely detailed.

It is worth noting that Halo ever since its inception of its sequel, Halo 2, has been a proud sponsor of every [[Neckbeards]] elixir of life that is....[[Mountain Dew]], as well as the other sacred food item of Doritos. So don't be surprise when you see Mountain Dew and Doritos advertisement being shoved down your face whenever you want to buy any merchandise from Halo. Trying to say anything bad on these food products made from diabetes, sugar, acid and Ork piss is Halo's equivalent of [[Heresy]], you have been warned.

Halo as previously mentioned has a bloody massive universe (multiverse?) encompassing not only games, but also short films (Both live action and animated), music (One of the first vidya games whose soundtrack was good enough to earn multiple awards by itself), tabletop games, merchandises, mega block toys, figurines, nerf guns and even [[Anime|animu.]] Much like [[Warhammer 40,000|40K]] there are 3 major fan wikis: [https://www.halopedia.org/ Halopedia], [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Halo Nation] (soon to be combined into Halopedia) and [http://unhalo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Gruntipedia]; and much like 40K they fall into the respective archetypes of 'obsessively detailed fan wiki', 'ad-ridden Wikia knockoff' and '1d4chan with even worse humour and fan rage'. (Last ones dead now, Halo Nations suffered some kind of seizure, its just Halopedia left)

==Setting==
[[File:Reclaimer Symbol.png|400px|right|thumb|The Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. This symbol is a special Easter egg to an even older [[Marathon|Bungie game.]] Yes it looks like the [[Tau]] symbol but [[Original character, do not steal|predates it by almost a decade.]] Games Workshop proving once again that they are a bunch of sleazy and ballsy motherfuckers.]]
The ''Halo'' universe takes place in the 26th century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has developed its own crude faster-than-light drive (the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupies nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital. This is not what they're talking about when they say Halo, mind you.

Sometime in the year 2525, an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named ''Harvest'', is attacked by an unknown force. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces are met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out.

The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the [[Setting:Halo/Covenant|Covenant]], a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity. At first they seem to be doing this because that's just what aliens ''do'', but later on it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper. Apparently, thanks to the revelations of the [[skub|''Reclaimer Saga'']], humans were once an [[Grimdark|ancient, super advanced, totalitarian, bigoted, expansionist, racist, supremacist, violent, militaristic, war-mongering, nightmare of an empire]], like a way less competent junior version of the [[Great Crusade]]. All were fine and dandy when the Flood came out of fucking nowhere (Long story short, they came about when the humans kept forcing their pets to [[Drug|sniff some powder from an ancient, mysterious ship,]] [[FAIL|''what could go wrong?'']]) which forced the humans to take a page out of [[Kryptman]]'s playbook and invade into Forerunner territory as they were trying to save the galaxy from the Flood. The Forerunners not taking into the whole "I destroy your planets and exterminate your civilians out of benign and superficial reasons" promptly kicked the humans in the galactic nuts, stripped of their technology and de-evolved them back into caveman. So in short, Mankind in Halo basically were what [[Eldar]] are in 40k (Without "blasted into a stoneage part). Later, [[rape|the Forerunners ended up getting nommed by the Flood in the most ridiculous OCP way possible]] and found out how they fucked up so bad when one of them found out that the ancient humans once had the solution against the Flood ([[Just As Planned|Later claimed to be just an elaborate hoax to fool the Forerunners by the Flood]], though the one making this claim was also the Flood's [[Big Bad Evil Guy]], who at the time was speaking to a wavering, demoralized Forerunner leader, so about as trustworthy as the [[Chaos Gods]] promising to give an [[A Game of Pretend|unbiased]] view of the [[Emperor]]) that they had to [[Exterminatus|super-irradiate the known galaxy]] just to kill most of the Flood. Oh, and they also named the humans their Reclaimers as their way of saying sorry for turning them into cavemen and telling them to finish their job, [[Troll|fucking Forerunners.]]

This made the Covenant, or more specifically the Prophets kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshiping the Forerunners. Apparently, knowing that your gods had a favorite, finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's instead the species that invented ''[[Abbadon|truck nuts]] '' upset them just a little. [[Exterminatus| So, back to glassing]]. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. <s>Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry with clever armor named in allcaps. This leads to the SPARTAN-II program,</s> (SPARTAN:s were created to fight against human insurrectionists but happened to be extremely effective against the Covenant as well, and active just in time for them to come around too) humanity's last hope <s>(thirty three men and women to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?)</s>, thirty-three super soldiers, divided into teams 3 or 4, and sent as ''force multipliers'' to assist the UNSC's beleaguered marines and mechanized divisions. Though not as a defensive planetary force (the UNSC having lost a large chunk of those 800 worlds early in the war), but as an offensive special ops unit, [[Alpha Legion|infiltrating behind enemy lines, assassinating commanders, and disrupting the Covenant's supply chain; doing the suicide jobs that others could not, slowing down or in some cases halting Covenant military build-up before it can launch further devastating attacks on the humanity]]. At exceedingly great resource cost and high lost of life, the UNSC together with the Spartans gradually turn the tide of the war (more along the lines of slowly and painfully pushing the Covenant's genocidal murder-boner from balls deep within humanity's asshole to a mere 3/4ths.)

To end the war once and for all, humanity enacts a desperate plan: They would send a specially refitted ship (the ''Pillar of Autumn'') along with Spartan contingent deep behind enemy lines and attempt to capture one of the Prophets (the select group of religious leaders that form the highest caste of the Covenant). But as usual, [[FAIL|it all goes horribly wrong]] [[Derp|before it can even begin]]. The UNSC's fortress-world of '''Reach''', and unofficially the Spartans' homeworld, is discovered by the Covenant. Next to Earth, Reach is the most heavily defended world in Human space. It falls in a matter of days, as the Covenant brings nearly a third of its entire fleet to lay siege over the planet. As Reach's defenses wither away, the Covenant simply brings in more reinforcements. Few escape the doomed Battle of Reach, but one of the ships that manages make it out of the system in time is the ''Pillar of Autumn''. Aboard is a single battle-ready Spartan II (plus another comatose one, but she doesn't count), suspended in cryostasis. Yet, that is where the story truly begins, for the Autumn blindly jumps right into a heavily-guarded star system containing a Halo; a colossal ring-world, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, built millions of years ago by the Forerunners, worshiped by the Covenant as an ancient artifact of unimaginable power, and which would totally never ever turn out to be a super-weapon for super-killing the flood. The Pillar of Autumn's fate and that of the Halo, becomes the setting of the original ''HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED'' game.

And it only gets more nuts from there.

<gallery>
Image:Tumblr_oehlv6Ulpc1ruienfo2_1280.png|Never knew [http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Eternity_(Earth-616) Eternity from Marvel] payed a visit to Halo...
Image:Haloring.jpg|One of the most iconic sci-fi architecture in video game history. One part bonsai garden. One part galactic WMD.
Image:ONI.png|[[1984|We are ONI. We have the power to make you 'disappear'. We have the power to turn the public against you. We have the power to erase you from existence. We will be watching. Always.]]
Image:The_Rookie.jpg|BRODST
</gallery>

==On /tg/==
While as mentioned that Halo has been proven skubtastic over the years on /tg/, the recent surge in popularity among tabletop has garnered a niche within /tg/ community. That and the fact of a billion fandex for either the Covenant, UNSC or Forerunners as well as fanfiction that ranges from okay to literal bait for fan wars.

It no longer has the ire it once had due to most of the annoying asshats migrating to COD and Battlefield as well as the fact that some of the squeakers that used to inhabit the Halo community has since matured into adults by now. Halo nowadays has been seen as...okay.

One thing of note is a massive backlash even for the casual TG fan about the changing Halo artstyle. While this might get dismissed by many since style changes are extremely common in franchises and often hated regardless of context, Halo 5 (and ESPECIALLY Halo Infinite) have pretty much dedicated themselves to turn unique and interesting designs (especially for human stuff) into the most generic run of the mill boring pieces of hardware not out of place in a COD game. Basically style change is like redecorating your house, and 343 is just slathering everything in beige. Bringing up the style change is seen as MASSIVE skub between those who loath it and those who, from the previous assumptions, assume it's just fanboys complaining.

==The TV Show==
More recently, Paramount+ has released their own spin on the Halo series in TV form, likely in part out of envy for Disney having their [[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|own streaming show set in a beloved space setting]]. Unlike the various books and comics that preceded it, which are supposed to exist in the same universe as the video games everyone knows, the show is in its own canon, officially called the "Silver Timeline" in reference to Master Chief leading a SPARTAN team called "Silver Team". Was drawing concern and derision even before release (as that's how these things tend to go nowadays), and has only continued its status as A-grade Skub from there. Among the things folks have taken issue with are:
* The writers admitting that they didn't look at any of the games, leading to the sense that they didn't respect/know the source material enough.
* CGI and special effects of questionable quality
* That it's not a straight adaptation of the video games or novels
* Master Chief shows his face, which for most Halo neckbeards is pure [[Heresy]]. This last one is the big one right now.

Not all of the fan buzz has been negative (it definitely hasn't done any worse for itself than the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy did in terms of backlash), but its also still pretty early to say where the show will go. Either way, it no doubt helps Paramount+ that this show is its own canon, making it easier to ignore if you're not a fan, and giving them more freedom to <s>muck up the lore</s> do their own thing with the franchise.

==Codex: The Covenant==
[[File:1185489032.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Surprisingly, [[Games Workshop|Halo Actionclix]] figures make good Tabletop conversions for the [[Codex - The Covenant|Covenant]], here seen a Scarab that looks like it could fit comfortably in the [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Apocalypse Game-type.]]]]
A bunch of people decided that the Covenant's tech and machines are pretty nice in a WH40K setting So "[[Codex - The Covenant]]" was made to implement them into the tabletop game.

Furthermore on the context on Halo; The Convenant is a [[Imperium of Man|militarized theocracy]] made up of different alien species, with each belonging to its own caste, and all of them are all sorts of killy in a variety of ways. Their MO is to track down the remnants of the Forerunner's legacy in their quest to ascend to Godhood, and destroy anyone who stands in their way. While we can't vouch for how they'd fair against other alien factions, they're certainly lethal against the [[Imperial Guard|average human soldier]]. From the top down;

* Prophets: [[Ecclesiarchy|The theocrats who call all the shots]]. While generally too frail for combat, they're the [[Just as Planned|master manipulators]] and [[Adeptus Mechanicus|horde all the forerunner technology]]. They're also indirectly responsible for virtually all deaths in the war against the UNSC, since they started the war as basically a giant cover-up and means to stay in power. They also like to play the different races against each other for their own ends. If you see one on the battlefield, expect to see '''lots''' of heavily-armed bodyguards and some really strong personal defense systems to boot.
* Elites: Space [[Lizardmen]] with Lightsabers that shout WORT WORT WORT. Come from a proud warrior race and were the first race to be subjugated by the Prophets. They still form the top of the military hierarchy and are quite dangerous, wielding personal shields and many of the best weapons that the Covenant has to offer, as well as having many brilliant tacticians at their disposal.
* Hunters: Colonies of [[Dune|Killer Death Worms]] inside of suits of armor and armed with nuclear radiation cannons. Its not an exaggeration to call these guys living tanks. These same worms are also used to power Scarabs and other super-heavy walkers.
* Brutes: [[Star Wars|Killer Wookies]] with Metal Shanks that go OMNOMNOM. Also a proud warrior race but far more zealous and unthinking than the Elites, they fight in packs and go berserk when you kill one of their pack-mates. Unlike the Elites who care about giving their opponents an honorable death, Brutes simply kill for the pleasure of it. They like to use their own weapons that have [[Choppy]] bayonets while being more [[Dakka]] and Boomy than your average plasma rifle. In the Covenant's final years, the prophets decided to replace the Elites with the Brutes because the Elites were too independent and started asking too many questions after the Halo rings were discovered.
* Jackals: [[Kroot|Space Pirate Turkeys that also go OMNOMNOM]]. Just barely above cannon fodder, they're typically deployed as light infantry or sniper support. They're the least zealous race and act more as mercenaries in different capacities.
* Grunts: [[Star Wars|Hairless Ewoks]] strapped to methane-filled tanks. The smallest and weakest race, and usually the most cowardly, as they tend to panic once their squad leader is killed. It's not unheard of though for some to go kamikaze and run at you with primed grenades. They tend to be the butt of a lot of jokes, until you realize just how badly the Covenant oppresses them and how they really don't want to be there.
* Drones: [[Tyranids|Flying bug-people that attack in large numbers.]] Not very intelligent, but they comply with the Covenant as they've been raised to think of the prophets as their hive queen.
* Engineers: Biomechanical floating [[/d/|tentacle monsters]]. Created by the forerunners to maintain their tech before they were enslaved by the Covenant. Engineers are fairly docile, but they're forced to wear suicide vests to prevent their capture.

==Codex: The Banished==
Hey! You know how the Covenant has proven to be popular among WH40K/Halo conversions? Now we have a new Codex to represent the Covenant's worst foe. Akin to the [[Heretic|Heretics]] that plague the IoM. [[Codex - The Banished]] offers a different take on how the Brutes can be played with its own unique heroes, vehicles and units.

To give a short and nice summary on what the Banished are, they are a large group of separatist forces lead by a Brute Warlord called Atriox; whereas most Brutes channeled their extreme violence in service to their dogmatic faith, while undermining their Elite rivals on the sly, Atriox was far less subtle about his hatred for the Covenant and its caste system. Unlike other separatist and heretical forces that plagued the Covenant Empire, the Banished stood their ground and weathered Covenant attacks until they amassed enough troops and equipment to rival and even stop the Covenant military in their tracks. In Halo Canon, they successfully outlasted both the Covenant and its various remnant factions, gathering troops and wargear with careful deliberation, much unlike the various demagogues and megalomaniacs who seized power in the political vacuum like Jul 'Mdama. And while they use most of the Covenants existing arsenal, much of it is heavily modified to suit the Brute's needs (and aesthetics), including a complete refit of Covenant Scarabs into offensive powerhouses. They are the only few polities capable of standing up to the Covenant and the only one capable of driving off an entire Covenant armada. Atriox's tactical and cunning brilliance has sowed intimidation and respect to not only the Covenant but to the Covenant's loyalist Brutes. Atriox's leadership despite the size of his army is not to be underestimated.

==Halo Actionclix==
A while back during its heyday, Actionclix made a deal with Microsoft and Bungie at the time to create an Actionclix game based on the Haloverse. While the models were extremely well detailed and well crafted, its high pricing for the models and its overall clusterfuck of its rules has made Halo Actionclix a [[Skub|somewhat lackluster experience.]]

This led to a initial surge in popularity with the idea of future tabletop games based around the universe (Read below on Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command), however like Halo Risk. The initial popularity died down quickly once the rules was read since you know, during that era (Halo 3), the main target audience was kids and teenagers who have zero to little clue on how to play an Actionclix game.

This has in turn, force Halo Actionclix to have a relatively short lifespan and the models have thus turned into a collectors item for display and collecting dust.

==Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command==
[[File:HFBB01-2.jpg|300px|left|thumb|Halo Fleet Battles starter package. Yes we know, that is a whole lot of ships.]]
With the introduction of Halo Fleet Battles which is essentially Halo's take on [[Battlefleet Gothic]], that is centered around the Fall of Reach which is like the biggest naval combat within the Covenant-UNSC fluff, some fa/tg/uys has apparently lost their collective shit due to the fact that this is the first time that Halo is getting a tabletop treatment (The Risk and Actionclix games although the models are nice, does not really count). Similar to most tabletop miniatures, the models coming with Halo Fleet Battles and its contemporary ground units comes unpainted which means you have to paint all the neely-willy details yourself, that and the fact that it comes with its own rulebook and stats has garnered /tg/'s approval. In fact, some has already decided to convert the models and place it within Battlefleet Gothic itself (Although how you will be able to adjust the rules to make it fair is going to be a nightmare). All models are [[Finecast]][[Skub|, make that of what you will.]]

Both Fleet Battles and Ground Command are made by [[Spartan Games]]. Overall, Spartan Games are much more reasonably priced than the models made from [[Games Workshop]]. Seriously for the Covenant set you are getting 6 Highly-detailed Plastic Ship Models, 1 Formation Base Sprue (4 Bases in all), 1 Ship Overlay Sheet (6 Ship Overlays), 2 Token Sheets, 1 Statistics Sheet and 1 Assembly Guide for (US)$35.94 whereas the UNSC gets 2 Epoch Heavy Carriers, 6 Paris Class Frigates, 2 heavy sprue, 1 flight stand base, 1 overlay sheet and 1 assembly guide for $32.5, that is like cheaper than GeeDub's [[Rage|$66.55 pricing for only 5 Terminator models.]] [[Tl;dr]] [[What|you can literally buy two entire Covenant or UNSC fleets for the price of a single Termie Squad.]] Whether these tabletop games may boost Spartan Games to become GeeDubs rival is unknown. But what is known is the fact that Halo is owned by Microsoft which is a company that dwarfs GeeDubs in both money and influence. [[Games Workshop#GW The Bully|So in a rare hypothesis that GeeDubs think their high and mighty and goes on their copyright abuse that forced other smaller model companies to close down and have set their cross hairs on Spartan Games and more specifically the Halo license]]...as the old saying goes...[[Rape|there is always a bigger fish.]] Seriously, it could be seen from Spartan Games perspective as a blessing of sorts as unlike poor [[ChapterHouse Studios]] who ''was'' sued by GW, the backing of Microsoft puts some immunity for Spartan Games. That and Microsoft in all honesty, has the power and influence to [[Lulz|bully the bully]] if Games Workshop decides to get uppity when Spartan Games release the models for the Covenant Prophets which look similar to the Tau Ethereal; that or Microsoft can just tell them to [[Anal Circumference|fuck off and bite the pillow.]]

Unfortunately, as of August 2017, Spartan Games have officially announced its closure and shutdown. Because of this, the state of Fleet Battles and Ground Command is in limbo and that any further purchases of their models is only available either from eBay or second hand manufacturers. However, 343i did say they will look towards the care of this, so all hope is not lost!

===Fleet Battles===
[[File:Assault-carrier-1920x1080-55e25a886cb649a0a7f165d855056bb2.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A CAS Assault Carrier plays hide and seek with a vastly out-gunned UNSC battlegroup.]]

Main Article: [[Halo_Fleet_Battles|Halo Fleet Battles]]

The Fleet Battles set comes with some kickass artwork depicting both factions leaders (Shame they didn't have Halo's answer to [[Creed]] that is [[Awesome|Preston "''I turned a Gas Giant into a fucking star just so I can stroke my massive ego''" Cole]]) sitting on their respective armchairs. Although how they are going to balance the UNSC/Covenant (Since Covenant ships can no-sell their UNSC equivalents) is up to [[Skub|debate.]] UNSC ships are balanced by being the long-range, combined fire monsters they are in fluff (if you can get enough of them together); but they crumple once their Titanium armor has been burned off. Also the UNSC gets the advantage of SMAC Platforms which makes them great at holding the line and acting as giant, immobile, floating [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]]. This means that the UNSC specializes in [[Dakka|lots and lots of missile spam]] [[Tyranids|and swarm tactics]] to compensate general shitty defensive capabilities and shorter range whereas the Covenant act as giant line breakers with their fuck huge ships and [[MOAR DAKKA|massive firepower.]]

Fight the Fall of Reach in the starter set, or start adding extra ships in to fight battles from the Human-Covenant War. Since the closure of Spartan Games, no one wanted to pick up the license... probably because it was Microsoft-priced. Instead, the community is keeping it alive with fan-expansions and accessories. Because of the extraordinarily low chances that a miniatures company picks the license up again, 343 Studios has done the surprisingly gracious move of helping out the fans by giving a blessing to the whole process. It doesn't make things easier or provide any resources, but at least keeps Microsoft from swooping in as long as the community protects the IP.

Maybe with the updated rules for Dystopian Wars from their new owners, we'll get to see a fan-update to the ruleset and balance.

===Ground Command===
[[File:Covenant_Attack_Blog_1.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A typical skirmish in Ground Command.]]
For the battles centered around the ground, Ground Command seems to be more feasibly plausible in fluff terms. What we know is that both factions are going to be incredibly dropship focused, meaning that the implementation and usage of dropships like the Pelican and Phantom are going to be crucial for tactical victory. Models for both factions are small enough to be converted into other tabletop games, although the UNSC personnel (who are meant to be regular humans) are a tad bit taller than a Space Marine.

In terms of detailed gameplay, movement phase is similar to Fleet Battles. However Ground Command also has two key gaming spaces: Pre-Game and In-Game. The former refers to the Strategic/RTS part of the game and latter to the Action/FPS part of the game. Essentially, Pre-Game allows players to flex their RTS muscles, building their Forces strategically to complete their chosen missions. In general play, all scenarios are encouraged to be rolled PRIOR to Forces being chosen, so players can go away and plot their enemy’s eventual demise. This gives the game a planned-outcome-feel since players have had time to reflect on the mission to hand and have brought the right tools for the job.

Choosing a Force is a simple process that uses the Build Rating (BR) and Maximum Force Value (MFV) methods that was introduced in Halo: Fleet Battles. Like H:FB, Ground Command also use the ideas of Standard and Specialist Battle Groups. The former will be used multiple times by players, whereas the latter will be limited in their use, commonly limited to only one per force. Battle Groups have Units that are call Requisites which in turn gain access to Optional Units. Requisites MUST be taken for a Battle Group to be considered game legal. These vary from Battle Group to Battle Group. For example, an ODST Battle Group MUST take ODST Units as Requisites, whereas a UNSC Army Mechanized Battle Group MUST take Riflemen Units. Requisites are, however, deliberately kept to the bare minimum needed to represent the nature of their Battle Group to uphold flexibility allowing players to find new and innovative combinations to field.

Once Requisites have been taken, players have a number of Optional Build Rating points to spend in each of the following categories: Infantry Units, Armored Units and Air Units. The points available will vary depending on the Battle Group chosen, giving certain Battle Groups greater access to some types of Unit, or may even skip using a Unit type altogether. For example, a Covenant Spectral Host Battle Group (Elite Ghost Units optional Air Support) allows a Covenant player to not have any Infantry and instead field lots of fast attack Ghosts with Elite drivers. This is a Specialist Battle Group and is limited to one per force. It is static in its requisites but can have access to a Flyer if a player wants to spend the BR and Points to add it their Force.

A UNSC Standard Armored Battle Group only has Armored Units as Requisites. A player can still add some Infantry if they want, or even add Flyer Units, or they could just spend all of their points on Armour and as this is a Standard Battle Group a player can take several in their Force if they so choose. All of this leads to an incredibly flexible force building mechanic that gives the game great longevity. There will be literally thousands of combinations available, giving players the chance to execute their plans in a prepared way. The Build Rating of a model (Element as it is called in the game) and a Unit (a collection of Elements) is what translates to Victory Points. It is a simple method and allows games to be won by destroying Units of Infantry, destroying Armored models, shooting down Flyers, capturing Objectives, killing Characters and etc.

In terms of building a terrain and setting, Ground Command's terrain is placed using mutual consent to encourage the construction of fair and reasonable battlefields. The rules of Terrain are binary to make it simple to use and fast to play with – for example, you can or you can’t move through it; you can or you can’t shoot through it, or a combination of both. This makes Terrain nice and simple to play with, but still gives players a strategic view of the battlefield and allows for a planned route of advancement. Terrain ranges from simple Supply Drops to large structures like the Covenant Stealth Pylon.

Similar to Fleet Battles, Ground Command has commanders for the players to choose from and is played similarly to its space counterpart. So in summary:

*Forces are made up of Battle Groups, which can be of varying types: UNSC Mechanized Battle Groups, Hunting Host Battle Groups, Armored Battle Groups, and so on.
*Inside each Battle Group are Requisite Units that must be taken, then Build Rating limits are set to allow players to add in Optional Units later.
*Forces can and should be made up of multiple Battle Groups.
*In narrative play, all Forces should be chosen after the Scenario is determined, allowing players to tailor their lists to fight out the mission.
*Terrain is placed by mutual consent and is designed for simple use and quick gameplay. There is a table generator included if mutual consent proves difficult.
*In Halo: Ground Command players have access to Generic Force Commanders that cost considerably less than narrative named Commanders. These Generic Force Commanders have Standard Orders and a Factional Order. They are the only Commander available in competitive play.

These is just the Pre-Game. Now it is the In-Game phase. As with Halo: Fleet Battles, the '''Halo Dice''' is used in conjunction with the Firepower Rating Table to control modifiers and drive the statistics in the game. Both games start with players using a default of Firepower Rating 4 with the Rating modifying up and down accordingly. This means that when rolling Halo Dice, a result of 2 (or Spartan Exploding 6 for example) counts as two hits, a result of 1 result counts as one hit, a Miss result can be re-rolled if you have rolled any 2s, and the Skull result is a definite miss. Some weapons will provide a positive bonus to the Firepower Rating whereas Terrain conditions and Scenario effects generally cause the Firepower Rating to suffer a negative penalty. The faces of the Dice in Ground Command are Fail, Miss, Success and Exploding. Than there are the '''Tokens'''. In Ground Command there are three available tokens, these are: Activated (placed when a Unit Activates or attempts a Reaction), Damage (for when an attack equals or exceeds a value on a Damage Track) and Cooldown (which is used to represent a situation where a weapon or even an entire Unit cannot fire). There is also the '''Statistic Profiles''' which are used as a simple visual presentation mechanic to show players the various statistics used by Units on their statistic cards. These cards will be large enough to fit in your hand and will have all pertinent rules (as well as paraphrased notations about Loadouts) on them, making Unit reference in Halo: Ground Command quick and very simple. Also like Fleet Battles, Ground Command issues '''Command Dice''' for commanders on the battlefield to drive the Command & Control side of the game. The Command/Attack/Defense symbols allow players to execute orders from their Force Commander’s Data Sheet that can often be the difference between success and failure in battle.

Then there is the '''Reaction Fire''' which is how Ground Command tries to translate the FPS element into tabletop. In order for it to work, Ground Command have created a Reaction Statistic for every Element in order to allow the game to represent a persistent form of overwatch where every Unit on the table is assumed to be engaged in the battle at all times. The Reaction Statistic has two numbers shown as X / Y on a Unit’s Profile. The X number is used if a Unit has not yet been Activated, and the Y number is used if a Unit has already been Activated. If a player wants to react to an enemy Unit’s activation, the player makes a 2D6 dice roll, adds or subtracts any modifiers and hopes they match or exceed the relevant number, if they do, they get to fire in their opponent’s activation, either at the start of a Unit’s movement or at the end.

Attempting a Reaction is not without risk, however, as you are only permitted to attempt a single reaction to an enemy Unit’s activation and whether you succeed or fail the reacting Unit gains an Activation Marker as a result. This means a player has to choose wisely which Unit will be used to React to the enemy. Sometimes it is better to React with a Unit that has already gone, especially if the Unit has a good Y-React number. For example, UNSC Warthogs excel at this, creating mobile mini-fire-bases upon which the UNSC can base their advance/defense tactics. It may also be the case that a player is unwilling to React, as it will affect their ability to surge forwards (since making a Reaction attempt gives a Unit an Activation Marker that effectively halts any chance of performing a Movement Action). In a massed battle game, where you could literally have hundreds of miniatures on the tabletop and large numbers of Armor and Flyers, you suddenly have the intensity of an FPS, where no Unit is ever truly safe. This means that even if your opponent has already activated a Unit, the Unit isn’t actually out of the game.

As you might expect, not everything has the same React X/Y. A Spartan who are the elites for the UNSC, might be capable of multiple feats of arms in a turn, firing in all directions as he/she attempts to defend a wounded soldier. A ponderous pair of Hunters are, however, far more measured and lumbering, taking time to line up shots and gear themselves for combat. This is represented by the Spartan having a React Score of 5/6, whereas a Hunter Unit is limited to 10/13.

In terms of weapons. Ground Command issue '''Small Arms'''. They are not, however, always the same in the game. For example Small Arms, when in the hands of Grunts, have one set of Small Arms Stats, and a different set of stats when used by Elites. This makes the game flow smoothly and gives each faction diversity without the minutiae of looking directly into the hands of each and every model. That is not to say that all weapons are in this category. Certain Units can upgrade one or more of their bases to be specific Fire Teams, like Grunts wielding Fuel Rod Cannons, UNSC Troopers manning HMGs, etc.

This brings us on to '''Weapon Loadouts'''. The majority of weapons in the game, including Small Arms, normally have at least one Loadout. A Loadout is a custom rule that enhances a weapon. It could be as simple as Suppression (+1) in the case of UNSC Small Arms or Point Blank in the case of Covenant Small Arms, to more complex Loadouts such as Devastating, Pinpoint, Indirect Fire, and so on. Each of these Loadouts is summarized on a Unit’s Statistic Card and detailed in the core rulebook for ease of reference. The variation of the Weapon Loadouts thus leads us to '''The Weapon Spread'''. Here each and every weapon, if you are willing to shoot it long enough can technically destroy anything in-game when it comes to Halo. This means that the game has to come up with a new system for weapons that allows for this incredible flexibility. So the Weapon Spread System is designed to do exactly that. The Weapon Spread divides the Attack Dice available to a Weapon into three distinct categories, each citing the weapon’s effectiveness against a specific target.

*Anti-Personnel (AP) refers to a weapon’s ability to damage Infantry targets.
*Anti-Tank (AT) refers to a weapons ability to damage Armoured targets.
*Anti-Air (AA) refers to a weapons ability to damage Flying targets.

When firing, Ground Command uses a combination mechanic (the same as in Halo: Fleet Battles) so a Unit of 4 Bases of Grunts shooting at a Unit of UNSC Riflemen in the open (always a bad thing for the UNSC) would roll 2+2+2+2 = 8x Halo Dice using Firepower Rating 5 (the best they can get!). From this roll the Grunts would expect to get about 6 Hits, which should, on average, kill 2 Bases of UNSC Riflemen. In terms of '''Melee''', each element rolls a number of Halo Dice equal to their Melee Statistic, but unlike Ranged Attacks, all players are looking to do is roll Skulls – all other results are ignored. Roll a Skull and you automatically do a point of Damage (or in the case of Melee vs Vehicles, 2x Skulls for a point of Damage). Heroic Saves can be attempted after that, but essentially that’s as complicated as Melee gets. If each side rolls the same number of Skulls in a round of Melee, the survivors keep fighting until someone wins – or until both sides are wiped out. Once one side is declared the winner, the loser is pushed back, leaving both sides free to React as normal. Lastly, like Fleet Battles, there is the '''End phase''' in which it is used to tally up scored Victory Points for the Game Turn. Victory Points (VPs) are generated by destroying enemy Units, where their Build Rating directly translates to VPs. VPs can also be scored according to the conditions stated in any particular scenario you might be playing. For example, the Assassination Mission from the core rulebook gives bonus VPs points for taking out anything with the Commanding Presence Loadout, whilst the Take and Hold Scenario gives additional VPs for holding Placed Objectives (usually Buildings of importance on the battlefield). The Scenarios all last a certain number of Game Turns, after which the person who has scored the most Victory Points wins.

Last but not least, we cannot forget Flyers which are crucial for tactical victory in Ground Command. In Ground Command all flying vehicles are separated into two categories: Hover Flyers and Air Support Mission Flyers.

'''Hover Flyers''' are treated in the same way as any other battlefield Unit, moving shooting, reacting in the same way as any other model. They are targeted using a weapon’s Anti-Air (AA) Statistic and tend to be fast moving and pretty aggressive in their use. Examples of these include Banshees or Falcons, which may be seen operating in Units with more than one model, or be individuals, depending on their Build Rating and the Battle Group they are part of.

'''Air Support Mission Flyers''' tend to be far larger than their standard Hover counterparts, dominating the sky with their bulk and durability. These Flyers are simply too large to remain on the table turn to turn, and instead resolve their movement, the execution of their chosen mission and extraction in a simple strafing method. Examples of these flyers include the UNSC Pelican and Covenant Phantom.

When using an Air Support Mission Flyers, players activate the model in the same way as any other Unit, declaring a Mission type for the Flyer. This Mission will have an attached Victory Points cost, which is given to the enemy directly after the Mission is announced. This give-and-take aspect to Air Support Mission Flyers makes the taking of these large models very balanced – you get a huge reward, but your opponent gets a strategic bonus if you saturate the battlefield with too many. This means that protracted use of aerial assets will cause a drain on the player’s chances of winning an outright victory, but execution of these Missions will often be vital for continued success in the combat operation. So balancing if, when and how you bring in your Air Support Mission Flyers is a skill that will take time for players to develop. There are a variety of Missions available to Flyers of this type. Combat Drop Missions allow players to bring in reserves. Supply Drop Missions allow the placement of a Supply Drop Marker that increases the Reaction Statistics of all friendly ground models within range. Ground Attack Missions allow you to target ground Units with increased effect. Reinforcement Missions allow you to bring a damaged Unit of Infantry (and in some cases Armor) back up to full strength, and Air Patrols allow you to place your Flyer ‘on-station’, ready to intercept enemy flyers when they activate.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Super Carrier.JPG|Yes that is an actual model of a Covenant CSO-class Super Carrier. [[Anal Circumference|No it will not be a good pain.]]
Image:Feleethalo_1.jpg|There will be more ship designs coming soon.
Image:DSC09153.jpg|Covenant minis for Ground Command.
Image:DSC09156.jpg|UNSC minis for Ground Command.
Image:Halo.jpg|That's right, Halo's dropships are as big as a [[Thunderhawk]] [[Reasonable Marines|while being more sensibly designed and having more firepower to boot.]]
Image:
</gallery>

Mythic: the fan made Halo tabletop RPG also exists... for whatever that is worth

==Spartan stats==
For those who wanted to put a Spartan in tabletop for some reason, here are the rules.
''Note: The Rules assigned here are based off of 6th and 7th Edition Warhammer 40k, this has not been updated for 9th Edition, nor for lore accuracy with the universe itself.''

'''WS''' 4 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 1 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 1 / '''Ld''' 8 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Composition
3 Spartans
 1 Spartan - Squad Leader (Ld 9)

;Unit Type
Infantry

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D Assault Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Special Rules
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Spartans gain the ''Stubborn'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Spartans gain the ''Hit & Run'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.

;Options:
* May Include up to 4 additional Spartan- for ''13 points per Model''
* Any model in the squad may take an Onboard AI for ''3 points per Model''
* For every 4 models in a squad, one model may replace their MA5C Rifle with one of the following:
** M45 Tactical Shotgun (Shotgun)...............................''6 points per Model''
** SRS99-S5 AM (Sniper Rifle)..................''10 points per Model''
** M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)........''15 points per Model''
** M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points per model
* Each Spartan squad must choose to be one of the following:
** Spartan Is - Squad gain the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs for 10pts per model. Role a d6 for each model, on results of 5+ the model also gains the ''Crazed'' special rule.
** Spartan IIs - Squad gain +1 Ballistic Skill and the ''Split Fire'' USR for 4 points per model. The squad may choose to become an '''Elite''' Choice.
** Spartan IIIs - Squad gain the ''Stealth'' and ''Infiltrate'' USRs for 3 points per model.
** Spartan IVs - Squad gain the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs for 3 points per model.

;SPARTAN ARMORY

* '''MJOLNIR Armor''' - Created parallel to the Spartan-II Program, the MJOLNIR Armor is a sealed system, capable of extravehicular activity or operations in toxic atmosphere. Weighing over half a metric ton, the armor's shell is constructed in overlapping layers of Titanium-A plating and highly durable ballistic alloys of remarkable strength. It has even been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of energy weapon strikes. The Spartan gains a ''3+ Armor Save''.
** MJOLNIR armor is equipped with a full-body recharging energy shield that was reverse-engineered from captured alien technology. The shield itself is utterly transparent and does not hinder sight in any way but briefly flashes a greenish-gold color when hit. The Spartans gain a ''6+ Invulnerable Save''.

* '''Onboard AI''' - All MJOLNIR Mk V models or better feature a complex crystalline matrix within their neural interface, which Cortana likened in structure to the computer systems of the ''Pillar of Autumn''. An AI construct increases tactical awareness, provides an indispensable guide, serving almost as a co-pilot and navigator, and multiplies the Spartan's already phenomenal reflexes. A Spartan equipped with an Onboard AI increases their Initiative value by 1.

* '''MA5D Assault Rifle''' - The MA5C has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in the magazine, compass heading, and capable of wireless up-link with MJOLNIR systems for improved accuracy. Made of Titanium Alloy and Polymers, the rifle performs well in a variety of environments. Having a rate of fire of 650 rounds a minute, and chambering the old-school M118 7.62x51mm NATO Armor Piercing, Full Metal Jacket Rounds with a 36-round detachable box magazine. Though lacking strength and stopping power, these rounds are designed to pierce most conventional ballistic body armor.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 3

* '''M45 Tactical Shotgun''' - is a pump-action, magazine-fed, dual tubular non-detachable type weapon. It uses the Soellkraft 8-Gauge Magnum Shotgun Shell, a large round capable of phenomenal stopping power and made possible to fire with little recoil due to the gun's magnetorheological recoil dampening system, allowing it to be fired by anyone.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 12" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' - / '''Type''' Assault 2 Rending

* '''Sniper Rifle SRS99-S5 AM''' - aka the "SR System 99-S5 Anti-Matériel", an upgrade from the S2s, it is a semi-automatic UNSC sniper rifle that fires 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot, with a tungsten or depleted uranium core) from a 4-round magazine. It is fitted with a variable-magnification Oracle scope that allows for 5x and 10x magnification. When looking through it, the scope shows a target's distance and elevation. Designed originally as an anti-materiel rifle, it has proven effective against the highly durable armor of the Covenant and hardlight construction of the Prometheans.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' X/ '''AP''' 4 (''When firing at vehicles, the rifle adds D6 to its Armor penetration value'') / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Sniper, Anti Material.
Anti Material: Shots fired from this weapon rend on a 4+.

* '''M41 Rocket Launcher''' - aka the "M41 SSR" fires the M19 102mm HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) shaped charge rockets. The launcher sports a 2x scope and can fire rockets over long distances with devastating accuracy, and its two launch tubes allow the wielder to fire two rockets before needing to reload. The rocket launcher spreads a huge amount of damage over a large area. It is capable of taking out entire groups of infantry at any range and is effective against most vehicles.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 3 / '''Type''' Heavy 2, Blast

* '''M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle''' - The Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (abbreviated AV M6 G/GNR) also known as the ''Spartan Laser'', is the UNSC's first man-portable, shoulder-fired direct energy weapon. Firing a chemical laser after a short charge period, a well placed shot can destroy even heavy vehicles with ease. Infantry-level targets are simply obliterated.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Ignores Cover

-Targeting beam: The Spartan Laser projects an obvious laser target, any enemy units that can, may choose to fire Overwatch at the firers unit as if it was the assault phase.

Spartans may take the '''M831 Troop Transport''' (M831 TT) or '''M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle''' (M12 LRV) as their dedicated transport.

==Dedicated Transports==
* M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle - 40 points
* M831 Troop Transport - 30 points

'''Armour (Front)''' 10 / '''Armour (Side)''' 10 / '''Armour (Rear)''' 10 / '''HP''' 2

;Unit Type
Vehicle (Fast, Open-Topped, Transport)

;Wargear
* M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (M12 LRV)
* None (M831 TT)

;Transport Capacity
* Four (M12 LRV)
* Eight (M831 TT)

The ubiquitous M12 and its troop transport variant the M831, are the UNSC's primary multi-role ground vehicles. They are used anywhere from scouting and reconnaissance to fast vehicle transport, forming an integral part of the UNSC's armored vehicle fleet for fifty years. It is a highly mobile, all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, all-weather vehicle, capable of traversing all but the most dangerous of terrain. The M831 features a rear bed with an expanded seating compartment, while the M12 features a rear mounted anti-aircraft gun (the M46 LAAG) that can also be used against infantry.

'''M46 LAAG''' - The M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (LAAG) is a tripled-barreled, electric-powered, linkless, belt-fed weapon. The LAAG fires the 12.7x99mm (.50 cal) armor penetrating rounds and can fire at a rate of 1200 rounds per minute.
* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 5 / '''AP''' 5 / '''Type''' Heavy 4, Skyfire

- The M12 may choose to replace its M46 LAAG with a ''M68 Gauss Cannon'' for 35 points

'''M68 Gauss Cannon''' - Officially known as the M68 Asynchronous Linear-Induction Motor, this heavy weapon fires 25mm hypersonic speed projectiles via asynchronous magnetic acceleration. The kinetic energy of which is enough to pierce even the heaviest of armor plating or completely obliterate unprotected matter.

* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 60" / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1

==Independent Character==

HQ: '''Sergeant Major Avery Johnson''' - 130 points.

'''WS''' 3 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 3 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 3 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 3 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 4+

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* ODST Battle Armor
* M45 Tactical Shotgun
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Warlord Trait
Inspiring Presence (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan I''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson has the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Move Like You Got A Purpose''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and all models in his unit have the ''Crusader'' USR.
* '''''H.E.-Spewing Divine Intervention''''' - Once per turn, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson can call down an strategic artillery strike from off the field. It is treated as a shooting attack with the following profile:
** '''Range''' Infinite / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Ordnance 1, Barrage, Blast

May replace his primary weapon (M45 Shotgun) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....''35 points

-----------------
HQ: '''Master Chief Petty Officer John-117''' - 175 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 6 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 5 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* BR85HB Battle Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* Cortana (Counts as On Board AI)

;Warlord Trait
Target Priority (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan II''''' - The Master Chief has the ''Split Fire'' USR.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. The Master Chief gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. The Master Chief gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Heroes Never Die''''' - The Master Chief gains the ''It Will Not Die'' and ''Eternal Warrior'' USRs, in addition he may fire heavy weapons at full ballistic skill even if the unit moves but unlike the Relentless universal special rule he may only ever fire one weapon per turn.
* '''''He May Not Be The Strongest''''' - The Master Chief and all models in his unit gain the ''Fearless'' USR, and the Master Chief may re-roll failed saving throws of any kind.

May replace his primary weapon (BR85HB Battle Rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points

- '''BR85HB''' - a.k.a. the BR85HB Service Rifle is a gas-operated, magazine-fed battle rifle. It is a select-fire weapon optimized for long-range firing of three-round bursts, though it is capable of semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. It chambers the large 9.5x40mm M634 Experimental High-Powered Semi-Armor-Piercing round, abbreviated as M634 X-HP-SAP.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 24" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Shred

Due to being at the forefront of many battles against various alien species, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may take exotic and advanced weaponry not usually issued to UNSC military forces, he may select a secondary special weapon from an extended list:

* Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon (Suppressor)............40 Points
* Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon (Light Rifle)...........40 Points
* Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle (Binary Rifle)..............45 Points
* Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle (Incinerator Cannon).......55 Points

- '''Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Suppressor, it is a fully automatic weapon employing a conventional coil set architecture that fires bolts of hard light in rapid succession. It is well-known for its high rate of fire and effectiveness against all organic matter.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 6

- '''Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Light Rifle, it is a scoped, mid-range to long-range weapon using the diffused combination of particle acceleration and hardened photonic matter that fires a three-shot burst of luminescent orange hardlight rounds, perfect for taking down shielded or heavily armored targets.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 30" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Rending

- '''Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle''' (Binary Rifle) a.k.a. the Binary Rifle, it is equipped with twin, core-mounted particle accelerators which fire ionized particle beams containing jacketed antimatter particles. The incredible power and accuracy of this weapon make it highly lethal, allowing it to neutralize most targets with a single shot, disintegrating the body of the target.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Fleshbane

- '''Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle''' (Incineration Cannon) a.k.a the Incineration Cannon, this ultra-heavy shoulder-mounted cannon fires antimatter-infused streams of concentrated explosive particles that cause incredible damage on impact, obliterating infantry and even light vehicles with even a glancing blow.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Blast, Ionizing.
''Ionizing'': If a model suffers a wound from a weapon with the Ionizing special rule and before Feel No Pain rolls are made, the bearer rolls a d6, on a result of 4+ the model suffers Instant Death with no saves of any kind allowed including Feel No Pain, In addition Necron reanimation protocols may not be used on models which were removed from play by this special rule.

Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may choose to switch between firing his primary weapon or secondary weapon in every shooting phase; only one of the weapons can be fired per turn.

-----------------
HQ: '''Agent Jameson Locke''' - 165 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 5 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 6 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* On Board AI

;Warlord Trait
Divide to Conquer (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan IV''''' - Agent Jameson Locke has the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Execute Battle Plan''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have Outflank.
* '''''Target Identified''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have the ''Precision Shot'' USR.

May replace his primary weapon (MA5D assault rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)........................................''Free
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''6 points
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points
* Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920 (Rail Gun).............35 points

- '''Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920''' - A.k.a the ARC-920, it is a compact-channel linear accelerator that fires the powerful M645 FTP-HE (16x65mm ferric-tungsten high-explosive round) at incredible velocity. The charge time is approximately two seconds and can be fired with only a partial charge at the cost of lesser damage.

It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 6 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Assault 1, Shred

Setting:Halo

2022-03-28T06:35:33Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Setting */

{{Template:/vg/}}
[[File:The Origin of Where it All began.JPG|400px|right|thumb|Welcome to the beginning of where it all began. Say floating lightbulb, do you have time to listen to the one and true savior, the Precursors?]]

'''''Halo''''' [[Marathon|AKA Marathon's more popular brother]] is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360, ECKSBAWKS JUAN, SECKSBAWKS and PC. The series was developed by Bungie, though Microsoft has bought the rights to the game. The ''Halo'' universe is pretty massive, with all sorts of media ranging from video games and graphic novels to action figures and a series of short movies released to DVD. It became famous for being the game that saved ECKSBAWKS from doing an Atari Jaguar by identifying an untapped new market of loud, stupid fratboys, and was the only reason anyone would even want to buy an ECKSBAWKS console.

Because of its innovative controls and game mechanics (button for melee and grenades, rechargeable health, refined online console multiplayer, popularizing console FPS controls as the gold standard, having drivable vehicles in a FPS that didn't suck ass, kickass music, an intriguing plot, a limited weapon carrying capacity, etc), Halo has often been seen as part of the Holy Trinity of First Person Shooters, tied with Golden Eye and Half-Life as being one of the most important video games in history; with Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D and Marathon being seen as the 'Original Old Guards of First Person Shooters'.

Occasionally it breaks away from the generic sci-fi pattern and explores a more fatalistic and human side to the story without having to suck Master Chief's dick or obsess over ancient alien technology every three seconds, and is generally regarded as being about ten times better and more mature for it. Unfortunately, within the games, this lasted a grand total of one game before [[343 Industries]] acquired the license. Within the books, there are many wonderful examples otherwise, and the plot of Halo 4 can only be completely understood by reading the books from the series that begins with ''Glasslands''. ''Halo Silentium'' by Greg Bear is also a necessary read to really understand how many times the Forerunners screw up, be it their own society or another species, or the entire galaxy, and the true nature and intent of the Flood. The character development of the Librarian and the Didact also makes this quite a fun read. If you're into books, that is. It should also be noted that Halo is to be commended for abstracting Larry Niven's Ring World, but since no one reads older books that don't have pew pews on the cover, how would a mangled regurgitation of IP be recognized when you pull from obscure sauces.

/tg/ isn't big on ''Halo'' and topics pertaining to ''Halo'' will normally be saged, trolled, told to go to /v/, or some combination therein. On /v/ however, ''Halo'' is... still widely hated. Then again, /v/ hates video games in general. The hatred of /tg/ comes less from the actual game/gameplay, and more from it being off-topic and a few fanboys being asshats. <s>Though this also may be due to the fact Halo fans have Cortana to fap to while fa/tg/uys are stuck with fapping to the Emprah</s> <strike>{{BLAM|HERESY!}}</strike>WORT WORT WORT! *GLASSED*

Like Warhammer 40k the state of Halo's fluff has been in limbo, while Halo may have fucking spectacular authors on the line of Greg Bear and Eric Nylund (and more recently Troy Denning) it also has its fair share of colossal fuck ups in the line of [[Fail|Brian Reed]] (who some believe to be the series equivalent of The Beast Himself) and [[Rage|Karen Traviss.]] Don't even get us started with the advent of 343i and [[Skub|their mixed bag success]] on the Reclaimer saga as well as Halo's more...questionable marketing campaigns. Ironically, while the more recent games has been bait for [[Rage|flamewars that will send any respectable forum thread into lock down, even off 4chan,]] Halo's transition to tabletop gaming after some [[Fail|failed]] attempts like Halo Actionclix (Which is a shame cause while the game rules sucked, the models was in such high quality that it even outshines some high priced models from [[Forgeworld]]) has been more positively received, what with the fact that hardcore Haloites now need to use their brains and that the new mini models are quite nicely detailed.

It is worth noting that Halo ever since its inception of its sequel, Halo 2, has been a proud sponsor of every [[Neckbeards]] elixir of life that is....[[Mountain Dew]], as well as the other sacred food item of Doritos. So don't be surprise when you see Mountain Dew and Doritos advertisement being shoved down your face whenever you want to buy any merchandise from Halo. Trying to say anything bad on these food products made from diabetes, sugar, acid and Ork piss is Halo's equivalent of [[Heresy]], you have been warned.

Halo as previously mentioned has a bloody massive universe (multiverse?) encompassing not only games, but also short films (Both live action and animated), music (One of the first vidya games whose soundtrack was good enough to earn multiple awards by itself), tabletop games, merchandises, mega block toys, figurines, nerf guns and even [[Anime|animu.]] Much like [[Warhammer 40,000|40K]] there are 3 major fan wikis: [https://www.halopedia.org/ Halopedia], [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Halo Nation] (soon to be combined into Halopedia) and [http://unhalo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Gruntipedia]; and much like 40K they fall into the respective archetypes of 'obsessively detailed fan wiki', 'ad-ridden Wikia knockoff' and '1d4chan with even worse humour and fan rage'. (Last ones dead now, Halo Nations suffered some kind of seizure, its just Halopedia left)

==Setting==
[[File:Reclaimer Symbol.png|400px|right|thumb|The Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. This symbol is a special Easter egg to an even older [[Marathon|Bungie game.]] Yes it looks like the [[Tau]] symbol but [[Original character, do not steal|predates it by almost a decade.]] Games Workshop proving once again that they are a bunch of sleazy and ballsy motherfuckers.]]
The ''Halo'' universe takes place in the 26th century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has developed its own crude faster-than-light drive (the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupies nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital. This is not what they're talking about when they say Halo, mind you.

Sometime in the year 2525, an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named ''Harvest'', is attacked by an unknown force. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces are met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out.

The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the [[Setting:Halo/Covenant|Covenant]], a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity. At first they seem to be doing this because that's just what aliens ''do'', but later on it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper. Apparently, thanks to the revelations of the [[skub|''Reclaimer Saga'']], humans were once an [[Grimdark|ancient, super advanced, totalitarian, bigoted, expansionist, racist, supremacist, violent, militaristic, war-mongering, nightmare of an empire]], like a way less competent junior version of the [[Great Crusade]]. All were fine and dandy when the Flood came out of fucking nowhere (Long story short, they came about when the humans kept forcing their pets to [[Drug|sniff some powder from an ancient, mysterious ship,]] [[FAIL|''what could go wrong?'']]) which forced the humans to take a page out of [[Kryptman]]'s playbook and invade into Forerunner territory as they were trying to save the galaxy from the Flood. The Forerunners not taking into the whole "I destroy your planets and exterminate your civilians out of benign and superficial reasons" promptly kicked the humans in the galactic nuts, stripped of their technology and de-evolved them back into caveman. So in short, Mankind in Halo basically were what [[Eldar]] are in 40k (Without "blasted into a stoneage part). Later, [[rape|the Forerunners ended up getting nommed by the Flood in the most ridiculous OCP way possible]] and found out how they fucked up so bad when one of them found out that the ancient humans once had the solution against the Flood ([[Just As Planned|Later claimed to be just an elaborate hoax to fool the Forerunners by the Flood]], though the one making this claim was also the Flood's [[Big Bad Evil Guy]], who at the time was speaking to a wavering, demoralized Forerunner leader, so about as trustworthy as the [[Chaos Gods]] promising to give an [[A game of Pretend|unbiased]] view of the [[Emperor]]) that they had to [[Exterminatus|super-irradiate the known galaxy]] just to kill most of the Flood. Oh, and they also named the humans their Reclaimers as their way of saying sorry for turning them into cavemen and telling them to finish their job, [[Troll|fucking Forerunners.]]

This made the Covenant, or more specifically the Prophets kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshiping the Forerunners. Apparently, knowing that your gods had a favorite, finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's instead the species that invented ''[[Abbadon|truck nuts]] '' upset them just a little. [[Exterminatus| So, back to glassing]]. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. <s>Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry with clever armor named in allcaps. This leads to the SPARTAN-II program,</s> (SPARTAN:s were created to fight against human insurrectionists but happened to be extremely effective against the Covenant as well, and active just in time for them to come around too) humanity's last hope <s>(thirty three men and women to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?)</s>, thirty-three super soldiers, divided into teams 3 or 4, and sent as ''force multipliers'' to assist the UNSC's beleaguered marines and mechanized divisions. Though not as a defensive planetary force (the UNSC having lost a large chunk of those 800 worlds early in the war), but as an offensive special ops unit, [[Alpha Legion|infiltrating behind enemy lines, assassinating commanders, and disrupting the Covenant's supply chain; doing the suicide jobs that others could not, slowing down or in some cases halting Covenant military build-up before it can launch further devastating attacks on the humanity]]. At exceedingly great resource cost and high lost of life, the UNSC together with the Spartans gradually turn the tide of the war (more along the lines of slowly and painfully pushing the Covenant's genocidal murder-boner from balls deep within humanity's asshole to a mere 3/4ths.)

To end the war once and for all, humanity enacts a desperate plan: They would send a specially refitted ship (the ''Pillar of Autumn'') along with Spartan contingent deep behind enemy lines and attempt to capture one of the Prophets (the select group of religious leaders that form the highest caste of the Covenant). But as usual, [[FAIL|it all goes horribly wrong]] [[Derp|before it can even begin]]. The UNSC's fortress-world of '''Reach''', and unofficially the Spartans' homeworld, is discovered by the Covenant. Next to Earth, Reach is the most heavily defended world in Human space. It falls in a matter of days, as the Covenant brings nearly a third of its entire fleet to lay siege over the planet. As Reach's defenses wither away, the Covenant simply brings in more reinforcements. Few escape the doomed Battle of Reach, but one of the ships that manages make it out of the system in time is the ''Pillar of Autumn''. Aboard is a single battle-ready Spartan II (plus another comatose one, but she doesn't count), suspended in cryostasis. Yet, that is where the story truly begins, for the Autumn blindly jumps right into a heavily-guarded star system containing a Halo; a colossal ring-world, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, built millions of years ago by the Forerunners, worshiped by the Covenant as an ancient artifact of unimaginable power, and which would totally never ever turn out to be a super-weapon for super-killing the flood. The Pillar of Autumn's fate and that of the Halo, becomes the setting of the original ''HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED'' game.

And it only gets more nuts from there.

<gallery>
Image:Tumblr_oehlv6Ulpc1ruienfo2_1280.png|Never knew [http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Eternity_(Earth-616) Eternity from Marvel] payed a visit to Halo...
Image:Haloring.jpg|One of the most iconic sci-fi architecture in video game history. One part bonsai garden. One part galactic WMD.
Image:ONI.png|[[1984|We are ONI. We have the power to make you 'disappear'. We have the power to turn the public against you. We have the power to erase you from existence. We will be watching. Always.]]
Image:The_Rookie.jpg|BRODST
</gallery>

==On /tg/==
While as mentioned that Halo has been proven skubtastic over the years on /tg/, the recent surge in popularity among tabletop has garnered a niche within /tg/ community. That and the fact of a billion fandex for either the Covenant, UNSC or Forerunners as well as fanfiction that ranges from okay to literal bait for fan wars.

It no longer has the ire it once had due to most of the annoying asshats migrating to COD and Battlefield as well as the fact that some of the squeakers that used to inhabit the Halo community has since matured into adults by now. Halo nowadays has been seen as...okay.

One thing of note is a massive backlash even for the casual TG fan about the changing Halo artstyle. While this might get dismissed by many since style changes are extremely common in franchises and often hated regardless of context, Halo 5 (and ESPECIALLY Halo Infinite) have pretty much dedicated themselves to turn unique and interesting designs (especially for human stuff) into the most generic run of the mill boring pieces of hardware not out of place in a COD game. Basically style change is like redecorating your house, and 343 is just slathering everything in beige. Bringing up the style change is seen as MASSIVE skub between those who loath it and those who, from the previous assumptions, assume it's just fanboys complaining.

==The TV Show==
More recently, Paramount+ has released their own spin on the Halo series in TV form, likely in part out of envy for Disney having their [[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|own streaming show set in a beloved space setting]]. Unlike the various books and comics that preceded it, which are supposed to exist in the same universe as the video games everyone knows, the show is in its own canon, officially called the "Silver Timeline" in reference to Master Chief leading a SPARTAN team called "Silver Team". Was drawing concern and derision even before release (as that's how these things tend to go nowadays), and has only continued its status as A-grade Skub from there. Among the things folks have taken issue with are:
* The writers admitting that they didn't look at any of the games, leading to the sense that they didn't respect/know the source material enough.
* CGI and special effects of questionable quality
* That it's not a straight adaptation of the video games or novels
* Master Chief shows his face, which for most Halo neckbeards is pure [[Heresy]]. This last one is the big one right now.

Not all of the fan buzz has been negative (it definitely hasn't done any worse for itself than the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy did in terms of backlash), but its also still pretty early to say where the show will go. Either way, it no doubt helps Paramount+ that this show is its own canon, making it easier to ignore if you're not a fan, and giving them more freedom to <s>muck up the lore</s> do their own thing with the franchise.

==Codex: The Covenant==
[[File:1185489032.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Surprisingly, [[Games Workshop|Halo Actionclix]] figures make good Tabletop conversions for the [[Codex - The Covenant|Covenant]], here seen a Scarab that looks like it could fit comfortably in the [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Apocalypse Game-type.]]]]
A bunch of people decided that the Covenant's tech and machines are pretty nice in a WH40K setting So "[[Codex - The Covenant]]" was made to implement them into the tabletop game.

Furthermore on the context on Halo; The Convenant is a [[Imperium of Man|militarized theocracy]] made up of different alien species, with each belonging to its own caste, and all of them are all sorts of killy in a variety of ways. Their MO is to track down the remnants of the Forerunner's legacy in their quest to ascend to Godhood, and destroy anyone who stands in their way. While we can't vouch for how they'd fair against other alien factions, they're certainly lethal against the [[Imperial Guard|average human soldier]]. From the top down;

* Prophets: [[Ecclesiarchy|The theocrats who call all the shots]]. While generally too frail for combat, they're the [[Just as Planned|master manipulators]] and [[Adeptus Mechanicus|horde all the forerunner technology]]. They're also indirectly responsible for virtually all deaths in the war against the UNSC, since they started the war as basically a giant cover-up and means to stay in power. They also like to play the different races against each other for their own ends. If you see one on the battlefield, expect to see '''lots''' of heavily-armed bodyguards and some really strong personal defense systems to boot.
* Elites: Space [[Lizardmen]] with Lightsabers that shout WORT WORT WORT. Come from a proud warrior race and were the first race to be subjugated by the Prophets. They still form the top of the military hierarchy and are quite dangerous, wielding personal shields and many of the best weapons that the Covenant has to offer, as well as having many brilliant tacticians at their disposal.
* Hunters: Colonies of [[Dune|Killer Death Worms]] inside of suits of armor and armed with nuclear radiation cannons. Its not an exaggeration to call these guys living tanks. These same worms are also used to power Scarabs and other super-heavy walkers.
* Brutes: [[Star Wars|Killer Wookies]] with Metal Shanks that go OMNOMNOM. Also a proud warrior race but far more zealous and unthinking than the Elites, they fight in packs and go berserk when you kill one of their pack-mates. Unlike the Elites who care about giving their opponents an honorable death, Brutes simply kill for the pleasure of it. They like to use their own weapons that have [[Choppy]] bayonets while being more [[Dakka]] and Boomy than your average plasma rifle. In the Covenant's final years, the prophets decided to replace the Elites with the Brutes because the Elites were too independent and started asking too many questions after the Halo rings were discovered.
* Jackals: [[Kroot|Space Pirate Turkeys that also go OMNOMNOM]]. Just barely above cannon fodder, they're typically deployed as light infantry or sniper support. They're the least zealous race and act more as mercenaries in different capacities.
* Grunts: [[Star Wars|Hairless Ewoks]] strapped to methane-filled tanks. The smallest and weakest race, and usually the most cowardly, as they tend to panic once their squad leader is killed. It's not unheard of though for some to go kamikaze and run at you with primed grenades. They tend to be the butt of a lot of jokes, until you realize just how badly the Covenant oppresses them and how they really don't want to be there.
* Drones: [[Tyranids|Flying bug-people that attack in large numbers.]] Not very intelligent, but they comply with the Covenant as they've been raised to think of the prophets as their hive queen.
* Engineers: Biomechanical floating [[/d/|tentacle monsters]]. Created by the forerunners to maintain their tech before they were enslaved by the Covenant. Engineers are fairly docile, but they're forced to wear suicide vests to prevent their capture.

==Codex: The Banished==
Hey! You know how the Covenant has proven to be popular among WH40K/Halo conversions? Now we have a new Codex to represent the Covenant's worst foe. Akin to the [[Heretic|Heretics]] that plague the IoM. [[Codex - The Banished]] offers a different take on how the Brutes can be played with its own unique heroes, vehicles and units.

To give a short and nice summary on what the Banished are, they are a large group of separatist forces lead by a Brute Warlord called Atriox; whereas most Brutes channeled their extreme violence in service to their dogmatic faith, while undermining their Elite rivals on the sly, Atriox was far less subtle about his hatred for the Covenant and its caste system. Unlike other separatist and heretical forces that plagued the Covenant Empire, the Banished stood their ground and weathered Covenant attacks until they amassed enough troops and equipment to rival and even stop the Covenant military in their tracks. In Halo Canon, they successfully outlasted both the Covenant and its various remnant factions, gathering troops and wargear with careful deliberation, much unlike the various demagogues and megalomaniacs who seized power in the political vacuum like Jul 'Mdama. And while they use most of the Covenants existing arsenal, much of it is heavily modified to suit the Brute's needs (and aesthetics), including a complete refit of Covenant Scarabs into offensive powerhouses. They are the only few polities capable of standing up to the Covenant and the only one capable of driving off an entire Covenant armada. Atriox's tactical and cunning brilliance has sowed intimidation and respect to not only the Covenant but to the Covenant's loyalist Brutes. Atriox's leadership despite the size of his army is not to be underestimated.

==Halo Actionclix==
A while back during its heyday, Actionclix made a deal with Microsoft and Bungie at the time to create an Actionclix game based on the Haloverse. While the models were extremely well detailed and well crafted, its high pricing for the models and its overall clusterfuck of its rules has made Halo Actionclix a [[Skub|somewhat lackluster experience.]]

This led to a initial surge in popularity with the idea of future tabletop games based around the universe (Read below on Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command), however like Halo Risk. The initial popularity died down quickly once the rules was read since you know, during that era (Halo 3), the main target audience was kids and teenagers who have zero to little clue on how to play an Actionclix game.

This has in turn, force Halo Actionclix to have a relatively short lifespan and the models have thus turned into a collectors item for display and collecting dust.

==Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command==
[[File:HFBB01-2.jpg|300px|left|thumb|Halo Fleet Battles starter package. Yes we know, that is a whole lot of ships.]]
With the introduction of Halo Fleet Battles which is essentially Halo's take on [[Battlefleet Gothic]], that is centered around the Fall of Reach which is like the biggest naval combat within the Covenant-UNSC fluff, some fa/tg/uys has apparently lost their collective shit due to the fact that this is the first time that Halo is getting a tabletop treatment (The Risk and Actionclix games although the models are nice, does not really count). Similar to most tabletop miniatures, the models coming with Halo Fleet Battles and its contemporary ground units comes unpainted which means you have to paint all the neely-willy details yourself, that and the fact that it comes with its own rulebook and stats has garnered /tg/'s approval. In fact, some has already decided to convert the models and place it within Battlefleet Gothic itself (Although how you will be able to adjust the rules to make it fair is going to be a nightmare). All models are [[Finecast]][[Skub|, make that of what you will.]]

Both Fleet Battles and Ground Command are made by [[Spartan Games]]. Overall, Spartan Games are much more reasonably priced than the models made from [[Games Workshop]]. Seriously for the Covenant set you are getting 6 Highly-detailed Plastic Ship Models, 1 Formation Base Sprue (4 Bases in all), 1 Ship Overlay Sheet (6 Ship Overlays), 2 Token Sheets, 1 Statistics Sheet and 1 Assembly Guide for (US)$35.94 whereas the UNSC gets 2 Epoch Heavy Carriers, 6 Paris Class Frigates, 2 heavy sprue, 1 flight stand base, 1 overlay sheet and 1 assembly guide for $32.5, that is like cheaper than GeeDub's [[Rage|$66.55 pricing for only 5 Terminator models.]] [[Tl;dr]] [[What|you can literally buy two entire Covenant or UNSC fleets for the price of a single Termie Squad.]] Whether these tabletop games may boost Spartan Games to become GeeDubs rival is unknown. But what is known is the fact that Halo is owned by Microsoft which is a company that dwarfs GeeDubs in both money and influence. [[Games Workshop#GW The Bully|So in a rare hypothesis that GeeDubs think their high and mighty and goes on their copyright abuse that forced other smaller model companies to close down and have set their cross hairs on Spartan Games and more specifically the Halo license]]...as the old saying goes...[[Rape|there is always a bigger fish.]] Seriously, it could be seen from Spartan Games perspective as a blessing of sorts as unlike poor [[ChapterHouse Studios]] who ''was'' sued by GW, the backing of Microsoft puts some immunity for Spartan Games. That and Microsoft in all honesty, has the power and influence to [[Lulz|bully the bully]] if Games Workshop decides to get uppity when Spartan Games release the models for the Covenant Prophets which look similar to the Tau Ethereal; that or Microsoft can just tell them to [[Anal Circumference|fuck off and bite the pillow.]]

Unfortunately, as of August 2017, Spartan Games have officially announced its closure and shutdown. Because of this, the state of Fleet Battles and Ground Command is in limbo and that any further purchases of their models is only available either from eBay or second hand manufacturers. However, 343i did say they will look towards the care of this, so all hope is not lost!

===Fleet Battles===
[[File:Assault-carrier-1920x1080-55e25a886cb649a0a7f165d855056bb2.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A CAS Assault Carrier plays hide and seek with a vastly out-gunned UNSC battlegroup.]]

Main Article: [[Halo_Fleet_Battles|Halo Fleet Battles]]

The Fleet Battles set comes with some kickass artwork depicting both factions leaders (Shame they didn't have Halo's answer to [[Creed]] that is [[Awesome|Preston "''I turned a Gas Giant into a fucking star just so I can stroke my massive ego''" Cole]]) sitting on their respective armchairs. Although how they are going to balance the UNSC/Covenant (Since Covenant ships can no-sell their UNSC equivalents) is up to [[Skub|debate.]] UNSC ships are balanced by being the long-range, combined fire monsters they are in fluff (if you can get enough of them together); but they crumple once their Titanium armor has been burned off. Also the UNSC gets the advantage of SMAC Platforms which makes them great at holding the line and acting as giant, immobile, floating [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]]. This means that the UNSC specializes in [[Dakka|lots and lots of missile spam]] [[Tyranids|and swarm tactics]] to compensate general shitty defensive capabilities and shorter range whereas the Covenant act as giant line breakers with their fuck huge ships and [[MOAR DAKKA|massive firepower.]]

Fight the Fall of Reach in the starter set, or start adding extra ships in to fight battles from the Human-Covenant War. Since the closure of Spartan Games, no one wanted to pick up the license... probably because it was Microsoft-priced. Instead, the community is keeping it alive with fan-expansions and accessories. Because of the extraordinarily low chances that a miniatures company picks the license up again, 343 Studios has done the surprisingly gracious move of helping out the fans by giving a blessing to the whole process. It doesn't make things easier or provide any resources, but at least keeps Microsoft from swooping in as long as the community protects the IP.

Maybe with the updated rules for Dystopian Wars from their new owners, we'll get to see a fan-update to the ruleset and balance.

===Ground Command===
[[File:Covenant_Attack_Blog_1.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A typical skirmish in Ground Command.]]
For the battles centered around the ground, Ground Command seems to be more feasibly plausible in fluff terms. What we know is that both factions are going to be incredibly dropship focused, meaning that the implementation and usage of dropships like the Pelican and Phantom are going to be crucial for tactical victory. Models for both factions are small enough to be converted into other tabletop games, although the UNSC personnel (who are meant to be regular humans) are a tad bit taller than a Space Marine.

In terms of detailed gameplay, movement phase is similar to Fleet Battles. However Ground Command also has two key gaming spaces: Pre-Game and In-Game. The former refers to the Strategic/RTS part of the game and latter to the Action/FPS part of the game. Essentially, Pre-Game allows players to flex their RTS muscles, building their Forces strategically to complete their chosen missions. In general play, all scenarios are encouraged to be rolled PRIOR to Forces being chosen, so players can go away and plot their enemy’s eventual demise. This gives the game a planned-outcome-feel since players have had time to reflect on the mission to hand and have brought the right tools for the job.

Choosing a Force is a simple process that uses the Build Rating (BR) and Maximum Force Value (MFV) methods that was introduced in Halo: Fleet Battles. Like H:FB, Ground Command also use the ideas of Standard and Specialist Battle Groups. The former will be used multiple times by players, whereas the latter will be limited in their use, commonly limited to only one per force. Battle Groups have Units that are call Requisites which in turn gain access to Optional Units. Requisites MUST be taken for a Battle Group to be considered game legal. These vary from Battle Group to Battle Group. For example, an ODST Battle Group MUST take ODST Units as Requisites, whereas a UNSC Army Mechanized Battle Group MUST take Riflemen Units. Requisites are, however, deliberately kept to the bare minimum needed to represent the nature of their Battle Group to uphold flexibility allowing players to find new and innovative combinations to field.

Once Requisites have been taken, players have a number of Optional Build Rating points to spend in each of the following categories: Infantry Units, Armored Units and Air Units. The points available will vary depending on the Battle Group chosen, giving certain Battle Groups greater access to some types of Unit, or may even skip using a Unit type altogether. For example, a Covenant Spectral Host Battle Group (Elite Ghost Units optional Air Support) allows a Covenant player to not have any Infantry and instead field lots of fast attack Ghosts with Elite drivers. This is a Specialist Battle Group and is limited to one per force. It is static in its requisites but can have access to a Flyer if a player wants to spend the BR and Points to add it their Force.

A UNSC Standard Armored Battle Group only has Armored Units as Requisites. A player can still add some Infantry if they want, or even add Flyer Units, or they could just spend all of their points on Armour and as this is a Standard Battle Group a player can take several in their Force if they so choose. All of this leads to an incredibly flexible force building mechanic that gives the game great longevity. There will be literally thousands of combinations available, giving players the chance to execute their plans in a prepared way. The Build Rating of a model (Element as it is called in the game) and a Unit (a collection of Elements) is what translates to Victory Points. It is a simple method and allows games to be won by destroying Units of Infantry, destroying Armored models, shooting down Flyers, capturing Objectives, killing Characters and etc.

In terms of building a terrain and setting, Ground Command's terrain is placed using mutual consent to encourage the construction of fair and reasonable battlefields. The rules of Terrain are binary to make it simple to use and fast to play with – for example, you can or you can’t move through it; you can or you can’t shoot through it, or a combination of both. This makes Terrain nice and simple to play with, but still gives players a strategic view of the battlefield and allows for a planned route of advancement. Terrain ranges from simple Supply Drops to large structures like the Covenant Stealth Pylon.

Similar to Fleet Battles, Ground Command has commanders for the players to choose from and is played similarly to its space counterpart. So in summary:

*Forces are made up of Battle Groups, which can be of varying types: UNSC Mechanized Battle Groups, Hunting Host Battle Groups, Armored Battle Groups, and so on.
*Inside each Battle Group are Requisite Units that must be taken, then Build Rating limits are set to allow players to add in Optional Units later.
*Forces can and should be made up of multiple Battle Groups.
*In narrative play, all Forces should be chosen after the Scenario is determined, allowing players to tailor their lists to fight out the mission.
*Terrain is placed by mutual consent and is designed for simple use and quick gameplay. There is a table generator included if mutual consent proves difficult.
*In Halo: Ground Command players have access to Generic Force Commanders that cost considerably less than narrative named Commanders. These Generic Force Commanders have Standard Orders and a Factional Order. They are the only Commander available in competitive play.

These is just the Pre-Game. Now it is the In-Game phase. As with Halo: Fleet Battles, the '''Halo Dice''' is used in conjunction with the Firepower Rating Table to control modifiers and drive the statistics in the game. Both games start with players using a default of Firepower Rating 4 with the Rating modifying up and down accordingly. This means that when rolling Halo Dice, a result of 2 (or Spartan Exploding 6 for example) counts as two hits, a result of 1 result counts as one hit, a Miss result can be re-rolled if you have rolled any 2s, and the Skull result is a definite miss. Some weapons will provide a positive bonus to the Firepower Rating whereas Terrain conditions and Scenario effects generally cause the Firepower Rating to suffer a negative penalty. The faces of the Dice in Ground Command are Fail, Miss, Success and Exploding. Than there are the '''Tokens'''. In Ground Command there are three available tokens, these are: Activated (placed when a Unit Activates or attempts a Reaction), Damage (for when an attack equals or exceeds a value on a Damage Track) and Cooldown (which is used to represent a situation where a weapon or even an entire Unit cannot fire). There is also the '''Statistic Profiles''' which are used as a simple visual presentation mechanic to show players the various statistics used by Units on their statistic cards. These cards will be large enough to fit in your hand and will have all pertinent rules (as well as paraphrased notations about Loadouts) on them, making Unit reference in Halo: Ground Command quick and very simple. Also like Fleet Battles, Ground Command issues '''Command Dice''' for commanders on the battlefield to drive the Command & Control side of the game. The Command/Attack/Defense symbols allow players to execute orders from their Force Commander’s Data Sheet that can often be the difference between success and failure in battle.

Then there is the '''Reaction Fire''' which is how Ground Command tries to translate the FPS element into tabletop. In order for it to work, Ground Command have created a Reaction Statistic for every Element in order to allow the game to represent a persistent form of overwatch where every Unit on the table is assumed to be engaged in the battle at all times. The Reaction Statistic has two numbers shown as X / Y on a Unit’s Profile. The X number is used if a Unit has not yet been Activated, and the Y number is used if a Unit has already been Activated. If a player wants to react to an enemy Unit’s activation, the player makes a 2D6 dice roll, adds or subtracts any modifiers and hopes they match or exceed the relevant number, if they do, they get to fire in their opponent’s activation, either at the start of a Unit’s movement or at the end.

Attempting a Reaction is not without risk, however, as you are only permitted to attempt a single reaction to an enemy Unit’s activation and whether you succeed or fail the reacting Unit gains an Activation Marker as a result. This means a player has to choose wisely which Unit will be used to React to the enemy. Sometimes it is better to React with a Unit that has already gone, especially if the Unit has a good Y-React number. For example, UNSC Warthogs excel at this, creating mobile mini-fire-bases upon which the UNSC can base their advance/defense tactics. It may also be the case that a player is unwilling to React, as it will affect their ability to surge forwards (since making a Reaction attempt gives a Unit an Activation Marker that effectively halts any chance of performing a Movement Action). In a massed battle game, where you could literally have hundreds of miniatures on the tabletop and large numbers of Armor and Flyers, you suddenly have the intensity of an FPS, where no Unit is ever truly safe. This means that even if your opponent has already activated a Unit, the Unit isn’t actually out of the game.

As you might expect, not everything has the same React X/Y. A Spartan who are the elites for the UNSC, might be capable of multiple feats of arms in a turn, firing in all directions as he/she attempts to defend a wounded soldier. A ponderous pair of Hunters are, however, far more measured and lumbering, taking time to line up shots and gear themselves for combat. This is represented by the Spartan having a React Score of 5/6, whereas a Hunter Unit is limited to 10/13.

In terms of weapons. Ground Command issue '''Small Arms'''. They are not, however, always the same in the game. For example Small Arms, when in the hands of Grunts, have one set of Small Arms Stats, and a different set of stats when used by Elites. This makes the game flow smoothly and gives each faction diversity without the minutiae of looking directly into the hands of each and every model. That is not to say that all weapons are in this category. Certain Units can upgrade one or more of their bases to be specific Fire Teams, like Grunts wielding Fuel Rod Cannons, UNSC Troopers manning HMGs, etc.

This brings us on to '''Weapon Loadouts'''. The majority of weapons in the game, including Small Arms, normally have at least one Loadout. A Loadout is a custom rule that enhances a weapon. It could be as simple as Suppression (+1) in the case of UNSC Small Arms or Point Blank in the case of Covenant Small Arms, to more complex Loadouts such as Devastating, Pinpoint, Indirect Fire, and so on. Each of these Loadouts is summarized on a Unit’s Statistic Card and detailed in the core rulebook for ease of reference. The variation of the Weapon Loadouts thus leads us to '''The Weapon Spread'''. Here each and every weapon, if you are willing to shoot it long enough can technically destroy anything in-game when it comes to Halo. This means that the game has to come up with a new system for weapons that allows for this incredible flexibility. So the Weapon Spread System is designed to do exactly that. The Weapon Spread divides the Attack Dice available to a Weapon into three distinct categories, each citing the weapon’s effectiveness against a specific target.

*Anti-Personnel (AP) refers to a weapon’s ability to damage Infantry targets.
*Anti-Tank (AT) refers to a weapons ability to damage Armoured targets.
*Anti-Air (AA) refers to a weapons ability to damage Flying targets.

When firing, Ground Command uses a combination mechanic (the same as in Halo: Fleet Battles) so a Unit of 4 Bases of Grunts shooting at a Unit of UNSC Riflemen in the open (always a bad thing for the UNSC) would roll 2+2+2+2 = 8x Halo Dice using Firepower Rating 5 (the best they can get!). From this roll the Grunts would expect to get about 6 Hits, which should, on average, kill 2 Bases of UNSC Riflemen. In terms of '''Melee''', each element rolls a number of Halo Dice equal to their Melee Statistic, but unlike Ranged Attacks, all players are looking to do is roll Skulls – all other results are ignored. Roll a Skull and you automatically do a point of Damage (or in the case of Melee vs Vehicles, 2x Skulls for a point of Damage). Heroic Saves can be attempted after that, but essentially that’s as complicated as Melee gets. If each side rolls the same number of Skulls in a round of Melee, the survivors keep fighting until someone wins – or until both sides are wiped out. Once one side is declared the winner, the loser is pushed back, leaving both sides free to React as normal. Lastly, like Fleet Battles, there is the '''End phase''' in which it is used to tally up scored Victory Points for the Game Turn. Victory Points (VPs) are generated by destroying enemy Units, where their Build Rating directly translates to VPs. VPs can also be scored according to the conditions stated in any particular scenario you might be playing. For example, the Assassination Mission from the core rulebook gives bonus VPs points for taking out anything with the Commanding Presence Loadout, whilst the Take and Hold Scenario gives additional VPs for holding Placed Objectives (usually Buildings of importance on the battlefield). The Scenarios all last a certain number of Game Turns, after which the person who has scored the most Victory Points wins.

Last but not least, we cannot forget Flyers which are crucial for tactical victory in Ground Command. In Ground Command all flying vehicles are separated into two categories: Hover Flyers and Air Support Mission Flyers.

'''Hover Flyers''' are treated in the same way as any other battlefield Unit, moving shooting, reacting in the same way as any other model. They are targeted using a weapon’s Anti-Air (AA) Statistic and tend to be fast moving and pretty aggressive in their use. Examples of these include Banshees or Falcons, which may be seen operating in Units with more than one model, or be individuals, depending on their Build Rating and the Battle Group they are part of.

'''Air Support Mission Flyers''' tend to be far larger than their standard Hover counterparts, dominating the sky with their bulk and durability. These Flyers are simply too large to remain on the table turn to turn, and instead resolve their movement, the execution of their chosen mission and extraction in a simple strafing method. Examples of these flyers include the UNSC Pelican and Covenant Phantom.

When using an Air Support Mission Flyers, players activate the model in the same way as any other Unit, declaring a Mission type for the Flyer. This Mission will have an attached Victory Points cost, which is given to the enemy directly after the Mission is announced. This give-and-take aspect to Air Support Mission Flyers makes the taking of these large models very balanced – you get a huge reward, but your opponent gets a strategic bonus if you saturate the battlefield with too many. This means that protracted use of aerial assets will cause a drain on the player’s chances of winning an outright victory, but execution of these Missions will often be vital for continued success in the combat operation. So balancing if, when and how you bring in your Air Support Mission Flyers is a skill that will take time for players to develop. There are a variety of Missions available to Flyers of this type. Combat Drop Missions allow players to bring in reserves. Supply Drop Missions allow the placement of a Supply Drop Marker that increases the Reaction Statistics of all friendly ground models within range. Ground Attack Missions allow you to target ground Units with increased effect. Reinforcement Missions allow you to bring a damaged Unit of Infantry (and in some cases Armor) back up to full strength, and Air Patrols allow you to place your Flyer ‘on-station’, ready to intercept enemy flyers when they activate.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Super Carrier.JPG|Yes that is an actual model of a Covenant CSO-class Super Carrier. [[Anal Circumference|No it will not be a good pain.]]
Image:Feleethalo_1.jpg|There will be more ship designs coming soon.
Image:DSC09153.jpg|Covenant minis for Ground Command.
Image:DSC09156.jpg|UNSC minis for Ground Command.
Image:Halo.jpg|That's right, Halo's dropships are as big as a [[Thunderhawk]] [[Reasonable Marines|while being more sensibly designed and having more firepower to boot.]]
Image:
</gallery>

Mythic: the fan made Halo tabletop RPG also exists... for whatever that is worth

==Spartan stats==
For those who wanted to put a Spartan in tabletop for some reason, here are the rules.
''Note: The Rules assigned here are based off of 6th and 7th Edition Warhammer 40k, this has not been updated for 9th Edition, nor for lore accuracy with the universe itself.''

'''WS''' 4 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 1 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 1 / '''Ld''' 8 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Composition
3 Spartans
 1 Spartan - Squad Leader (Ld 9)

;Unit Type
Infantry

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D Assault Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Special Rules
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Spartans gain the ''Stubborn'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Spartans gain the ''Hit & Run'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.

;Options:
* May Include up to 4 additional Spartan- for ''13 points per Model''
* Any model in the squad may take an Onboard AI for ''3 points per Model''
* For every 4 models in a squad, one model may replace their MA5C Rifle with one of the following:
** M45 Tactical Shotgun (Shotgun)...............................''6 points per Model''
** SRS99-S5 AM (Sniper Rifle)..................''10 points per Model''
** M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)........''15 points per Model''
** M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points per model
* Each Spartan squad must choose to be one of the following:
** Spartan Is - Squad gain the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs for 10pts per model. Role a d6 for each model, on results of 5+ the model also gains the ''Crazed'' special rule.
** Spartan IIs - Squad gain +1 Ballistic Skill and the ''Split Fire'' USR for 4 points per model. The squad may choose to become an '''Elite''' Choice.
** Spartan IIIs - Squad gain the ''Stealth'' and ''Infiltrate'' USRs for 3 points per model.
** Spartan IVs - Squad gain the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs for 3 points per model.

;SPARTAN ARMORY

* '''MJOLNIR Armor''' - Created parallel to the Spartan-II Program, the MJOLNIR Armor is a sealed system, capable of extravehicular activity or operations in toxic atmosphere. Weighing over half a metric ton, the armor's shell is constructed in overlapping layers of Titanium-A plating and highly durable ballistic alloys of remarkable strength. It has even been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of energy weapon strikes. The Spartan gains a ''3+ Armor Save''.
** MJOLNIR armor is equipped with a full-body recharging energy shield that was reverse-engineered from captured alien technology. The shield itself is utterly transparent and does not hinder sight in any way but briefly flashes a greenish-gold color when hit. The Spartans gain a ''6+ Invulnerable Save''.

* '''Onboard AI''' - All MJOLNIR Mk V models or better feature a complex crystalline matrix within their neural interface, which Cortana likened in structure to the computer systems of the ''Pillar of Autumn''. An AI construct increases tactical awareness, provides an indispensable guide, serving almost as a co-pilot and navigator, and multiplies the Spartan's already phenomenal reflexes. A Spartan equipped with an Onboard AI increases their Initiative value by 1.

* '''MA5D Assault Rifle''' - The MA5C has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in the magazine, compass heading, and capable of wireless up-link with MJOLNIR systems for improved accuracy. Made of Titanium Alloy and Polymers, the rifle performs well in a variety of environments. Having a rate of fire of 650 rounds a minute, and chambering the old-school M118 7.62x51mm NATO Armor Piercing, Full Metal Jacket Rounds with a 36-round detachable box magazine. Though lacking strength and stopping power, these rounds are designed to pierce most conventional ballistic body armor.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 3

* '''M45 Tactical Shotgun''' - is a pump-action, magazine-fed, dual tubular non-detachable type weapon. It uses the Soellkraft 8-Gauge Magnum Shotgun Shell, a large round capable of phenomenal stopping power and made possible to fire with little recoil due to the gun's magnetorheological recoil dampening system, allowing it to be fired by anyone.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 12" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' - / '''Type''' Assault 2 Rending

* '''Sniper Rifle SRS99-S5 AM''' - aka the "SR System 99-S5 Anti-Matériel", an upgrade from the S2s, it is a semi-automatic UNSC sniper rifle that fires 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot, with a tungsten or depleted uranium core) from a 4-round magazine. It is fitted with a variable-magnification Oracle scope that allows for 5x and 10x magnification. When looking through it, the scope shows a target's distance and elevation. Designed originally as an anti-materiel rifle, it has proven effective against the highly durable armor of the Covenant and hardlight construction of the Prometheans.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' X/ '''AP''' 4 (''When firing at vehicles, the rifle adds D6 to its Armor penetration value'') / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Sniper, Anti Material.
Anti Material: Shots fired from this weapon rend on a 4+.

* '''M41 Rocket Launcher''' - aka the "M41 SSR" fires the M19 102mm HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) shaped charge rockets. The launcher sports a 2x scope and can fire rockets over long distances with devastating accuracy, and its two launch tubes allow the wielder to fire two rockets before needing to reload. The rocket launcher spreads a huge amount of damage over a large area. It is capable of taking out entire groups of infantry at any range and is effective against most vehicles.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 3 / '''Type''' Heavy 2, Blast

* '''M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle''' - The Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (abbreviated AV M6 G/GNR) also known as the ''Spartan Laser'', is the UNSC's first man-portable, shoulder-fired direct energy weapon. Firing a chemical laser after a short charge period, a well placed shot can destroy even heavy vehicles with ease. Infantry-level targets are simply obliterated.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Ignores Cover

-Targeting beam: The Spartan Laser projects an obvious laser target, any enemy units that can, may choose to fire Overwatch at the firers unit as if it was the assault phase.

Spartans may take the '''M831 Troop Transport''' (M831 TT) or '''M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle''' (M12 LRV) as their dedicated transport.

==Dedicated Transports==
* M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle - 40 points
* M831 Troop Transport - 30 points

'''Armour (Front)''' 10 / '''Armour (Side)''' 10 / '''Armour (Rear)''' 10 / '''HP''' 2

;Unit Type
Vehicle (Fast, Open-Topped, Transport)

;Wargear
* M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (M12 LRV)
* None (M831 TT)

;Transport Capacity
* Four (M12 LRV)
* Eight (M831 TT)

The ubiquitous M12 and its troop transport variant the M831, are the UNSC's primary multi-role ground vehicles. They are used anywhere from scouting and reconnaissance to fast vehicle transport, forming an integral part of the UNSC's armored vehicle fleet for fifty years. It is a highly mobile, all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, all-weather vehicle, capable of traversing all but the most dangerous of terrain. The M831 features a rear bed with an expanded seating compartment, while the M12 features a rear mounted anti-aircraft gun (the M46 LAAG) that can also be used against infantry.

'''M46 LAAG''' - The M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (LAAG) is a tripled-barreled, electric-powered, linkless, belt-fed weapon. The LAAG fires the 12.7x99mm (.50 cal) armor penetrating rounds and can fire at a rate of 1200 rounds per minute.
* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 5 / '''AP''' 5 / '''Type''' Heavy 4, Skyfire

- The M12 may choose to replace its M46 LAAG with a ''M68 Gauss Cannon'' for 35 points

'''M68 Gauss Cannon''' - Officially known as the M68 Asynchronous Linear-Induction Motor, this heavy weapon fires 25mm hypersonic speed projectiles via asynchronous magnetic acceleration. The kinetic energy of which is enough to pierce even the heaviest of armor plating or completely obliterate unprotected matter.

* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 60" / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1

==Independent Character==

HQ: '''Sergeant Major Avery Johnson''' - 130 points.

'''WS''' 3 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 3 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 3 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 3 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 4+

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* ODST Battle Armor
* M45 Tactical Shotgun
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Warlord Trait
Inspiring Presence (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan I''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson has the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Move Like You Got A Purpose''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and all models in his unit have the ''Crusader'' USR.
* '''''H.E.-Spewing Divine Intervention''''' - Once per turn, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson can call down an strategic artillery strike from off the field. It is treated as a shooting attack with the following profile:
** '''Range''' Infinite / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Ordnance 1, Barrage, Blast

May replace his primary weapon (M45 Shotgun) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....''35 points

-----------------
HQ: '''Master Chief Petty Officer John-117''' - 175 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 6 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 5 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* BR85HB Battle Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* Cortana (Counts as On Board AI)

;Warlord Trait
Target Priority (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan II''''' - The Master Chief has the ''Split Fire'' USR.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. The Master Chief gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. The Master Chief gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Heroes Never Die''''' - The Master Chief gains the ''It Will Not Die'' and ''Eternal Warrior'' USRs, in addition he may fire heavy weapons at full ballistic skill even if the unit moves but unlike the Relentless universal special rule he may only ever fire one weapon per turn.
* '''''He May Not Be The Strongest''''' - The Master Chief and all models in his unit gain the ''Fearless'' USR, and the Master Chief may re-roll failed saving throws of any kind.

May replace his primary weapon (BR85HB Battle Rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points

- '''BR85HB''' - a.k.a. the BR85HB Service Rifle is a gas-operated, magazine-fed battle rifle. It is a select-fire weapon optimized for long-range firing of three-round bursts, though it is capable of semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. It chambers the large 9.5x40mm M634 Experimental High-Powered Semi-Armor-Piercing round, abbreviated as M634 X-HP-SAP.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 24" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Shred

Due to being at the forefront of many battles against various alien species, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may take exotic and advanced weaponry not usually issued to UNSC military forces, he may select a secondary special weapon from an extended list:

* Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon (Suppressor)............40 Points
* Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon (Light Rifle)...........40 Points
* Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle (Binary Rifle)..............45 Points
* Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle (Incinerator Cannon).......55 Points

- '''Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Suppressor, it is a fully automatic weapon employing a conventional coil set architecture that fires bolts of hard light in rapid succession. It is well-known for its high rate of fire and effectiveness against all organic matter.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 6

- '''Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Light Rifle, it is a scoped, mid-range to long-range weapon using the diffused combination of particle acceleration and hardened photonic matter that fires a three-shot burst of luminescent orange hardlight rounds, perfect for taking down shielded or heavily armored targets.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 30" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Rending

- '''Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle''' (Binary Rifle) a.k.a. the Binary Rifle, it is equipped with twin, core-mounted particle accelerators which fire ionized particle beams containing jacketed antimatter particles. The incredible power and accuracy of this weapon make it highly lethal, allowing it to neutralize most targets with a single shot, disintegrating the body of the target.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Fleshbane

- '''Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle''' (Incineration Cannon) a.k.a the Incineration Cannon, this ultra-heavy shoulder-mounted cannon fires antimatter-infused streams of concentrated explosive particles that cause incredible damage on impact, obliterating infantry and even light vehicles with even a glancing blow.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Blast, Ionizing.
''Ionizing'': If a model suffers a wound from a weapon with the Ionizing special rule and before Feel No Pain rolls are made, the bearer rolls a d6, on a result of 4+ the model suffers Instant Death with no saves of any kind allowed including Feel No Pain, In addition Necron reanimation protocols may not be used on models which were removed from play by this special rule.

Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may choose to switch between firing his primary weapon or secondary weapon in every shooting phase; only one of the weapons can be fired per turn.

-----------------
HQ: '''Agent Jameson Locke''' - 165 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 5 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 6 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* On Board AI

;Warlord Trait
Divide to Conquer (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan IV''''' - Agent Jameson Locke has the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Execute Battle Plan''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have Outflank.
* '''''Target Identified''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have the ''Precision Shot'' USR.

May replace his primary weapon (MA5D assault rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)........................................''Free
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''6 points
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points
* Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920 (Rail Gun).............35 points

- '''Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920''' - A.k.a the ARC-920, it is a compact-channel linear accelerator that fires the powerful M645 FTP-HE (16x65mm ferric-tungsten high-explosive round) at incredible velocity. The charge time is approximately two seconds and can be fired with only a partial charge at the cost of lesser damage.

It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 6 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Assault 1, Shred

Setting:Halo

2022-03-28T06:33:15Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:1DE8:436F:F2A0:CB82: /* Setting */

{{Template:/vg/}}
[[File:The Origin of Where it All began.JPG|400px|right|thumb|Welcome to the beginning of where it all began. Say floating lightbulb, do you have time to listen to the one and true savior, the Precursors?]]

'''''Halo''''' [[Marathon|AKA Marathon's more popular brother]] is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360, ECKSBAWKS JUAN, SECKSBAWKS and PC. The series was developed by Bungie, though Microsoft has bought the rights to the game. The ''Halo'' universe is pretty massive, with all sorts of media ranging from video games and graphic novels to action figures and a series of short movies released to DVD. It became famous for being the game that saved ECKSBAWKS from doing an Atari Jaguar by identifying an untapped new market of loud, stupid fratboys, and was the only reason anyone would even want to buy an ECKSBAWKS console.

Because of its innovative controls and game mechanics (button for melee and grenades, rechargeable health, refined online console multiplayer, popularizing console FPS controls as the gold standard, having drivable vehicles in a FPS that didn't suck ass, kickass music, an intriguing plot, a limited weapon carrying capacity, etc), Halo has often been seen as part of the Holy Trinity of First Person Shooters, tied with Golden Eye and Half-Life as being one of the most important video games in history; with Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D and Marathon being seen as the 'Original Old Guards of First Person Shooters'.

Occasionally it breaks away from the generic sci-fi pattern and explores a more fatalistic and human side to the story without having to suck Master Chief's dick or obsess over ancient alien technology every three seconds, and is generally regarded as being about ten times better and more mature for it. Unfortunately, within the games, this lasted a grand total of one game before [[343 Industries]] acquired the license. Within the books, there are many wonderful examples otherwise, and the plot of Halo 4 can only be completely understood by reading the books from the series that begins with ''Glasslands''. ''Halo Silentium'' by Greg Bear is also a necessary read to really understand how many times the Forerunners screw up, be it their own society or another species, or the entire galaxy, and the true nature and intent of the Flood. The character development of the Librarian and the Didact also makes this quite a fun read. If you're into books, that is. It should also be noted that Halo is to be commended for abstracting Larry Niven's Ring World, but since no one reads older books that don't have pew pews on the cover, how would a mangled regurgitation of IP be recognized when you pull from obscure sauces.

/tg/ isn't big on ''Halo'' and topics pertaining to ''Halo'' will normally be saged, trolled, told to go to /v/, or some combination therein. On /v/ however, ''Halo'' is... still widely hated. Then again, /v/ hates video games in general. The hatred of /tg/ comes less from the actual game/gameplay, and more from it being off-topic and a few fanboys being asshats. <s>Though this also may be due to the fact Halo fans have Cortana to fap to while fa/tg/uys are stuck with fapping to the Emprah</s> <strike>{{BLAM|HERESY!}}</strike>WORT WORT WORT! *GLASSED*

Like Warhammer 40k the state of Halo's fluff has been in limbo, while Halo may have fucking spectacular authors on the line of Greg Bear and Eric Nylund (and more recently Troy Denning) it also has its fair share of colossal fuck ups in the line of [[Fail|Brian Reed]] (who some believe to be the series equivalent of The Beast Himself) and [[Rage|Karen Traviss.]] Don't even get us started with the advent of 343i and [[Skub|their mixed bag success]] on the Reclaimer saga as well as Halo's more...questionable marketing campaigns. Ironically, while the more recent games has been bait for [[Rage|flamewars that will send any respectable forum thread into lock down, even off 4chan,]] Halo's transition to tabletop gaming after some [[Fail|failed]] attempts like Halo Actionclix (Which is a shame cause while the game rules sucked, the models was in such high quality that it even outshines some high priced models from [[Forgeworld]]) has been more positively received, what with the fact that hardcore Haloites now need to use their brains and that the new mini models are quite nicely detailed.

It is worth noting that Halo ever since its inception of its sequel, Halo 2, has been a proud sponsor of every [[Neckbeards]] elixir of life that is....[[Mountain Dew]], as well as the other sacred food item of Doritos. So don't be surprise when you see Mountain Dew and Doritos advertisement being shoved down your face whenever you want to buy any merchandise from Halo. Trying to say anything bad on these food products made from diabetes, sugar, acid and Ork piss is Halo's equivalent of [[Heresy]], you have been warned.

Halo as previously mentioned has a bloody massive universe (multiverse?) encompassing not only games, but also short films (Both live action and animated), music (One of the first vidya games whose soundtrack was good enough to earn multiple awards by itself), tabletop games, merchandises, mega block toys, figurines, nerf guns and even [[Anime|animu.]] Much like [[Warhammer 40,000|40K]] there are 3 major fan wikis: [https://www.halopedia.org/ Halopedia], [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Halo Nation] (soon to be combined into Halopedia) and [http://unhalo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Gruntipedia]; and much like 40K they fall into the respective archetypes of 'obsessively detailed fan wiki', 'ad-ridden Wikia knockoff' and '1d4chan with even worse humour and fan rage'. (Last ones dead now, Halo Nations suffered some kind of seizure, its just Halopedia left)

==Setting==
[[File:Reclaimer Symbol.png|400px|right|thumb|The Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. This symbol is a special Easter egg to an even older [[Marathon|Bungie game.]] Yes it looks like the [[Tau]] symbol but [[Original character, do not steal|predates it by almost a decade.]] Games Workshop proving once again that they are a bunch of sleazy and ballsy motherfuckers.]]
The ''Halo'' universe takes place in the 26th century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has developed its own crude faster-than-light drive (the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupies nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital. This is not what they're talking about when they say Halo, mind you.

Sometime in the year 2525, an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named ''Harvest'', is attacked by an unknown force. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces are met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out.

The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the [[Setting:Halo/Covenant|Covenant]], a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity. At first they seem to be doing this because that's just what aliens ''do'', but later on it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper. Apparently, thanks to the revelations of the [[skub|''Reclaimer Saga'']], humans were once an [[Grimdark|ancient, super advanced, totalitarian, bigoted, expansionist, racist, supremacist, violent, militaristic, war-mongering, nightmare of an empire]], like a way less competent junior version of the [[Great Crusade]]. All were fine and dandy when the Flood came out of fucking nowhere (Long story short, they came about when the humans kept forcing their pets to [[Drug|sniff some powder from an ancient, mysterious ship,]] [[FAIL|''what could go wrong?'']]) which forced the humans to take a page out of [[Kryptman]]'s playbook and invade into Forerunner territory as they were trying to save the galaxy from the Flood. The Forerunners not taking into the whole "I destroy your planets and exterminate your civilians out of benign and superficial reasons" promptly kicked the humans in the galactic nuts, stripped of their technology and de-evolved them back into caveman. So in short, Mankind in Halo basically were what [[Eldar]] are in 40k (Without "blasted into a stoneage part). Later, [[rape|the Forerunners ended up getting nommed by the Flood in the most ridiculous OCP way possible]] and found out how they fucked up so bad when one of them found out that the ancient humans once had the solution against the Flood ([[Just As Planned|Later claimed to be just an elaborate hoax to fool the Forerunners by the Flood]], though the one making this claim was also the Flood's [[Big Bad Evil Guy]], who at the time was speaking to a Forerunner leader, so about as trustworthy as the [[Chaos Gods]] promising to give an [[A game of Pretend|unbiased]] view of the [[Emperor]]) that they had to [[Exterminatus|super-irradiate the known galaxy]] just to kill most of the Flood. Oh, and they also named the humans their Reclaimers as their way of saying sorry for turning them into cavemen and telling them to finish their job, [[Troll|fucking Forerunners.]]

This made the Covenant, or more specifically the Prophets kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshiping the Forerunners. Apparently, knowing that your gods had a favorite, finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's instead the species that invented ''[[Abbadon|truck nuts]] '' upset them just a little. [[Exterminatus| So, back to glassing]]. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. <s>Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry with clever armor named in allcaps. This leads to the SPARTAN-II program,</s> (SPARTAN:s were created to fight against human insurrectionists but happened to be extremely effective against the Covenant as well, and active just in time for them to come around too) humanity's last hope <s>(thirty three men and women to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?)</s>, thirty-three super soldiers, divided into teams 3 or 4, and sent as ''force multipliers'' to assist the UNSC's beleaguered marines and mechanized divisions. Though not as a defensive planetary force (the UNSC having lost a large chunk of those 800 worlds early in the war), but as an offensive special ops unit, [[Alpha Legion|infiltrating behind enemy lines, assassinating commanders, and disrupting the Covenant's supply chain; doing the suicide jobs that others could not, slowing down or in some cases halting Covenant military build-up before it can launch further devastating attacks on the humanity]]. At exceedingly great resource cost and high lost of life, the UNSC together with the Spartans gradually turn the tide of the war (more along the lines of slowly and painfully pushing the Covenant's genocidal murder-boner from balls deep within humanity's asshole to a mere 3/4ths.)

To end the war once and for all, humanity enacts a desperate plan: They would send a specially refitted ship (the ''Pillar of Autumn'') along with Spartan contingent deep behind enemy lines and attempt to capture one of the Prophets (the select group of religious leaders that form the highest caste of the Covenant). But as usual, [[FAIL|it all goes horribly wrong]] [[Derp|before it can even begin]]. The UNSC's fortress-world of '''Reach''', and unofficially the Spartans' homeworld, is discovered by the Covenant. Next to Earth, Reach is the most heavily defended world in Human space. It falls in a matter of days, as the Covenant brings nearly a third of its entire fleet to lay siege over the planet. As Reach's defenses wither away, the Covenant simply brings in more reinforcements. Few escape the doomed Battle of Reach, but one of the ships that manages make it out of the system in time is the ''Pillar of Autumn''. Aboard is a single battle-ready Spartan II (plus another comatose one, but she doesn't count), suspended in cryostasis. Yet, that is where the story truly begins, for the Autumn blindly jumps right into a heavily-guarded star system containing a Halo; a colossal ring-world, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, built millions of years ago by the Forerunners, worshiped by the Covenant as an ancient artifact of unimaginable power, and which would totally never ever turn out to be a super-weapon for super-killing the flood. The Pillar of Autumn's fate and that of the Halo, becomes the setting of the original ''HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED'' game.

And it only gets more nuts from there.

<gallery>
Image:Tumblr_oehlv6Ulpc1ruienfo2_1280.png|Never knew [http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Eternity_(Earth-616) Eternity from Marvel] payed a visit to Halo...
Image:Haloring.jpg|One of the most iconic sci-fi architecture in video game history. One part bonsai garden. One part galactic WMD.
Image:ONI.png|[[1984|We are ONI. We have the power to make you 'disappear'. We have the power to turn the public against you. We have the power to erase you from existence. We will be watching. Always.]]
Image:The_Rookie.jpg|BRODST
</gallery>

==On /tg/==
While as mentioned that Halo has been proven skubtastic over the years on /tg/, the recent surge in popularity among tabletop has garnered a niche within /tg/ community. That and the fact of a billion fandex for either the Covenant, UNSC or Forerunners as well as fanfiction that ranges from okay to literal bait for fan wars.

It no longer has the ire it once had due to most of the annoying asshats migrating to COD and Battlefield as well as the fact that some of the squeakers that used to inhabit the Halo community has since matured into adults by now. Halo nowadays has been seen as...okay.

One thing of note is a massive backlash even for the casual TG fan about the changing Halo artstyle. While this might get dismissed by many since style changes are extremely common in franchises and often hated regardless of context, Halo 5 (and ESPECIALLY Halo Infinite) have pretty much dedicated themselves to turn unique and interesting designs (especially for human stuff) into the most generic run of the mill boring pieces of hardware not out of place in a COD game. Basically style change is like redecorating your house, and 343 is just slathering everything in beige. Bringing up the style change is seen as MASSIVE skub between those who loath it and those who, from the previous assumptions, assume it's just fanboys complaining.

==The TV Show==
More recently, Paramount+ has released their own spin on the Halo series in TV form, likely in part out of envy for Disney having their [[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|own streaming show set in a beloved space setting]]. Unlike the various books and comics that preceded it, which are supposed to exist in the same universe as the video games everyone knows, the show is in its own canon, officially called the "Silver Timeline" in reference to Master Chief leading a SPARTAN team called "Silver Team". Was drawing concern and derision even before release (as that's how these things tend to go nowadays), and has only continued its status as A-grade Skub from there. Among the things folks have taken issue with are:
* The writers admitting that they didn't look at any of the games, leading to the sense that they didn't respect/know the source material enough.
* CGI and special effects of questionable quality
* That it's not a straight adaptation of the video games or novels
* Master Chief shows his face, which for most Halo neckbeards is pure [[Heresy]]. This last one is the big one right now.

Not all of the fan buzz has been negative (it definitely hasn't done any worse for itself than the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy did in terms of backlash), but its also still pretty early to say where the show will go. Either way, it no doubt helps Paramount+ that this show is its own canon, making it easier to ignore if you're not a fan, and giving them more freedom to <s>muck up the lore</s> do their own thing with the franchise.

==Codex: The Covenant==
[[File:1185489032.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Surprisingly, [[Games Workshop|Halo Actionclix]] figures make good Tabletop conversions for the [[Codex - The Covenant|Covenant]], here seen a Scarab that looks like it could fit comfortably in the [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Apocalypse Game-type.]]]]
A bunch of people decided that the Covenant's tech and machines are pretty nice in a WH40K setting So "[[Codex - The Covenant]]" was made to implement them into the tabletop game.

Furthermore on the context on Halo; The Convenant is a [[Imperium of Man|militarized theocracy]] made up of different alien species, with each belonging to its own caste, and all of them are all sorts of killy in a variety of ways. Their MO is to track down the remnants of the Forerunner's legacy in their quest to ascend to Godhood, and destroy anyone who stands in their way. While we can't vouch for how they'd fair against other alien factions, they're certainly lethal against the [[Imperial Guard|average human soldier]]. From the top down;

* Prophets: [[Ecclesiarchy|The theocrats who call all the shots]]. While generally too frail for combat, they're the [[Just as Planned|master manipulators]] and [[Adeptus Mechanicus|horde all the forerunner technology]]. They're also indirectly responsible for virtually all deaths in the war against the UNSC, since they started the war as basically a giant cover-up and means to stay in power. They also like to play the different races against each other for their own ends. If you see one on the battlefield, expect to see '''lots''' of heavily-armed bodyguards and some really strong personal defense systems to boot.
* Elites: Space [[Lizardmen]] with Lightsabers that shout WORT WORT WORT. Come from a proud warrior race and were the first race to be subjugated by the Prophets. They still form the top of the military hierarchy and are quite dangerous, wielding personal shields and many of the best weapons that the Covenant has to offer, as well as having many brilliant tacticians at their disposal.
* Hunters: Colonies of [[Dune|Killer Death Worms]] inside of suits of armor and armed with nuclear radiation cannons. Its not an exaggeration to call these guys living tanks. These same worms are also used to power Scarabs and other super-heavy walkers.
* Brutes: [[Star Wars|Killer Wookies]] with Metal Shanks that go OMNOMNOM. Also a proud warrior race but far more zealous and unthinking than the Elites, they fight in packs and go berserk when you kill one of their pack-mates. Unlike the Elites who care about giving their opponents an honorable death, Brutes simply kill for the pleasure of it. They like to use their own weapons that have [[Choppy]] bayonets while being more [[Dakka]] and Boomy than your average plasma rifle. In the Covenant's final years, the prophets decided to replace the Elites with the Brutes because the Elites were too independent and started asking too many questions after the Halo rings were discovered.
* Jackals: [[Kroot|Space Pirate Turkeys that also go OMNOMNOM]]. Just barely above cannon fodder, they're typically deployed as light infantry or sniper support. They're the least zealous race and act more as mercenaries in different capacities.
* Grunts: [[Star Wars|Hairless Ewoks]] strapped to methane-filled tanks. The smallest and weakest race, and usually the most cowardly, as they tend to panic once their squad leader is killed. It's not unheard of though for some to go kamikaze and run at you with primed grenades. They tend to be the butt of a lot of jokes, until you realize just how badly the Covenant oppresses them and how they really don't want to be there.
* Drones: [[Tyranids|Flying bug-people that attack in large numbers.]] Not very intelligent, but they comply with the Covenant as they've been raised to think of the prophets as their hive queen.
* Engineers: Biomechanical floating [[/d/|tentacle monsters]]. Created by the forerunners to maintain their tech before they were enslaved by the Covenant. Engineers are fairly docile, but they're forced to wear suicide vests to prevent their capture.

==Codex: The Banished==
Hey! You know how the Covenant has proven to be popular among WH40K/Halo conversions? Now we have a new Codex to represent the Covenant's worst foe. Akin to the [[Heretic|Heretics]] that plague the IoM. [[Codex - The Banished]] offers a different take on how the Brutes can be played with its own unique heroes, vehicles and units.

To give a short and nice summary on what the Banished are, they are a large group of separatist forces lead by a Brute Warlord called Atriox; whereas most Brutes channeled their extreme violence in service to their dogmatic faith, while undermining their Elite rivals on the sly, Atriox was far less subtle about his hatred for the Covenant and its caste system. Unlike other separatist and heretical forces that plagued the Covenant Empire, the Banished stood their ground and weathered Covenant attacks until they amassed enough troops and equipment to rival and even stop the Covenant military in their tracks. In Halo Canon, they successfully outlasted both the Covenant and its various remnant factions, gathering troops and wargear with careful deliberation, much unlike the various demagogues and megalomaniacs who seized power in the political vacuum like Jul 'Mdama. And while they use most of the Covenants existing arsenal, much of it is heavily modified to suit the Brute's needs (and aesthetics), including a complete refit of Covenant Scarabs into offensive powerhouses. They are the only few polities capable of standing up to the Covenant and the only one capable of driving off an entire Covenant armada. Atriox's tactical and cunning brilliance has sowed intimidation and respect to not only the Covenant but to the Covenant's loyalist Brutes. Atriox's leadership despite the size of his army is not to be underestimated.

==Halo Actionclix==
A while back during its heyday, Actionclix made a deal with Microsoft and Bungie at the time to create an Actionclix game based on the Haloverse. While the models were extremely well detailed and well crafted, its high pricing for the models and its overall clusterfuck of its rules has made Halo Actionclix a [[Skub|somewhat lackluster experience.]]

This led to a initial surge in popularity with the idea of future tabletop games based around the universe (Read below on Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command), however like Halo Risk. The initial popularity died down quickly once the rules was read since you know, during that era (Halo 3), the main target audience was kids and teenagers who have zero to little clue on how to play an Actionclix game.

This has in turn, force Halo Actionclix to have a relatively short lifespan and the models have thus turned into a collectors item for display and collecting dust.

==Halo Fleet Battles and Ground Command==
[[File:HFBB01-2.jpg|300px|left|thumb|Halo Fleet Battles starter package. Yes we know, that is a whole lot of ships.]]
With the introduction of Halo Fleet Battles which is essentially Halo's take on [[Battlefleet Gothic]], that is centered around the Fall of Reach which is like the biggest naval combat within the Covenant-UNSC fluff, some fa/tg/uys has apparently lost their collective shit due to the fact that this is the first time that Halo is getting a tabletop treatment (The Risk and Actionclix games although the models are nice, does not really count). Similar to most tabletop miniatures, the models coming with Halo Fleet Battles and its contemporary ground units comes unpainted which means you have to paint all the neely-willy details yourself, that and the fact that it comes with its own rulebook and stats has garnered /tg/'s approval. In fact, some has already decided to convert the models and place it within Battlefleet Gothic itself (Although how you will be able to adjust the rules to make it fair is going to be a nightmare). All models are [[Finecast]][[Skub|, make that of what you will.]]

Both Fleet Battles and Ground Command are made by [[Spartan Games]]. Overall, Spartan Games are much more reasonably priced than the models made from [[Games Workshop]]. Seriously for the Covenant set you are getting 6 Highly-detailed Plastic Ship Models, 1 Formation Base Sprue (4 Bases in all), 1 Ship Overlay Sheet (6 Ship Overlays), 2 Token Sheets, 1 Statistics Sheet and 1 Assembly Guide for (US)$35.94 whereas the UNSC gets 2 Epoch Heavy Carriers, 6 Paris Class Frigates, 2 heavy sprue, 1 flight stand base, 1 overlay sheet and 1 assembly guide for $32.5, that is like cheaper than GeeDub's [[Rage|$66.55 pricing for only 5 Terminator models.]] [[Tl;dr]] [[What|you can literally buy two entire Covenant or UNSC fleets for the price of a single Termie Squad.]] Whether these tabletop games may boost Spartan Games to become GeeDubs rival is unknown. But what is known is the fact that Halo is owned by Microsoft which is a company that dwarfs GeeDubs in both money and influence. [[Games Workshop#GW The Bully|So in a rare hypothesis that GeeDubs think their high and mighty and goes on their copyright abuse that forced other smaller model companies to close down and have set their cross hairs on Spartan Games and more specifically the Halo license]]...as the old saying goes...[[Rape|there is always a bigger fish.]] Seriously, it could be seen from Spartan Games perspective as a blessing of sorts as unlike poor [[ChapterHouse Studios]] who ''was'' sued by GW, the backing of Microsoft puts some immunity for Spartan Games. That and Microsoft in all honesty, has the power and influence to [[Lulz|bully the bully]] if Games Workshop decides to get uppity when Spartan Games release the models for the Covenant Prophets which look similar to the Tau Ethereal; that or Microsoft can just tell them to [[Anal Circumference|fuck off and bite the pillow.]]

Unfortunately, as of August 2017, Spartan Games have officially announced its closure and shutdown. Because of this, the state of Fleet Battles and Ground Command is in limbo and that any further purchases of their models is only available either from eBay or second hand manufacturers. However, 343i did say they will look towards the care of this, so all hope is not lost!

===Fleet Battles===
[[File:Assault-carrier-1920x1080-55e25a886cb649a0a7f165d855056bb2.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A CAS Assault Carrier plays hide and seek with a vastly out-gunned UNSC battlegroup.]]

Main Article: [[Halo_Fleet_Battles|Halo Fleet Battles]]

The Fleet Battles set comes with some kickass artwork depicting both factions leaders (Shame they didn't have Halo's answer to [[Creed]] that is [[Awesome|Preston "''I turned a Gas Giant into a fucking star just so I can stroke my massive ego''" Cole]]) sitting on their respective armchairs. Although how they are going to balance the UNSC/Covenant (Since Covenant ships can no-sell their UNSC equivalents) is up to [[Skub|debate.]] UNSC ships are balanced by being the long-range, combined fire monsters they are in fluff (if you can get enough of them together); but they crumple once their Titanium armor has been burned off. Also the UNSC gets the advantage of SMAC Platforms which makes them great at holding the line and acting as giant, immobile, floating [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]]. This means that the UNSC specializes in [[Dakka|lots and lots of missile spam]] [[Tyranids|and swarm tactics]] to compensate general shitty defensive capabilities and shorter range whereas the Covenant act as giant line breakers with their fuck huge ships and [[MOAR DAKKA|massive firepower.]]

Fight the Fall of Reach in the starter set, or start adding extra ships in to fight battles from the Human-Covenant War. Since the closure of Spartan Games, no one wanted to pick up the license... probably because it was Microsoft-priced. Instead, the community is keeping it alive with fan-expansions and accessories. Because of the extraordinarily low chances that a miniatures company picks the license up again, 343 Studios has done the surprisingly gracious move of helping out the fans by giving a blessing to the whole process. It doesn't make things easier or provide any resources, but at least keeps Microsoft from swooping in as long as the community protects the IP.

Maybe with the updated rules for Dystopian Wars from their new owners, we'll get to see a fan-update to the ruleset and balance.

===Ground Command===
[[File:Covenant_Attack_Blog_1.jpg|400px|left|thumb|A typical skirmish in Ground Command.]]
For the battles centered around the ground, Ground Command seems to be more feasibly plausible in fluff terms. What we know is that both factions are going to be incredibly dropship focused, meaning that the implementation and usage of dropships like the Pelican and Phantom are going to be crucial for tactical victory. Models for both factions are small enough to be converted into other tabletop games, although the UNSC personnel (who are meant to be regular humans) are a tad bit taller than a Space Marine.

In terms of detailed gameplay, movement phase is similar to Fleet Battles. However Ground Command also has two key gaming spaces: Pre-Game and In-Game. The former refers to the Strategic/RTS part of the game and latter to the Action/FPS part of the game. Essentially, Pre-Game allows players to flex their RTS muscles, building their Forces strategically to complete their chosen missions. In general play, all scenarios are encouraged to be rolled PRIOR to Forces being chosen, so players can go away and plot their enemy’s eventual demise. This gives the game a planned-outcome-feel since players have had time to reflect on the mission to hand and have brought the right tools for the job.

Choosing a Force is a simple process that uses the Build Rating (BR) and Maximum Force Value (MFV) methods that was introduced in Halo: Fleet Battles. Like H:FB, Ground Command also use the ideas of Standard and Specialist Battle Groups. The former will be used multiple times by players, whereas the latter will be limited in their use, commonly limited to only one per force. Battle Groups have Units that are call Requisites which in turn gain access to Optional Units. Requisites MUST be taken for a Battle Group to be considered game legal. These vary from Battle Group to Battle Group. For example, an ODST Battle Group MUST take ODST Units as Requisites, whereas a UNSC Army Mechanized Battle Group MUST take Riflemen Units. Requisites are, however, deliberately kept to the bare minimum needed to represent the nature of their Battle Group to uphold flexibility allowing players to find new and innovative combinations to field.

Once Requisites have been taken, players have a number of Optional Build Rating points to spend in each of the following categories: Infantry Units, Armored Units and Air Units. The points available will vary depending on the Battle Group chosen, giving certain Battle Groups greater access to some types of Unit, or may even skip using a Unit type altogether. For example, a Covenant Spectral Host Battle Group (Elite Ghost Units optional Air Support) allows a Covenant player to not have any Infantry and instead field lots of fast attack Ghosts with Elite drivers. This is a Specialist Battle Group and is limited to one per force. It is static in its requisites but can have access to a Flyer if a player wants to spend the BR and Points to add it their Force.

A UNSC Standard Armored Battle Group only has Armored Units as Requisites. A player can still add some Infantry if they want, or even add Flyer Units, or they could just spend all of their points on Armour and as this is a Standard Battle Group a player can take several in their Force if they so choose. All of this leads to an incredibly flexible force building mechanic that gives the game great longevity. There will be literally thousands of combinations available, giving players the chance to execute their plans in a prepared way. The Build Rating of a model (Element as it is called in the game) and a Unit (a collection of Elements) is what translates to Victory Points. It is a simple method and allows games to be won by destroying Units of Infantry, destroying Armored models, shooting down Flyers, capturing Objectives, killing Characters and etc.

In terms of building a terrain and setting, Ground Command's terrain is placed using mutual consent to encourage the construction of fair and reasonable battlefields. The rules of Terrain are binary to make it simple to use and fast to play with – for example, you can or you can’t move through it; you can or you can’t shoot through it, or a combination of both. This makes Terrain nice and simple to play with, but still gives players a strategic view of the battlefield and allows for a planned route of advancement. Terrain ranges from simple Supply Drops to large structures like the Covenant Stealth Pylon.

Similar to Fleet Battles, Ground Command has commanders for the players to choose from and is played similarly to its space counterpart. So in summary:

*Forces are made up of Battle Groups, which can be of varying types: UNSC Mechanized Battle Groups, Hunting Host Battle Groups, Armored Battle Groups, and so on.
*Inside each Battle Group are Requisite Units that must be taken, then Build Rating limits are set to allow players to add in Optional Units later.
*Forces can and should be made up of multiple Battle Groups.
*In narrative play, all Forces should be chosen after the Scenario is determined, allowing players to tailor their lists to fight out the mission.
*Terrain is placed by mutual consent and is designed for simple use and quick gameplay. There is a table generator included if mutual consent proves difficult.
*In Halo: Ground Command players have access to Generic Force Commanders that cost considerably less than narrative named Commanders. These Generic Force Commanders have Standard Orders and a Factional Order. They are the only Commander available in competitive play.

These is just the Pre-Game. Now it is the In-Game phase. As with Halo: Fleet Battles, the '''Halo Dice''' is used in conjunction with the Firepower Rating Table to control modifiers and drive the statistics in the game. Both games start with players using a default of Firepower Rating 4 with the Rating modifying up and down accordingly. This means that when rolling Halo Dice, a result of 2 (or Spartan Exploding 6 for example) counts as two hits, a result of 1 result counts as one hit, a Miss result can be re-rolled if you have rolled any 2s, and the Skull result is a definite miss. Some weapons will provide a positive bonus to the Firepower Rating whereas Terrain conditions and Scenario effects generally cause the Firepower Rating to suffer a negative penalty. The faces of the Dice in Ground Command are Fail, Miss, Success and Exploding. Than there are the '''Tokens'''. In Ground Command there are three available tokens, these are: Activated (placed when a Unit Activates or attempts a Reaction), Damage (for when an attack equals or exceeds a value on a Damage Track) and Cooldown (which is used to represent a situation where a weapon or even an entire Unit cannot fire). There is also the '''Statistic Profiles''' which are used as a simple visual presentation mechanic to show players the various statistics used by Units on their statistic cards. These cards will be large enough to fit in your hand and will have all pertinent rules (as well as paraphrased notations about Loadouts) on them, making Unit reference in Halo: Ground Command quick and very simple. Also like Fleet Battles, Ground Command issues '''Command Dice''' for commanders on the battlefield to drive the Command & Control side of the game. The Command/Attack/Defense symbols allow players to execute orders from their Force Commander’s Data Sheet that can often be the difference between success and failure in battle.

Then there is the '''Reaction Fire''' which is how Ground Command tries to translate the FPS element into tabletop. In order for it to work, Ground Command have created a Reaction Statistic for every Element in order to allow the game to represent a persistent form of overwatch where every Unit on the table is assumed to be engaged in the battle at all times. The Reaction Statistic has two numbers shown as X / Y on a Unit’s Profile. The X number is used if a Unit has not yet been Activated, and the Y number is used if a Unit has already been Activated. If a player wants to react to an enemy Unit’s activation, the player makes a 2D6 dice roll, adds or subtracts any modifiers and hopes they match or exceed the relevant number, if they do, they get to fire in their opponent’s activation, either at the start of a Unit’s movement or at the end.

Attempting a Reaction is not without risk, however, as you are only permitted to attempt a single reaction to an enemy Unit’s activation and whether you succeed or fail the reacting Unit gains an Activation Marker as a result. This means a player has to choose wisely which Unit will be used to React to the enemy. Sometimes it is better to React with a Unit that has already gone, especially if the Unit has a good Y-React number. For example, UNSC Warthogs excel at this, creating mobile mini-fire-bases upon which the UNSC can base their advance/defense tactics. It may also be the case that a player is unwilling to React, as it will affect their ability to surge forwards (since making a Reaction attempt gives a Unit an Activation Marker that effectively halts any chance of performing a Movement Action). In a massed battle game, where you could literally have hundreds of miniatures on the tabletop and large numbers of Armor and Flyers, you suddenly have the intensity of an FPS, where no Unit is ever truly safe. This means that even if your opponent has already activated a Unit, the Unit isn’t actually out of the game.

As you might expect, not everything has the same React X/Y. A Spartan who are the elites for the UNSC, might be capable of multiple feats of arms in a turn, firing in all directions as he/she attempts to defend a wounded soldier. A ponderous pair of Hunters are, however, far more measured and lumbering, taking time to line up shots and gear themselves for combat. This is represented by the Spartan having a React Score of 5/6, whereas a Hunter Unit is limited to 10/13.

In terms of weapons. Ground Command issue '''Small Arms'''. They are not, however, always the same in the game. For example Small Arms, when in the hands of Grunts, have one set of Small Arms Stats, and a different set of stats when used by Elites. This makes the game flow smoothly and gives each faction diversity without the minutiae of looking directly into the hands of each and every model. That is not to say that all weapons are in this category. Certain Units can upgrade one or more of their bases to be specific Fire Teams, like Grunts wielding Fuel Rod Cannons, UNSC Troopers manning HMGs, etc.

This brings us on to '''Weapon Loadouts'''. The majority of weapons in the game, including Small Arms, normally have at least one Loadout. A Loadout is a custom rule that enhances a weapon. It could be as simple as Suppression (+1) in the case of UNSC Small Arms or Point Blank in the case of Covenant Small Arms, to more complex Loadouts such as Devastating, Pinpoint, Indirect Fire, and so on. Each of these Loadouts is summarized on a Unit’s Statistic Card and detailed in the core rulebook for ease of reference. The variation of the Weapon Loadouts thus leads us to '''The Weapon Spread'''. Here each and every weapon, if you are willing to shoot it long enough can technically destroy anything in-game when it comes to Halo. This means that the game has to come up with a new system for weapons that allows for this incredible flexibility. So the Weapon Spread System is designed to do exactly that. The Weapon Spread divides the Attack Dice available to a Weapon into three distinct categories, each citing the weapon’s effectiveness against a specific target.

*Anti-Personnel (AP) refers to a weapon’s ability to damage Infantry targets.
*Anti-Tank (AT) refers to a weapons ability to damage Armoured targets.
*Anti-Air (AA) refers to a weapons ability to damage Flying targets.

When firing, Ground Command uses a combination mechanic (the same as in Halo: Fleet Battles) so a Unit of 4 Bases of Grunts shooting at a Unit of UNSC Riflemen in the open (always a bad thing for the UNSC) would roll 2+2+2+2 = 8x Halo Dice using Firepower Rating 5 (the best they can get!). From this roll the Grunts would expect to get about 6 Hits, which should, on average, kill 2 Bases of UNSC Riflemen. In terms of '''Melee''', each element rolls a number of Halo Dice equal to their Melee Statistic, but unlike Ranged Attacks, all players are looking to do is roll Skulls – all other results are ignored. Roll a Skull and you automatically do a point of Damage (or in the case of Melee vs Vehicles, 2x Skulls for a point of Damage). Heroic Saves can be attempted after that, but essentially that’s as complicated as Melee gets. If each side rolls the same number of Skulls in a round of Melee, the survivors keep fighting until someone wins – or until both sides are wiped out. Once one side is declared the winner, the loser is pushed back, leaving both sides free to React as normal. Lastly, like Fleet Battles, there is the '''End phase''' in which it is used to tally up scored Victory Points for the Game Turn. Victory Points (VPs) are generated by destroying enemy Units, where their Build Rating directly translates to VPs. VPs can also be scored according to the conditions stated in any particular scenario you might be playing. For example, the Assassination Mission from the core rulebook gives bonus VPs points for taking out anything with the Commanding Presence Loadout, whilst the Take and Hold Scenario gives additional VPs for holding Placed Objectives (usually Buildings of importance on the battlefield). The Scenarios all last a certain number of Game Turns, after which the person who has scored the most Victory Points wins.

Last but not least, we cannot forget Flyers which are crucial for tactical victory in Ground Command. In Ground Command all flying vehicles are separated into two categories: Hover Flyers and Air Support Mission Flyers.

'''Hover Flyers''' are treated in the same way as any other battlefield Unit, moving shooting, reacting in the same way as any other model. They are targeted using a weapon’s Anti-Air (AA) Statistic and tend to be fast moving and pretty aggressive in their use. Examples of these include Banshees or Falcons, which may be seen operating in Units with more than one model, or be individuals, depending on their Build Rating and the Battle Group they are part of.

'''Air Support Mission Flyers''' tend to be far larger than their standard Hover counterparts, dominating the sky with their bulk and durability. These Flyers are simply too large to remain on the table turn to turn, and instead resolve their movement, the execution of their chosen mission and extraction in a simple strafing method. Examples of these flyers include the UNSC Pelican and Covenant Phantom.

When using an Air Support Mission Flyers, players activate the model in the same way as any other Unit, declaring a Mission type for the Flyer. This Mission will have an attached Victory Points cost, which is given to the enemy directly after the Mission is announced. This give-and-take aspect to Air Support Mission Flyers makes the taking of these large models very balanced – you get a huge reward, but your opponent gets a strategic bonus if you saturate the battlefield with too many. This means that protracted use of aerial assets will cause a drain on the player’s chances of winning an outright victory, but execution of these Missions will often be vital for continued success in the combat operation. So balancing if, when and how you bring in your Air Support Mission Flyers is a skill that will take time for players to develop. There are a variety of Missions available to Flyers of this type. Combat Drop Missions allow players to bring in reserves. Supply Drop Missions allow the placement of a Supply Drop Marker that increases the Reaction Statistics of all friendly ground models within range. Ground Attack Missions allow you to target ground Units with increased effect. Reinforcement Missions allow you to bring a damaged Unit of Infantry (and in some cases Armor) back up to full strength, and Air Patrols allow you to place your Flyer ‘on-station’, ready to intercept enemy flyers when they activate.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Super Carrier.JPG|Yes that is an actual model of a Covenant CSO-class Super Carrier. [[Anal Circumference|No it will not be a good pain.]]
Image:Feleethalo_1.jpg|There will be more ship designs coming soon.
Image:DSC09153.jpg|Covenant minis for Ground Command.
Image:DSC09156.jpg|UNSC minis for Ground Command.
Image:Halo.jpg|That's right, Halo's dropships are as big as a [[Thunderhawk]] [[Reasonable Marines|while being more sensibly designed and having more firepower to boot.]]
Image:
</gallery>

Mythic: the fan made Halo tabletop RPG also exists... for whatever that is worth

==Spartan stats==
For those who wanted to put a Spartan in tabletop for some reason, here are the rules.
''Note: The Rules assigned here are based off of 6th and 7th Edition Warhammer 40k, this has not been updated for 9th Edition, nor for lore accuracy with the universe itself.''

'''WS''' 4 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 1 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 1 / '''Ld''' 8 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Composition
3 Spartans
 1 Spartan - Squad Leader (Ld 9)

;Unit Type
Infantry

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D Assault Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Special Rules
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Spartans gain the ''Stubborn'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Spartans gain the ''Hit & Run'' rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.

;Options:
* May Include up to 4 additional Spartan- for ''13 points per Model''
* Any model in the squad may take an Onboard AI for ''3 points per Model''
* For every 4 models in a squad, one model may replace their MA5C Rifle with one of the following:
** M45 Tactical Shotgun (Shotgun)...............................''6 points per Model''
** SRS99-S5 AM (Sniper Rifle)..................''10 points per Model''
** M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)........''15 points per Model''
** M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points per model
* Each Spartan squad must choose to be one of the following:
** Spartan Is - Squad gain the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs for 10pts per model. Role a d6 for each model, on results of 5+ the model also gains the ''Crazed'' special rule.
** Spartan IIs - Squad gain +1 Ballistic Skill and the ''Split Fire'' USR for 4 points per model. The squad may choose to become an '''Elite''' Choice.
** Spartan IIIs - Squad gain the ''Stealth'' and ''Infiltrate'' USRs for 3 points per model.
** Spartan IVs - Squad gain the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs for 3 points per model.

;SPARTAN ARMORY

* '''MJOLNIR Armor''' - Created parallel to the Spartan-II Program, the MJOLNIR Armor is a sealed system, capable of extravehicular activity or operations in toxic atmosphere. Weighing over half a metric ton, the armor's shell is constructed in overlapping layers of Titanium-A plating and highly durable ballistic alloys of remarkable strength. It has even been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of energy weapon strikes. The Spartan gains a ''3+ Armor Save''.
** MJOLNIR armor is equipped with a full-body recharging energy shield that was reverse-engineered from captured alien technology. The shield itself is utterly transparent and does not hinder sight in any way but briefly flashes a greenish-gold color when hit. The Spartans gain a ''6+ Invulnerable Save''.

* '''Onboard AI''' - All MJOLNIR Mk V models or better feature a complex crystalline matrix within their neural interface, which Cortana likened in structure to the computer systems of the ''Pillar of Autumn''. An AI construct increases tactical awareness, provides an indispensable guide, serving almost as a co-pilot and navigator, and multiplies the Spartan's already phenomenal reflexes. A Spartan equipped with an Onboard AI increases their Initiative value by 1.

* '''MA5D Assault Rifle''' - The MA5C has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in the magazine, compass heading, and capable of wireless up-link with MJOLNIR systems for improved accuracy. Made of Titanium Alloy and Polymers, the rifle performs well in a variety of environments. Having a rate of fire of 650 rounds a minute, and chambering the old-school M118 7.62x51mm NATO Armor Piercing, Full Metal Jacket Rounds with a 36-round detachable box magazine. Though lacking strength and stopping power, these rounds are designed to pierce most conventional ballistic body armor.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 3

* '''M45 Tactical Shotgun''' - is a pump-action, magazine-fed, dual tubular non-detachable type weapon. It uses the Soellkraft 8-Gauge Magnum Shotgun Shell, a large round capable of phenomenal stopping power and made possible to fire with little recoil due to the gun's magnetorheological recoil dampening system, allowing it to be fired by anyone.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 12" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' - / '''Type''' Assault 2 Rending

* '''Sniper Rifle SRS99-S5 AM''' - aka the "SR System 99-S5 Anti-Matériel", an upgrade from the S2s, it is a semi-automatic UNSC sniper rifle that fires 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot, with a tungsten or depleted uranium core) from a 4-round magazine. It is fitted with a variable-magnification Oracle scope that allows for 5x and 10x magnification. When looking through it, the scope shows a target's distance and elevation. Designed originally as an anti-materiel rifle, it has proven effective against the highly durable armor of the Covenant and hardlight construction of the Prometheans.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' X/ '''AP''' 4 (''When firing at vehicles, the rifle adds D6 to its Armor penetration value'') / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Sniper, Anti Material.
Anti Material: Shots fired from this weapon rend on a 4+.

* '''M41 Rocket Launcher''' - aka the "M41 SSR" fires the M19 102mm HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) shaped charge rockets. The launcher sports a 2x scope and can fire rockets over long distances with devastating accuracy, and its two launch tubes allow the wielder to fire two rockets before needing to reload. The rocket launcher spreads a huge amount of damage over a large area. It is capable of taking out entire groups of infantry at any range and is effective against most vehicles.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 3 / '''Type''' Heavy 2, Blast

* '''M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle''' - The Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (abbreviated AV M6 G/GNR) also known as the ''Spartan Laser'', is the UNSC's first man-portable, shoulder-fired direct energy weapon. Firing a chemical laser after a short charge period, a well placed shot can destroy even heavy vehicles with ease. Infantry-level targets are simply obliterated.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Ignores Cover

-Targeting beam: The Spartan Laser projects an obvious laser target, any enemy units that can, may choose to fire Overwatch at the firers unit as if it was the assault phase.

Spartans may take the '''M831 Troop Transport''' (M831 TT) or '''M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle''' (M12 LRV) as their dedicated transport.

==Dedicated Transports==
* M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle - 40 points
* M831 Troop Transport - 30 points

'''Armour (Front)''' 10 / '''Armour (Side)''' 10 / '''Armour (Rear)''' 10 / '''HP''' 2

;Unit Type
Vehicle (Fast, Open-Topped, Transport)

;Wargear
* M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (M12 LRV)
* None (M831 TT)

;Transport Capacity
* Four (M12 LRV)
* Eight (M831 TT)

The ubiquitous M12 and its troop transport variant the M831, are the UNSC's primary multi-role ground vehicles. They are used anywhere from scouting and reconnaissance to fast vehicle transport, forming an integral part of the UNSC's armored vehicle fleet for fifty years. It is a highly mobile, all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, all-weather vehicle, capable of traversing all but the most dangerous of terrain. The M831 features a rear bed with an expanded seating compartment, while the M12 features a rear mounted anti-aircraft gun (the M46 LAAG) that can also be used against infantry.

'''M46 LAAG''' - The M46 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun (LAAG) is a tripled-barreled, electric-powered, linkless, belt-fed weapon. The LAAG fires the 12.7x99mm (.50 cal) armor penetrating rounds and can fire at a rate of 1200 rounds per minute.
* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 5 / '''AP''' 5 / '''Type''' Heavy 4, Skyfire

- The M12 may choose to replace its M46 LAAG with a ''M68 Gauss Cannon'' for 35 points

'''M68 Gauss Cannon''' - Officially known as the M68 Asynchronous Linear-Induction Motor, this heavy weapon fires 25mm hypersonic speed projectiles via asynchronous magnetic acceleration. The kinetic energy of which is enough to pierce even the heaviest of armor plating or completely obliterate unprotected matter.

* It has the following stats: '''Range''' 60" / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1

==Independent Character==

HQ: '''Sergeant Major Avery Johnson''' - 130 points.

'''WS''' 3 / '''BS''' 4 / '''S''' 3 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 3 / '''I''' 4 / '''A''' 3 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 4+

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* ODST Battle Armor
* M45 Tactical Shotgun
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)

;Warlord Trait
Inspiring Presence (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan I''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson has the ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Feel No Pain'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Sergeant Major Johnson gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Move Like You Got A Purpose''''' - Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and all models in his unit have the ''Crusader'' USR.
* '''''H.E.-Spewing Divine Intervention''''' - Once per turn, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson can call down an strategic artillery strike from off the field. It is treated as a shooting attack with the following profile:
** '''Range''' Infinite / '''Strength''' 8 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Ordnance 1, Barrage, Blast

May replace his primary weapon (M45 Shotgun) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....''35 points

-----------------
HQ: '''Master Chief Petty Officer John-117''' - 175 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 6 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 5 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* BR85HB Battle Rifle
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* Cortana (Counts as On Board AI)

;Warlord Trait
Target Priority (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan II''''' - The Master Chief has the ''Split Fire'' USR.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. The Master Chief gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. The Master Chief gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Heroes Never Die''''' - The Master Chief gains the ''It Will Not Die'' and ''Eternal Warrior'' USRs, in addition he may fire heavy weapons at full ballistic skill even if the unit moves but unlike the Relentless universal special rule he may only ever fire one weapon per turn.
* '''''He May Not Be The Strongest''''' - The Master Chief and all models in his unit gain the ''Fearless'' USR, and the Master Chief may re-roll failed saving throws of any kind.

May replace his primary weapon (BR85HB Battle Rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* MA5D (Assault Rifle)........................................''Free
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''6 points
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points

- '''BR85HB''' - a.k.a. the BR85HB Service Rifle is a gas-operated, magazine-fed battle rifle. It is a select-fire weapon optimized for long-range firing of three-round bursts, though it is capable of semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. It chambers the large 9.5x40mm M634 Experimental High-Powered Semi-Armor-Piercing round, abbreviated as M634 X-HP-SAP.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 24" / '''Strength''' 3 / '''AP''' 6 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Shred

Due to being at the forefront of many battles against various alien species, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may take exotic and advanced weaponry not usually issued to UNSC military forces, he may select a secondary special weapon from an extended list:

* Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon (Suppressor)............40 Points
* Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon (Light Rifle)...........40 Points
* Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle (Binary Rifle)..............45 Points
* Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle (Incinerator Cannon).......55 Points

- '''Z-130 Directed Energy Automatic Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Suppressor, it is a fully automatic weapon employing a conventional coil set architecture that fires bolts of hard light in rapid succession. It is well-known for its high rate of fire and effectiveness against all organic matter.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 18" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 6

- '''Z-250 Directed Energy Engagement Weapon''' - a.k.a. the Light Rifle, it is a scoped, mid-range to long-range weapon using the diffused combination of particle acceleration and hardened photonic matter that fires a three-shot burst of luminescent orange hardlight rounds, perfect for taking down shielded or heavily armored targets.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 30" / '''Strength''' 4 / '''AP''' 4 / '''Type''' Assault 2, Rending

- '''Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle''' (Binary Rifle) a.k.a. the Binary Rifle, it is equipped with twin, core-mounted particle accelerators which fire ionized particle beams containing jacketed antimatter particles. The incredible power and accuracy of this weapon make it highly lethal, allowing it to neutralize most targets with a single shot, disintegrating the body of the target.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 7 / '''AP''' 2 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Fleshbane

- '''Z-390 High-Explosive Munitions Rifle''' (Incineration Cannon) a.k.a the Incineration Cannon, this ultra-heavy shoulder-mounted cannon fires antimatter-infused streams of concentrated explosive particles that cause incredible damage on impact, obliterating infantry and even light vehicles with even a glancing blow.
** It has the following stats: '''Range''' 36" / '''Strength''' 9 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Heavy 1, Blast, Ionizing.
''Ionizing'': If a model suffers a wound from a weapon with the Ionizing special rule and before Feel No Pain rolls are made, the bearer rolls a d6, on a result of 4+ the model suffers Instant Death with no saves of any kind allowed including Feel No Pain, In addition Necron reanimation protocols may not be used on models which were removed from play by this special rule.

Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 may choose to switch between firing his primary weapon or secondary weapon in every shooting phase; only one of the weapons can be fired per turn.

-----------------
HQ: '''Agent Jameson Locke''' - 165 points.

'''WS''' 5 / '''BS''' 5 / '''S''' 4 / '''T''' 3 / '''W''' 4 / '''I''' 6 / '''A''' 4 / '''Ld''' 10 / '''Sv''' 3+/6++

;Unit Type
Infantry (Independent Character)

;Wargear
* MJOLNIR Armor
* MA5D
* Combat Knife
* Frag Grenades (Offensive)
* On Board AI

;Warlord Trait
Divide to Conquer (''See'' 7th Edition Corerule Book)

;Special Rules
* '''''Spartan IV''''' - Agent Jameson Locke has the ''Hatred'' and ''Fleet'' USRs.
* '''''At All Costs''''' - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Stubborn'' USR.
* '''''Shoot First, Ask Later''''' - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Agent Jameson Locke gains the ''Hit & Run'' USR.
* '''''Execute Battle Plan''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have Outflank.
* '''''Target Identified''''' - Agent Jameson Locke and all models in his unit have the ''Precision Shot'' USR.

May replace his primary weapon (MA5D assault rifle) with of one special weapons from the following list:
* BR85HB (Battle Rifle)........................................''Free
* SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle).......................''6 points
* M45 Tactical Shotgun(Shotgun)...............................''10 points
* M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)...................''15 points
* M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Spartan Laser)....35 points
* Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920 (Rail Gun).............35 points

- '''Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920''' - A.k.a the ARC-920, it is a compact-channel linear accelerator that fires the powerful M645 FTP-HE (16x65mm ferric-tungsten high-explosive round) at incredible velocity. The charge time is approximately two seconds and can be fired with only a partial charge at the cost of lesser damage.

It has the following stats: '''Range''' 48" / '''Strength''' 6 / '''AP''' 1 / '''Type''' Assault 1, Shred